J.R. NOLEN IN AFGHANISTAN

I redeployed in late August after spending a little over a year in Afghanistan. It was a great year for me. In fact, I'd still be there if Tina hadn't finally order me home. J Like many people over there I went over to do one job, but ended up doing something completely different. I was originally scheduled to be the Financial Manager for the Afghan Engineer District. By the time I redeployed from Iraq and got to Afghanistan the District Leadership had changed and they filled the position with a Corps of Engineers financial person. I spent the
first couple of weeks looking for something to do in Afghanistan and trying to figure out how to get back to the Provincial Reconstruction Team I'd left in Ramadi Iraq. Eventually, I found a position back-filling a Major on the Border Management Task Force (BMTF) working out of the US Embassy in Kabul. In the position I spent much of my time on the Pakistan & Iranian borders, as well as, the Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan borders. In the position I got the chance to interact with the Afghan Leadership at the Ministerial level as well as on the borders. I also got the opportunity to work with the International Community and the numerous US Governmental/Non-Governmental agencies doing work over there. I even met Senator Obama on his campaign visit to Afghanistan.   (He's a good speaker, but I still wouldn't vote for him.) Our team had four retired Border Patrol & Customs Officials assigned full-time on the Pakistan & Iranian borders. My technical position title was as the Infrastructure Coordinator. In reality I basically served as the organizations Operations & Logistics Officer with the additional responsibility of taking care of our guy's out on the borders.  In the position I worked numerous construction projects and delivered several million dollars worth of weapons, ammunition, police equipment, x-ray machines, truck scanners, forklifts, office equipments, etc, etc to the border. My close friends refer to my time in Afghanistan as my "Gunrunning Vacation".

When I returned in August I was originally headed up to the OSD Comptroller Office to work the Army Desk.  Prior to reporting to work at the Pentagon I was contacted by my previous organization at Ft Belvoir and offered the Operations Chief position based on my experience in Afghanistan & Iraq. In this position I will get to help deploy some Land Warrior equipped unit(s) to Theater. Both Iraq & Afghanistan were a great experience for me. Hopefully, I'll head back over to Theater in the next year or two.

Attached is a picture of me and two of our guys in the Khyber Pass - Pakistan border. (I'm the one on the left).  The picture was taken in a not so nice area of the country.  A few nights after this picture was taken the bad guys blew up 89 of our fuel trucks that were lined up on the Pakistan side of the border.  As a Corps of Engineer Government Civilian I'm not authorized to carry a weapon.  Everyone I worked with thought that was crazy since I was occupying a military slot, travelling all over the country without military guards and also was moving hundred of weapons to the Customs Police on the borders.  Early on over there I travelled with a Marine Major and an Army Captain.  They would normally have me carry some of their stuff. Once they departed country I either went unarmed or made other arrangements out on the borders. At my exit interview with the Corps leadership I told them they were going to get someone killed out there.  Turns out they decided not to backfill my position anyway.

J.R. NOLEN, Jr. Project Manager Soldier Warrior