Unspoken Abandonment (7 page)

Earlier
this morning,
as
we drove
through the scene of
last night’s bombing
,
and th
en
later when I was looking at the remains of the other car bomb, I
could
n
o
t help but wonder how many times you can tempt fate and
still walk away
. How many times can you keep pulling straws before you
finally
pull the short one? I wonder if I
a
m really going to get through this
.

March 9,
2003
:

Lately we
ha
ve been noticing a lot of suspicious people
,
all
just hanging around in the streets
surrounding
the compound. Just the other day, dayshift soldiers in the
OPs
reported seeing Afgh
ans in the street taking notes
as they walked the perimeter just beyond our walls
.

Tonight
, at the start of my shift
and
just
a few minutes
after midnight, a minivan drove around the streets of the compound a few times. I got out of the OP and laid flat on the top of the wall, using sandbags as cover. As the radio lit up with chatter, I could hear the Sergeant on duty telling us all to be ready to hit the van. I saw the van turning from the south end of the compound and traveling north on the street along the west wall.
I had my M249 aimed dead on the driver’s side, just waiting to kill every fucking thing in that van. As I watched the van coming towards me, I heard the sergeant yelling, “Get someone with an AT-4 on that west wall.” An AT-4 rocket launcher will take the whole van out, but not before me and my machinegun could
do
the same fucking thing. I could hear the engine of the van revving as it sped along the street towards me. I rested my finger on the trigger and began to gently squeeze, waiting for the order to take out the driver. The Sergeant then ordered us to stand down. As the van passed the south gate, the guards saw the passenger holding a video camera
,
and the Sergeant wanted to have patrol units outside the gate go after the vehicle rather than us engage.

I can still hear the engine screaming as that van was speeding towards my location on the wall, and I still feel the anxiety of wondering if I was going to kill the driver or, even worse, if the god damned thing was going to blow up near me.

We
ha
ve
recently
been getting a lot of
information
suggesting local Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters are planning an assault on the compound. The plan we
ha
ve been hearing is they
intend
to
simultaneously
detonate multiple car bombs along the exterior
walls and
the main gate
s
, and
t
hen use the chaos to have fighters armed with small arms rush in, killing as many as they can.
We thought it was all bullshit, but tonight really tells me there is something to it. It might actually happen. The passenger with the camera was vide
otaping our reaction to the van.
They will most likely
analyze
the video
and identify the most vulnerable points. This shit is real.

Afghanistan has been
hit
very hard by a drought for the past several years, but the rain has returned
this year
. The growing season
is right around the corner
and
,
with the recent rain
,
the season should be very productive.
We are all hoping
that people will be more concerned with growing crops and ending the famine than with fighting and attacking coalition troops.

Another hope for peace in Afghanistan is the recent surge in the economy. The
locals
here live in a poverty that is beyond comprehension for most
other
people, but it is showing signs of improvement. With troops from around the world in Afghanistan, money is flowing in
,
and it
i
s starting to trickle down to some people. There are public works jobs starting to appear, some people are working directly for the American military, and others are starting small businesses. Granted these small businesses might be
along the lines of repairing
bicycle tires, but
at least
it
i
s some type of work. The problem is far from fixed, but I think some people
here may see a glimmer of hope,
a
hope they have no
t seen for a long, long time.

I just hope the rain, along with a new sense of hope for many Afghans
,
is enough to curb the violence that is ripping this place apart.

March 10,
2003
:

Massoud and I were talking at the main gate last night and just killing time. Massoud has been trying to teach me Dari, the language people speak in Kabul, but I
a
m not really very interested. When I leave here, when will I ever need to speak Dari? Pretty useless, but he has taught me a few useful
things: “Show me your hands,” “G
et down on the ground,”
and
“
Don’t move or you will be shot.”

Massoud was also telling me about Islam and Islamic prayers. He really seems intent on us being as safe as possible
,
and he wants us
to
constantly
look for specific things when we are on patrol in the city. One of the
things he wants us to watch for
is prayer
. Massoud said Afghan Muslims have a very specific set of rules to follow just before and just after someone’
s death. Massoud said suicide bombers very often follow some of these rules
,
and
these
can cause them to stand out in
a crowd
. Massoud taught me a few key prayer phrases to listen for. If we see someone
sitting
in a car or walking in the street praying, we want to be somewhere else and fast!

The night was very quiet
,
and there was virtually no activity on the streets. Everyone thinks that being in a war is nothing but non-stop action and fighting. I thought that too before I came here. It
i
s actually ninety percent boredom mixed with ten percent shitting your pants,
and there is absolutely
nothing in between.
You
a
re either bored crazy or knee deep in some shitty mess.

We have been trying to change that and find little ways to have fun. We managed to find a TV
and some bootleg DVDs for sale
on
Chicken Street, and one of the guys had someone from home send a DVD player. When we do have down time, we have been watching movies lately
,
and it
i
s actually a lot of fun. We’ll grab a bunch of snacks from the care packages we
receive
d
, throw on a movie, and crowd around the TV. It’s funny how something like watching a movie can be so much fun when you
stop
tak
ing
it for granted.

A few of the other guys are also into Jiu Jitsu
,
so
a few of us chipped in and bought
a couple of sets of heavy gloves
to start
our own
version of
a training center
. That is actually some of the most fun I
ha
ve had
here
in
Afghanistan;
however, w
e
do
n
o
t get to do that very often
because we need to keep it very quiet. If the command staff ever found out we were beating the shit out of each other for fun, they
would put a stop to that very quickly
, and
I think that i
s half the fun of it.

Another
activity we have found to
pass the time is gambling
, and
we
gambl
e
on everything.
We
bet on coin tossing, on cards, and
on
anything else
which we
can
no
t control the outcome.
Some of the guys
have
started
a new
gambling pastime
that is
very popular with everyone. We wi
ll
all
start looking under rocks and old boards until we find
one
scorpion and
one
camel spider.
C
amel spiders are
very large,
hairy spiders that are creepy as
can be
. Once
they
ha
ve one of each, they wi
ll put them in a box. The two will fight, and everyone bets which one will win.

I have the worst luck in the world
when it comes to gambling,
so I just hang on to my money. The only time I gamble is
when I eat
the
food
from
outside of
our
compound
.
The food usually
goes down and comes out
just
fine,
but
other times not so
much. Sometimes the food here gi
ves you diarrhea so bad you need an I
.
V
.
to replace all the fluids you
ha
ve
lost. Everyone calls it the “
Haj
ji
b
lowout.”

Supplies come and go
;
sometimes
supplies are
good, and sometimes they’re slim. When supplies are slim we still get food on the compound, but when we’re out on missions
we
need to do what
we
can to eat.
W
hen that situation arises, we are
usually left to survive off of the local economy. We
will
buy meat or live animals from
desert
nomads, and
it i
s
usually not
that
bad.
I use the phrase “not that bad” quite loosely.
S
ometimes it gets rough
,
and
you
end up with a
case
of that
Ha
j
ji
b
lowout.

March 11,
2003
:

Today was only day eighteen in Afghanistan. In some ways the time seems to be flying by, but in others it is going so slowly. Before we got to Afghanistan, my unit was in upstate New York for over a month of training. I
ha
ve been away
for about two months now, and I a
m really missing home. I hoped that as time went on I
woul
d get
used to it, but I really have no
t.
I know I still have a long road ahead of me, and I probably should
no
t
even
think of being home. It i
s easier said than done, and my mind
drifts
back there a lot.

It seems like every day is the same thing, over and over again. Nothing pleasant ever happens here, and no news is ever good news. Every day there is some new threat against us
,
or
there
something else to be worried about. Every time we leave the
relative safety of the compound
I
see something else that makes
me
sick, and
I
possibly
come one step closer to
my
card being pulled.

I have this weird feeling of emptiness inside. It seems as though everything good in my life has been replaced with something bad. Everything that I used to look forward to has been replaced with something I
either fear or loathe
. Everyone I loved has been replaced with feelings of sadness
, and they
need to be bottled up and never shown. I have a job to do here, and I
a
m going to do it. I can deal with these feelings some other day, but for now they just need to stay locked away.