Just to be clear, I was given the rights to that title by a true patriot. I was lucky enough to go to Squadron Officer School (AKA Cynical Captain Finishing School) with this individual and could not agree more with his insights from multiple deployments at Bagram.
He came to the title We Left the Lights On after a series of daytime missions where he consistently noticed that the stadium lights that lined the roughly two-mile stretch of runway were left blazing full-bore despite the time of day being the one most closely associated with natural light.
To the point, anyone who knows anything about military logistics, or logistics in general, recognizes the egregious waste this standard operating procedure represents.
Foremost, the US military had to first get the lights to a landlocked country in the middle of the Hindu Kush and then continuously ship diesel to the strategic hub in order to power the generators that fueled the lighting infrastructure. While the outright cost of running the lights is obvious, the secondary costs and knock-on effects are the real crux of my friend's insight.
In our attempt to tame the untamable (AKA the artificial country of Afghanistan), we tried to control a geographical region with a history of sending empires to their graves. Thus, the overall costs should also include countless lives, our credibility, further destabilization in the region, a revitalized Russia, and...should I keep going?
Background: We initially attempted to leverage volume and mass shipping in the form of boats porting and offloading materiel at Karachi. Unfortunately, this meant that we had to set up overland routes through a finicky Pakistan that drove us to rely on costly contractors to navigate dangerous mountain crossings through the NWFP. The full costs of corruption and reliance on civilian employees will no doubt never be known.
The US military then pivoted away from Pakistan and toward overland routes via the steppes of Central Asia, which resulted in our having to strike deals with the dictators that continue to call the former Soviet Union home.
He came to the title We Left the Lights On after a series of daytime missions where he consistently noticed that the stadium lights that lined the roughly two-mile stretch of runway were left blazing full-bore despite the time of day being the one most closely associated with natural light.
Photo: Great at night...kind of dumb during the day...
To the point, anyone who knows anything about military logistics, or logistics in general, recognizes the egregious waste this standard operating procedure represents.
Foremost, the US military had to first get the lights to a landlocked country in the middle of the Hindu Kush and then continuously ship diesel to the strategic hub in order to power the generators that fueled the lighting infrastructure. While the outright cost of running the lights is obvious, the secondary costs and knock-on effects are the real crux of my friend's insight.
Photo: Will we ever learn the lessons of history and geography?
In our attempt to tame the untamable (AKA the artificial country of Afghanistan), we tried to control a geographical region with a history of sending empires to their graves. Thus, the overall costs should also include countless lives, our credibility, further destabilization in the region, a revitalized Russia, and...should I keep going?
Video clip: Oh I love the irony of this clip (Ukrainian report on the US leaving another unstable, former Soviet region; PS I LOVE YOU CENTRAL ASIA, JUST NOT THAT MUCH, <3 THE US)
Background: We initially attempted to leverage volume and mass shipping in the form of boats porting and offloading materiel at Karachi. Unfortunately, this meant that we had to set up overland routes through a finicky Pakistan that drove us to rely on costly contractors to navigate dangerous mountain crossings through the NWFP. The full costs of corruption and reliance on civilian employees will no doubt never be known.
The US military then pivoted away from Pakistan and toward overland routes via the steppes of Central Asia, which resulted in our having to strike deals with the dictators that continue to call the former Soviet Union home.
Photo and report: OMG I AM GOING TO DROWN IN IRONY AND STUPIDITY IF I KEEP GOING.
Bottom-line? My friend is a genius. Ok, but seriously, if these tactical mistakes routinely compound into operational oversights that have irreversible strategic impacts on multiple countries, then why do they only seem obvious to young company grade officers?
Correction. I think young junior military officers and general officers get it. Something happens in middle management though.
And that's where I'll turn to next as I chronicle the untold stories of Bagram Airfield.
PS. To my friend who lent me this title, I know that I owe you 10% in royalties if I ever make any money!
PSS. To Eastern Europe and Central Asia, I love you. XOXO
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