The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War and Sacrifice (41 page)

The Human Terrain Team met:
Ayala and Cooper, “HTT Patrol Report: Gach Karez Kalay,” October 26, 2008.

A man begged the soldiers not to shoot at his sons:
“Another person the HTT members spoke with  . . . was worried about being bombed by American airplanes. These two incidences could reflect a general fear of the power/technology of international forces and the potential for civilian casualties. In order to effectively win over the population, the [battalion] needs to reinforce the image of US Forces targeting/attacking [antigovernment forces] but supporting the [Afghan government] and protecting the local populace.” Loyd, “HTT Patrol Report: USPI Compound Interviews,” October 26, 2008.

told them that he didn’t use his kerosene lamp:
Ayala, Loyd, and Cooper, “HTT Patrol Report: Khaki Chopan,” October 27, 2008. The team members were apparently unsure of what they had heard: “The interpretation of this statement left much to be desired.”

People needed fuel for generators:
Ayala, Loyd, and Cooper, “HTT Patrol Report: Khaki Chopan,” October 27, 2008; Ayala and Cooper, “HTT Patrol Report: Gach Karez Kalay,” October 26, 2008.

They encouraged soldiers to build trust with locals:
Ayala and Cooper, “HTT Patrol Report: ‘Hotel’ Police Station,” October 26, 2008.

Villagers in Maiwand were poor and would accept help from anybody:
Ibid.

When a man who had lost his foot:
Loyd, “HTT Patrol Report: USPI Compound,” October 29, 2008.

That October, Loyd was working on a document:
I obtained three different drafts of this document; it is unclear whether any of them were finished, or if the report were ever distributed to the battalion or sent to the Human Terrain System headquarters in Kansas. I view these drafts as a palimpsest of Loyd’s thinking as she puzzled out how best to express her findings to the soldiers.

Part of her job was to make the Americans:
Loyd wrote: “[U]ntil villagers begin to trust the US Forces operating in their area and feel less threatened  . . . they are not likely to volunteer much information. It is probably going to take multiple visits, conducted over an extended period of time to gain the trust and confidence of the people. . . . These first engagements should focus on building relationships and trust.” Loyd, “Mulik, Malik and Mesheran,” draft, October 2008.

Over Loyd’s protests, her teammates organized a meeting:
Ayala, interview by author, May 4, 2009; Cooper, interview by author, April 22, 2010; and Gusinov, interview by author, June 18, 2011.

Ahmed Wali was President Hamid Karzai’s half brother:
On his alleged drug and CIA connections, see Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti, and James Risen, “Brother of Afghan Leader Said to be Paid by CIA,”
New York Times,
October 27, 2009; Simon Tisdall, “Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Corrupt and Lawless Face of Modern Afghanistan,”
Guardian,
July 12, 2011; and “Confidential U.S. Diplomatic Cable: Ahmed Wali Karzai and Governor Weesa on Governance in Kandahar,” October 3, 2009, via WikiLeaks and published in
New York Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/28/world/20101128-cables-viewer.html?scp=1&sq=memo%20ahmed%20wali%20karzai&st=cse#report/cables-09KABUL3068
, accessed August 4, 2012. Wali Karzai denied the CIA payments and links to the drug trade until his death in 2011.

Ayala, Gusinov, and Mike Warren:
Cooper, interview by author, April 22, 2010: “Mike Warren and [the other men on the team were] all excited about, ‘We’re meeting Wali Karzai.’ ” Ayala told me: “Wali Karzai, he’s a power broker, a strong power broker in the area, and stronger than the government there. And we had some doors open, and we had meetings take place. We met elders, we were invited into villages after that. It didn’t matter what other people thought or what allegedly he’s done. If he’s a big drug lord, he’s never been arrested for it, he’s never been convicted of it. So everything’s a lot of rumors going around. But the thing is, he treated us with respect, we gave him respect. We brought the military to him, he brought other elders from other villages to meet with the military, and it worked out great. So those are things that we made happen out there.” Ayala, interview by author, August 17, 2009.

‘basically  . . . a criminal’:
Cooper, interview by author, April 22, 2010.

“She was a little bit idealistic about that”:
“She wouldn’t go there because he was
corrupt. It was against her principles to deal with corrupt officials,” Gusinov told me. Gusinov, interview by author, June 18, 2011.

Loyd and Cooper learned about a shopkeepers’ organization:
Cooper, interview by author, April 22, 2010.

At least three times, Loyd, Ayala, and Cooper:
For their visits to and impressions of the bazaar, the things they bought, the kids throwing rocks, and Ayala’s arm-wrestling match with the Afghan, Ayala, interview by author, August 19, 2009, and Cooper, interviews by author, April 20 and 22, 2010.

Shoppers complained:
“Patrol Report: Today We Went to the Bazaar,” draft, November 1, 2008, and Cooper, interview by author, April 22, 2010.

“He said there were no other elders”:
Paula Loyd, “HTT Patrol Report,” draft, October 31, 2008.

“very cautious”:
Citations in this paragraph are from Loyd, “Lesbian Resistance in the Bars of San Antonio, Texas,” 11, 14–15.

One Human Terrain draft report that fall recorded a conversation:
“HTT Patrol Report,” draft, October 30, 2008.

Chapter 5: The Anthropology of Us and Them

T. E. Lawrence’s success:
See “Lawrence of Arabia,”
http://www.pbs.org/lawrenceofarabia/players/lawrence.html
, accessed June 8, 2012; and Stephen E. Tabachnick,
The T. E. Lawrence Puzzle
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2012), 11, 27, 145, 174, 193–95, 208–15.

“The beginning and ending of the secret”:
T. E. Lawrence, “27 Articles,”
Arab Bulletin,
August 20, 1917.

Her mother had been the half-Mexican granddaughter:
Unless otherwise noted, quotations and biographical details about McFate in this chapter come from McFate, interviews by author, December 17, 2009, and June 30–July 1, 2010.

At some point, Westerberg  . . . got arrested for dealing marijuana:
A letter from an acquaintance of Barney West’s notes that he was transferred from San Quentin to the Mendocino State Hospital, where he learned to carve wood: “[A] great doctor in charge. He got Barney interested in wood-carving  . . . and his carvings sold very well up there. Today Barney is a very well-known Tiki carver. His place is in Sausalito called: Tiki Junction.” “Holly Letters,” correspondence of Eleanor Borden, October 23, 1971, with thanks to Victoria Bogdan for sharing these letters.

West told people that he had served:
This is McFate’s account. See also Lyle W. Price, “Barney West Famous for Tricky Tikis,” Associated Press, December 13, 1965: “West says he was taught by carving masters when he was shipwrecked in the merchant marine for six months in 1943 in the Marquesas Islands, about 800 miles north of Tahiti.”

Poynter and West moved to Sausalito:
“He totally capitalized on this crazy story [of his shipwreck in Polynesia] and became, like, the world’s most famous tiki carver,” McFate told me. McFate, interview by author, December 17, 2009. See also Price, “Barney West Famous for Tricky Tikis,” and “Tiki Junction, Sausalito,”
http://mohurley.blogspot.com/2007/03/tiki-junction-sausalito.html
, accessed June 12, 2012. According to Price, West also made tikis for resorts, shopping centers, and a church.

He had found a way to turn mid-twentieth-century America’s:
McFate, interview by author, December 17, 2009, and Nina Burleigh, “McFate’s Mission,”
More,
September, 2007.

The barges had been used to tow ammunition:
Phil Frank,
Houseboats of Sausalito
(Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2008), 73–76, and Joe Tate, interview by Sara Breselor, July 20, 2012.

Poynter docked her barge in Richardson Bay:
For more on the barge purchase and McFate’s early years at Gate 5, Matthew B. Stannard, “Montgomery McFate’s Mission: Can One Anthropologist Possibly Steer the Course in Iraq?”
San Francisco Chronicle,
April 29, 2007, and Tate, interview by Sara Breselor, July 20, 2012.

Poynter met McFate’s father, Martin Carlough:
Details about Martin Carlough in this section are from McFate, interviews by author, December 17, 2009, and July 1, 2010; Tate, interview by Sara Breselor, July 20, 2012; and Stannard, “Montgomery McFate’s Mission.”

Although McFate’s parents were married briefly:
Stannard quotes McFate on her mother: “Her advice to me when I was a kid was never write anything down, don’t leave any records, never trust the government, don’t join any organizations. She was a real anarchist.” Poynter ultimately relented and let McFate join the Girl Scouts.

Poynter was one of the few houseboat dwellers:
Tate notes that Poynter had a “special deal” with Arques, and that she was more concerned with the respectability of Gate 5 than most residents. See also Frank,
Houseboats of Sausalito,
74–75.

Poynter, by most conventional definitions a radical:
By McFate’s account, Poynter told her neighbors: ‘Fuck all of you people. I’ve been here since 1957. I’d had this boat condemned how many times? I’m all in favor of putting sewage lines in and legal electricity because I want to live in peace and not be subjected to this pressure and insecurity.’ McFate, interview by author, December 17, 2009.

The developers declared:
McFate, interview by author, December 17, 2009, and “Gate 5 Survivors,”
www.gate5survivors.com
, accessed July 24, 2012, which includes original news footage of the conflict with the sheriff and the sinking of the Red Barge.

A man known as Teepee Tom:
McFate, interview by author, December 17, 2009, and Tate, interview by Sara Breselor, July 20, 2012.

Meanwhile, a private drama played out on the barge:
For McFate’s experience during the houseboat wars and her chaotic homelife, including studying at the bus stop,
McFate, interview by author, December 17, 2009; Burleigh, “McFate’s Mission”; and Stannard, “Montgomery McFate’s Mission.”

She befriended a classmate who lived in Marin City:
McFate, interview by author, December 17, 2009, and “Welcome to Marin City, California,”
www.marincitygov.org/2.1_history.html
, accessed July 24, 2012.

The housing projects of Marin City:
McFate, interview by author, December 17, 2009. Stannard writes: “the white curtains in the bedroom of a Marin City friend seemed to McFate an unimaginable luxury.” Stannard, “Montgomery McFate’s Mission.”

The writer Cintra Wilson:
Unless otherwise noted, quotes from Cintra Wilson in this chapter are from Wilson, interview by author, August 9, 2010.

In her novel:
Cintra Wilson,
Colors Insulting to Nature
(New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 96.

McFate dressed almost entirely in black:
Wilson, interview by author, August 9, 2010. See also Stannard, “Montgomery McFate’s Mission”: ‘[W]e called her ‘Satan’s beekeeper,’ Wilson told Stannard. ‘She was goth before anybody was goth.’

But she was good at school:
Wilson, interview by author, August 9, 2010, and McFate, interview by author, December 17, 2009. “The only thing that provided order was school, and I was really good at school,” McFate told me. “It was a logical system, it was a rational system, like, if you do your homework and you show up to class and you interact and you participate, and you spend a little time working, you’re going to get a good grade.”

McFate started working when she was fifteen:
Details about McFate’s teenaged years, including the deaths of her friends, are from McFate, interview by author, December 17, 2009. See also Stannard, “Montgomery McFate’s Mission,” and Burleigh, “McFate’s Mission.” By McFate’s account, Elizabeth’s death inspired the Jim Carroll song-poem “For Elizabeth”; she felt that his punk anthem “People Who Died” summed up her teenaged experience of loss. See “ ‘For Elizabeth’ by Jim Carroll,”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpcIYh7sL5Q
, accessed July 25, 2012.

She was the first in a series of friends:
In all, three of McFate’s boyfriends killed themselves, including one who overdosed on heroin. McFate’s friend Sarah Spiegelman was shot on March 17, 1983, in Golden Gate Park by a psychotic man who was infuriated by the sight of Spiegelman, a white woman, out walking with a black man. The case got even stranger when Spiegelman’s father shot her murderer in a courtroom in 1986. See Dan Morain, “Court Shooting—Crime Victims Worried: Father’s Act Was Understandable but Let the Law Prevail, Some Say,”
Los Angeles Times
, April 13, 1986.

Even if they hadn’t exactly wanted to die:
McFate, interview by author, December 17, 2009. See also Burleigh, “McFate’s Mission”: “ ‘After all of those people died, I was like, whoa, this has to end, I can’t be involved in this anymore.’ ”

Actually, Nietzsche famously wrote that hope:
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Human, All Too
Human,
http://www.lexido.com/EBOOK_TEXTS/HUMAN_ALL_TOO_HUMAN_BOOK_ONE_.aspx?S=71
. Accessed March 4, 2013.

When she talked about choosing life over death:
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Twilight of the Idols,
in
The Portable Nietzsche,
edited and translated by Walter Kaufmann (New York: Penguin, 1954), 562–63.