So things had been quiet since coming back from Kabul. Life was relaxed here while I caught up on some emails, blogs, etc., etc. Of course this was until a few nights ago. Puss, Prophet and myself are about half-way through Season 4 of 24 so on this night we watched about 5 hours of it. It was late by the time we shut it off (around midnight). Prophet and I were both still awake working on emails, etc. I had my iTunes playing low so as not wake up Puss, when I heard what sounded like explosions and gunfire. It stopped as quickly as it started. Prophet called out to me and I said yeah I heard it. He and I walked outside and then we heard gunfire open up in multiple places and saw tracers flying through the air. We ran back in, yelled for Puss to get up and started the old strip-n-dress routine. I grabbed my gear and weapon and then ran to my truck. SFC L was on my tail, to I told him to go with me. He asked if I wanted him to gun or drive and I told him to go ahead and gun (later I wished I would have made him drive). I jumped in the driver’s seat and turned on the radios, did a radio check and got ready to roll. Prophet was on the truck next to us mounting the gun so I told him to grab up the other guys.

We rolled out with shots and tracers heading everywhere. Since it is common for ANA to shoot just about anywhere and anything I have quit getting excited about it. We got up to the front and linked up with other forces there. I jumped on their truck with my thermal sight to try and find targets. My truck was behind this one and the other truck with Puss and Prophet was behind mine. After a few minutes up there we started seeing muzzle flashes and RPG launches from a corner of a kulat not far away. SFC L opened up with my M240B machine gun first and then Puss followed with the .50 cal machine gun. Both guns were rocking as I was trying to spot heat signatures.

Something I learned years ago from hunting is that when your adrenaline is pumping it suppresses noises and shots are almost silent and don’t bother you. I was in the door of my truck feeding reports back to Maj. D as a medium and heavy machine gun, both right near me were just emptying rounds downrange and it did not bother me one bit. In fact, the only time I realized they were shooting was when I was trying to yell on the radio over the top of the noise caused by these machine guns.

Along with us shooting out and with some ANA shooting the other .50 cal opened up as rockets streaked over our head. The ANP in the compound next to us were also shooting RPGs and machine guns back at the attackers. Amazingly the ANA did not shoot as much as normal, so maybe they are finally learning to conserve ammo and identify targets. I decided to move my truck to give SFC L a better angle, and it was at this point when I realized how much he had shot as I opened my door and spent brass and links came falling down on top of me. We pulled forward and L kept shooting along with the other machine guns as targets presented themselves. I then called to the other FOB up the road for mortar illumination. I sent up a fire mission and was waiting for them to shoot it when I realized we needed it faster than they could respond. I shot about 3 parachute flares over the heads of the attackers and then SFC L started shooting M203 40mm grenade illumination also. Once the light went over their heads, the shooting from the attackers stopped. As soon as the illum went out, they would pop some rounds at us again or shoot a rocket. I finally started getting the mortar illum and adjusting it over the target area. By this time the attack had pretty much ceased

It was not long after and we came back to our TOC. The ANP had info on where the attackers possibly ran to, so we along with the ANA and ANP pieced together a RAID mission to go and find them. We had about an hour back in the room (granted this hour was like 3AM-4AM) so we just reset our gear, re-loaded ammo on the trucks to replace what was shot and got a short mission brief. We pushed out a little while later with a big convoy of ANP, NDS, ANA and us. We found the kulats that they suspected the people were in and cordoned it. The ANP raided the houses with us and ANA securing the outside. They had to search about 4 places and by the time this was over the sun was up and it was 7AM.

As we were sitting there myself and SFC L kept talking about how we must be near a manure pile or sewage pipe because of the smell. As the sun came up, we noticed we were parked next to a crap pile. Literally a place where people in all of the kulats around us, scooped up their human crap and dumped it. These people usually use one corner of their kulat as a bathroom, just like a dog does in our backyard. Just like when my boys have to go out back and scoop up the dog’s waste, these people do the same thing. We decided to move a little and maybe keep the germs a few feet from us.

After the searching was over, we drove back by the area we were attacked from and found signs of the attack to include rocket launch locations where they shot 107mm rockets at us. We talked to locals, looked at bullet holes (they are big from a .50 cal) and then came back to our FOB. We were all whipped and ready to call it a night. We had not gotten any sleep all night and we were hungry. Once the trucks were parked, piles of brass and links brushed off the truck and gear put away, we headed to the kitchen and whipped up some pancakes and sausage. After that I dropped, along with everyone else and got about 5 hours sleep. The rest of the day I did not do anything except play about 10 hours of the PS2 game, The Godfather. I guess I did not have enough shooting from the night before.

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After being back in my FOB for a few days and having the BLOG entry called “When a Good day goes bad” happen while I was back, it was time to head to Kabul. Face was heading out for his mid-tour leave and we had some business at the HQ in Kabul. I was hoping this trip would be easier than the last one where I had to drive through the city without power steering or brakes. The trip was un-eventful, which is always nice. Face was convinced something was going to happen that would screw up him getting on the plane, and I was determined to get him on that plane.

We got to Kabul with no vehicle problems after another crazy drive through the city. The city was filled with many more people that before and the traffic was crazy along with the pedestrians. Jawed explained that it was because getting near the end of Ramadan and people were out shopping for EID. EID (pronounced eeed) is a muslim holiday that last 3 days. After fasting and going without certain things for all of Ramadan they all get with family and just feast for 3 days. It is like 3 days of Thanksgiving dinner I guess. Once we got into the FOB in Kabul, we settled in, got some Orange Julius, and some pizza. There is also a nice java shop there, so nightly coffee is always a stop after dinner when we are up there and morning stops too for java.

We took care of our business that we had at our HQ and then took a quick trip up to Baghram to drop off Face. We got him there ok, and after doing some shopping at that big PX, we wished him a safe flight and a good time and headed back to Kabul. After one more night at what we consider the big city FOB we headed out to come back to our little slice of…..

Driving through Kabul is always a challenge and an accomplishment. The traffic and people are so thick there is no way to keep them away from your vehicles. I again came close to plowing some people over and I don’t know how after all the time I have driven through there that I have not traded paint or smashed a fender there. When ever I pull into the FOB or get out of the city I always let out a “whew, we made it that time”. So the trip back was a good uneventful one, except for some troops in contact (TIC) that happened near us on our way back, not far from our FOB. We stopped to see if they needed help, but they had it handled and we continued on.

So overall, not a bad trip. Face made it out ok and we made it through Kabul twice without hitting anyone, or anyone blowing us up. I figure if you can go to bed at night and not be blown up, that has to count as some type of good day.

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So after a restful but cold night we got up to a pot of hobo coffee and oatmeal. As we were eating breakfast Jawed the terp came up to tell us that the ANA were pretty upset and had a plan to start cracking skulls. Two days had went by since the 5 soldiers had went missing and the ANA with us were ready to exact some revenge. Jawed said they were cleaning their weapons and were coming up with plans to go to all the villages in the area that we had visited over the last couple of days and round people up. Even though we had peaceful Shura going on the ANA were talking about field interrogations, beating people and even stacking bodies like wood. There had been no inclination of this over the last two days, but I guess they had enough of what looked like nothing being done. They told us that some would go to the Shura but the rest are going on their own to find people and question them.

I think between the guys being gone for two days and us getting shot at with 40mm grenades, they had enough. Jawed told them the rounds that were shot at us the day before came from the artillery guys and the ANA was furious. They told Jawed that if the artillery guys had hurt them or us they would have slaughtered them all, even if they were Americans. In a weird way that made me feel good, because they were adamant that if anything happened to me or Face, they would revenge us. It was good to know they had our backs….sort of.

So after hearing all of this talk from the ANA, Face and I decided it was time to call higher and let them know of what the ANA were talking about. We cannot control the ANA and if they decided to start roughing civilians up, we wanted to make sure we told everyone ahead of time. I called Maj D and he told me they had just found the missing soldiers at the 10th MTN FOB where we were a few days before. Apparently they had showed up there the night before. Because of bad cell coverage and the fact that we were not monitoring the ETT tacsat freq, they could not get a hold of us to let us know. When I hung up, I told Face and he told the ANA. They went from depressed and angry to very happy in a second. All of them walked up to Face and I and shook our hands and some hugged us. They were thanking us over and over, even though we did not really do anything. However we represent the US Army to them and we delivered the good news, so it was us that got the credit.

Later we found out that the 5 guys were lost on the first night, and then the next morning had a local national point them to the hardball road. They got there and headed to the 10th MTN FOB, which was sort of their panic azimuth. After getting the pats on the back and hugs from the ANA I went to Devil-7 and asked him to call the FOB and confirm that the 5 soldiers were truly there. I wanted a 2nd source to confirm that it was our ANA there and not someone else. There are so many points of mis-translation or confusion between all parties involved I felt it was safer to take the steps to confirm. It took about an hour, but then we had confirmation that they were in fact there. I was glad, because I did not want to deal with the ANA had the report been wrong.

After all of this calmed down, the Shura package showed up along with Devil-6 so we headed to the Shura site. Since Devil-6 was handling this one, the Shura went much faster. We were in and out of there in 90 minutes. Once the Shura was over I again said my goodbyes, not knowing if I would see these guys again. The plan was for us to head to the hardball with Devil company and then Face and I would take 3 trucks of ANA with us to Ghazni and the other two would head to the 10th MTN FOB with Devil. It was time for Face and I to be replaced by a couple of my other ETTs. So we went to Ghazni and linked up with the ETTs we know there. We enjoyed some good dinner with them, hot showers, laundry service and some cots. They put us up in their gym on cots, which was fine with us. The gym was dry, warm and not covered in sand. The next day our replacements showed up and we headed back to our normal FOB. This stint had been about 9 days and I was glad to get back to my own bed. Little did I know, that I would only be here for a few days. There was a surprise waiting for me when I got back.

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Anyone that has jumped out of airplanes knows what a fourth point of contact is. There are five points of contact when your body hits the ground when parachuting, if you conduct a proper parachute landing fall. They are 1. Balls of Feet, 2. Calf, 3. Thigh, 4. BUTTOCKS, 5. Push-up Muscle. Hence when we say someone has their head up their “fourth point of contact” it means they have their head inserted between their buttocks.

So after the ANA Commander returned from the ANP station we de-briefed him to find out what the ANP said and what he told them. The ANP had heard reports of the truck being lost earlier, but the timing did not make us feel better that they were alive. Bottom line was that they were still lost, so we called back to our higher again on tacsat to let them know of the latest developments and what the situation was on the ground. Our ANA were getting more frustrated as it did not look like anything was happening to them. I have to agree that it did appear that way, as we would also think that the ANA/US forces should have helicopters up or something looking for signs of these guys.

After talking to higher, I called Devil-7 to let him know that we had the ANA commander back and that we would be moving out to their position in a few minutes. All local and supporting 10th MTN forces were on this same freq., including the artillery guys that were about 100 meters from us. Once the ANA was loaded up, we told them we would lead as we had the technology to see exactly where the rest of Devil company was located. We pulled down into the same wadi that Devil company had used earlier and our plan was to pretty much follow their tracks. The wadi was very wide (at least 75 meters at the narrowest point), and there were lots of points to get stuck in there. I was in the gun hatch and Face was driving. After we made our way around the 2nd bend we were about 3 minutes into the trip, so I looked back to check on the ANA and they were not there. I told Face that they must have got stuck because not one truck was behind us. He turned around and we went back around the corner to find one truck buried in the sand. Since the ANA are not good drivers, and their trucks are all standards they were also burning the clutch trying to rock the truck. All they were doing was burying it worse in the sand. The tops of the wheels were barely visible it was so deep.

We pulled up in front of the truck and both Face and I got out to help them. Face tried to drive it out, even though I told him that was useless. I could tell there was no way that truck was getting out on its own. It was just too deep. I extended out the tow strap we have on the front of our truck and handed to the ANA. Through the terp I told them to put it on the hook under the bumper. Little did I know these trucks don’t have a hook. So I was going to pull around behind them and pull from behind, but the ANA stopped me and routed the tow strap around a bar on their front grill guard. I was curious as to how they would secure the strap until they amazed me once again. They used their tire iron, routed through the loop of the strap and used that as the securing mechanism. This was against any safety common sense a normal person would have. The tire iron could just fall out unless it was held tight against the strap so they held it tight while I backed up the humvee to take up the slack. I was glad that I was in the humvee and not standing anywhere near this contraption. I backed up to take up the slack and then gassed the humvee, of which it yanked the little light truck right out of the sand. I was surprised their tire-iron trick worked, but it also gave me another indication of why the life expectancy in this country is so much less than ours.

After pulling out the truck, I got out to help disconnect everything and get turned around to move out again. This is when the first round came in and time again “stood still”. The impact was about 75 meters behind us of where we just came from, right in the middle of the wadi. Everyone hit the deck, and then the ANA went running for their truck. I don’t remember what Face and I yelled at each other, but I am sure it had to do with getting out of there. I remember thinking “how could someone see us down here”. The explosion was small enough to be either a 60mm mortar round or a RPG, but I did not see or hear the tell-tale WHOOOSH of an RPG round. I thought maybe I missed it since I was not paying attention for it. I was wrapping the tow strap around a hook on our hood to get out of there and about to climb back into the hatch, when a second round impacted about 15 meters closer to us. Then we were in overdrive, as seconds turned into minutes. Face was getting in the humvee driver’s seat, the ANA were almost already all gone and we were still there trying to get turned around. I cleared the top of that humvee and jumped into the hatch as I turned around looking for a observer. I knew there was no RPG whoosh on that second round so it had to be 60 mm mortar rounds. I was amazed that we sat on the hill not 400 meters from us all day right next to artillery tubes (which had been there for days) and nobody shot at us, but we were in this wadi for only a few minutes and already getting rounds walked in on us. It did not make sense, and I think I yelled to Face that someone was vectoring in on us.

After getting turned back straight in the gunner’s hatch I was behind the machine gun, eye behind the sight, looking for anyone that looked like they were calling in rounds. The walls of the wadi were about 40-50 feet high and I could see anyone that would be up there. I did see two kids to the left of there the rounds impacted, but they were not looking at us, just looking at where the rounds impacted. In milli-seconds I did not consider them a threat as they were just curious. In those same milli-seconds my mind was racing trying to find a target so I could smoke it before it called in another round and smoked me. Face was spinning the truck around and taking off as I was scanning the area and toggling my microphone to tell Devil-7 that we were under fire. I called him telling him that we were taking indirect fire and it appears someone was adjusting it on us. That we were racing to him and nobody was hurt and no vehicles damaged. I heard him call to his one platoon to mount up and come to us in order to provide assistance. Face was yelling at me telling me we should turn around and find the spotter as we were pulling up next to the ANA (who had stopped after getting out of the danger area). I told Face we should not turn around until Devil shows up so we can have enough to fan out and chase down whomever is spotting and shooting. As he and I were having this difference of opinion dialogue, I heard the artillery guys come on the radio and tell Devil-7 something to the effect of “uh, Devil-7, the report you just had of incoming was us shooting M203 grenades to keep the local’s heads down for the night, and not enemy fire.” Time has started returning to normal speed since we were out of danger, until this point. I got on the radio and asked the young lieutenant if “I had heard him correctly” I asked “did you just say you were conducting H&I (harassment & Interdiction) fires into an area that you just saw us go into and without clearing the area you were firing?”. I really could not believe a commissioned officer in our Army that is in charge of troops and has been in a combat theatre for more than a day would be doing this. He responded yes that is correct, and then I took the gloves off. I screamed at this guy over the radio letting go I don’t know how many explicatives at him. It is common for 1SGs to yell, scream, and cuss but not over a military freq where you are not supposed to. At this point I did not care and I think it was justified. This guy, through his complete disregard of common sense and safety, had one of his men just shoot two 40mm grenade rounds into a wadi that he could not see into and knowing we had just went in there. If he had hit an ANA soldier, vehicle or us, it would have been a blood-bath. The ANA are muslim and the muslims believe in an “eye for an eye”. They would have thought nothing of exacting revenge on these US forces had they hurt someone and the ANA found out it was them.

Very few people have seen me as mad I was at this moment. For it is rare that I ever get that angry. Even my own wife may have not ever seen me this mad, and if she has I am sure she remembers it. I understand mistakes happen, and that is fine as long as we learn from them. But for pure stupidity, I cannot stand. I would have probably punched this guy out if I had turned around and went back to him. The LT was already on the radio profusely apologizing and trying hard to suck up. He knew what he just did could have and can still cost him his career and his current position. Devil-7 had heard the traffic and called his platoon to stand down. As we came out of the wadi I could see the patrol base. Devil-7 as a fellow 1SG tried to give me a smile by telling me they saw us and we could enter the patrol base and not to worry they won’t be doing any test firing as we entered. Later I laughed at this, but at this moment I was in no mood. I got out of the truck and placed the ANA vehicles into position while Face drove on. I needed to walk the several hundred meters and kick some sand to release pressure.

All I could think about was how this idiot almost killed some kids (they were in the azimuth of the gun to impact line) had the soldier raised his grenade launcher another inch or so, or how he could have killed us or the ANA had the gunner moved his barrel to the left a few degrees. In those hundreds of meters of open sand as I walked, I thought about this and about what a dumbass thing that guy did. I wanted his head on a platter and him relieved before he did something else this dumb and hurt someone. I thought that this is something I could see the ANA doing, as they have no regard for safety, but not a commissioned US officer or any US soldier for that matter. It is one thing to get wounded or killed by the enemy and even though I don’t want that to happen, I am prepared for that to happen if it does. However I cannot fathom being wounded or killed by a fellow American, who had his head up his fourth point of contact.

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In light of all the SPAM I was getting in the comments section of my different BLOGS, and with having some time today to work on it I made some changes.

I have upgraded the BLOG software I use, which allowed to me target those entries and delete them. I have also installed a SPAM checker that will filter all comments and check them to see if they are SPAM. If the software thinks they are then it will direct the person to a page telling them that. If you are a valid person who is trying to leave me a legitimate comment, and it thinks you are leaving SPAM it will tell you what to do. I will also be reviewing the logs and making sure it does not falsely accuse someone of being a SPAMMER.

Lastly I made changes that allow a person to monitor and read the BLOG through an RSS reader. I know some had told me they could see updates to the blog but could not click on them through a reader.

You can now get to the RSS feed of the Afghan Blog at www.bouhammer.com/nucleus/xml-rss2.php?blogid=7

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So after a long day of patrolling through multiple villages, dealing with sad little boys and the heat, it was time to find a new patrol base. Devil-7 gave this mission to one of the platoons. After a lot of looking we found a place outside of all the villages that was about 1 kilometer away from the nearest buildings. The terrain was flat and open so we could see anyone that tried to get near us. We put the 10th MTN trucks in the perimeter and then filled the ANA into the gaps.

As soon as we parked, the ANA leadership was coming over to tell us they were going to go into a bazaar to get food and items for dinner that night. They were very adamant and even though we tried to talk them out of it a little bit (it was getting late afternoon), we knew they would not listen to us. You could see in their faces that they were going to go into that bazaar regardless of what we thought. So we told Jawed to go with them and keep an eye on them, and to send two trucks so they can stick together.

One thing we have learned about the ANA is, whatever number of trucks you want them to take, tell them one less, because they always take one more. We were fine with 3 trucks going, so we told them to take 2, and of course they took 3. So they took off hauling butt to the west and the hardball road. I expected them back in about 2 hours because I knew there was a bazaar right close to where they would come out on the hardball road. The sun went down and it started getting real late. We were getting worried when we finally saw the headlights on the horizon. Four hours had passed and I was not sure why they took so long, but figured they either got lost or just sat around the bazaar drinking tea or whatever they wanted to do.

The trucks came rushing up to our patrol base at a very fast pace, so we walked out to them. There were ANA and 10th MTN soldiers sleeping out on the ground and anyone with common sense knows better than to drive fast into a patrol base. After both trucks stopped they got out and stated unloading supplies. Jawed came over with some stuff he picked up also. I asked him where the other truck was, and after a few minutes trying to sort it out we figured out they thought it was already back. It seems the ANA 1SG was driving the other truck and he had left before the other two were ready. He had 4 other soldiers in the truck and they were not here. We went to the ANA Commander and he started looking around for the truck also. We had to explain to him that it DID NOT show up yet.

It was dark, we were in enemy territory, and there was a truck with 5 armed soldiers missing. We told the CDR to send a truck out to look for the other one. It was dark and it should be easy to find it by headlights. He did send a truck, but he did not go with it. I was assuming he would, since it was his guys missing. It seemed he was more worried about fixing dinner. After about 40 minutes the one truck came racing back in and yet again I went out to yell at them about driving so fast. They could not find the truck and the ANA Commander looked at Face and I asking us what to do. We told him to get a couple of trucks together and go out and find them. It was not an option, they had to go find them and come back. This forced him and the rest to disregard the dinner that was so important to them, that forced them to go to the bazaar in the first place. So because we told him take a couple, he took 3 trucks. Before he left we saw tracers firing into the air in the direction of where we thought the missing truck may be. They went racing to that direction and soon disappeared over the horizon. A hour or so later, we saw more tracers and did not know if this meant all the trucks were in contact or what. Later we found out that this is the way that the ANA and ANP signal each other, just fire into the air.

It was now getting real late and the one 10th MTN platoon with us just received a emergency mission to go help secure an IED hit site that other US forces hit and were disabled at. So the platoon left and this left our humvee, two other humvees and one ANA truck to secure the patrol base. All of a sudden things got tight as we had one platoon heading to a known threat site, three trucks of ANA looking for a fourth truck and no idea if we would get hit at all.

Normally 10th MTN gives us security in the patrol base, which allows Face and I to sleep all night. Tonight it was cold, windy and we were it. So Face got on the gun, and I got into the driver’s seat. He and I talked for a while and I listened to the radios. At some point past midnight the three trucks of ANA showed up without the missing one. They were low on fuel and could not find the truck or anyone that knew where the truck was. We put them back on perimeter and told them to be sure and keep guys awake all night long at each point. It was so windy that Face and I just decided to tough it out and sleep in the humvee. He was in the front passenger seat and I was in the driver’s seat.

Around 2:30 AM I woke up with my legs and feet freezing. I decided to ditch the very uncomfortable driver’s seat and break out my sleeping bag. I crawled in there and soon fell back fast asleep. In the morning we woke up to find out that the 10th MTN platoon made their way to the IED hit site but only after hitting an IED themselves, which luckily was a dud and only did minor damage to the humvee.

After getting everyone up and things packed away, we moved out to an assembly area where the artillery that was covering us on our mission was staged. Once we got there we started doing maintenance and re-fueling our trucks. We told the ANA to take JUST two trucks and head out to look for the missing one in daylight. After getting fuel and figuring out who was going where, they took just two trucks. We told them to be back no later than 5 PM so we could link back up, even if they did not find the missing truck. After they left, the 10th MTN platoon showed up towing their one disabled humvee. A while later we moved out with them and conducted patrols through another 6 villages, again telling them all about the Shura that would happen the next day. These villages were no different than the others, pretty boring overall. But in this business, boring is good. One village we went into had some excitement as it held the house of a high-profile target and after getting intel from other villages we raided his house. We found some things in there that were worth taking, to include bulk military winter gear that was tied together and stuffed into burlap sacks. This was definitely the house of the guy as we even met his brother and wife. He is a local leader in the taliban and the stuff we found looked like he was about to supply his guys for the winter with gear so they could continue to carry out missions against us. Hopefully in taking the stuff we did, it will delay his ability to do that.

We returned about 2:30 PM to the Artillery assembly area and not long after the ANA commander showed up with his other truck to tell us they still could not find any sign of the missing 1SG or four other soldiers. We had already reported the missing soldiers up to our ETT chain of command, but after no sign of them again we called it back up. The thoughts among us all was that so much time had elapsed it could not be good. Nobody had seen them, reported them, or heard from them. Every minute that went by raised the chances that we would never see those soldiers alive again. The ANA commander wanted to head down the road and talk to the local ANP to see what they had heard and to let them know the truck was missing. We were fine with this as it made perfect sense. Actually we thought he would have done this earlier in the day, but that would have been the common sense thing to do. Devil company wanted to get a new patrol base setup for the night so they pulled into this huge wadi and moved west. We knew where they were going and told them we would catch up once the ANA got back from meeting with the ANP. We could have never guessed those plans almost got interrupted by a fellow American who had his head up his fourth point of contact.

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It was a new day and time for more village patrols. The main purpose of these patrols was to pull in, talk to the locals and elders, and then let them know about the upcoming Shura. We pressed them on Taliban presence and safety in the village, blah, blah, blah, all the same stuff. The adults may or may not tell you stuff, but kids are still the best source of information and they will tell the truth as long as they don’t think they will get in trouble for it.

Jawed has a good eye for who to talk to and has repeatedly through many missions picked the right man or boy out of a crowd and was able to get some type of intel from them. On this one day we went through about 5 villages and somewhere in between we met a little boy. Face had pulled me into the shade of a tree, which was a nice relief and we let the ANA and the 10th MTN work most of the people for intel and we just hung back. Jawed spotted this one little boy who was about 10-12 years old. Jawed told me later he was just not acting the same as the other boys and we soon found out why.

Through Jawed talking to him we found out that the boy’s father was murdered by Taliban just 12 days earlier. Apparently the boy’s father worked for the government of the province and was home one night when the Taliban came into the village. I guess it did not take long for the locals to tell the Taliban that the man was an employee of the Government of Afghanistan. They busted into the man’s house and started beating him and questioning him in front of his family. They made the whole family, including the boy, watch their father get beaten like a dog. After they beat him really bad and of course he told them that he worked for the Governor of the Province, they took the man out to the field behind the house. According to the boy’s words they hit him with something in the head and split it in two pieces. The boy was very verbal and descriptive about this, so it made us think they must have hit him in the top of the head with an axe. The boy was very somber and not begging us for things like other boys tried to do, which we ran off repeatedly while talking to the boy. The boy also told us that none of the local men would help the family with retrieving the body from the field and even the Mullah of the mosque we were sitting right next to refused to give funeral rights or hold a funeral procession because the man worked for the government. This means the whole town is dirty, or the whole town is scared to death of having the same happen to them. Either way it just pisses you off to think you are trying to help these people, give them winter food and supplies, and take care of them when they won’t even help a man’s family out after he was just brutally murdered.

I almost never personally give out food or water when we are stopped because I don’t want all the kids begging me. But this time, I made it a point to give the kid some snacks and some bottled water. Not because he gave us the info, but for one of the first times since I have been here, I felt sorry for a local person that is not in the ANA. Normally they are all just in the way and always considered a threat. However this time I felt bad for the kid, truly bad for him and it just made me think what a sucky start to a life this kid has. I figured the least we could do is give the kid some good water and tasty treats that we take for granted, hoping maybe they would put a smile on his face.

In countries like this where the people are destined for poverty, sickness, and possibly early death just by being born here you have to block out all the emotions, otherwise it would eat you up. These people are just faceless threats that all have a sob story, but not one you can listen to. It is like the enemy on the battlefield is just a target of opportunity and not a father, son, or brother of someone. They are a target that must be eliminated, and when you see them drop you just mark that as another one that can’t kill you. I am not a liberal, bleeding-heart type of person ( in case you haven’t figured that out yet), but I am a human being that has a family back home and people I love and care about that are family and not family. I am not a cold-hearted killer, but I am a soldier. The only way a soldier makes it through the places and events that we must walk through is to remove the emotion and spirit from the people that are around you. It is easy with adults, actually very easy, but with kids it is not. When you hear a little boy laugh or a girl giggle, you are reminded of the innocence these kids should deserve, but will never realize. They are destined to a life that 1/10 of would drive a kid in our country to a life or Prozac and therapy chairs. It makes the kids hard mentally, but that is not what the point is. The point is to let them grow up and enjoy being kids while they are small.

When you are in a field trying to drag your father’s split-head body to a burial spot because nobody else will help you…that innocence is left in the field with your father’s soul.

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