The Watch (29 page)

I watch Simonis disassemble the rifle. It’s beautifully maintained and oiled, the simplicity of its design ensuring both reliability and ease of use by the conscript soldiers of the Taliban. Simonis also points out how the firing mechanism increases accuracy since the shooter has to work the bolt to unload a used bullet and cycle the next bullet in the internal magazine into place, which allows him to hone in on the target. Coupled with this accuracy is power: each bullet is designed to kill in a single shot at ranges of 500 to 700 meters or more. In comparison, our units seldom engage outside of 350 meters. It just makes me glad the enemy doesn’t have the M1, M2, or 03A3, the Springfields used by U.S. snipers in Korea.

N
IGHT
.

I am haunted by the image of one of the Taliban fighters. He was tall and young, and there was an air of the invincible about him. He seemed totally unconcerned about his safety as he strolled—and I use that word deliberately—through the rain of bullets, firing his Kalashnikov at our positions. I recall being baffled, and then awed, by his insouciance. If this was the caliber of the men we were fighting, driven as they were by a hankering for heaven, then all of our vaunted training amounted to nothing. Even I, with my intellect and education, had nothing that matched up to that kind of belief.

Later, when the smoke from the JDAM had cleared, I saw him trying to crawl up a rocky slope with his right arm and leg sheered
away by the blast. My men whooped, but I found myself unable to share in their jubilation. Eventually someone shot him through the head and put him out of his misery. It was like killing a young lion in a slaughterhouse, an act without grace or dignity. This is not why I’d signed up to fight this war. The way he died made me feel angry and ashamed.

D
AY
.

Shame.

The ancient Greeks lived and died by a code of honor—lived in the sense that the forces sustaining their existence, their most fundamental self-image—depended on being perceived and judged as meeting that code. And shame was honor’s polar opposite, so that when a Homeric warrior like Ajax enacted a shameful act, the result was an abrupt and complete collapse of personality.

This reminds me of the Pashtuns. Their codes are alien to me—I loathe their bloodlust and misogyny—but I think I understand, and sympathize with, the clarity of their honor–shame dichotomy.

During our stint in Khost province, I asked a captured Taliban, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, why he had fought with such blatant disregard for self-preservation. I asked him if he wasn’t afraid of dying, and I can still remember his reply word for word: Why should I be afraid? One day time will consume you as surely as it will me. It’s a question of how long one is willing to wait. Meanwhile, to permit you to terrorize our land is a matter of shame, a dishonor greater than death.

Homer couldn’t have put it better.

N
IGHT
.

A bizarre thing happened to me today. While cleaning one of the old Victorian-era bolt-action rifles captured from the Taliban, I stuck
my ring finger accidentally into a knothole in its wooden stock. The more I tried to free my finger, the more it got wedged there. It was a blazing hot day: I must have spaced out for a moment. I felt myself becoming one with the stock, the gun, the ground, the field outside, the mountains. A branch whipped across my face. Sand spilled out of my knees; the sun scorched my gray stone head. All around me were shards of broken glass.

I freaked out and wrenched my finger free. The nail almost came off. But the joy of returning to reality was enough to overcome the pain. I almost sobbed with relief. I had to go to Doc to borrow a pair of tweezers to take out the splinters. He said my finger looked like a toothbrush. It took me an hour to extricate all the tiny, jagged slivers. The gun smelled of cordite, as did my finger.

D
AY
.

In response to the news report that’s obviously been nagging him ever since he listened to it a week ago, Connolly’s printed out a useful list of some of the things forbidden by the
Taliban when they were in power. He has copies of the list distributed to every member of the company, along with a handwritten note that reads: I want this to serve as a reminder, if one is needed, of the kind of people we’re up against.

    1. No woman allowed outside the home unless accompanied by a mahram (close male relative such as a father, brother, or husband).

    2. Women not allowed to buy from male shopkeepers.

    3. Women must be covered by the burqa at all times.

    4. Any woman showing her ankles must be whipped.

    5. Women must not talk or shake hands with men. No stranger should hear a woman’s voice.

    6. Ban on laughing in public.

    
7. Ban on women wearing shoes with heels, as no stranger should hear a woman’s footsteps.

    8. Ban on cosmetics. Any woman with painted nails should have her fingers chopped off.

    9. No woman allowed to play sports or enter a sports club.

10. Ban on women’s clothes in “sexually attracting colors.”

11. Ban on women washing clothes in rivers or any public places.

12. Ban on women appearing on the balconies of their houses. All windows to be painted over so that women cannot be seen from the outside.

13. Any street or place bearing a woman’s name or any female reference to be changed.

14. No one allowed to listen to music. No television or videos allowed.

15. No playing of cards or chess; no flying of kites.

16. No keeping of birds—any bird-keepers to be imprisoned and the birds killed.

17. Ban on all pictures in books and houses.

18. Anyone carrying un-Islamic books to be executed.

19. All people to have Islamic names.

20. All men, including boys, to wear Islamic clothes and cover their heads with caps or turbans. Shirts with collars banned.

21. Men must not shave or trim their beards, which should grow long enough to protrude from a fist clasped at the point of the chin.

22. Any non-Muslim must wear a yellow cloth stitched onto their clothes to differentiate them from believers.

I consider sending a copy to Emily to remind her why her ex-husband is fighting in Afghanistan, but then I decide against it as so much wasted effort. She’s gone, and I have to come to terms with it.

D
AY
.

It’s Jack’s birthday today. My baby’s going to be three. I stand on watch on the Hescos and imagine holding him in my arms, pointing out the featureless field and the mountains. Those mountains—every day they cast their long shadows early over our faces: by four we’re trapped in their darkness. Every day, they delay the sunrise so that we have to rise in the shadow of the unnaturally extended night. Our guns and grenades seem laughable against their immensity. It makes me wonder if this was what the Achaeans felt gazing from their beachholds at Troy’s impregnable fortress, their faith in their gods their only protection. But then again, these mountains are probably older than either Troy or Mycenae.

And what about my protection? Maybe I’ll settle for my child.

In my mind, I hold you up in my arms, little Jack. I hold you high up in the air like a candle to give myself the courage to go on. You are my shining light in this dark land.

D
AY
.

We’re visited this afternoon by the chief of police of the district. It’s his first visit to the base, as well as to the district itself, as he himself admits. Appointed more than a year ago, he continues to live in Kabul, this alleged hero of the war of resistance against the Soviets. We pay the government that pays him to pretend to carry out his salaried obligations. This iconic sonofabitch has mastered the secret of how the game is played. Before he leaves, he asks Connolly to sign a stamped piece of paper attesting to his visit, which he terms an inspection. Connolly points to the dirt road leading into the mountains and tells him he’ll sign the paper when police outposts have been set up all along the trail. Connolly’s dusty serenity catches our guest by surprise. He says the area falls within our sphere of responsibility. I feel proud of the way Connolly handles the situation.

Thirty years ago, he points out, there used to be police outposts in the mountains.

The police chief smiles uncomfortably and says: They now exist only in the realm of memories.

Connolly smiles as well and says: As does your stamped document. Then he adds: The rules have changed since I took over, Humbaba. It’s pay to play.

Humbaba? But my name is Sher Ali … it means “tiger.”

Connolly says: You can call me Clark Kent—and this is Fortress America. Okay?

He walks the chief to his Toyota and tells him not to come back until he’s got a plan to police the mountains.

N
IGHT
.

Apparently the Pashtun ruler Abdur Rahman Khan coined the term Yaghestan—Land of the Rebellious—to describe his country. No Pashtun likes to be ruled by another, he said, not even by another tribe or sub-tribe. I thought of the Soviets who’d originally set up this base more than twenty years ago and then left in haste when the mountain tribes united and swept down in a concerted attack. There’s still some Russian graffiti on the dried-earth walls next to the mess tent. For instance, one wall carries a scrawl that reads: “Gorkii Park.” One of the ANA translated it for me. Some wag—probably someone from our platoon—has scribbled next to it in English: “Linkin’ Park.”

Another wall records the distance from the base to “Moskva: 5197 km.” I make a mental note to find out the distance to Washington, D.C.

N
IGHT
.

I read a passage tonight that helped me understand the locals. It was from
The Germania
, by
Tacitus:

“When not engaged in warfare they spend a certain amount of time in hunting, but much more in idleness, thinking of nothing else but sleeping and eating. For the boldest and most warlike men have no regular employment, the care of house, home, and fields being left to the women, old men, and weaklings of the family. In thus dawdling away their time they show a strange inconsistency—at one and the same time loving indolence and hating peace.”

I showed Connolly the passage, and he sent it to Colonel Lautenschlager at Battalion, who got a kick out of it.

Connolly’s trying hard to make up for his meltdown the other night.

I understand, but I can’t deny that there’ve been times when I’ve wanted to tell him to take his know-it-all attitude and shove it. Nothing personal.

All the same, I can’t resist asking him about the strategy that saw us moved out in haste from our previous position in Khost province and reinstalled here in Kandahar in an area far from established lines of support. His jaw sets in a familiar obstinate expression, and he insists, rather mulishly, that the generals know what they are doing.

In response, I cite a passage I’d read in Herodotus the other day, where, writing in the fifth century
BCE
, he relates how the Egyptian priests were able to recite the names of the three hundred and thirty kings who’d reigned since the founding of their society, before going on to add that none of them had any significant achievements to their name.

I was reminded of our high command when I read that passage, I tell Connolly. Once again, with set jaw, he repeats his mantra about the generals knowing best. I give up and leave him to his own devices.

Evan Connolly is the perfect midlevel officer, cramped but shipshape—of limited imagination and initiative—whose strategic
thinking goes no further than the Hescos that surround “his” base. His kind carry out their orders blindly, climb the chain of command steadily, and end up perpetuating the mistakes of the generals they replace. Because of them, the rest of us are condemned to be saddled with all of the servitude and none of the grandeur that accompanies the discipline of military service. And these are the men who command us against the Pashtuns, men born to the gun and the sword, Dear Lord.

D
AY
.

I had a vision of Dad’s hand closing over mine while cleaning my M-4 this afternoon. I was wiping the chamber with a cotton swab when I felt the pressure of his hand. It felt exactly as if he left it there for a moment—while I went very still. I saw the familiar wedding band on his ring finger, the old burn mark on his wrist, the prominent veins on the back of his hand. A rush of warmth flooded through me, and I was a child in his arms again. The sun lighting up the oil-slicked steel was no longer the sun of Kandahar but of the Vermont countryside. I heard blackbirds singing, an old backhoe going off somewhere in the distance, Eve running around in the yard. Pastel New England colors; subtle New England scents. When I went back to cleaning the magazine springs, what was before my eyes was not the dust and grit coating the M-4, but the mud and dust of an American summer. It went deep, this feeling. Dad and I cleaned that rifle together, working hand over hand.

N
IGHT
.

A scattering of tall poles stuck into dark ground that turns out, on closer observation, to be water. A sheet of still water with indefinite boundaries, lit up only by a diffused spotlight that forms a backlit
circle in place of the sky. It’s neither night nor day, so I can’t make out the time. An indistinct shape drifts between the poles, but its form is so hazy that it might be a boat or something else altogether. Three or four crows perch on top of the poles, but they are motionless. I wait for something to happen, and sure enough, a dark head rises out of the water. Soon the figure is wading at chest height, and I guess, with a degree of certainty that I cannot explain, that it’s Emily. She bends over and fishes an object out of the water. I know it’s Jack, but the strangest thing is the way she holds him, by an ankle, with the rest of him dragging underwater. I’m about to call out when she yanks him up and I see—distinctly—a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. There’s no blood, but I can see right through the hole to the other side. I attempt to reach them, but something holds me back and I wake up shouting.