The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War and Sacrifice (44 page)

But before the project even got off the ground:
Horowitz,
The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot,
11–13. That Camelot exploded in Chile is ironic, as Horowitz points out, because Chile was never among the countries proposed for study by Camelot researchers (see also Deitchman,
The Best-Laid Schemes,
157). Nutini was a former citizen of Chile, but he was neither an employee nor a staff member of Project Camelot when he made his 1965 visit. He was essentially freelancing. He had been assigned a small task by the Project, but he “somehow managed to convey the impression of being a direct official of Project Camelot and of having the authority to make proposals to prospective Chilean participants.” Horowitz,
The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot,
12.

If the U.S. military wanted social scientists:
Horowitz,
The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot,
13–14, and Deitchman,
The Best-Laid Schemes,
156–59, 192–93, 225–54.

A key lesson of Camelot:
Horowitz,
The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot,
16–19, and Deitchman,
The Best-Laid Schemes,
165–68. “On the one hand, the DOD was condemned for trying to learn something about its task, since if it tried to do so this implied it was seeking control of foreign policy,” Deitchman writes. “On the other hand, the military were condemned for being insensitive to the nuances of international affairs and diplomacy. Either way, the DOD was out of line.” Deitchman,
The Best-Laid Schemes,
166. That this State-Defense conflict began to be noticed around the time of Vietnam, with what Horowitz calls “the rise of ambiguous politicomilitary conflicts  . . . in contrast to the more precise and diplomatically
controlled ‘classical’ world wars,” is not surprising. The same frustrations have been echoed by soldiers, marines, and senior military officers in Afghanistan, as have concerns that the growing strength of the military threatens civilian control over American foreign policy.

“The story of Project Camelot”:
Horowitz,
The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot,
40.

Camelot—admittedly suspect, ethically problematic:
This is borne out by the accounts of Deitchman and Horowitz. See also George R. Lucas,
Anthropologists at Arms
(Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2009), 60–62.

Perhaps its most significant negative outcome:
Horowitz,
The Rise and Fall of Project Camelot,
23.

They were united, he wrote:
Ibid., 6–7, 33.

The blowup that ended Camelot did little to resolve:
Ibid., 35.

A few years later, in 1970, a group of students:
Eric R. Wolf and Joseph G. Jorgensen, “Anthropology on the Warpath in Thailand,”
New York Review of Books,
November 19, 1970.

Social scientists had been asked to supply:
Ibid. Few of the “entry spaces” on the dummy “Village Tribal Data Card” the anthropologists found in the files left room for “the kind of information normally collected by anthropologists or data which could be kept anonymous,” Wolf and Jorgensen note. For a U.S. government perspective, see Deitchman,
The Best-Laid Schemes,
300–306.

The purloined documents revealed:
Wolf and Jorgensen, “Anthropology on the Warpath in Thailand.” The problem of never knowing exactly how information gathered under government or military auspices may be used would crop up again for the Human Terrain System, since most of the project’s reports on Afghanistan were stored in a classified database accessible to anyone with a Secret clearance. For Steve Fondacaro, the Human Terrain System’s program manager, the standard to which Wolf, Jorgensen, and other anthropologists aspired was “ridiculous.” “You can’t produce any information that could not possibly be used for harm,” he told me. “For the anthropologists to say that they have never produced any information that has resulted in harm is a lie.” Fondacaro was right, but his assertion also created a helpful layer of plausible deniability between the Human Terrain System’s management and the use of its products by intelligence operatives and others. “I can only speak for what I control,” Fondacaro told me. Steve Fondacaro, interview by author, June 16, 2010.

“disengage itself from its connection with colonial aims”:
Wolf and Jorgensen, “Anthropology on the Warpath in Thailand.” See also McFate, “Anthropology and Counterinsurgency,” 36–37.

McFate had studied anthropology at a university:
McFate, interview by author, June 30, 2010. “Younger faculty members who were educated in the seventies and eighties have a really different viewpoint,” McFate told me. “I come from a very conservative tradition in anthropology. . . . That’s a different intellectual genealogy than most people have.”

wasn’t “supposed to be making moral arguments”:
McFate, interview by author, June 30, 2010.

In 2007, the American Anthropological Association:
American Anthropological Association, “Executive Board Statement on the Human Terrain System Project.”

Paula Loyd’s college anthropology professor:
Sally Engle Merry, interview by author, June 7, 2010, and Stefanie Johnson, interview by author, June 23, 2010.

“It’s a really hard question”:
Merry, interviews by author, June 7 and June 11, 2010.

Chapter 6: Hearts and Minds

Back in Maiwand, Don Ayala had just put a bullet:
This chapter is based on interviews with Don Ayala; Clint Cooper; the Afghan interpreter known as Jack Bauer; and soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Regiment, of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division. I have also relied on federal court records and the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s report on the events of November 4, 2008.

He turned away. ‘Oh fuck!’ he said:
“I turned away and said, ‘Oh fuck.’ ” Justin Skotnicki, interview by author, March 24, 2009. The word is repeated here because an Afghan policeman told me that he heard a soldier repeat it at least six times in the moments after Abdul Salam was shot. It seems likely these are two versions of the same event. Amir Mohammad, interview by author, January 19, 2009.

‘Are you serious?’ Pathak yelled:
“I yelled at him for doing it and asked him for his weapons. . . . I asked ‘Are you serious?’ And he answered, ‘Yes, I am.’ ” U.S. Army Report of Investigation 08-CID369–43873–5H1.

Ayala handed Pathak his rifle and pistol:
“I relieved him of his weapons and immediately sent him away from the scene  . . . ,” Pathak told Army investigators, adding that Ayala “turned [his weapons] over willingly and without reservation.” Another soldier recalled Pathak’s demeanor: “He was just like ‘damn it.’ That’s basically how everybody was.” Soldiers’ statements, Army investigation, and statement of Lieutenant Matthew Pathak, November 4, 2008, filed in federal court, May 1, 2009.

‘I just shot the guy,’ Ayala said:
Cooper, interview by author, April 22, 2010; Ayala, interview by author, August 19, 2009; and Cooper statement to Army investigators. A soldier recalled of Ayala: “When he came closer I could hear him saying how he ‘fucked up’ and ‘I killed him’ to [Cooper]. . . . [Ayala] was distressed, like he was rambling more than actually saying it to someone. Walking around like he’d fucked up.”

‘You did the right thing,’ Cooper told him:
“Of course I had no idea about the flex cuffs or any of that stuff,” Cooper told me. “I just thought that he shot the guy while he was running away. And if I would have known the circumstances, maybe I would have said the same thing. I probably would have. But I definitely tried to assure him, or comfort him.” Cooper, interview by author, April 22, 2010. According to
Ayala, he was the one comforting Cooper: “Clint gave me a big hug and he was crying, really crying. He lost it. And I felt bad for him, because I knew he had PTSD, he had a pretty bad case of it, and I knew this just triggered it.” Ayala, interview by author, August 19, 2009.

‘Clint, don’t leave me’:
“She kept calling my name and she begged me not to leave and to stay with her to the hospital. I promised Paula that I would stay with her no matter what it took to do so. . . . An Afghan national police truck pulled up and we loaded Paula into the back on an old mattress. I looked back at [Ayala] and that was the last time I saw him.” Cooper statement to Army investigators. Additional details in this paragraph are from interviews with Cooper and Ayala and soldiers’ statements to Army investigators.

‘I can’t tell,’ he told her haltingly:
Cooper, interview by author, April 22, 2010.

third-degree burns covered 60 to 70 percent of her body:
Statement of the platoon medic to Army investigators and Army medics in Maiwand, interview by author, March 24, 2009.

‘Call Frank,’ she said:
This and other details below are from Cooper, interview by author, April 22, 2010. In his statement to Army investigators, Cooper made it sound as if this exchange happened while Loyd was still on the ground in Chehel Gazi, but he later told me that he believed she told him these things when they were in the aid station on the American base.

‘They’re taking us to FOB Bastion’:
Cooper, interview by author, April 22, 2010, and Cooper statement to Army investigators.

At 2 a.m. at Fort Benning, the phone rang:
Frank Muggeo, interview by author, October 18, 2012, and Cooper, interviews by author, April 19–22, 2010.

Cooper was afraid to see Muggeo:
Cooper was and remains guilt-ridden. He told Army investigators: “Paula’s safety was always our number one concern. We felt a huge responsibility to protect her. We let her down.” Cooper, interviews by author, April 19–22, 2010, and Cooper statement, Army investigation.

White bandages hid Loyd’s body:
Cooper, interview by author, April 22, 2010.

The soldiers didn’t know if he was nuts or what:
“We had to sit him down and pull security on him because we didn’t know if he was crazy or not,” a soldier told Army investigators. Another soldier recalled: “He sat quietly, Indian style against the wall, with someone watching him. At one point he got up to walk around and the individual watching him asked him to sit down. Mr. [Ayala] asked if the individual was there to watch him. The individual asked what Mr. [Ayala] thought, and he said yeah and sat down.”

‘Why you killed that person?’:
Details in this paragraph are from Jack Bauer, interview by author, September 23, 2010.

‘Everything’s going to be okay,’ one told him:
Ayala, interview by author, August 19, 2009.

As he watched armed escorts lead Ayala off:
Ayala looked “bewildered,” Warren told
me. “His face, the way he moved. He was almost in a daze.” Mike Warren, interview by author, March 20, 2009.

They took Ayala for a physical exam:
Ayala, August 19, 2009, and soldiers’ statements to Army investigators.

They  . . . studiously avoided discussing what had happened that day:
“While I was pulling guard [Mr. Ayala] didn’t really talk about what happened much, but when he did I would quickly change the subject to avoid Depressing [sic] or distressing him,” one soldier told Army investigators. “Other than that, we only had very few other conversations consisting of football and women and that’s pretty much it.”

‘I was thinking I saw Paula and thought fuck this guy’:
Ayala, statement to Army investigators, November 4, 2008. On the way to the detention facility, one soldier recalled, Ayala “asked numerous times why he was being held against his will. He was also asking to speak to a lawyer, his boss, or someone in charge.” Mike Warren, Ayala’s friend and team leader, didn’t help the situation. When an Army investigator advised him that Ayala was being held pending an investigation of Salam’s death, Warren “said if Mr. [Ayala] had not been detained  . . . he would have flown Mr. [Ayala] out of the country. After a brief pause, Mr. [Warren] said he was joking.”

After three days, they cuffed Ayala:
Many details about Ayala’s detention here and below are from Ayala, interview by author, August 19, 2009.

They had been sent to do jobs they hadn’t been trained to do:
“Just seeing the morale of the troops out there, not knowing, ‘What are we here for? We can’t go out and fight anybody. We go out there and try to protect them and we’re getting killed left and right. It doesn’t make sense.’ ” Ayala, interview by author, August 18, 2009.

Ayala read about McCain’s time as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam:
“When I was on the
Forrestal,
every man in my squadron had thought Washington’s air war plans were senseless,” McCain wrote. “It’s hard to get a sense that you are advancing the war effort when you are prevented from doing anything more than bouncing the rubble of an utterly insignificant target. . . . We could see SAMs being transported to firing sites and put into place, but we couldn’t do anything about them because we were forbidden to bomb SAM sites unless they were firing on us. Even then, it was often an open question whether we could retaliate or not.” John McCain with Mark Salter,
Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir
(New York: Random House, 1999), 184–85.

How similar that war had been to this one:
“One thing I did learn from it was  . . . when the politicians get involved with war, it creates casualties.” Ayala, interview by author, August 19, 2009.

American soldiers in Afghanistan watched their buddies get killed:
“We should be responsible by sending men into war and supporting them and protecting them. Not just send them in and say, ‘Okay, well, you guys can’t shoot until they kill three or four of us, maybe,’ ” Ayala told me. The turn toward counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, with its emphasis on protecting civilians, was spelled out in a NATO-ISAF
tactical directive issued shortly after Ayala’s arrest: “In order to minimize death or injury of innocent civilians in escalation of force engagements, Commanders are to set conditions through the employment of techniques and procedures and, most importantly, the training of forces to minimize the need to resort to deadly force. Signals, signs, general and specific warnings (visual and audible) must be unambiguous and repeated to ensure the safety of innocent civilians.” Ayala, interview by author, August 19, 2009, and “Tactical Directive,” Headquarters, International Security Assistance Force, Kabul, December 30, 2008.