NO REGRETS ~ An American Adventure in Afghanistan (9 page)

Once CRC cleared us, we drove to Baltimore Washington International Airport where we caught a military flight to Manis, Kyrgyzstan. Winters in the Kyrgyz Republic are harsh. When I debarked the aircraft, I nearly froze in place. Manis is an air force base near the Kyrgyz capital city of Bishkek. It is a central transit hub for contractors, individual military personnel, and units deploying to Afghanistan and re-deploying home to the States. It is a small base with a cadre that acted as a way station for folks entering and exiting Afghanistan.

After three days, we were finally manifested for a flight to Bagram. We’d flown into Manis during a major troop transition. Units were coming and going constantly. The military had priority on flights. Contractors were bumped regularly. It didn’t matter to me how long we stayed at Manis. Our uplift started the moment we landed at Manis.

Uplift is a portion of wages based on location. It was broken down into two parts: a post differential pay and a hardship pay. The rate is designated by the Department of State. OEF was designated as 35/35, meaning that there was a 35-percent uplift for post differential and a 35-percent uplift for hardship. Add it up and I was getting a 70-percent uplift on my base salary. If I was offered 93,500 U.S. dollars per year, multiply that by .70, and my annual salary would be around 156,000 U.S. dollars. If the Army wanted me to sit in Manis, that was on them. It was their dime.

Phoenix Rising

December 2005–Spring 2006

We flew into Bagram at noontime. I stayed in Bagram for about a week helping with the main Property Book Office but generally doing nothing. There were only three PBUSE stations at that time. Property Book Unit Supply Enhanced (PBUSE) was the new game in town for property accountability. The Army had replaced SPBS with this new online property accountability system. It was more user-friendly than the old SPBS boxes but if the main database systems at Fort Lee went down, the whole thing shut down. Other than that, I liked it. It was basically SPBS with a graphical user interface. I had been trained on the system while working for KBR when the Army had sent a training team to Afghanistan with a three-week course.

After the course, we had converted all of our SPBS boxes to PBUSE systems. It was a fairly easy transition. We loaded all of our data onto a 3.5” floppy disk. Our military counterpart delivered it to Fort Lee, Virginia. Fort Lee downloaded the data. Abracadabra! We were now PBUSE.

Within a week, Jim Carrel assigned me to Camp Phoenix which was located just outside of Kabul on Jalalabad Road, J-bad for short. It was a medium-sized base set up to house about six hundred personnel. The Army being the Army crammed over a thousand folks onto the camp. Rooms were at a premium. There were actually people hot-bunking, i.e., sharing beds in shifts.

We convoyed up to Phoenix with the Army. When we arrived, I was introduced to Rudy, Nate, and June who were all on Mantech contract. Jim took June and returned to Bagram. That was the last time that I’d see anyone from Bagram for five months.

Nate was a young dude who had been working in Germany when Mantech had been awarded the PBOSS contract. He had never worked property in his life. He had marital problems and only stayed for thirty days after I arrived. That left us a man short.

Rudy, who was my immediate boss, offered to show me around camp. It wasn’t necessary. When I worked for KBR, I transited through Phoenix when I traveled to Bagram from Eggers. It was pretty cool to be back at Phoenix
sans
KBR hat. I no longer had to worry about KBR rules. Mantech pretty much had no rules. They gave us a collared shirt to wear on Fridays. Other than that, we were given no dress code. We were blissfully free. As long as Rudy wasn’t an asshole, we could do as we pleased within the boundaries of Camp Phoenix rules and regulations. Phoenix rarely bothered us about anything.

Rudy was 5’7” and a 250lb ball of laughter. He was struggling with his weight and blood pressure. Green tea was the magical elixir that would get him back into game shape. I had my doubts.

“Dave, this green tea is workin’ for me. I’m losin’ pounds, bro!”

I laughed and shook my head. “Whatever gets you up in the mornin’, bro.”

The great thing about Rudy was that he was aware of his limitations. He didn’t know jack about property accountability and he knew it. He didn’t like being boss but he loved the pay. I ran the show from day one. Rudy and I talked. “Dude, you sit back and I’ll take care of the office. Go to the meetings, give reports, answer questions from the head shed. I’ll take care of everything else.”

Rudy answered in his squeaky voice, “Okay, Dave. Just don’t get me into trouble.”

“Who me? I never get into trouble. Nothing that I can’t get out of at any rate.”

That was that. For the rest of the time that Rudy was there, I ran the office. Rudy went to meetings and stayed out of the way.

Rudy was a walking hospital case and a bit of a hypochondriac. He suffered from sleep apnea and mild narcolepsy. He fell asleep in so many meetings with the military that they complained to the program manager and our contract officer in Bagram. Jim called me. “Dave, don’t let Rudy go to anymore meetings. He’s making us look like assholes. I want you to go instead.”

“For god’s sakes, Jim! He’s the team chief. If he’s not going to the meetings and he’s not doing shit else, then why the hell am I not being promoted?”

“Dave, we’ll take care of you.”

I was now
de facto
team chief, as recognized by the program manager and Mantech HQ. Rudy rarely came to the office for more than a few minutes. He either sat outside smoking cigars, went to the PX, or watched TV and slept in his room. Rudy spent over nine months in Afghanistan. He took home around 150,000 to 160,000 U.S. dollars and didn’t do a goddamn thing the whole time. I didn’t harbor ill will towards the guy. Hell, I admired his pluck. It wasn’t his fault that Mantech had hired his incompetent ass and was unwilling to admit its mistake.

When I came on with Mantech, I was promised master supply tech position. However, my security clearance had lapsed, and it took until late December to be completed. Two days before Mantech had hired a guy to take my position. I raised hell. The guy was a National Guard master sergeant who had never worked property book. I’d have to train the guy and he’d be one level above me. Essentially, he’d be my boss but under Rudy. That would place two people over me who didn’t have a clue how to do the job. I was pissed and ready to check out. I was already more experienced than most of the team chiefs, yet sitting at the bottom of the totem pole. I couldn’t believe it. I called Jim again. “Jim, if you bring this fuck in, how is it that you are going to bump me ahead of him if Rudy departs contract. Keep the position open and fill the lower position when my clearance comes through.” Jim hemmed and hawed on the issue. He was under pressure to get personnel on the ground. Luckily, two days later, my clearance came through. They gave the new guy a choice. He could take the lower position or return to the States. Bruce took the position.

A couple of days later at the Phoenix PX, Bruce and I ran into Shelly, a gal I had met when I was a KBR stooge in Bagram. She was with a couple of friends of hers. We walked out front and chatted for a while.

“This is Wendy and Alicia. Wendy works with me. Alicia ushers around Afghan laborers all day long.”

It was odd that a female was a labor escort. Female escorts have had problems with Afghans in the past. Afghans do not like to be given instructions by women. It’s a cultural thing. Women are subservient to men in nearly all cases. A powerful woman in Afghanistan is rare. Even the parliamentary members are there mostly for symbolism. The female parliament members are hardly independent and they uniformly vote as directed by their local warlord. Bush and his cronies liked to brag about women in parliament but it was smoke and mirrors. Yes, they were there. They were elected but only because the local warlord told his people to vote for her to keep the aid dollars and bribes flowing.

“Alicia, do you get much push back from the Afghans? Do they actually listen to you?”

“I had a few problems at first. I wrote one guy up and KBR fired him. After that, no one gave me any problems. They knew I wasn’t to be messed with.”

“Listen, Dave. We’ve gotta go. We’re meeting up with some people. We’ll see you around,” said Shelly.

“Sure. Safe travels!”

* * *

With Mantech, we were allowed a two-week R&R every six months. It sucked. I was accustomed to going every four months with KBR. At that fourth month, I started getting stir crazy. I lost focus at the fifth month. By the sixth month, I was ready to shoot someone in the face. I felt like Jack Nicholson in
The Shining
… “Here’s, Johnny!”

Rudy took R&R fairly late in his contract. While he was away, I took Bruce with me on a booze run, which I had gotten accustomed to doing with Rudy. I had earlier purchased two “gorilla boxes” to hide the booze. We put the booze in the bottom of the boxes and placed old documents on top of it. Perfect camouflage. If the guards ever stopped us, I doubted that they’d sift through the papers. As we drove off base, I waved to the gate guards. They knew me by face and waved me through. It freaked me out a bit that we were never stopped. No one cared that two civilians were constantly driving off base?

We drove onto J-bad and headed to my favorite convenience store in Kabul. At Ciano’s, an Italian version of the U.S. Army’s AAFES PX, we grabbed our booze and a few other sundry items, paid for them, and were out the door. I walked out the gate and stopped at the guard shack. “
Salaam
, Brother!” We shook hands and exchanged man hugs.

As Bruce and I headed out, I decided on a detour. I wasn’t feeling Camp Phoenix at that moment. “Bruce, wanna drive around? You haven’t been around Kabul, have you?”

“Sure, let’s do it.”

I turned onto J-bad Road and drove towards Kabul. A few minutes later, we were deep in the city and stuck. I weaved in and out of traffic as best I could. I drove on the wrong side of the street. A couple of times, I jumped up on the sidewalk. An Afghan police officer waved us down and I pulled over. He looked harmless.

“Would you like to have tea with me?”

“What?”

“Tea, sir? Would you like some tea?”

“Are you serious?”

“Where are we going to drink it?”

“Oh, right here.”

“At the traffic circle? Really?”

“Yes, I would like to talk English.”

“I’m sorry fella. We can’t just stop right here. Maybe next time.” And I drove off. “Bruce, what the fuck was that?”

“Hell Dave, I’ve never been down here before. You tell me.”

“I can’t believe that he stopped us to ask us to have tea with him. In the middle of the traffic circle no less. What the fuck?” Bruce laughed.

I’d turned us around and had absolutely no idea where we were. I kept looking for Antenna Hill. We drove past the famous Mustafa Hotel, which was advertised as a nice place to stay in Afghanistan in the
Lonely Planet
travel guide. I had passed it once and actually saw some dudes walking out of it with backpacks and what looked like city maps.

It seemed like nearly every back alley had a steaming pile of refuse with sheep and goats bloating themselves on it. I reckon that was how they got rid of their trash. Goats and sheep ate it. Eventually, I ran into the old city wall. It was an ancient wall that surrounded the city of Kabul at one time. Only portions of it still stood. I followed the wall down to an intersection and off to my right was Antenna Hill. Now I could get us home. Straight towards the hill until I came to the traffic circle that would take me to J-bad Road.

I managed to get us on track back to Camp Phoenix. Twenty minutes later, we were pulling into the gate.

“What’s up Rambo?” I yelled out the window.

Rambo was a permanent fixture at Camp Phoenix. He was an Afghan that was employed early on to man the gate with U.S. Army security personnel. Rambo was a widower with no family. He slept at the gate and ate on base. The Army had issued him U.S. Army uniforms to wear. I talked to him a couple of times. The Soviets had killed half of his family and the Taliban murdered the other half. It was a sad story but Rambo always had a ready smile and a warm greeting for everyone.

The guy was courageous and loyal to his new friends—the Americans. He swore by America and defended Camp Phoenix against the intruders with his life. Not long after I arrived at Phoenix, an insurgent had driven up to the gates and tried to detonate himself. Rambo ran over to the car, pulled the insurgent out and beat the guy half to death. Rambo had been bombed, IED’d, and shot at repeatedly. The Army offered to send him to America. Rambo refused. “Afghanistan, good or bad, is my home. I will die here with my family.” He was one of the most famous Afghans in Kabul.

Rambo waved us through without looking at our ID cards. At the second gate, we were stopped. I rolled down the window and asked, “Dude, what can I do ya for?” Before he could answer, a second guard walked over and waved us off. As I drove off, I heard, “Don’t stop them. They’re Special Forces.” That solved the mystery as to why I was never stopped at the gate. Somehow, I had become a Special Forces operator. I don’t know how the rumor started. While I had long hair and was working in Afghanistan, folks often assumed that I was SF or some covert operative. People watched too many action flicks.

When we made it back to the office, I got a call from Jim. Rudy had a medical emergency and would be returning late from R&R. A month passed and Rudy was still not back. Mantech decided to let him go. I was promoted to team chief. Bruce was promoted to master supply technician. We hired a new guy to take Bruce’s old position. The new guy was Shaquille. Shaq was a brother out of North Carolina and a huge college basketball fan. He rooted for the Tar Heels but he wasn’t a fanatic freak about it. Shaq and I talked college basketball all the time. Shaq was a good worker and knew how to relax. Bruce and I added Martel to our weekly shopping list. Shaq fit right in.