A week of patrols

A windy day but still warm under layers of body armor; I find myself walking weapon in hand and sunglasses on face in a patrol formation with 7 other soldiers along the sides of a narrow road on the edge of a town built into a mountain. As the sun goes down, I hear the call to prayer on the town’s loud speakers (save a boy’s small radio this is the only electronic equipment for miles). I look behind me and see an abundance of farmland that is set in between two gargantuan mountains. To my left a stream of water rushes by, this man made aqueduct is the town’s only source of water and is used for drinking, cooking, bathing, and religious ritual. To my right the mountain drops off into a green valley, and after a short stretch of cultivated land rises up another mountain to impossible heights all brown and peppered with trees. Despite all my travels this view is one of the more beautiful landscapes I have ever seen. As a local man exits his house and walks to the stream to wash his hands, feet, and face before evening prayer it hits me that I am again in a situation far from anything I have ever experienced, one I never dreamed of getting myself into. This exhilarates me.
Our patrol continues on with children following behind us and an occasional man or woman passing by to whom I exchange a cordial “As-salaam-alaykum” (with the men only of course, we have been instructed to look the other direction if we encounter any women in this town). The road we are on is narrow, just wide enough for cars to pass without knocking us off the cliff. As we walk trough this beyond beautiful country I hear our platoon leader’s radio crackle with a slew of military jargon ripe with acronyms and curse words. The traffic coming across the radio informs us to be on the look out for two white Toyota Corolla’s that have been identified as Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIED’s)…car bombs. Unfortunately and perhaps predictably, the next 5 cars that drive through our formation are all white Corolla’s, it takes a while to settle my pulse rate once they’ve passed.
According to the army we then conduct a Key Leader Engagement (KLE), according to me we simply let our “important people” talk to the “important people” in the village. And to the army what they exchange in conversation does not concern me, unfortunately and perhaps predictably, I disagree. After the meeting is over we mount back into our tucks and move onto the next town.
Remember in Kindergarten when they taped out a big circle on the floor that everyone sat around? And inside this circle we all enjoyed whatever activities they had kindergarteners do back in the early 90’s? Well the military uses the same concept to set up security with big trucks. We align our enormous vehicles in what’s called 360-degree security, all trucks facing outward with weapons scanning their sector. And we imagine, as fantastically as a kindergartener would, that within this boundary we are untouchable, no bullet, no threat, no fear can enter, that way we can conduct whatever activities they have soldiers do in the new millennium.
With our trucks parked in 360-degree false security I, as always, hop out just after the platoon sergeant and stay right in his pocket, as he likes to say. This town is far creepier than the last; there is no one around except for us. A few day earlier a man in this village covertly informed a U.S. soldier of where a weapons cache was, it was found and taken away, who knows what repercussions were had on the man or this village’s relationship with both the U.S. Army and the Taliban. Needless to say we are not very liked in this place anymore. As the platoon sergeant and I stroll around our “safe-zone” with the ever-amusing interpreter Sher, two school-aged boys approach us; they are the only people in sight not wearing a uniform.
The taller of the two wears a long tattered white shirt that hangs to his knees, loose pants and a pair of plastic worn down sandals. He offers his left hand to shake while concealing his right within his shirt. We ask him why he does this through our interpreter and he promptly removes a disfigured hand, telling us shrapnel had permanently damaged it. His little brother standing next to him looks at us wearily. He either begs for attention or shies out of fear.
We speak for some time about playing cricket and the lack of a school nearby when they are suddenly called to a hut/home about 100 meters away. As they walk away hand in hand I notice the younger of the two walking awkwardly and with a limp, so I have Sher investigate in Pashto. The little boy with brown hair and blackened teeth bends to take off his shoe and tells us he broke his big toe three days ago. Just running around he says.
When he tells me this I think about the ibuprofen in my bag and the physiological effects it has, which cause a reduction in swelling that will ease the pain I’m sure he must be in. I think about the splinting techniques used on the digits of the lower extremities, which promote faster healing and a better recovery in the long term. Immediately I kneel down to examine this poor kid’s big toe. My platoon sergeant barks at me saying “Don’t give him that shit. Lets go.” Reluctantly I get up and walk away. Three days! A kid no older than 7 with no access to a medical facility broke his toe just running around, he’d hurt himself like any other kid would, like I might have at his age. But me at his age would have run crying to my parents over a scraped knee or a bee sting.


In another village far off from the last, the platoon sergeant and I are struggling to communicate with a group of locals. As we all stand around grasping for any means of communication, a man walks up carrying his daughter who cant be older that four years old. She is wearing a big winter jacket and is completely adorable. He puts her down so he can speak with us, or try to anyway, and she clings to his leg like a squirrel to a tree. Every once in a while she timidly offers a hand to wave hello, always retreating her face back behind her dads pant leg. We hit all the big topics with the villagers, Taliban, school, cricket games, abruptly we run out of things to talk about. We all stand in silence for a while when my platoon sergeant turns to me and says “Grab those water bottles out of the truck, go be an ambassador Doc.”
Acting as the obedient little soldier that I am not, I do as I am told. Walking back with the water I have one outstretched hand extended toward the crowd of people, and the little girl with her big jacket and dirty face starts to run at me, realizes she has strayed too far from her father’s leg she quickly turns back. The men in the group give it a slight chuckle, but as soon as I reach the crown of people I kneel down trying desperately to conceal my rifle behind my back and hand her the water. With no words all you have to share are facial expressions, so I took my sunglasses off and tried to look as happy and giving as possible. Miraculously, through the dirt and the grime, the poverty and the struggle, the uniform and gun, the language barrier, the skin tones, the age difference and the cooling afternoon air, a positive message was exchanged between this little girl and me.
Later on, during the long ride back to base I couldn’t help but wonder: how thirsty must you be at 4 years old to run from the security of your father toward a giant soldier carrying more than one weapon just at the sight of water? Moreover, how much can a smile and handshake offset a uniform and weapon? How many pens and candy must we give away to prove we want to help? Can a few words in broken Pashto tell a child not to be scared of the militant stature or make a man believe that foreigners will solve his domestic problems? Ultimately will our presence now or during the past ten years make a country safer and a non-corrupt future more secure?
This first week on patrol, of “breaking wire” as we say here and seeing face-to-face the places and events that are reported about on CNN and forgotten about once dinner is set on the table back home, has been extremely eye opening. I am perplexed by what is going on here, I haven’t the first clue what to make about the situation or where I stand on any of several social issues happening here. But I am thankful and fulfilled to be experiencing them first hand.