School is in session!

So I was on a mission the other day.  A clear day.  Blue skies, light breeze, sunny and hot.  The patrol meets before we load up and gives the briefing

“ok guys, we’re going to this area today to see some projects.  We’ve never had a problem reported….until a couple of days ago.  Yeah, there was some kinetic activity there”

Kinetic activity? What’s this about?

“Now you guys got to keep a sharp lookout.  Be smart and stay safe”

Hmm…not what I wanted to hear before leaving for a mission, per se, but ok

Then the captain pulls me aside and explains a bit more of the situation….

“Yeah, you see, the village that we are going to…may not be too happy to see us”

“Uh…pardon me?”

“Well the last time we were there the villagers were very unhappy with the way that some work was being done and they were complaining pretty strongly.  In fact, we couldn't even get up the way to see all the work.”

“Sooo….let me see if I understand this correctly.  We are going to a remote and possibly hostile village in an area that has recently had kinetic activity?”

“Pretty much, yeah.  Suit up!”

Oh what a beautiful morning! Oh what a beautiful day! If I even smell danger, how will I get away?

So as we drove, I tried to mentally prepare myself for a potential angry mob and all before coffee.  Not an easy task mind you. Ideas and questions began to collect and shape my thoughts as I tried to anticipate what could happen.  What to say?  What to do?  Be apologetic? Be forceful and “in your face”? Be dismissive (“talk to the hand”)?  Well, just never show fear and weakness!  Strength and stability!

By the time we stopped I was well prepared.  Gritting teeth, jutting jaw, dark glasses, helmet and body armor - very "GI JOE".  Grrrr..I have arrived!  But as we jumped out of the vehicle, the only people there were the contractors for the first project that we were looking at.   The project was coming along well, but I was still expecting to see villagers.   Then the captain points out into the distance at a village uphill

“See that village there?  Not the one closest to us, but the next further one.  That’s where we need to walk to”

“Ok, no worries…uh…walk?”

“Yeah, the vehicles stay here and we walk there”

“Um…ok”

Now I should point out that the second village that the captain was referring to was a little over a kilometer from we were.  Oh yeah…it was uphill on a gravel and dusty road.  It was sunny.  We were wearing 40 pounds of body armor.  Let’s rock!

The hike up was interrupted with wheezing and gasps for air.  The captain paused with hands on knees

“Whoo!  Did I mention that it was kind of a hike?”

Spitting dust from my mouth “no, it must have slipped your mind” (gasping for air)

We eventually stagger up to the village only for the captain to look around and realize that it wasn’t THIS village, but the next one, a kilometer up the road that we had to get to. 

“You’re joking, right?” I asked

“No sorry about that.  They all look so similar”

“Yeah except that some look really tiny because they are so far away up and uphill”

So we march on and as we did I realize that conversations tend to fade out when all you can hear is the blood rushing to your head and your temples throbbing.  But we made it.  And then were greeted by the villagers.  Ok, here it comes….

The villagers were...incredibly friendly, but surprised to see us.  Taking a minute or five to catch our breaths, the captain inquires to where the village elder/leader that we needed to meet was.

“OH! he is in Kabul now.”

Oh nice! The one guy we hike 2 kilometers up a mountain for isn’t even here.

“Uh...ok, how about the second guy in charge?  Is there someone else who can answer some questions for us?”

Asking a question like that in Afghanistan is like asking a room full of Irishmen “who wants a drink?”  EVERYONE about trips over themselves to answer questions and did so.  We eventually identified the man who was the next one in charge and tried to inquire about the problems the villages were facing.  He looked at us with a curious expression on his face and explains that there are no problems and takes us on a tour of the village to look at all the good work that they have been doing.

This is where I give the captain my “did we go to the right village?” look.  Don’t get me wrong, this was a very pleasant and nice surprise, but not the “kinetic activity and angry mob” scenario that we were expecting.   Well, all is well here, so let’s be going back to the…oh, what’s this? The man would like to chat a bit and show us some more projects a little more up the road? Hmmm…ok, how far away is it?

ONE MORE KILOMETER UPHILL!!

During this next little walk, the captain panting alongside me asks

“So how do you feel?”

“I think that the only reason my heart isn’t going to explode is because this stupid body armor is keeping it inside me.”

“Well, I think we’re almost there”

“Great! Do you think they have an oxygen tank up there as well?”

And as we made our way up the path, we passed various little villages, cows and donkeys.  What was so interesting though was how healthy and well cared for they looked.  In fact, these animals look better cared for than we did and I’m convinced that one donkey turned his head away from us and giggled.

“This is as far as we can go” says one of the elders reaching the end of the road “the road is not as good”

What? Not as good as the gravel “slip and slide” that we’ve been on? How is that possible?  Well, if anyone needs me, I’ll be here on the side of the cliff spitting up blood

And so I as I stood there gasping for air and wiping sweat from my brow and the tears from eyes, I scanned the valley and it was…magnificent.  Really it was.  Plants were growing, a stream of cold mountain water was cutting its way through the earth only to be diverted off here and there for irrigation and small hydro generation plants, children in little black and white uniforms were walking down the paths to school.  Overall, it was peaceful, quiet, and over my own wheezing I could make out the old elder laughing and joking with a soldier and asking if he could shoot the M20 or through a grenade down the valley.  Why, looking around this ideal setting I was thinking that the walk up would have been nice….well, endurable…without the body armor.   And then...

“BOOM!”  An explosion went off in the distance

What the…where did that come from?

The soldier froze and quickly scanned the area.  Other soldiers immediately put their gun scopes to get a better look at the surrounding hills.

Mental note to self: do not stand in front of soldier with a gun when you hear an explosion

“BOOM!”  another explosion

Where are these explosions? I don’t see the smoke.  Are they shooting at us?

“BOOM!” a third one

Who the hell cares if they’re shooting at us!  Let’s get the flock out of Dodge!

“Ok, everyone back to the vehicles now” a soldier politely, yet firmly ordered.  He made have said some other things as well, but by then I was already well on my way. 

Now normally I’m sure hiking and slipping down a gravel path wearing the body armor would have been just as tedious and strenuous as going up, but I can tell you that with an explosion sounding adrenaline rush going through your body, it actually becomes quite light.

Meanwhile, the elders and villagers are trying to keep up with us and keep chatting away.

My God!  Are these people so desensitized that they don’t even care if there are explosions around them?

Instead, we sprinted and “chatted” about school conditions, medical clinics, policing, communities, etc. as though nothing fazed them. 

Well, after our little power walk to the vehicles, we bid farewell to the elder who made it all the way down, he told us he would meet us at a different project and jumped into a Toyota Corolla and sped off.  As we climbed back into our armored vehicle, the captain (panting) asks

“So what did you think?”

“What do I think?” (wheeze, pant) “Well, let me summarize this for you.  You’ve just taken me for 3 kilometer 45 degree angle hike through the mountains of Afghanistan, wearing 40 pounds of body armor in the blazing sun to learn that the villagers were very friendly, yet very confused to see me. (pant, gulp)  Then have to “double time it” down 3 kilometers of gravely mountain road because some idiot decides to set off explosives.  (long exhale) Now, my hips feel like someone tried to yank them out of their sockets over my shoulders and we have to go to some more meetings and I look and smell like I’ve been sleeping with the local livestock.  Personally, I think that this is some sort of hazing that you do on the civilians.”

“No, no, I mean, what did you learn from the trip?”

“Oh you mean aside from the fact that I learned that I have the lung capacity of a chain smoking 4 year old child?”

Ok, so aside from my learning of my personal endurance limit, the trip was really informative on many levels and it was great that I went.  In fact, I kept learning things even after we returned to base on the way to dinner that night.  The captain and I were limping along to the dining facility and talking about the explosions and says to me

“You know what those were, don’t you?”

Not wanting to demonstrate my lack of ballistic knowledge…“I assume rockets….or landmines”

“No, that was the school bell”

Stop. Blink. Stare

“What?  The SCHOOL BELL?  Are you kidding me?” (Actually I had some more colorful adjectives in those questions)

“No.  Seriously.  At the second stop, when the guy who jumped into the Toyota came, he explained to me that because the villages are spread throughout the valley and people don’t have clocks, this was the system they used to tell the children to come to school.  This is why they were all so calm and couldn’t understand why we were in such a hurry to get away from there.”

Well, there is a nice little fun fact.  I guess you do learn something new every day.

Are there owls in Afghanistan?

As mentioned, there is quite a bit of training that went on before actually departing for Afghanistan.  One of the more fun trainings is something called the “crash and bang.”

“Crash and bang” is when we flew out to a raceway and learned how to drive a variety of military and civilian vehicles. What is interesting about this is that it is like driver’s education class that we had in high school only on “Bizarro world.”  You have a team of students trying to un-learn everything a good driver should know i.e. where to hit a car (and we do), how to speed (and we did), weave in reverse (not fun), how to control a skid (I was “ok” at that), how to drive an armored plated car (driving easy…stopping – not so much), etc.

The uber cool thing though was that all the instructors were trained on how to do things like “jack knife” (like in the movies where the car drives at high speed backwards, slams on the brakes, spins around 90 degrees and speeds off in the opposite direction and my instructor did many times) and casually talk to you as they raced around the course at race car driver speed. 

Anyway, at the end of the training there is a test. During the test, there are a variety of real life scenarios.  For example, turn the corner, and the road is blocked by a car and there is a man with a machine gun – what do you do? Or a car pulls up alongside you and then they pull a gun on you – what do you do?  Two cars “box you in” along the road – what do you do? Etc. etc.  The student cars take turns being the “good guys” and the “bad guys” with the other instructors driving and the students as insurgents.   

I was the second driver from out car to be tested and I watched some of the other tactics and I felt that I was ready for anything: go around curve and be prepared for machine gun or car pulls along and they have a gun or car gets to close, be prepared to stop or floor it!

Hands on the wheel, engine revved, heart racing and…I’m off!  Driving down a straight way and here it comes! A car is gaining on me from behind.  A friend of mine is in the passenger side and they are pulling up alongside of me!  He must have a gun!  This bastard is going to pull a gun and shoot me…I just know it! and then he leans out the car and yells

“Hey Dude!  Where’s Hooters?!!”

What the…? I’m expecting a gun and he screams “Where is Hooter’s?”  Completely baffled, I look over at the instructor to make sure I heard this correctly “Did he just say “Where’s Hooters?””. 

“Hey man, you’re the driver” he responds

Looking  back over at the car, I mouth “what?”

“Hooters man!  We want to get to Hooters!  How do we get there?”

So with that I slammed on the brakes, threw the car in reverse, did a “Y turn” and “escaped.”

When the car was at a safe distance, the instructor looks over and says

“Why did you do that?  What was so dangerous about him?  Are you threatened by Hooters?”

Ignoring the double entendre of the last question, I calmly replied “Sir, there is no “Hooters” in Afghanistan, thus, it must have been a trap” and promptly gave my friend “the finger” when swapping out drivers.

In actuality, I think I would have done the same thing even if I was living in the US and a car pulled up and asked me the same question.

Regardless, I now have an update to that story….ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you….I was wrong…well, kind of.

During the first month I was here, I did find “Hooters” propaganda in Afghanistan and therefore it must exist…right? 

 The first photo you see is a “Hooters” calendar found in my wardrobe when I moved in.

The second photo is of the inside of one of our armored vehicles

So, I was mistaken.  Hooters has found its way even to the regions of Afghanistan.  And to those of you wondering “NO” I did not bring the propaganda with me.

Kobayashi Maru

So where have I been and why haven’t I blogged in long time…well, to be honest, not a lot really happened for a long time.  I was in the US training for a job to go to Afghanistan.  In that time, my training group and I  experienced an earthquake, hurricane, and the highest prices for food that I have ever seen (I don’t know how people can live there).  As you can see, aside from training, not much.  BUT I do have a story about training…. 

Part of our training is when they fly us to some camp in the middle of nowhere to experience “mock Afghanistan” before we go.  They try to set it up as much as they can to make it like little Afghanistan – old abandoned buildings, blown up cars, sleeping in army barracks, you train with troops who will also go out to Afghanistan, and you interact with Afghan actors who will play a part in various scenarios that you encounter in “the field” – offices, marketplaces, hospitals, etc.  They even give you personalized notebooks. Highly neat.

Our sad looking hero

How this worked was we are divided up into groups with a military and civilian advisor who watch and rate your performance during the various scenarios.  Every day, the group encounters a scenario and must react accordingly as you would in a real life situation.   They also teach you how to interact with the military groups and have you at briefings, teach you brevity words for a “soft” exit (you tell the soldier that you want to leave without offending the host national) and the “hard” exit (you tell the soldier and he immediately grabs you and gets you out), etc.  Basically, the more you “get into” the scenarios and training the better.   Got it?  Good.

So mid-way through the training, we received our assignment and the brevity words.  For “soft” exit, the word is “FACEOFF” and for the hard exit, the word is “SLAPSHOT” (obviously someone was a hockey fan).  The scenario was to meet a “government official” who was having a dispute with some local elders.  In the scenario I was the “note taker” for the meeting and was happily using my new notebook.

During the meeting with the “official” and elders, the official asks our team leader if we want to go the “marketplace” to view alleged discrimination.  Now, my thoughts were “no, of course not.  This is obviously too dangerous and wasn’t planned.  Therefore, back to base” I mean, why put our lives (well…”my life”) in danger?  And I wrote that “no, we don’t go to the market – too dangerous” in my neat little notebook and close the book.  While doing this, I missed the fact that the team leader was having a good time with his role and actually agreed to go to the marketplace and we all stood up and waited around while someone went to talk to the soldiers about the new plan.

Confused on why we didn’t put our gear on right away and get out of there learned from the other team members that we were indeed going to the marketplace.

“What?!” I asked incredulously “we can’t be going to the market!  I wrote that we weren’t going!  We know something bad is going to happen! What sort of madness is this?”  Ok, yeah, the whole thing is make believe, I know that, but my imagination is caught up in the moment.

“Team leader said we go – so we go”

“But…but…oh…this is not a good idea”

I kept mumbling that to myself as I put my body armor on and we walked out to the marketplace. 

Now picture it in your mind:  The team leader, some team members, government official, tribal elders and some soldiers are walking in a small group in front and having a nice chat.  I am walking alone behind them keeping a hyper-sensitive lookout for trouble behind every tree, bush and rock, sounding like Olive Oyle (“ooh…ooh…Popeye…this is such a bad idea…ooh…ooh my!”) and the rest of the team and soldiers are behind me enjoying their walk.

By the time we make it to the “marketplace” I am…super paranoid.  Perhaps this is because I have been in a real rocket attack or I am simply anticipating the worse or perhaps a selfish, yet joyful coward at heart.  Regardless, I am looking behind every corner, alleyway, on the rooftops and balcony.  My eyes are darting furiously back and forth. “Something is going to happen, I just know it!” There are only two “vendors” in the market (to back up the tribal elder’s claim of discrimination) and the team stops at the first vendor – a junk dealer.

“What is going on?” I think to myself “we’re not here for shopping!” eyes still examining every shadow and movement.

“Would you like to buy a bicycle, sir?” asks the vendor to the team leader.

Yeah, I’ll buy it…and get the hell out of here!  I’ll see you all back on base!” my mind races

“Or how about a……” the vendor continues

“Oh my God! I can’t stand this!”  The pressure mounting in my brain “we’re in danger you fools!” and so I slowly broke away from the group and moved down the market to continue my search for the “bad guys.” After all, I’m not going to be caught unaware.  I know how to play THIS little game of cat and mouse.  HAH!

So, I carefully scouted out the market and there was no one there.  Not a soul to be found….or was there? Or would they be coming? Or…or….the anticipation was torturing me!  I turned around and now the team was talking to the second vendor – a carpet salesman.

“What are they doing?” My brain screamed “you aren’t going to buy a carpet!  Let’s go now before something happens!” By now if you can’t understand, I am so into this, I am like a Chihuahua doped up on caffeine at an Irish cloggers convention.  My eyes looked like Homer Simpson.  “Oh, I can’t take this anymore” and I walked back over to the team leader to tell him that we should go.  Fortunately, he felt that the meeting was over and told me to tell the lead soldier the soft brevity word to get us out of there. 

“Right, I’m on it chief”  Of course, it would have helped if I remembered the brevity words.

Nonchalantly I walked over to the soldier and say

“Facebook”

The soldier stops patrolling the area with his eyes and give me an irritated and confused look “what?”

“Facebook” I repeated.  What? Am I speaking Hebrew here? “FACEBOOK!” I glared at him.

“You want my email?”

“What? No!” I hissed “Ok, then…slingshot!”

“What are you talking about?”

DOH! What doesn’t he understand? “SLINGSHOT!....FACEBOOK!...FACEBOOK!...SLINGSHOT!” I panicky repeated.

“Do you mean the brevity words? FaceOFF or SLAPshot?”

“YES! YES!  Those words!” I almost screamed “Just get us the hell outta here!”

“OH, ok. Right away sir!” and begins a soft exit routine.

Now in my mind, my job is done.  I’ve done my part and in the great words of cartoon character Snaglepuss “exit stage left” and I started off alone.

Then…it hit. The whistles of the missiles and explosions going off around the marketplace.  The soldiers jumped to action and threw people on the ground to shield them with the own bodies.  Well, most of them did anyway.  Unbeknownst to him at the time, the soldier who was supposed to be protecting me, reached around to grab me, but obviously, I wasn’t there.  Once he realized this, he had to run after me.  For you see, by then I was standing at a safe distance.  In fact, I stopped and turned around wondering why no one following me, which allowed the soldier to catch up and try to push me to the ground.  I say “try” because do you remember those nice little personal notebooks that they gave out?  Well, I didn’t want mine to get dirty and so every time he pushed me down, my notebook flew out of my hands and I jumped up to catch it (not an easy feat while wearing body armor mind you).  We did this about three or four times before he finally “punched” me down and sat on me until it was time to leave.

Later that day, we had to debrief the military advisor on how it went.  He had heard that the official meeting was well done, but he had also heard from the soldiers that there were some problems at the marketplace during the attack.  The woman in our group was the first to speak up.  She complained that she was ignored during the attack and was rightfully upset that no one threw her on the ground or tried to protect her and that she had to find her own hiding place in an alleyway.  Initially, we all thought that this was because it was hard for young soldiers to simply grab a woman that they didn’t know, throw her on the ground and jump on top of her as a shield (rather goes against the American culture and all the sexual harassment training that they have).   

Then, once they heard my story of what I did, we realized what really happened.  

You see, when my soldier came running after me, a couple of the other soldiers became confused on what was going on and also ran after me.  Thus, they forgot to throw the woman down and left her on her own to find a place to hide.  Oops.

After hearing this, the military advisor really didn’t know what to say or do.  He then explained that the exercise was essentially designed to “kill” us – in the marketplace or on the way to the humvee or anywhere else.  That is, it would be a reminder to think straight and pay attention at all times, regardless how harmless the situation may seem.  The fact that I left before the “attack” started and that the woman found an alleyway to hide in meant that we were the only two to have “survived” and we somehow foiled the test.  While, they congratulated the woman for being resourceful and quick thinking, I don’t think they knew what to think of me.  So I just sat there thinking “Hah! Kobayashi Maru! (the test in Star Trek that Captain Kirk cheated on to pass) – I just cheated death”…now if that really works in Afghanistan.