The Patrol (9 page)

After an eternity we hear the welcome news over the radio: “29er, this is Zangabad, we have eyes on the lead elements of your patrol now, over.” It’s only a matter of time until we reach the COP. The last stretch is the most dangerous, as a number of IEDs have been found on all of the routes leading the rest of the way. We sit and wait. My eyes stay closed longer and longer as I blink, struggling to stay awake. Finally, I pinch myself, pull out my water, and pour some on my face. I’m down to the last bottle in my chest rig, and I can feel the volume of sweat pouring down my face increasing. A rivulet dodges my nose and enters my mouth. I lick my lips and taste my own salty sweat, flavoured with the dirt that cakes my face. It tastes warm and zesty. (Once, after I returned to Canada, I went for a long autumn run. When my sweat dripped into my mouth I gagged and had to stop.)

Another message comes in: “29er this is 21A. Um … That wadi appears to be impassable. It looks like we are going to have to pull back and try a different route, over.”

Fuck sakes. I don’t blame the guys leading our patrol, they have the hardest job today, and they are taking the biggest risks of any of us. I’m not angry so much as slightly defeated. We are told to pull off the track so that 4 Platoon can walk on a known safe route, and after about 15 minutes we see the lead elements of the patrol snaking back on us. They are followed by everybody behind them in a long line, so each of us is treated to the sight of every single person on patrol as they pass us or we pass them. I catch quick glimpses of 80-odd soldiers in various states of alertness, watchfulness, and unhappiness. Some have taken a knee and are watching our surroundings like hawks; others lie all the way back on their kit with a look of abject defeat. After we pull back onto the main route, we bash through a few more grape fields. Finally, we find a spot where the wadi is shallow enough to be crossed, and we make it to the other side. In a few minutes we see COP Zangabad on the horizon. It is about 0300 by this point and we have been patrolling for seven hours. The end of the first day is finally in sight.

We walk slowly the rest of the way into the COP. As we arrive, we cease to be an organized patrol and become a restive mob of soldiers, most of whom just want to sleep. Call sign 24 is currently in charge of Zangabad, and they have set up piecemeal “tents”—shelters ramshackled together from cam poles and groundsheets (thin plastic tarps)—but these are little more than shelters from the blazing Afghan sun. They have been set up outside of the COP itself, inside the razor wire. Although bigger than Haji, Zangabad cannot contain an extra 80 soldiers, and most will have to sleep outside the protection of the HESCO Bastions. I take off my helmet, gloves, and pack and sit down. I light a smoke and glory in not having to walk anymore. I don’t know where I am supposed
to sleep, so I leave the remainder of my kit on. As soon as the sergeant-major, who is behind us in the order of march, arrives he begins issuing orders. I haven’t even finished my smoke when we are told to move inside Zangabad, where we will receive a briefing. I grumble about this unforeseen end to my comfort, and listen to others bitch in a similar vein. I carry my pack while we shuffle inside Zangabad, and my right arm is tired by the time we sit back down around the mortar pit inside the COP. Warrant Officer Davies waits for us all to sit down. He is a soft-spoken man with the traditional brown moustache of a lifer. He proceeds to outline the situation we find ourselves in.

“All right, boys, here’s the deal. There isn’t enough room for all of ya inside the COP, so you’ll be sleeping outside under the groundsheets that we set up today. Water can be taken out of the big pile over there.” He motions to a mountain of boxes, each of which contains 12 bottles of water. “Don’t take our cold water, we don’t have enough to go around.” There is a massive freezer that long ago admitted defeat just outside the CP. It’s filled with bottles of water, but none of them are cold. Some of them are cool, and cool is a precious resource.

“We’ve been getting mortared every day for the last two weeks, so there’s a good chance that it’s going to happen again tomorrow. You guys are going to need to dig trenches in the morning. Everyone can leave by platoon. Have a good sleep.” As an afterthought he adds, “Oh, 29er Tac and the engineers, you guys can stay inside the camp, we’ve set up accommodations for you right over there.” He motions to another set of groundsheets. Underneath them lie cots—sweet, blissful, beautiful cots that will keep us up off the sand for the night. The other soldiers, those that aren’t in 29er Tac, instantly start bitching: “It fucking figures that those guys get to stay in the camp. Fucking brown-nosing 24.”

People move to their assigned sleeping areas in an orderly fashion. I’m sitting far away from where we are sleeping, and by the
time I get there, all the cots are taken. Oh well, at least I get to sleep inside the HESCO Bastions, which greatly reduces my risk of catching a mortar. I drop my pack and helmet on the sand, and stand up to take off my chest rig. Just two simple clicks and it comes off, falling into the sand beside my pack. Finally, I remove my body armour and feel the relief that only someone who instantly loses 15 kilos can know. My shirt is soaked in sweat and the breeze cools me down. It is the coldest point of the night and I begin to feel a chill. I take off my shirt and revel in lightness of body and soul.

My sleeping gear is attached to my pack by two Bungee cords, and I unclip them and put them in my pocket. I lay out my egg-cartonesque sleeping pad and put my ranger blanket on top of it. I smoke another cigarette and watch everyone else lie down. I double-check my kit in my brain, an important habit that I’ve picked up over the years. I have a checklist in my mind so that I don’t lose anything important. Starting at the feet I run through it : boot bands, check; wallet, don’t need it; Gerber multitool, check; rank and flag, check; gloves … gloves.
Fuck, I left my gloves outside
. I grab my weapon and wander outside with my headlamp on. I crawl over people who are already asleep and find the cam pole that I sat beside when we first arrived. People are still complaining about the unfairness of the sleeping arrangements.

“Fucking 29er Tac, I wish I was with those lazy fucks.”

“Yeah, they never even patrol, man, and when they do they get all the Gucci gos.”

I track down my gloves, put them in my pocket, and walk back into Zangabad. I sit back down in the sand and try to process what I’ve been through today. I feel immensely worn out, but not tired. A lot of emotions are swirling around inside me. Working with the infantry has, in many ways, reduced me to an almost monosyllabic existence. I’ve hardly said a word since the patrol began. I feel the need to express myself on another, less pragmatic plane. I pull out
my journal and, illuminated by the red glow of my headlamp, I write the following lines:

I turn off my headlamp and put it back into the arm pocket of my combat shirt. I then ball up my sweat-soaked shirt and put it at the top of my sleeping pad. I’m asleep before I even finish getting into my ranger blanket.

I AM EJECTED FROM A PERFECT, BLISSFUL SLEEP on the sand by the sound of a distant explosion.

“Stand to!” I hear the sergeant-major yell. Are we under mortar attack? Somehow I thought that it would be more frightening.

I pull my glasses out of my boot and try to see what is going on. I’m greeted by a surprising silence. The peace that reigned during my sleep appears to have returned.
Stand to
is the military term for “wake the fuck up and man a defensive position.” I’m amazed to see almost no movement, and for a few moments I think that I might be dreaming. People sit up and look around, and some of the call sign 24 guys poke their heads out of the command post.

“That was just some fucking IED maker blowing himself up. Go back to bed,” someone from the CP says. The sergeant-major looks sheepish.

I guess that a distant explosion like that is a fairly common
occurrence in the COPs, business as usual. Making IEDs is a very difficult and dangerous procedure. The result is that a great number of would-be jihadists blow themselves up. Unfortunately, this means that the ones who don’t kill themselves are very good at what they do. That’s the way evolution works.

The morning is still cool and comfortable. I lie back down and am instantly asleep once again. I’m sure that either the sun or enemy action will get me up when I need to be. Intellectually, I find the ease with which I go back to sleep surprising, but physically I’m exhausted. It’s about 0700, and I’m perfectly happy to grab what sleep I can.

The sun wakes me up at about 1030. By this point it has been unbearably hot for about two hours. I wake up underneath my ranger blanket soaked in sweat. I’m dehydrated, and I have the dirty feeling in the back of my throat that I get when I don’t brush my teeth. I come to slowly and, grudgingly and finally accepting defeat at the hands of the sun, throw my ranger blanket off and sit up. The explosion earlier this morning has taken on a completely impersonal quality, as if I had flipped the TV to some interesting channel, watched for a few seconds, and then shut the TV off.

I remain sitting for a minute or two; I don’t quite feel up to facing the day. I look around, and most people are lounging in the shade, talking and relaxing. Almost nobody is wearing pants, as underwear is considerably more comfortable. I left Winnipeg in February when it was – 40° and by this point of the tour it is about 80 degrees hotter. Those who are wearing pants have them rolled up to the knee to fashion “combat shorts.” The British are issued shorts and vests that you can soak in water and then freeze to wear under your flack vest. But we are told to cover every exposed piece of skin with kevlar, and are not allowed to roll up our sleeves. Open cases
of water litter the shaded areas that have been set up for us. I get out of my sleeping bag, pull on the socks that I wore yesterday and my boots, and saunter over to one of these cases. Warm water flows into my mouth and I try to drink an entire bottle. We will be on the go again tonight, and I need to drink as much as I possibly can. I go back to my kit, pull out my cigarettes, and smoke one in the heat of the day. So far I haven’t said a word to a soul, and I feel disconnected from my surroundings. I don’t really have a spot to call my own. Zangabad is 24’s territory, and there isn’t very much room left in the shade. Finally, I pull my kit in between two cots and sit down. There is nothing to lean against except a wall of boxes containing water bottles, so I lean against them and finish my smoke. I pull out my toiletry kit and walk over to the Zangabad “bathroom,” a black bag filled with water situated over a basin. Beside it is a table with soap and hand sanitizer, and a mirror hanging from the HESCO Bastion.

Once I finish brushing my teeth, I employ the “urinal,” an empty bleach canister that has the top cut off, with a tube attached to it that runs outside the wire. I drink another bottle of water and walk back to our sleeping area. Here I find the topic of conversation has turned to my performance on the patrol yesterday.

“Flavelle, how many times did you fall last night?”

“I don’t know, like three or four.”

“It was more like fifteen,” says Chris laughing.

My balance or lack there of, has become a subject of much hilarity for the rest of the section. I’m just lucky I haven’t hurt myself like so many others have. Captain Jonathan Snyder died falling into a
kariz,
an open, unmarked well. I had seen dozens of kariz
,
and the thought of falling 20 metres into one is absolutely terrifying. Like so much else, however, I need to push that thought into the back of my mind. Mitigating risk is one thing, but if you allow yourself to become obsessed with the risks you are taking, you will become completely ineffectual. The best soldiers learn
from the most dangerous aspects of the job, and learn to control their fear.

On an earlier patrol, we were following a tiny goat trail framed by a tall mud wall and a wadi, which was about two metres below the trail. I forgot how bulky my bag was, and when I turned I felt the weight of my pack push me forward, off the ledge. I had once seen an old Afghan man poop into a wadi, and now I was soaked in the water of one. I gained both credibility and a reputation on that patrol when, after being pulled out, I said quietly, “I think I got a little in my mouth.”

On that same patrol, my wet boots, which had taken on the properties of skates on a sheet of ice, deposited me into a flooded opium field. I felt one of the poppies break open as I fell like a sack of hammers. Luckily, I didn’t feel any physiological response from this encounter with Afghan narcotics.

The discussion of my balance issues continues.

“Whatever, man, it was dark and my glasses had fogged up,” I respond.

“My glasses fogged up,” Smitty imitates with a sneer. “Flavelle, you are such a fucking nerd.”

I am a nerd, and I’m proud of it. I like
Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica,
and the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
One must summon the nerd muse (Donatello?) to become a great signals operator—our job is to talk to sick radios and we must speak their language. In Calgary I surround myself with nerds. Unfortunately, I am the only person in headquarters to feel this way. If the army were your high school, the infantry would be the jocks; signallers would be the AV club.

I get up and walk over to the Zangabad rest and relaxation area. Handmade wooden benches surround a large wooden spool, pressed into service as a table. It is covered in magazines, water bottles, rations, and cigarettes; above is camouflage netting that protects against the
sun. My friend Kevin Lowe is sitting at the table eating a ration. I pull one out of the box and join him.

Kevin and I have been friends since I first started training with the PPCLI. He is a short, blond private with tattoos of a poppy under his ear and his wife’s initials on his hand. We became smoking buddies in Shilo, and my fellow signaller and I would help him steal food from the mess by giving him our meal cards (reservists are given free food, whereas the regular force has to pay for it). The rest of headquarters shuns him for his eccentricities, but I feel he is a kindred spirit. Once we got to Afghanistan, we spent a lot of time together at the gym, and our blocks of leave coincided. He was transferred to 24 after one of their soldiers was wounded. He is sitting at one of the wooden tables, making fun of a guy with a hairy back, who taunts in return, “Hey, Lowe, you look like a fag.”

“Shut your face, Ewok.”

I smile as I sit down beside him, and open my ration; clam chowder. This is the first time I’ve tried one of the new ‘08 rations, and I’m happily surprised. The best part is the carrot muffin shaped like a chocolate bar.

A lot of people swear by the American MREs (meals ready to eat), but I still like the Canadian IMPs (individual meal packets). I think it’s because I haven’t been force-fed rations for months on end, like all of the reg force. There is a fundamental difference in the diets of Canadians and Americans, and I like to think that fast food hasn’t completely taken over our society. American rations contain such delights as ribwiches and hamburgers. Each ration comes with a tiny bottle of Tabasco sauce, and some come with an immensely fatty package of spicy jalapeno and cheese spread. I find the American rations give me heartburn. I prefer the simple, almost dehydrated bread and peanut butter of the Canadian rations. That being said, after any more than three days on any rations, I begin to think wistfully about real food.

Kevin and I smoke and eat our IMPs. The scene reminds me of an army version of a Quentin Tarantino diner, where people sit and smoke in between bites while calmly discussing the best way to kill people. We talk about patrolling, firefights, and what it has been like in the COP. I find out that Kev was on the patrol when Private Wilmot was killed. I ask him about what it’s like to be in a large-scale firefight. We talk about Sperwan Ghar, the delicious yogurt that we are missing, his wife and kid, and my girlfriend. I try one of his Chinese Lucky88s cigarettes. It tastes disgusting, but I power through it. Kevin suggests a game of chess, so we break out a small travel board and set it up. We played often when Kevin was in Sperwan Ghar, and I have to grudgingly admit that he is a better player. He plays an intensely conservative game and waits for me to inevitably make a mistake. The only way that I can win is by playing a game of attrition, getting rid of as many pieces as I can, and by an uncommon stroke of brilliance finishing on top. We play about 15 games and I win only one. While we play, we talk in an unspecific way about getting mortared and shooting at people.

“You guys have been taking a lot of fire lately, hey?”

“Yeah, you know it’s fucking loud,” he says.

“Yeah.” But I don’t know.

“I was in the tower and we were getting lit up, and some beeb stood up with an AK. I shot him three times.”

“Sweet.” I can’t think of anything else to say.

“Yeah. I didn’t feel a thing.” Kevin moves his knight into an attack position, and I miss the piece covering it on my counterattack. My queen is lost. Now it’s only a matter of time.

In most movies I’ve seen about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,
hajji
is used as a derogatory slur for the locals. In Islamic countries,
hajji
is an honorific granted to those who have made the journey to
Mecca to partake in the hajj. I don’t know how it came to be used in the same way as
gook
was after Korea. I also don’t know why we choose to use the term
beeb
in the same way. We never refer to the locals as
hajji
(unless we happen to be talking about someone who is actually named Hajji); instead, we call them beebs, which perhaps stems from a shortened form of Habib
,
a common Arab name. I don’t think anybody knows for sure.

Two years after the events in this book, I was riding my bike in Calgary. I was crossing the street to the grocery store on a green light, and a young woman with her hair covered, who was talking on her cell phone and driving an SUV, very nearly ran me over as she turned right into the intersection. I whacked her car with my palm and when I saw that she was on a cellphone, yelled, “You fucking beeb!”

That was the first time I’d called someone a beeb since I returned from Afghanistan, and I was surprised that my reaction had led to voicing a racist epithet. She did almost kill me, but I should have been mad that she was talking on her cellphone and not paying attention to the road; instead, I focused on her racial background. A latent, seldom expressed, smouldering racism that grew within me as the tour progressed is still a part of who I am, which is a difficult thing for me to come to grips with.

I try to get a grip on my frustration over losing yet another game of chess. If you show weakness around the infantry, you will hear about it. I refuse to accept defeat, and keep playing game after game while we split a pack of Lucky88s. Kevin steals me a package of Crystal Light and we drink water and play chess for about two hours. Eventually another friend, Private Nick Turner, comes up and engages us in conversation as we play.

Nick is a thin infanteer covered in tattoos, who exudes fitness,
and is the only private I’ve ever met who’s done not only a jump course (parachute) but also a sniper course. Both are immensely difficult to get on, and immensely difficult to pass. Nick is 24’s platoon signaller, so we have worked together closely throughout the deployment. A heavy smoker whose disenchantment with military life in general is palpable, he badly wants to get out and become a police officer when he gets back to Edmonton. He embodies the violent professionalism that I’ve come to associate with the infantry.