NO REGRETS ~ An American Adventure in Afghanistan (25 page)

“I can imagine,” I said laughingly. “If we can get this course going, I can get the logistics cadre trained up. We might even be able to get good accountability of their weapons, ammunition, and vehicles.”

“We’ve got an idea of what they have out there as far as weapons are concerned. Everything else is up in the air. We can never get a true count and the documentation trail is almost non-existent. The ABP need to be trained. We have no one on our team who is a loggie. Our logistics mentor right now is an infantry corporal. I peek in from time to time to see how things are going but I don’t always have the time to commit to logistics. I’ll talk to Colonel Markinson and we’ll get this going.”

On the morning of the mission, I met up with the border police advisory team at their staging area. Mirwais and I stood off to the side and smoked as the team prepped their vehicles and loaded weapons and ammunition. I had met most of the guys on earlier runs. We stood around the MRAPs—those huge Mad Max-looking vehicles—waiting to depart.

On earlier trips with this team, we traveled in M1151A1 HMMVWs. Hummers are more susceptible to being disabled by a blast than the MRAPs. I’ve seen MRAPs take an IED and keep rolling. I’ve never seen a Hummer take a blast like that and stay intact. The MRAPs are lifesavers. The military calls them combat multipliers. I call them Bouncing Betties. When you were rolling down the road, they bounced even the biggest of men around like basketballs in a dribbling contest. But only if you didn’t have your seat adjusted correctly.

Before we mounted up, we’d gathered in a circle for the mission brief. The operations non-commissioned officer, Sergeant First Class Newcastle, gave us the travel brief and the BOLO list. Then one of the guys began to recite The Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

“Amen,” said the whole group. I recovered enough to add my “Amen” to the chorus. I was a little taken aback. I’m not religious. Even so, I bowed my head. I was a little annoyed at first. Then I thought to myself, who the hell am I to deny this small comfort to anyone. In the end, I was moved by the prayer. Surprised the shit out of me. There is an old saying: “There are no atheists in foxholes.”

After the prayer, Sergeant Newcastle assigned the group of tag-alongs to our vehicles. I was assigned to vehicle one. They placed Mirwais in the trail vehicle. There was also a medic and a medical officer going out with us. I’d be in the same vehicle as Jonny. I think he just liked to have someone in his vehicle who wasn’t always calling him “sir.” He knew that I wasn’t going to bitch and whine or ask stupid questions. We usually talked politics or cracked jokes as we headed down the road.

Captain Jonny Fernandez was always laid back. An active Army type. Will probably be a Lifer. I think he was mid-20’s or so. He was also a real fitness freak. I saw him working out with boulders while we were at Ghalla Attar because there was no weight room out there.

As we departed Camp Stone, I put on my headset. I heard Captain Jonny announce over the intercom: “Weapons are hot. We’re red and on.” Each vehicle in the convoy repeated the phrase affirming that all electronic countermeasures had been turned on and that crewed-served weapons were ready to be fired at the bad guys should we be engaged. Over the intercom, I heard:

We do not ask for your poor, or your hungry. We do not want your tired and sick. It is your corrupt we claim. It is your evil that will be sought by us. With every breath we shall hunt them down. One day you will look behind your shoulder and you will see Border and on that day YOU WILL REAP IT! And we will send you to whatever God you wish.

Fucking beautiful! The Lord’s Prayer and the
Boondock Saints
“Creed” all in fifteen minutes.

Once we arrived at the border police compound at Ghalla Attar, the military guys got out and did a perimeter check. I know it sounds strange. We were in the middle of a border police compound. These were the guys on whom the U.S. is spending millions of U.S. dollars per year. They were supposed to be our allies. Yet, we still had to protect ourselves from them. The dangers were real. Saboteurs and every kind of crazy were about at all times. The police were sometimes infiltrated by the Taliban or bandits. Afghan security forces were known to get religion suddenly and turn on us. We’d had soldiers across Afghanistan fire their AK-47 rifles on us.
²¹

Once we were given the all clear, we went to our sleeping quarters to stow our gear at our cots. After we got settled in, Marky Mark took Jonny, Mirwais, and me to the general’s office. It was a long, white room. Dank walls in dire need of a coat of paint or a good scrubbing. The room was musty smelling with a hint of cigar odor. We were asked to sit on the long row of sofas and chairs that lined the walls of each side of the room. Colonel Markinson briefed the general about the security situation of the border and the districts bordering Iran. He motioned me over and introduced me as the MPRI logistics expert. This was my time to convince the general that the district needed my logistics course. It was a bit like selling a vacuum cleaner to a guy who already had one that worked well enough.

It annoyed the hell out of me that I had to sell the logistics system that I was teaching until I found out that the U.S. had basically foisted it upon the Afghans because the U.S. Army didn’t want the Afghans using an old Soviet system. Honestly, the Soviet system was good enough for the Afghans. Why we decided to take them from one manual logistics system to another always baffled me. If we were really looking to improve their logistics system, we should have taken them to an automated system. For the money and time that it took to get the Afghans to half-ass commit and convert to the new system, I could have converted them to an automated system five times over and it would have added value.

I entered the general’s office. It was my first meeting with him. He reminded me of Ricardo Montalban on
Fantasy Island
. I kept waiting for a midget to pop up and start yelling, “De plane, Boss, de plane!” He was sharp and competent looking in a ruthless Mob boss kind of way. Many of the Afghan generals reminded me of Sicilian crime bosses. I could easily imagine them being handed brown envelopes full of cash at the end of each month. Major General Mulham had the look of a stone cold killer. Michael Corleone in an immaculately tailored police uniform.

“Good afternoon, sir. I’m Dave Kaelin and this is my interpreter Mirwais. I am part of the MPRI logistics team. We’ve been sent here to assist you with getting your log systems in line with the rest of MOI and MOD. We have a two-week course designed to instruct your men on everything from equipment accountability and inventory processes to requisition and disposal of equipment.”

I must have sold my program well enough. General Mulham called Colonel Aminullah, his logistics commander, into the meeting as soon as I finished, and directed him to make ready a room for my course and to have his men attend. He also called all of the battalion commanders and had them send their guys up for the course.

Lieutenant Colonel Aminullah was a graying, heavily-built guy in his early fifties with a great disposition. He always seemed to be smiling. Soft spoken and always good humored, his men seemed to both like and respect him. His problem, as in most of the Afghan security forces, was a lack of trained and literate officers and men. A man who can’t read is not easily adaptable to logistics functions. A logistician must be able to at least write and count. Many Afghans do not possess these rudimentary abilities.

After lunch, I headed over to meet with Colonel Aminullah. His office was in one of the buildings across from where the border team and I were staying for the week. I entered the building and walked halfway down the hall to the colonel’s office. I knocked on his door and turned the door handle. When I walked in, Colonel Aminullah got up from his desk and walked over to me. He greeted me like an old friend. Air kisses. Man hugs. The works. Then he introduced me to the other two men in the room. They were all older gentlemen who had come up for my course. Colonel Yusuf had been a tanker in the old Afghan army. He had switched to the border police sometime back before the Taliban had taken over. Another throwback to the Soviet days. He’d spent five years in Moscow learning armor tactics and attending university. He had a degree from Moscow Military University. He was mid-fifties-ish and had this huge caterpillar of a mustache under his nose. I grew to like him a lot. He immediately invited me to his office for tea. I told him that I’d stop by the next day after class. Colonel Yusuf was the clothing and personal equipment officer. His job was to make sure that all of the soldiers had uniforms and all of the accoutrements that go with being a soldier on the border between Afghanistan and Iran. Sleeping bags, utility belts, holsters, slings, riot batons. Any item that was needed for the mission.

The next guy in the room was Major Aziz. He was in charge of weapons and ammunition. I immediately nicknamed him Wolverine. He looked like he had jumped right out of the
X-Men
comic books. His hair pointed out at the top sides. His canines stuck out in a way that would do Dracula proud. The guy’s eyes were a deep, almost golden maize color. It freaked me out. I couldn’t look at him without breaking into a wide smile. The comparison ended there, though. He was rail thin, lazy as hell, and spent most of his days napping. It was a bitch trying to catch him and get him to follow up on any plans that we made. But when I was in his office with him, we smoked and joked and cut up like there was no tomorrow. All we needed was a bottle of Jack and we’d have been great, old friends.

We discussed the various problems of Afghan logistics. The lack of responsiveness of the Ministry of Interior and the logistics command in Kabul. They had a junkyard full of old Soviet vehicles that had built up over the years. There was also the issue of what to do with the one thousand Hungarian AMD-65 rifles that they had been issued. These were mostly ineffective weapons that jammed constantly. No one wanted to use them. They issued them to lower echelon units, but the commanders complained and sent them back. There was also the problem of defective Chinese ammunition that similarly jammed their rifles instead of firing.

After discussing the logistical issues, we sat for a while chatting and sipping chai. The Afghans were curious about Westerners and our culture. They were especially curious about Americans. Out of the blue, Colonel Aminullah asked me about my religious beliefs. I stood up and showed him my tattoos. I’ve got a Jesus fish on my right ankle. The word “heretic” is on my right bicep. I also had a Buddha on my left shoulder. I showed them all the tattoos and they looked at me like I was from outer space. “I’m going to get an Arabic Allah tattoo next.”

Colonel Aminullah said, “David, you have to pick a religion and stick with it.”

“I don’t believe any of them but I think truth is hidden in each of the philosophies behind them.”

Rolling his eyes and sighing heavily, Colonel Aminullah said, “Religions are all the same. It doesn’t matter which one chooses you. They are about peace and understanding. We should all respect each other and let it be. All of this killing in the name of God is madness.”

I thought it was interesting that the colonel characterized religion as “choosing you” rather than one choosing a religion. “I agree. I believe that all religions are the same. We simply project our cultures onto our chosen Gods and prophets.”

Colonel Aminullah nodded his head. “Yes, David. These things should be left to the individuals. Nothing good comes from forcing my religious belief on Hazaras or the Persians. I don’t need the Jews to believe in Mohammad or Islam. If I respect you and you respect me, there will be peace. The Taliban forced us to believe in the Arab Islam. Our Afghan Islam was much more peaceful.”

* * *

The second morning at Ghalla Attar, Mirwais and I set up at 0830hrs. Thirty minutes passed and no students. We walked outside to have a smoke. 0930hrs came and went. Still no students. Not a single look our way by soldiers and officers passing by. I looked at Mirwais and shrugged. He looked at me and smiled. I just laughed. We waited another fifteen minutes and I looked over at Mirwais and said, “Your fuckin’ brothers will be late to their own damn funerals, bro!”

Mirwais flicked his cigarette and said, “They ain’t my brothers. My dad taught me to be on time.”

“Yeah.
Insha’allah
time on time, you bastard.”

Mirwais laughingly replied, “Fuck you, Dave.”

“Listen, bro. You stay here in case someone shows up. I’m going to walk over to Colonel Aminullah’s office and see what the hell is going on. These bastards could at least swing by and tell us if something is going on.” I stalked off. I was expecting this. I shouldn’t have been pissed but I was anyway.

When I got to Colonel Aminullah’s office, the lights were off and the door was locked. No one was in the building except for a couple of dozing guards. As I walked out of the building, I saw a gathering of soldiers by the storage containers near the entrance to the compound. There were a couple of trucks being loaded with supplies by a detail of soldiers. I stormed over and immediately spied Colonel Aminullah in the middle directing the operation. He started talking to me excitedly in broken English. He was explaining that a mission had come up. I texted Mirwais to come to me, so I could get the full scoop.

Seems there was a big operation going down up north. The ANA and ANP hadn’t prepared themselves well and were getting their asses handed to them because of their lack of supplies. The 4th Brigade had been tasked with pulling their butts out of the fire. The police and army units on the mission in Bala Marghab were low on ammunition, water, food, and petrol. You name it, they were suckin’ for it. An emergency logistics operation was thrown together to take supplies up north to Bala Marghab in Badghis Province. Colonel Aminullah had been scrambling to slam together a supply convoy since late the previous night.