NO REGRETS ~ An American Adventure in Afghanistan (23 page)

After we finished the class, Mirwais and I walked over to the dining facility. Since I had been told earlier in the day that the Army was sponsoring a meet between the two claimants to command Bala Baluk, I wanted to see if I could eavesdrop. Deputy Minister Mangala, Colonel Forman, and General Akramuddin were going to attempt to bring a resolution to the rift within the district leadership. I walked into the dining facility just as the meeting was beginning. For the hell of it, I sat down just within earshot. I fully expected to be asked to leave. General Akramuddin saw me and rose to greet me. We exchanged man hugs and kissed each other’s cheeks like we were good old buddies. He asked me to sit down at the table, but I told him that I’d better not and sat back at my table. “Dave, he likes you because you kiss his ass all the time,” Mirwais told me.

The meeting went on for two hours. I couldn’t catch much of what was said. In the end, Hajji Kaseem kept his command. The new commander, Mansoor Khan, was promised another district. No charges were brought against anyone. As the meeting was breaking up, Hajji Kaseem was asked if he was staying for training.

“I will not train with my men. I am their commander. It is not proper that I train with these men. I cannot fail a task in front of them. They must think that I know everything.”

* * *

At the end of February, I was tasked to assist with equipment issues and to teach the officers of Bala Baluk the twenty-hour logistics course. This was a bastardized version of our forty-hour, two-week course that we gave monthly. We basically taught the logistics officers how to account for their property. We explained to line officers that they were responsible for the equipment used by their men. The main thing that we tried to get across was that the equipment belonged to the government and was not the personal property of the district commander.

Commanders of Afghan forces in both the army and police tended to treat the equipment they’d been given to accomplish their mission as a personal arsenal and bank account. They pilfered fuel and ammunition. They used vehicles and weapons for personal security and transportation. There was much fraud, waste, and abuse going on in the districts. The men tended to leave their equipment lying around and “misplaced” weapons, radios, and anything else that might bring a good price at the local bazaar.

Corruption had become a common topic of discussion for the students, and I’d developed a speech about it to give to the FDD students. I wasn’t certain that they would be open to the subject. These guys were not all loggies, plus they were sitting with other members of their own district. If they said the wrong thing in front of the wrong person, it could get violent. I decided that I’d get it out of the way right at the beginning. That way they wouldn’t have to ask about it and risk being targeted for attack.

Mirwais and I had set up the classroom earlier. After we finished, we went outside to have a smoke. We walked back into the classroom and ten Afghans were sitting there waiting for us. As soon as we stepped in, I heard, “Mister David! Dawood Khan!” Next thing I know, I’m wrapped up in a bear hug. Captain Qavoum placed his hand over his heart and introduced me to the officers in the class. “This is Teacher Dawood Khan. Listen to him. He has much knowledge. He will teach us much. We are very honored to have him.” Captain Qavoum had attended my class on Camp Zafar a month earlier.

I greeted the class. “
Salaam
, gentlemen. I can only hope to live up to Captain Qavoum’s most gracious introduction. Please everyone be seated.”

As they seated themselves, Mirwais and I took center stage and started the class. “Gentlemen, we will be instructing you on the basics of accountability and supply. When we’re finished here, you should be aware of your responsibilities as supervisors and logisticians. You’ll know how to properly request equipment. How to turn it in. How to guide your men in maintenance, storage, and securing the district equipment that you’ll be issued as you leave the RTC.”

I looked around the spare white walled room. The RTC classrooms reminded me of elementary school. They were equipped with small desk chairs and chalkboards. Some even had overhead projectors from the days before computers and Harvard Graphics.

“Do you guys have any questions before I get started?”

No one said a word. I nodded to Mirwais and he started the slide show. The first thing I talked about was equipment security and maintenance.

“Who owns this equipment? All of the equipment that you use to conduct your mission. To whom does it belong?”

I pointed to an older gentlemen in the first row. “Come on Captain. Give it a try. Who owns the AKs, RPGs, and PKMs, the Rangers, the radios? Who owns the computers in your district, if you have any?”

“The Commandahn,”
²⁰
the captain offered.

“Does everyone agree?”

Heads nodded. Affirmative.

“No. All of the equipment is owned by the Afghan people. It’s owned by the taxpayer. It’s owned by the Afghan government. The Ministry of Interior is the custodian. They loan it to the District Commandahn and, by extension, to you in order to accomplish the missions assigned to you. That mission being to arrest, capture, or kill the Taliban or bandits or insurgents or criminals. When your Commandahn leaves the unit, he should take nothing with him.”

Hands shot up. I waved them off and continued.

“Look. I know that’s not the reality on the ground. That’s why we’re here, though. To learn proper husbandry and custodianship of the Afghan people’s property and tax dollars. Afghanistan does not have infinite resources. You are a poor nation. Most of your equipment is donated by some country in the international community. That’s why the Coalition Forces are so concerned with corruption, theft, maintenance, and security of this equipment. Eventually, we’re all leaving. We’re going home. Eventually, the citizens of the nations that comprise the Coalition Forces are going to get tired of throwing money down a sinking hole.”

“But Teacher, what can we do? How can I stop corruption? If I oppose it, they will kill me. They’ll kidnap my children. Honesty carries a death sentence if the Commandahn is corrupt.”

“Think of it this way,” I said. “You are at the beginning of a new Afghanistan. This country years from now will be what you make it. Fight corruption and you may have a country some day. Don’t fight it and your children are likely to grow up in a nation not much changed from the lawlessness that now pervades Afghanistan.”

I received dubious looks but I continued.

“We have had corruption in America. There is still corruption in my country. It’s better now than it was and it will be better in the future than it is now. Why? Because Americans agitate for change. I’ll be honest, though. Fighting corruption is dangerous. Many have died fighting corruption in America. If you choose to fight it here, you may well die. You may survive and make a difference. It’s not going to be easy. It wasn’t easy in America.”

One student commented, “But America was never as corrupt as us.”

“America was so corrupt in the early days that the commanding general of our Army attempted to carve out a kingdom in our western territories. He acted with Spanish and British agents. He started troubles with the natives. He murdered and connived until he was caught and punished. It took America over 150 years to finally treat Black people as true citizens. The ‘70s saw nearly half of the police in New York City investigated and jailed for corruption. In the ‘80s, we had major scandals in the Los Angeles police department. U.S. senators and congressmen are caught with their hands in the cookie jar often enough that the American people think it’s common place. A president resigned thirty years ago over a major political scandal that involved burglary and a complete breakdown of the American system of justice. Look at any country in Europe or Asia, you’ll find corruption. You’ll also find people fighting it. Exposing it. Some people die fighting that corruption. You’ll have to ask yourself what kind of nation do you want to raise your children in, then act accordingly. … Okay, that’s enough about corruption for now. Let’s move on. If you want to talk more about it, catch me on a break.”

We continued on with the course. While I was supposed to give a twenty-hour course, in reality I was given about ten hours to complete the training. Mirwais and I hit the important points and I stressed resource management, security, and anti-corruption. I tried to drive it home to these guys that the United States wasn’t going to be in Afghanistan forever.

My course was not the only part of FDD that was whittled down to a bare minimum. The whole eight-week cycle was affected by constant timeline adjustments. In the U.S. Army training was the priority. Our drill sergeants awakened us at 0400hrs. We conducted training seven days a week. We got about fifteen minutes for meals. Sunday morning, we were marched to the chapel for an hour. We didn’t hit the sack until midnight on many nights. During our three-day training exercise where we put into action all of our basic training lessons, we slept about two hours a night. Focus District Development was planned with the U.S. training philosophy in mind.

That wasn’t the reality on the ground. Training was supposed to begin each day at 0830hrs. Usually, it was closer to 0900hrs. Lunch break began at 1200hrs. The Afghans were given an hour for lunch. They got another hour for prayer. Training resumed between 1400hrs and 1430hrs. The day officially ended at 1630hrs but usually training ended closer to 1600hrs. On Thursday, training ended for the day at 1200hrs. Friday was an off day. Saturday through Wednesday, you were lucky to get five hours a day with about two hours worth of training on Thursday for a grand total of twenty-seven hours a week. That was a good week. Afghans in training also were given religious and national holidays.

The Herat RTC had an Afghan cadre backed up by U.S. police mentors. DynCorp had that contract. They were shot at, rocketed, mortared, IED’d, and the Afghans whom they were training occasionally rioted in the camp. The DynCorp guys worked until the mission was completed. That sometimes meant staying in the office until ten at night. The Afghans literally ran for the gate as soon as the clock struck 1600hrs.

* * *

Colonel Hekmatullah was the Afghan deputy commander of the Herat RTC. He was a mean, black bearded son of a bitch who looked like he’d stepped out of a
Pirates of the Caribbean
movie. Rumor had it that he ran part of Herat. He was the enforcer on the RTC. If the Afghans got out of line, he’d smack them around. I saw him slap a trainee for not saluting him. The dude was a hard ass. He supervised nearly every aspect of the training from the Afghan instructors to the dining facility meals.

On one occasion, I saw him inspecting a bread delivery. Mirwais and I happened to be standing nearby when Hekmatullah started yelling. I asked Mirwais, “What the hell is going on there?”

“This guy delivered moldy, stale bread. Hekmatullah has his ass.”

“What’s he saying?”

“Take this out of here. You are contracted to supply us with edible bread. This is all spoiled. Take it away and bring back what we are paying for tomorrow.”

The bread delivery guy started to say something when BAM! Hekmatullah smacked him across the face. Mirwais continued to translate.

“If you bring shit like this ever again, I will kill you.”

The bread guy jumped back in the truck without saying a word and drove off. The next day, the same guy showed up with a load of fresh baked bread. His head was bandaged. His arm was in a sling. He refused to look Hekmatullah in the eye.

Later Mirwais told me, “Dave, Hekmatullah is crazy. He sent some of his guys to the bakery last night. They beat the shit out of the baker and his sons. One of his sons is in the hospital.”

Roger walked up as Mirwais was telling me this. “It’s true. I heard the same thing from the commander. But we stay out of Afghan affairs. Nothing we could do about it anyway. It’s as they say … their culture.”

My team and I participated in a total of eight FDD iterations while I was in western Afghanistan. Focus District Development was hailed as a great success by the politicians and generals. I believe that we had successes and we trained a lot of police. Great success? The jury is still out.

¹⁹
WTF—what the fuck

²⁰
Commandahn
is the Dari word meaning “commander.”

Masjid Jami

April 2008

I was getting ready for the drive to the Herat PHQ with the Herat Army mentor team. It was my third trip down with these guys. The Herat team was pretty laid back following the lead of its two officers Jonny Fernandez and Lou Johnson. They were U.S. Army captains who were on their second tour in Afghanistan. Each had served a tour in Iraq as well. They were professional but knew when to take it a notch back and when to get serious.

Usually when I was on these missions, Captain Jonny let me have the logistics crew and stepped back. He was also tasked with operations and food service mentoring. For him, that was enough without worrying about me. Being left to my own devices allowed me to do what I wanted. It also allowed me to sneak away occasionally.

The Herat PHQ was a walled compound that had been a cavalry barracks back in the day. The front gate was flanked by a pair of old horse-drawn artillery pieces. Driving through the gate, the barracks were on the left-hand side. Those barracks were converted from horse stables. Horses were stabled there for the Afghan cavalry back in the late 1800s. In the rear of the compound were a few two-storey buildings and a small mosque. The offices of the commanding general for Herat Province took up the top floor of the central building. My mentees and the logistics crew were officed in the lower floor of the rear buildings.

I was walking up to see the loggies with Rasul and Mirwais when I saw Khoda Daad, my student in the first logistics course on Camp Zafar back in October, who had also attended a second course in January. I had run into him several times since those courses both at the PHQ and the RHQ.