Laren, Eeben, Captain Kommando—the commander of the troops participating in the training—and I would have an early meeting over instant Nescafé or South African tea mixed with powdered creamer, our camp chairs in a circle in the dirt. Eeben and the trainers were in charge of all the training program details; Captain Kommando handled all of the scheduling and disciplinary decisions and the logistics when the camp ran short on essential supplies.
He was the youngest of our partners in the Ugandan leadership, his face round and smooth. But he had the maturity and confidence of an older man. Quiet and serious, he seemed incapable of casual eye contact. When he looked at you, he really looked, his eyes studying, examining. His experience as well as his demeanor made him a valuable leader and an asset to the mission. A former child soldier, he had spent much of his life as a fighter in the bush. The Ugandan government dissolved the West Nile Bank Front, a Ugandan rebel group, in part by pulling rebel combatants into the Ugandan military, and Captain Kommando had become an officer in the same army he had been trained as a child to fight. Given his past, he was uniquely positioned to head a group training to rescue hostages. And when he disciplined his soldiers, he didn’t do so with the entitlement of someone who had grown accustomed to the comforts and authority of his office. He led from the credibility of his experience, his stern face seeming to say, What I expect of myself I also expect of you. Fit, strong, and athletic, he modeled not just the physical proficiency but the mental balance necessary for the work. There was no place for an action junkie in the field, but we needed aggressive leaders like Captain Kommando, men who would go all in and split hairs in order to be effective and precise.
He spoke just a little English and rarely talked at our breakfast meetings, but he listened intently, and though he didn’t share stories from his past, I got the sense that he was often navigating the present through the lens of his experience. Captain Kommando exuded stability. It was inspiring to see a born leader and good man come out of a hard and violent past.
* * *
—
I’d spend the rest of the morning observing training drills, surprised to discover that the simplest things often made the biggest difference. I happened to be visiting Camp Bondo during one of the most crucial training lessons: river crossings. Tracking the LRA would be impossible in the river-dense jungle if the soldiers couldn’t get themselves and their gear across racing water. During the rainy season the volume and speed of the water increased, the large rivers becoming precarious to cross. In every season, there was the danger of hippos and crocodiles. The men had to be comfortable and successful in the crossings. They had to know how to make a temporary raft, read the currents, and swim in tactical formation wearing their clothes, all the while carrying four or five magazines of ammunition and backpacks loaded with food and radio batteries, with a waxed canvas poncho tied over their belongings and an AK-47 secured on top.
A river often had a strong current and nearly impenetrable reeds on each side. They had to learn to choose the crossing point carefully. It was best to cross where the water was fastest and deepest, because crocs and hippos were less likely to hang out there. But the current also had to be factored in when determining how far upstream to start. Launch too early and you’d be banging up against the reeds, going nowhere; go too late and you’d end up in hippo country. On top of the many dangers was the pure and simple fact that most of the men had never swum before. Even for those who could swim, crossing the Nile was a new and difficult endeavor.
The first day of their swim class the men were visibly terrified. Dressed in their skivvies, they had shoved empty water bottles into their underwear in hopes that they would help them float. One of the trainers took the men out on an inflatable boat with a rope hanging off the back that they could grab on to if they started to go under. As the men hit the water, many would start to panic, gasping and thrashing. One man was really struggling, looking like he was starting to drown, and the rest of the guys on the bank started to laugh at him. I realized they weren’t being cruel. It was how they handled the struggle, how they expressed it—not through screams or showing fear, but through a buoyant chorus of laughter. A couple of times the trainer had to dive in and fetch someone. The next day, a lot of the guys were sick from ingesting bad water. Their final test was to swim across the Nile—a half-mile distance—with all of their equipment, ammunition, and food rations. Every single soldier passed.
* * *
—
We’d lunch on rice and beans and posho, a thick paste resembling grits or hot cereal made from corn flour. I’d sit at a table with Laren, the trainers, and the Ugandan military leadership, discussing the morning’s highs and lows, the necessary adjustments. I asked one day about the soldiers’ footwear. Some didn’t seem to have adequate boots or shoes; accustomed to being barefoot or relying on ill-fitting footwear, they were completing the training in nothing but flip-flops. Eeben agreed to source two hundred pairs of field boots, two hundred pairs of gum boots, and four hundred pairs of wool socks from South Africa when he put in his next equipment order.
* * *
—
I knew from observing the training sessions and sharing meals and conversations with the trainers how hard everyone was working. The trainers were natural teachers, good at establishing rapport and relationships. A lot of times when foreign militaries come in they set up huge bases, they build a miniature version of home in a foreign land and they stay insulated. But Eeben’s guys were living in tents in the same camp, using the same pit latrines and camp showers, eating outside even when it rained. They set a tone of shared sacrifice. Rapport and trust would have been impossible if they had kept themselves removed and left the brutally hot field each day to hang out in an air-conditioned base with hot showers and cold beers. The troops saw the trainers expecting as much from themselves as they did from their students. The more time I spent at Bondo, the more I could appreciate how effective they were. I could see evidence of the soldiers’ growth and progress.
* * *
—
After lunch, there was a rest period, and Laren and I would head to the barracks to talk with the soldiers. We’d go for walks with them, sharing stories about home. I became particularly close to a few of the men, mostly because they spoke English and we could communicate easily. Their contributions ended up being particularly crucial to the mission.
Lieutenant Charles was from northern Uganda. People close to him had been killed by the LRA, and although he’d been to university to study animal husbandry, he was motivated to give up his calling to be a farmer to join the Ugandan army because of the personal losses he’d suffered at the hands of the LRA. He had deployed in Congo during Operation Lightning Thunder in 2008 and had been one of the first to volunteer for the training. Of the ten officers who started the first training course, he was one of only three who would graduate. He would prove to be one of the all-stars among the graduates, excelling in tactics and night operations, and exhibiting exceptional strength and leadership. He was not only effective, but passionate—or maybe he was effective because he was so passionate.
Lieutenant Pauson, a slim man with a neatly trimmed goatee, had also studied at university but had long desired a soldier’s life. On a walk one day he told me, “My joining of the army was not, should I call it, a coincidence. It was a well-thought and sorted-out decision. I liked the army, looking at soldiers, their uniforms, the way they carry themselves, the way they march. It was within me. I liked it from my childhood. Always I wished to join.”
And he couldn’t forget the haunting images from his student days in Gulu:
These young girls of school-going age were being abused because of the lawlessness caused by the LRA. Particularly the night commuters. I saw these little girls going to sleep in town. Sometimes it would be in the rainy season and you’d find they stayed the whole night there, waiting, the rain on them. Some merciless men, they
would offer them accommodation in return for sex. It was a great abuse. I saw so many casualties, some of them cut with pangas, a lot of disfigurements on the citizens of Uganda. I even saw an ambush on a bus, people killed. I developed that anger. I thought I should fight the LRA and maybe the war comes to an end. I always wanted to be a soldier. And I wished to join the army and give my contribution.
He showed me a picture of his kids. I asked him how he balanced his life as a soldier with his life as a father, how he dealt with the time away.
“You know, in Uganda so many people don’t like you joining the army, because they have the fear that when you join, you have to die, you’ll die in the battlefield. Sometimes when you share with your loved ones that you’ve joined, you get some discouragement. I knew I had to join, I knew it was something I needed to do, a bold decision I needed to make to be a man. So I joined and did the training and kept it a secret all to myself. I didn’t even tell my wife. She was surprised one day to see a picture of me in military uniform!” He laughed.
I felt a surge of understanding. The loneliness of that life and the responsibility that gnaws at you, that won’t let go. “Are you ever afraid now?” I asked him. We’d reached a small rise and stood looking out at the endless green.
“Mostly, I think it’s God’s will,” he said. “You may try your best—but again, there is luck, and the Almighty. I don’t know how my future will be in the army. Even right now I cannot predict how it will be in the next few weeks or months or years to come. I don’t know. I just leave this to God. I just do my best, and whatever comes my way, I accept it.”
I was struck by his remarkable resilience—his willingness to rest in uncertainty, to be up for whatever was next—and by his choice to trust in something bigger, something beyond our immediate understanding.
* * *
—
After the afternoon rest period and another training session, dinner was served. Sometimes the evening meal included meat, usually goat or chicken, along with rice and beans. All pieces of the animal were used, the neck of a chicken sometimes surprising me mixed in on my plate. We’d have glass bottles of soda. Even warm, they were delicious.
Everyone got extremely hot and sweaty during the day, but there was no point showering because you’d be covered in sweat again as soon as you stepped out. I’d wait to shower at night when it was cooler, trying to time it just right so I wasn’t showering in the dark. The first time I used a camp shower I left the spigot on while I lathered up and the water ran out before I could rinse. I had to wipe the soap off with a wet wipe.
In the evening, we’d sit around the campfire and drink more coffee or tea—it was a dry camp, so there was no drinking—and tell stories. War stories, injury stories, funny stories about embarrassments. One of the trainers would sit quietly with his bird book, identifying wing shapes. They liked to ask me about my family and my work. And they loved to rib Laren. They teased everyone—it was how they bonded—but perhaps because he was so young, Laren was often the target of their jokes. He took it all in stride, laughing along with them.
A favorite story was about a time when Laren had been out with a group on an overnight field training—he was a tireless documentarian, hoofing it with them through the heat, sleeping out in the cold during rainy season. One particularly rainy and miserable night he’d slung his hammock up in the trees. The Ugandans were lying on the ground, mud rivers going over them, somehow able to sleep half submerged. But Laren was freezing. His hammock was full of water and he couldn’t sleep. Lieutenant Pauson heard him rummaging around in his backpack. “Mr. Laren, are you okay?” he’d asked. Laren said he was fine. Lieutenant Pauson saw him pull an MRE (meal ready to eat) out of his bag. He opened the meal kit, took out the heating element you break to warm up the meal, and put it in his hammock. The men woke to a sizzling sound and saw steam rising out of Laren’s hammock.
“He made his own Jacuzzi hot tub out there in the bush!” Eeben exclaimed, laughing. “Jungle steam room!”
Sometimes the talk would turn more serious. We fell into a silence one night, stars brightening out of the dark. I was struck by our being there together, the unlikeliness of it all. We were from vastly different backgrounds, we had completely different personalities, but the same thing motivated us. We had the same goal. “What do you think motivates Joseph Kony?” I asked.
“He’s delusional,” one of the head trainers said. “There’s something wrong with the guy. He can’t be normal.”
“It’s fear,” Eeben said. “He feels fear, he feels other people’s fear. He feeds off it. He’s deep in the jungle; it’s not an easy life. He chooses it because having the power over life and death makes him feel like he can control fear.”
I thought of what Lieutenant Pauson had said on the hill—that he dealt with fear by releasing himself to God’s will. It was strange to think of Kony as a person who was also confronting fear.
* * *
—
When the fire had burned down and the men started turning in, I’d go to my tent and lie in the dark with Connor’s frog blanket. There aren’t words to say how much I missed my boys those nights. I’d sing them lullabies in my mind, especially my favorite Dixie Chicks song. Godspeed, little man. Sweet dreams, little man. Oh, my love will fly to you each night on angel’s wings. Godspeed…Sweet dreams…
27
DANCE FOR SAINT JUDE
ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-SIX Ugandan soldiers graduated from the training in mid-June. They became known as the Special Operations Group, called the SOG by those of us in the mission. They stood in straight lines, three deep, in full fatigues, arms pinned at their sides, ammunition vests and rifles strapped across their chests, faces serious beneath the brims of their camouflage hats. A number of guests, including local journalists, and representatives from several NGOs and community-based organizations, including Jason and Ben from Invisible Children, had been invited to witness the graduation. It was incredible to have a group of friends there, aligned in passion with a shared history, witnessing what felt like a giant step forward in the pursuit of an end to the war. Standing together in the heat, lush hills rolling on and on around us, fading out to blue in the haze, the pride and dignity of the soldiers were palpable.
I had been asked to say a few words. I’d dressed up for the occasion, putting on an outfit I’d wear to a graduation ceremony at home: black dress pants, a green silk shirt, heels. As I stood before the soldiers, I found that words failed me. All the sleepless nights I’d spent worrying over the professional risks of the intervention suddenly meant nothing. Before me stood men who had signed up to go into a hostile jungle far from home for months at a time. And they were risking their very lives to stop the LRA. A hot wind pulsed through the clearing, ruffling my blouse as I searched for the words to express how humbled I was.
“It is impossible for me to express the admiration I have for you,” I began, watching their faces, resolved and somber. “As a mother of very young children myself, I am hopeful about the peace you will bring to other mothers when you deploy. You will be giving them the greatest gift anyone can: protection and freedom from fear. Every human being deserves this gift, and it is now yours to give. I am grateful to each of you for your profound sacrifices and my hopes and my prayers go with you.”
Then it was General Katumba Wamala’s turn to address the graduates. As commander of the land forces of the Uganda People’s Defense Force, he oversaw all military deployments, including the counter-LRA units. He had commanded the UPDF in the Democratic Republic of Congo with mixed reviews from the human rights community. We found him to be a reliable and straightforward partner. We’d met a few times in his office in Kampala and he had become my most trustworthy bridge to the Ugandan military. He exuded gentleness and warmth. He wasn’t the typical older man in senior leadership, hardened by turbulence. Somehow, he was free of that. He always seemed to be smiling. His whole face shon
e with kindness, good-natured crinkles gathered at the top of his nose and at the corners of his eyes.
It wasn’t just his physical presence that put me at ease. It was his priorities and way of being in the world. In his off hours, he helped a local organization fighting child trafficking. He went above and beyond the requirements of his command to see to the well-being of his troops. A number of Ugandan soldiers deployed to Mogadishu, to help in the US-backed fight against al-Shabaab, had returned home with wounds so severe they had required amputations, and General Wamala had personally written grants to get soldiers wheelchairs and crutches. A few years later he would become the fourth African to be inducted into the prestigious Hall of Fame of the United States Army War College.
It was a big deal that he had come to Camp Bondo for the graduation. He wore a black beret, the sleeves of his uniform rolled up to his elbows, a gold watch circling his wrist, the red decorations on his collar especially pronounced amid the mass of green fatigues and the jungle around us. He addressed the troops first in Swahili:
First and foremost, I congratulate you. I congratulate you all for completing your military training. You started with many, but now only a few have successfully completed the training. That shows how resilient you have been.
As your leaders, we are eager and anxious to see you in the field. We have high hopes for you. High hopes that through your hard work, the solution to the Kony problem has finally been found. That is why we are anxious to see you commence your work and to see this mission accomplished.
You are still young men, so jealously protect your dear lives, and all the energy you have exhibited here during the training, all the sweat you have lost during your training, all the knowledge and skills you have acquired here.
To Stop a Warlord Page 14
