Qalat

QALAT

The AMF (Afghan Militia Force) was losing all of its big weapons and direct fire weapons to the DDR program. DDR was the “Disestablishment, Disarmament and Reintegration” program the Afghan government established to disarm the militias and reintegrate them into society after decades of fighting. One of the locations where there were lots of ordnance stored was a town called Qalat. Qalat is located in the Zabul Province, between Qandahar and Gazni provinces.  The province has long been a hot bed of Taliban/Al-Qaeda resistance, so it was not a friendly town…it was bandit country for sure.

Our job was to go up there destroy everything they had short of 7.62mm (AK-47) rounds. On a previous visit one of my mates had found 6 AGS-17 grenade launchers, similar to our MK-19 40mm grenade launcher, except in the 30mm version. These were very hard to come by and we found out that some of our “friends” could use them. So we decided to go there and retrieve them before blowing them up. The trick was to get them out without the garrison commander messing with us…which meant we had to have a show of force. For us that meant we had to go to the firebase and somehow ‘con’ our way into getting a patrol to provide security. First we went to an American company providing security for various NGO’s (non-government organization-us excluded, of course) and asked to have two security vehicles escort us to Qalat and back. Since the regional manager was a good drinking friend of ours he immediately agreed with us…it is good to have the only bar in town!

As always my teammate and I were loaded for bear, I think we took everything in our arsenal. We then drove up to Qalat, escorted by our “security force” consisting of two vehicles with 4 guards each. These guards we were sure had been Taliban at one time, so of course we didn’t trust them as far as we could throw them. We entered the firebase and immediately started sweet talking the commander into giving us some assistance. He must have thought we were “somebody” since he kept calling us ‘sirs’. All he saw was two Americans looking ragged by any standards, carrying lots of weapons and asking very nicely for his assistance. No only did he agree to it…but he gave us 4 HUMVEES loaded with soldiers, and two gun trucks (HUMVEES with .50 cal mounted on top). Now we were in business!!!

The cache of ordnance was located on top of a hill where the AMF had sort of a ‘fortress’. We rolled in there with an impressive show of force and meaning business. We immediately drove to the bunker we knew had the items we wanted, and told this very frightened officer that he had ten minutes to produce the keys or we were cutting the lock. As he scampered off to search for the keys everyone took positions, making sure that instead of keys he didn’t bring armed soldiers. Without much waiting, the individual returned with the keys and proceeded to open several doors. Mike and I just rushed in with flashlights on and started taking everything we wanted, including extra AK-47s.  The entire job lasted approximately 10 minutes, and as soon as we finished we closed the doors and locked them. Now the tricky part was to get a clean get away. We headed for our vehicle in the front of the fortress and got our troopers ready to move out. I started counting vehicles and noticed we were one short. The lieutenant (LT) in charge of the patrol was still in the rear with vehicle problems…not good. I called him on the radio and told him to put a move on it.

At this point the Operations Officer of the camp came out and started acting squarely with us. He was demanding to see authorization, to which my teammate replied that the fact that the soldiers where with us was enough prove that we had it, but he wasn’t buying it. I kept an eye on the situation while telling the LT he needed to get his ass up to our location so we can leave. I was beginning to worry about the operations officer blocking our way out.  Needless to say I was getting a bit antsy.  There weren’t that many AMF soldiers in the fortress, and I was certain that we could have taken them out, but there was only one way out of that place and I was not about to start an international incident.

Time started to pass by very quickly, and with every tick tock of time the AMF soldiers kept growing restless. The operations officer was definitely not buying my buddy’s bullshit. At this point, I got on the radio and told the LT to get up here ASAP. He very unwisely told me to standby. Well, that’s what it took to set me off. I literally pulled the driver out of the HUMMER and jumped in, racing back to where the dumb-ass was at. Now, I am not sure if the LT was used to having civilians yell at him but I came out of that vehicle cursing and yelling. I let him know that he had 5 minutes to get his HUMMER going or I was leaving him behind, whether he was in charge or not. Of course, the sight of an armed, angry, yelling puertorrican must have inspired fear in this young 2^nd Lieutenant, because the next noise I heard was the sound of the HUMMER coming to life.

As we raced to the front of the fortress I noticed the operations officer yelling at Mike, definitely not a good sign. However, as Mike heard the vehicles rolling towards him, he immediately started to run towards the now blocked gates. He quickly removed the barrier and jumped head first into my truck. The rest of the army HUMMERS quickly followed us as we departed the fortress.

The army escorted us out of Zabul province and we made it back to Qandahar without further incidents. But it was close!!!

House Mine

Kandahar, March 2004 

We were out on our day off looking for trouble…no, actually we had nothing to do so we decided to go out into Kandahar and do some “sightseeing”. Around 1100 we were still driving when our phone rang. Some sergeant was calling that someone had found a mine while digging the foundation for a new house. Great we thought, finally some action. Since we were only about 10 minutes away we decided to take the call and flipped the truck around.

When we arrived the sergeant gave us a guide and a ‘Terp (interpreter). The first thing the ‘Terp did was to ask us where were our bodyguards, and after laughing we told him we didn’t have any, we were it. He didn’t seem too happy with that idea. Next thing he did was to ask us if we were really going to get close, I told him that not only was I getting close to the mine, I was going to pick it up and put in the truck between my feet. He really wasn’t happy now at all. As we started following the directions from our guide we noticed he was taking us directly behind the old Al Qaeda house, which didn’t amuse me all. Mike and I started talking possibility of booby-traps, since they have been found in plenty of occasions in the area.

The house we went to was approximately 500 meters north east of Osama’s shack. Great, I thought. We got out of the truck and told our ‘Terp to stay put and watch our truck, which he didn’t have a problem doing. We opened the gates and found 6 locals around poking at the mine…immediately I shouted at them to stop what they were doing and get

the hell out of there. I am positive they did not understand a word of English but they got the point and left lickety-split.

We watched them leave and got down to business. While Mike covered me for the possibility of ambush, I started removing the earth from the top and immediately found a fuzed and armed TM-62 anti-tank Russian mine. Now the question was if it had been booby-trap. I started digging under it very carefully. Dig, look, dig, look, very tedious but necessary. With my AK-47 laying next to me, I kept an eye on Mike and he on me, he was standing around the front wall, looking at our approaches. As I cleared the mine section directly in front of me I found out that there was nothing under it. I then pushed all the dirt in, and moved to the other side, starting the same process. This side was a bit more difficult since it was lower. I started working my knife under the mine, feeling for tripwires, for anything hard.

At the third probe with the knife I hit something that sounded like metal, definitely hard and didn’t feel like a rock. My heart skipped a bit and I called Mike for a second opinion. The puddles of sweat were creating mud around me. Mike came over and after checking under the mine, agreed with me to keep digging all the way around and then get down and flat and try to see what it was.

I kept on digging and digging my hole to “China”. When I was confident that I could see underneath I stopped and took a look and sure enough, there was a rusted piece of metal under it. Shit I thought…more digging. Again, knife to earth for two more hours, the dirt was very hard and the day was getting hotter. I was sweating buckets and Mike kept yelling at me “hurry up you old fucker” my reply was always the same “bite me!” I knew he was just joking, but I was hot and dirty and tired. I dug a nice sized hole and was finally able to identify the object, it was an old nail…all that for nothing, but then again, one can never be careless. Saved the world again!!!!

I immediately removed the mine by hand and very carefully placed in the front of my truck right between my legs. We almost had to force the ‘Terp to get in. After a lot of talking, he finally agreed that it was safe. I picked up my AK and drove out to the PRT compound, where we dropped him off. Then it was to our house where we stashed the mine under my bed for future disposal. I sure slept like a baby.

Kandahar 2004

February 2004

After a month in Kabul and having completed teaching my courses I traveled to Kandahar. Arriving at the airport was a pleasant surprise. First of all, it was much warmer than Kabul and the US Army controlled the airport and had its air base there, so everywhere I looked I saw friendly U.S. troops, which is very nice after years working abroad with local military. The ride to the house took about an hour, thru wide open expanses of desert; goats and camels everywhere. It was a very nice break from Kabul’s claustrophobic confines. The road was full of types of houses I have never seen before. These dwellings looked like something out of Star Wars. They were low lying homes, as if built into the ground, with very little showing but the top third of the house, surrounded by what looked like mud walls to form a compound. Even though Kandahar is not as safe as Kabul, I felt better there, I felt right at home. The last part of the journey took me into the city proper. It was dusty, and filthy, people everywhere. Seemed like everywhere I looked everyone was carrying a good old soviet Kalishnikov rifle, the AK-47.

The first day in “Dodge City”, Kandahar, was spent visiting the various teams working around the city and taking a look at where I was to teach. Driving thru the city with Mike, one of my two teammates was certainly an experience. For one, he is strung very tight, and the driving conditions were not good at all. Mike certainly gave a new meaning to the phrase “road rage”. There were traffic jams, which are very conducive for ambushes. Needless to say we took our precautions and rolled the windows up so that no grenades could be thrown inside. We drove like mad men thru the town. Early in the morning it was very dusty and with the amount of traffic kicking up more dust our road visibility was very poor. It was a miracle of life that we didn’t run someone over, but it was damn close at times. The times spent completely stopped were tense moments for both of us. It seemed like there was an ambush waiting for us at any moment. Our eyes were constantly roaming our surroundings, looking for any signs of trouble. Every person was a potential bad guy, set on wiping out some Americans; our hands were never far from the triggers of our weapons. We had decided, as per our previous military training that if we couldn’t drive out of the shit, we would just get out and fight our way back to the house, calling for back up (rescue) from the Special Forces teams near by. Of course, that extreme measure never came, but this wouldn’t be the last time we would be in that situation.

Driving out of the city proper was a big relief. We first drove to the ASPs, the ammunition supply points that the coalition had completely obliterated. These were Taliban ASPs full of ordnance. When the air strikes came there was a lot of ordnance kicked out. I have never in my life seen so much ordnance scattered about. We literally had to walk on unexploded ordnance to get from point A to point B. While at the ASPs, we started to hear detonations, which we couldn’t tell if they were friendly or not. We then decided to high-tail it from there and back to the city. On the way Mike took me to the old Al-Qaeda house. This was located on the northern fringes of the city. The house now sits amidst a heap of rubble, having taken lots hits from bombs, since it was suspected that Bin Laden actually lived there, and he did for a while.

The teams clearing the house spend nearly a year going thru the entire place. Many booby-traps were found designed not to kill the EOD technician but to completely demolish the house and destroy all the evidence.

Afghanistan Color Photos 2007

Abandoned helmet

Afghan mountain north of Kabul

King's Tomb restoration

Afghan ladies walking back from the children's hospital in Kabul

Afghan street urchins

Deminer in action

Old building in Kabul

It gets bitter cold in Afghanistan

Abandoned military hardware east of Kabul

Rocket tubes

Afghanistan Black and White Photos 2007

Abandoned Soviet truck

Man near Sangin

Mountain east of Kabul

Long, lonely road to Bagram

Nomad women returning to their village, south of Herat

South Kabul

Whats left of the wall around Kabul

Men outside the Masjit-Jami in Herat

Whats left of the famous minarets of Herat

Herati children

Russian jet of the Afghan Air Corp

Herat, Afghanistan

February 2005. Herat, Afghanistan

After ten hours on the road from Kandahar and I was reaching the limit of my “fun meter”. The road had been hard, bumpy, long, dusty and cold, and my body was definitely feeling it. I was sure we were near the end but could not see it. My driver kept saying ‘next, boss, next’. I just didn’t know exactly what that meant. Descending from a mountain pass I saw a big, green valley in front of me. The first structure I noticed was a gateway; a clean, white granite looking arch welcoming my convoy to my destination…the city of Herat, the crossroad of the Silk Route and cultural center of ancient dynasties and kingdoms; a city torn between culture and wars.

Herat was built before 500 B.C. and was probably known as Artacoana or Aria. Starting with a young man that became king in 336 B.C. at the age of twenty, it has been conquered, destroyed and rebuilt several times. Alexander the Great came through in 330 B.C. and made Herat one his great cities. Alexander built the fort that to this day still stands guard in the middle of the old part of the city.

On my first outing in Herat I told my translator and my driver to take me to see the city and tell me all they knew about its history, what a wonderful mistake that was. I quickly found out that Heratis are fiercely proud of their city. They proceeded to bombard me with names, years, and facts. My mind was like a sponge, trying to absorb everything. And since most Afghans are illiterate and haven’t gone to school, it meant that the information I was getting from them was probably obtained by word of mouth. As to the accuracy and veracity….well…needless to say, I checked everything they said, and to my astonishment I found most of it to be accurate.

The first place they took me was to the plains located to the west of the city. The year was 1222 and the Mongol king Genghis Khan had just returned to lay siege and destroy Herat. With him were close to 80,000 warriors. I was told the plains were full of warriors and great battles took place there. The citizens put up a great fight, but after a bloody siege that lasted 6 months, Genghis Khan and his Mongols ravaged the city, leaving behind only 40 Heratis alive, so the story goes. My guides spoke of these things with great enthusiasm, as if they had been there themselves.

With a population of around 800,000 people, Herat is a good size city. The influence of Iran, which is only an hour drive to the west, is very noticeable in the modern looking stores and all the wares you can buy, all imported from the western neighbor. Everything from satellite dishes, to computers, to Tupperware bowls can be found in Herat. New modern buildings are sprouting everywhere, all of them with a green glass façade that must be the latest trend somewhere. From a ceremony hall built by the former governor, Ismael Khan, to a modern apartment complex selling for $30,000 per unit, the green glass is everywhere. Modernism is much more pronounced here than in any other city I have been in Afghanistan.

From where the car was parked I looked to the north east and saw very tall towers that looked like factory smoke stacks looming well above the highest structure in the city and immediately asked my ‘tour guides’ if Herat had any factories. What I was looking at was the remnants of the once great “musalla”.

In 1381 Tamerlane completely destroyed Herat. But it was his son Shah Rukh who rebuilt it, along with his wife Gawhar Shad Begom, the daughter of a Turkish nobleman. Together they constructed universities and started a cultural renaissance in Herat. Gawhar Shad is credited with building, around 1405 A.D., the Meshad Mosque, a college and a mausoleum, together known as the musalla. Only 5 of the glorious minarets remain standing tall and proud, one of them leaning precariously to the east on the verge of toppling over. At the moment efforts are being made to prevent it from collapsing.

Still to this day, Heratis pride themselves in being well educated and cultured. According to them they are the most educated and literate people in the country. One can see this, for example, in the amount of bookstores that dot the city. It seems like you can’t pass a city block without seeing books advertised. And perhaps for this level of culture and knowledge, Herat has been sought after by many conquerors.

Around 1873 the Persians came once more and laid yet another bloody and ruthless siege on the city. The rulers of Herat at that time were advised by a young British major named Eldred Pottinger. Some have stated that if it had not been for Major Pottinger, Herat might have fallen into the hands of the invading Persians. This fact earned Pottinger the nickname of Hero of Herat.

Towards the beginning of the 1980’s, Heratis stood defiantly, once again, against the soviet invaders. To teach the inhabitants of the city a lesson and to capture the city, the Red Army sent 300 tanks to attack Herat. After the smoke cleared an estimated 5,000 citizens lost their lives and the Soviets had the city.

Under the leadership of the powerful Mujaihadeen Ismael Khan, Heratis survived not only soviet aggression but Taliban submission. Ismael Khan, the self-named Emir of Herat, cleaned up the city and maintained order, although sometimes too strictly, prompting locals to admit that there was little difference between Ismael Khan’s authority and the Taliban regime. In 2002, in a faint attempt to promote himself as a forward thinking leader, Ismael Khan declared that women did not have to wear the omni present burka; however, it is always up to the woman’s male relatives as to what she can or can’t do, what she can and can’t wear. So today the women of Herat continue, for the most part, to wear the burka.

And now, in the first decade of the 21^st century, Herat stands to become the most modern city in the country and once again the cultural center of Afghanistan, moving far ahead of other Afghan cities.

Afghan Road Trip

March 2004

I had settled into my routine at our Kandahar house, and I have to say that at times it was a bit boring, so when the request came in to do a reconnaissance to some of the Firebases at a town called Gazni, we all jumped at it. First order of business was to find out exactly what was the job: to recon some weapons’ caches and assess how long it would take to dispose of them, how many people would be needed, gather points of contacts, routes, accommodation, logistical support and lastly but not least, the security situation of the area. It was the usual tasking.

Next came our plan on how to accomplish all of this. First we decided to go to Firebase Gecko to try to arrange an Special Forces patrol to escort us to Gazni. It was a 5 hour drive thru the last stand of Taliban resistance and we didn’t feel like going alone. We then needed to find where to go and who to talk to. After a quick visit at Gecko everything was arranged for the mission to start on the 1^st of March, Monday. On Sunday we went back to Gecko to make sure everything was alright and to our disbelief our ‘escort’ was tasked with doing something else. The guys there started joking that we didn’t have any balls to go up by ourselves. Well, that’s all it took, we were back on again! We quickly decided that we could do it. We gathered all the remaining information we needed. The situation was dicey at best; there were many ‘pockets’ of resistance along the way so we had to be on the look out for roadblocks and ambushes.

We returned to the house to pick a suitable vehicle and prep our gear. We opted on one of the four-wheel drive pick ups and loaded it with water, food and extra diesel. Then next order of business was to decide on weaponry. Going to our ‘armory’ we found everything we needed. For road-block ‘clearing’ we took two LAAW rockets; for possible ambushes we took two M18A1 Claymore directional mines with very, very short fuzes; each one of us carried a Makarov side arm with 3 magazines each; for breaking contacts we took an assortment of grenades… smokes, white phosphorous, stuns and fragmentations…around 40 total; and for our main weapons we took our trusty AK-47’s with a 75 round magazine and 10-30 round mags each. Mike also had his M3A1 Grease Gun…in short, we were loaded for bear.

On Monday morning we loaded our ‘toys’ and headed out on the big adventure! The ride up was very uneventful, but we didn’t leave our guard down for a second. One weapon was always pointed outwards, the LAAW rockets close by, and the floors were littered with our grenades ready for action. All the pockets in the vehicle had weapons’ magazines, as well as on our body armor. If any one was stupid enough to attempt to stop they were going to get a big, big surprise.

Around 3:20pm we reached Gazni and the first thing we ran into was a huge demonstration for some Shiite religious holiday. Things started not to look good at all. Everyone was wearing green headbands with some Arabic writing (which probably said kill the first white boy you see), we were stuck in a traffic jam with no way out at all.  We tried but couldn’t turn around and we had no escape route. And to top it all we had no idea were Firebase Catamount was (in actuality we had passed it about 2 kilometers before and didn’t know it) to make it to safety. Mike was driving so I lowered my AK to keep it out of sight but chambered a round and placed the weapon on safe…just in case.  Since there were lots of civilians I decided a stun grenade, followed by smokes and tear gas would be best, he agreed with me and I made the grenades ready.

After about 30 minutes of adrenaline rush we cleared the traffic jam and continued the trip. We drove an extra hour before we realized we were leaving the province we were supposed to work in….only because we saw a sign that said “You are now leaving Gazni”.  We turned the truck around and headed back. By this time, 5:00pm, the sun was beginning to set and again, things began to look dim for us. It was getting harder to find the US flag that would point us to the Firebase and we really didn’t want to be stuck out there in bandit country with nowhere to go. After passing the place where the traffic jam had occurred, Mike noticed a compound that had all the makings of our destination. The closer we got the better it looked until we spotted the flag…safety at last! We turned off the road and made a “B-Line” to the main gate. By this point we had been driving around 6 hours and were a bit tired and dusty.

We immediately linked up with our point of contact, who had no idea we were coming and was very amazed, as was everyone else, that we had decided to do the mission on our own without military escort. Next order of business was to find a place to lay up for the night. Captain Grant, our POC gave us some cots in one of the tents and we dropped our gear. As luck would have it we came in just in time for dinner and after stuffing our faces we headed for the tactical operations center, TOC. At the TOC we started our mission brief for the next day with the battalion executive officer, XO. He informed us that the ASP we had come all the way to investigate was gone and disposed of already; however, there were other ones they had discovered in the previous weeks, good, we were back in business. There was a company sized patrol going there the next day and he gave us authorization to tag along. Now, having a company sized patrol was usually not a good sign, and we were to find out the next day why.

The night was just miserable, probably one of the worse nights I had ever spent on a mission. It got terribly cold that night and since we forgot our sleeping bags, we were hating life. The only thing we were wearing was a sweatshirt each. Some of the soldiers there took pity of the two old men and gave us some poncho liners to keep us warm….and they helped, but not much. Better than nothing I guess. Around 0600 I just couldn’t take it anymore and got out for a piss and a smoke. It was bitterly cold and our truck was covered in ice, so it must have definitely dropped below 32 degrees.

After breakfast, the XO came out and told us our escort would be there around 9am and invited us to back to the TOC to warm up with a ton of freshly made hot coffee, now who can turn down an invitation like that? We then received a complete debrief on the prior two weeks operations in the area. A week prior, the firebase we were headed to had send a patrol and they got ambushed and a huge firefight ensued, that lasted about 20 minutes…a huge amount of time, there were some injuries but no deaths. The weapons caches were all commanded, or owned, by the provincial governor who didn’t want anyone to touch them or see them. Some of the other factions also wanted them and had been fighting the governor’s guards for them. So here we are going to tell his guards that we have directives from the Afghani National Army that we were to go in and take pictures and assess the disposal of their ordnance, it all spelled disaster to me. Mike and I just kept giving each other some really worrisome glances.

At exactly 9am the company arrived, the XO made the introductions and we headed out to their firebase to drop off some equipment. There we met with the firebase commander, Lt Cruz. He again verified everything that was said at the TOC and let us know in no uncertain terms that we were in some bad, really bad territory. He could not believe that we had traveled alone; he then glanced in our truck and understood why. We explained our background and he was happy that if the shit hit the fan while on patrol, and it probably will, he wouldn’t have to protect us too much. I joked with him telling him that we probably had more fire power in our truck than he did on the patrol. He was not amused at that since he didn’t have any LAAW rockets…ooops!

And so the patrol started, leaving the safety of the firebase was scary yet exciting at the same time. Everyone locked and loaded their weapons and the gates opened, and we were off to look for trouble. The drive to the sites took us through three villages, all with very narrow streets and high walls…ambush city! I could see the soldiers in front looking a bit tense, these guys had been here before and knew what to expect. Their eyes were scanning the walls, looking into every ally-way, looking for the first sign of trouble. We followed the patrol to the first site where they had told us there mines along the side of the road. If there had been mines before we couldn’t tell, but there were none now. We continued to the next site, an abandoned Russian training site. Garbage was everywhere and now we started to see ordnance laying about…lots of ordnance. But again, no weapons caches nor mines. At around 300 meters from the third and last site, we saw soldiers jumping out in front of the gates and meaning business, not a good sign.

The lieutenant in charge of the patrol got out with his interpreter and started the negotiations to get us access thru. Things didn’t seem to be going well, but we couldn’t hear much from our position next to the last vehicle. The next thing I hear is my teammate saying “Oh shit, here we go!” I looked up expecting to see the gates opening but what I saw was the entire patrol jumping out and taking defensive positions, we followed suit, with Mike retrieving the LAAW and me the entire bag of grenades. I hit the ground ready for whatever happened. We had them seriously outgunned and when they realized it, they waved us thru with smiles on their faces. Touch and go there for a minute, but I guess cooler heads prevailed on their side and quick reaction on ours to save a seriously bad situation.

Now we were in the last compound where we were sure to find ordnance…or trouble. We got out of the vehicles and left one fire team behind to guard them. The rest of us walked to the building compound with the Afghans trailing very close. As we approached the men guarding the buildings, our ‘Terp introduced us and asked permission to enter the first building. This was granted easily enough, maybe too easy. Mike and I entered first. Our fingers were never too far from our triggers. The rest of the guys followed us in. We searched every room looking for ordnance or indications of secret rooms that may be holding a weapons cache. Nothing found in this building or the next four. By now we were getting a bit frustrated with the whole thing, so we decided to check one more building and call it quits. I suggested to Mike we search an outlying building, not the next one they wanted to take us to. Sure enough, the arguing started with the soldier in charge yelling. Things were getting a bit tense now but we were determined to enter the building. I started for it, with or without permission. Sometimes you have to call their bluff and we were frustrated enough that this became one of those times.

I entered first ready for anything, the rest of the patrol tight on my heels, weapons at the ready. We searched thru a maze of rooms… all very dirty, with trash, junk and feces laying about everywhere, needless to say it didn’t smell very pleasant. With one room to go we found what they were hiding from us. I pushed the door very slowly, ever so vigilant about booby-traps and lo and behold there they were: stacks upon stack of pornographic material, I couldn’t believe my eyes! The soldiers looked like they were about to face the shooting squad. We had to calm them down and give them our assurances that we would not turn them in or say anything to anyone. Much to their relief we left the area laughing, but our guard never went down, not until we were out of the area completely and out of sight.

The rest of the patrol went by very uneventful and we returned to the firebase to re-fuel and commence our trip back home to Qandahar. It was getting very late and we wanted to make it home before dark. Two days after returning home, we heard that some road workers had been ambushed and killed on the same road we had just traveled. Forty-eight hours later, the same thing happened again. Guess we got lucky this time.

After two months in country I found out that I was not going back to Armenia to finish the project there, or at least not for the time being. So I decided to combine leave with going to Armenia to gather whatever kit I had left behind.

Upon my return to Qandahar I found out that things had gone ‘south’ and were getting nastier by the minute. It seemed to me that the situation in Afghanistan was mirroring that of Iraq and since things were heating up a lot there, it was just a matter of time until they got real bad here. With Qandahar being the birthplace of the Taliban we were in for some rough times.

The first thing that started to go wrong was that the DDR program has started. DDR is the Disarming, Demobilization and Reintegration for the Afghan Militia Force (AMF) to be conducted by the Afghan National Army (ANA). In theory it is a good program to disarm all of the factional militias roaming the towns but the thing is that these people live by the old saying of “He Who Controls the Weapons Has Power”, so therefore no one wants to give their weapons up to the Army. And on top of all that, DDR is a voluntary program, sort of.

The ANA came into the military area one day and demanded to take all the tanks the AMF had. Of course the AMF told them to shove it up their arses and to fuck off out of there. After the ANA left, some of our team leaders started to report tank rounds disappearing…figure that! So now the AMF has 6-7 fully operational T-72 tanks near us and just itching to use them. The day after this happened, Craig came back to the house saying that someone had fired at him, but thankfully the rounds didn’t hit the target…and that was a big target. Mike also reported taking incoming from the second floor of an AMF building near the tank farm. So I told Mike I wanted to go check out some of the teams near the tank farm and off we went. When we were around 2 klicks from the building where Mike took some rounds we decided to pull over and put on our body armor and load and lock our weapons. We proceeded but I had a feeling like I was acting as bait, to draw fire. If anyone had been stupid enough to shoot at us that day, it probably would have been the last decision he made, because we would have blasted the building with our L.A.A.W.s!

No one fired at us that day and after checking on the teams we looked for the tanks but couldn’t find them. Obviously they had moved them somewhere out of sight, which told us two things: one that the tanks are in working order and two that they intend on keeping them.

A week later we decided to shoot one of our two LAAWs just to have fun. Mike pulled it out, cocked it, pressed the trigger and...nothing.  More trigger pressing, and still nothing. It was a bad LAAW. I pulled the second one out of the car, repeated the process and nothing. Both LAAWS were bad. Mike and I looked at each other thinking the same thing: it was a good thing we never needed them.

Driving in Afghanistan

They are coming at you at 65 mph, no rules, no laws, driving on the wrong side of the road, can’t see you, and the cars are in bad shape. That’s Afghani traffic, probably one of the worse driving experiences I have ever encountered in my travels.

Driving in Afghanistan is not for the faint of heart, not by a long shot. The “Tapon de Bayamon” is nothing compared to driving here. Driving in Rio Piedras at 5pm on a Viernes Social is nothing. Afghani drivers make our Boricua drivers seem like saints destined for the heavens. Yes, it is that bad!

There are no traffic laws, or at least none that are enforced…well…you need real police to enforce them, for starters. Even though foreign countries are doing a marvelous job at training the Afghan national police, they are still a long way from becoming a law enforcement unit as we know it. And even when the national police is completely trained, the public has to obey them, they have to understand that when a police says stop, it means to bring the vehicle to a complete stop, not slow down and go around him. I say that because I have seen it happen. I have seen a “guardia palito” come out in the middle of the street with a baton and a whistle and attempt to stop traffic, only to have the vehicles go around him.

Since there are no laws, there is not an enforced speed limit, meaning they can drive as fast as their little rickety cars can go, whether it is 80 mph or just 15…it doesn’t matter.

Even if the police gave speeding tickets, how are people going to pay them? They don’t have the money to pay. They don’t even have the money for deodorant…and honestly, I don’t blame them, eating (surviving) should come before personal hygiene.

The vast majority of vehicles in the country are imported mainly from Pakistan, where they drive on the left side of the road, British style, with the steering wheel on the right side of the car, of course. However, in Afghanistan, they drive on the right side of the road. Now this causes a serious problem because the driver sits on the right side of the car and cannot see the vehicles approaching unless he swerves all the way to the left (which they do). And they do this without fear or slowing down. So, for example, you can be driving at a leisure pace, minding your own business and thinking of pasteles or morcillas, when all of the sudden there is a 5 ton truck coming at you dead on, doing 80 mph, on a road that is no more than 10 meters wide!

Next problem is the status of the vehicles in the country. There isn’t a single car that would pass a proper safety inspection, except of course the ex-patriates cars, since they are mostly brand new. I have seen cars with 4 different size tires on, cars with no windshields, cars on top of public buses, and cars on top of cars. I have seen trucks carrying 4 times their maximum loads, buses with camels, sheep, cows and humans on the roof…at the same time! The Afghani vehicles make our “Boricua carcachitas” look like brand new limousines or brand new SUVs.

Another interesting traffic problem is the fact that streets and roads are not only for vehicles, no sir, anyone can use the roads, motorcycles and bicycles (all 10 million of them), pedestrians, mothers with children, pregnant women, cows, sheep herds, chupacabras…anyone…and they do. This makes it very difficult to drive defensively since they haven’t figured out how to put turn signals on cows and other animals.

And if you want to talk about road rage, take in consideration the fact the 90% of the drivers have weapons! In Puerto Rico you might get yelled at or at worse you might get the finger…here you get the muzzle of an AK-47 assault rifle pointed at you.

 No, driving in Afghanistan takes you to another level; it will raise your blood pressure faster than eating 10 lbs of morcillas. I rather bicycle down el Yunque on a hot day on a bike with no brakes, after drinking 10 Medallas and a half bottle of Don Q, than drive in Afghanistan…yet we all did.

Gun Deal

The black Land Cruiser approached the meeting point fast, perhaps too fast. Something was definitely not right. I chambered a round in my Glock and was feeling the first drops of sweat racing down my forehead. I pulled out of the side of the road and made a U-turn to be able to follow the Land Cruiser. In a matter of 200 meters we must have passed 5 or 6 policemen just sitting idly, not even paying attention to the two identical Land Cruisers speeding by. Too many police, not a good thing.

The day before we had gotten word from a “friend” we called Black Pajama, that he had some weapons for sale. This being Afghanistan could only mean one-thing…illegal weapons. Which was fine by us because there just wasn’t a gun shop we could stroll in and buy AK-47’s.  Through our interpreter we learned that Black Pajama wanted us to go to a meeting place in front of a hotel. Having been here for over three years I knew this hotel was located on the northwest side of Kabul, an area controlled by Northern Alliance people…Ahmad Shah Massood’s people. That afternoon we made contact with Black Pajama and asked him why he couldn’t just bring the weapons to our villa, it is safe and secure, he shouldn’t have any problem at all. He send message back saying that even though he is very well connected all around, he didn’t want to risk getting caught with 40 AK-47’s and assorted hand guns and ammunition in territory not controlled by his people. Can’t say that I blame him.

As I approached Black Pajama’s black Land Cruiser my eyes were everywhere, on the police to my left, to the men exiting the hotel front door on my right, the vehicles coming around the traffic circle right behind me. I was looking for all possible threats and avenues of exit in case we have to make an emergency exit. I know my partner was doing the same. Gun running is not an easy thing to do anywhere in the world, let alone in Afghanistan.

The original plan was for us to pull up behind Black Pajama and for my partner to jump in his vehicle and check out all the weapons, while I stayed in our Land Cruiser and watch his “six” just in case the deal goes south. Dave would check the weapons, bring them to our vehicle, I would give him the $6,000 in cash I had in my vest and he would give the money to Black Pajama, everything in front of the police. We estimated 30 minutes max, in and out. But like any good plan, this one was about to change drastically.

As soon as I parked behind him, Black Pajama got out of his vehicle as did my translator, and they hugged and smiled and laughed like long lost brothers. By their body language and gestures we figured that we were to follow Black Pajama somewhere else to do the deed. After a few minutes of cordialities we followed him through the dirty and dusty streets of West Kabul. Winding in and out of neighborhoods that I had never been in before; thousands of eyes staring at us; racing to keep up with Black Pajama who was driving like he owned the place. One thing that impressed us was that at a very busy intersection he just drove to the middle and blocked traffic so we can cross and keep up with him. Now that is something an amateur does not do, this guy definitely knew what he was doing. That sort of made us feel a little bit better; however, I was having a hard time remembering all the turns, was it three to the left and then two to the right? I have to say that if anything had happened I would have had a hard time getting out of there quickly.

We made a right turn into a very dusty and foul smelling street and pulled over in front of the third house on the left, what we were assuming was his house. We all got out of our vehicles and while Black Pajama opened the front door, we scanned both sides of the streets making sure we didn’t see anything suspicious.  We entered the courtyard and proceeded to his living room. The room was furnished with a multitude of comfortable sofas and chairs. I took a seat next to the door and Dave sat facing it and to the side. We had the entrance covered. To say that we wanted to do the deal and get out of there fast was an understatement. But it was not to be, the cigarettes, nuts, fruits and tea came out and our translator started to shoot the bull with Black Pajama in the best Afghan tradition. My cell phone rang and it startled me, it was one of our mates calling to check on us as agreed. He had been calling every 20 minutes to make sure we were still alive. Every new sound made me look around, every time the door opened I got a bit jumpier, we had to do the deed and get out of there. From a 30-minute plan, we were into two hours and we still haven’t seen a damn weapon.

I started the bargaining by asking him if the weapons were here. “Of course!” He said. Never forgetting that we were in his house, I politely asked if we could see a “sample”.

We proceeded down very narrow steps to his basement, to his very dusty and dark basement. This time I went down first and Dave brought the rear, our hands never far off our weapons. In the basement, covered with old carpets and two centuries of dust we found hundreds of ammo cans. So far so good, Black Pajama had the ammo. Now we needed to see weapons.

And that came next; he asked us to follow him outside the house, so moving up the narrow stairs from the basement to the ground floor, I was wondering what was in store for us now. From the room we had been eating at, we followed him to the front and outside of the house, to the back of his Land Cruiser. He opened the truck and lo and behold he had the weapons in the back of his vehicle all along. There were are least 50 AK-47’s there, all covered with an old carpet. Getting a bit nervous for standing in the middle of a street in Kabul looking at AK-47s, I asked him if we could take eight inside and check them out. He immediately agreed to it and told his “boy” to take them in, while Dave and I kept our eyes everywhere.

Again, being polite and trying not to offend we asked if we could take the weapons apart to further inspect them, “koneshna” he said, using the Russian word for “Of Course”. We proceeded to tear the weapons apart and checked them; they were all good weapons, very good actually, compared to what I had seen in the last 3 and half years in Afghanistan.

The weapons looked as if they had been buried for a long time, there were dirt and leaves in them. I mentioned that to Black Pajama to which responded “well what do you expect? I had to keep them hidden for many years!” I guess we had to laugh at that.

What we wanted to do then was test fire the weapons, he said no problem, he asked his helper to get us some magazines so we can test fire them. I asked him were did he intend for us to shoot the guns and he said “In my backyard of course!” That’s where we had to draw the line and accept his word that the guns were good.  We were not about to shoot eight AKs in the air in the middle of Kabul. There is an old saying that whatever goes up, must come down…eventually.

To show our appreciation for what he was doing for us and his hospitality, I pulled one of my .45 cal magazines and emptied in my hand and gave the bullets to him…all 14 of them. I knew he had a Colt .45 but had no rounds, so I decided to give him some of mine, knowing that I still had two other full magazines. He was very moved by the gesture and embraced me and told me that we were now real friends.

So now the payment. We asked him if he wanted the money now or later, he said he would come to our villa later and get it from us. What about the guns? He said he trusted us now and that we could take the guns with us; he really didn’t want to go to our side of the city and risk getting stopped by the police with the guns in his trunk.

After placing the weapons and ammo in the back of our Land Cruiser we got ready to go, but I realized that everything was exposed in the back. Dave asked Black Pajama for something to cover the weapons. He came out with a carpet.

My translator said something to the effect that the deed was done and we were finished. What I was thinking was that it ain’t over until it’s over, and for us that was when we drove into our villa and the front gate was closed and locked. We still had to drive across the city and anything could happen: the police could stop, unlikely; we could get a flat tire, likely; or worse, this could all be a set up and Black Pajama might call the police and tell them about us, highly unlikely. Needless to say I drove as fast as possible without drawing too much attention and made it to our villa in record time. As soon as the gates closed we all let out a sigh of relief, it was over.

Mine Victim

One of the hardest aspects of my profession is dealing with mine victims, both during the accident and the period afterwards.  During the seconds after accident you go into automatic, you don’t have time to think, you DON’T think, you just react. You do what you have to do to get the job done and hopefully save a life. The gruesomeness of the accident normally doesn’t bother you; you look past it and accomplish your job.

After the victim is taken away to a medical facility and you are left behind in the aftermath of the accident, that is when the nerves hit you and your knees start to shake a bit. But you have to learn to deal with it because the work is not over yet. There is still a lot more things to get done, reports to write, clean up, and investigations to get started. These investigations are very crucial to determine the cause of the accident so that it can be prevented again, especially if we are doing a wrong procedural step.

That is the physical part; the emotional part comes later, as was the case for me in February 2007. It was at this time that I was tasked to negotiate a settlement between the company I worked for and a mine victim’s family. The way it is done in Afghanistan is that the company has to meet with victim’s family and village and negotiate a cash settlement. In the International Mine Standards for Mine Action there is a chart that establishes the amount of money to be paid to a victim according to the type of injury. This forms the basis to enter into negotiations.

And so my journey started thru the cold and muddy streets of Kabul towards my meeting with Wali’s family. Four months ago Wali got out of his truck and against the advice of deminers present proceeded into a known, active minefield and stepped on a soviet PMN anti-personnel landmine. Wali was not even contracted by us; he was hired by the company we contracted. So even though the accident was entirely his own fault, here I was going to give him money.

As my driver drove at Mach 3 thru the backstreets of Kabul, weaving in and out of traffic, I was thinking how to tell the grandfather and father of what their kid’s leg was worth…how does one do that? I was going alone with a translator. It was still Kabul so my guard was never down; with my sidearm on my hip I kept my eyes all over the place. I didn’t know what I was to expect, a friendly family or one that was overly hostile and belligerent; were these people former Mujahideen or pro-Taliban sympathizers or worse still…active Taliban.

We turned into an unpaved road and made 4 or 5 more turns, enough to get me disoriented…not good. We pulled over in front of a three story building with eight young men sitting directly across the street and three others right next to the door I was to go into…not good. Was I getting into an ambush? I kept looking at hands and eyes for any overt sign of hostility but found none…paranoia perhaps?

As we climbed the stairs to the third floor room, there were plenty of eyes looking thru barely open doors, all the kids wanted to look at the white man in their building. Climbing those dark, cold, dusty steps did not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. At the top of the steps I was greeted by a warm, smiling grandfather. Ekhrudin invited me into what I guessed was their living room. I removed my boots and entered a very cold room, furnished by pillows, carpets, a table with tea and a pot-belly stove. We started with nice pleasantries, as is the custom, but as pleasant as it seemed I never forgot I was not in a friendly city so I sat on a carpet, facing the door, with the windows on my right side. I had clear escape routes if things turned sour. A few minutes after arrival, Wali entered. I had never met him before and he seemed a very nice young man.

With the room rapidly filling up with relatives I was eager to start, the sooner I had an agreement, the sooner I can get out of “dodge”. So taking the initiative, I started telling Ekhrudin my purpose for the visit. He listened intently. After stating my case to the family, Ekhrudin stood up and pronounced solemnly to all present that he was happy with the cash offer, and immediately brought some food out along with the ever present green tea.  And thus the negotiations ended, as quickly as I started them, he finished them.

Grandfather Ekhrudin started to tell me about his fleeing Paktia province with his family, running from the hold of the Taliban. Now it was my turn to become the listener. The story was fascinating and intriguing leaving anyone listening with the thirst for more. Grandpa stood up and announced that he had prepared a meal for me; I was completely astonished by his hospitality. Unfortunately I had a full day of meetings and didn’t have time to stay. I got up to leave and accorded with Grandpa that we should get together at a later day to talk some more. I thanked him as politely as I could for his understanding, for his hospitality and for accepting my offer. I expressed my sincere feelings over a much unfortunate accident and departed the house.

On the way back I asked my translator why the family had been so quick to accept our offer without bargaining. He stated there were various reasons. The first and most important was that they had accepted that the accident had been Wali’s fault and understood completely that we had no responsibility or obligation to engage into a monetary negotiation with them and that we were doing out of a moral, not legal obligation. The next reason was that Grandpa had taken a liking to me, he liked my honesty. That certainly made me happy.

It was still very hard to sit there and put a price on a human limb, and have to negotiate over it as if it were a piece of meat hanging at the butcher’s shop.

This is certainly one part of my job that I don’t care to repeat. The only thing that made this task bearable was Ekhrudin’s Afghan hospitality.