Afghanistan ER

“Hey, Curmudge, has Mack recovered from the concussion he received from the IED blasts?”

“His email notes seem pretty normal, Jaded Julie. A few headaches, but none of the more serious symptoms that one expects from traumatic brain injuries. He has been back ‘home’ at the forward operating base (FOB) for the past few days, but living there is not especially easy.”

“I understand that the Americans share the FOB with British and Afghan soldiers, and that the sanitary conditions are not the best.”

“Here’s what he says, Julie, in his latest note:

‘Do you really think I haven't been ‘encouraging’ these people to improve the Porta-Potties? We've been doing everything we can, including trying to restrict as many as we can for US and British use only. This was determined to be ‘discriminatory’ to the ANA, so they are back to dive-bombing the latrines. They actually stand up on the toilet seats and let it go, and if things don't quite fall into the hole, oh well. The struggle is ongoing.’”

“Do you recall, Curmudge, our writing about sanitation in Third World countries back on March 3? If 40% of the world’s population don’t have any toilet facilities, there are a lot of people out there who might not know how to use them if they had them.”

“And a couple of years ago on May 8, 2008 in Kaizen Curmudgeon we talked about how a leadership culture change sometimes involves learning things that seem unnatural, like potty training for young children. So there in Afghanistan the culture change is more than like potty training, it is potty training.”