Soldier Girls (35 page)

A few days later, Debbie spoke with her daughter, and Ellen Ann said her cervix was now three centimeters dilated. She was experiencing mild contractions. The doctor had said he wanted to induce the birth on the following morning if she didn't go into full labor that evening. Ellen Ann had packed her things and put the baby seat into the car. Debbie felt anxious and far from home. Gretchen Pane loaned Debbie her cell phone, which Debbie took to work with her the following day, but she got no news from Indiana. That night she used Gretchen's phone to get the latest update.

I called the kids + they're in her room at the hospital. They gave her the meds + broke her water. Her dad came I'm glad I know that will make her feel a little better. She is having contractions + a lot more pain. They are bringing her an epidural soon but it still could be a while. I'm afraid to lay down + I am hating life about now by not being there but she has a lot of support but hopefully she is missing me a little bit. I can't wait to hear her voice. I bought some cigars. Swisher Sweets.

Unable to sleep, Debbie called Ellen Ann again at 3:30 a.m. in Afghanistan and learned that her daughter had received the epidural. Three hours later, when it was about 7:00 a.m. in Kabul, Debbie got the phone call she had been waiting for: Ellen Ann had just given birth to a
healthy baby girl, seven pounds, fifteen ounces. “Had problems in canal her shoulders were too big almost had to take her C-sect but gave one last hard push + she did it. . . . I probably should of been there.”

Ellen Ann said the baby wanted to sleep all the time, and she had to wake her up to feed. Debbie said she had to do the same with Ellen Ann. Jeff had gone to the hospital, which made Debbie glad because it felt as though Jeff had stood in for her. “The kids are great + Jaylen is doing fine with Mom-Dad in her room,” wrote Debbie in her diary. “I might have pics tomorrow. Well I haven't been to bed yet too excited so I need to try + sleep.”

The next morning, Debbie checked her email and was thrilled to see the first pictures of her granddaughter. “She is a beauty looks like EA with those fat cheeks of hers,” Debbie wrote. She bought a carved wooden chest at the bazaar and mailed it to Jaylen; it seemed romantic to send such an exotic gift from halfway around the globe. Someday she would tell her granddaughter that she had been doing important work in Afghanistan at the hour of her birth. Bravo Company surprised Debbie with a celebration to mark the occasion:

My what a great night. A Granny Party for me. . . . I was so surprised. . . . [W]hen we got to MWR we walked in + I noticed it was crowded but still didn't get it. . . . So I stopped looked back again + everyone was clapping taking pictures + I started forward + they said this is for you + I said for me? A Granny/Jaylen shower party. So I had a blonde moment. But it was so nice because they know I would like to of been home but it was nice of my family here to do something so nice. It really was great!

And then it was May. They still had to survive two more months but it already felt like summer. Debbie asked Akbar to build her a flower box, which she hung outside the window of her B-Hut. An unexpected hailstorm filled the flower box with hailstones, but her seeds sprouted anyway, small tufts of green poking up from the black dirt, signs of new beginning. Debbie started playing softball in the evenings, instead of going down to supply. The battalion also began the monumental task of packing up to go home—some soldiers were going to depart in six
weeks, others in nine, and the final group in twelve, but the first conexes full of gear were going to ship out that month. The soldiers combed the bazaar for souvenirs: Michelle bought marble tea sets; Desma bought a blue burka; Debbie bought rugs, scarves, jewelry, gifts for everyone she knew.

The act of packing up unsettled Debbie. “I'm leery about going home,” she confessed to her diary. “Don't know why I am [not] ready I just feel like I haven't been here long enough yet I'm sure next month will seem different.” It was not the idea of returning to Jeff that felt off-putting; she longed to embrace him. They were planning to rent a hotel room to celebrate their reunion. “He also said that a hotel would be an expensive 5 min but I told him we would just do it again + again + again.” And she could not wait to meet her granddaughter. She could not put her finger on what was troubling; she wondered if perhaps she did not feel ready to leave because she had not bought enough souvenirs. But it could have been something to do with taking off the uniform and becoming the manager of a beauty salon again; maybe it had to do with self-worth, and the ways in which she felt more valuable as a soldier.

On Mother's Day, Akbar Khan told Debbie that she was like a real mother to him and gave her a gold watch set with cubic zirconia. “It's really nice,” Debbie wrote afterward. “I will be able to wear it at work it's very dressy. He is such a sweetie. Florida group better treat him right.” Florida would take their place just as they had followed Oklahoma. They all wondered how Akbar would be treated after they departed. Would others appreciate him as they had grown to do? Meanwhile, Akbar struck them as unusually withdrawn. Concerned, Debbie asked what was wrong, but he said it was nothing. Michelle also noticed his distance, but also failed to draw him out. Maybe he was worried about his father, Debbie thought; maybe there had been some sort of setback with his health. Then one morning, as they waited together by the motor pool, about to start their workday, Akbar turned to face them. “I need to talk to you,” he told the team. “I know you've been asking me what's bothering me, what's wrong. I want to explain: I have to get married.”

It was his mother's idea; she had selected the young woman. He didn't want to get married, but was trying to resign himself to the plan. The
rest of the armament team knew that their translator hoped to return to school for a graduate degree; complying would mean that Akbar and his new wife would move in with his mother, and instead he would work to support the extended clan. They objected, saying he should not accede to his mother's wishes. “This is what we do here,” Akbar said. “My mother is getting older, and my sister will probably leave the home soon—she will get married herself, and she won't be there to help my mother. And that leaves only the boys, my younger brothers, and it's not their place to help in the home. So the eldest son needs to take a wife.”

The team got into two vehicles and drove to the ANA depot, and opened up another box of AK-47s. The conversation about Akbar's predicament continued. They could not believe he was planning to marry a woman he had not even met. They asked how his mother had arranged his match and he said she would have sent a basket full of significant gifts, a certain kind of fruit, a particular type of candy. At one point Akbar mentioned that his mother had selected a young woman with a stellar reputation—her sister's daughter.

“Akbar, you can't do that,” Debbie interjected. “That's your first cousin.”

“This is what we do here,” Akbar replied.

“No, Akbar! You can't marry your first cousin,” Debbie insisted. “You'll have idiot children.”

He glowered at her, fell silent. After a moment, he said, “Mama, I have to tell you something. My parents are first cousins.”

In any event, they all understood that the marriage meant the end of Akbar's dreams. His mother had made all of the plans from Pakistan; her sister still lived in Afghanistan, in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, and it had been arranged that Akbar would meet his cousin there soon. They would meet at their own engagement party. None of the others could believe what Akbar was saying; they had heard of arranged marriages, of course, but it was another thing entirely to watch a young person they cherished bend to his mother's will. “Me, personally, being the same age as him, I mean, it just blew my mind to think about if my mother or my father got to choose, no discussion, no anything,” Michelle would
say later. They had come to the crux of the difference between their two cultures—the Americans kept saying things that spoke to their individualism, while Akbar kept trying to explain that for Afghans the basic orientation was communal.

The armament team viewed Akbar's forthcoming marriage as a disaster. He was not calling it that himself, but they sensed his devastation, and they responded as if a battle buddy had gotten caught in crossfire. They were a team, and you did not leave a fellow soldier behind. How could they save Akbar? Patrick Miller decided that if Akbar needed to get married, he should marry one of them. “Akbar, you should marry Michelle!” urged Miller. “Then you'll be able to move to the United States.” This struck everybody else as a good idea; Debbie loved Akbar, and she loved Michelle, it delighted her to think of the two of them getting married. Akbar looked at Michelle, and Michelle looked at Akbar. They had both been feeling an unspoken attraction to one another, and now it had been spoken, but not in the way that either of them had imagined.

“I would do that for you,” Michelle said.

Akbar shook his head. “She's not a Muslim,” he told everyone else. “It's not allowed for us to get married.”

Later, when they spoke privately, Akbar confessed to Michelle that he had strong feelings for her but he would not let her marry him out of pity. She didn't quite know how to respond—her life was already so complicated—so she just reiterated that they could get married if it would be helpful. He said no.

For the rest of the month, the armament team became fixated on Akbar's dilemma. He kept them apprised of every development. First his mother was traveling from Pakistan to help with the engagement party. Debbie wrote:

Akbar's mom is coming today to talk with him about getting married but he's not ready + doesn't know how to tell her because of traditions + culture. It's even his 1st cousin which makes it worse. Michelle + I told him he could have idiot kids. He is so afraid of hurting his mom's feelings + if he refuses he is shunned by the family. I told him he will have to come to America then. . . . Michelle said she would marry him so we could get him to the States!

Akbar left for Mazar-i-Sharif on May 19, 2005. He spoke to Debbie by phone shortly after the party. “Akbar has pictures she did not wear a burka I'm so glad that he would not say if she was pretty or not!” Debbie wrote. Several days later, when Akbar returned to Camp Phoenix, the armament team peppered him with questions. Jason Kellogg accompanied them to the depot that day, too. Akbar explained that his fiancée had been chaperoned at all times by her brother; at the party, Akbar and his fiancée had been seated at opposite ends of a crowded room. They had been able to see each other but could not talk. Afterward, however, Akbar's fiancée had been given a cell phone that her brother monitored. Akbar could call, and if the brother granted his permission, speak to his fiancée by phone. The armament team clamored to see what his wife-to-be looked like. Akbar took out a photograph and they all passed it around. They saw a young woman with a round face and masses of dark hair, who was wearing a brilliant blue dress.

“She's a knockout!” Patrick Miller pronounced.

“She's really pretty, Akbar,” Debbie confirmed.

“Well, how big are her boobs?” Jason Kellogg wanted to know. “You got to look at the whole package.”

“I don't know,” said Akbar stiffly.

“Akbar! You have to try her out,” Kellogg advised. “It's like test-driving a car before you buy it.”

“No, no, no,” said Akbar.

Michelle told Kellogg to shut up.

Eventually the armament team accepted that Akbar was not going to marry Michelle, and that he was going to do as his mother asked. “Poor Akbar still getting married to his cousin we can't help him,” wrote Debbie at the end of May.

The first soldiers left in June. The armament team found it painful to separate from Akbar, so they said good-bye twice. Patrick Miller came up with the idea of staging a formal ceremony to thank the translator for his work; they asked the company's XO to present him with a certificate of appreciation. They held the ceremony at Camp Phoenix on June 7, 2005. “We gave Akbar his certificate, he was really surprised,” Debbie wrote afterward. But it did not seem like enough. He had given them so much—knives, a watch, jingle truck chains, traditional Afghan
meals, a moment with his uncle, the sight of those kites, and most of all, an understanding of this place, a sense of its deeper meaning. Michelle had the idea to buy Akbar a computer as a parting gift, and found a refurbished fourteen-inch Compaq Presario laptop at the PX. The entire team pitched in. They gave the laptop to Akbar as they stood together by the gate to Camp Phoenix, when they were seeing him for the very last time. “Busy now getting everyone ready to leave,” wrote Debbie. “We gave Akbar his computer he was speechless. Put our addresses + pictures on it.”

Akbar Khan valued the gift more than the team could know, because it opened up a new world. And it allowed them to stay in touch. “The financial status I had at that time was not really good,” Akbar would say later. “I was struggling with financial stability. The first computer ever that I owned was the one that was gifted by the team to me—think about that, how much would that mean to me. In Afghanistan, we have this mentality, if a person helped me stand up in a certain area, no matter how much I achieve or what I become out of that help, still it is them who should always be thanked. I might go to a college and study professionally with computers, software, and hardware. But I cannot forget about that. According to our society, if I purchased a computer for every single one of them I cannot pay off that. It's a debt on my soul.”

Akbar vowed to come to the United States to visit, but nobody knew if this would transpire. It seemed implausible—but Akbar had grit. They watched him walk through the gate of Camp Phoenix, asking each other if they would ever see the young Afghan again. And what of his country? They wanted to believe the year they had spent in Afghanistan had made some kind of difference, that they had done some good. That all those weapons would be used to further some cause in which they could believe. And they wanted to have faith that the other relationships they had forged here would also continue. As she watched Akbar walk away, Michelle wore a new silver band on her ring finger. She had wanted a souvenir that would memorialize the time she had spent in this place, and she had asked Akbar to accompany her to the bazaar, to help her buy the ring. He had translated for her the words she had wanted inscribed on the inside of the band. “My heart belongs to Ben,” the ring
said in Dari, in a beautiful flowing script that she could not read. Those were the words she would wear next to her skin when she got home. It was her attempt to fix things in place, to secure this moment, to create something permanent out of all this change as she stood at the gate that divided Akbar's world from hers, on the brink of yet another journey.