I Am An American And I Am Here To Solve All Your Problems, All At Once

Sometimes I think that's what being in the military feels like on deployment -- at least 2012 Afghanistan deployment under a COIN/transition strategy.  You can hear it from the top to the bottom of the chain of command -- kill the bad guys, avoid civilian casualties, support GIRoA in building a functioning government and civil society.  Every mil/civ/ctr working in the country has some variation of those responsibilities.  As a JAG, I of course have 0 lethal responsibilities (other than not being a liability to those I'm on patrol with) and many non-lethal responsibilities.  I am now within 2 months of redeploying and as I have frantically tried to catch up from being out of my AO for almost 2 weeks, I  have also begun to think about what is achievable for me personally within my last 2 months, how will I define "success" for my deployment, and will anything I have done matter.  My civilian counterparts tend to have a much better perspective on this since their time in country is longer and they see development/nation-building as a long term process -- not in terms of 6 months or one year deployments in which each new unit starts from scratch.  So as I soldier on I will keep this long term perspective in mind and keep my own expectations in check.