The Silence of War

by Terry McGowan

  Regrettably, everything of interest was on the south side of the airfield. It was a long, hot walk away. We were bused to our new battalion area, where large olive drab tents had been erected. Most had wooden floors, but the entire construction project was so hurried that many Marines had only large chunks of gravel as their floor. Cots in rows completed the work.

  Tents where sensitive equipment was stored were air-conditioned; most sleeping tents were not. It was still spring, so sleeping at night actually got chilly. It warmed up fast once the sun came up, though. Even I couldn’t sleep past 8:00 a.m. due to the heat, and I have always had a high tolerance for hot weather. Typically, when I awoke, the tent was empty—my tentmates having been driven out from under the olive drab heat-soaking canvas sometime before.

  Frank and I settled into our new digs in one of the wooden-floored tents along with a veritable menagerie of differing personalities. Our coterie included the chaplain, Navy lieutenant Russ Hale, known affectionately as “Chaps”; a battalion doctor, Navy lieutenant Adrian Miclea; Second Lieutenant Pat Caffrey, in command of a platoon of engineers; and three elderly Afghan gentlemen. The Afghans were extraordinarily polite and brewed chai (Afghan tea) every day; with unvarying courteousness they always offered to share. Like many Marines I had developed a liking for chai while in Iraq. I appreciated their civility.

  The Afghans were rated as category one interpreters. Category one meant that their security clearance was first-rate; they were in high demand. Lamentably, not only were living conditions in our tent spartan, but also we were heading out to virgin territory where no established FOBs were waiting. Among other things, that meant no air-conditioning. It wasn’t even full summer yet, and the heat was rapidly growing vicious. The gentlemen felt they were too old for such an environment, and they quit and went home very early on. With their security clearance and language skills, they could find highly paid work in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, with no problem.

  Chaps was good-natured and upbeat—near the end of the deployment he acquired moto (motivating) T-shirts for the entire battalion. Doc Miclea had a wicked scar where a sniper in Iraq had tried to kill him by shooting him in the femoral artery. Uncle Frank was his usual comical self, and Pat Caffery and I had become acquainted back at Twenty-nine Palms, so I regarded him as a buddy. I could’ve had worse tentmates.

  At the foot of my cot, inside the elastic surrounding my Kevlar (helmet in my day) I planted a “Do Not Disturb” sign that I had liberated from the Holiday Inn at Twenty-nine Palms. Draped on tent ropes at the head of my cot I hung an olive drab T-shirt—it showed a picture of an angry “Garfield the cat” and it read, “You sent me to Afghanistan? You bastards!”

  When we first arrived at our forlorn billeting area, we were informed that the enemy would send indirect fire—known as IDF to Marines—every night. Usually it would be rockets, since the perimeter was extended so far that mortar rounds couldn’t make it. For the first few nights nothing happened, and I thought the warning was an exaggeration.

  Then, while lying on my cot alone in the tent, watching a movie on my computer, I heard it. Whump, whump, whump, whump. Four IDF rounds impacted about four hundred meters or so southwest of our position. I knew that area was empty land—so no harm done. I also knew that the enemy couldn’t stick around and make a sustained bombardment out of it, as our counterbattery fire or air support would make short work of them, so I knew it was over. More proof that my time in Iraq was well spent after all.

  Frank rushed into the tent to pick up his body armor and Kevlar helmet. I told him not to worry, that it was over. He asked, “Are you sure?” Well, I was sure enough for my own peace of mind, but there was always a possibility of error—so I replied, “I’m reasonably sure.” Frank decided to play it safe. He donned his personal protective equipment and went looking for a bunker.

  He needn’t have bothered. They had erected our tent city so quickly that there were more lifeboats for passengers on the Titanic than bunkers for us.

  I kept watching my movie.

  Suddenly, in rushed the chaplain’s assistant, a young Navy sailor. He had the “deer in the headlights” look. He was dressed in a Marine desert (diggie) camouflage uniform, with a “U.S. Navy” tape sewn on where “U.S. Marines” would have been. He was wearing every piece of protective gear he could get his hands on. He reminded me of a Star Wars storm trooper in tan camouflage.

  He had a pistol on his belt. Additionally he carried an M16, and rather oddly, I thought—he had a bayonet. He always carried that bayonet throughout the entire deployment. I’ll never know why. His job was to assist the chaplain. I don’t think Chaps led a single bayonet charge in the ’Stan. Bayonets were only useful for jabbing in the dirt while listening and feeling for the hollowness of an IED.

  He kept looking from me, the only occupant of the tent, to Chaps’s vacant cot, and back to me.

  I tried to reassure him, “It’s all right.” And “It’s already over.” But he never lost the thousand-yard stare and, like a spectator at a tennis match, jerked his head back and forth from me to the chaplain’s empty cot. Then, wordlessly, he rushed back out into the darkness.

  It finally occurred to me that somebody might be doing a head count to make sure there were no casualties, so I meandered down to where the company gunny was doing exactly that. Wearing only trousers, a T-shirt, and flip-flops, I felt as casual as I looked. I said, “Hey, Gunny, in case anybody’s wondering, I’m still alive.” Figuring the chaplain’s assistant might be too rattled to check in, I told the gunny what had happened. In typical gunny fashion he bellowed, “What’s he worried about? He’s got Jesus on his side!”

  I went back to my movie.

  I was informed at a later date that the British Royal Marines had finally had enough of that particular IDF insurgent. He had been rocketing vacant portions of the base for some time, hitting nothing. The Brits were content to just keep tabs on him. Now he was getting a little too close to something. So they hunted him down and killed him. There were no more IDF attacks made directly against our position after that.

  Since we were so far from the main part of KAF, a bus would come by every twenty minutes or so and transport Marines back and forth. Right by the bus stop two Marines stood guard—around the clock. All too often, Lance Corporal Andrew “Whit” Whitacre and Lance Corporal Nick Harris were unlucky enough to draw the duty. It made waiting for the bus a lot more entertaining for me, however.

  Whit and I had become friends during Mojave Viper, and through him I got friendly with Nick. Whit was possibly one of the most good-natured guys I ever met. He was twenty-one and stood about six feet tall with blond hair and boyish good looks. Whit could have been a recruiting sergeant’s poster boy.

  He had already been deployed to Iraq, with 2/7. He seemed to know everybody in the battalion, and everybody liked him. It was impossible not to like him. He had that kind of infectious personality that has been winning popularity contests since they were invented. He and Wolfe, one of “my” CLIC Marines, were best friends.

  During Mojave Viper the cold and wind and overcast skies had teamed up with benign neglect from the Golf Company CO and first sergeant, and I was feeling rather low. During one phase of the training the entire company and I were bivouacked at a make-believe FOB. Training was being conducted at a small “town” a few miles away across the desert. I decided to see if the company “powers that be” would even notice that I walked alone across the desert and back each day. Not surprisingly they didn’t. It didn’t help my morale when Frank told me that he was chauffeured to and from the same place by the company he supported.

  One gray morning as I stepped out of my tent into a biting, cold wind, I saw Whit walking with the first sergeant. Whit saw me at the same instant and spontaneously blurted out to the first sergeant, “I LOVE that guy!” It made my day.

  Whit and Wolfe kept talking about a really great place for
fun and frolic called Lake Havasu. It was a man-made lake on the Arizona-California state line. From the stories they told it must have been a blast. They both offered to take me there when we got back. In fact, they were obviously looking forward to showing the “old man” a good time. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I couldn’t party like I did when I was their age, but I agreed anyway. I figured I must have at least one good weekend left in me. Harris and Howell and other guys I knew went there all the time as well. I was really looking forward to it.

  It wasn’t meant to be.

  In retrospect, KAF wasn’t a bad place. In fact, there would come a time when I would regard it as a veritable Disney World. But when we first arrived it took a lot of getting used to.

  On March 31, 2008, after only a few days at KAF, I wrote to my old high school pal Lieutenant Colonel Jack McMahon, USMCR (Ret.),

  Life is spartan and that’s giving it something. This place makes 29 Stumps look good by comparison. We are the bastard stepchildren of this base. Can’t wait to move on although things will likely get worse. My greatest enemy is morale. Gotta keep redefining my mission. Can’t say what my latest personal thrust is, but I keep finding something useful to keep my mind occupied. Its gonna be a long haul. Austere. In the extreme. Knees fine. Shoulders (fine finally!) chest congestion getting better every day. Soon I hope to run and do pushups and crunches again. I lugged twice the baggage load yesterday. I’m a friggin’ mutant. Nobody my age is supposed to be able to do what I do. Especially after double shoulder surgery. I’m sitting here at a computer after cutting out of my 879th IED awareness class. It’s good to be able to jump from one side of the “civilian” line to the other. Ooh rah. Still. This life sucks.

  PS But of course I’m not quitting.

  The “civilized” part of KAF had a non-air-conditioned PX; an un-air-conditioned barbershop; several great semi-air-conditioned chow halls; a Dutch-run recreation canteen, which was open to all; and quite a few shops that sold electronics. KAF also had a non-air-conditioned recreation hall with pool tables, Ping-Pong tables, movies with free popcorn, telephones, and free Internet. The time on the Internet was seriously limited and the lines were prodigious, but the Internet was available. In short, most places were sweatshops, but interesting sweatshops. Most impressively, KAF had the Boardwalk.

  The Boardwalk was a raised wooden sidewalk that formed a large connected hollow square. Over the sidewalk a wooden roof had been erected, thereby affording shade and escape from the burning sun. Around nearly three-quarters of the Boardwalk were shops of various kinds. A few were operated by Canadians, but most by local Afghans or some other interesting ethnic folks. The first thing one would see getting off the bus was a Tim Hortons coffeehouse staffed by friendly Canadian women. Gourmet coffee is always a welcome treat in an austere environment—no matter how hot it is. Additionally, there was an ice cream shop—when the ice cream machine was working; an outdoor hamburger joint; an overabundance of little odds-and-ends stores; and a very small Canadian PX, where I enjoyed warm Diet Cokes.

  Dominating the Boardwalk area was a regulation-size hockey rink. Boldly emblazoned with the red Canadian maple leaf set squarely in the center of the rink, it was constructed inside the hollow square near Tim Hortons. When I first saw it I nearly dropped. I thought the Canadians had somehow managed, in blistering heat, to keep an iced rink right out in the open sun. I was soon disabused of the notion when the teams showed up to play wearing sneakers. Walking around the Boardwalk I could imagine the smell of a chlorinated swimming pool, the sounds of diving boards, splashing water, and happy swimmers. It was just my imagination. There was nothing in the center of the Boardwalk except the hockey rink and burning sand. There would come a time when I’d get used to sweating every minute of the day, but that time hadn’t come yet. There was no escaping it. We lived inside an oven.

  Happily, one of the shops did embroidery. I had them sew Velcro onto my diggie shirt where that offensive DOD Civilian tape had been, and slapped on a newly made three-inch-by-two-inch patch. It was tan with brown embroidery. The place of honor was dead center in the rectangle: it featured the eagle, globe, and anchor—venerable symbol of the Marine Corps. Across the top read “T. P. McGowan,” and right under that “Once a Marine, Always a Marine.” It had “1st Civ. Div.” across the bottom.

  Marine divisions are abbreviated 1st Mar. Div., 2nd Mar. Div., and so on. An inside joke is the “1st Civ. Div.” Standing for “1st Civilian Division,” it told all Marines that although I was technically a civilian, I had earned my eagle, globe, and anchor. I was still a Marine, by God.

  I brought a name tape with me from the States that read “Secret Squirrel.” I had been told in Iraq that whenever someone with gray hair, no rank insignia, and no name tape would show up, Marines would refer to them as secret squirrels. I liked the moniker and had Velcro sewn on the back. I didn’t wear it until we pushed out. Then I wore it on my tactical vest.

  Once the remainder of the battalion arrived, in early April, Frank and I engaged in frequent conferences with Colonel Hall. As noted previously, the battalion’s mission was to train the Afghan National Police, known as ANPs. As we were former law enforcement, it was logical that the colonel would seek our input. Frank and I pondered the idea ad infinitum, preparing PowerPoint presentations laying out several proposed courses of action for the battalion commander to consider. With an AO consisting of thirty thousand square miles, Frank and I really didn’t think we could do much by ourselves, but it was our duty to try to come up with something.

  Personally, I was as strongly opposed to the idea of training the ANP as I had ever been. Recalling the battalion commander’s earlier admonition never to let him fall in love with his plan, I shared my misgivings with him. I voiced my belief that what they needed to be taught was how to survive in a war-torn environment. It would be years before they might need American-style policing skills. I pointed out that there were no courts up and running. Police make arrests. The suspects go to court. The court decides what comes next. With no courts, what is the proper role of police? Without a court system they weren’t police, they were a militia. I think that bit of reasoning made sense to the colonel.

  I held the view that the skill sets the ANP needed could be better provided by a Marine rifle squad than by Frank and me. The ANP needed to be able to handle their weapons and master rudimentary military tactics. A gentleman as well as an officer, Colonel Hall gave careful consideration to what Frank and I had to say. And, naturally, in the end we would do as he wished—personal opinions notwithstanding.

  While the details of the battalion mission were being worked out by Colonel Hall and his staff, Frank and I decided to continue doing what we had begun back at Twenty-nine Palms: teaching Marines throughout the battalion how to read the human terrain, and continuing to coach our CLIC Marines. We arranged to use a classroom in the recreation hall to coteach one platoon at a time, rotating as many platoons through as we could manage. We would also gather our CLIC Marines, sometimes in just a shady corner of the battalion area, and continue working with them.

  One day one of our CLIC Marines honestly admitted that he was totally unconvinced that the questioning techniques we had been teaching him would really work. I decided a case-in-point lesson was in order. So I told him that I was going to get him to tell us something embarrassing about himself. He wouldn’t want to, of course, and I was telling him up front that I was going to get him to do it. He exhibited smug confidence.

  I asked him what his hometown was. He said, “St. Louis.” I replied that he surely must have gone up to the top of the St. Louis Gateway Arch. He told me that he had. I asked him to describe what it was like. His answer was as bland as uncooked spaghetti.

  I had been to St. Louis; one of my best buddies in the Corps was from there, and I had visited him and his family. We had been to the top of the arch. It was nerve-racking. The elevator can’t just go straight up;
the arch is curved. So it bumps and bumps its way to the top. The top sways in the wind. It’s an uncomfortable—and unforgettable—feeling.

  I had him. I knew he was never up in that arch. He had lied.

  So I began to hammer him, and like a boxer on the ropes he couldn’t do much more than get hit. It wasn’t long before he admitted that he wasn’t from St. Louis, and it went downhill from there. Just at the moment when he was about to reveal something embarrassing about himself, I shut it down cold. The other guys were wild—they wanted him to continue—and curious as hell. But I had made my point, and that was as far as I’d let it go.

  On another occasion, the “rock game” was invented. I noticed that Wolfe was bored and not listening. I wondered what new gimmick I could come up with to wake him, and the others, while still making a teaching point. The “rock game” came to me. I had six of the CLIC Marines file by one at a time, out of sight of the others, and I shook hands with each one. Into one hand I placed a rock. That rock was then put into the Marine’s pocket when no one could see. With all six Marines standing in front of the larger CLIC group, I challenged the group to tell me which Marine held the rock.

  I told them that they had all they needed to know—they had months of observation behind them—they knew each other’s “baseline” behavior. So what was there about facial expression, or body English, that was different now? Who possessed the “guilty knowledge” that would be betrayed by a slight difference in expression? They each took a shot at it. Most got it wrong. In their defense I should note that some of the players were deliberately trying to look guilty. Howell, who knew Wolfe the best, was emphatic, “It’s Wolfe!” There was no doubt in his mind.

  He was right. Howell nailed it because he knew Wolfe so well. There was just the subtlest change in Wolfe’s facial expression, and Howell was on it. The others overplayed their “guilt” and were eliminated in Howell’s mind. Since Wolfe and Howell were my first “students” and had developed into my close friends, inwardly I beamed with pride. Most importantly, the point was made that one must establish baseline behavior for an individual or group of people and watch for telltale signs that something is different.