The Rearview Mirror

Friends, I'm out of Afghanistan. They started flying us out about a week ago, did the usual long layover in Kyrgyzstan, and we touched down on US soil about two days ago. We've still got members of our unit back at Bagram waiting for their flight out, so please keep them in your thoughts for a few more days until they're safely out.

For any readers out there who've been following my story just long enough to see me home safely, we are basically at the end of our trip. Yes, I'm currently stuck on an Army base back East, getting my teeth checked, my records reviewed, and being reminded not to yell at civilians. But I'll be home and ready for regular life in a few days. Mission accomplished. Thanks for coming along.

Now, if you care to bear with me, I think I've got a few stories left to tell. I promise that this wont become a daily log of relationship musings and professional gripes -- I'm sure you don't need me explaining regular life to you. Sure, it's anti-climactic, but there are still a few stories left to tell that are only making sense to me in retrospect, a few lessons I can only understand from a distance, and some pictures that only become clear in the rearview mirror. Stick around a little longer and I'll share those too.

Either way, I'm home. Much love for helping me back.

Snapshots

My PRT included both a Vietnam veteran and a former Vietnam refugee in our leadership ranks. They fought like an old married couple. Imagine Billy Bob Thorton and Jackie Chan arguing about military operations.

I said goodbye to the world's oldest Afghan yesterday. He's cranky and demanding and thinks out loud. He gave me a hug and wished blessings on me and my family. He made me miss my late grandmother.

Got chewed out by an officer with temper issues this morning. I walked away while he was still yelling - I'm too old for this crap.

Smoked a deliciously fat cigar this evening under a perfect summer sky with my replacement. We talked leadership, the military-industrial complex, and maintaining your personal dignity in the face of rampant profiteering. He's a good man, and I wish him much safety and success.

Developed an unsurprising addiction to food porn these days, staying up late at night flipping through a stack of Bon Appetit magazines I found abandoned in the goodie pile. After evenings of long workouts and sensible dinners, I salivate as I flip through money shot close-ups of juicy, rare meat and chocolate creations dripping dark, gorgeous sauce. I threw away my stack of Army issue Maxims, but I mailed the Bon Appetits home.

Had an argument with the Governor about the appropriate way to manage and oversee US-funded projects, and won.

Excited as I am to come home, can't shake the feeling of bittersweetness as this chapter winds down. (Not over yet)

Earning my Keep

Summertime in Kapisa

On the Road Again

Out on a mission the other day, under a bright morning sun, a white pick-up full of Afghan cops and guys in suits starts following our convoy and trying to wave us down. We sort of lost them for a little bit, but they caught back up and managed to get us to stop. The little general and I walked back to talk to them. "We wear suits, so you know we're important," the head guy says to us, "so when we try and wave you down you should really pay attention." One of the cops then pulled out a tangled, softball-sized ball of red & black speaker wire. "This was attached to a bomb set down the road for you. We cut the wire so they couldn't hit you, but would you mind doing something about the bomb?"

 

Under the glaring mid-morning sun, they led us a few miles down the road and pointed out the spot. Nothing obvious, but we stayed way back and stopped traffic. Within minutes, there was a jumble of cars, trucks, motorcycles, wheelbarrows, 3-wheeled taxis, and pedestrians jamming the road, asking questions. "What going on?" "There's a bomb." "Oh. Is it for you?" "Probably." "So, can we pass, then?"

 

After what felt like forever, under a blazing midday sun, the French bomb-squad guys finally showed up and proceeded to precisely and gingerly find the bomb, and then hack it right out of the ground. ("Dude, is that safe?" "They're the pros." "True. I'll be behind that wall over there if you need me.") 

 

We're not bomb-techs, we're people people, so we just kept the sweaty, thirsty, irritated crowd at bay. "You promised this would only take two hours." "No we didn't. And, by the way, it's a frickin bomb." "I got somewhere to be. Why don't you just blow it up?" "We don't like explosions." "I don't think your bomb engineers are very good." "Thanks for the feedback. Now stay back." "I'm late for school." "I think your teacher will understand." "I'm sick." "Did we mention the BOMB?"

 

My favorite though, was the teenage guy, decked out in slick shoes, dressy jeans, and clubby shirt, that strolled past dozens of vehicles and hundreds of people, right up to the cordon, and says in accented but comfortable English, "Hey, man, what's up? My friends and I are late. You mind if we drive on through, buddy?"

 

Jeez.

 

The French guys finally got the thing out of the ground and off to safety, so we, drenched in sweat, sunburned, and exhausted, all climbed back into our trucks. Crisis averted and without a single injury, we continued the mission ("talking to people and looking at stuff" as our medic generically but accurately describes our basic mission). 

 

Actually, one injury. The little general doesn't like water ("It's so blah, it doesn't even taste like anything"), so by the time we got back to base she was so dehydrated we had to drag into our sick bay and stick a couple of IVs in her. Happy to report that she's fine, and back to her usual diet of fried stuff and Coke.  

Radio Silence

This doesn't really fit with the usual image of soldiers at war, but, truth is, I spend a lot of time at my computer. Computers, actually. I have two - one is a classified system (not nearly as cool as that might sound.) Research, analysis, and information management are a big part of my job (just as nerdy as it seems.)

 

Point is, I've been logging some quality hours at my keyboard these days, and when the work is done, I havent had the energy to devote to the blog. Sorry. But, I promise, in the next few days I've got a few good stories to tell. Among them:

 

- our collective thrill at greeting the first of our replacements;

- the sunburnt joy of a day spent calming irrate, stranded Afghan commuters while our French buddies dug up a roadside bomb with our name on it;

- a belated father's day tribute to my dad; and

- rockets in the night.

 

Most days, life here is as mundane as anywhere. But Afghanistan still has a way of slapping you around if it thinks you're not paying attention. 

 

 

Finding My Voice

There were a lot of awful things about my deployment to Iraq a few years back. The terrible leadership. The car bombs. The aimlessness of it all. But the most mundane and maddening thing about it, day after day, was the terrible translation (we had one awesome interpreter, but he was the exception that proved the rule.)

 

Granted, these poor guys (all guys) were in over their heads. Most of our translators were young kids who'd picked up English from bootlegged movies or foul-mouthed GIs. They could tell someone to put their hands up, or to go screw themselves, but that pretty much emptied the English bank. The Army, bless their hearts, tried fixing this by hiring Iraqi-American immigrants to come back and work with military units.

 

The poor guy that got assigned to us, a cab driver in the States, just stared blankly at me the first time we worked together, put on my mission to talk to the about the division between municipal, provincial, and federal public service delivery (defeated, "who pays the garbage man?" I finally asked). Or the time an angry Iraqi civilian decided to give us a big piece of his mind as we walked out of a government building. After several minutes of angry gestures and disgusted looks at me while he spit "Amerika!" the translator looked at me straight-faced and said "ummm...he pretty much is thanking you for kicking out sadam. pretty much." Oh, my.

 

This year's been different, and I owe much of the credit to "the Little General," our Five-Foot-nothing Afghan-American interpreter who throws her weight around like an NFL player, speaks English with a Queens accent, Dari with an Iranian accent and, God love her, knows the Afghan word for "transparency." She's assigned to translate for my boss and me, and I'll be the first to admit we'd be lucky to be half as effective without her.

 

She knows that when we say "hello," in English, what we really mean is "God's peace be upon you. How is your health? How is your family? How I've longed to see you again since last we parted. Are you tired? May you have the energy of a young athlete. etc. etc. etc." She knows how to walk that fine line between lecturing an Afghan official on corruption and actually calling him corrupt. She can turn from butter-you-up sweet to don't-mess-with-me business on a dime. She can entertain 100 Afghan boys on the spot to keep them from overrunning a construction site inspection. The woman can take our blunt, clumsy, culturally ignorant American word bombs and turn them into sharp, effective, respectful Dari. "Fix my words," we often whisper, just before we say something we know is stupid (we often say stupid things.) And she reliably fixes our words while staying to true to our meaning. 

 

My boss and I spend the day between missions giving her hell. "Go home, your husband misses you, spend time with your parents, go back to school. We're here on orders, but you can leave whenever you want." But she knows we'd be lost without her. She's our voice. And our friend.

The Mission, and Life, Continues

After a couple of days of stunned grief, we got back in the saddle on Thursday and went back to work. Nervously, I climbed back into my armored truck and, along with the team, hit the road. We drove past the site of this week's suicide bombing, scorch marks, a small crater, and a downed tree all that remained of that horror. I took a deep breath for myself and made the sign of the cross in memory of our friends.

 

Our first stop was to check in on the UN advisers to the upcoming elections. As we walked into their walled, barbed wired compound, we were hit by an odd, sweet, outdoorsy smell. Inside we came upon a gorgeous rose garden, lovingly tended and in fool bloom. Wonderfully, movingly unexpected. We walked in and had French press coffee and chow hall donuts (I stole some early that morning) with a Bolivian, a German, and two Liberians. Our Afghan elections officer, located nearby and hearing we were in the neighborhood, dropped in, gave me a hug, held my hand, and asked where was that laptop I "promised."

 

We moved on to a meeting with some of our Provincial Council members, the highest elected officials in our province (who have an odd tendency to blame things on "the government"). They were genuinely happy to see us and to see us ok. One of them called immediately after the attack to make sure we were ok, while another went to the scene. I, like a tactless fool, sat down and got straight to business. They politely answered, then went on for 15 minutes about how they were so glad we hadnt been involved and how they were praying for the good people that were killed and their families. And they meant every word. It was touching. I felt connected. As we finished our meeting, they told us how much we'd helped them, how much they'd miss us when we left, but how happy they'd be when we were safe with our families. I was moved.

 

We finished our day and came home, successful, exhausted, and relieved.

 

On Friday I learned that a very close friend here just received test results from a routine medical check he did while home on leave. The results were not good.

 

On Saturday morning I learned that the Deputy Governor of our Province, a trusted colleague who was everything that the Governor is not, passed away on Friday night after a months-long struggle with illness.

 

On Saturday night I went to church for the first time in weeks, looking for a little peace.

 

This morning I went back out, took another deep breath and made the sign of the cross, looked at some projects, met the oldest, coolest judge in Afghanistan (picture Gandalf speaking Dari), and came back home, sweaty, tired, and ready for this damn month to end already. 

I Have to Believe

We just finished a dignified, beautiful ceremony whereby we saw off the remains of three airmen and soldiers on their final journey home to their loved ones. They were killed this morning in an awful attack in an otherwise peaceful neighborhood that my guys and I know all too well. Although my team was not involved (contrary to the claims of the bastard who took credit for the attack), we nonetheless lost dear friends and colleagues with whom we trained, with whom we worked, and who we will dearly miss.

 

I have to believe that they did not die in vain. I have to believe that they gave their lives in the service of lasting peace and dignity here. Like us, their mission was not to make war, in the traditional sense -- their work was to help rebuild Afghanistan and give the next generation, if not this one, a chance at a decent life. I have to believe that they did not die in vain.

 

It's hard, though. It's hard not to feel angry and hopeless and cynical and furious. And sad. Just plain sad.

 

Every day here we saddle up and go out into our province and build and train and mentor and cajole and push. And every day we hit walls. We see freshly built roads falling apart from lack of maintenance, fresh wells run dry, fat contractors doing shoddy work, corrupt officials skimming development funds, local "leaders" asking why we don't solve their problems, people eager to point the finger at someone -- anyone -- else when asked the simple question -- "what are you doing for your community?"

 

Deep in the dark caves of my mind I fight against the voice that asks,"what's the point?" And I fight, With myself. With the other cynics. With the "blow 'em all up and let God sort em out" crowd. I make myself believe that our work, my work, here is honorable, and just, and needed. Sometimes I even convince myself it's effective.

 

But today. God, today...

Spring in the 'Stan

My first week back was miserable. I'd had these high hopes of going home, recharging my batteries, and coming back to work with renewed energy and enthusiasm. Instead, I went home, had the time of my life with my nearest and dearest, and came back loathing everyone here, Afghan and American alike.

Pleased to report that I'm better now. Part of it was the jet-lag, I think. Although i'm still as homesick as I've been since my first year of college oh so many years ago (I counted the other day and was floored at how long ago that was!). But I'm in a better mood, because I can, once again, appreciate the awesome ridiculousness of this place. For example:

- On May 5th I was in a meeting with a local legal official, a somber Pashtun guy from down south who could barely be bothered to speak Dari, the standard language of official business here. We were discussing plans for a new juvenile detention facility in the Provincial Capital when his phone started loudly ringing. His ringtone? La Cucaracha.

- The base-wide e-mail the other day soliciting people to sit on an Asian-American heritage month planning committee. The subject line: "Ethnic Observers Needed."

- Our translator coming into work the other day proudly proclaiming that the Afghan Government had taken action against Swine Flu. They quarantined theTHE pig at the Kabul Zoo. (At least they didnt start rounding up Mexicans.)

- Standing outside, rifles in hand, 50 pounds of armor on our backs, with one of our security detail the other day. A storm had just broken and we were staring at the mountains, gigantic and jagged, barren and beautiful, draped in the scraps of the clouds that had blown away. "It's like Lord of the Rings or something, " he turns to me and says, "but without the monsters and wizards and stuff."

Finally, I looked outside and realized it was spring. Big green leaves and chains of white blossoms on the trees. I'd forgotten they were trees. They were just these skeletal, monochrome, scratchy things. Fresh birsongs. Fields of red wildflowers everywhere. Barefoot kids (same as back in the winter, but they're actually enjoying it now.) Waking up at 5am and stepping out into the morning sunshine. You'd have to be pretty committed to self-pity to stay miserable.