Outlaw Platoon

by Sean Parnell

  Major Ghul studied Baldwin and me in silence. Apparently he was waiting for us to start the dance. I noticed he held a two-way radio in one hand, and I asked Abdul what it was for. That opened a torrent of conversation between him and Abdul. As we waited for the translation, Baldwin produced a notebook and drew a pen from his sleeve pouch. He scribbled something at the top of one page.

  At length, Abdul explained, “Sir, Major Ghul says that he uses the radio to stay in constant contact with his men. They have been attacked many times recently. He must stay alert so he can lead them in battle.”

  “What sort of attacks? Where?” I asked.

  Major Ghul went on to tell us of Taliban ambushes on his checkpoints in the valley. Other times, they launched hit-and-run raids on his men stationed at Gamal. Several times, he said, they had even tried to overrun Bandar. He had lost men, and his personal vehicle had been shot to ribbons.

  I remembered a bullet-scarred Toyota pickup parked out front of the barracks. That must have been his.

  So much for small talk. The major got straight to business. In Gamal that morning, I’d spent at least twenty minutes getting a lecture from the mayor on the weather around here. The blunt talk threw me off my game, and I leaned on Abdul for advice.

  “What do you think? Is this all true?” I asked.

  Abdul covered his reply with a smile. “No. He’s lying. He wants something.”

  The major took Abdul’s grin as a cue to continue. He spoke for several minutes, all smiles and hand gestures, getting more animated by the minute. Finally he paused to let Abdul explain.

  “Sir, he says that his men fought bravely, but they were taken by surprise. The enemy stole their best weapons.”

  Keeping my tone measured, I said, “That sounds like utter bullshit.” Baldwin, who was head down over his notebook, nodded.

  “Yes, sir, it is,” Abdul agreed. “When I was with the 173rd, we came down here many times after the major called us and said he was under attack. Several times, he had his own men shoot up his trucks and checkpoints to get better equipment from us.”

  Captain Canady had mentioned that to me. He’d also said that the 173rd had started watching Bandar and the surrounding area with drones and had never seen an enemy attack.

  Baldwin made a show of writing all this down, which seemed to please Major Ghul.

  Major Canady had told me about a big ceremony the 173rd had hosted for Major Ghul a few months back to honor his police battalion and give his men factory-fresh uniforms, weapons, and ammunition. Aside from the two AK’s the bodyguards held, nothing here looked new.

  “Where is all their new equipment now?” I asked, thinking about the rusty AKs the border cops were carrying. As if to underscore the point, a young Afghan policeman appeared at the base of the stairs wearing half a uniform and a stained Nike ball cap. His AK looked as though it had been unearthed in a trash dump.

  He and Major Ghul shared a short conversation before the cop, who couldn’t have been more than seventeen, walked behind our circle by the fire to retrieve a box. Hefting it to his shoulder, he carried it upstairs.

  After the interruption, Abdul said, “We suspected that Major Ghul sold the new weapons on the black market.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “To make money for himself,” Abdul replied.

  “Where do weapons sold on the black market end up?”

  “All over. With the enemy, mainly.”

  How do I work with such a man, let alone fight beside him?

  A year before, my nights had been carefree, drinking and studying, playing bass in a band—those had been my evenings. Once my friends and I had stolen construction barricades and scattered them around campus. Now I was expected to be a representative of my country in a place I had yet to understand. I felt a surge of appreciation for Abdul. The other ’terps would never have been so patient with me or offered me this council. Without him, there was no hope that I could breach the cultural divide. He had become more than a ’terp. He was my guide.

  Canady trusted Abdul implicitly as a result of the firefights they’d been through together. On our earliest patrols, we’d discovered that he was known among the locals as a courageous fighter and compassionate man who had done great work in bringing Afghans together with the Americans at Bermel.

  The other ’terps rarely left the wire without covering their faces. Though they were from different provinces, they were paranoid that their identities would be discovered by the enemy. That had happened far too many times in the past and usually resulted in the nocturnal murder of the ’terps’ families.

  Abdul was different. He had grown up in Shkin, a village about an hour’s drive south from Bermel. As he was a local, I had assumed he’d be even more concerned about covering his face. But he never bothered with it, even though he had a younger brother and mom still living in his hometown.

  As I watched Abdul and thought about his importance to our platoon, Major Ghul launched into another long explanation of something. This time he didn’t pause for Abdul to give us the gist. Outside, the wind died down. The lightbulb ceased to sway; the shadows grew still. The cooking fire soon grew almost oppressively hot. Even without my body armor, I started to sweat. My winter boots heated my feet, and I could feel my socks grow damp with perspiration.

  Major Ghul rattled on. Baldwin and I sweltered in silence. My rear grew sore; the carpet offered no cushion to the hard ground. I began to fidget, trying to get comfortable. Baldwin peered up from his notebook, and I got the hint. I tried to stay still, but I just couldn’t for long. I wasn’t used to sitting without a chair. Or a couch.

  Finally, the major allowed Abdul to translate his monologue. “Sir, he’s spinning a big story for you. He says his men have little supplies, almost no ammunition, and he fears the enemy will try to overrun Bandar again. He says that if they try, they will succeed unless he gets new weapons. His men need MREs. They need new uniforms, AKs, machine guns. He wants mortars and RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] too.”

  When we had walked the perimeter, we had seen no damage from enemy attack, just ample evidence of neglect. The only bullet holes we had seen were the ones in Major Ghul’s Toyota pickup. I wondered if he had ordered one of his men to empty an AK magazine into it so he could get a sweeter ride.

  Major Ghul checked the cauldron. “Our food is ready,” he told Abdul. From a nearby pouch, he produced six oval-shaped pieces of flatbread, which he handed out to us. I tried to smile as I thanked him. Sweat dripped off my brow. My back itched from all the perspiration. My feet felt like Virginia in August.

  He ladled out a spoonful of what looked like greasy stew and poured it over my flatbread. I held it carefully and sat back down.

  “What is this, Abdul?” I asked.

  “Goat and vegetables.”

  Baldwin took a bite. While he chewed, I saw a light go on in his head. He turned to me and asked in a low voice, “Sir, wasn’t this guy at the meeting with us this morning at the Gamal district center?”

  With a start, I realized that Baldwin was right. There had been so many elders and leaders at the meeting that I hadn’t placed his face until Baldwin mentioned it. Major Ghul had been in the background the entire time and hadn’t said a word. He had been so low-key that if Baldwin hadn’t said something, I never would have recalled seeing him there.

  “Yeah. You’re right. He sure as hell was.”

  Baldwin considered this. After another bite of
goat stew and flatbread, he asked, “Well, why didn’t he discuss all these attacks then?”

  “Good question. Abdul, why don’t you ask him that?”

  Our ’terp nodded and fired off a few sentences in Farsi. Major Ghul grew serious and lowered his voice. It sounded conspiratorial.

  “Sir, the major says the mayor asked him to discuss these events with you in private. He is not sure who to trust and was being careful around the other elders.”

  This smelled to me. “Abdul, what do you think? Is he telling the truth?”

  “No, sir, he’s lying.”

  I agreed. But what to do about it? “Should I press him?”

  “No, sir. This is just how business is conducted here,” replied Abdul.

  “No point,” Baldwin echoed.

  Major Ghul went to work on his food and motioned to us to do the same. I have always been a picky eater, and goat was never on my approved dietary list. Still, I could not spurn the offering. I tore off a piece of flatbread, wrapped it into a funnel, and scooped some of the stew up and into my mouth. It did not taste like chicken.

  “Okay, we don’t push him. What’s the play here then?”

  We talked over what to do next. There was probably a power struggle going on between Major Ghul and the mayor, and that’s why he’d wanted this backdoor conversation with us. Also, if the attacks were all fabrications, the mayor would probably not have supported his line of bullshit. Unless, of course, doing so would have lined his pockets as well. But I got the sense that Major Ghul did not like to share.

  “I’d just move on, sir,” Abdul suggested.

  Okay. I thought it over and realized that Major Ghul’s tale of woe had given me the perfect entry to bring up something I wanted from him. “Ask him where the enemy is around here. Where are they hiding?”

  Ghul shrugged and smiled like a Cheshire cat. “No idea.” After a pause, he added through Abdul, “But if I find out, I promise I will tell you.”

  “Ask him if he knows how many enemy in the area.”

  Major Ghul shrugged again and said he did not know.

  “Are there foreign fighters here? Arabs?” I asked.

  Major Ghul shrugged a third time. “Who knows where they come from?” he replied.

  Before he left, Captain Canady had told us about a cagey enemy leader operating in our area. Through the first month of our time at Bermel, we’d received more intelligence suggesting that Canady was right. We had a signals team listening to all the enemy radio frequencies. The leader’s name was spoken only occasionally and with great awe. Our men listening in reported his name to be “Galang.” Once or twice, he had come onto their net. As soon as he did, all chatter stopped cold, something that was very unusual and telegraphed respect for him. He would utter a few cryptic commands, then sign off.

  I wanted to know more about him, but trying to open that door with Major Ghul only got it slammed in my face. I tried a few more questions, only to get the same nonanswer.

  Major Ghul might not have been on the enemy’s side, but he sure wasn’t on ours either. Perhaps he was on his own, operating from pure self-interest. The war, for him, was the Afghan version of a get-rich-quick scheme. I had no idea how we were going to work with him in the year ahead. I’d have to sort that out with Abdul and Baldwin later.

  As we finished dinner, the spicy goat meat burning my stomach, Major Ghul returned to the desperate plight of his command. Once again, he told Abdul that without more guns and ammo, Bandar stood no chance against an enemy assault. He had intelligence that the Taliban was planning to hit his base again. He needed weapons, and fast. He also needed a new personal vehicle, since his had been turned into a redneck lawn ornament during the last attack.

  I wanted to ask about his intelligence. If he knew an attack was coming, how was it he didn’t know anything else about the enemy? Abdul didn’t think it was a good idea to nail him with that question. Instead, I was noncommittal and made no promises about more weapons. I told him that my platoon had plenty of firepower and access to even more should the enemy launch an assault on us. He didn’t care about that. He wanted guns. Badly. And my refusal to promise him any taxed his acting abilities. He made an attempt to mask his frustration with fake smiles. His joviality grew forced.

  How could I keep him happy without giving him stuff he’d just sell to the enemy? My orders to foster ties with Major Ghul and his unit seemed impossible to fulfill. I kept hammering on the strength of my platoon. It would be his force multiplier. I had no other card to play.

  Time passed. The conversation went nowhere. Outside, the moon rose over the mountaintops and cast silvery shafts of light into the basement through the ventilation slits in the walls. I fidgeted, never quite finding a comfortable spot. I think it irritated Baldwin, who somehow managed to give the two bodyguards a run for their money as he sat still as a statue.

  In the end, we got nothing out of Major Ghul. He got nothing out of us either. Deadlock. His men would remain poorly equipped, which meant that morale would stay low here and those who were pushed out to cover checkpoints down in the valley would be very vulnerable to an attack—especially ones launched by the actual enemy.

  I tried to imagine how his men must have felt, knowing that their commander had sold all their best equipment, leaving them to face the enemy with castoff weapons. No wonder everyone here looked so morose.

  Sometime before midnight, we finally managed to extricate ourselves. The major had become overly flattering in the final lap of our conversation, clearly hoping to get something out of us at the last minute. It didn’t work. With the combination of his used-car-dealer persona and my professionalism, I sensed an undercurrent of hostility blooming between us. This had not been a good start to a relationship that the battalion had told us was vital to our efforts here.

  As the cooking fire died down, we rose for the meeting’s final formalities. Handshakes all around, a few last words, and then Abdul guided us back upstairs into the barracks. As the major stayed behind with his men, we stepped into the night. The cold air felt wonderful, and I took deep, cleansing breaths to purge my lungs of the basement’s stench.

  Cleansing breath. Yeah, right. The place smelled like shit.

  We threaded our way through the base in search of my Humvee, passing along the way a few Afghan sentries. One sat in his fighting position snoring, his AK propped beside him.

  We found my rig on the southeast side of our perimeter. Chris Brown was still in the turret, helmet still covering his dark brown hair as he peered through night-vision goggles in search of potential threats. Brown was skinny and had an incongruously deep voice colored with a subtle southern accent. He was sensitive and emotional, and I had also found him to be very conscientious. I relied on him a lot. At the same time, he was the platoon’s comedian, the spark plug for many jokes and silly scenes. He could do an impression of Rocky Balboa, complete with Philly accent, that would leave the men in stitches.

  While Brown kept watch over his sector, Pinholt sat in the driver’s seat, door open. He’d given up on Steinbeck for the night to pour over a dog-eared copy of Forbes. I was about to say something to him when Sabo materialized out of the darkness. Baldwin looked happy to see him.

  “Druid,” Baldwin greeted him,

  “Fuck you,” Sabo replied with a grin.

  “Tree fucker,” Baldwin retorted.

  “I’m no Wiccan,” Sabo said with a mock snarl.
/>   “Whatever. Heathen,” Baldwin said.

  “Okay, I can live with that.”

  Sabatke had covered himself with satanic tattoos, including a pentagram strategically etched into the back of his neck. With his shirt off, his muscular frame resembled a Wikipedia entry on pagan symbolism. Truth was, the shocking body imagery formed the outer core of Sabo’s defenses, under which he nourished a huge and easily wounded heart. He trusted instinctively; it was his default. His beliefs served as armor, keeping people at bay. But those who made the effort to get to know him found him to be a fiercely loyal and devoted friend.

  Baldwin understood that about Sabatke. Though a devout Christian, Baldwin slipped past the satanic shock-value exterior with ease and saw the value of Sabo’s passion. It was Sabatke’s rocket fuel, and it propelled him through his days at a frenetic pace. In turn, Sabatke recognized Baldwin’s natural passion, and he respected it. Baldwin’s near-pious dedication to cause and country had led him to sacrifice his family’s very way of life. A man like Sabatke valued that above anything else a man could offer. It had not taken long for the bond that sprang up between them to transcend their religious differences.

  The infantryman’s way of life has a knack for distilling a man’s character down to its most essential elements. If he measures up, nothing else matters. That’s what bonded those two. They measured up.

  Sabo switched into professional mode to give me a quick status report. Then Baldwin, Abdul, and I gave a brief account of our meeting with Major Ghul. I wanted to get into the details and see what counsel they might offer on how to handle him in the days ahead, but I knew my men were exhausted.

  “Let’s discuss this more in the morning. Go get some sleep. I’m going to troop the line in a few, then turn in.”