Day 9 consisted of another long and drawn out Shura, VMO, and HA drop. Like the last one, they had a veterinarian out there along with the VMO. So besides all the villagers bringing us their sick, lame and lazy they brought their sheep and cows out also. We had kids running around trying to get winter boots, candy, toys, elders walking around trying to get coal, rice, beans, cooking pots and flour for their tribal members, old and sick people trying to get medicine and treatment and farmers trying to get things done for their animals.
I know these type of events are supposed to be the “hearts and minds†winning type of actions everyone likes, but I can’t stand them. These people expect everything to be given to them only because we are the US. They don’t want to do anything themselves. Take the worse welfare abuser you know or have heard of and multiply that by 1000. You may get close to how bad these people are. It would not be so bad if they offered something up like information on bad guys, but they don’t. I would have no problem in rewarding them with good stuff for solid intel, but don’t like feeding the “gimme, gimme†beast and not get anything in return.
So the battalion commander and company commander from the 10th MTN along with the ANA recon XO spent close to two hours talking to all the elders, hearing their complaints, etc. blah, blah, blah. At the same time the medical assistance team was seeing and treating people. The vets were chasing animals all over trying to give them medicine and shots. While the Shura was happening, about a platoon of 10th MTN soldiers helped unload thousands of pounds of stuff from a very full jingle truck. Not one Afghan helped, not even the truck driver. They all just watched the Americans unload all the crap for them. That just burned my hide.
After the Shura was over we brought in all the elders to help split up and hand out the stuff from the jingle truck. Unlike the HA drop from a few days before, this one turned into a bickering and arguing fiasco. All the old men argued over what village and tribe should get what, who was entitled to this amount or that, etc. This went on for over an hour and a half and the 10th MTN saw it was getting nowhere. So finally they decided “screw it†we have to get back, let the locals fight it out for this stuff. We loaded up and pushed out to our old patrol base.
As we were heading back, we could see a big storm on the horizon, and it was mostly sand and not rain. We got back to our patrol base in an almost complete brown-out. The winds were whipping about 35-45 mph and the sand would just beat you to death. We backed into our old parking spot within the patrol base, closed all the hatches and just waited it out. The sandstorm went on for just over 6 hours. I was not happy about spending the night in the humvee and eating MREs, and could not believe it when I saw Sharif bring over a plate of rice from the ANA. They actually had been cooking outside in this stuff. I figured it would be a sand filled plate of rice, but it wasn’t. A few crunchy bites, but nowhere near what I expected. So that was a nice ending to a pretty much boring and frustrating day. While sitting in the truck we called back to our higher on the TACSAT radio and found out about replacements. I convinced them to let me stay so I could do a transition to the next team. Face, the terps, and ANA would be replaced on the first day of Ramadan. I would stay on, which was fine for me as life with devil company was good. They treated us well, gave us anything they had that we needed and were a bunch of good guys.
The sandstorm finally ended around 9:30 PM, and we could see the stars again. The sleeping bag unrolled and we did not have to sleep in a seat of a humvee that night.
My new mantra is “the sheep must die”. I will explain that later.
