camp marmel is the largest base in northern afghanistan. nato's mission here centers on training the afghan national army. >> the complexity sometimes is when we first got here is i started thinking about it, it but -- >> this is the u.s. regional garrison commander responsible for daily operations in the north. >> there are a lot of great contractors who come up here local nationals third country nationals u.s. ex-pats and they all work together. >> what are they doing? >> everything you can think of. they work in the dining facilities. they help maintain the living facilities. what it does is it allows the soldiers to concentrate on their primary mission rather than having a lot of extra duties. we could not do our mission without them. they do a good job for us. >> two american companies manage the military's facilities in afghanistan. the floor corporation and dine-core international. the these are called direct contractors because the u.s. government hired them directly. >> they serve us really, really good food. >> most of the contrac