Unspoken Abandonment (11 page)

Right in front of the safe house, the other half of my squad found a piece of crap pickup truck with a tarp thrown over the bed of the truck. They found AK47s, three rocket propelled grenades, five or six rockets, and a lot of ammunition. It was
n
o
t the mother lode
of weapons we were expecting, but
it was
still
a nice
find.

Once everything was settled, and everyone was secured and
restrained, the
Intel
guys did their thing and made some phone calls on a portable satellite phone.
We were all told to hang tight
and secure the people inside. About an hour later, an Afghan National Army (A.N.A.) truck came with an A.N.A. squad.

The A.N.A. squad met with our
Intel
guys for a few minutes
, and
they
then began taking prisoners out of the safe house. It took them a few minutes to sort out who was who, but they eventually brought seven people out to the trucks and left two of the prisoners in the residence. We were told that the seven prisoners were being taken into custody by the A.N.A. and would be transported to a facility to be interviewed by them. I stayed inside, with two other troops, to watch the two remaining prisoners. After a few minutes, two A.N.A. soldiers came in and gestured for us to leave the shack.

We walked out of the shack, leaving the two prisoners with the two A.N.A. soldiers. Within seconds of walking
beyond
the door
and into the dusty street
, I heard a single gunshot, followed by a short yell and a second gunshot which was followed by silence. A moment later, the two Afghan soldiers exited the shack, one still holstering a handgun.

I did
n
o
t need to go inside to c
onfirm what we all knew. I did no
t need to see two more bodies. That
i
s
one thing I do
n
o
t write about
very often in this
journal
, but death is constantly around us. Death is a part of life in Afghanistan, and these are just two more dead bodies that I do
n
o
t really care to see.

I asked the
Intel
guy why he wanted us to take the two Al Qaeda officers alive if they were just going to be killed. He
told me
those were
his orders and
said, “We were just told to take them alive for A.N.A. Once we transfer custody, what they do is up to them,” and that was the last that was spoken about it.

Seeing things like this in television or movies is one thing, but when it
i
s right in front of your face, day in and day out, it
i
s something completely different. The part that scares
me
is I feel like I
a
m growing numb to it all. In the beginning, my stomach used to churn when I saw a dead person, and the results of such violence seemed to haunt me.
Now though
, it
i
s different. I barely even seem to care. It
is almost as if they a
re not even human to me
anymore
, and I a
m not sure where I lost that.
I think it is an internal defense to dehumanize these situations to make them easier to deal with.

As we loaded into the vehicles, we left with the
sight
of a ki
d, maybe six or seven years old and
with both legs missing, trying to
hobble his way to our vehicle
to get some food or water from us. The driver just drove away,
blasting
the
cloud of dust kicked up by the vehicle towards the little boy.
This place is killing me.
It
i
s
absolutely
killing me.

March 22,
2003
:

Today marked one month in Afghanistan.
The past m
onth seems to have gone by fast
and
yet
dragged by at the same time. It sounds kind of str
ange, but it
i
s hard to explain. It seems like a milestone, until I stop and realize that I still have months and months to go. When I look at it like that, it feels like I
ha
ve accomplished almost nothing.

Next door to our compound is a house that is actually quite lavish, at least by Afghan standards. It
i
s the home of a powerful warlord, and although it may seem like a bad neighbor to have
,
it actually works to our benefit. He is a very powerful person in Kabul
,
and he has a lot of influence over the local police, A.N.A. soldiers, and other paramilitary groups in the area. I guess it kind of keeps us a little safer knowing that some people may be less likely to attack us in fear that it will piss off the warl
ord; however,
I guess it could
also
make us a target for rival groups who hate him
even more than they hate us
.
We could just end up in the crossfire.

For the past month that I
ha
ve been here, I can see that the relationship between us and our illustrious neighbor is less than harmonious. During the day, our compound is usually buzzing with activity and always very loud. Trucks are coming in and out all day, people are constantly yelling, and
we are basically
shitty neighbors.
A
ny time we play wi
ffle ball in the rear of the compound, the ball always manages to make its way over the wall and into his yard. From the shit they yell back at us, I can only assume it pisses him off
an awful lot
.

Early this morning, at the very end of the midnight shift
, our neighbor came to the front gate demanding to see the commander about something that pissed him off.
The “gate” is
n
ot really much of a gate; it i
s just a short driveway that cuts through the compound with a checkpoint at each end. There is a bar that can be raised at each checkpoint, along with a lot of machineguns.

The Colonel said he was
n
o
t coming out to meet with the warlord, and
he
instructed
the Sergeant on
duty to go in his place. The Sergeant informed
our neighbor
that the Colonel was
n
o
t coming, and
he
became infuriated. He announced that he was coming in anyway, and he proceeded to walk past the first checkpoint. The Sergeant tried cutting in front of him, but the warlord sidestepped and continued to walk. The Sergeant then forced himself in front of the warlord.

Another Sergeant yelled over the radio, “Wood, put your sights on him. If he reaches for anything, touches Sarge, or gets to that second checkpoint, you fucking drop him.”

My M249 was already aimed right at his chest, locked and loaded, with my finger on the trigger. I slowed my breathing down, and watched his hands as he and the Sergeant yelled back and forth. Even though it was no warmer than fifty degrees outside, I could feel a
bead of sweat form on my brow.

He was pacing towards the second checkpoint as he was yelling, and he reached a point where I figured he was about five steps from the checkpoint. I decided that would be my decision point, and if he continued any further, I would kill him on the fifth step.

He continued to yell at the Sergeant, and was making a gesture with his hands in which he was smashing the side of his right fist into his left palm. He turned and started walking in what felt like slow motion: one step, two steps,
and three
steps. As he made the forth step, I began to pull up the slack on my weapon
’
s trigger and gently squeeze in; four steps. I prepared for the fifth step,
and
he suddenly stopped and yelled “Fuck you, Americans. Fuck you,” and he turned and walked away from the gate. As he rounded the corner back toward the street, I released the trigger tension and exhaled
deeply
.

As soon as the incident with our neighbor ended, I turned around and noticed my
morning
relief was there, and my shift was over. There were no missions today, so I had a little “me” time to check email, take a shower, and play volleyball with the guys. I hit the gym for a little while, and
now
I
am here
writing about my day.
If I go to sleep right now, I am
actually going to get a good seven hours of sleep before I need to be up again for the next midnight shift. Seven hours of sleep never sounded so good!
I hope the next month goes by faster than th
e
past one.

March 23,
2003
:

Last night, before shift, a few of us were starting to wake up around ten thirty. I like to sleep all the way until eleven thirty, but some of the guys like to get up early and make something to eat. They were making just enough noise to start wak
ing
me up, but not enough to completely wake me.

The Platoon Sergeant stormed into the room yelling for us to gear up and get ready to move. He said a mission came in, and first and second squad needed to be ready to roll out of the compound in ten minutes. He said, “Let’s move guys. Full battle
gear
and all the ammo you can carry.” Someone asked about our shift, and he said that the other squads
would
cover for us.

We all got our gear, and
we
were upstairs
,
within a few minutes, waiting to find out where we were going. The Serge
ant announced that an American h
elicopter crashed about thirty miles outside of Kabul, and it was being
treated as though
it was shot down. The reaction teams at Bagram were already involved in a fire fight to the north, and the weather and high winds at Bagram w
ere
also hindering
efforts to
get helicopters off the ground.
An Italian ISAF team was in the area and responded to the crash, and
they
immediately found themselves taking enemy fire.

I guess there was some confusion about whether or not choppers from Bagram were moving, so we were going to back up the Italians. We loaded up the trucks and prepared to roll out. Just as we were ready to leave, we got the stand down order from Bagram, and we were advised that choppers had been dispatched. Americans were on the ground now, and they felt they had the situation handled. Close calls seem to be the story of my life here!

We all went to our assigned
OPs
and did the shift without a single incident. By daybreak, the normal traffic was out
,
and by eight
o’clock,
the streets were teaming with people. Nothing else
happened today that is
really worth writing about, so I guess I
wi
ll call it a day and get another decent sleep.
Today was j
ust another day in paradise.

March 24,
2003
:

What a shitty, shitty day. I would write about it, but why? Who wants to remember any of this shit anyway? I
a
m going to bed.

March 25,
2003
:

The midnight shift was uneventful, as us
ual. It was a quiet night
again
,
thanks to the rain. After shift, my squad went down to Chicken Street to pick up some things. Chicken Street is a very weird place. It
i
s definitely a shithole, but there are shops where you can actually get some very cool deals. Almost every shop sells bootleg
DVDs;
some are
even
movies that are still in theaters
in the United States
. The asking price is usually two dollars, but you can talk them down to a buck. Sometimes you
will
get burned, and the movie is nothing more than some guy in the theater with a camcorder, but most are actually pretty good quality.
Either way, it
i
s n
ot bad for a dollar.

The dangerous part about Chicken Street is that it is frequented by American tr
oops, and that means two things:
f
rom the second you step out of the vehicle
,
you are swarmed by women and children begging for money
,
or
they are
trying to sell you
pieces of junk
that you do
n
o
t want.
Secondly
, it is a very easy and obvious target to attack if you want to hurt Americans. The beggars are very forward and pushy, grabbing at you, crying, and doing anything they can to get your attention. I feel terrible for every one of them, but it creates a very dangerous situation. Don’t get me wrong, I feel bad that they live this way, but I
a
m not going to die because of it. One Taliban wit
h a handgun in that crowd, and I woul
d probably never even see it coming. If you shove them aside, and yell at them long enough, th
ey usually realize you a
re not going to give anything.