NO REGRETS ~ An American Adventure in Afghanistan (19 page)

This was my first trip outside the wire in Herat. I had no idea what it would be like. We exited the Stone and Zafar gates and turned north onto the main road. The drivers slammed gas and we shot off at 80 mph. We stayed to the middle of the road unless we came upon traffic heading in the opposite direction at which time we veered only slightly to the right. We passed Camp Arena, the local ISAF base, on the right. On the left was a village of mud huts and some sort of factory. I looked back to my right just in time to see a camel caravan loaded down with carpets and tapestries. Herat Airport flashed by. We entered the dividing zone between the Gozara and Injil districts. This part of the road was tree-lined, dark, and full of shadows. Afghans lined both sides of the street. I saw imaginary enemies lurking everywhere. Gozara was supposed to be a hotbed of the insurgency. It was the home of a guy named Ghulam Yahya. Mister Yahya liked to lay ambushes and launch rockets at ISAF and the UN. Injil was a relatively friendlier district. We then came upon a sign bidding us “Welcome to Herat” and crossed the bridge over the Hari Rud river.

As soon as we were through the trees, we hit the outskirts of Herat. Traffic picked up immediately. People were everywhere. People were always a good sign. When the Afghans were out in numbers, you were usually safe. If well-trafficked areas were empty, there was usually a nasty surprise waiting. We passed through the congestion and came upon a police-manned traffic circle. The Afghan cop waved us through and into a white, walled compound off to our right.

A crude sign told me that we were at the Park Palace Hotel. We drove about a hundred feet into the compound to a circular driveway around a defunct fountain. The hotel itself sat to our north. This place had seen better days. Its facade had long since faded and peeled away. To the east, shipping containers formed a wall separating the RHQ from the rest of town. The old eastern wall had been knocked down by the Russians. The west of the compound was a dried-out garden with a small brown mosque in the center. There wasn’t much here to please the eye.

The Afghan police had taken over the hotel right after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Apparently, the American government was renting this fine establishment for somewhere around thirty thousand U.S. dollars per month. I wouldn’t have paid two hundred bucks a month for the shit hole. According to my terp Fawad, the Park Palace had been beautiful prior to the reign of the Taliban. Affluent Heratis held elaborate wedding ceremonies here in better times.

We parked tactically throughout the compound. Security Forces took up positions of overwatch. “I guess they don’t trust the Afghans,” I said to Zach and Fawad.

The three of us walked to the fountain that sat across from the main entrance to the hotel. Colonel Stone met us there. “Follow me into the General’s office. I’ll introduce you after the meeting.” We walked into the hotel. Colonel Stone pointed out key offices and personnel. First on the right was a long narrow closet. “That’s the logistics office. Major Subhan will be in there. He’s a guy you’ll want to get to know.” Walking straight across the lobby foyer into the main hallway we came to a huge room that was the banquet hall. “Dave, Zach, you might be able to use that as a classroom. It’s an option, I think.” Zach and I nodded. I asked Zach, “Dude, do you really want to be coming up here for daily classes?” In front of the banquet hall, we turned right. At the end of the hall was the general’s office.

Colonel Stone led the way. We were early. No one was around except the general and his chai boy. A “chai boy” is an enlisted soldier or policeman who serves tea. In some cases, they serve more than tea. Some Afghans use their “chai boys” for sex. I didn’t know if that was the case here or not. I suspected not since this chai boy was a bit older than usual. General Akramuddin was an Uzbek. The Uzbeks weren’t rumored to have that peculiar boy-loving habit of the Pashtun tribe. This guy was also a Hajji, meaning he’d made the pilgrimage to Mecca. The general took his religion seriously.

We entered his office through a curtained doorway and turned right into a vast office that seemed a world unto itself—‘70s reject brown sofas lined the walls along with glass and metal coffee tables. Even the carpet had a pimp daddy ‘70s feel to it. A large, shiny, brown desk at the far center of the room was the
coup de grâce
. It all blended together to make a fine, Daddy Mac crow’s nest.

Colonel Stone half marched us up to the middle of the room and began his introductions.
Assalaam alaykum
, General.
Subha al khair
, he intoned. “Peace by with you, General. Good morning.”

Salaam. Subha al khair
, Colonel Stone, the general answered. “Peace. Good morning, General Stone.”

“General, these gentlemen are from MPRI. They are logistics mentors.” General Akramuddin walked around his desk to greet us. Colonel Stone continued, “This is Dave Kaelin and Zach Amuro. They have a brief that they’d like to give you after this morning’s meeting. If you have the time, sir.”

The general looked at my terp Fawad. It was an odd passing, as if he was saying don’t fuck this up. General Akramuddin stepped towards us and shook each of our hands, saying, “It is an honor to have you in our country. I know that you have traveled far from your home to come to Afghanistan to help us. If there is anything that I can do for you, please let me know.” Fawad translated and the general nodded seemingly satisfied. From that moment on, I was careful what I said around General Akramuddin. He was an English speaker on some level. Enough to have judged Fawad’s translation skills. We were told that we could brief him later that morning.

The usual characters were at the staff meeting. Operations, Security, Personnel, Training, Logistics. Additionally, there were mentors from all over the Coalition—Carabinieri from Italy, DynCorp mentors from the RTC, and the U.S. Army guys with whom we had come. Zach and I sat in for the meeting near the back of the room. As soon as everyone was seated, the general’s cell rang.

General Ak started yelling into the phone. He hung up and immediately received another call. I looked at Fawad, “Dude, what the fuck is going on? What’s he talking about?” Fawad listened for a bit. “It is a kidnapping.”

“Kidnapping?”

“Yes, David. The Injil police chief is calling about a kidnapping. A businessman’s son has been kidnapped. The kidnappers want a fifty-thousand-dollar ransom.”

“Injil? We passed that on the way down here?”

“Yes, it’s between here and Camp Stone.”

I motioned for Fawad to walk outside with me. I didn’t want anyone overhearing me talking about the general.

“Okay, so what is the general doing? What’s his part? Is he in on the game or not?”

“I do not know, David. But it wouldn’t surprise me if he is getting a kickback from the kidnappers.”

“Really? So, General Ak is crooked?”

“I do not know but nothing is ever as it seems with the police. They are all corrupt.”

“Really? Even the general here?”

“I can’t say. But probably,” Fawad shrugged. “I cannot say who is crooked and who is not. I only know that the police are corrupt and that is why the people hate them.”

About an hour later, the meeting broke up. I walked back into the general’s office with my brief. Fawad followed me in. Zach was waiting for us inside. I handed General Ak a set of slides that Fawad had translated into Dari. I ran through the slides quickly. Fawad translated but I swore that General Ak understood me. After the brief, the general called his logistics chief in to meet us. He had a buzzer rigged to his desk. When he pressed the button, his assistant came running in. General Ak yelled instructions and people frantically ran around accomplishing whatever the general wanted. I could see the panic in the Afghans’ eyes when the general started yelling at them. It was almost comical. General Ak introduced us, “This is Major Subhan, my logistics officer.” He yelled at Subhan in Dari so fast and violently that Fawad didn’t catch it completely. Subhan was dismissed and left the office with no time for us to even say, “Nice to meet ya.”

We stood to take our leave.

Once outside, I asked Fawad, “What the hell did Colonel Ak just say in there?”

“He told Subhan that he better not embarrass him.”

“Not embarrass him? What the hell does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“Fawad, don’t sugarcoat. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know. He just told Subhan not to embarrass him. I think the general thinks Subhan is a dolt.”

“Well, that makes sense. He damn sure didn’t seem to like the guy much.”

When we got back to camp, Colonel Stone told us that he’d have students ready for our first course. That course was about two weeks away.

¹⁶
PPE—personal protective gear—consists of body armor, helmet, gloves, and eye protection.

¹⁷
Green means weapon cleared, magazine in the well. Red means locked and loaded, ready to fire.

¹⁸
Warlock Dukes are electronic gear that either block cell transmissions or send out electronic transmissions to disrupt improvised explosive devices.

Terp Boot Camp

Late September 2007

I needed to train my terps for the course. We spent all of our mornings in the Zafar classroom. Mick had given us one of the storage rooms next to the classroom for use as an office. I gave each terp a turn at assisting me with giving the classes. We went through each class in the program of instruction. I’d have one of them translate, while the other two evaluated the performance. For instance, I’d give a line from the course: “There are five types of accountability. (1) command, (2) supervisory, (3) direct, (4) custodial, and (5) personal.”

Fawad would then translate it into Dari. Rasul and Nasrullah listened. If Fawad translated wrong, we’d stop and debate how best to convey the idea. We went through this process for all seventeen classes.

Fawad was the worst at this process. He was young and nervous. He never wanted to admit mistakes. “Fawad, you need to lighten up. We’re all new to this process. We’re all making mistakes here. It’s not only you.”

“Dave, I don’t like these guys correcting me all the time.”

“Well Dude, you’re the youngest. You’re gonna get the most shit. Besides you look like Vinnie Barbarino. You deserve a lot of shit.”

“Vinnie Barbarino? Who is this person?”

“He’s a character from a ‘70s sitcom in America. He thought he was too cool for school just like you.”

“So, this Vinnie guy was cool.”

“Well, he thought he was … and he had hair exactly like yours. Feathered and gay-looking with a duckbill. Hell, you kinda dress like him, too.”

“Fuck you, Dave. I am not gay.”

“You got the hair, not me.”

We slowly got the terminology and jargon down. We needed practice, though. I brought in terps from the front office and let them critique our practice sessions. It was difficult because of the differences in dialect between Herat and Kabul. There were words and phrases that were similar, yet different. It was as simple as the way people say hello to one another. Herat’s proximity to Iran meant that it had a heavy linguistic and cultural influence on the Heratis and western Afghanistan as a whole, which had been a part of the Persian Empire at one time. Eastern Afghanistan was more heavily influenced by Central Asian and Indian empires. Culturally speaking, the two were worlds apart. The Tajik language was an offshoot of Farsi which is the language of Iran. The language reflects this. Iranians use
merci
to say “thank you.” Tajiks in Herat will use this as well. Tajiks in Kabul always use
tashakor
to say “thank you.” There were a million little linguistic subtleties that surfaced when traveling from Kabul in eastern Afghanistan to Herat in western Afghanistan. You greeted a friend in Herat by saying, “
Lapajap chetor asti?
” It was like saying, “What’s up?” in America. If you said that in Kabul, you got a blank stare. Unless you came across someone from western Afghanistan, then you got a big smile and a hearty handshake.

It was Rasul who filled me in on the language translation challenges. I’d given him the POI to read. Rasul read them the first week. He had kept notes on discrepancies. Two weeks after we hired him, he came up to me and said, “Dave, we got problems with these papers.”

“Huh? What kinds of problems?” As he explained, though, I got a little pissed. I began to understand that the terps back in Kabul were not all that great.

Rasul looked at me kind of sheepishly. Then he blurted out, “The translation is shit!”

I lost it. Rasul thought that I was going to be angry at him. Instead, I burst out laughing. After I calmed down enough to listen to him, he filled me in, “Dave, there are too many mistakes. It’s not all the fault of the guys down in Kabul. We have a different dialect here. We sometimes use different words. But there are other problems. There are three different forms that use three different words for the same thing.” I asked him to show me. The POI were all translated into Dari. I had no idea how to identify language discrepancies in Dari. It was a completely different script that used a slightly altered version of the Farsi script. Farsi uses a slightly altered version of the Arabic script. It got a little confusing. We had issue, accountability, and requisition forms. Each contained a different Dari word for the English term “serial number.” There were more confusing terms and translations but that illustrates it well enough.

I couldn’t change the forms as they were semi-official documents. Semi-official meant that nothing had been formally adopted by the Ministry of Interior as yet. Unfortunately, that would come far into the future. The challenge was to explain the forms well enough to the students that they’d be able to understand and overcome the linguistic obstacles. I would find out later that this was easier said than done. Afghans took things at face value. If a form asked for a certain detail, they were going to put exactly that “detail” on the blocks in those forms. It didn’t matter that it might not be translated correctly or that it was an obvious error. That was what the form asked for, and that was what the damn form was going to get in that block.