There are definitely some softer edges to our training. Yesterday's Theater Cultural Awareness and Theater Introduction to Language Training (TCA/TILT) was one of those soft edges. Definitely worthwhile to know about the culture one is about to be thrust into. I had seen similar talks before during my time on ships in the Navy. We'd usually get a visit by an embassy official from whichever country we were about to visit before liberty call was sounded. The most memorable one from this previous life of mine was when my ship was pulling into Thailand and the official kept a serious and straight face when he warned sailors that "some of the women you may be hitting on might be well-disguised transvestites, and it just might be the case that this person is well versed in kick-boxing." Apparently a sailor had recently "discovered" that his "date" was not the gender he thought he was (a la The Crying Game), and there was a bad outcome involving kick-boxing when the sailor decided to stiff his date, so to speak. But I digress.
We got a quick overview on the birth of Islam and how the beliefs of both moderate and extremist Muslim values have diverged over the years. We became well-versed in the differences between Shia and Sunni. We also were schooled in the various tribes of Afghanistan, how the Taliban and al Queda fit into the big picture. The sergeant giving the Islam talk attends a mosque but stated that he wasn't a Muslim. He was a fairly typical white-bread, American Caucasian looking to me. I was confused by his appearance and motivations, but he gave a decent brief.
We learned various do's and don'ts: Don't point the bottom of your foot at someone (like giving the finger - I already knew that one); don't touch someone with your left hand - there's a hygiene angle in there somewhere, try to figure it out. Don't talk to women in general unless your hair is on fire, or something like that. How about a little Afghani cultural awareness in reverse?
Once done with that we went to the language lab and received two hours of instruction. The computer programs were excellent, complete with avatar Afghanis and soldiers interacting, a mic that would record your utterances (i.e. usually feeble attempts), and coaching. Very sophisticated. But seriously, two hours in a computer lab is not going to generate much. I had to look up the title of this post, which means "Hello, my name is Tim," in the little books they gave us from the Defense Language Institute. If I were in the Army I would have access to Rosetta Stone (free!) to continue my Pashtun, Dari, or whichever dialect I wanted. I'm working on getting the Rosetta Stone since I DO actually work for the Army these days. Except I'd rather brush up on my French. I really don't think I will have many opportunities to practice Dari. If and when we do have patients in the ICU in Kandahar, odds are they will be hooked up to a mechanical ventilator (sorry, it's what I do!) and not really able to converse with me, even if they wanted to...
Today we got some really soft training - Mounted Land Nav. We had to don our full battle rattle for this one (kevlar jacket, helmet, etc). We got some brief classroom training, a map of the North Ft Lewis base, and red grease pencils. We had our own HUMVEE drivers since our group has not been through the driver training. Our jobs: navigate through a series of points given to us on post. This was beyond easy, not only because I have run on virtually every road on the base. The driver was accommodating. I asked him if we could go through the base's Burger King drive through for a danish and coffee and he informed me that someone else had tried this a few years ago and it didn't turn out well for him. Oops!Random HUMVEE factoid: weighs 12,000 lbs unloaded, 16,000 fully loaded. 6.7 L very loud diesel engine.
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