The Long Road Home from Afghanistan

As we stacked hundreds of duffel bags and ruck sacks on the driveway just off Doughboy Loop, I remembered pretty vividly a group of Soldiers doing the same thing seven months earlier.

At that time, we were getting ready to head to Afghanistan, from where they were coming back. I wasn’t jealous, more excited to get into the fight. Now we’re on the other side.

We had been in transit, which for the Army means, “mostly waiting,” for more than a week. Our exit from the Afghanistan theater of operations meant some time in the Persian Gulf. The same cargo jet that took us first to Al Mubarak Air Base—the “Gateway to Kuwait”—delivered us down the road to Ali Al Salem Air Base. Total flight time of the second leg: 12 minutes.

The bus ride was longer than the flight, only by time. I was glad for it, because the seats were infinitely more comfortable, and I gratefully caught a nap. When we arrived, the western sky turned from tangerine to rust, and it was officially twilight by the time we get our bunks at a place called Camp Arifjan.

It’s strange how you can imagine fairly vividly a place you’ve never been, then totally forget your imagination’s version once you experience the reality.

If Kandahar’s environs reminded me of southern Nevada, then Arifjan reminded me of an old Las Vegas suburb. There’s even a Starbucks, an indication that we were getting closer to the comforts of the Western World.

The dining hall at Arifjan was about a half mile away from our barracks. We lived in Prefabricated Concrete Buildings (PCBs) and when you walk between them, the sound of rocks reverberates between the corrugated concrete walls in a laser-like sound. I know that lasers are soundless, as long as they make Star Wars movies I’ll refer to the sound of blasters as “laser-like.”

In our warehouse barracks—mostly during sleeping hours—we were continuously interrupted as our beds were right next to the door. It happened to be the world's loudest door, and Soldiers, who are famous for being able to sleep like Rip Van Winkle on a Nyquil overdose, are for some reason getting up at 5:00 am regularly now.

There is a distinct segregation between those American Soldiers in ACUs, and those of us in multi-cams. At least so it seems. They don’t mingle in the chow hall, and as they move around in packs, they act as differently as they look. The ACU wearers are deployed, too, but haven’t been deprived of as many creature comforts, at last this time around. They seemed more relaxed than I remember Soldiers back in Afghanistan. But we were the relaxed ones at Arifjan.

On my first full day there, I took a three-hour nap. On day three, another one. I suppose part of the grand plan is getting deserved rest after a tough deployment. There was a swimming pool there, and I was able to resist for a few days. But after my last long run, I decide to take the plunge, and I didn’t regret it. Went again the next day.

Monday morning was our final wake up. I walk the 300 yards to the shower trailer and enjoy the crisp Gulf air on my walk back, a cleaner man. I put on a fresh uniform, probably the cleanest I have worn since this my OEF service began, and get ready to go back the U.S.

My last meal in CENTCOM was a disappointing Indian affair, but we did do Chili’s on our second to last night, so the food rating was net positive.

Nineteen hundred hours finally rolled around and we found ourselves listening to briefs and waiting more. Customs was easy enough, and by 10:00 we were loading several tour buses—the nice kind like the one that brought us to Arifjan eight days earlier. SSG Etheridge was my Bus Captain. I will address him as Bus Captain for the duration of our Title 10 time.

We rolled out at 11:00, driving on dirt roads and through complex security chutes. We don’t pass a single power line. Everything here, down to the standard, brightly lit Chili’s, seems to be powered by diesel generators.

Kuwaiti police cruisers and National Guard gun trucks escorted us along the wide-open highways to the international airport. In the distance—way up by bus one—the flashers pulsed and illuminated the late night dewy fog, like a distant rave celebrating our departure.

I napped, and was rudely awoken at 3:00 am by an Air Force security dude who ushered us off the bus at a security checkpoint. Dogs sniffed away at the vehicles while we waited in the “Freedom Cage.” It was getting cold, but our exhaustion made us compliant.

Bus Captain Etheridge pointed out the Atlas Air 747 aircraft being loaded up that was ours. After getting our boarding passes, we finally met up with the rest of our crew at the aerial port of departure, or “APOD.”

It took way too long for the flight crew to reconcile their list with the number of actual, living passengers they counted on the airplane, but after some painful roll calls and grade-school-style accountability measures, they got it and we were off. Half filled to Germany, where we picked up the remaining load at Ramstein Air Base.

Somewhere over the eastern Atlantic we reached the 24-hour mark from when our travel out of Kuwait began. I slept in fits and starts, eating bad airline food whenever it was presented. At 4:30 Eastern, we touched down, and two and a half hours later had our bags.

But it wasn’t until midnight that those bags made it to our new home for the next couple of weeks. Fort Dix welcomed us with the same cold drizzle that I remember on March 23.

We will go through the rigmarole that First Army has devised to keep Soldiers gainfully employed while our warfighting wanes. And we’ll experience a serious downgrade in the quality of free food. And being so close without actually seeing our families yet will be challenging.

But we are back on U.S soil. And it feels great.

Running at Arifjan

This is officially a theme. Running on various U.S. mlitary bases on foreign soil is becoming a habit, as is writing about it.

As much as I dislike it, running gives me an opportunity to think and reflect. After seven months deployed, I need it. The delpoyment is coming to an end, and now I run at Camp Arifjan, in Kuwait.

The weather is nearly ideal-- slight humidity, and evening temperatures in the low 60s. I have no excuse. So I run. I run down roads with names like Patton Blvd. and Connecticut Ave. There is a street called Harms Way. I stay away from it.

The main roads are wide and well-lit, but lightly trafficked by 8:00 pm. So I run undisturbed. 

I run down the wide, well-lit, and lightly trafficked road past the main PX and the swimming pool. Past probably a lot of headquarters buildings, toward the sound of helicopters. I turn right and run on gravel and dust through construction areas. The Camp is big and has obviously seen busier days. Now at the conclusion of two large wars, they still build. 

I run past container yards under a full moon. I run through an empty lot and have to turn around when I find myself fenced in. I run alongside a shuttle for a while, thinking it's a race, until it slowly pulls ahead. 

As is my habit, I run while listening to an audio book. Tonight is Live by Night by Dennis Lehane. My battery fails about a mile and a half into my circuit, and I contemplate returning for a fresh one. Instead I take the opportunity to notice more and think more.

I am glad I do. Everything feels calmer here. Almost healing. Maybe the Kuwaiti air is cleaner than I have been used to since May. Maybe it's the psychological effect of knowing there won't be a rocket incoming anytime soon. Maybe I'm in better shape than ever. Maybe I am just excited to be home soon.

Riding in Helicopters

Check another one off my Bucket List.



I spent the better part of two nights last week riding around on a CH-47 (Chinook) helicopter. They are the big hosses with two rotars. The video above describes their uses, and I did an able job telling the story, if I do say so. (The Chinook company first sergeant said so, too.)

For me, it was an experience because riding in helicopters is fun. To ride in one this big, at night, with the tail open, and on a combat mission was a privilege.

We take off from Bagram Airfield (BAF) at around 10 pm, a fly to a FOB to pick up the assault team. On this night, I wasn't sure exactly who the other passaengers were. It was near total black out, and in the green glow of the optical devices, U.S. special forces look uncannily similar to Afghans. About a company-size element composes the assault force, which means we have to fly in a formation of four Chinooks.

Four big CH-47s would be an intimidating sight for the enemy, except they don't see it coming. The moon is low in a cloudless sky, but without the night vision goggles by which the pilots fly and the gunners aim, nothing is visible. A 20-minute ride takes us to the mountaintop where the assault force disembarks and stealthily slips down into the villages.

This likely isn't a routine patrol, otherwise they'd do it during the day. More probably, though I can't be sure, these guys are on a combined operation to take into custody one or more bad guys.

As you can see in the video, good guys are pretty well crammed into the aircraft. These things can safely carry aroud 35 Soldiers. Times four and you get a force of almost 150. At this point you don't want to be the bad guy in the village in the dark.

It takes about 30 seconds to get them all off the birds and we fly back to the FOB, engines warm and ready to go. Since I add nothing to mission readiness, I take the nap of a lifetime. Despite the almost unbearable whine of the idling Chinooks, I get an exceedingly satisfying snooze wearing ear plugs. The crew chief hangs a cot across the hull and looks even more comfortable.

At about 3:30 am the blades begin to churn and we head back to our mountaintop rendezvous point. The Soldiers look the same in the green haze, but they are excited. Mission accomplished, it seems. Later I learn that detainees are carried back on one of the other birds. We arrive at BAF at 5:00 am.

What this says about the larger war is debatable. But in my experience, counterinsurgency has worked because we have dedicated Soldiers, reliable and fearsome equipment, and goals that are honorable and laudable. So if you ask this Soldier, we are winning.

And winning can be fun.

It's Almost a Marathon: Running on BAF

January 19th is about 11 weeks away. That’s the day I’ll run the St. George Half.

So I’m getting ready now. Just as I ran in five months ago in southern Afghanistan, I’m hitting the road here in the north, at BAF.

It’s colder here. Much. We are further north, and higher. And nearing winter. I've heard it’s brutal here. That’s when the Taliban stops fighting. I heard that too.

I start out at my barracks, on Disney drive. Head north following a route I've measured by car. There are not many people out, maybe because of the cold, maybe because the gym is nicer here.

Disney is a main road, the mainest there is here, so I have to be careful of vehicular traffic. Don’t worry, I’m all properly regulated up with my reflective belt and eye pro. But I still violate the order to refrain from wearing headphones, though I’m less conspicuous about it here.

Roberts Gates drones on in my ears. Not the real Robert Gates, but the one who plays him in the audio version of Duty. It’s a good book, but not good enough to read. So I listen. Tonight he’s talking about his budget fights with OMB and the White House.

There is nearly no even ground to run on here. It’s flat enough, but the gravel is the two-inch variety, like ll the quarter-inch is designated for construction. So I have to negotiate the terrain, with the giant spots casting dagger shadows at my feet.

I run by the Korean hospital. I haven’t seen any Koreans here, but I imagine this place bustling with personnel from dozens of nations a few years ago, scurrying about with an intensity and urgency that we probably wouldn't recognize now. It seems like the world has forgotten about the war. It’s just as well. If it was in the headlines every day, life would probably be miserable for us.

I loop around the fuel point and the wash rack a second time. BAF is different from KAF in a lot of ways. There’s a different vibe here, one that I can’t precisely describe. I guess it’s like going to a different state. Geographically, it’s obvious. There are mountains all around. I don’t see them at night, but the cold air reminds me where I am.

Used to think that running any more than five miles at a time was a major health risk, that the human body just wasn't designed for it. In September I ran the Army 10-Miler, and I survived. Actually, it felt pretty good. I thought at the time that I could probably do another three miles without doing too much long-term damage. The half marathon is on, then. In January. In the warmer weather of St. George.

It’s going to be a challenge physically: 27 miles a week for the next month. But the challenges compound several weeks from now when we head home. Will I be able to keep up the regimen at home? In December? In Salt Lake? It’s going to be cold, icy, and easy to get distracted doing the things that people who aren't deployed do. I forget what those things are, but they’ll come back to me.

At any rate, thousands of other people do it every day. I’ll meet some of them in January. Let’s hope I’ll be ready.

Engineering and SeaBeeing in Kabul

It looked just like "the point of the mountain," a colloquialism in Utah for the Jordan Narrows, Draper, and the boundary between Salt Lake and Utah Counties.

The similarities-- geographic-- are uncanny. But the architecture is other-worldly, to me. The suburbs of Kabul are like an ancient mockery of South San Francisco-- tightly-packed row houses in dingy pastels cubed together in neatly lined streets that defy the mountain terrain.

The flight from Bagram Airfield to the place called NKC (New Kabul Compound) was about 15 minutes. I may have written before, and I will certainly write it again-- a Black Hawk flight will always be cool. Only two of us left the bird at NKC, and CPT Packer was there to greet me.

I was invited (read, "ordered") here to cover an important milestone in the westernization of the Afghan military. A special engineer unit of the Afghan National Army constructed a Mabey Johnson bridge. Now I'm not sure how momentous that is in the grand scheme of the War on Radical Islam, but it's a big enough deal to send me up to cover it. 

And I think it's kind of a big deal because it's a concrete step toward Afghan self-sufficiency. The larger mission of getting these guys to operate independently is really the culmination of thousands of these steps. And too often Soldiers forget that the step doesn't just happen because we are telling the other guys that we are leaving and they'll have to do it on their own. 

If I tried that approach in a high school math class ("Better learn this stuff or you'll be screwed next year in Trig!") without actually teaching, evaluating, and reteaching, I'd be fired.

Imagine how difficult it would be to stand up a modern Army along American lines. Or, just read the news about Afghanistan and you'll get a pretty good idea. Of course, culture and language are easy scapegoats, but the sheer monstrosity of the task is the biggest challenge. 

We're asking them to build an organization of a half a million personnel, with hundreds of thousands of pieces of totally foreign equipment, develop systems from scratch, and oh, fight a war while they're doing it. 

Robert Gates notes glibly in his memoir (I've got an only slightly lame "review" of it here) about similar phenomena in Iraq and Afghanistan. He complained about American politicians' impatience with the governments in our two war zones, and pointed out that it has taken the U.S. a couple hundred years to get some of these systems working. And Congress is still as dysfunctional as ever!

War can be a crucible to make things happen quickly, too. But if left to their own devices, these guys would fight it the old fashioned way-- the way we asked them to fight the soviets. Isn't that interesting? 

Anyway, it's fascinating to catch a glimpse of what "Train, Advise, and Assist" really means in one particular unit. Today it means that an engineer company can complete a fairly complicated, if routine, task on its own once ISAF leaves.

Maybe the reason this was so successful is because the Navy did it. It was a Navy Mobile Construction Battalion that got the ANA engineers up and running. Fun fact: The name, "Seabees" comes from CB (construction battalion). 

I was thoroughly impressed with them. And that's not to take anything away from the engineer Soldiers who advise the ANA brigade, but it has always seemed to me that Sailors are more systematic and particular about things because working at sea has a way of forcing efficiency and reliability. (Karl Weick began his illustrious career in studying reliable organizations on an aircraft carrier). 

Also, I was invited to eat with the honchos. I'm certain it was by accident, but I quite enjoyed the rice nonetheless. 

Tomorrow I fly back to BAF. It's fun being expeditionary for a few days. It was fun hanging out with the guys who wear "Don't Tread on Me" on their shoulders, and it was fun to see Kabul. 

They Laid out the Red Carpet for Me in Bagram

Travelling to a new base is a lot like a vacation. Except it's not fun, and you have to carry your own bags. And you always depart or arrive in the middle of the night. And you are responsible for two weapons along with your bags.

So it's not like a vacation at all, come to think of it. The flight on the C-130 is exquisitely uncomfortable. Net seating doesn't recline, the roar of the motor isn't muffled, and I am wearing 25 pounds of body armor and have 45 pounds of carry-on on my lap.

We land early that morning and lug our over-sized bags up two flights of stairs in our conex tenements.

I learn that Prax is sharing a room barely big enough for one with two other Soldiers. Of course neither of them have any idea that she is coming. It must be really fun to wake up at 0500 hours to discover you have a new roommate. With four bags.

I also have four bags. And I also have two roommates. I wonder who is more annoyed-- them or me. Prax, at least, gets a wall locker. I get my lap again.

Two days later we are beginning to settle in. BAF is huge, but we don't realize it quite right away. The main drag is called Disney. A nod to the reach of American culture, I assume, like "Hotel California" (a large tent where transients stay). We feel sheepish on discovering that it is name after a Soldier killed here in a heavy equipment accident in 2002. SPC Jason Disney was a transportation specialist from Nevada. The street signs take on new meaning, to us, at least.

On Sunday we get a longer tour, and some introductions, from a broadcaster on his way out. He takes us to the US Army Corps of Engineers compound and a nearby villa that is used for jirgas and other high-level meetings. We stop and smell the roses—the first we have seen since leaving the U.S. Then we visit the guys in "Dustoff," the operational name given to every medevac unit I have ever met. It seems, I don't know, ironic, that American troops occupy these structures built by the Soviets 30 years earlier.

We also drive by the secret prison that has been the source of some controversy. It looks like every other secret prison I have seen.

It is much cooler up here. And I feel more comfortable, as the weather probably mirrors the Wasatch front almost exactly. I don’t sweat unless I mean to anymore. The food seems better, too, but that might just be because it is different.

By the fourth day at BAF, one third of the occupants of my little unit has left. Suddenly I am like the wealthy gentry of US Forces – Afghanistan, what with my own wall locker and a bottom bunk. My other roommate, an Army captain, is in the same spot nearly every time I step into the room—legs in a sleeping bag, sitting on his bunk, typing away on his laptop. He says he is leaving soon, so I assume he is sending off hundreds of emails to friends and family eagerly awaiting his return. I’ll have to start doing that soon, I guess.

A new assignment brings new opportunities, and so I begin a new workout regimen. The gym is quite inviting—a new hardened structure that makes me feel like I might be paying $69 a month if I were back home.

Our office is hardened, too, which means that during a rocket attack we don’t have to evacuate to one of the hundreds of bunkers outside. We came under such an attack the other day, but I just kept working merrily.

It’s a strange time to be here, at the world’s largest forward base. Americans are leaving in droves, and all the talk is about Resolute Support and how NATO isn’t doing anymore combat and how it’s really great that we’re giving the Afghans a bunch of MRAPs. It’s great not because the equipment will help them in their fight against the Taliban, but because giving them the vehicles makes the U.S. seem less wasteful.

Speaking of waste, we should be here about seven more weeks. Then we get to travel again. Back to the U.S. It’s like vacation, except…

Partners in Democracy—and the Pictures to Prove it

I am a democrat and a counterinsurgent.

A monumental effort has been made by the West to ensure that this Afghanistan election business comes off smoothly. (Mission fail, so far. What appeared to be a major victory for democracy, NATO, and the Afghan People has become a circus. )

The latest in that effort was seeing the ballots safely to Kabul, where the venerable Independent Election Commission would conduct a thorough audit. I'm not going to get into how the commission performed up to this point, or why the runoff was necessary. That story has been told elsewhere. Here is a good version.

The armistice that Secretary of State John Kerry negotiated between the two candidates included the provision that ISAF would transport the ballots to Kabul. That meant that every zip-tied box needed to be taken to the regional command hubs (Kandahar Airfield in the south) to be flown by C-17 to the capital.

When John Kerry speaks, NATO generals listen. We tripped all over ourselves to make sure that it happened.

In they came a couple of morning ago. Armored trucks? Nope.

Jingle trucks.


Ten of them. 7,000 kilograms in total of boxed ballots. The Afghans unloaded them onto US Air Force pallets. NATO troops stood watch and guard. Civilian contractors tied them down and loaded them onto the aircraft.

And I took pictures. Moving pictures, even.

Unfortunately, the images are not releasable (Except for the jingle trucks-- no ballots were in view; ballots are like porn. We have to censor  anything that appears to show ballots).

Seems like a great story, right? ISAF does its part to ensure an objective and thorough vote audit. The observers from each of the opposing campaigns and the IEC were there to confirm that ballots loaded were ballots actually submitted last month-- untampered.

ISAF personnel were not even allowed to touch the bins. At one point a C-17 made a routine turn on the tarmac to get on the runway. Its jets roared and spit out a hurricane in our direction. Strong gusts of hot air and exhaust bellowed toward us-- and the stacked ballots bins. Over they went.

The airmen who were overseeing the palletization went to the rescue (Mission First!) but were ordered away. The Afghans had to re-stack them, lest a point of contention be raised during the recount.

One day I will show you these pictures that prove the ballots-- or what appear to be ballots-- made it from the outlying districts all the way to KAF and onto a jet. One day, long after the next president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is chosen, irrespective of the actual vote count, you will see the pictures that prove I was there.

Doing my part for democracy.

Running on KAF

They're calling it a Super Moon out here. I've never heard it referred to as that, but it makes me feel better about my run.

Running around KAF at night causes the strangest synapses to occur. My mind races faster than my heart, which is working hard enough.

By the time I write this I remember only a fraction.

I am alone, properly donned in uniform and reflective belt, but improperly adorned with ordinary eyeglasses instead of APEL eyewear. The Authorized Protective Eyewear List is an Army's quality standard for ballistic eye protection.

It's a reasonable requirement. This place takes a rocket about once every two weeks, but life goes on. The dust is more of a nuisance than any possibility of taking rocket shrapnel. Nobody seems to worry much about the threat.

Theories of the military effectiveness of bombing civilian areas during World War II suggest that bombing campaigns are more likely to induce the desired panic when they are unexpected.

The expectancy theory would explain why I and dozens of other Soldiers jogged along the outer roads rather carefreely.

As I run I listen to House to House: An Epic Memoir of War. It's about the Second Battle of Fallujah. The author, a squad leader in the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, has the Army doing most of the clearing, though conventional tellings of it have the Marines as the conquerors. In one part, several platoons were ordered to backtrack along territory they had already moved through to meet up with the Marines, who were woefully behind schedule.

It's extremely hot and dry. I realize that we are in a combat zone. My mind goes back to running late one summer night in St. George, during another episodic drive to get into shape. The Army has motivated me, from time to time, to stay fit. Running in the heat has always made me feel like I am satisfying some minimal obligation for pain and discomfort. St. George is a pretty good analogy. If pain is some product of muscular exertion and environmental wear, then KAF is a great place to feel like I am achieving something.

I find a bit of pride in that as I run along in the moonlight.

An occasional dump truck drives by, kicking up more dust in my face, and ultimately into my lungs. Oh well. 

This place is like a city.

A small, dumpy, industrial city.

But it is safe, or at least feels so. There are thousands of insurgents who knows how far outside the wire. They'd like nothing more than to score a major attack in a big base like KAF. But it'll never happen. There are to many protection measures in place.

Two blimps float above me. They are called Aerostats, and they are equipped with high powered cameras that scan the landscape, day or night.

The sonic screams of jets erupt in the darkness, reminding me and the bad guys that they are outmatched.

I get back to my hooch exhausted, soaking, and feverish. It's too hot to be running. 

Utah Pioneers in Afghanistan Never Quit

Few holiday celebrations can match the Days of '47 in fervor. Statewide in Utah are parades, cook outs, rodeos, demolition derbies, races, carnivals, and fireworks.

Those celebrations will extend to Afghanistan this year. Our little band of Utah National Guardsmen will host a bona fide, authentic, Beehive State barbecue ten and a half hours before anything in the Mountian Time Zone. 

They'll even order up some July-in-Utah weather, just for tradition's sake. Forecast is around 110 degrees. 

Many of these Soldiers will reflect on Utah's pioneer heritage while they live out their own kind of pioneer experience in southern Afghanistan. 

Our unit is based in Draper, a growing suburb of Salt Lake with its own unique pioneer roots. We left Utah in March for mobilization training on the East Coast. By early May, we were in Kandahar.

Many of our Soldiers are fourth- and fifth-generation Utahns, whose ancestors settled the state when it was known as "Deseret." 

But they each represent their own pioneer spirit. Deployments can be tough. One Soldier, on her first, said that she draws strength from thinking about pioneers. 

"When I'm going through a hard time, I realize that it doesn't compare to the suffereing that [Utah] pioneers experienced; they traveled through really rough conditions, but they kept going."

Persistance and a hope for a better future drove the earlier Utahns just as it pushes us to do our best to get the mission done here in OEF. 

Another Soldier, who served multiple tours in Iraq, compared some of the conditions that he had to operate in to the trials of Mormon pioneers who helped settle the West. 

"Growing up in Utah, we are taught about how they were persecuted, driven across the plains, and settled in a not-so-hospitable place. But they made it happen. It was similar for us in Iraq, in the sense that we lived in austere condidtions and had to do hard things. But we just did it."

From the days of 1847, when wagon trains full of religious refugees began spilling into the arid Salt Lake Valley, through the nineteenth century when life in the Western U.S. was rough and often wild, success required a certain pluck-- a refusal to accept defeat.

American Soldiers display that same moxy today, and none more so than those in Afghanistan who come from Utah, steeped in Pioneer culture and motivated by love of country. 

"The spirit of being a pioneer is having to do something that people haven't done before, and figuring out how to do it," our most experienced combat veteran said.  

One Soldier with our detachment was married just weeks before deploying. Another negotiated a hectic family move to another state. Two Soldiers put doctoral studies on hold for a tour of indefinite duration. Several left civilian careers on pause. 

The Utah Pioneer Ethos is alive and well in this corner of the world, 167 years after it became the stuff of legend in the great state we all call home. 

So fire up the grill. Just because we're 7500 miles away doesn't mean we can't keep up with the celebrations.  

(Bottom photo courtesy Visit Salt Lake)

The Taliban's Last Stand

There is a very curious building here at KAF. On official maps of the installation, it is labeled "TLS."

Taliban’s Last Stand, is what it refers to. And it fits. The night we arrived, it was the first building through which we passed. Not the most comforting welcome, since it’s as decrepit as any building could be without getting condemned.

It is of brick and stucco construction, with arched ceilings. There is still evidence of a fire or an explosion, and part of the roof is destroyed. It is in general disrepair, with no indication that anyone wants to do anything about it. Yet, it serves as a passenger terminal for folks coming to this bastion of Americna military power.

There are even pocks on the outer walls that look like they took rounds in a firefight. The name and the lore gives the impression that there was some final, Alamo-style battle at this place before the US finally drove out the enemy and established its foothold in southern Afghanistan.

Journalists refer to the place with bravado to show their bona fides. People arriving here probably all assume that it was only recently attacked and hastily convereted, as if the war is still imminently upon them.

I tend to be skeptical about stories that sound too cool.

So I did some research.

It is pretty well established that the Taliban maintained nominal control over Kandahar, including the airport, up until December, 2001.

Kandahar, in fact, was the base for the Taliban. Al Qaeda training site called Tarnac Farms, just a couple kilometers south of the air field, was certainly a holdout for bad guys, and it is rumored that 9/11 may have been planned there.

But what happened at TLS in the opening stanzas of the War on Terror? The building surely looks like the Alamo in many respects, only more weather-beaten. The apparent bullet scars, the crumbling brick, the soot.

Here's the story, according to reporting done at the time.

Mullah Omar had an office in Kandahar City, it was the center of the Taliban's poltical base. Naturally the US and our allies (Hamid Karzai and Gul Agha Sherzai in the south) wanted to take the city.

Sherzai was attacking from the south, approaching Kandahar. Karzai was attacking from the north. By early December, he was in a town called Tarin Khost, about 60 miles outside the city. The allies were rolling, and Karzai began surrender negotiations with the Taliban. 

A Taliban delegation went north to meet Karzai, where they finalized surrender terms on December 5. That same day, in Bonn, an international conference named Karzai the "Intermin Chairman" of Afghanistan.

Mullah Omar's facilities had been bombed (perhaps TLS was one?). Those bombs had a lot to do with getting the Taliban to think about surrendering, I assume. But they were also buying time to escape. By offering surrender, many leaders were left to pack up and pop smoke.

According to an unclassified KAF fact sheet, Kandahar Airport "was severely damaged when it was captured by the US MArines 26th MEU in mid-December.... TLS still containts vivid reminders of the first minutes of that famous battle of the Taliban Last Stand."

So far as I can tell, there was never an engagement between US or NATO forces and the Taliban at this particular site. It seems the nickname was derived from the fact that the enemy used it as a base and it was near the area-- Kanadahar City and Airport-- that they gave up last.

Of course, it is evident that the building took heavy ordnance, though whether the enemy was stubborn, brave, or curious enough to see what Marines small arms fire was like after living through a JDAM blast is undocumented, as far as I have been able to tell.

At any rate, Karzai took Kandahar. He probably got to TLS and realized he didn't want it. The capital was promptly relocated to Kabul. 

Now we are here holding down the fort. This will be my last stand.

Note: this was updated 28 AUG to include the paragraph that cites the unclassified KAF fact sheet.

First Impressions of the Province's Second-Greatest City

“You’ll love the poop pond,” is what one Afghanistan veteran told me on Facebook the other day. A full-bird colonel said he heard it stank here.

Welcome to Kandahar Arifield—“KAF” colloquially.

It’s really not that bad. At least the odor. The infamous poop pond is nowhere to be smelled, though there are other olfactory inconveniences that go with housing large numbers of soldiers in close proximity.

We arrived in the evening of 10 May. It was warm, but not hot. It felt a lot like Las Vegas in the Spring. We entered through a terminal that looked like it was at one time a 19^th-century public building. I surmised that the stucco and brick, arched building was the original civilian airport. Some folks here told us later that it is called “TLS,” or “Taliban’s Last Stand.”

We got on a bus with our gear and headed to the billets. We live in “mods,” or modular housing. They are steel buildings with separate four-man rooms and common latrines and showers. Air conditioning works well, so I can’t complain, although it seems I’m going to become intimately familiar with every single one of the springs on my mattress.

If I had to choose one word to describe this place: DUSTY.

I removed about a quarter inch of dust from the top of my wall locker thinking, “man, this place hasn’t been cleaned since it was built!” Now I’m not so sure.

The sun rises at 5:30 out here. I guess that’s the half-hour time difference. So while it’s noon in Salt Lake City, it’s 10:30 at night here. I say as long as we’re imposing democracy, let’s get the Afghans on the same hour intervals as the developed world.

Food is okay. There are three dining facilities here, all within walking distance from where we live: Niagara, which used to serve food the Canadians could stomach, I assume; Cambridge, which features British fare; and Far East, with Asian food. So far steak burgers at Niagara are the best, followed by fish and chips at Cambridge. The Fish and Chips are really good, but honestly, the burgers are on par with Smashburger.

I asked Prax what word she’d use to describe KAF. She said, “brown.” I still say DUSTY.

It’s nice to see the military going green. When we wash our hands in the the D-Fac, we dry them on Dyson air hand dryers. Reminds me of going to school at the U, where the greatest virtue seems to be one's allegiance to "sustainability" intiatives.

There is an MWR tent and a gym tent next door. I use the term "tent" in the sense that they are shaped like tents; they were long ago sprayed with some foamy stuff that has hardened and encrusted the buildings like the library at the climax of Ghostbusters II. Insulation, I am told.

KAF would be one of the largest cities in the country, the second largest in Kandahar province. As such, there are ammenities one would expect in a small town. Donuts, coffee, shops, that sort of thing.

Importantly, there are bunkers in case of rocket attacks and palettes of water everywhere.

My main complaint is that internet for personal use isn't widely available. A hundred dollars a month (yes, you read that right) will get you a connection that could pass for most uses. Anything cheaper is useless.

All in all, KAF is a really great place. There is only a bit of sarcasm, of course, but remember, it's only week two. 

Army Travel Is So Much Fun

Getting to KAF was quite an adventure. And a test of our best virtues.

Our scheduled departure time was at 0100 on a Thursday morning. Of course that meant we had to be ready the prior afternoon.

The Army was kind enough to put a shipping container right outside our door so that each of us could put our three bags inside and not have to walk to wherever the postal unit we were joining was located. We loaded the truck by 1700 and at 1900 hopped onto the bus to drive over to meet our travel partners.

It was a 100-meter drive. Unloading our container and reloading the other container took much longer than it would have to walk over there in the first place. All warm and fuzzy, we piled back onto the bus and headed off to the Philadelphia airport.

Approximately an hour later the bus arrived at a small private "Executive" terminal airport and we were all told to unload the bus and wait inside for further instruction. The inside of the terminal was outfitted with comfortable couches and wooden furniture. We all nestled in for our five-hour wait and I was very satisfied with how our night was going. I should have known better…If you are traveling with the military and you feel “satisfied” there is definitely something wrong.

The announcement came down: get back on the bus to head to the main airport terminal to get weighed. We all waited in line with our bags glued to the front of our chests and individually stepped onto the airport scales for our final weight.

We then reloaded the bus and drove back to the previous terminal. As soon as we arrived back and started unloading we were immediately told to reload the bus.

Our time had come! The buses wound their way onto the flight line, where our chartered 777 awaited us. A quick fuel up and we'd be on our way. Four hundred Marines were warming our seats. There was just one hitch. The baggage handlers hadn't shown up, and Soldiers had to load the 60-pound duffles into the belly of the plane.

Soldiers loading bags is nothing new, but spare us the, "oh, someone didn't show up" routine. And by the way, we could have waited for them to show up, because we were on that bus, on the flight line, staring at the airplane, for about two hours.

Eventually, of course, we boarded and experienced the coldest flight of our lives, with a two-hour stop in Bangor, Maine.

The important thing is that we arrived in Romania safely, early in the evening. The Army made sure we got a hot meal immediately. By immediately I mean after we unloaded our baggage from the plane, loaded it onto trucks, unloaded it and organized it by unit, received a brief about what to expect in Romania, and my favorite part: removing our ESAPI plates from within our vests at the bottom of our duffles for inspection.

If I ever get shot and my front or back plates save my life, I'll be very thankful for that minor inconvenience, since my plates failed and I had to exchange them. In any other event, I'll hail it as a monumental waste of time.

Before loading the bags again, we took possession of our weapons and packed a 36-hour bag, and finally got to eat at around midnight. It was exceedingly yummy.

Two sleeps later we were boarding a C-17 for a  loud, cold (not as cold as the one to Bangor) flight. And not even a direct one. We dropped off the flock of Marines at Camp Bastion in Helmand.

One might say that the whole point was to make us grateful to arrive in Afghanistan.

But if it was a test, we must be virtuous beyond measure.