A February come and gone...gone ground-hog, that is....
PART-1: No Matter Where You Are, February is simply to be gotten through.
Well, February came and went, like it has every year for the past fifty. Outside of Valentine’s Day and, perhaps Presidents’ Day or Groundhog Day, the month means very little because it is cold, icey, grey and rather drab. That is to say: February becomes a time of hibernation, of renewal, as I learned -- but did not realize -- as a tenth grader when I could make out the faintest outline of Steele Hall across the way from the library at 6 p.m. on a Sunday night in 1974; the slight light gave me hope that homework would become less oneroous and more avoidable in the near future. Afghanistan is no different. Though there are fewer trees and less water, Kunduz does remind me an awful lot of dreary Wallingford, Connecticut in the Februaries of the mid-1970s. Instead of a wilting mill-town in the throes of economic change, Kunduz responds over three decades later with security briefings for donors and non-governmental organizations hosted by the United Nations Mission-Afghanistan.
Like the venerable nightly Italia pizza run, after which I got to eat people's crusts for I had little money of my own, such meetings provide very insipid fare for the shrinking grey matter of my much abused brain. Taking my cue from so many precedents – yes getting old means being cluttered (not filled) with memories – I spent this February working as hard as possible, driving myself to the edge of burn-out, ready to hurl my wasted frame into the abyss of yet another failure. But not quite. And so I managed to accomplish a great deal in laying the foundation of my mission here in Northern Afghanistan for the next year or two. Nevertheless, I am the only senior officer in a kinetic (i.e., military lingo for actively contested) province without a deputy and I desperately need one. A fellow had been hired. The day he was ready to report to work, the Embassy security office dinged him and, unintentionally, me. No help for three months; oh good grief.
Part-2: a Sunny Day in a Spontaneous War Zone.
The issues facing the North of Afghanistan pale compared with those in the South or the East. During this groggy, soggy time of year, only a few Taliban or other insurgents stick around; gangsters like good working conditions, too, I suspect. Since this winter was unseasonably cold and then very warm, the Taliban left en masse but will re-infiltrate early. One of the prime entry-ways into Kunduz Province is the District (akin to a county in America) of Chahar Dara. On the 25th of February, after a mid-month foot to eighteen inches of snow had cleared away, my U.S. Department of Agriculture colleague and I joined LT Todd Schwarz – and his ‘Devil’ platoon – to visit Chahar Dara. This trip was to an area that is apparently over-run with Taliban.
We travelled with the Devil platoon for a basic ‘meet-&-greet’ with the District Police Chief (akin to the county sheriff) and the ‘District Manager’ (like a county Lord-Mayor). The latter cancelled at the last minute due to a summons by the Governor. If only we had realized that portent of a routine meet-&-greet spiralling out of control into the ‘shake-n-bake’ that the day soon became! Being the Prophet’s birthday – a national and religious holiday in Afghanistan – we were lucky to meet anyone at all. My USDA colleague, in one of his first such ordeals after arriving just a few days before, performed admirably by raising the idea of farmers’ shura (assembly) to address the agricultural concerns of the area.
Politely put, Chahar Dara remains caught in the cross-fire of the insurgents, gun-runners and drug exporters on the one hand and the German-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on the other. My ‘ag’ colleague has a Ph.D. in the sociology of agricultural subsidies, two tours in the Peace Corps working on small-scale farming challenges in the Philippines and Latin America as well as years of first-hand farming experience. In his head, he is a big-brained Ag-extension subject matter expert, but, in his heart, he loves leading communities in organizing themselves. No sooner had the District Chief finished with his appeal for help on security than we walked out of the office and started hearing pop-pop-pop of small arms fire about “two kliks” (i.e., two kilometers) away; then a boom followed by another BOOM.
Two improvised explosive devices resounded through the courtyard of two neutral looking cement buildings, constructed to the same sub-standard by the Germans or the Americans, depending upon the year. Instead of grass, there are large stones padding the ground as gravel; this uncomfortable surface manages to distribute the weight of MRAP (mine-resistant armor protected) vehicles ranging from twenty to forty tons so that it doesn't trash the lot as a matter of course. These beige monsters look like station-wagons with elephantitus; I like to think of them as the ultimate soccer-mom cars because:
· they look like over-sized sports utility vehicles;
· soccer Moms love V.P. Al Bore; and,
· they, ironically, enrich Republicans who decry welfare benefits to the poor but make
themselves wealthy through a thoroughly corrupted military industrial complex.
Part-3: Life, Death and Unreality.
After the first two IEDs sounded off, gunfire became more intense but sporadic. It was HIGH NOON (literally) in Chahar Dara and U.S. Special Forces were teaming up with freshly trained Afghan National Army (ANA) recruits. Of the two security phalanxes, the ANA outdoes the sorry excuse for law enforcement that is the Afghan National Police (ANP). The ANP boasts a 65-70% annual attrition rate, most of which takes place, one must surmise, when real bullets begin to fly outside of the safe confines of a firing range. Half way between us and the fighting was an ANP check-point. Any action there when obviously something was happening ‘a klik’ away? Nope…at least some things remain constant in such a fluid place as Afghanistan. My USDA colleague and I stood at the edge of the wall and peeked over the top with the U.S. soldiers from the Police Mentoring Team positioned at the ready with their M-4s.
Word came in that one of the IEDs had blown up an Afghan HMMV (‘humvee’; the contemorary jeep) and killed two ANA soldiers, wounding a third. Many of the American soldiers exhibited sadness for their comrades, even if the fallen were not some of their own. Suddenly around one o’clock, the gunfire intensified and seemed to be only a kilometer away. We went to the security wall. It was a terraced series of ‘HESCOs’ filled with sand and / or rocks to ward off enemy fire. As we watched, we noticed two F-16s circling like hawks above the scene, ready to dive in for the kill. Apparently the target was not open or distinguishable enough to permit an airstrike; remember: Chahar Dara was the location of the September 2009 air-strike over which a good country (Germany) and a very good officer, who ordered the strike, continue to agonize. Twice the planes made what looked like a bombing run but dropped flares to say no dice, good-bye. On those runs, the jets descended while taking a wide circle, dipping below the eye’s horizon. Then a terrible, deafening roar – a harbinger of death with no plane in sight. Suddenly, as if leaping from with the tree-line came the jets, perhaps 200-300 feet (or so it seemed) off of the ground and right on by, dropping flares to distract any heat-seeking missiles.
The gunfire renewed more vigorously and back to the HESCOs we went. The security wall was not a wall as we would think of one; it is three stacked rows of ‘HESCOs’ with a second double-stack to support the outer perimeter followed by a single row to firm the base. HESCOs are like gabion walls but are not fixed to one location. Of course, I had no idea what a gabion wall was until a month ago. Gabion walls are the things drivers see on Route-50, going from Annapolis to D.C., about five minutes before hitting the Beltway. They are often used in rivers as flood mitigants if constructed soundly and designed carefully. Gabion walls are the steel mesh that holds big rocks, often packed in sand to lend a touch of stability. On Route-50 and many highways around the U.S., these structures prevent shedding rock from rolling onto the road – at least that is what I think they do. In a river, gabion walls prevent erosion. HESCOs, then, are baskets approximately three feet high and two feet square, lined with a material like burlap and (that day) filled with the same rocks lying on the courtyard.
Suddenly, a shattering BOOM thundered across the fields succeeded by a desolate pillar of smoke, curling up to the sky like a burnt sacrifice in ancient times in this still, in so many respects, ancient land. After a brief, terrible quiet, gunfire rattled away frenetically. Something big was happening. Looking over the HESCO, a ‘vizz-fet’ sound whizzed by me onomatopoetically. I looked to the soldier next to me asked whether I had just heard a bullet. He said, very casually, “Yep. And that one was really close…” with nonchalance too candid to be rehearsed. So, I thought to myself, “Well, Ned, if this sergeant can be cool-headed, then you can, too.” I looked at the young soldier levelly and said even-toned, “So is the latrine a hardened structure?” No, just kidding there. Strangely, however, I really felt no fear; I just kept watching, trying to spot the bad guys.
Part-4: the Reality of Life and Death in AfghanLand.
About one-thirty or so, there was a commotion by the small health-care clinic down the street, followed closely by bedlam in the courtyard as a small station-wagon pulled to a screeching stop in the middle of it followed by half a dozen crying, screaming people. Perhaps these ‘vizz-fets’ were not quite so random after all—a respected teacher, a life-long resident of Nari-Sufi (where all the trouble was that day), had rolled out his mat for mid-day prayer when a stray bullet had pierced his chest, just above the heart. In a desperate hope to keep this man alive, his emerging widow and her neighbor had taken him down the street to the clinic built by the Federal Republic of Germany. Such a facility could offer no help. So they came to the compound in the desperate hope that an American medic might be on hand with the proper equipment. None was around; there was a combat life-saver (CLS, a member of a squad or platoon with enough training to keep somebody alive long enough for proper care). The CLS tried his best; it was simply too late. A teacher, a husband, a father – by all accounts from the police at hand – a very good and decent man died in that courtyard. Soon after that, the word about the third, larger IED came in: it had hit a U.S. special forces vehicle, injuring four Americans, two seriously. The frenetic fire from a few minutes before had been, I guessed, to get the injured off the field.
LT Schwarz agonized for two hours, calling back to the U.S. base with instructions. His men were impatient. The German soldiers had ventured most of the way to the village of Nari-Sufi, only to stop and seemingly close-up shop. The Germans have an undeservedly poor reputation among the Americans as unwilling to fight. The problem lies in the rules-of-engagement (ROEs). Currently, the German government defines Afghanistan as a reconstruction mission. Though the Germans were sitting there with tanks and other heavy artillery that day, they could only fire their weapons when attacked. Guess what? The enemy is as knowledgeable as it is nuanced in its fighting. The Taliban et al. – more of that next letter home since there is now in-fighting amongst the baddies – know that the U.S. has looser ROEs and can fire when there is a ‘reasonable’ threat. So they do not attack the Germans.
So, the enemy did not fire on the heavy artillery and simply waited. LT Schwarz, a very good man, from Lincoln country (i.e., Springfield, Illinois), sat there with his four über-mom cars with only one mounted 50 millimeter gun mounted on top of each and smaller arms inside. (As a point of reference, 50mm ammunition is the size of a grown man’s thumb; enough to smash a head like a pumpkin.) The young non-commissioned officers and infantry of the Devil Platoon began to chafe with the inactivity as the gunfire continued. Where is Schwarz; why is he waiting? I was in LT Schwarz’s MRAP and he was in the courtyard talking back to the American FOB trying get the orders to move. The others in the MRAP, very brave was each one, wondered if the lieutenant was ducking a fight, allowing the twenty special forces men (trapped in the village with the ANA squad) to “get slaughtered while we just sit there…” In vain, I tried to remind the men that while each of us in the car could say, ‘Hey, I am ready to risk my life to rescue these guys’, we were thinking of ourselves alone; LT Schwarz had the sobering responsibility of being accountable for the lives of his men.
Finally, after going back and forth for close to an eon, it was obvious the Germans were not going in for a rescue. CPT Ezequiel Moya – of McAllen Texas – got on the radio, apparently, and ordered, in tart language, LT Schwarz and his men to get over to the village and get our guys the hell out of there. People cheered at the PMT company commander’s ringing order. Now: what to do with the civilians? The safest place for us was in the vehicles, notwithstanding the possibility of battle. LT Schwarz lost no time in getting the hell over there. We pulled up to the moon-crater in the road where the largest IED had exploded; hard to believe anyone was still one piece, let alone alive judging from that pock-mark. The four MRAPs guarded the courtyard where the injured lay until a med-evac helicopter would arrive to ferry them away. There were brief, intermittent skirmishes; still too hot for the helicopter to land. A German unmarked ambulance finally showed up at three-fifteen to pick up the wounded Americans. This armored saltine box was forced to crawl down the side of the road three hundred yards away from, and facing, the Taliban. The unarmed vehicle waited for forty-five minutes while the injured were placed into the truck. The truck left, leaving us with the sinking feeling that so much time – three hours – had elapsed that the two ‘urgent casualties’ were goners for sure.
Part-5: if this is war, my butt hurts!
Not a shot was fired from where we all knew the Taliban (generic term here) had set up their nasty little nest. After the ambulance left the scene, slowly but safely, the insurgents opened up with a terrific volley of gun fire. The American gunners fired back, some with a metal diarrhea soon depleting ammunition. SPC Jonathan Bradley of Georgia, in my MRAP, was judicious with his ammunition. The bullets in his gun jammed up – and SPC Bradley was not frightened as much as frustrated. Where was LT Schwarz? Outside the vehicle with ‘vizz-fets’ dancing in the dust around him, giving orders and positioning his men to protect them. Their lives were his own, now. SPC Bradley heaved the gun, dislodged the aged bullets, while I pulled knife out and cut through the band holding down other boxes of ammunition to open a box and feed more and newer 50mm ammunition. He got his gun to work. Through it all SPC Corey Hickman, also of Georgia, gave SPC Bradley much-needed support, saying things like “That’s the way to go…steady and easy…” SPC Bradley called down to me and asked me to get the saw.
Sometimes, the most incongruous moments take us back to simpler, sunnier times. When I first moved to Sydney as a nine-year old, I dreamed of fighting someday in Viêt Nam, just like my dad’s cousin who was captain of the U.S.S. Oriskany, an aircraft carrier; he saw his fellow Naval Academy alumnus, James Stockdale, shot down in front of him. Well, while I was liberating Hanoi in my head, I was goofing off in the classroom. Miss Tenant, my ‘fourth class’ teacher, said to me rather sternly, “Neddy, you really must pull up your socks”; meaning, idiomatically, “Look, young man, get to work…” So I leaned over and pulled up the knee socks that were part of my school uniform but draped over my ankles, slackly, like the rest of me. Likewise, I was looking for a hacksaw where, SPC Bradley had told me to look. I could not on earth figure out why a guy getting shot at would need a saw; all I could see was a gun that was lighter than the 50mm but bigger and and heavier than an M-4; that is, a gun to be mounted. I had the damnedest time getting that gun out of the way. Somewhere in this hernial exercise, I realized that this stupid gun was the saw. So, to make sure I had it right, I yelled up, “Hey, is the saw this gun?”
Whereupon, I got a sarcastic “Jeez--yes goddammit!” Humans really are social creatures. Up went the gun and SPC Bradley, now armed also with SPC Hickman’s gun, went to smaller fire. It wasn’t long before I heard a “yee-haw!! Got that dirty little f***ker!” SPC Bradley had spotted an isolated Talib, perhaps a spotter for mortars, running across the field and picked him off, first shot – only shot; like the Deer Hunter. SPC Hickman was cheering and yelling, “Good shot, boy! Why can’t I have any fun…ugh!??!” Realizing that a human being had just died, I felt perhaps the least humane of all feelings – nothing. No compassion for the mother without a son or the family losing a father. Also no sense of elation, maybe sadistic, but at least a feeling. Indifference; well, not quite indifference but an inability to feel anything except a sense of urgency in getting the next string of ammunition ready. As I looked out the window, rather alarmed at my lack of fear, or any feeling, I noticed what looked like hundreds of old instamatic light-bulbs popping along the tree-line, like the cameras greeting Hank Aaron when he got up to bat after hitting 714 home runs.
These flashes were the phosphorous-tipped bullets fired by the Americans. The stalemate continued for an hour and fifteen minutes, during which the enemy was firing mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at us. The mortar shells were landing closer and closer to us – it was only a matter of time when…but wait a ‘thoof’ concussionned behind us. Where were the Germans, dammit? Right behind us, firing a tow missile right at the cluster of trees I had reported to SPCs Hickman and Bradley as the origin of a plume of powder smoke rising after a mortar round had fired. Three, four, five…kaboom! The Germans shot on one round of ammunition that day, probably defying ROEs to do so – but the Americans, including me had been pinned down, with no way out since the MRAPs would bog down in the fields off of the road and the crater permitted no forward movement. That missile took out the wall behind which the enemy had hidden; once opened, the hornets flew out of their shattered nest. It was like popping a zit: the wall broke and white puss came streaming out into a hail of American gunfire; the battle was over in fifteen minutes, leaving eight-to-twelve mangled insurgents looking for their virgins.
For the next twelve hours, we sat and waited at that spot, guarding the stranded vehicles while a recovery team came, after repeated delays and indecisions, out to retrieve them. In the still of a cold overcast night, my knees were killing me and the mesh in my desert pants – turned out to be a bad choice – was grating into the skin above my tail-bone. Sitting there, motionless, with no lights on worried me quite a bit. But SPC Corey and three other gunners, with the help of a German missile, had done enough damage to preclude a night-time attack. My only fear registered around one in the morning. Since I had been exercising like a crazy-man recently and running longer distances, I was concerned that – in my fifties – I might develop a blood-clot to clutter and shutter my shrinking brain. I then got out to use the universal urinal – truthfully or otherwise – to get the blood flowing and give my knees some rest. At two in the morning, SPC Bradley barked his congratulations to me for being one of the best ‘civilian’ (read: pussy) ammo-feeders he had come across; an accolade given to my USDA colleague as well in his MRAP.
Whereupon, I stated rather less than gallantly, “If this is war, my butt hurts!” Everybody laughed. We got home at half past-five to powdered eggs and alleged coffee. Looking back, two weeks later (and a seeming eternity since I work insufferably long days), I understand why I defied my characteristically low expectations of me (e.g., assuming I would soil my pants) and felt very little fear that day. The young men in that truck with me never panicked, remained calm and proved their professionalism. Perhaps, I simply took a cue from them not to worry. Perhaps, courage is intrinsic, if sometimes latent, and one finds it when he or she needs it. Perhaps, I have been blathering on for far too long…
One last housekeeping item: the two seriously injured Special Forces soldiers are back in the U.S. and should enjoy a full recovery, at least physically. Thanks be to God.
PART-1: No Matter Where You Are, February is simply to be gotten through.
Well, February came and went, like it has every year for the past fifty. Outside of Valentine’s Day and, perhaps Presidents’ Day or Groundhog Day, the month means very little because it is cold, icey, grey and rather drab. That is to say: February becomes a time of hibernation, of renewal, as I learned -- but did not realize -- as a tenth grader when I could make out the faintest outline of Steele Hall across the way from the library at 6 p.m. on a Sunday night in 1974; the slight light gave me hope that homework would become less oneroous and more avoidable in the near future. Afghanistan is no different. Though there are fewer trees and less water, Kunduz does remind me an awful lot of dreary Wallingford, Connecticut in the Februaries of the mid-1970s. Instead of a wilting mill-town in the throes of economic change, Kunduz responds over three decades later with security briefings for donors and non-governmental organizations hosted by the United Nations Mission-Afghanistan.
Like the venerable nightly Italia pizza run, after which I got to eat people's crusts for I had little money of my own, such meetings provide very insipid fare for the shrinking grey matter of my much abused brain. Taking my cue from so many precedents – yes getting old means being cluttered (not filled) with memories – I spent this February working as hard as possible, driving myself to the edge of burn-out, ready to hurl my wasted frame into the abyss of yet another failure. But not quite. And so I managed to accomplish a great deal in laying the foundation of my mission here in Northern Afghanistan for the next year or two. Nevertheless, I am the only senior officer in a kinetic (i.e., military lingo for actively contested) province without a deputy and I desperately need one. A fellow had been hired. The day he was ready to report to work, the Embassy security office dinged him and, unintentionally, me. No help for three months; oh good grief.
Part-2: a Sunny Day in a Spontaneous War Zone.
The issues facing the North of Afghanistan pale compared with those in the South or the East. During this groggy, soggy time of year, only a few Taliban or other insurgents stick around; gangsters like good working conditions, too, I suspect. Since this winter was unseasonably cold and then very warm, the Taliban left en masse but will re-infiltrate early. One of the prime entry-ways into Kunduz Province is the District (akin to a county in America) of Chahar Dara. On the 25th of February, after a mid-month foot to eighteen inches of snow had cleared away, my U.S. Department of Agriculture colleague and I joined LT Todd Schwarz – and his ‘Devil’ platoon – to visit Chahar Dara. This trip was to an area that is apparently over-run with Taliban.
We travelled with the Devil platoon for a basic ‘meet-&-greet’ with the District Police Chief (akin to the county sheriff) and the ‘District Manager’ (like a county Lord-Mayor). The latter cancelled at the last minute due to a summons by the Governor. If only we had realized that portent of a routine meet-&-greet spiralling out of control into the ‘shake-n-bake’ that the day soon became! Being the Prophet’s birthday – a national and religious holiday in Afghanistan – we were lucky to meet anyone at all. My USDA colleague, in one of his first such ordeals after arriving just a few days before, performed admirably by raising the idea of farmers’ shura (assembly) to address the agricultural concerns of the area.
Politely put, Chahar Dara remains caught in the cross-fire of the insurgents, gun-runners and drug exporters on the one hand and the German-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on the other. My ‘ag’ colleague has a Ph.D. in the sociology of agricultural subsidies, two tours in the Peace Corps working on small-scale farming challenges in the Philippines and Latin America as well as years of first-hand farming experience. In his head, he is a big-brained Ag-extension subject matter expert, but, in his heart, he loves leading communities in organizing themselves. No sooner had the District Chief finished with his appeal for help on security than we walked out of the office and started hearing pop-pop-pop of small arms fire about “two kliks” (i.e., two kilometers) away; then a boom followed by another BOOM.
Two improvised explosive devices resounded through the courtyard of two neutral looking cement buildings, constructed to the same sub-standard by the Germans or the Americans, depending upon the year. Instead of grass, there are large stones padding the ground as gravel; this uncomfortable surface manages to distribute the weight of MRAP (mine-resistant armor protected) vehicles ranging from twenty to forty tons so that it doesn't trash the lot as a matter of course. These beige monsters look like station-wagons with elephantitus; I like to think of them as the ultimate soccer-mom cars because:
· they look like over-sized sports utility vehicles;
· soccer Moms love V.P. Al Bore; and,
· they, ironically, enrich Republicans who decry welfare benefits to the poor but make
themselves wealthy through a thoroughly corrupted military industrial complex.
Part-3: Life, Death and Unreality.
After the first two IEDs sounded off, gunfire became more intense but sporadic. It was HIGH NOON (literally) in Chahar Dara and U.S. Special Forces were teaming up with freshly trained Afghan National Army (ANA) recruits. Of the two security phalanxes, the ANA outdoes the sorry excuse for law enforcement that is the Afghan National Police (ANP). The ANP boasts a 65-70% annual attrition rate, most of which takes place, one must surmise, when real bullets begin to fly outside of the safe confines of a firing range. Half way between us and the fighting was an ANP check-point. Any action there when obviously something was happening ‘a klik’ away? Nope…at least some things remain constant in such a fluid place as Afghanistan. My USDA colleague and I stood at the edge of the wall and peeked over the top with the U.S. soldiers from the Police Mentoring Team positioned at the ready with their M-4s.
Word came in that one of the IEDs had blown up an Afghan HMMV (‘humvee’; the contemorary jeep) and killed two ANA soldiers, wounding a third. Many of the American soldiers exhibited sadness for their comrades, even if the fallen were not some of their own. Suddenly around one o’clock, the gunfire intensified and seemed to be only a kilometer away. We went to the security wall. It was a terraced series of ‘HESCOs’ filled with sand and / or rocks to ward off enemy fire. As we watched, we noticed two F-16s circling like hawks above the scene, ready to dive in for the kill. Apparently the target was not open or distinguishable enough to permit an airstrike; remember: Chahar Dara was the location of the September 2009 air-strike over which a good country (Germany) and a very good officer, who ordered the strike, continue to agonize. Twice the planes made what looked like a bombing run but dropped flares to say no dice, good-bye. On those runs, the jets descended while taking a wide circle, dipping below the eye’s horizon. Then a terrible, deafening roar – a harbinger of death with no plane in sight. Suddenly, as if leaping from with the tree-line came the jets, perhaps 200-300 feet (or so it seemed) off of the ground and right on by, dropping flares to distract any heat-seeking missiles.
The gunfire renewed more vigorously and back to the HESCOs we went. The security wall was not a wall as we would think of one; it is three stacked rows of ‘HESCOs’ with a second double-stack to support the outer perimeter followed by a single row to firm the base. HESCOs are like gabion walls but are not fixed to one location. Of course, I had no idea what a gabion wall was until a month ago. Gabion walls are the things drivers see on Route-50, going from Annapolis to D.C., about five minutes before hitting the Beltway. They are often used in rivers as flood mitigants if constructed soundly and designed carefully. Gabion walls are the steel mesh that holds big rocks, often packed in sand to lend a touch of stability. On Route-50 and many highways around the U.S., these structures prevent shedding rock from rolling onto the road – at least that is what I think they do. In a river, gabion walls prevent erosion. HESCOs, then, are baskets approximately three feet high and two feet square, lined with a material like burlap and (that day) filled with the same rocks lying on the courtyard.
Suddenly, a shattering BOOM thundered across the fields succeeded by a desolate pillar of smoke, curling up to the sky like a burnt sacrifice in ancient times in this still, in so many respects, ancient land. After a brief, terrible quiet, gunfire rattled away frenetically. Something big was happening. Looking over the HESCO, a ‘vizz-fet’ sound whizzed by me onomatopoetically. I looked to the soldier next to me asked whether I had just heard a bullet. He said, very casually, “Yep. And that one was really close…” with nonchalance too candid to be rehearsed. So, I thought to myself, “Well, Ned, if this sergeant can be cool-headed, then you can, too.” I looked at the young soldier levelly and said even-toned, “So is the latrine a hardened structure?” No, just kidding there. Strangely, however, I really felt no fear; I just kept watching, trying to spot the bad guys.
Part-4: the Reality of Life and Death in AfghanLand.
About one-thirty or so, there was a commotion by the small health-care clinic down the street, followed closely by bedlam in the courtyard as a small station-wagon pulled to a screeching stop in the middle of it followed by half a dozen crying, screaming people. Perhaps these ‘vizz-fets’ were not quite so random after all—a respected teacher, a life-long resident of Nari-Sufi (where all the trouble was that day), had rolled out his mat for mid-day prayer when a stray bullet had pierced his chest, just above the heart. In a desperate hope to keep this man alive, his emerging widow and her neighbor had taken him down the street to the clinic built by the Federal Republic of Germany. Such a facility could offer no help. So they came to the compound in the desperate hope that an American medic might be on hand with the proper equipment. None was around; there was a combat life-saver (CLS, a member of a squad or platoon with enough training to keep somebody alive long enough for proper care). The CLS tried his best; it was simply too late. A teacher, a husband, a father – by all accounts from the police at hand – a very good and decent man died in that courtyard. Soon after that, the word about the third, larger IED came in: it had hit a U.S. special forces vehicle, injuring four Americans, two seriously. The frenetic fire from a few minutes before had been, I guessed, to get the injured off the field.
LT Schwarz agonized for two hours, calling back to the U.S. base with instructions. His men were impatient. The German soldiers had ventured most of the way to the village of Nari-Sufi, only to stop and seemingly close-up shop. The Germans have an undeservedly poor reputation among the Americans as unwilling to fight. The problem lies in the rules-of-engagement (ROEs). Currently, the German government defines Afghanistan as a reconstruction mission. Though the Germans were sitting there with tanks and other heavy artillery that day, they could only fire their weapons when attacked. Guess what? The enemy is as knowledgeable as it is nuanced in its fighting. The Taliban et al. – more of that next letter home since there is now in-fighting amongst the baddies – know that the U.S. has looser ROEs and can fire when there is a ‘reasonable’ threat. So they do not attack the Germans.
So, the enemy did not fire on the heavy artillery and simply waited. LT Schwarz, a very good man, from Lincoln country (i.e., Springfield, Illinois), sat there with his four über-mom cars with only one mounted 50 millimeter gun mounted on top of each and smaller arms inside. (As a point of reference, 50mm ammunition is the size of a grown man’s thumb; enough to smash a head like a pumpkin.) The young non-commissioned officers and infantry of the Devil Platoon began to chafe with the inactivity as the gunfire continued. Where is Schwarz; why is he waiting? I was in LT Schwarz’s MRAP and he was in the courtyard talking back to the American FOB trying get the orders to move. The others in the MRAP, very brave was each one, wondered if the lieutenant was ducking a fight, allowing the twenty special forces men (trapped in the village with the ANA squad) to “get slaughtered while we just sit there…” In vain, I tried to remind the men that while each of us in the car could say, ‘Hey, I am ready to risk my life to rescue these guys’, we were thinking of ourselves alone; LT Schwarz had the sobering responsibility of being accountable for the lives of his men.
Finally, after going back and forth for close to an eon, it was obvious the Germans were not going in for a rescue. CPT Ezequiel Moya – of McAllen Texas – got on the radio, apparently, and ordered, in tart language, LT Schwarz and his men to get over to the village and get our guys the hell out of there. People cheered at the PMT company commander’s ringing order. Now: what to do with the civilians? The safest place for us was in the vehicles, notwithstanding the possibility of battle. LT Schwarz lost no time in getting the hell over there. We pulled up to the moon-crater in the road where the largest IED had exploded; hard to believe anyone was still one piece, let alone alive judging from that pock-mark. The four MRAPs guarded the courtyard where the injured lay until a med-evac helicopter would arrive to ferry them away. There were brief, intermittent skirmishes; still too hot for the helicopter to land. A German unmarked ambulance finally showed up at three-fifteen to pick up the wounded Americans. This armored saltine box was forced to crawl down the side of the road three hundred yards away from, and facing, the Taliban. The unarmed vehicle waited for forty-five minutes while the injured were placed into the truck. The truck left, leaving us with the sinking feeling that so much time – three hours – had elapsed that the two ‘urgent casualties’ were goners for sure.
Part-5: if this is war, my butt hurts!
Not a shot was fired from where we all knew the Taliban (generic term here) had set up their nasty little nest. After the ambulance left the scene, slowly but safely, the insurgents opened up with a terrific volley of gun fire. The American gunners fired back, some with a metal diarrhea soon depleting ammunition. SPC Jonathan Bradley of Georgia, in my MRAP, was judicious with his ammunition. The bullets in his gun jammed up – and SPC Bradley was not frightened as much as frustrated. Where was LT Schwarz? Outside the vehicle with ‘vizz-fets’ dancing in the dust around him, giving orders and positioning his men to protect them. Their lives were his own, now. SPC Bradley heaved the gun, dislodged the aged bullets, while I pulled knife out and cut through the band holding down other boxes of ammunition to open a box and feed more and newer 50mm ammunition. He got his gun to work. Through it all SPC Corey Hickman, also of Georgia, gave SPC Bradley much-needed support, saying things like “That’s the way to go…steady and easy…” SPC Bradley called down to me and asked me to get the saw.
Sometimes, the most incongruous moments take us back to simpler, sunnier times. When I first moved to Sydney as a nine-year old, I dreamed of fighting someday in Viêt Nam, just like my dad’s cousin who was captain of the U.S.S. Oriskany, an aircraft carrier; he saw his fellow Naval Academy alumnus, James Stockdale, shot down in front of him. Well, while I was liberating Hanoi in my head, I was goofing off in the classroom. Miss Tenant, my ‘fourth class’ teacher, said to me rather sternly, “Neddy, you really must pull up your socks”; meaning, idiomatically, “Look, young man, get to work…” So I leaned over and pulled up the knee socks that were part of my school uniform but draped over my ankles, slackly, like the rest of me. Likewise, I was looking for a hacksaw where, SPC Bradley had told me to look. I could not on earth figure out why a guy getting shot at would need a saw; all I could see was a gun that was lighter than the 50mm but bigger and and heavier than an M-4; that is, a gun to be mounted. I had the damnedest time getting that gun out of the way. Somewhere in this hernial exercise, I realized that this stupid gun was the saw. So, to make sure I had it right, I yelled up, “Hey, is the saw this gun?”
Whereupon, I got a sarcastic “Jeez--yes goddammit!” Humans really are social creatures. Up went the gun and SPC Bradley, now armed also with SPC Hickman’s gun, went to smaller fire. It wasn’t long before I heard a “yee-haw!! Got that dirty little f***ker!” SPC Bradley had spotted an isolated Talib, perhaps a spotter for mortars, running across the field and picked him off, first shot – only shot; like the Deer Hunter. SPC Hickman was cheering and yelling, “Good shot, boy! Why can’t I have any fun…ugh!??!” Realizing that a human being had just died, I felt perhaps the least humane of all feelings – nothing. No compassion for the mother without a son or the family losing a father. Also no sense of elation, maybe sadistic, but at least a feeling. Indifference; well, not quite indifference but an inability to feel anything except a sense of urgency in getting the next string of ammunition ready. As I looked out the window, rather alarmed at my lack of fear, or any feeling, I noticed what looked like hundreds of old instamatic light-bulbs popping along the tree-line, like the cameras greeting Hank Aaron when he got up to bat after hitting 714 home runs.
These flashes were the phosphorous-tipped bullets fired by the Americans. The stalemate continued for an hour and fifteen minutes, during which the enemy was firing mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at us. The mortar shells were landing closer and closer to us – it was only a matter of time when…but wait a ‘thoof’ concussionned behind us. Where were the Germans, dammit? Right behind us, firing a tow missile right at the cluster of trees I had reported to SPCs Hickman and Bradley as the origin of a plume of powder smoke rising after a mortar round had fired. Three, four, five…kaboom! The Germans shot on one round of ammunition that day, probably defying ROEs to do so – but the Americans, including me had been pinned down, with no way out since the MRAPs would bog down in the fields off of the road and the crater permitted no forward movement. That missile took out the wall behind which the enemy had hidden; once opened, the hornets flew out of their shattered nest. It was like popping a zit: the wall broke and white puss came streaming out into a hail of American gunfire; the battle was over in fifteen minutes, leaving eight-to-twelve mangled insurgents looking for their virgins.
For the next twelve hours, we sat and waited at that spot, guarding the stranded vehicles while a recovery team came, after repeated delays and indecisions, out to retrieve them. In the still of a cold overcast night, my knees were killing me and the mesh in my desert pants – turned out to be a bad choice – was grating into the skin above my tail-bone. Sitting there, motionless, with no lights on worried me quite a bit. But SPC Corey and three other gunners, with the help of a German missile, had done enough damage to preclude a night-time attack. My only fear registered around one in the morning. Since I had been exercising like a crazy-man recently and running longer distances, I was concerned that – in my fifties – I might develop a blood-clot to clutter and shutter my shrinking brain. I then got out to use the universal urinal – truthfully or otherwise – to get the blood flowing and give my knees some rest. At two in the morning, SPC Bradley barked his congratulations to me for being one of the best ‘civilian’ (read: pussy) ammo-feeders he had come across; an accolade given to my USDA colleague as well in his MRAP.
Whereupon, I stated rather less than gallantly, “If this is war, my butt hurts!” Everybody laughed. We got home at half past-five to powdered eggs and alleged coffee. Looking back, two weeks later (and a seeming eternity since I work insufferably long days), I understand why I defied my characteristically low expectations of me (e.g., assuming I would soil my pants) and felt very little fear that day. The young men in that truck with me never panicked, remained calm and proved their professionalism. Perhaps, I simply took a cue from them not to worry. Perhaps, courage is intrinsic, if sometimes latent, and one finds it when he or she needs it. Perhaps, I have been blathering on for far too long…
One last housekeeping item: the two seriously injured Special Forces soldiers are back in the U.S. and should enjoy a full recovery, at least physically. Thanks be to God.
It's a gripping story, and well told. I just hope you come home alive, Ned.
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