From Afghanistan

Tonight is a special night for the team. It’s the last night for the members who we are replacing; dinner is filled with merriment, laughter and reminiscing with those who have served this past year. The mood is quickly subdued. We receive a call from a reliable intelligence source from the local town that the Taliban have been re-supplied in the past few hours. They have received more ammunition and mortar rounds. The Taliban hate the local leaders put in place by the new government and as they see us supporting the new regime, our compound is now particularly vulnerable to attack. All lights are put out, our security shifts are doubled and our gear is at arm’s length. We lay out plans for the worst and separate so that if mortars hit us, we all don’t die together. The pleasant mood of the meal is already a dim memory. This is our new reality and it troubles me how quickly we have come to accept this state of affairs as “the norm.”

It has been a couple of days since my last entry; the days are beginning to blend. We do things here I can’t talk about, not because you wouldn’t be able to handle anything I had to say but there is always Operation Security to think about. How awful is it to think that our government has to worry that the Afghan Taliban might take time to read what I write and act upon some bit of information I accidentally provide? I would never forgive myself if my words could cause such a thing to come to pass. So I write carefully and share little. Here the Taliban have no problems killing those who accept help from us or killing those who help us. Imagine you’re a parent and your child is dying and the only help is an American doctor working for the Army. You would do anything to help your child, but if you take the child to the American and the Taliban find out, you have signed a death sentence for you and your child. So you lay awake torn between wanting to save your child and the possibility of condemning both of you to death. Americans often take for granted the ease with which we can obtain help when we need it.

It is particularly difficult for soldiers during this time of year. We just spent the holidays without our families and now we are going through what feels like one incredibly long cold night in a distant land. To further complicate the situation, the leaders of all the terrorist groups in Afghanistan have instructed their followers to stay through the winter instead of traveling south to Pakistan for the summer to recuperate and stay warm. So we exist in a constant state of peril. To be perfectly honest, most soldiers would rather be busy - because every day that passes quickly is a day closer to coming home. The days are long and challenging, but as each day passes there is a sense of accomplishment and yet another day that can be checked off the calendar.

The weather has not been kind to the people near my compound; they have lost more than 100 people and more than 10 times that amount in livestock. It is hard not to be cynical when you hear these travesties. It is similar to back in the states when you hear a trailer park in Tornado Valley has been hit. I mean, give me a break, it’s not called Tornado Valley for no reason. So if you move into an un-stationary house in Tornado Valley and are upset when your home flies away with your cow during a tornado, then I admit that I’m not inclined to be terribly sympathetic. In the part of Afghanistan where I am, the people live in housing that has no electricity and there is no firewood available. Others live near the city with electricity or near a forest where there is wood. I can’t help but be frustrated that these people remain here where there are no resources, yet know at the same time – they don’t have the resources to move elsewhere either. On a more positive note, the government is trying to run electrical lines down the main road for these villages near enough to have lines connecting them. It is the first thing that I have seen that the people are doing for themselves. It shows the people care about those not centralized near the city. I feel a touch optimistic.

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