Feb 15th: 0330 The CSU departed for Helmand. Later that day we flew from KAIA straight to Bastian. - We waited for two hours before we found someone who could provide a ride to LeatherNeck. - Nobody here had a clue we were coming or what we were here for OR where our ANA guys would set up.
Feb 16th-17th: We slept in a dirty trans tent and walked around talking to people, trying to figure out where Marjah was and where our team would set up. - It took me three days to find someone who could show me the nearest ANA compound so we could start asking questions about where they might get set up. - We went to Shorabak and did a site survey and told the Marines and ANA there that CSU was coming and what we could do for them. They seemed excited about the idea and showed us a few COAs for set up.
Feb 18th: First day with CSU on site. - We linked up with CSU as soon as they arrived. We showed them the area and took them to the ANA Comms Officer G6 here. They picked the set up location and began setting up the Drash and all gear. Since it was late, they only got the drash and a small tent to live in set up.
Feb 19th: Set up day 2, and Pacstar troubleshooting. - CSU continued set up and placed HF, VHF antennas, placed the VOIP and laptops and fine tuning of everything else. - The PACSTAR satellite was stuck in some kind of auto-acquire mode and kept searching for the sat. We had them shut it down and bring it up three times. They replaced the cabling, cleaned the cabling, checked all connections, called back to MoD to check distant end connectivity and ask for tech support. They also found a short in one of the power cables, which could have been a contributing factor to some of the satcom issues. Then after 1330 prayer time, they started it up in the exact / proper boot sequence and it finally worked. I would chalk it up to trying to turn it on in the wrong order, thereby causing the tracstar not to aquire properly.
Feb 20th: Test calls and fully Op. - We had the CSU perform test calls on all VOIP phones, and log in to laptops and check network connection. - We had issues with connecting the Epson Projector to the VTC in order to place it on the big screen. We trouble-shot with different settings and cables all day, including downloading the user manuals for both Epson and Polycomm. (This took several hours because the network is slow!) We called NI, MoD, et all, and could not find a way to make this happen.
Feb 21st: Sand storm and inclement weather - Due to extreme winds and sand storms and imminent rain showers, the CSU shut down for the day at the call of the Company Commander. - He gave his personnel a day of rest since they worked through Friday setting up, so overall it worked out. No ANA personnel asked to use their services that day either, it was a ghost town. - I hooked up with EOD and took ET1 Peterson out to test fire weapons, recheck sighting/zeros and then clean weapons in the tent afterward. (Tons of sand from the bad weather, but it gave a more realistic view of firing in other than perfect conditions.) [I coordinated with a range officer and ensured 100% safety of ET1 in case that crosses anyone's mind.]
Feb 22nd: Shore Power - We spent most of the day helping them figure out how to get contractors to connect shore power to the nearest building. They started work on it last night. We had them run 3-phase 210v to seperate locations and they dug a semi-permanant tunnel to bury the cabling. I have pictures of the whole process.
Feb 23rd: Visit by the CG and MoD accounts activated - ET1 Peterson cannot log in to his MoD account and we believe it to be because it was not logged in in Kabul first. - My account would not work two days ago, but today I was able to not only log in, but also send e-mails back to Kabul. - NTM-A CG, LG Caldwell came to visit the CSU drash and we briefed him and the local ANA General on capabilities and mission. He seemed very impressed and said we had better comms than his own CG Comm team. I told him not to mention to this to Col Perce. ;) He gave us new NTM-A patches and took pictures. The ANA General stated that he will come by tomorrow in order to talk more about how to better use our support.
- ITCS Josh Snoke
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