Build Your Own 'Spring Break on FOB Sherpa' Kit!

As part of EXERCISE SPRING BREAK 2016, Task Force Sherpa recently conducted convoy ops into the heart of AO RED BULL, vicinity Mall of America (M.O.A.), Bloomington, Minn., conducting resupply at FOB IKEA and FOB LEGOSTORE. Via a village kiosk, we discovered an additional target of opportunity in the BRICKMANIA store, and quickly moved to exploit.

Headquartered in Minneapolis, Brickmania produces military-themed kits and items that are compatible with the popular Lego brand of plastic construction blocks. Under the BrickArms sub-brand, Brickmania offerings include a wide range of weapons, helmets, tactical vests, and other military equipment for Lego-style mini-figures.

The kids and I spent a few hours—and (ahem) a little money—figuring out the components to a Charlie Sherpa mini-fig. They were already somewhat familiar with my stories from Afghanistan: Media embed rules stipulated that I couldn't wear camouflage in country, so I couldn't use my old uniforms. Two of my shirts were slate blue; one was olive green. (I did laundry out of a 5-gallon bucket every couple of days.) My bulletproof vest was solid "coyote" brown. Using a stencil, I wrote "press" on the front of my light green helmet.

Here's what we came up with at Brickmania store. To make your own Charlie Sherpa, you'll need:

• Modern Combat Helmet (M.C.H.), Dark Tan

• Male head with glasses

• U.S. Dungarees Torso (aka "U.S. Navy Seabees" shirt)

• Plate Carrier Vest (P.C.V.), Specialist, Dark Tan

• Pants with cargo pockets, Light Tan

• Lego camera and coffee mug borrowed from kids' previously purchased Lego sets

We also assembled and purchased a U.S. media escort soldier mini-fig. Originally, we were going to make her look like Sgt. 1st Class Ashlee Katz, the Public Affairs NCO from my media embed with 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. Instead, he ended up looking a little like Spc. Slim Cheery, a Red Bull videographer that I hung out with for a few days on FOB Mehtar Lam.

While Brickmania does make decals for Multicam uniforms, the kids and I opted to issue the mini-fig soldier some pre-made Universal Camouflage Pattern pieces, a three-color desert helmet, and some rockin' eye-protection. He also got a Plate Carrier Vest with a walkie-talkie pocket, and an M-16 with grenade launcher. Because the real Slim didn't have enough to carry, if I recall, what with the video camera and all. He was also assigned as a grenadier.

After determining that Brickmania does not (not yet, anyway) offer a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected ("M-RAP") truck kit, I successfully resisted the urge to drive away with a Humvee kit instead. I might have to go back for an Ultra-Light Tactical Vehicle, however, given that we drove Gators around Bagram.

Finally, at the the Mall of America's Lego store, the kids and I picked up a beige baseplate, and enough tan and brown bricks to make a passible hootch. We made ours a little battle-damaged, and used the brown bricks to make T-walls. Next time, we'll use dark or light gray for the blast-barriers. My daughter installed a Lego "boom box" stereo she repurposed from another playset—because troops gotta have their tunes. She also planted some Lego flowers. We further accessorized with a Brickmania footlocker we'd purchased.

Now, FOB Sherpa is always just a few clicks away!

'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot' Delivers Media Embed Insights

Tina Fey and Billy Bob Thornton star in "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot." PHOTO: Frank Masi/Paramount Pictures

Movie Review: "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot," currently in theaters.

With good natured and insightful humor, "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" shines a snarky light into some of the dark corners and cracks in U.S. military-media relations. The movie stars Tina Fey, a brilliant comedian who first came to national attention as a writer for "Saturday Night Live." She also does a mean Sarah Palin impression.

The R-rated movie, a "war-journalism-comedy-drama" as written by frequent Fey collaborator Robert Carlock, accurately points out some of the land mines and tripwires of covering war as an embedded reporter, while also reinforcing some recurring reporter-at-war tropes.

The script is based on the "Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan," a 2011 memoir written by former Chicago Tribune bureau chief Kim Barker. The book has recently been reissued under the movie's title. Leaving other contrasts aside, the movie makes Tina Fey's version of Kim Barker a cable TV news journalist. This is understandable, given the visual medium—TV makes for good pictures, while print is harder to capture. The overall tone is a happy blend of "M*A*S*H" (1972) and "Broadcast News" (1987). It's not parody, but it does have a comedic point.

Here are 5 (spoiler-free!) things about embeds that "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot" gets right:

War is filled with color and language. When Barker shows up with a bright orange backpack, a Marine sergeant quickly and forcefully tells her where to put it, and what to do with it. It's an anecdote reminiscent of one Chris Ayres told in his 2005 fish-out-of-water Iraq War memoir "War Reporting for Cowards." Ayres showed up packing a bright yellow tent with a fluorescent red cross atop it. Also, during my own brief embed in Afghanistan in 2011, reporters were not allowed to wear camouflage, causing me concerns about how to color-coordinate my war as a civilian.

Embedded relationships are inherently imbalanced. In the movie, Barker politely declines a challenge coin offered by a Marine commander—"I can't accept gifts," she says, reciting the old J-school mantra of objectivity. The colonel responds by asking whether, since she can't accept gifts, she can still accept the food, transportation, and security his Marines will provide. The relationship isn't entirely lopsided, however, once Barker realizes that some missions won't happen unless there's someone there to report it. That, too, is a comment on the practice of embedding media.

Coverage can have consequences at the soldier-level. After an affable Marine is transferred to a more combat-intensive zone, Barker suspects that he was punished for appearing on camera. I encountered similar situations during my brief time in Afghanistan, when I was advised that photographs of U.S. personnel not wearing the proper uniform on camera—gloves, helmet, eye-protection—would result in delays and and even denials of favorable actions. "Favorable actions" means things like promotions and medals.

Social rules are different downrange. Soon after her arrival to Kabul, a female colleague introduces Barker to the "deployment queen" concept. That, given their relative scarcity, individual women downrange are said to be more sexually desirable than they would be in the United States. "In Afghanistan, you're a serious piece of a--," Margot Robbie's character Tanya Vanderpoel tells Barker in the movie trailer. "You're like a what, a '6' or '7' in New York? Over here, you're a borderline '9,' borderline '10.'" While played for laughs, the exchange illuminates the nearly constant male gaze that American women—civilian and military—encounter when deployed.

Of course, armed with Tina Fey's sarcasm, the movie is also able to squeeze off a few rounds at gender issues in Afghanistan, too. As she puts on the blue burqa familiar to Southern Afghanistan, for example, her character says sardonically: "I feel so pretty, I don't even feel like voting!" The movie is obviously not an exposé on how poorly women are treated in Afghanistan, but it does successfully engage its targets.

News gets old fast. One of the movie's touchstones involves the disposition of a village well, a new source of water installed by coalition forces. When the Taliban apparently return again and again to destroy the small piece of infrastructure, the Marines express frustration regarding the Groundhog Day nature of trying to help the Afghan people. "We are definitely losing this war, as far as this well is concerned," one observes.

The mystery is later resolved when Barker learns from an unexpected source why the well is so routinely targeted. More than that, however, the events surrounding the well foreshadow her own later frustrations with getting airtime for her Afghan reports. From the media perspective, a well getting blown up once is news. Getting blown up twice is nearly a trend. And getting blown up more than that is just old news.

Another Consequence of Fear: Loss of Humor

Blog editor's note: Consequence magazine—a publication that regularly explores aspects of culture and war—recently featured a series of non-fiction "flash-essays" by literary magazine editors. The essays ranged from approximately 50 to 300 words each. The theme, perhaps unsurprisingly, regarded "the consequences of fear." Installments in the series included humanity, callousness; parsing texts; knowledge and compassion; cloaking; and "the story of our time."

Using the theme as a personal writing prompt, I offer some quick scratches of my own:

*****

A Consequence of Fear: Loss of Humor
By Randy Brown

A college-era friend of mine once gave me this dipstick check: After graduation, when Joe and I were each single and living in different cities, we kept each other sane via monthly marathon phone sessions. Once, after I had delivered a long monologue involving a general lack of pay or sex or happiness, he asked, "Yeah ... But are you still funny?"

That cracked me up.

The phrase became shorthand for quickly assessing if the other guy was really hurting, or just kvetching. It proved to be a good self-assessment tool, too. Whenever I found myself without a sense of humor, at work or at home, I knew things had gotten serious—maybe too serious. I could then stop digging myself any deeper, and start the work of filling in the emotional potholes.

It's like that Catch-22 about sanity: "If you're sane enough to ask yourself if you're crazy, you're probably sane." Maybe, if you can still ask yourself if you still have a sense of humor, you're sane. If you can't, it's time to regroup. Maybe even seek professional help.

Comedy is a high-stakes game, I know—always one step away from tragedy. No, I'm not advocating bottling it all up, or always viewing life through Groucho glasses. Graveyards are littered with jokers, after all, who kept their pains all to themselves. Remember Freddy Prinze Sr. Remember Robin Williams. Remember the punch line about the depressed clown:

"But, Doctor, I AM Pagliacci!'"

Alas, poor Yorick.

The physiological engine of all humor is surprise. Or, more accurately, the recognition and relief that a new thing isn't going to kill us. Don't believe me? Play peek-a-boo with an infant. First, he startles. He makes eye contact with his mother. Mom's calming presence (I'm assuming that you haven't chosen to experiment on a stranger's child, and that parents are nearby) says it's OK for him to laugh.

Bottom line: The kid learns to laugh by learning that you're not a mountain lion. That you're not a danger. That you're supposed to be funny.

After 15 years of war, we seem danger-close to losing our capacity for collective good humor. Our pockets are empty. Our skins are stretched thin. We are no longer surprised. Neither are we entertained. Instead, we're making jokes at each other's expenses: Playground bully jokes. Vulgar, short-fingered jokes. Racial jokes. Meanwhile, 9-1-1 is a joke. Our social fabric is torn, our civil bonds broken. We seem no longer capable of laughing with each other. We're laughing at each other.

We are, in short, no longer funny.

*****

Randy Brown embedded with his former Iowa Army National Guard unit as a civilian journalist in Afghanistan, May-June 2011. He is the poetry editor of Military Experience & the Arts' As You Were literary journal. Brown authored the poetry collection "Welcome to FOB Haiku: War Poems from Inside the Wire" (Middle West Press, 2015). Also in 2015, he received the inaugural Madigan Award for humorous military writing from Negative Capability Press, Mobile, Ala. As "Charlie Sherpa," he blogs about military culture at: www.redbullrising.com.