by Bryan Wood
All day long now, everyone has been on edge about scorpions. There are all sorts of critters running around here. There are mice, huge spiders, mosquitoes with Malaria, some of the strangest bugs I have ever seen, and now the scorpions are waking up.
After shift, it was more of the same by going to the gym, checking my email, and now it is finally time to get some sleep. Tomorrow we have no missions or patrols scheduled, so we are putting together a squad football game. We are going to try to put a game together anyway.
April 3, 2003:
Shift was long and boring tonight; I just sat in the OP and watched the street. From midnight until about six-thirty, not one person went by. I did not see a single car, bicyclist, or anything else. After six-thirty, it picked up and the people started coming out. By seven-thirty, the street was filled with the usual cars, bicycles, people, and donkeys.
Our neighbors, along the south portion of our west wall, are a group of very strange people. They are Iranians, and the house is actually maintained by the Iranian government as a safe house for Iranian agents in Kabul. We know they are there, they know we know they are there, and everybody just minds their own business. I say they are strange because they act very weird around us. We have an OP that looks right into their “yard,” and they are always out trying to talk to us. Even though we do not understand a word they are saying, they keep on trying to speak with us. Every morning, at the exact same time every day, someone comes out of their house and empties a bucket of shit in the back yard. Now, I don’t mean a bucket of stuff; I literally mean a bucket of shit. I am guessing they either don’t have plumbing or they do and just do not use it.
They usually come out and ask us for different things, and they ask by showing us a piece of paper with something written on it. The two things they ask for the most are breakfast cereals and cigarettes. If you give them candy, they act like a bunch of five year-olds. Iranians are not exactly liked in Kabul, so I think they moved in next to an American compound intentionally for the protection. The Iranians are not liked here for a lot of political and religious reasons, but at the end of the day, they do not bother us, and we do not bother them.
Around seven o’clock, this morning, I noticed a guy sitting on the side of the road, directly across from the Iranian house. He was not doing anything, but that is what struck me as strange about him. Of all the people out there, he was the only one not doing anything; he was just sitting on the sidewalk.
At seven-thirty, two guys rode up on bicycles and stopped in front of the Iranian house. Both men got off of their bikes, leaned them up against the Iranians’ gate, and then they just walked away. Now, why would two people just lean their bikes against a gate, leave them unattended, and walk away?
I saw one of the Iranians in the back yard and tried to tell him, but he did not speak English. He called to someone inside the house, and a moment later, a man with a long beard and a turban came outside. He spoke English, and I told him what had just happened. The man with the long beard casually walked toward the gate, grabbed one of the bicycles, and threw it into the street. He grabbed the second bicycle and threw it further, almost clearing the street. The bearded man then casually walked back into the house and closed the door. As soon as the bearded man was back inside, the original, suspicious looking, guy jumped on the bicycle in the street and peddled off.
I am not really sure if the bikes were rigged with some type of an explosive, or if they were just a trial run to judge the reaction by us and the Iranians. I did not see anything strapped or attached to either bike, but the whole thing was just weird. It takes a lot of explaining to describe what happened, but it was all over within a minute or two. This place is loaded with some strange shit.
Today, after shift, we had no patrols and no missions. It was in the upper seventies, and the sun was bright. A few of us hit the gym, and then the squad gathered up in the rear parking area for a squad football game. It is easy to get lost in moments like that and forget where you are. It is a really weird feeling when one minute you are dealing with Iranian agents and the possible near bombing of an Iranian safe house, and the next minute you are playing football with your friends.
I think it was yesterday or the day before when I was talking about all the creepy crawly things we have to deal with here. About a week ago, one of the guys on my squad had to shave his head and use some special shampoo because he got lice. We laughed at him and made fun of him for it. Come on, who would not make fun of their friend for that? Well, as the modern proverb goes, karma really is a bitch. Four more of us now have head lice, and I am one of them. We had to get our heads shaved, right down to the skin, and get our own special shampoo. The worst part was when the doctor told me, “Wood, you guys all need to make sure you’re showering more. Make a better effort.” How fucking embarrassing!
April 4, 2003:
Not a lot happened on shift last night. It was very quiet, and afterwards, we only did a short three hour patrol outside the compound. A few days ago, I got my smallpox vaccine, and it is really kicking the crap out of me. My whole body aches, and every joint is sore. It feels like I have the flu, but without being sick.
I went to one of the doctors to make sure it was normal to feel this way. He told me it was not unusual, and it would pass within a few days. He said he could write me an order for light duty for a day or two, but I told him I would be fine.
As we were finishing, I asked him if he knew anything about the kid who had been stung by the scorpion the other day. He told me the little boy had died. The doc said he died just shortly after arriving in Bagram, and there was nothing anybody could have done. I did not say anything, but I feel like it was at least partially my fault. The Sergeant and I spent so much time trying to turn the boy’s father away; I wonder if we wasted the minutes that could have made a difference. If we let him in right away, would he have lived?
When I think about it rationally, I know it is not my fault. The Sergeant and I had no idea what had happened, we had no idea how serious it was, and when we did find out we got help right away. But it is a little boy, and it is hard to think that those minutes might have made a difference. I will never know either way, and that is the hard part.
April 5, 2003:
Last night was my final night on the midnight shift, at least for the next six weeks. Thank God this shift is over; I have not had a decent sleep in weeks. Every day, when my squad finally gets to sleep, it is right when everyone else is coming in for dinner. It is noisy outside, and it is noisy inside. The kitchen and eating area are located directly above our room, and it gets loud at meal time. Then people from other squads will come into our room looking for something. They will turn the light on, find what they need, and then leave with the light still on and the door wide open. Imagine being woken up every thirty minutes all night and every night for weeks on end. The only thing that makes it even worse is to then try falling back to sleep with a mouse running all over you and under your covers. It is extremely exhausting.
I really cannot wait for this deployment to be over. This place is absolutely miserable, and nothing good ever happens. There are only two ways of living life here: we are either extremely bored or something really shitty is happening. There is no middle ground, no in between. I just honestly feel as though the only certainty in Afghanistan is that tomorrow has nothing good to offer. It gets so depressing when you realize you have nothing good to look forward to. The only thing I have to look forward to is finishing this deployment and going home, but that is months and months away. Hopefully things will get better once I start the new shift, but I am not holding my breath.
April 6, 2003:
Today was my first day on the new shift. The day was beautiful, and the evenings here are actually gorgeous. I slept a normal nighttime sleep, and it was so quiet. I loved it!
The weather today was just perfect. The temperature was seventy-five degrees, and throughout the day, there was nothing but sunshine. Around six o’clock in the evenin
g, I climbed to the roof of my OP to sit and watch the sun set behind the mountains. I felt a cool wind blowing across my face and realized that this moment was absolutely amazing. Regardless of what was going on around me, regardless of what I was in the middle of, this moment was flawless.
Not long after the sunset, the day turned into night, the temperature fell, and it became the cold dark night I have grown to know all too well here.
After dark, I climbed back to the roof and looked up at the sky. The stars were absolutely amazing. There are no streetlights or other types of ambient artificial lighting, so you get to see every star in all its glory. I have never seen anything quite like it. I got lost in my own head, just thinking about the vastness and the enormity of what I was looking upon. It made me realize just how small I was, and how insignificant we all are in the grand scheme of things. Tonight, I found an indescribable beauty while in the midst of chaos, and it made me feel as though I have never been so alone.
April 7, 2003:
I had a hard time falling asleep after shift last night; I think my body might need a few days to adjust to sleeping at night again. Once I am adjusted, I think I am going to love this shift. The best part of it is that there are no missions. We still have to do daytime patrols, but no significant missions. My squad has barely enough people to cover the shift, and we are almost never back from a mission by four o’clock. It is looking as though our shift will have us awake, and ready to do patrols for four or five hours, every morning by eight o’clock. We will then have a few hours before shift starts, then shift, and then off to sleep for the night. This is a lot better than before.
I woke up around seven-thirty this morning, and I found that there were no patrols assigned today. My squad has actually been getting very lucky with that lately. A few guys and I decided to throw the football around, go to the gym, and then just hang around and talk. We talked about random, stupid crap, but we mostly talked about home.
Four o’clock brought the start of shift with it, and I was on the east wall again tonight. There were a few random gunshots here and there, but nothing of any major concern to us. Before I knew it, shift was over, and now I am writing this and getting ready for bed.
Most of the guys in the squad get along pretty well, but I can see that all of our relationships are becoming very strained. We all feel the same way about life in this place, and we are all being torn apart in our own way. No one ever talks about how they feel, and it seems to leak out in other ways. I can see guys becoming upset or depressed over the silliest shit. Mail will come, and if someone did not get a package, they will become upset. Sometimes, we will go to dinner and there will be no more sport drinks left, making someone furious. It is always one stupid thing or another setting someone off. It may sound kind of crazy, but that is just the way it is here. When you have absolutely nothing to look forward to, except a stupid sport drink and nothing else, it becomes an enormous letdown when it is not there. Each and every one of us is doing our best to get through this, and we are always there for each other. I guess that is what is really important and not a drink.
April 8, 2003:
Right next door to our compound is a German-run school for young girls. Every day we see the children walking to and from school, and the little girls are all wearing the same uniform. It is a very conservative looking, long, felt-like dress, with a white head scarf covering their hair. The idea of girls getting an education is not well accepted in Afghanistan, and the school is very unpopular with a many local Afghans. Taliban supporters have openly denounced the school and criticized its being.
Just as my squad was getting ready to go on shift, at about three forty-five, I heard three rapid gunshots, right at the gate. They were followed by a quick burst of automatic gunfire. As we got to the gate, I could not believe what I saw, and I do not think I will ever be able to understand it.
A man was lying dead in the street, having just been shot by one of the Afghan guards from our gate. Before he was shot, he walked up to a group of young girls leaving the school, pulled out a handgun, and opened fire. The Afghan guard reacted by firing at the shooter and killing him.
One girl was struck in the stomach, and she was on the ground screaming in pain. Another girl was struck in the side of the head, with her white scarf almost completely red as her lifeless body just laid there. I could see her eyes were wide open, and they looked like she was staring at something far, far away.
Doctors came rushing out, and everyone started trying to help. A large crowd was gathering, but they were almost completely silent, with many praying. By four-thirty, the injured girl had also died, and we were instructed to go to our assigned OPs and go on as normal. I always love when something like this happens and they tell us, “Go about business as normal.”
The whole story is actually a lot longer and with a lot more detail, but this is all I care to write about it. There are other things that I normally would have written, but I guess it does not really matter that I went to the gym or played with a football. What does any of that matter?
April 9, 2003:
Today started off around seven-thirty. I got out of bed, got my gear together, and grabbed a quick breakfast before heading out for our patrol at eight. Because of yesterday’s shooting, the patrol assignment for today was all day long, right up until four o’clock.
On the four to midnight shift, the beginning of the shift is very busy. The streets around the compound are packed with people, so if you are in an OP you need to keep your eyes open and watch for everything. If you are on a checkpoint, you are running your ass off dealing with the stream of vehicles and pedestrians coming in and out of the compound. It makes the day fly by, but both of them are really stressful. It is not like working at a fast food restaurant where if you fuck up, somebody does not get their fries. If we screw up here, someone could get shot, or worse, a vehicle with a bomb could make it inside the compound.
If anyone thinks that there are not people out here who are willing to walk up and simply shoot one of us, they are just plain blind. If someone is willing to walk up to a little girl and shoot her in the head, they will do the same to any one of us without a second thought.
Massoud was back on the compound today. He had gone back to his home village for a little while, to take a break from things. We got to talk for a while tonight, and he told me about his home. He said it is a very poor village, but it is also very nice. Massoud said there is no violence where he is from and practically no crime. He described it as a small remote area that has very little interaction from the outside world. He told me that what I see in Kabul is not all of Afghanistan. For his sake, I hope that is the truth. I cannot imagine this poor man having to live like this for the rest of his life. I get to leave; this is his home.
During the shift, we received a situation report that a coalition compound on the other side of Kabul was hit with a rocket. Within minutes of the rocket striking, a car bomb exploded just two blocks away from the same compound. For us on the other hand, it was nice and quiet.
April 10, 2003:
Working on the four to midnight shift provides me the opportunity to meet a lot of interesting people. The compound has been active for about eighteen months, and there are a lot of local Afghan employees who work here throughout the day. There are gardeners, cooks, construction workers, and others, many of whom are starting to pick up English after months of contact with Americans. The older Afghan workers tend to shy away from us, but the Afghans in their late teens or early twenties love trying to speak English. A lot of them also try very hard to act American.
The more people I meet, the more stories I hear, and many of them are sadder than the last. One kid, I forget his name, is about eighteen years old, and he has been proud of his new baseball hat for the last few days. It is an obvious bootleg of the real brand, and it is also a very poor quality knockoff. He loves it, and we told him it looks great. He told us it was very expensive, and he had been saving for over a month to buy it
. I asked him how much it cost him, and he proudly answered, “Two dollars.”
I saw the same kid yesterday, but he was not wearing his hat. I asked him where it was, and he just looked down at the ground as he said, “Stole.”
We are ordered not to pay the local Afghans any money or give them any donations. It can be a bad thing because if we give to one, it could get out of hand for everyone else. I normally abide by this rule because I know what can happen. Once you give to one, you get swarmed by others, and it can easily grow to a dangerous level very fast. I normally abide by this rule.
About an hour after telling me his hat was stolen, I saw this kid walking from the north gate checkpoint. He was alone, and I saw no one else around. I walked towards him, and I raised my index finger to my lips, making the “sshhh” sign, as I handed him two dollars. I just saw him again today, about an hour ago, and he was wearing a new hat.
Many of the people I talk to tell me stories of war, tragedy, death, and loss. Many of the younger workers are orphans, with some having lost their parents when they were just five or six years old. Most of them are still homeless, and they struggle to survive. This is the most heartbreaking thing I have ever experienced.
The day shift is very busy, but nothing of interest seems to happen. All of the gunshots, rockets, and bombings happen at night, and there are not very many missions on this shift. The foot patrols outside of the compound are not too bad anymore either. Most of the things that used to keep me on edge have become less worrisome and far more routine. Maybe I am just getting used to it, but they do not worry me so much anymore. I think I have surrendered to the fact that whatever is going to happen is going to happen. I can be vigilant and I can do the best I can to stay safe, but there is no use in overly worrying about every little thing. It is what it is, and it will be what it will be.
April 11, 2003:
Around ten-thirty tonight, I was sitting in the OP at checkpoint two, and it was very quiet. Out of nowhere, there was a massive boom that shook the whole guard shack. I looked out of the window, to see if I could see anything, because I could tell the explosion was very close. As the radio lit up with activity, there was another massive explosion. I dropped to the ground and as I did, there was another explosion so strong that it shook the guard shack with enough force to knock my water bottle to the floor. Within three or four seconds, there was yet another explosion. I curled into a ball in the corner of the guard shack, as another one hit. I covered my head with my arms, holding my breath in between each explosion, praying I would not be hit as rockets number five, six, and seven exploded over the course of the next minute and a half to two minutes. As each one hit, I prayed it was the last. After the seventh explosion, they finally stopped.
