by Bryan Wood
Regardless of the threats, today went very well. No one was hurt and nothing significant happened. Every time a patrol or mission ends, and I safely return to the compound, I just cannot help but feel like I am tempting fate every time I leave.
March 20, 2003:
Tonight was the deadline for Saddam to leave Iraq, and that deadline came at one thirty in the morning, Afghan time. For the last week, we have been receiving more and more reports involving threats to various American interests in Kabul, as the impending war in Iraq looms closer. Since nothing big was actually happening, I assumed it was all bullshit.
Around three o’clock in the morning, it was very quiet in the OP, until the sky lit up with a bright white flash to my east. Seconds later, I heard a massive explosion that shook my entire OP. Within a minute, the north gate reported an orange streak over the compound, traveling towards the east. As he was calling this out on the radio, there was another huge flash and powerful boom to the east. Almost immediately after, I saw two orange streaks followed by another flash and two explosions. The explosions were about a half mile to our east, and they were very powerful.
Situation reports started coming in from other compounds in the area, and I heard that HIG fighters were firing rockets over our compound and towards a compound just blocks from ours. The rockets missed their intended targets, but completely destroyed a shopping district less than one half of a mile from our north gate. Because it was so late at night, there were no fatalities, no American injuries, but several civilian injuries.
After shift, several of us were assigned to patrol the area that was hit by the rocket attack. The impact of the rockets turned about ten buildings into piles of rubble. We were supposed to stop people from looting the shops that had been leveled, but we did not bother to stay very long. Upon our arrival, there was nothing left to protect, and we found everything was either blown apart or burned prior to us getting there. What little had made it through the explosion was probably already stolen throughout the night.
It was a very nerve racking night. It is amazing how a three minute rocket attack can get your adrenaline so jacked up that it takes hours to settle down, and when it finally does, you just crash.
March 21, 2003:
The war in Iraq is in full swing, and bombs are falling all over Baghdad. Ground troops are already fighting in southern Iraq, and we are hearing that there have already been Marines killed in action. I have no idea on any specific details, that is just the little bit that we have heard.
The compound’s commander decided to play it safe and had every soldier on the compound assigned to a fighting position tonight. We ended up with nearly triple the normal man-power. The wall was lined with machine gunners, MK19 fully automatic grenade launchers, and AT4 rocket launchers. The night went without a single incident. I think it would take just one look at that wall to realize it was not worth attacking tonight.
Around six thirty in the morning, I was pulled off the wall to go on a mission with the rest of the squad. We were heading out with a team from another unit and two Intel guys. We had no idea where we were going, what we were doing, or what was about to happen. We were just told to get our gear and move our asses. This was really very strange.
The two Intel guys with us were both Americans, but they each had a long beard and wore local civilian style clothes. These are the kind of guys that run around the city, making and keeping contacts, and gather all of the intelligence which we end up hearing in our nightly reports. Always listen to the street because the street never lies, and these guys are listening. It is their job to know who is planning on doing what, and then they are tasked with making sure it never happens.
We rolled out of the compound, and hauled ass through the city. As the driver weaved through the stream of bicycles and shitbox cars, we were finally briefed on our mission. The Intel guy riding in my vehicle told us there was reliable information that a small group of Al Qaeda fighters were stockpiling weapons in a remote village about thirty miles east of Kabul. The obtained information also hints that there may be two high ranking Al Qaeda officers who have been causing a lot of the recent problems in the area.
We were heading to that village to take the Al Qaeda officers into custody and to seize the weapons cache. We were told, “Try to take them alive, but a fight is a fight, and you guys do whatever you have to do. Just try to take them alive.”
We got to the village, and we quickly located the Al Qaeda safe house using the information provided by informants. There were very few people milling around, and it seemed as though no one was expecting us. The safe house was a small, two-room shanty wedged between two shops, and it was very easy for us to secure.
The entry team stormed in, and we easily controlled everyone in the room without a fight. There were nine Afghans in the shack, all living off of blankets or makeshift cots. The Intel guys quickly learned that five of the people inside were locals sympathetic to the Taliban’s cause. The other four were Al Qaeda members known to the Intel guys.
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 not 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 not need to go inside to confirm what we all knew. I did not need to see two more bodies. That is one thing I do not 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 not 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 is right in front of your face, day in and day out, it is something completely different. The part that scares me is I feel like I am 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 is different. I barely even seem to care. It is almost as if they are not even human to me anymore, and I am 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 kid, 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 is absolutely killing me.
March 22, 2003:
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Today marked one month in Afghanistan. The past month seems to have gone by fast and yet dragged by at the same time. It sounds kind of strange, but it is 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 have accomplished almost nothing.
Next door to our compound is a house that is actually quite lavish, at least by Afghan standards. It is 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 warlord; 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 have 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. Any time we play wiffle 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 not really much of a gate; it is 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 not 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 not 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 the 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 waking 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 Sergeant announced that an American helicopter 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 were 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 will call it a day and get another decent sleep. Today was just 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 am going to bed.
March 25, 2003:
The midnight shift was uneventful, as usual. 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 is 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 is not bad for a dollar.
The dangerous part about Chicken Street is that it is frequented by American troops, and that means two things: from 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 not 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 am not going to die because of it. One Taliban with a handgun in that crowd, and I would probably never even see it coming. If you shove them aside, and yell at them long enough, they usually realize you are not going to give anything.
Whenever we park the trucks, at least two guys have to stay and watch them to make sure nobody steals from them or straps a bomb underneath. The last thing you want is to drive off and get blown to hell twenty feet down the road. Our simple rule is that we will deal with you bothering us, but nobody touches the vehicles. If someone touches the vehicle they get an M16 in the face fast, and at least one person always tries to open a door even with us standing right there. When that happens, they have two options: th
ey can walk away or be carried away. They know we are not playing around, and they always walk.
There have been a series of “syringe attacks” in Kabul recently. A woman, a man hiding in a burqa, or a child will walk up to a soldier and stick them with a needle. I have no idea what these needles are loaded with, but I sure as hell do not want to find out. They prefer to use the children to do this because they know we are a lot less aggressive with little kids, and they can actually get close enough to touch us.
Another guy and I were watching the vehicles when the beggars came. The trucks were parked along a busy sidewalk, on a street crowded with people, bicycles, donkeys, carts, and pedestrians. The air was so thick with soot and smog it was enough to choke you. I was at the rear of the vehicles, and my buddy took watch at the front.
The beggars came, and the women and children started swarming us. I put my back against the truck and pointed my rifle anytime someone came too close for comfort. It is heartbreaking to point a gun at a kid, but I’m not dying here; I am just not going to let that happen. Having my back against the truck does not give me the best view to see what my buddy has going on up front, but I do not have to look over my shoulder this way.
The beggars usually keep their distance and say things like “please food” or “dollar please.” I heard my buddy yelling a few times for someone to get back. They do not speak English and have no idea what we are saying, but a rifle in your face with someone yelling should be a good enough indicator. I heard him yell a few times, and I yelled to see if he was alright. He said he was, but we needed to leave. A woman in a burqa reach for my buddy, and he reacted by smashing the butt of his rifle against her head, dropping her instantly. I did not see it happen, but I saw the traffic instantly stop. People started running toward us and screaming at us. The guys in the nearby shop saw what happened and came rushing out.
