Land Lover's Guide to Sea - Part 2

Hello again boys and girls.  It’s time for lesson 2 of “Dummies Guide to Life at Sea,” a brief overview of what your sailors and soldiers experience underway.  At the end of Lesson 1, I just finished my morning micro-dermabrasion in the shower and was up and ready for another fine Navy day.

The first thing I do in the morning is head to chow.  You see, on the ship you don’t really have much of a choice as to when or what you eat.  I can have a hot meal from 0700-0800, 1130-1230 and 1700-1800.  If I’m awake at midnight, I can eat at mid-rats. Mid-rats is navy lingo for midnight rations, or leftovers.  If I thoroughly enjoyed lunch or dinner, odds are good I’ll see it again at mid-rats. 

Now, shipboard chow has really improved over the past few years and the dining experience is quite fine in the Chief’s mess so for this lesson, we will go back to 1999. I was a 2^nd Class Petty Officer on a Spruance Class Destroyer.  Actually, I was on 3 separate destroyers between 98-99 but the chow was pretty much the same on all three. 

When a ship first gets underway, the food really isn’t bad.  There’s variety, a full stock of condiments and the fresh fruits and vegetables are actually fresh.  After a couple of months, that all deteriorates; rapidly.  The less often you pull into port, the worse things get.  If you can’t take on stores ashore, you have to do a replenishment at sea (RAS).  During a RAS, you can take on fuel, dry goods and a variety of food.  You get this stuff from a supply ship; imagine a floating Sam’s Club and you get the general idea. 

A RAS can help keep your ship stocked in basic goods; toilet paper, cleaners, geedunk (junk food for the ship’s store), meats, condiments and the ever popular fresh fruits and vegetables.  The problem with this is that you are getting your fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as other perishable items, from another ship that’s out to sea.  This supply ship idea is pretty great but they don’t exactly milk cows and tend garden while they’re out to sea.  That means that your perishables are only as fresh as their last day in port. 

So, the longer you are away from shore, the stronger your chances of finding that white, “pre-mold” around the crust of your bread, wilted lettuce on the salad bar and, my personal favorite, tomatoes that were previously frozen and then thawed out.  Have you ever tried that?  If you’re not expecting it, it’s kind of like stepping into a pile of pet vomit in the middle of the night.  You know what I’m talking about; you’re half-asleep just trying to get to the bathroom and back to bed when suddenly, you realize something isn’t quite right with the world.  Your feel the goo on the bottom of your foot and immediately recoil in disgust as you come to the conscious realm and realize what just happened. 

On the ship, in the matter of a week, you can go from enjoying a healthy meal with a robust salad bar to using salad dressing on your ham sandwich with a side of pickle and cheese salad for good measure.  I never ate omelets until I joined the Navy.  I never cared much for eggs, but at breakfast that’s your best bet for something fresh.  Most mess decks offered scrambled eggs on the line, but they may be powdered and who willingly eats powdered eggs?  If you get an omelet cooked to order, they will pile on all the cheese you want and cheese makes anything edible.  If you want something to drink with your meal, there’s always plenty of bug juice available.  Bug juice comes in a variety of colors but it’s pretty much all the same.  If you want to make some of your own, go to the dollar store and buy the fake Kool-Aid.  Then, read the directions on the packet.  If it says add one packet to a quart of water; add three.  I’m not sure why they call it bug juice, I always imagined it was because the stuff is so sweet that even a fly knows it will get diabetes if it goes near the stuff.

Now, let me share with you the actual task of eating on a ship.  Being out to sea will make you incredibly hungry.  I’m not sure why; it could be all the walking you do aboard ship, the boredom of being out sea or Pavlov’s theory in action.  It only takes a day or two on the regimented eating schedule for your body to know it’s next scheduled feeding time.  In anticipation of eating this almost wonderful meal, sailors start lining up about 15 minutes early to be the first to see what exciting culinary treats are waiting for them.  Once you get through the line and up to the food, you usually get a choice of main course and sides.  Sometimes the food is immediately recognizable and sometimes you have to ask for clarifying information.  Some days it’s like being on a game show,  “Guess that entree!”  “Bob, what do we have for our contestants today?”

Once you pick from the menu and the Food Service Assistants slop it on your tray, it’s over to the self-service salad, condiment and drink stations.  The quality of all three are directly related to your time at sea and the competency of your ship’s supply department.  A good supply department will manage their funds and order the right stuff at the right time.  A bad supply department won’t.  If you have a bad Supply Officer or Chief, you may very well not have a salad or condiment bar.

Now to the act of eating itself; tables on the mess decks are fastened to the floor.  The chairs are attached to the table and swing out on an arm so you can swivel out a chair, sit in it and swivel back to the table.  Your food is in a tray and your drink in a cup.  Right about at this time, something strange happens; the waves magically grow and the ship starts bouncing all over the place.  Now, remember you’re in a chair that swivels so just staying stationary becomes a challenge.  Add to that the tray your food is on; it slides.  You eat with your feet planted firmly on the floor, your elbows stuck to the table and cradling your tray in hopes of keeping it from crashing on the floor.  You also have to keep a stronghold on your cup, which is full of the aforementioned bug juice.  That leaves you with one free wrist and hand to scoop up your food and shovel it into you mouth.  If either elbow lifts too far off your tray and the table, disaster can ensue.  So instead, you bring your head down and quite literally shovel the fork into your mouth. 

On most days, you have to get back to work or on to watch so your meal is a quick one.  That ends this short lesson.  Stay tuned for the next lesson as I am sure it will be a good one.

Land Lover's Guide to Life at Sea

Hello all, 

 If anyone out there in cyberspace is still following this blog, then I guess you know by now I'm back home.  I came across some of my old writings when I fired up my PowerBook for the first time in a few years.  I wrote the below (and the next few that will follow) I think in 2008 when I was taking part in UNITAS, an exercise that takes part between the US and 11 other partnering South American navies.  I don't think I have ever share this..except maybe via email to my family.  If you ever wondered what the experience is like on a US Navy vessel, keep reading:

So, it’s my 4^th day at sea and I only worked 15 hours today; it’s Sunday and that means “holiday routine.”  On Sundays, the “holiday routine” fairy brings us an extra hour of sleep.  Reveille is at 7am. 

I would like to explain shipboard life to my non-seafaring friends and it’s only befitting that I start with the concept of reveille.  I have it on good authority that “reveille” is Latin for “wake your ass up and get to work.”  Onboard ship, there’s an entire procedure to calling reveille.  It begins with sailors sleeping soundly in their racks, white sandy beaches, frosty mugs of beer and images of their lads or lasses back home dancing in their heads.  Those dreams come to a screeching halt at the sound of whistles through the ship’s loudspeaker system (1MC).  Imagine what a dog’s whistle must sound like to a dog.  Now change the pitch just enough until it actually comes into the human range of hearing; that’s a boatswain’s pipe early in the morning.  If that didn’t wake you up, the watch captain tells you that it’s time to get up and get your ass to work; except he’s a bit more professional about it that I’m being.  Then comes the boatswain’s pipe again.  By this time, you are ready to tie yourself to a heavy object and heave yourself overboard just to get some peace, but on the USS Mesa Verde (the Mighty Mesa) they want to ensure you don’t fall back into dreamland.  Here, they go the extra mile and play a song for you at top volume.  I can’t remember a single song they have played so far; I was too busy curling tightly in the fetal position crying for my mother to notice the catchy tune.

Once you get over the shock of the cold, cruel world and wipe the crust from your eyes, it’s time for a shower.  Now, I have to take a moment to acknowledge my good fortune and tell you all that I really did get lucky on this deployment.  The Mesa Verde is a new ship, she was commissioned in 2007 and the senior enlisted here have state rooms instead of general berthing.  The junior enlisted are in general berthing and live in a space with way too many of their closest friends.  Even on most other ships, the Chiefs would be in Chiefs’ berthing and share a space with the other Chiefs on board.  As it is here, I am in a stateroom and share my space with only one other person.  I have the bottom bunk and she has the top; it’s just like summer camp, but not.  The staterooms on this ship each have a private bath.  The bathroom walls are completely metal;  I imagine myself a sardine in the little roll up can.  Half of the room is a shower and the other half is the toilet.  There’s a door that separates the toilet half from the shower half. I guess this is just in case I want to pee 5 inches from my roommate while she’s in the shower.  Maybe that’s a fetish I don’t yet know about.  At any rate, the toilet half of the room is small; I mean smaller than you are currently imagining.  A port-a-potty is spacious compared to this thing, and it uses the latest in motion sensor and vacuum technology.  If I sneeze, the motion sensor notices the flinch in my butt muscles and the vacuum opens in an attempt to suck me into sewage hell.  I half expect to see video on “World’s Funniest Bloopers” one day of unsuspecting sailors trying to escape the wrath of the mechanized toilet.  Now to the shower; it’s not any roomier than the toilet but it doesn’t try eat me, so it’s cool.  The shower spigot is about the size of a dime and the water either drips out or comes through at pressure washer speed.  On the ship, water is a valuable commodity. I don’t quite understand the whole process, but they don’t just take the water from the ocean and dump it on us.  This is a good thing, but it does mean there isn’t always a limitless supply and the idea is to get in the shower, get clean and get out of the shower.  That’s not really a problem for me since I don’t enjoy having my skin blasted with water at a pressure high enough to clean my garage floor.  So, I’m up and out and ready for my day in a quick minute.  That’s where I end this lesson.

Stay tuned for future installments where I discuss the ship’s strict dietary and exercise plans, exciting décor and other reasons for you appreciate the guys out here who do this for a living.

Office Life - a love letter to te team.

**Note - while this blog is in present tense...I  started it some time ago and thought it time to finish as I really want to share a bit about the cast of characters

 I spent my deployment with.*** Tonight's movie night and the general concensus (of all guys) was to watch "Cowboys and Aliens." Since I can guess by the title of the movie that it's pretty much going to suck, I thought I'd share a bit about the people I spend my days with here.


To set the tone, I work in a plywood hut.  Our office is in the very back of this hut.  There are 8 of us in the office and 11 desks.  We are gaining people soon so it will get pretty packed in here before I know it.  At the end of our office is a plywood wall with a plywood door. On the other side of the plywood is our front office with 4 more people to include our Col and Lt Col.  Our privacy is pretty limited here so we get to know a lot about each other.

The head of our motley crew is the Col Bishop.  My personal pet name for him is P.O.D. for Prince of Darkness.  He likes quiet, order and discipline; none of which describe me.  Since we are separated by plywood, this seems to cause a lot of angst for him, which in turn causes a lot of angst for me.  I don't so much get yelled at as sternly admonished. He's the stereotypical silver-haired action-spy movie villian.  You know the brilliant mastermind who is always just on the cusp of a psychopathic break.  I'm sure when his evil plots get foiled, he will launch into a monologue about his great plans while banging the side of his head with his pistol.  He doesn't o need to yell too often;  he's the master of the demoralizing glare. 

Then we come to our Lt Col.  He's British and such a great stereotype.   I don't know if I should reference Mr Bean or Mr Magoo, but he's definitely one of them.   He's a generally happy type who likes to forget to unbuckle his seatbelt before exiting the car.  Always a good time.I go out of my way to start conversations when we get close to our destination to see if I can make him forget he has it on.  It's especially fun listening to him Skype with his family.  Either he or someone on the other side doesn't quite have Skype figured out so there's a constant barrage of "Can you hear me?", "It doesn't matter if you can't see me." or "Oh, bollocks."  Again, always a good time.

Then there's our Senior Enlisted Leader, MSG Clementine.  He's a short guy and a fan of MBWA so we see him on our side of the office a lot.  He's also born and bred Army with a penchant for the " fist-bmp" style of leadership.  You don't have to be told he has boys...the fist bump says it all. 
 
  The majority of characters live in our side of the office.  I can't talk about characters without mentioning Petty Officer Doubting.

   Petty Officer Doubting is in his 20s still and from the great state of Wisconsin.  He's sounds like the Northern version of Gomer Pyle but he actually has more sense.  He has one of the purest souls and emptiest stomachs I have ever come across.  This kid could win a hot-dog, pizza and ice cream eating contest all in one day.   Someone sent me a large jar of peanut butter for sandwiches and he legitimately told me "Ohhh, Chief..that should last you a week."  I like peanut as much as the next girl; but a week?  I'd be a damn peanut by then.

    Sitting next to me, we have SSG Pomegranate.  He's having twins soon and I hope they are girls...he already has one so it would be fabulous to know he's surrounded.  It would be a little payback for all the puns I have had to endure thus far.  That's his thing; puns.  It doesn't matter what you say; he's got a punny remark. 

   Then, there's Petty Officer Quack.  He's Chinese with a pretty thick accent and a very bright smile.  English is his second language and listening to him talk to foreign journalists also speaking English as a second language might be one of the best experiences I have here. I hate returning calls from messages he leaves me; I can guarantee the name is wrong and I will have about half the information I need to sound like an intelligent human being.  A little side note; Quack is now gone....when he left, we met him at the terminal.  He had TEN bags with him and of course he was late.  I could have helped him, but he wanted to carry all that shit with him so I thought it a good lesson to let him hump it all himself.  His last bag was a plastic one with a big box in it.  With  sweat dripping down his forehead and barely any breath left in his lungs, the bag ripped in half.  He gave it to me to keep.  Inside the box were the sample-sized toiletries he had stolen from the community locker.  Remember, we are in Kabul...need to fly to Kandahar and then Kuwait before finally lugging all our shit to the States and this guy brings home hotel shampoos? Sometimes all you can do is shake your head.

   To add to the office dynamic, we have TSGT Cromagnon.  He's about 7' tall and scary in a Beaker from Sesame Street kind of way. Every time he goes to speak, his eyes get big, his face tightens up and I expect him to tell me he just killed a man with his bare hands.  He's one of the most intense people I have ever met without even trying. 

   Rounding out the team is our token Marine; 1st Lt Jacks.  He's a young'n; all of 13 or so, but he is wise for his age.  H e's definitely my favorite person in the office.  Lt Jacks is actually fortunate enouugh to be on deployment with hs brother, Capt Jacks.  This gives him playmate for mischief.  Lt J has many hobbies but he seems to spend the most time on two out here; practical jokes and working out.  I didn't know people still played pranks but then again, I haven't been a teenage boy in, well, ever.  In stereotypical Marine fashion, this young man spends about 6 hours a day running or in the gym.  He'll leave in the of the day for about 4 hours (he runs in the morning and gym mid-day) and have the nerve to innocently ask, "Did I miss anything,"  when he returns.  Of course you missed something, you missed half the godamn day!  All craziness aside though, I don't know how I would have made it through this deployment without him.  Lt J was always willing to listen to me bitch about the day's ridiculous adventures (although I don't know if I ever gave him a choice) and I really value his opinion.  Even though I am still and will always be the Chief in our dynamic, I'm able to relax around him and he's the only person in the office I can just be me with.  I don't think he knows how much that has meant to me.

  The above does't quite touch on the entire cast and crew it takes to make our world go round in the PAO shop but it touches on some of the core group.  We drive each other nuts but together we make a team and each person provides something of value (well most every person...but I won't go down that road).  I am proud to know each one of them.  Our paths converged for awhile and as we separate, I am proud to have worked alongside each of them.

The journey

As I prepare to trade the gun on my hip for a Blackberry, the rifle on my shoulder for a laptop bag and combat boots for heels, I can’t help but try to figure out what I’ll take from this experience.  I made a lot of friends, but not many very close.  I have had a lot of experiences but none monumental.  I have learned a few new skills I hope I won’t ever need again and I have carried a lot of anxiety that I hope I can shake when I return home.

I like to think I made a difference, but really don’t know.  There’s nothing tangible for me to measure.

 I keep trying to come up with some grand life lesson; some “a-ha” moment and I will know why I was here.  I may never know.  What I do have is the knowledge that I answered the call once more.  I can be proud that I was willing to be here when so many others aren’t.  I didn’t want to be here, but I came.  I made a commitment. 

I have spent a lot of my life waiting for my defining moment; that chance to find out who I really am decisions I made.

I realize now that moment came and went in the blink of an eye, or rather a ring of my cell phone.  I was in an airport on a layover and somehow after a short conversation, I had agreed to come to Afghanistan. 

That was my moment.  I didn’t realize it then or for most of my deployment.  Only now that I have had time to look for answers have I been able to find one.  I knew the call was coming and I answered it.  I didn’t try to dodge it, I didn’t have soul-searching thoughts; I just honored the commitment I had made to the country.

This deployment, I think I am coming home in a better state of mind.  I’m not walking around with a chip on my shoulder. I don’t need to walk with a strut (although it comes natural regardless) and I don’t feel the need to prove my worth with this deployment.  I’m not sure if it’s age, wisdom, the locale, validity of my job this time around or some combination of it all but I’m going home in a better place.   I may not  be able to point to my accomplishments but I don’t really feel the need.  I think I’m ready to join the ranks of those who have answered the call before me.  I have always been proud of them, now I can be proud of me.

The Good, the Bad and the WTF?

Okay, so I've been a lttle absent lately.  Sorry folks, between being busy with work, my broken laptop and my general apathy towards everything lately, I haven't been able to keep you all up to date.  For a quick fix, here's a new little saga I like to call "The Good, the Bad and the WTF?":

I weigh less now than when I still in my 20s

because, yet the food is that bad…

..Are they really serving Carcass of Lamb?

I never have to do my own laundry

because we have a contractor who does it in large loads.

Who’s “manties” are these in my clean laundry?

I am surrounded by the Hindu Kush and Himalayan mountain range

that I rarely actually see due to the poor air quality

 Afghanistan-induced asthma anyone?

We have indoor plumbing here

that doesn’t really work.

What is with the methane smell? Is this toilet going to explode while I’m sitting on it?

I truly do enjoy listening to two non-English speakers try to have a conversation in English

until I have to read the official email traffic

What is “traficcability impact” and “it was hided”? Have an native English speaker proofread before you hit "Send".

Eating (or starving) at KAIA

I love to eat, I really do.  The smell, sight, tastes and sometimes, even feel of food makes me happy.  Grabbing the top and bottom of a soft, fresh, seeded bun and feeling the grease of a good, juicy cheeseburger...chomping down on crisp lettuce and pickle, sliding through the goo of the cheese as you bite through the burger...ahhh, heaven. 

Yeah; I don't get any of that here.  Let me take you on a journey to our Dining Facility, or DFAC:

 We have two DFACs on this base, and they really aren't far from one another.  They both serve the same food but the nice DFAC does have cushioned chairs and usually stocks Diet Coke. 

  Everyone who enters the DFAC is required to wash their hands.  This is a great practice for anyone, whether you are living in a bacteria-ridden place or not.  We all learn how to wash our hands growing up and it's a great way to combat disease. However, here we are forced to wash our hands with scalding hot water.  It's like a test of will to keep your hands in the water long enough to rinse off all the soap.  Instead of paper towels for drying, we have Dyson blade blowers.  This is my favorite part of visiting the DFAC (that should tell you how this story will go).  It's like a fun house for your hands.  You stick them in and air blows out at hurricane-wind speeds to push the water right off your hands!  I like watching the way my skin pulls away from my bones and flaps in the wind.

After playing with the finger funhouse, I walk down the hall, scan my meal card and grab a paper plate.  I then move to the meal line and usually want to cry.  There are a few items we have every lunch and dinner:

   Pasta with a red sauce and white sauce
   Either fried rice of some sort or stir-fry noodles

Now, you might be thinking.."that doesn't sound too bad"...you are wrong.  None of the above options offer any flavor value whatsoever.  I actually tried the "3-cheese sauce" today.  It tasted like dirty water.  It may have been dirty water for all I know.  Great, now I think I ate dirty water sauce today.  Sadly, the dirty water flavor is almost an improvement over the complete absence of flavor I normally experience there.

For main dish options, they like to keep it exciting and rotate things out on a bi-weekly schedule.  Here are some of my favorite meal options:

   - Tuna and onion pizza, hot dog pizza (don't ask)
   -  Fish pie (not sure what kind of fish and I really am not interested in knowing)
   -  Hawaiian style Gammon (spam with pineapple on it)
   -  Quorn lasagna (no, I did not misspell the vegetable that grows on a cob - google it and share in my disgust)
    - Turkey burger (not an actualy burger..rather flat pieces of cut turkey that I am supposed to put in a bun)
    - Egg burger (see above...same concept)
    - Dessicated Sponge Cake
    - Creamed Leeks
    - Meat-Glazed Potatoes (no, I am not making that up)
    - Frankfurter Curry
    - Schnitzel.  Turkey Schnitzel, chicken schnitzel, quorn schnitzel, schintzel on a stick....do Germans really eat everything schnitzel?  I don't think so..I think it's laziness on the part of our cooks. Fry everything and call it freaking schnitzel!!

  This is just what I can remember and I don't eat at the DFAC very often.  Given the above menu choices, can you blame me?

     I pass through the line and usually get the fried rice or noodles.  Not because either option is really edible but because the DFAC does have bottled chili sauce that isn't half-bad.  Then, I move to the salad line....I have to use the term "salad" loosely.  We have lettuce and either cucumbers or shredded carrot.  Oh, and usually olives and those little baby onions.  That's as good as the salad gets folks.Every once in a while, they have crab sticks too.  Yes, processed crab sticks. Now, I don't do seafood so I really could care less, but for Christ's sake, THEY KEEP THE PLASTIC SEPARATORS ON THE CHUNKS O'CRAB! Who does that? Would it really kill them to at least pretend it's real crab meat instead of processed whatever it is?  At the end of the salad bar, they have big plastic containers of salad dressing type substances.  I never know what it is because it's rarely labelled.  I know I have seen "garlic oil dressing" and "orange dressing" and I think one is blue cheese but really can't tell.

  After that comes the cheese and meats platter.  There is always grated parm (for the past maybe) and then usually two different types of cheese. On a great day, we get little chunks of brie but sometimes it's blue cheese, cheddar cheese or that white, processsed, half-melted cheese.  When they don't know what kind of cheese they are serving; it's Emmantel cheese.  My good friend, Lt B, pointed out that they had two different cheeses the other day but both were labelled Emmantel.  Sadly, this isn't uncommon so there's no telling what I eat half the time. 

   The meats are always an interesting site.  The meat quality here seems to be a source of concern for a lot of folks on base.  If any of you have ever eaten Scrapple, you should be able to visualize this.  Scrapple is a processed pig product.  The parts of the pig that aren't even good enough for hot dogs are mixed together and pressed into Scrapple.  That's what all the lunch meats here look like.  Even the turkey slices don't look right.  It's not a slice of turkey breast. I think someone ground up all the extra parts not deemed good enough to make a turkey hot dog and made it lunch meat.  I bet their is ground beak in there somewhere. 

     If I still haven't made a meal of these delectable creations, I can go to the Sandwich line.  The lunch meat at the sandwich line is just a depressing as at the meat station.  Fortunately, they usually have "tuna mayonnaise" and "chicken mayonnaise" to eat.  Apparently, calling it tuna or chicken salad woudl be false advertising. I at least admire their honesty. If you want a sandwich, here are your garnish options:

    -Mustard
    - Lettuce
    - Onion
    - Pickles
    -On special days, Branston pickles (some kind of purple stuff the Brits like)
   - Slice of cheese, still in the plastic wrapper. I'm serious here, they throw the slice on your plate..so if I ask for a wrap, I have to unwrap it to add the cheese. You only get one slice per sandwich.

My favorite thing about the sandwich is the portion size.  It's the same regardless of bread type. I get one regular eating spoon's worth of tuna or chicken if I choose a wrap or a big ass bun.  It's just enough meat to make me feel like I'm not eating plain bread.

If you enjoy the fruit, then you are in luck. We have a fruit bar! Sadly, the fruit is rationed to one piece a person.  The choices do change but the standards are bananas (over-ripe), apples and some kind of melon.  Since they won't give you a whole melon (and really, that would be a bit much), they cut it up and give you one small bowl of melon pieces.  I personally love that the military wants me to eat my fruits and vegetables while giving me so little access to either here on this base.  Now, to be fair, American DFACs don't seem to have this problem...and our base is known throughout Afghanistan for the bad food.  We are not the norm.

Dejected and once again disappointed, I find a table and sit to my meal.  We have no salt and pepper shakers, so I tear open my little packets and try to season my food with my airline meal-sized salt and pepper.  I reach across the table and grab a napkin, unwrap my plasticware and wish I were eating an MRE instead.

Random Thought

I have so many stories I want to tell and so little time to tell them, but I wanted to share the newest thing I have come to realize about  the Army: changing course and moving forward is not their cup of tea.  They like to write Fragmentary Orders, or FRAGOS.

When I hear fragmentary, I think of grenades.  Most of you may not get that connection right away, but hey, I have been to high-speed, low-drag NARMY training and we learned how to throw grenades.  I like to thing something as simple as a change or additional order must be a big deal to the Army, and thus like throwing a frag grenade into somebody's well-laid plans.

It seems that the Army needs written orders for everything they do.  If they set up a command, they need an order that lays out the scope of the command; its structure, services, responsibilities and accountability.  That part makes total sense.

However, if this scope doesn't include an 11 am weekly conference call with various command components, a FRAGO gets written.  You can't just send an invite out to Bob and Bill and Tom with a recurring meeting time, you need an order.  Really?

To put this in perspective of my daily civillian life,  if you run to Starbucks to pick up coffee for your friends and someone wants to add an order, they can't just call you on the cell phone.  If the Army were in charge, someone would have to write an official order and send it to you, your friends and probably even Starbucks.

I just don't get it.