NO REGRETS ~ An American Adventure in Afghanistan (18 page)

“I’m Dave. This is Zach. He’s the Team Lead.”

Fawad, Rasul, and Nasrullah gave us the polite, deferential “you’re the boss” treatment. They placed their hands over their hearts as they shook our hands. This was the common Afghan greeting—hand over heart, eyes slightly averted, cold, wet, dead fish handshake.

“So, let’s get this out of the way,” I began. “I’m not religious. Zach isn’t religious. We don’t care if you are religious. I don’t care if you are Shi’a, Sunni, Christian, Zoroastrian, or if you worship the unholy satanic, blood-sucking Easter Bunny. If you need it, we’ll give you time to pray. I have no problem with that. But I don’t want any religious tension in my office. Keep your god to yourself because I don’t give a damn. And I am one profane motherfucker. Anyone have a problem with that?”

Fawad looked at me like I was crazy. “Mister David, I am not a fundamentalist. I pray and I go to mosque and try to be a good person. I don’t want you to be Muslim and it won’t affect my work at all.”

I gave him my “don’t fuck with me” look. “As long as you don’t expect everyone else to act in accordance with your beliefs, we’ll be fine.”

Rasul rolled his eyes at Fawad. He shook his head and said, “No, sir. Religion won’t be a problem.”

“What about you Nasrullah? Are you going to be yelling
Allahu Akhbar
all day and expecting special religious treatment?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. Now that that’s out of the way. Fawad, how old are you? You look like a baby.”

“I am twenty-three years old, Mister David.”

“Okay, so you are a baby.”

Rasul smiled at that. “Rasul, how old are you? You look like the old man here.”

“I am thirty-six, sir.”

“Okay, so you are the old man. What about you Nasrullah?”

“I am twenty-eight, sir.”

“Okay. Next thing. I’m not ‘sir’ or ‘mister’ or any of that bullshit. I’m Dave. And whatever you do, do not call me ‘Mister David.’ This isn’t Romper Room or kindergarten. You can call Zach whatever he wants you to call him.”

“Call me Zach. That will be fine.”

“As you can see, we’re pretty informal. One other thing that you guys must know now before we offer you the job. Mick says that you three know your shit. That’s good enough for me. Our mission is not like the Army guys. They stay here comfy and cozy on Camp Zafar. They don’t travel anywhere. We will be going out to the districts and provincial headquarters. That means we’ll be traveling to Farah and Badghis. Places where there is almost guaranteed violence. We might get shot at, bombed, rocketed. We may hit an IED. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Fawad, you have any problems with this?”

“No, sir.”

“Didn’t I say none of that “sir” business?”

“Sorry.”

“Nasrullah?”

“No.”

“Rasul?”

“No.”

“If you do, let me know now. I don’t want to hear jack shit later down the line. If you can’t or won’t travel, you can’t work for us. If you refuse later, you’ll be fired.”

I took them at their word.

“Normally, we will have three guys on the team. Our third guy has been hired and is on the way. I don’t know when he’ll arrive. Each of you will be assigned to one of us permanently. We’ll need to start training immediately. Any questions?”

All three heads shook back and forth. Do these dudes know what they’re getting into, I thought.

“Okay, that’s settled. Zach and I will discuss what needs to happen next with Mick, the guy who ran the testing for you. We’ll call you when we need you to come in next.” With that, we let them go home.

Now that our terps were hired, it was time to move on to the next step.

Meeting the General

Mid-September 2007

In order to train the Afghans, we needed access to them. My team was supposed to be stationed at the regional training center whose primary function was training the Afghan police. A new regional police headquarters called a Multiple Regional Institution (MRI) was being built next to the RTC. I needed access to both the RTC and the MRI to be effective. However, the State Department owned the RTCs and refused to give us access because of their infernal feuding with Defense. This kept us off the RTC as a permanent living arrangement. Eventually, I gained access to the RTC by building relationships with the local RTC command and staff, but that took a little time.

The only other way to access the Afghan police was via the U.S. Army police mentor teams. State and Defense had redundant teams that more often than not operated independently of one another. There were also ISAF teams of Carabinieri—the Italian national military police—rolling around who likewise were coordinating effort with no one else. A by-product of this was wasted effort and confusion within the Afghan police training program. It would get better over time, but when I first arrived no one was talking to anyone else and everyone had separate agendas.

For the time being, Camp Stone was our base of operations and we would have to travel to the Afghans with undermanned and under-equipped Army teams. Herat was a sideshow in Afghanistan in 2007. And Afghanistan was a sideshow of Iraq. Concentration of effort and funding was Iraq first, southern and eastern Afghanistan second, Kabul third. Herat was somewhere down the line behind toilet facilities for detention camps in Guantanamo. The Army mentor teams with whom I would be traveling around the Herat region were equipped with non-armored SUVs, Afghan police Rangers, and a few modified Hummers. We had the worst equipment in all of Afghanistan. The teams were manned at 30 to 40 percent authorized strength. What that meant was that if three people were authorized to conduct a mission, usually only one person was assigned. We were literally a sideshow of a sideshow.

The first challenge after settling into Camp Stone was gaining entry into the system. No one had been expecting us. No one knew what we were supposed to do. No one knew if they could, or even wanted to, support us. I let Zach take the lead in introducing our capabilities and mission to the Army on the ground at Camp Stone. Two weeks passed with no progress. There was no prospect of a class. We weren’t being integrated into the police mentoring team. We were treading water and damn close to drowning. “Zach, what the hell is going on? Are we going to get classes? Are we going to be integrated? Are you doing anything to get us involved?” All I got was a sheepish grin and, “Well, I don’t know. I’ve talked to Major Green and to Lieutenant Colonel Stone.” Major Green was the operations and training officer for the region. Colonel Stone was the commander of the police training team in the Herat region.

“You talked to them. And what?”

“They keep telling me that they’ll get to it.”

“And you think that’s going to get us anywhere? We’ve been here two weeks Zach. All we’ve managed to do is eat and shit. We need to get moving. We need to show progress.”

“I’ll talk to Major Green again and see what he says.”

“Tomorrow, we’ll go together and talk to Major Green.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s go now to set up an appointment to see him.”

We walked towards the head shed. On the way, we ran into Major Green. I stopped him and asked him if he could put aside some time the next day to discuss our mission.

“Sure, but I’ve asked Zach to get with me about the class and schedule. We can put it on the training calendar and get you guys scheduled.”

“We can do that.” I gave Zach a dirty look and thought why the fuck didn’t you tell me this?

“First, though, you guys should brief the commander,” Major Green continued. “Get his buy-in and he’ll make sure that you get students for your classes.”

“How do we do that?”

“Just get on his calendar.”

“Okay. How do we do that?”

“Follow me.”

Major Green took us to the colonel’s office and introduced us to his assistant. Fifteen minutes later, we were scheduled to brief the colonel. Our appointment was for the following morning.

I went back to my office, sat down, and went PowerPoint ranger on our brief. Zach should have done this but I didn’t want him to screw it up. This brief would get us in the game if we did it right. I wanted to get on with the mission. Zach seemed content to shrug his shoulders, accept defeat, and do nothing. I came back to Afghanistan to help re-build it. Zach came to Afghanistan to take long naps, drink coffee, and visit the bazaar. The more I worked with Zach, the more I wanted to choke him.

I was nervous going into the brief the next day. This colonel had a reputation as being a real son of a bitch. If you walked into his office and didn’t have your ducks in a row, he’d shoot holes in your plan and straight up tell you that you were a dumbfuck. I definitely didn’t want that. I didn’t want to be called out because of Zach’s incompetence.

“Zach, let me do the talking. I’ll brief.”

“Okay, Dave. You’re good at this stuff.”

“Sure, I’m good at it Zach, but this shit is your job. When are you going to start doing what you’re supposed to do?” Zach wrapped himself up in his arms and shrugged.

We walked into the colonel’s office and introduced ourselves. I handed out the PowerPoint slides that I’d printed the night before.

“Gentlemen, have a seat,” the colonel told us. “So what do we have here, Dave? What is your mission and how can we help you get it done?”

“Sir, we have a program of instruction that is primarily accountability doctrine. We’ll also be teaching requisition, disposition. Basically, we teach them everything from initial authorization to final disposition of property. Inventory, accountability, MOD 14 requests, storage. Everything that a supply officer should know to keep his unit ready for mission,” I began. I then walked the colonel through the slide briefing.

“How long is your course, Dave?”

“Sir, we anticipate a two-week course, four hours each morning. I’ve been told that Afghans find it hard to concentrate and tend to drop out after three or four hours of training. This is pretty dry material. I get bored with it myself.”

I concluded the brief twenty minutes later. “Colonel, that’s our course. We’ll need students from your police trainers. The course will be held at Camp Zafar Building 203. If you have any questions, sir, I can answer them now.”

“No, Dave, no questions.”

“Really? No questions?”

“No, you covered everything. Why?”

“Well, sir, I was told that you were a real ball buster. I was prepared to be lit up in here.”

The colonel laughed. “Dave, if you’d have come in here half assed, I’d probably have lit you up. But it looks to me like you’ve planned everything and have it all set up. All we need to do is get you students. Have you briefed the RPAC commander, yet?”

“No, sir, that’s our next stop.”

“Good, get him briefed up and we’ll make a plan to get you students. Give Colonel Stone a solid training plan and we’ll start working it.”

“Roger that sir. Thank you.” And that was it. That’s all it took. We were on our way. I walked out of there thinking, man, it was that easy.

The next morning, we were to brief Colonel Stone, the commander of the Regional Police Assistance Command (RPAC) that would be charged with coordinating students for our courses. It was RPAC’s job to go down to the regional Afghan police headquarters (RHQ) and coordinate with the Afghans to arrange for travel and housing for the students that would attend our course on Camp Zafar.

The main goal of our meeting with Colonel Stone was to arrange a meeting at the regional police headquarters with General Akramuddin. The general was the commander of the 606th Ansar Police Zone in Herat. If we wanted to accomplish anything in the Herat region, we would need buy-in and support from General Akramuddin. Colonel Stone had told us to “tag along” with him on his visit to the regional police headquarters the next morning and he would introduce us, so we could brief the general.

Zach and I met Colonel Stone at his office at 0730hrs. We were scheduled to drive to the regional headquarters after the meeting. The colonel introduced us to his staff and then each section gave a brief situation report. The last guy on deck was the security officer. He ran us through the regional security situation and threat analysis. “Be On the Look Out (BOLO) for a green Toyota Ranger with tinted windows and a lone driver who looks nervous; white Toyota Corolla with single driver who looks nervous; green Ford Ranger with police markings. There are several reports of an Afghan male in green
shalwar chameez
casing the area around the RTC access road entrance. I know some of this is vague gentlemen but maintain situational awareness at all times. Keep your eyes open.”

If you’d ever been to Afghanistan, you’d have noticed that white Toyota Corollas are ubiquitous. It’s difficult to tell a dangerous white Toyota Corolla from a benign one. One of the few indications that you might be looking at a suicide bomber is a lone driver. Though, there were plenty of lone drivers out on the road. The threats were real. We got hit from time to time in Herat. Definitely not as much as other areas but enough, so that we maintained a sharp eye on the vehicles and people around us. Anything out of the ordinary could prompt warning shots. Erratic driving marked a threat. A driver who ran up on a convoy was a possible threat.

As the meeting concluded, we walked out to the RPAC vehicles for a convoy brief. “Keep your situational awareness high.” “Check fuel levels.” The security officer read off the BOLO list again. “Make sure everyone has their PPE.
¹⁶
Weapon status—green on base, red after gate.
¹⁷
Remember to turn on your Warlocks and Dukes.”
¹⁸

After the brief we loaded up into the RPAC vehicles. It was the freakin’ Wild West. We drove out of the gate in two unarmored SUVs and a green ANP Ford Ranger. All of them were thin-skinned, unarmored vehicles. I couldn’t believe that we were allowed out of the gate with these vehicles. We may as well have been naked. The only upside was that unarmored SUVs wouldn’t be as easy a target for the enemy to fix. Everyone has an SUV in Afghanistan. To target our little convoy, they’d have had to have tracked us from Camp Stone, through the Zafar gate, and onto the main highway. It was difficult to do but not impossible.