Tales from the War Zone: DoD financial managers share their thoughts, insights, and experiences garnered during deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Developing the Micro Rewards Program

While on patrol in Iraq, unit commanders were being approached by Iraqi citizens with critical information in support of coalition operations. Commanders felt a need to pay these citizens for their daring efforts and believed it would encourage more citizens to come forward with information that would assist with our operations and root out the insurgency. During the initial stages of the war, units had the benefit of using "walking-around money" from the Commander's Emergency Response Program (unappropriated dollars from the Development Fund for Iraq); however, that money subsequently dried up.

To support local commanders' needs, the command directed the Comptroller and Staff Judge Advocate (SJA) to find a way to bridge the gap. The solution was quickly determined: a derivative of the Rewards Program. This program was designed to pay for verifiable information leading to the arrest of wanted persons or weapons caches and for information beneficial to an operation or activity of the Armed Forces against international terrorism or aiding in-force protection.

The program consists of two types of payments: large (greater than $2,500) and small (less than or equal to $2,500). The Large Rewards Program pays for high-value targets, requiring approval by CENTCOM (Central Command) or higher in the chain of command. The average payout for the Large Rewards Program in fiscal year (FY) 2005 was $50,000. The Small Rewards Program pays for items such as weapons caches, IEDs (improvised explosive devices), etc., and requires an approval by the commander of the Brigade Combat Team (BCT).

In close coordination with the SJA, we established the Micro Rewards Program. It allows company commanders, while out circulating, to reward providers of information that is immediately verifiable. These immediate rewards are paid in accordance with preapproved guidelines from the BCT commander. Initially, company commanders were allowed a total of $100 per month, with payments up to $20 authorized per piece of information. Following approval of the program, a standard operating procedure was swiftly developed, and a fragmentary order was published, implementing the new reward category to the already existing Reward Program. Over time, the program has changed, now allowing payment maximums of $100 and up to $500 per month for each company commander. Changes were necessitated in recognition of the "fair market value" of information.

The Micro Rewards Program has had a significant impact in the battle space. In FY 2005, the program assisted coalition forces with finding emplaced IEDs on coalition convoy routes, IED-making factories, weapon caches, and information on suspected anti-coalition forces. In addition to these results, the overall Rewards Program provides a viable incentive that has contributed to the capture of numerous insurgent leaders and thousands of enemy weapons. In the past year, the overall program paid over $2 million to more than 1,100 individuals for non-lethal assistance that led to the capture of 15 high-level human targets, thousands of anti-coalition insurgents and sympathizers, and tons of enemy weapon caches.

Major Yvonne Edmonds is a student at Command General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

My "two weeks" in Baghdad

Sergeant First Class

Gerry Wolburg

I'm an Army reservist serving in Iraq and, despite what I keep hearing, I don't feel equal to an active duty soldier. For starters, we wear the infamous, new, minty-green uniforms, and we stand out like beach balls in a snowstorm. It was three months before someone finally confided to me what FUBIJAR means. Go ahead, google it; you can find it. [For readers too busy to google, the polite meaning of FUBIJAR is Forget you, buddy, I'm just a reservist.]

Needless to say, my traditional two-week summer camp has been extended to over a year, and all of the training that I ever received in Army finance did not prepare me well for this mission. Throughout our mobilization, the training focused only on basic soldier skills and not skills specific to my military occupation specialty. This is disappointing considering that we have rarely used the former at all and were quickly overwhelmed by the need to know the latter. It would have paid large dividends had I been able to spend even a portion of those three months at a Defense Finance and Accounting Service site or with an active Army finance detachment.

I arrived here in early September and my lack of experience proved to be almost a liability. In the world of budget, reporting to a new unit in the beginning of September is not a choice one willingly makes. Add the stressors of being in a combat zone, and this could be a recipe for disaster. I quickly had to learn to "crawl, walk, and run" and went through a crash course in the database programs used by this office, including relearning the "fun" of Excel spreadsheets. (Imagine my initial horror when I thought I had lost hundreds of lines that actually were hidden in a log!)

At the outset, the hours were long, especially since the program managers we supported were trying to execute all of the yearend money. There were several long nights spent in trying to commit, de-commit, and obligate various requests. Ditto on balancing ledgers and processing payments. Some of the requests were unique--like the purchase of hundreds of thumb drives which, oddly, added up to more than the assigned unit strength. Also, to this day, we joke about how we are winning the war with laser pointers. And, just the other day, we excused ourselves early from the dinner table because we had to return to the office to allocate funds for the "war effort." Our efforts that day were related to chemical latrines.

At this writing, it is December and, like a toddler, I am now experienced enough at least to "walk." I'm still partly in the shadow of my once mentor, a certain nameless major who shared a wealth of experience from being here a year. He will soon ride west into the sunset, and I'll see whether I've learned enough to be able to "run" on my own. Somehow, I have a feeling that if and when I encounter a rock in my path, I'll be able to rely on his caustic yet valuable advice to get past it. And, maybe in seven months, I will have become the master if not at least the old and wise cowpoke sidekick as I too ride off into the sunset.

Sergeant First Class Gerry Wolburg

Sergeant First Class Gerry Wolburg has over 20 years of combined service in the Marines, Army National Guard, and Army Reserves. Currently, he works as a secretary at the Federal Correctional Complex in Petersburg, Virginia.

Experiencing a joint billet in Afghanistan

Major Terri A. Jones

I deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom to Headquarters, Combined Joint Task Force-76, Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, from April through September 2005. While there, I split my time between two directorates: Civil Military Operations and the Comptroller Directorate. My duties in both offices primarily involved managing the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP), but I also oversaw the Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, and Civic Aid (OHDACA) Program.

CERP enables commanders to respond to urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction requirements by carrying out programs that will immediately assist the indigenous population. OHDACA does much the same, but it is meant for longer-term, less-urgent requirements. Never before in my career as an Air Force comptroller have I felt so much a part of or that I had as much direct, tangible involvement in the mission and its effects on peoples' lives.

As an individual augmentee to the Army, the learning curve I experienced was as steep as any I'd experienced, I'd never worked in a joint billet before, and the lessons in our professional military education textbooks can't compare to living and breathing the real thing. Besides learning the differences between the Air Force and Army comptroller fields, I was also thrust into the world of civil military affairs, humanitarian assistance, and a pot of money (CERP) that is unique to Iraq and Afghanistan. However, with the help of my Army brethren, it didn't take long before the pieces came together and I became fully immersed in my job.

Fortunately, I had several opportunities to travel "outside the wire." Whether it was to train a new CERP manager in the field or to attend a meeting between nongovernmental organizations and coalition forces to discuss the steps needed to create an Afghanistan that is a strong partner in the Global War on Terrorism, each trip allowed me to tie dollars-on paper to people who were In such desperate need.

As with any major life experience, I came home with several vivid, unforgettable memories. First, I will never forget the Afghan people. Many work on base or sell their wares at the bazaar that coalition forces frequent most Fridays I found them to be a peaceful people who want much the same things as we do: freedom, peace, education, healthcare, etc Second, I will never forget the priceless experience of working as part of a coalition. It was remarkable to walk across the base and see the collage of uniforms from countries all over the world and to know that everyone shared one vision.

I recall hearing, on the occasion of the London subway and bus bombings on July 7, 2005, a German soldier express his condolences to a British soldier. It was a most moving moment. Finally, my most unforgettable memories are those of the flag-draped coffins making their way to the flight line for the journey home. It is a vision seared in my memory--a permanent reminder that freedom is not free and that we have true patriots among us who voluntarily serve, knowing the danger.

Operation Enduring Freedom is said by some to be "the forgotten war." Whether it is or isn't, I certainly won't forget the months I spent in Afghanistan doing what I could to help defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda. And I can attest firsthand that the soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen on the ground and in the air, in concert with their Afghan security forces, army, and police counterparts, are performing heroically every day to fight and win the war on terror. They are true heroes.

Major Terri A. Jones is currently serving as chief; Financial Integration Branch, at Headquarters Air Combat Command, Langley Air Force Base Virginia She is a member of ASMC's Hampton Roads Chapter.

A Fishing Tale from Iraq

Major Alfred Marron 

This "fishing" tale begins with media accounts that the Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq (MNSTC-I) and U.S.-led coalition forces provided U.S.-purchased weapons, uniforms, and vehicles to newly trained Iraqis in the hope that these same Iraqis would lead their own sovereign charge to defend their homeland and to preserve any new way of life against remnant Saddam forces and al Qaeda insurgents. Candidly speaking, MNSTC-I had a herculean "Marshall Planesque" mission, Mission Essential Task List, vision, etc.

Within this mission, the comptroller role was to provide "money as a weapon" to assist Iraq in this process. A typical comptroller duty day consisted of seven-day work weeks with exposure to rockets and mortar attacks that penetrated the compound almost daily. If you traveled outside the International Zone to attend resource management conferences or meetings with key Ministry of Defense leaders, both vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) and suicide IEDs (SIEDs) were the everyday risk along travel routes to your destination.

Duties also included explaining to the command group the daily distracters of negative press reports on expenditure abuses and scandals involving MNSTC-I funds. Corruption was soon added to these embarrassing storylines. This scenario became known as the "Wild, Wild West," and the MNSTC-I commander soon directed the staff to "herd the stampede" of funding abuses and scandals. This was a tall order since, within that culture, the right systems and controls were not in place, and it would be a challenge to integrate them.

The mission was simple: MNSTC-I HQ was organized in 2004 primarily using Army reservists from the 98th Division to rebuild the Iraqi Armed Forces using available U.S-appropriated or seized Iraqi funds. For a comptroller, the specified task was clear. The implied tasks, however, were more challenging.

The Area of Operation consisted of a hastily transcripted Iraqi army, a fluid battlefield where equipment is moved, left behind during firefights, sold on the black market, stolen, or destroyed by the insurgents. This scene was more than surreal. At that time, Iraq's infrastructure was in shambles, with horrendous sanitation conditions and limited electricity, sewage, and running water. Media reporters capitalized on broadcasting live shots of VBIEDs and SIEDs, casualties viewed and heard by millions on local TV broadcasts and radio stations. This personal account describes how one active duty Army comptroller adapted to the mission and some of the "behind-the-scenes" activities in Iraq from February 2005 until January 2006 that no one likely will hear or read about in any history book.

The commander's guidance being clear, I set out to prioritize and do my part to establish fiscal controls for a billion-dollar program that I was about to inherit from a departing reserve officer in support of the Coalition Military Assistance Transition Team. The program appeared to be spinning downward as a result of a spending frenzy by action officers and contracting officer representatives to rapidly equip the Iraqi forces without any clear fiscal controls or procedures. I took as an implied task to "teach the staff how to fish," borrowing a quip from the MNSTC-I commander, Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus, who, at one point, directed the MNSTC-I staff to "teach the Iraqis how to fish and not do the fishing for them."

Clearly, a funding procedure was urgently needed to curtail funding abuses.

After recommending and staffing a few fiscal procedural models with other comptroller-trained officers, the MNSTC-I Requirements Review Board was soon approved. In essence, this was hybrid requirements review board developed using procedures used by stateside Program Budget Advisory committees and Program Executive Group committees--in effect, a "Council of Colonels" comprising key 0-6 staff officers to review individual requirements and reprioritize MNSTC-I requirements consistent with the commander's guidance on the force generation of Iraqi forces. These requirements ended up being drafted and proposed to Headquarters, Department of the Army, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and the Office of Management and Budget for approval and receipt of future supplemental dollars as part of the 2005 and 2006 Supplemental Request for the Iraqi security forces funds.

We then developed a standard operating procedure (SOP) for staff implementation. The SOP subsequently received laudatory remarks during a Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction inspection, as well as in Army Audit Agency audits during the spring of 2005. In essence, MNSTC-I J8 established groundbreaking funding processes in Iraq using supplemental dollars through the Requirements Review Board. These efforts successfully taught the MNSTC-I staff "how to fish."

Fishing lessons continued when a new team of reservists from the 80th Division arrived. One lesson worth noting came when a poorly written Statement of Work (SOW) arrived on my desk for establishing an explosive ordinance detection training school in Iraq. When I approached the unnamed lieutenant colonel to rewrite the vague SOW, his immediate response was: "Major Marron, you have to understand that before I came on active duty, the only thing I knew about a SOW was that it was a female pig!" Such quips and experiences will forever remind me of my tour in Iraq.

For this comptroller, the reward of contributing to Iraq's success and personally seeing these events unfold is untold gratification. I recall somewhere in my professional reading that Mao Tse-tung was quoted as saying that "politics comes out at the end of a gun barrel." Our forefathers fought for personal freedom in 1775. So, what makes Iraq any different in 2005? Comptrollers in Iraq can truly share the credit in helping the millions of eligible Iraqi voters to cast their vote for personal freedom during the first parliamentary elections ever in Iraq. I'm glad I contributed to that historic event.

God Bless America!

Major Alfred Marron served a 12-month tour for the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq. He is assigned to FORSCOM G8.

The Sun Never Sets on Seabees Operations

John Hughes 

Daylight is fading fast. The flag flying over the Seabees serving in Iraq is barely visible through the dying light. The Seabees are tired, having just completed an extra long workday building security outposts for the marines serving on the Iraq/Syria border. With luck, they'll have a good night's sleep before starting over at tomorrow's first light.

Long workdays in the harsh desert environment are nothing new for Seabees. They have been deployed in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) since the beginning. That includes building roads and airfields in Afghanistan and providing combat construction for coalition forces across the full spectrum of operations.

Half a world away, the sun begins to cast light over the horizon from the east. A Seabee providing combat construction for the GWOT in Balakatan, Republic of the Philippines, has just finished breakfast. Still sleepy from pulling a late night watch, she wipes her brow, already sweating from the intense jungle heat. Her thoughts race back to the last deployment, to Fallujah and those cool desert nights.

Daydreaming is shattered by the rough voice of the detachment chief: "Let's get moving; we have a lot of work to do today." The Seabee thinks to herself, "I wish that I were back in the sand box; at least it's cool enough to get a decent night's sleep."

Little does she know that things have changed since her last deployment to Iraq, just one year earlier. Insurgent activity in Iraq has peaked, IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and roadside bombs continue to plague every mile that Seabees travel and every job site they work.

Seabees are low-density, high-demand forces. In layman terms, that means a small force in high demand by combatant commanders. At less than 18,000 active and reserve personnel, Seabees are spread thin, serving in 55 countries around the world.

War and hardships are nothing new for Seabees. Born out of the need for advance bases across the Pacific in World War II, Seabees served then with distinction and in every subsequent major conflict. Today's Seabees possess the same can-do spirit of their predecessors. The places may have changed, but the game is the same: to build and to fight, to create construction miracles out of whatever materials are available, and to gain the respect and admiration from the local population they encounter.

Some things have changed; unlike WWII, today's GWOT has no established front lines. The enemy is everywhere; roadside bombs, IEDs, and suicide bombers are the weapons of choice for the insurgents. As of this writing, 10 Seabees have been killed and 77 wounded since the end of major combat operations in Iraq.

Seabees are a force multiplier for the joint warfighter. They can muster a significant construction capacity at a moment's notice and at a relatively low cost. With less than 1 percent of the Navy's budget, the Seabees provide 100 percent of the Navy's combat construction capability. Seabees also have provided a relief valve for combat engineers of other services as they take on a score of missions previously performed by ground forces.

Seabees are not all about fighting wars. Seabee talents recently were called into service for disaster recovery operations in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami relief, and the earthquake in Pakistan, among other recent humanitarian relief efforts. The uniqueness of Seabees and their ability to adjust to any situation is a valuable national asset. From warfighter to humanitarian to ambassador of good will, Seabees are there.

Maybe it is a good thing for our country that the sun never sets on the United States Navy Seabees.

John Hughes is the director of Seabee Resources and Logistics, Naval Facilities Engineering Command. He is a graduate of the Federal Executive Institute and has a master of public administration degree from American University.

Keeping it loose

Andrew Hyatt

As I write this, today is the 354th day since I left home for my tour in Iraq. I leave here tomorrow. Recently, I was very pleased to be asked to contribute an article for inclusion in "Tales from the War Zone," but realized I had to have it done before I left. Well, I've pretty much allowed it to sit at the bottom of the priority list until now. That's atypical for me; I am usually pretty far out ahead of taskers and like to be proactive and plan accordingly. However, I guess I've changed a little since being here.

I've heard it said before that if you wait until the last minute to do something, it takes only a minute. While inarguably true, an associated concern is whether a minute offers enough time to do something well. While general opinion would have to be "no," if procrastination is a practiced routine, one can become pretty proficient at completing tasks even when dedicating a minimal amount of time to them. Well, that's my rationalization, at least. And, like procrastination, rationalization is something else I've learned during this deployment.

Procrastination and rationalization aren't necessarily all that easy. In fact, my time in Iraq has allowed me the occasion to develop and groom these two valuable skills. Before getting here, I was definitely a planner of tasks and cognizant of priorities; yet I had to adapt. I experienced such a lack of planning by so many others that being able to react became clearly more important than planning and, should I dare say, the expected norm. And, in absolute truth, you do be come more efficient reacting to fires than simply working to prevent them.

Early in my tour, I made an effort to solicit help in projecting some monthly resource requirements. In response, a senior staff officer told me, "We never plan past 30 minutes, much less a month!" And so it was revealed to me the Army's latest accomplishment in the realm of transformation: no more "hurry up and wait" (a time-tested standard) but instead, "Wait, wait, wait, and then hurry up" a new classic for a new millennium.

So ... looking at this recent act of procrastination differently and applying my new rationalization skills, how can I best defend waiting until now to tackle this piece of writing? Well, I could probably suggest that by waiting until the last possible day to pen my thoughts, I've simply afforded myself the maximum amount of "perspective." And having perspective is surely a good thing, right?

Yes, indeed.

Surely, during my tenure in Iraq as a deployed comptroller, I've certainly learned a great deal. I served as the resource manager for several programs and oversaw the execution of millions of dollars. I traveled to several different and interesting places. I worked daily with members of all of the military services, as well as with many coalition partners and both Iraqi citizens and Iraqi security forces. Over the course of a year, you pretty much see it all. In every respect, it's been a great and meaningful experience from which I'll take away plenty. In addition to the lessons on procrastination and rationalization (which I learned from real pros), I also learned one more that was pretty important: I learned the value of staying positive--and having fun when it's appropriate and possible. An Air Force colleague coined this concept for me in the phrase, "keeping it loose."

This advice will undoubtedly serve me well in the future and at least made authoring this article an enjoyable task.

Major Andrew Hyatt, CDFM, is a branch chief in the Army G3 Special Operations Division at the Pentagon. He is a member of ASMC's Washington Chapter

Resource Planning in Iraq

Samuel D. Grable

I had the honor of serving as a resource planner with Multi-National Corps Iraq (MNC-I) at Camp Victory, Baghdad, from January to June 2005. It was a remarkable personal and professional experience for me one that has made me a more capable financial manager and airman. Let me take a moment to highlight several of the countless learning points I took away.

First, living and serving with the Army really isn't that bad. During my deployment, the XVIII Airborne Corps took over responsibility as the MNC-I. The command's C-8, Lieutenant Colonel (P) Dan Aaron, challenged the status quo, sought alternatives, and worked hard to resource the fight in an effective manner. Augmentees to the C-8 staff--and there was at least one from each military service--were also capable and brought their service-unique perspectives. Camp Victory itself, while rudimentary compared to our Western lifestyle, nevertheless offered an oasis from many of the realities of combat--although the calm was interrupted periodically by indirect fire. Living in "Army-land" demanded flexibility, but it was interesting, challenging, and rewarding.

Second, successful deployments demand a positive attitude. I recall that the Corps commander, Lieutenant General John Vines, once remarked that we all needed to maintain perspective, adding that a shortage of smoothies at the dining facility did not constitute a crisis. Interestingly, I found there were times when folks lost sight of this reality and began to complain about mundane things. Now, to paraphrase famed World War II combat journalist Ernie Pyle, perhaps it is when a GI stops complaining that something is truly amiss. But, given what I have read of Pyle, he would have expected griping in combat units at the pointy end of the spear--Al Anbar Province or Mosul or the streets of Baghdad--not in the relative calm of a staff assignment at Camp Victory. It bears remembering.

Third, and probably most germane to readers of Armed Forces Comptroller, I found that resource management in a contingency environment remains largely an afterthought, and understandably so. After all, combat leaders are charged with killing the enemy, defeating the insurgency, accomplishing the mission. The last thing any of us wants is to limit their ability to do so. However, as nondiscretionary fiscal demands such as interest payments on our national debt and social security expenditures grow, the acceptability of a blank check to support military action abroad will undergo more intense scrutiny. One needs only to consider the recent debate in Congress over the recent supplemental to discern this truth.

Given that combat effectiveness and fiscal discipline are potentially discordant objectives, it is important to determine how best to instill budget discipline. For example, as the uncertainty of high-intensity warfare stabilizes into more consistent (dare I say predictable?) operations, with established bases and lines of communication, the "budgetability" of these operations should improve. During my deployment, the third fiscal year of our Iraqi expedition, operation and maintenance (O&M) dollars were still doled out monthly based upon a Corps spend-plan that rolled up requirements from each major subordinate command. Sometimes, when resources were available, we received everything requested; however, when the fiscal year 2005 O&M shortfalls loomed, we did not--and we had to decommit to stay solvent.

In effect, because of the very nature of the resourcing system--from the appropriations process in the legislative branch to monthly spend-plans at lower echelons--commanders were not given a budget to manage. Indeed, the most remarkable aspect of fiscal discipline in the area of responsibility was its extraordinarily inconsistent application. My experience suggests we must create a flexible and responsive resourcing process that supports the particular phase of operations in which we are engaged and that encourages commanders to instill fiscal discipline appropriately across the full spectrum of conflict.

My deployment was one of the most remarkable periods of my 15 years in the Air Force. Whether you have deployed or will deploy or provide reachback support to those who do, your contributions are critical to those in harm's way.

Major Samuel D. Grable, CDFM

Major Samuel D. Grable is the commander, 12th Comptroller Squadron, Randolph Air Force Base, Texas. He is a member of ASMC's Alamo City Chapter