Another nugget of gold I found laying around the COP

another notice I found on The Dealers Den, a newly installed pool room. Maybe one day when we're older we'll be able to handle having a pool room, but for now we better just stick to fighting the war on terror.

A good sample of life at COP Narizah

Tower Guard Musings

There are a million epiphanies that come while on tower guard. And somehow up there, memories tend to reproduce way more vividly than when they actually happened. All you’ve got is that same majestic mountain with its picture postcard reality to backdrop your thoughts for three days straight, leaving all the room in the world to let your mind wander. During my time on the tower, defending freedom, I have developed five or six very in depth and detailed plans for the next five years of my life, I have met God, reviewed and analyzed every relationship I have ever had, figured out a way to “win the war”, came up with a better recipe for peanut butter, found a way to get the revolution televised, and planned a road trip to South America that ends on a ferry in Antarctica (also came up with the working title for the subsequent movie script “Panama Rubber”).
But on especially cold nights when the air seeps through layers to gnaw on skin, when my muscles are sore from pushing it too far with the alpha males in the gym and my back aches from the tremendous amount of gear it bears, that same mountain is only discernable (past the falling snow and lingering fog) by following the jagged line in the night sky where the millions of stars end. As if cut out of purple construction paper and collaged over what kerouac refers to as the "ecstasy of the stars". On these dark mornings chai steam rises up from a water bottle cut in half and the 10 foot by 10 foot tower booth smells of drying mud and melting snow. This is the hour where exhaustion breeches the divide into delirium. At this point your mind is capable of anything, literally X-men like abilities are obtainable if you stay awake long enough. However, all that occurs is a random memory in vivid vivid detail, the IMAX people couldn't have done better. I was transcended back to years ago, to that OTHER Asian country:

It was a sunny day in South Korea; I had a 42lb ruck sack on and was vigorously attacking the ninth mile of a twelve-mile march. Sweat was everywhere and I could feel blisters hardening on my feet. We (my captain, squad leader, and a few soldiers) were training for a competition for the Expert Field Medical Badge, a “prestigious” award in the army medical corps but just another trinket on a uniform to me. Never the less, I enjoyed the physical training. The army post in Korea was only 1.2 miles in circumference which meant to properly prepare for a timed 12-mile hike we had to circle laps around the whole post again and again. On each lap we passed Mitchell's the post's bar and grill. Each lap the smell of greasy pasta and the invoked taste of cold beer became harder and harder to resist. By mile nine I wasn’t fooling anyone, I was struggling to continue. Up until this point I had kept up with my squad leader who’s physique landed somewhere between Lou Ferrigno and the Terminator. A half mile later he was a considerable ways ahead of me and I started yelling to complain at him.

“I quit! I’m going to Mitchell's.”

“Shut-up, no you’re not.”

“C’mon I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

“Nope, we’re sprinting to the next curve.”

Reluctantly I ran with him. Once we reach the bend in the road I stopped running, then stopped walking.

“That’s it, I’m done."

“You baby!” he says and angrily disappears into the corner store we happened to be next to. Shortly he returns with trail mix and chocolate bars. He throws me some trail mix

“Stop crying.”

I eat a couple handfuls and feel instantly better. Renewed, I shut up and we finish the march in 2 hours and 45 minutes a full 15 minutes short of the required time limit and with ten pounds of extra weight. After acknowledging this victory and without waiting for the others to finish, my squad leader and I keep moving straight into Mitchell's, throw our rucks down in front of a booth and take a sweat drenched seat. Without looking at the menu’s we order two pitchers of water, one pitcher of beer, and two plates of pasta.


A gust of cold wind hits me in the face and I am abruptly brought back to reality. Suddenly aware of freezing hands and the snoring Afghan Security Guard next to me. Still I find a stupid little unconscious smile across my face; the nostalgia of this off the wall and irrelevant memory lingered.

It then struck me how most people have never truly reached muscle failure simply because life doesn't provide the opportunity for it. Few know the reward of pushing past your physical limits where the limbs go numb and the mind takes over until it reaches its emotional boundaries and you simply can not go on. Seeing your extreme limits is gratifying enough, but to blow past them and genuinely know you have gone further and longer than you ever thought you were capable is a priceless experience. One that so many people miss out on. And honestly there is no better way to celebrate it than with good friends and crappy beer.

At this point in the night the moons pride has blanketing everything in silver and the stars don;t even have a chance. I click the glow button on my favorite cheap-o Wal-Mart watch and it flashes 2:58, three more hours until dawn.

Army Quote of the Day

Senior NCO: "Do we have intel today?"
Army SGT: "No, I have no intelligence."
Me: "Well, that's obvious."
Senior NCO: "PUSH."

E-four fo' Lyph!

It ‘s remarkable that at one point of my military career I had never done one push up of my own. Don’t get me wrong, I had done thousands of push-ups, but they were all due to the infractions of others, none had ever been my own punishment. The army is a big promoter of mass punishment, especially during initial training. If one person has done something wrong, we all have done something wrong. Ironically in many ways the army, an institution built and used to protect democracy, functions on the micro level by socialist ideals and on the macro level by communist philosophies. In any case I remember a time when I would pride myself on never having said or done anything worth punishment. Nowadays, every time I open my mouth I do it prepared and willing to reach muscle failure.

Here is the non-violent way to communicate with people in charge of me:
“Noble platoon sergeant, first sergeant, and company commander, I understand the strain that must come with the responsibility of your job and the difficulties of running an entire platoon or company, and let me say that your efforts thus far have been stellar. However, when you use medical personnel to pull tower guard, drive vehicles on convoys, and perform other duties that would otherwise get in the way of doing their job to save the lives of others, it is a misuse of Army assets as well as dangerous for your men in the event of a mass casualty situation on the COP or out of the wire. It belittles us as medics by neglecting our positions and abilities. Furthermore, having medics operate crew serve weapons is in violation of Army Regulation 350-41 and Section IV of the Geneva Convention.”

Here is the way I am forced to explain things to men who have spent their whole lives in the Army:
“Look, I’m not going to pull tower guard. It doesn’t make any fucking sense! There are enough infantry men sitting around here to do that while I go DO MY JOB somewhere. And no, I will never drive on any convoy ever. In what world is that a sane decision? You don’t see me handing over my aid bag to a driver saying ‘you be the medic on this one’. So stop trying to use me and let me DO MY JOB.”

It’s as if you have to disrespect someone just to get their attention anymore.

Sadly, in three years there have been a total of 3 NCO’s and 4 Officers I have truly respected. In an institution that is corner stoned on ethos like selfless service, duty, honor, and leadership it’s appalling to me that only 7 people have inspired those things in me. The reason for this is reciprocated respect is virtually non-existent. Most commonly when speaking to anyone with more that one chevron on their chest a lower enlisted soldier would have to stand with hands folded behind their back, legs spread 30 inches apart, start and finish each statement with sergeant. Standing like this will innately cause you to speak with a tone of shame and phrase everything apologetically. This vulnerable position is called Parade Rest; I call it the position of submission. Meanwhile the leader being addressed will look at said private (human being) with complete disdain, continue to obnoxiously spit chewing tobacco into a Gatorade bottle and proceed to call you a “stupid fucking retard” who ought not use his feeble mind and up-to-date training to try and impede on his obviously much better way of doing things regardless of whatever legitimate concern he may have for the safety of his comrades. This is the treatment that the lower enlisted have endured forever, it crosses the line of giving respect to seniors and makes the detrimental dive into dehumanizing those beneath you.

“All soldiers are entitled to an outstanding leadership; I will provide that leadership. I know my soldiers and will always place their needs above my own…. I will be fair and impartial when recommending both award and punishment.”- The NCO Creed

I have seen grown men be made to roll in the mud like dogs for no reason other than to feed the ego and Machiavellian needs of someone who may have lived through combat but never pulled off a conversation without it being socially awkward. I have personally been forced into intense physical punishment by someone with the conceptual capacity of 12 year old because I corrected a mistake he had made. And I’m sure my grandfather experienced the exact same things. What has been created is not just a culture, but a reliance on power dominance and fear to lead soldiers as opposed to those in charge actually possesing leadership qualities.

The Symbolic Interactionist perspective in modern sociology states that a person takes on the behavior that is exhibited around them. George Mead says that the face-to-face interactions and conversations of everyday life shape a person’s reality. So if every private is treated like a child, guess what? Every private is going to act like a child. Even if they know full well how to be the adult they are. Ironically and perhaps predictably, what makes NCO’s the angriest is when those beneath them are unable to think for themselves. And even though it IS ultimately up to the individual to choose whether or not to participate in this oppressive experience by putting up with it, take it from me or anyone else who doesn’t desire to “smoke the shit” out of another person, a 200-year-old institution of degradation is difficult to break on your own, and unless you “embrace the suck” and accept being inferior for no valid reason, you WILL be ostracized.

Also, since the topic is on the table (internet), conversational hand gestures are not disrespectful. The words yes and understood are in the English dictionary, the words “Hooah” and “Roger” don’t actually exist. So why the hell does saying the former imply that I am disrespecting a rank, or a career, or whatever delusion of professionalism you have just given up by screaming at me?

Uncle Sam (you cold old miser) you can keep my stripes, give them to the next patsy just trying to get a little credibility. My intelligence and professionalism will not increase with my paycheck and frankly it doesn’t need to. More importantly I will not play into the system of bitter hatred just to escape its oppressive holds. I want people to look at my eyes when they speak to me not my chest. I don’t want anyone to think they owe me their dignity because I stood in front of a panel of old men and impressed them with my ability to memorize army regulation codes.

I remember a conversation I once had with a senior NCO while walking the halls of our HQ in Ft. Knox. I was reading over the certificates for the Medal of Honor recipients in our unit. Behind the glass of each framed document there was a story of incredible courage, selflessness, skill and strength. Truly moving descriptions of honorable men, the kind of stuff they make movies out of. Studying the certificates deeper I noticed that they were all awarded posthumously and all to the ranks of E-4 and below. When I pointed this out to the sergeant next to me, his response was simple-

“Well….someone had to put in the paperwork.”

If there was ever a question as to why I turned down the promotion board, there’s the answer.

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.

Blue Collar Ballad

In one day I have managed to make it to every major city in Afghanistan. What was supposed to be a short, hour-long flight to FOB Salerno ended up taking over 12 hours. Here’s the story:

We are awoken just after midnight and are abruptly told that we have an hour to pack our things and get all our bags on to the plane. Once we got this done, we sat in a holding area for about five hours waiting for our flight, luckily watching the Packers-Eagles play-off game. At 6am we get on the plane, it was one of those big C-130 aircrafts with no interior just a bunch of wires and tubes running all over the place, and the mesh seats that feel like sitting on a hammock made of internet cable (think Operation Dumbo Drop…just without Danny glover). As we sit down there are four of five people sitting around a Lt. Colonel who apparently NEEDS to use our flight to Salerno to get to Kabul. Kabul is in the opposite direction of Salerno by two hours, but the Air Force pilot justifies the trip with the cliché “Orders are Orders”. After an hour of waiting in Kabul and just missing the opening of the airport’s coffee shop (the only source of food we’ve seen in 8 hours) we are rushed back onto our plane, only to wait for 35 minutes because this time a General and his posse who need a ride to Kandahar. This HAS to happen before we can be dropped off.

[Up to this point the delays due to military shenanigans have been bearable. Bad scheduling? got it. Hurry up and wait? No problem. No food, poor communication, and tons of heavy lifting? Too easy! And definitely all too common to get upset about. Moreover, I am in no hurry to get closer and closer to the far corner of the world we are going to spend the next year in, we could have flown to Euro Disney and back for all I care. But the last leg of this flight became infuriating.]

The General and the 15 people that build his entourage step on the plane and all of a sudden the bureaucracy in the air is suffocating. These old white men, who are obviously of the same stock as those who got our country into this mess in the first place, mock us simply with their presence. The overstated juxtaposition is almost too much to handle. My dirty hands, cut and scraped lay hanging and tired over my weapon while theirs, lotioned and pampered with nails trimmed and clean, sit folded in lap or fiddling with expensive electronics. My short hair, unwillingly shaved to skull glares at the shampooed and gelled locks of these men and women in button down shirts and warm jackets.

One man who sits down across from me looks to be about 50. He avoids eye contact as he brushes past my legs in the cramped space we now share; I’m basically hugging my rifle at this point for him to move past. As he settles into his uncomfortable seat, confusedly fumbling around with seat belt he makes what I can only assume is a bad joke to his look-a-like friend next to him. Un-ironically "Blue Collar Balad" by The Sweatshop Union comes on my ipod. Somehow, he finds the audacity to ask me to take a picture of him and a few of his cronies. Now, he’s probably a very nice guy, yet I can’t stand him at all, almost everything he does offends me. It isn’t just the clothes he sits in, the khaki pants and black polo I’m not allowed to wear, or his clean and brushed teeth that he shows with a wide eyed coffee grin tells me he had a great nights sleep in some hotel last night complete with a complimentary continental breakfast. But more than these jealousies it is the insensitivity to what he has and I do not that cause me to resent this man and the picture he wants me to snap. Because once I focus, flash, and hand the camera back he can’t look me in the eye for the rest of the flight (Hell, he didn’t even say thank you).

The whole flight was a perfect depiction, a snapped picture, reminding me of how the higher ups, the civilian contractors and the “diplomatic officials” get paid five times more than I do every month, but it’s my vest that holds the kevlar plates, not theirs. It’s my life that is "expendable", while theirs can hold up and reroute airplanes and will do it without apologizing. It is belittling, dehumanizing, angering and disrespectful.

And I understand harboring these resentments and offended judgments won’t do me or anyone else any good. And honestly, I understand how the rank structure works, I even appreciate the necessity of hierarchy and that these people probably carry incredible responsibilities on their shoulders. But the blatant disregard for a struggle they do not share is upsetting and insulting. And fundamentally, this is the biggest issue I have with Army life. Because it isn’t just Generals and contractors that enrage me but anyone who looks out from behind their rank and sees those beneath them as less than, insignificant, or unworthy. This attitude is embedded into just about every facet of the military and it makes my blood boil and words my mother did not teach me fly out of my mouth.

In any case we eventually landed at our destination, the Air Force guys were pretty good humored about the whole thing, and we got a chance to eat ourselves into a coma.