Unspoken Abandonment (4 page)

Massoud said to me, “I was Mujahedeen, and I
am
still Mujahedeen. We have little in this world except for the honor of our word. I will always protect you, as you do the same for me,” as he stuck out his hand to me.

I shook Massoud’s hand and told him, “It’s a deal.”

The rest of
the night passed
without incident, and my first night on duty in Afghanistan is over. It
i
s just before eight o’clock now
,
and the street is alive with pedestrians, rickety carts, old cars, bicycles, and even donkeys. The people in the streets are all extremely poor looking and dressed in rags. This place is unlike anything I
ha
ve ever seen.

February 26,
2003
:

Today has been pretty quiet. Around one o’clock in the morning, while I was on-duty, I heard two bombs explode off in the distance. I guess they were
n
o
t really close enough to cause any concern.

Maybe it
i
s just because I
a
m new in country, but it gets scary down here at night. Sitting in a small fighting position, late
at night and all alone, gets creepy,
especially when bombs go off. The fighting positions, we call them OPs, are basically a small plywood shed with a tin roof, positioned randomly along the compound’s perimeter walls
, and they are
about eight or nine feet above the street below
. They are surrounded by sandbags, and
the
large openings on the front and sides are covered by chicken wire to help protect you from rocks, bottles, or whatever else someone can throw. The dents, dings, bullet holes, and other damage show that
they have
taken quite a few hits
. Each OP is about four feet by four feet and maybe 4 or five feet high. They are each supplied with a plastic chair, an M249 machinegun, one thousand rounds of ammunition, and an AT4 rocket launcher. There is no electricity in the OP, but there really is
n
ot a need for it;
the last thing you want to do is light yourself up in here.
One quick flash of
light
and a sniper w
ill know exactly where you are.

I
a
m starting to get very homesick, and this place is starting to become very real. I missed so much about home last night. It was so quiet in the OP, all I had time to d
o was think,
wonder, and miss everything.
Each and e
very
person has
had a bad day at one point or another, but you usually get to go home at the end, relax, and start over. There is no “going home” here; this is home.

Other than the two explosions earlier in the night, it was complete silence.
It was just
me
all alone with
my thoughts.
You never really appre
ciate the little things in life
until everything has been taken away. It is the details that make us happy, the little things. I would trade anything for the opportunity to enjoy a hot pizza, a cold beer, and a funny movie tonight. I never would have thought something so little could mean so much.

February 27,
2003
:

Tonight started off slowly. It was very quiet, no pedestrians or cars, and I guess you could even say it was boring. I heard periodic gunshots throughout the night; some were single shots and some were full automatic bursts. Most of them sounded a distance off, but a few exchanges were a little too close for comfort.

After shift, at eight
o’clock in the morning, two team members and I decided to g
o
out of the compound. Whenever you leave the compound
,
it is always a good idea to bring a local you can
trust
to help you get around and translate for you. It has to be someone you can absolutely trust, and we brought Massoud.
Massoud basically told us that if shit
hits the fan, follow him and we wi
ll be fine.

We went to an area of Kabul the
troops call Chicken Street. It i
s very densely populated and extremely poor. Approximately one third of the people in this area are homeless and struggling for survival. We drove to Chicken Street in a Land Cruiser, wearing body armor and armed with an array of handguns, machineguns, and assault rifles.
The second we pulled into the area, people would try to open the
Land Cruiser’s
doors every time we stopped. Pointing a 9mm at
them did
no
t faze them one bit;
they still tr
ied
relentlessly
to
open
the locked doors.

We found the best area to park, though I did
no
t find it so hot, and
we were swarmed by people
as we exited the
vehicle
.
They were all peasants hoping to get from us anything we were willing to offer. One woman in a burqa approached us, and she was crying heavily. She made a motion to her mouth with her hand as if she
was
eating through the burqa, and she then pointed to a small boy. The boy looked to be around eight years old and was laying on the edge
of the road against the curb. H
e was barely clothed, unconscious, and appeared very malnourished. As we got closer to him, he almost looked as though he was
n
o
t even alive.

As we shoved past the woman, she grabbed a hold of me. Massoud immediately responded by pointing his AK47 at her and shoving the barrel into her chest. Massoud pushed the rifle into her chest so hard she fell backwards to the ground. The woman began to cry even louder and it became more of a wailing sound.
Massoud looked at me and told me the boy died two days ago, and to forget about them. Forget about them? How?

We wandered the area and saw so many people selling things from
either
a makeshift cart or from a rug
spread across the
sidewalk. People were selling everything from daily necessity items, to food, to bootleg videos, and even knives and guns. There was commotion and noise everywhere, but all I could hear was the sound of that woman crying in my head.

February 2
8,
2003
:

It was a very quiet day today, thank Go
d. It was kind of rainy all day,
so I
suppose
that either
forced
people inside or kept them busy trying to stay warm and dry.

I
ha
ve been here for almost a week now, and I am constantly seeing new customs of the Afghan culture. Sometimes they are interesting, sometimes they are strange, and sometimes they are just shocking. Since I arrived in Kabul, I
ha
ve noticed a lot of men hugging, kissing, and holding hands together. Many of the men wear nail polish
,
and I
ha
ve seen some wearing lipstick. Not
just
one or two, but a lot of them. Me and another American soldier talked to Massoud and asked him about this.

Massoud expl
ained to us that in Afghanistan
women and men do
no
t mingle
,
and dating
is not only strictly forbidden
it is also a completely unknown practice to many Afghans. Massoud told us that even married men are very rarely seen in public with their wives. Massoud said most marriages are arranged, and a family will essentially sell their daughter to the potential husband that can afford the most. Since men are allowed more than one wife in Afghanistan, you end up with one wealthier man having multiple wives and many men having nothing. Massoud explained that when children are born, females are considered undesirable and very often do not survive to adulthood. This creates a lot of men who will never date a girl, or even meet a girl outside of
their own
family.
As a result
, in some instances
,
the
se men
“date” each other.

Massoud said although homosexuality is forbidden in Islam and in Afghanistan, it is much easier to hide than being seen in public with a
woman. The
very idea
of male/
female mingling is not only considered taboo in culture, it is forbidden by law.
The penalty for premarital sex or dating can be as high as death. The typical method of execution for such an offense is called stoning. Massoud explained that the man and woman are placed standing in a hole and buried to their waist. Family members and villagers then begin throwing a stockpile of stones at the couple until they are dead. Massoud pointed towards the road and indicated that th
e field near the compound was us
ed for such executions. He said, “Stay here long enough and you’ll see one.”

After hearing Massoud’s explanation,
I began to understand
why so many men show such affection towards one another. I do
n
o
t think they are necessarily homosexual in our sense of the word. I think the men just utilize the only
option they have for affection:
one another.

Massoud also said child abuse is extremely common in Kabul. He said many children are raped every day and there is no one championing for their rights or safety. With so many homeless children in Kabul, and virtually no protection for them, it is out of control. Massoud said by the time
many
boy
s reach
adultho
od
t
he
y
ha
ve
likely been raped
multiple
times
throughout their
child
hood, causing many to
become numb
to
the idea of
having sex with another male.

It is absolutely shocking and heartbreaking to see how women and children are treated here. I have never imagined anything like this.

March 1,
2003
:

It was very quiet throughout the
night, but things got very busy right after dawn. Yesterday, a British soldier was out in Kabul when an Afghan approached and shot him. The Brit’s body armor stopped the bullet, and he returned fire, killing the Afghan. A lot of locals are now angry over the shooting of an Afghan, and many decided to protest.

A protest
consisting of about five or six hundred people, in
an area just outside
of
the compound
,
quickly turned into a riot. Things got worse until a hand grenade was thrown from the crowd into the Afghan Police compound across the street from us. Two Afghan Police Officers were seriously injured, and the Afghan force responded by opening fire on the crowd. Three officers posted on the roof of the Police Station began shooting into the crowd with their
AK47s
,
causing people
to run and clearing the crowd. After several short bursts of fire, some people were trampling one another to flee
,
and others were carrying away those wounded by the gunfire. Within fifteen minutes, the riot was over and everyone was gone. I can
no
t even imagine how many people may have just been killed.

The Afghan Police are very brutal and corrupt. The Police Chief is actually a former warlord who once controlled a large area of territory during the Taliban regime. It is
said
that he uses his police to traffic weapons and drugs, eliminate competition, and strong arm anyone out of any money he can.
I
ha
ve even heard rumors that he is paid by the Americans to remain “loyal” to us.
How true that is, I have no idea.

The police here also seem free to rob at will. They set up security checkpoints, but they are more like toll booths. They allow American forces to pass through unbothered, but they rob Afghans of whatever they can find. Most of these people do
n
o
t have
anything
to begin with,
and
then
they are
robbed by the so-called police.
It just makes no sense to me
.

Today was a very nerve-racking day, but it
is over now. I a
m starting to get into a groove here, and
I am
trying to make
it feel like a home. I try each day to
go
to the gym on the compound. It i
s not the bes
t, but all things considered it i
s really not bad. I eat breakfast
,
and then
I will
either
leave
the
compound
for a mission
or try to sleep.
After a few hours of sleep, I w
ake up and
do it all over again
.
It i
s
becoming
really
repetitive, but I a
m hoping
the routine makes the
time fl
y
.