The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War and Sacrifice

by Gezari, Vanessa M.

  “Steve has the attitude that”: McFate, interview by author, June 30, 2010.

  Overselling is pretty much required: Despite the findings of the Center for Naval Analyses, the Human Terrain System successfully graduated from its experimental “Proof of Concept” phase to program status, gaining its own line item in the fiscal 2011 defense budget, where it is listed as a “Military Intelligence Program.” See Department of the Army, “Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Estimates: Volume 1, Operation and Maintenance, Army,” February 2010, 31, 108. And this from the HTS website: “In OCT 2010, the Army funded the HTS enduring (force generation) capability starting in the FY 11-15 POM (base budget),” http://humanterrainsystem.army.mil/htsFAQ.aspx.

  “The problem with the Human Terrain System”: Fondacaro, interview by author, June 19, 2010.

  “American lives have become intertwined”: Horowitz, The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot, 3.

  By 2012, the Human Terrain System had cost: Steve Lacy, “Propping Open the Door: The Argument for Permanent Integration of Population-Centric Intelligence to Understand the Human Terrain,” Master’s Thesis, National Intelligence University, 2012, 58. This figure does not include start-up funding. The actual amount spent on the program is likely considerably higher.

  Fondacaro was no longer in charge by then: The Human Terrain System was “a foreign policy implementation tool,” Fondacaro told me. Fondacaro, interview by author, June 19, 2010.

  Chapter 9: The Devil You Don’t Know

  It seemed obvious to everyone back home that the Taliban had killed Paula Loyd: Clint Cooper, Loyd’s teammate, took this view, and his was one of the earliest and most persuasive accounts of the motivations behind the attack. “I know Paula was targeted because she was a woman, because she was obviously a well educated woman and a person of some importance,” he told Army investigators. “Other women in the Bazaar always wore the full head to toe coverings usually associated with more radical forms of Islam. Although Paula always kept herself covered she stood out and represented to the Taliban everything they were trying to suppress. They could easily have taken anyone of us, but in a cowardly act they targeted a person who was very obviously engaged in humanitarian work. She wore no uniform. I have worked with many people down range, but never have I met someone more purely motivated than her. She wanted to make a difference. In a way she did. She will never be forgotten.” Cooper statement, U.S. Army Report of Investigation 08-CID369-43873-5H1.

  “Paula Loyd, in our estimation based on the facts that we have”: Steve Fondacaro, interview by author, January 28, 2009.

  What he knew was that Loyd’s killer was not from Maiwand: “We haven’t been able to trace him identitywise,” Fondacaro told me, “only we know that he’s not from the area, and that’s a specific choice by these people, because if he doesn’t survive, if he’s known by people, people will come and say, ‘Oh, I know him, he’s Akhmar and he’s associated with . . . et cetera, et cetera.’ ” Fondacaro was mistaken. The eventuality he described—that Salam would be identified by local people—was exactly what had happened.

  “You know there are a lot of kids in Afghanistan”: McFate and Fondacaro, interview by author, January 28, 2009.

  When it was over, the boy told the soldiers he had seen the man around: “A child in the house my [platoon] cleared knew the man as a frequent stranger in the village, and gave his name the same name tattooed on the man’s forearm.” Statement of Lieutenant Matthew Pathak to Army investigators.

  a New York Times reporter had been kidnapped: David Rohde was kidnapped on November 10, 2008, after heading off to interview a Taliban commander in Logar Province south of Kabul. “Times Reporter Escapes Taliban After 7 Months,” New York Times, June 20, 2009.

  the Kandahar office of the Afghan government reconciliation commission: The program, one of many largely unsuccessful attempts by the Afghan government and the international community to reintegrate Taliban fighters, was Proceay Takhim-e Solh, known as PTS or Peace Through Strength. Candace Rondeaux, correspondence, September 15, 2012, and “Talking About Talks: Toward a Political Settlement in Afghanistan,” International Crisis Group, Asia Report N°221, March 26, 2012, 17.

  The government had promised to help support former fighters and protect them: “Now in the suburbs and villages, on every side of the city center, there is the influence of Taliban, and because of that, people are scared, and they cannot come for reconciliation,” Lalai told us. “We promised the people that if they had problems with the Taliban afterward, we will come and help you—I even promised this. We could not keep the promise. These people, especially high-profile people, sometimes had problems, and they should have government security, but we have not been able to provide it.” Hajji Agha Lalai Dastagiri, interview by author, January 19, 2009.

  a new, more extreme brand of Taliban were targeting aid workers: See Marc Kaufman, “Rising Violence Hurts Afghanistan Aid Work,” Washington Post, February 9, 2003, and Gezari, “Hostilities Threaten U.S. Effort to Rebuild Kandahar,” Chicago Tribune, February 20, 2003.

  Then came the assassinations: Among the most prominent victims of these attacks was veteran police chief Mohammad Akram Khakrezwal, who was killed in a suicide attack in 2005, but this trend began much earlier. Gezari, “Afghans Now Focus of Taliban Violence,” Chicago Tribune, October 10, 2003, and Carlotta Gall, “Afghan Mosque Attack Seen as Effort to Hinder Political Process,” New York Times, June 8, 2005.

  He said he had heard about Salam’s attack on the American woman: Speech attributed to Hajji Sadoo Khan here and below is from Sadoo Khan, interview by author, January 19, 2009.

  For as long as most people could remember, he had lived with his father, Mohammad Umar, near the highway in Chehel Gazi: When I asked Mike Warren, Loyd’s team leader, where Salam was from, he concurred with the elders: “He’s from the village right there.” Warren, interview by author, March 20, 2009.

  Salam’s family owned a tractor: The family had bought it the previous year with borrowed money, the elders told me. The account of the stolen tractor is from Sadoo Khan and Qala Khan, interviews by author, January 19, 2009.

  ‘What bad work you have done!’: Qala Khan, interview by author, January 19, 2009.

  ‘I was arrested by the Taliban and I was beaten’: “He disappeared,” Qala Khan said. “And we thought that people were talking that, ‘Oh, this poor man was kidnapped by robbers and he was disappeared for two days. Two nights.’ After two nights, he showed up, and said, ‘I was arrested by Taliban and I was beaten and they have tied my hands.’ ” Ibid.

  ‘Who did this?’ they asked each other: Qala Khan gave this account of what had happened in the bazaar that day, which was remarkably accurate given that he hadn’t actually witnessed the attack himself: “Everyone knows in that area about the incident. We are going to that mosque and we are praying. In that street where the mosque is, [Abdul Salam] was coming and he had this petrol and a lighter with him. And he was stopped by the translator of the American woman and asked if he can talk. And he was laughing with them, he said, ‘Okay, I’m talking with you.’ At that moment, he poured the petrol on her and ignite with the lighter and he ran away. And . . . when he ran away, at the end of the street, there were other foreigners, and they killed him. . . . They arrested him alive and later they killed him. . . . The local people come and start asking and talking about this incident, ‘Who done this? This was done by the son of Mohammad Umar, Salam. He was arrested a few days ago by Taliban.’ And some people say, ‘Okay, the Taliban had told him that if you don’t do work for us, we will kill you.’ ”

  In Afghanistan, hard facts are exceedingly difficult to come by: For more on the fluidity of information in Afghanistan, see Gezari, “Can Afghanistan Really Develop a Free Press?” Slate, March 26, 2004; Gezari, “Journalism in an Oral Culture: From Homer’s Odyssey to Tolo TV,” Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, November 11, 2010; and Gezari, “Crossfire in Kandahar,” Columbia Journalism Review, January/February 2011
.

  Bride burning persists in India: See, for instance, Rahul Bedi, “Indian Dowry Deaths on the Rise,” Telegraph, February 27, 2012.

  immolation is a known form of domestic abuse in Pakistan: Parveen Azam Ali and Maria Irma Bustamante Gavino, “Violence against Women in Pakistan: A Framework for Analysis,” Journal of Pakistan Medical Association 58, no. 4 (April 2008): “According to a survey conducted on 1,000 women in Punjab, 35% of the women admitted in the hospitals reported being beaten by their husbands. The survey reported that on an average, at least two women were burned every day in domestic violence incidents and approximately 70 to 90% of women experience spousal abuse. In 1998, 282 burn cases of women were reported in only one province of the country. Out of the reported cases, 65% died of their injuries.”

  Instead, Afghan women mostly set fire to themselves: Fire as a mode of attack against women in Afghanistan is rare, but not unheard of. Self-immolation, however, is a significant public health problem. See Rheana Murray, “Self-Immolation Among Afghan Women Rises as UN Pushes Country to Take Action Against Violent Crimes,” Daily News, December 13, 2012, and Alissa J. Rubin, “For Afghan Wives, a Desperate, Fiery Way Out,” New York Times, November 7, 2010.

  Lighters bearing English lettering: Salam’s lighter was recovered and photographed by Army investigators.

  an Afghan man swung an axe into the head: “Axe Attack Was an Ambush, Canadian Military Says,” CBC News, March 5, 2006, http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2006/03/04/canada-afghanistan060304.html, accessed March 6, 2013.

  The medic remembered this detail because the boy wore a skullcap: Statement of a platoon medic to Army investigators.

  another Afghan had been trying to hurry the kids along: “There was a headmaster that came out and was signing [to the kids], ‘Leave the soldiers alone, get in school.’ But we were handing out pencils and pens and that was a big distraction. That’s why there are so many kids around.” Cooper, interview by author, April 22, 2010.

  Even an American staff sergeant had tried to disperse the kids: Statement of a staff sergeant to Army investigators.

  Abdul Salam was known as an oddball and an annoyance in the village: Hajji Mohammad Ehsan, Maiwand district representative to the Kandahar Provincial Council, interview by author, October 12, 2010.

  “They were working all the time”: Qala Khan, interview by author, January 19, 2009.

  after Salam’s death, the Taliban sent a message to Salam’s father: Sadoo Khan, interview by author, January 19, 2009.

  Salam must have known they would kill him: As one soldier told Army investigators: “There’s really no where [sic] to avoid people because it’s so narrow and there’s a creek. There’s no where [sic] you can run to try and get away.”

  Sadoo Khan and Qala Khan condemned Salam’s crime in the strongest terms: Loyd’s attacker didn’t “have the right to do such kind of thing as he has done,” Sadoo Khan told me. “This was a woman. Why did he do that with a woman?” In fact, “the people in the area don’t like [Abdul Salam’s] family anymore because they have committed a big mistake to attack a woman.” As Qala Khan put it: “Traditionally the law is that if someone [kills] our women . . . of course we are executing them. Those who are killing our daughters or sisters or mothers. So if we are killing other people’s daughters or sisters, of course we must also blame ourselves, and we must suffer the punishment.”

  In Kandahar, men sprayed acid at Afghan girls: Men doused girls going to Mirwais School in Kandahar with acid on November 12, 2008, just days after the attack on Loyd. Dexter Filkins, “Afghan Girls, Scarred by Acid, Defy Terror, Embracing School,” New York Times, January 13, 2009.

  it is also true that many Afghans would consider attacking a woman . . . more egregious than attacking a man: “Traditionally, women in our society are more protected than men,” Sadoo Khan told me. My experience as a foreign woman in Afghanistan bears this out. While the situation is much more complicated for Afghan women, being a foreign woman has won me special protection from Afghans far more often than it has drawn threats. Sadoo Khan, interview by author, January 19, 2009.

  they would not attack a convoy with a woman in it: “It has a very deep roots in our culture,” Sadoo Khan told me. “[There is] an area called Dera [in Maiwand]. Dera was the place where the robbers were coming and waiting for convoys to rob. And even if they were spending, like, two or three, four or five nights, when the convoy would come and pass them, if in this convoy there was a woman, they would say, ‘Okay, in the convoy there is woman, because of that woman, don’t touch it, don’t rob it.’ ” Ibid.

  A female American lieutenant . . . was stunned when he told her that she was the daughter of a whore: Lieutenant Kirsten Ouimette, interview by author, October 2, 2010.

  In at least one case, insurgents even threatened to burn a teacher’s daughter: Rachel Reid, “Who Benefits from Taliban Revisionism?” Guardian, January 21, 2011.

  Afghans who lived “independently” and clung to their culture: Specifically, “that the woman has to be protected and the woman has to have value.” Sadoo Khan, interview by author, January 19, 2009.

  “We are not blaming the Americans for what they have done”: Qala Khan, interview by author, January 19, 2009.

  Amir Mohammad worked as a police officer in Maiwand: Amir Mohammad’s account of the events of November 4, 2008, is from Mohammad, interview by author, January 19, 2009.

  He had also said something about having epilepsy: Statement of the interpreter known as Tom Cruise to Army investigators.

  “epilepsy” is what they call it when the spirits seize you: See, for example, M. Miles, “Epilepsy in the Afghan Village,” Disability World, no. 9, July–August 2001. According to one group of doctors: “People report a high burden of mental disorders and seek refuge to traditional shrines or self medication with psychopharmacological drugs.” http://www.ayubmed.edu.pk/JAMC/PAST/14–4/Peter.htm, accessed March 6, 2013.

  he was still trying to erase it from his memory: Skotnicki told me the shooting was “just one of those things I try to forget.” Skotnicki, interview by author, March 24, 2009.

  Salam’s father and brother had arrived with a group of villagers to collect his body: Amir Mohammad, interview by author, January 19, 2009. That the body was kept overnight at the district center and not released to his family until the following morning is also noted in the Army investigation.

  Salam’s brother yelled and cursed the police: This account is from Amir Mohammad, interview by author, January 19, 2009.

  the Taliban had issued a statement saying that children had poured fuel on a female foreign soldier: According to Reuters, the original statement was posted on the Taliban website, but I have been unable to find it. The quote given here is from “U.S. Civilian Kills Afghan After Fire Attack,” Reuters, November 4, 2008, http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/11/04/us-afghan-violence-idUSTRE4A34MW20081104, accessed March 6, 2013.

  He went by the name Al Fathy, an Arabic nom de guerre: Al Fathy, interview by Muhib Habibi with author, March 29, 2009.

  Amir Mohammad, didn’t believe that Salam was crazy: Neither, incidentally, did Jack Bauer. “I don’t know,” Jack told me. “If he is crazy, he is talking, like, thirty-five, thirty minutes with Paula. I never seen him [act] crazy [while] talking to her.” Jack Bauer, interview by author, September 23, 2010.

  The Afghan police investigation had yielded little of interest: “The investigation that we did, we did not find out any kind of activities Abdul Salam was doing before, except that he was a poor man and he was working for his family.” Amir Mohammad, interview by author, January 19, 2009.

  Agents from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division had arrived in Maiwand: The Army investigators gathered a good deal of crime scene evidence, but by the time they got to Maiwand, the flex cuffs that had restrained Abdul Salam were gone. They had either been thrown in the trash by mistake or purposefully removed, perhaps in an effort to spare Ayala from blame, according to the Army investiga
tion.

  “maintain good relations with the officials he dealt with constantly”: Army investigation.

  It was a clear, warm, windless day when Lieutenant Pathak took them out there: Details about the weather on November 5, the cleaned-up death scene, the burn marks on the ground, and the grass come from the description of the scene in the Army investigative report. Of the place where Salam had been killed, the investigators wrote: “There were no stains associated with heavy blood flow. Several feet away there was miscellaneous trash in the drainage trench.”

  “She had a disproportionate effect on a lot of people”: Hurlbut, interview by author, March 26, 2009.

  “They asked us, ‘Please don’t kill the family’ ”: “When we went and talked to all the leaders, we had a little shura, and we brought in all the elders. . . . and [the district governor] just let them have it. And the one question they had was, ‘We would ask that you don’t wipe out the family.’ . . . They asked us, ‘Please don’t kill the family.’ And we’re, like, is that an option? We’re, like, what are you talking about? And that was all they wanted to talk about for twenty minutes, ‘Are you going to kill the family?’ And, ‘We’ll take care of it.’ I was, like, ‘You don’t need to kill anybody. No one needs to kill anybody. Enough dying’s happened.’ ” Hurlbut, interview by author, March 26, 2009.