Crossing the Wire

by AnnaMaria Cardinalli

  Day Nine

  Things are becoming easier, and I am settling in. My team has won and defended our very own corner of “desk” space (really half a plastic folding table) in a command tent, which I can use for writing our research plans and reports. I spent most of the first week doing this in the two-foot high space of my bunk, or at my special Tang-and-tomato hideout. The cooks now wave at me there, and sometimes save me much-coveted croutons for my soup.

  I am now seeing past the formality to the can-do cheerfulness of a few thousand Marines, and their motivation is infectious. Beginning to recognize me, enlisted Marines have started to “snap to” and beam smiles my way. “Good morning, Ma’am! Glad to see you!” Officers have begun to welcome me with unexpectedly cordial gallantry to the humble offerings of the chow tents.

  I’ve found the boarded half-shelter where I can attend church. Strangers are quickly becoming friends as they strike up conversations and tell me stories of their lives back home. I am starting to feel truly welcome. Even in this Martian landscape, I realize I am in a place I could grow to love, not because of anything “lovely” here, but because of the people sharing the space.

  Just like I have begun to know and like the Marines here, I hope that soon I will get to know and even build friendships with the local village communities. If even in this forsaken bit of land the kindness of humanity can flourish, I can’t wait to see it in people beyond my own culture. I know I have bitten into the most starry-eyed conception of our mission here, but I see a truth to it.

  My journey in Afghanistan will take me much farther out, to the Forward Operating Bases, and the even more remote Combat Outposts. However, now that its foreignness has worn away, Leatherneck itself has begun to impress me. I still tend to lose my way, but this has allowed me to discover that if you look up from the far reaches of the camp after dark, you find yourself drifting on an unsullied and endless blanket of desert beneath a perfectly black sky. It makes the stars seem completely unreal in their brightness.

  Even though it’s a sea of sand, it somehow still calls to the sailor’s spirit in my Sicilian soul and soothes me. My great grandfather, who Mom taught me to call Nanu, was a proud and powerful sailor who brought our family to America, and he was fiercely patriotic regarding his new home. When I was little, Uncle Joe taught me the constellations by which Nanu could navigate and promised that Nanu would always be in the stars to guide me. The stars feel so close here I can’t help but hope that Nanu is guiding me now, and that somehow I might make him proud.

  My thoughts turn naturally to my grandfather, who in World War II had served in the Army as a standby typist in Burma, working with British forces. That’s what he always told us, but it had only just occurred to me to wonder—what on earth was a standby typist? Was the typing in Burma so overwhelming that the regular typists just couldn’t manage? Did a Jack Nicholson character occasionally burst into the room bellowing “You can’t handle the typing!” and then my grandfather would take over?

  After the war, my grandfather was a troubled, introspective, and incredibly funny man. He told stories of wildly implausible adventures he had had with his best friend, who called him only “Sahib.” It simply means “sir” in a number of languages, including Dari, a language spoken in the country I find myself.

  As I thought about it, it occurred to me that if even some small part of those stories were true, they were adventures no “standby typist” would ever have ever seen. It finally dawned on me what my grandfather had done for his country during the war. I sent him my thoughts of gratitude, and I hoped he would help lead my boots after his.

  Day Ten

  Shipments to the camp have lulled, and we have exhausted the pool of truck-driver interviewees. Our team leader has determined that we should scatter and link up with teams in-country that are already functioning in order to gain experience and to engage ourselves in useful Human Terrain work until Leatherneck becomes more operational.

  It seems like a good idea. I am restless to get to work. I know I will have to patrol, and I am anxious to be rid of the nervousness of my first time out. Putting it off just makes the anxiety worse. I hope to return to Leatherneck and to my team experienced and even a bit “salty” in operating outside the wire.

  Lanky plans to remain at Leatherneck, Tex will go north, and I will go south. Our miniscule team is already reduced today by one member, Pop, due to program issues back home. Those of us who signed on as contractors could either choose to be converted to sworn government employees or leave the program. The young father decided that while the risk of HTT work was worth the contractor salary, the potential cost to his family was not worth government pay.

  His choice prompted each of us to reconsider the same personal decision. If I stayed, I would no longer be a high-paid contractor but the same kind of civil servant—or “Govie”—I had been years back when I began my career, though with the lucky caveat that my pay grade should take my education into account. Because of the timing of the conversion paperwork, however, I will lose the danger pay and extra pay for time-in-country that is a Govie’s greatest bonus. Still, other HTT members who do not hold the position of Social Scientist are far less fortunate.

  I needed and had truly counted on making and saving the contractor money. It would have been a life-changing solution to difficult circumstances. Now, having to choose to stay or go is forcing me to think through my own feelings a little more carefully. If the money is off the table and I still decide to stay, what are my actual motivations for being here?

  Important as it was, I am realizing my desire to join the program was never primarily about the money. I was intrigued by the chance to combat the violence of terrorism—the extreme cruelty made possible only by the complete dismissal of the humanity of others—with a “weapon” as human as improving cultural understanding. The paradox spoke to me, and I was drawn in.

  Now at this point, with my boots firmly on Afghan soil, I am committed to the mission, and I want to accomplish what I signed on to do. Plus, as I am coming to understand about myself, I do have a slightly reckless spirit. Once I have committed to something, I am not good at backing down, even if it becomes in my better interest to do so.

  Also, it seems as if my future leads from here. I am engaged and looking forward to my wedding in Kandahar. My Mighty Marine fiancée is in Afghanistan, and I will stay as long as he does.

  For all these reasons, when a smiling officer stood by the flag and asked me to take the oath I knew so well, I could not find it in my heart to refuse. I hoped that Nanu and Grandpa would be proud.

  Proud papa.

  Day 11

  “Salaam!” I waved and nodded politely, leaning from the door of a tiny speeding helicopter. The surprised farmer smiled as we zipped by, only feet above his head. An enormously muscled gunner manned an impressive weapon at the opposite door, and he took to shouting a cheerful “Salaam!” to the people we passed as well. “Salaam!” we waved to small villages, and to the occasional wanderer in the desert.

  The greeting, which means only “peace,” was most sincere. “Peace, little village, peace,” we mumbled quietly through our headphones as each town was swept from our view. It was a wistful prayer.

  We were flying to avoid rocket and small-arms fire, so we followed the rolling terrain of the sand close to the ground. No one could see us coming over the rises to take aim until we were right upon them, and then we were suddenly gone again. In such a small and open helicopter, the experience was more like riding a speeding motorcycle just ten feet off the ground than like the sedate flight of a plane. It was exhilarating.

  I was headed to a Forward Operating Base in Kandahar province called Ramrod to rendezvous with the team to which I was temporarily assigned. The coincidence was to my supreme delight, as my fiancée was newly attached to the Kandahar team. He was the man in whose arms I felt unquestioningly safe and protected, and I was flying toward them.

  The assignment had a bittersweet complexity, ho
wever, as this was the team on which Paula had served. I was shocked to learn that they continue to operate in the same vicinity where she had met the sadistic attack. The shadow of the tragedy hung heavily over any effort by a woman to re-engage with the area.

  At first, I attempted to think of Paula’s story as an issue unrelated to gender. After all, any HTT member faced the danger of attack when operating in the villages. However, those with more experience in the area seemed to act on the notion that Paula’s gender was a definite factor, almost as if her death through treachery and violence was reserved for those deserving of the most extreme contempt in the minds of Afghan extremists—women.

  After Paula was evacuated, the program had chosen to reassign a male social scientist to the deeply shaken Kandahar team. No woman, HTT member or not, had been allowed to venture outside the wire in the area since. I was somewhat slow to arrive at the realization that I would be the first woman to take Paula’s place.

  Suddenly, I am in over my head and afraid. Everyone wants to end the nervousness of their first time outside the wire, but I had assumed that mine might be on a more reasonable mission—somewhere safe enough where my first outcome would most likely be a good one. I now regret “chomping at the bit” to go out.

  Chapter 2

  Mamma Told Me Not to Come!

  Day 12

  Tomorrow, the team will leave FOB Ramrod for the even more remote Combat Outpost near where Paula was burned. It is from that outpost that I am to embark on my first patrol. I stayed up all last night, kept awake as much by the idea of so immediately facing the nightmare that had haunted me as by the roar and crash of incoming and outgoing rocket fire. (To my surprise, rockets really do have a red glare, and bombs do often burst in air.)

  It was all good reason to reconsider my options. I thought again about Pop, who had already left the program. I could do the same. I was a civilian and, unlike the military members around me, I had the option to leave, stay safe, and forget the outrageous situation in which I had been placed. In a few short days, I could be home, eating recognizable food, sleeping in my own bed, taking hot showers, and hugging the adored giant of a fluffy dog I missed terribly. It was hard to see a downside to this plan.

  My Mom, who I loved so much and truly regretted causing such worry with my crazy trips off to war, would be incredibly happy with me. My fiancée would come home soon enough, and we would marry then, even without the Mullah and the bonfire. Meanwhile, I would bake cookies and send them to him like girls with any sense did. I didn’t have to go where Paula went, or charge into the danger of which I was so afraid.

  A single persistent thought, however, began to erode an unfortunate chink in my resolution to leave. If no American woman returned to the area, then that one terrorist had accomplished something. The U.S. hesitancy to send a woman back unintentionally broadcasted a message that violent extremists still ultimately controlled what did and didn’t happen in the area—not coalition forces, and more importantly, not the peaceful Afghans themselves whose lives had been dominated by the incredible violence of Taliban rule.

  This was the same rule that had made the September 11th attacks possible. The same rule that caused women to be brutally tortured for the shameful crimes of men. My heart raged against terror wherever it took place, and here was one of its roots. It affected the innocent people of Afghanistan as it had impacted the good people of my own beloved country, and our two fates were inextricably linked.

  If no woman returned, we were proclaiming that the Taliban still had latent power, and that the protection offered by U.S. presence could not be trusted. It encouraged the villagers’ continuing secret loyalty to extremists, lest they be punished with the unbridled violence they knew so well. If the people stayed secretly loyal, then the Taliban was not defeated, just well-camouflaged, so that their insidious influence would go on indefinitely.

  If I did patrol with the Kandahar team, my simple presence would be a show of defiance in the face of an extremist hold-out. It would wordlessly announce that no act of violence, no matter how horrifying or dramatic, would cause us to change our ways or to back down in our commitment. They could give us their best shot, and tragic though it was, it would change nothing.

  I have a problem. Once I see a challenge, let alone an important one, I somehow become completely incapable of backing away. Testa dura—Mom always called me affectionately. Blockhead. She was right.

  How committed was I to this fight? I came because something about terror enraged me above all else, and I wanted to feel as though I was contributing to the protection of innocent people. Was I willing only to offer academic observations from behind wire-rimmed glasses, or did I have large enough ovaries to make a stand myself?

  My Mom had always taught me not to go looking for a fight, but never to give up once one found you. I certainly hadn’t looked for this one, but once I “got my Sicilian up,” my personal sense of right left me no option. I was going.

  Typical moment.

  Day 13

  It was hard to escape, even momentarily, the shadow cast by past events. Soldiers from the Forward Operating Base had been disciplined for referring to Paula as “Barbeque.” Now, when I passed, I heard the same reference sniggered, though couched in a way less likely to be reprimanded.

  When I went for lunch, for instance, the biggest joke was, “Hey, there’s fresh Barbeque in the chow hall!” The morbid humor always resulted in hysterical laughter, probably based more on the frayed nerves of the young men rather than any intended cruelty.

  With my nerves similarly frazzled, I felt like laughing too when I discovered that my decision to go came with one more unanticipated risk. The logistical problems back at Camp Leatherneck were haunting me in unexpected ways. The camp was still so unfinished that it lacked a certified firing range. Theoretically, no one could carry a firearm in theatre without recently completing an official qualification on a certified range—no matter how extensive their background, level of experience with weapons, or qualifications might be elsewhere.

  I had pestered the HTT program to set up an opportunity for deploying personnel to qualify before going overseas as most other programs did, but I was told over and over that I would have no problem finding a firing range as soon as I arrived in theatre. While that may have been true for those arriving at established bases, Leatherneck was another story.

  I had assumed that I would qualify in Kandahar, but the team had stayed only in the rural areas without the necessary facilities. Now finding myself operating from a base with austere conditions that made the facilities at Leatherneck seem the height of civilization, I had another extremely difficult choice to make. I could either patrol without a firearm or abstain from participating in the work outside the wire that I had realized the pressing need to accomplish.

  I stuck with my decision to patrol. Besides my commitment to the mission, two factors played into this. My life has been a series of the bizarre and I have rarely set out to do the things I end up doing. However, I have always had a sense that I was in the right place at the right time to do whatever it was I was meant to accomplish. I trusted there was a reason I was here now, being asked to do this in particular.

  I suppose, in this small way, I understood a bit of the typical Muslim response to all questions and challenges. While generally it confounded me in others, it now comforted me in myself. Inshallah. Its meaning was somewhere between Doris Day’s “Que sera, sera” and the prayer familiar in both Christianity and Islam, “Thy will be done.”

  Secondly, I perhaps could have been smarter, but I was in love, and in my case, the two rarely coincide. My Marine had appointed himself my bodyguard, and I felt I had every reason to trust him. Once, when we were being transported to an exercise in the Nevada desert, the open bus we were riding accelerated abruptly while I was still boarding, sending me flying away. My fiancée somehow reached out a massive paw, caught me in midair, and hauled me in over the rail before any harm could come to me.

&
nbsp; The bus let out a round of stunned applause at the feat, and he secured my trust and adoration with that one swipe of his hand. Now, to say that I would not patrol unarmed when he swore to be nearby was tantamount to saying that I did not trust him anymore to protect me. He hinted that to do so would have hurt him unimaginably and damage the relationship I so treasured, so I relented.

  Still, in life outside HTT, I frequently carry a gun, have always shot well, and have deep affection and appreciation for the safety a firearm provides. As I pulled on my uniform today and realized it was all there was—no holster to strap on next or sling to adjust—I suddenly experienced the ice-cold chill of extreme vulnerability. I was without even a pistol to tuck discretely at my side.

  Fully dressed, I couldn’t have felt more naked. However, I’ve been emphatically assured that at no point tomorrow will I be without my patrol and inner team surrounding me, so I should feel as comfortable as if I were armed with each and all of their weapons. (I have taken to repeating this over and over to myself.)

  Afghan kids. (Photo courtesy Department of Defense)

  Chapter 3

  In the Clutches of the Mullah

  Day 14

  It was with the decisions of the past few days haunting my thoughts that I ventured into my first encounter with a rural Afghan community. Accompanied by a small group of young soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division and additionally providing our own security to one another as a team, we set out from the small combat outpost ironically called “Hotel” in the Maywand district, and began moving in the formations that reminded me of a clumsily-choreographed Country Western line-dance intended to avoid landmines—or to help avoid the entire patrol being taken out by a single mine if one of us should happen to misstep.