Craig & Fred

by Craig Grossi

  The compound was large. Its thick mud walls stood about twelve feet high and stretched about fifty by twenty yards around us. Inside, there were a few basic structures, little twelve-by-eight-feet huts: one in the northwest corner, where we built a rooftop post; one in the middle, which we turned into a makeshift command center; and two others, each of which we fortified into posts, too. We spent the night filling green plastic sandbags, assembly-line style. Using a collapsible shovel, I helped scoop mounds of dust and dirt into the bags, then another guy would carry them over to the marines on the roof, who would hoist them on top of the little clay buildings. The sandbags—which were bulletproof when filled—got stacked in a raised wall around the perimeter so guys could sit safely inside and look out. Down below, we also dug out holes the size of personal pizzas in the walls. We needed a way to see and shoot out. Murder holes, we called them.

  It took all night. When the sky began to turn blue again and light stretched across the horizon, I could see the wide, sweeping desert that stretched out to our east. To the west, the compound overlooked Highway 611, and beyond it, the “Green Zone.” We called it the Green Zone because that’s where the Helmand River flowed, giving way to lush, green farmland. Fields of corn and poppy unfurled on either side of the river, along with an extensive network of irrigation canals. I watched as a thick coat of mist rose up over the canals, then burned away.

  The 611 “highway” was actually an IED-riddled dirt road that ran north to south, its southernmost point the Sangin District center and its northernmost the Kajaki Dam. Like a tourniquet, the highway divided the irrigated land in the Green Zone from the scorched desert where we had established our post.

  The Taliban were in the Green Zone. Our mission was to drive them out so that a company of coalition engineers could safely make their way up Highway 611, from the district center to the Kajaki Dam in the north. With the area secured, the road could be cleared of IEDs, allowing much-needed turbine parts to be delivered to the dam. Once functional, the dam would provide enough energy to bring electricity to the entire region.

  Sometimes when I try to describe Sangin to people, I say it’s like West Virginia. I don’t mean to offend any West Virginians, but our own culture’s stereotype of the wild and wonderful mountain state is a useful comparison. It’s a way to emphasize how remote and rural Sangin is—so much so that even many Afghans refuse to go there. It’s tribal land, home to a low population of residents, most of them farmers who live largely without access to formal education or electricity. That’s part of what makes the region so susceptible to Taliban abuse and control.

  When Third Battalion, Fifth Marines (Three-Five, or Darkhorse, as they were called), had arrived in the district center a few weeks prior to our mission, they’d walked right into a meat grinder. In the first week, they lost ten guys. We were here not only to help clear out the Taliban from around the highway but also to take some pressure off of the Three-Five marines in the south.

  My main objective in Sangin was to figure out who was who. Like a tactical anthropologist, I needed to understand the situation on the ground from a villager’s perspective. I needed to get to know the locals. What did people call themselves here? Which tribes did they belong to? How did they earn a living? And how were the Taliban affecting their lives? By building relationships, I’d be able to extract critical information from people firsthand. I also wanted to create a database of people’s names, tribes, family members, jobs, and locations. That way, when the Marine Corps continued to secure and maintain the area in the future, they’d have a dossier of everyone who lived there.

  In the new daylight, two marines took up post on the rooftop position, turning their binoculars toward the fields. Those CH-53s aren’t exactly quiet. People knew we were here. If the Taliban hadn’t figured out our location yet, they would soon.

  From the roof, one of the marines shouted down.

  “I’ve got movement! Northwest!” he said.

  I got in front of a murder hole and looked out into the Green Zone. He was right: I could see people emerging from the edge of the fields and crossing into the desert, coming toward us. But as I watched, I saw that the people were moving slowly. They were carrying things—stuff that looked like sacks of rice and bags of belongings. I saw someone pushing a wheelbarrow carrying an old woman and another leading a donkey with blankets and buckets hanging over either side. These weren’t Taliban fighters. They were villagers. They were trekking out of the Green Zone, their possessions on their backs. Fleeing.

  They kept coming. For two hours, we watched as dozens of people made their way out of the Green Zone to the dusty cluster of compounds near ours. If they had stayed where they were, we realized, they risked being turned into targets by the Taliban. Fighters could occupy their homes for shelter while they launched attacks on us. It was a well-known Taliban tactic, and a horrific one at that.

  I remember how tired they looked, how defeated. It could’ve been years since troops were on the ground here, sure, but they’d been through this before. Without us here, their lives were about surviving through Taliban occupation. With us here, they had to survive in a combat zone. What a fucking mess, I thought. We needed to get this right. I wanted these people to get the peace and freedom they deserved.

  The morning sky swelled with light. Only a few hours in, and already the dust was working its way into my hair, skin, and clothes. Everything had the same stale smell. I grabbed a bottle of water and splashed some on my face, then started my favorite ritual: preparing instant coffee. My sister had given me a little Jetboil stove that could heat water in sixty seconds. It was magic.

  Across the compound, I saw Top, our leader and master sergeant, doing the same. A twenty-year veteran with a square jaw and bricks for fists, Top rarely uttered more than two words at once.

  I lifted the hot cup of coffee to my lips, then heard it: the distinct, overpowering thunder of an attack.

  Directly overhead, the sky screamed, WHOOSH!

  I looked up and saw it: a rocket soaring through the air, followed by another. They sailed by almost slowly, like they were floating. Their paths crisscrossed and I vaguely registered that they must have been launched from different locations. One buzzed off into the distance, missing our compound. The other cracked open into a sharp, deafening explosion at the far end of the compound—within our walls but, thankfully, where no one was. The blast happened before the thing even hit the ground—it was an airburst RPG. It rattled my teeth and rang in my ears.

  I looked back over at Top, who was already moving into action. He ran into our makeshift control center, one of the little clay rooms in the center of the compound, to get on the radio. Around me, the guys were putting on their gear. I looked at Dave, one of the EOD guys, who was already suited up with his body armor and helmet. Shit, I thought, and grabbed my stuff.

  I rushed to the wall and peered out a murder hole. I saw desert and dust. Nothing. Behind me, the west wall—the one facing the Green Zone—was getting all the action. Rifle rounds hit the clay, sending dirt flying. The guys on the roof shouted to each other, calculating where the RPGs had come from and preparing to return fire.

  You could also hear their reports over the radio: we were nearly surrounded; Taliban fire was coming from 270 degrees around us. At first, the guys on the roof were taking some machine gun and small arms fire. But then you could hear their voices change as they reported that “some fire” was now “accurate fire.” We had only two rooftop positions facing the Green Zone, each with two guys, plus a few murder holes down below. All told, that meant we had only about eight guys returning fire on what was easily a few hundred Taliban. The rounds peppered the sandbags with a near continuous rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. It became too heavy, and the guys had to duck down. You never want to get pinned down like that; it means you can’t beat back the enemy. It means it’s only going to get worse. Above, the sky was cloudless and blue.

  And then: “Corpsman!”

  I heard the sh
rill, urgent call come over the radio from the rooftop position nearest the Green Zone.

  Corpsman is not a word you want to hear during a gunfight.

  From down on the wall, I looked up and could see that it was Aaron, Joe’s watch partner, who was calling out. I knew Joe and Aaron from my first mission; Joe and I had become fast friends when we connected over our shared interest in mountain biking and snowboarding. Now, up on the post, Joe lay limp beside his teammate. Fuck, I thought.

  Frantically, Aaron unbuckled Joe’s helmet while rounds continued to whiz overhead. He grabbed the front lip and tugged, pulling it off so he could get a better look at the injury, try to stop the bleeding.

  But Joe’s helmet was empty. No blood, no pieces of skull. Aaron looked back at Joe’s head, then again at the helmet, trying to reconcile what was going on. He knew Joe had been shot—he was lying there unconscious—but physically, he looked okay. Aaron checked the helmet again and found them: two bullet holes where the round had gone in and then out. Joe groaned and started to move.

  “We need to get you down, man,” Aaron said. Joe, disoriented, opened his eyes and started to crawl toward the ladder, head first. From below, Jim, the corpsman, slowed him down.

  “Hey, hey, hey! Easy, buddy! You gotta turn around!” he shouted up. Dizzy and confused, Joe turned and backed down feet first.

  I ran over to the bottom of the ladder and waited with Jim. We eased Joe down and propped him up in the dirt. Jim started to examine Joe’s head, parting his short hair with his fingers. Meanwhile, Aaron continued returning fire overhead.

  There was no wound to be found. Joe—somehow—was okay. The round had skimmed through the top of his helmet without hitting his head at all.

  The first attack didn’t last long—less than a half hour—but it felt like forever. One minute hell’s breaking loose around you, the next minute it gets quiet. You realize you’re soaked in sweat, you’re wearing all this heavy armor and a helmet in one-hundred-degree heat, and your mouth is an oven. But you’re alive.

  Within an hour, the next attack came. It was similar to the first. The Taliban liked to start with something dynamic—using a big, powerful weapon, hoping to inflict casualties. Sometimes that meant an RPG or mortar fire; sometimes it was heavy fire from a large-caliber rifle at close range, like a DShK (pronounced “dishka”). It could also be a recoilless rifle, a type of lightweight tube artillery, fired from a truck or from the ground. They always launched attacks from at least two locations, followed by mortars and gunfire. Then they’d recover and reposition, launching the next attack about an hour later. It would continue like this until sundown.

  We had days on end of this. The guys took shifts on the roofs. The rounds came in. The temperature rose. We took fire; we returned it. For a short span of time in the afternoons, when the sun rose high in the sky and it got to be 115 degrees Fahrenheit, the desert fell quiet. It was unbearable to do anything, and for a couple of hours, the Taliban stopped their assault.

  We spent the time cleaning our guns and eating our MREs (“meals ready to eat,” aka vacuum-sealed military-issue space food). We played cards and took naps. We tried to make jokes, cool down, clean off. We were already filthy, covered in dirt freckles—little specks of dust on our skin no baby wipe could get off. Our “bathroom” was a chicken coop where we did our business in little silver bags with deodorizing powder, then tossed them in a burn pit. In less time than you might think, all of it kind of becomes a new normal.

  It was between Taliban attacks that I spotted him.

  I was hot and exhausted, trying to stay cool in sandals and the thin green running shorts we called “silkies.” I stood refilling my water bottle and heating some water for Ali, who, despite the heat, insisted on a cup of tea with his lunch. As I put the cap on my water bottle, I watched a goofy-looking dog trot across the compound. With his short legs and puppylike pep, he looked nothing like other stray dogs I’d seen in Afghanistan. Most were tall and bulky, and they moved around in packs, aggressive over territory and scavenged food.

  I could tell this dog was different. He didn’t have a pack; he was alone. He pranced nonchalantly in the dust, tail bobbing and snout held high, as if he was particularly proud of the morsel of food he was carrying. There was something innocent about him; he seemed unaffected by life in a combat zone.

  I’d noticed his routine before in the day or so since we’d been in the compound. The dog would go over to the burn pit to rummage for something to eat, then carry little scraps back to his makeshift den, which was a shady spot under a few bushes. Funny little hoarder, I thought.

  When we first arrived at the compound, I asked the old man about a couple of dogs that were hanging around. “Are they yours?” I asked. If so, we’d help transport them to the family’s new compound, along with the livestock.

  “No, no, no,” he told us. It would have been unusual for a farmer in Sangin to have a pet dog. The villagers loved animals and took great care of their livestock, but they were focused on surviving and on feeding their families; they couldn’t afford to feed and care for a pet. Occasionally, when we did come across “pet” dogs, they were actually used for fighting.

  After the family left and we moved in, the little dog stayed. It was almost as if this were his compound. I stood and watched him flop down in his spot under the bushes. Beside him I could see other food scraps he’d accumulated: little MRE wrappers, sticks, bones.

  I put down my water bottle, picked up a piece of beef jerky, and started walking over to him, my sandaled feet kicking up dust. When the dog realized I was coming his way, he stopped eating and looked at me. He watched as I approached, squinting to shield his eyes from the dust and sun.

  A few steps away from him, I paused.

  “Hey, buddy,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  He seemed to be studying me. There was something expressive about his big, light brown eyes—almost humanlike. For a moment, we just looked at each other. Then I heard a quiet thwap thwap thwap. A little cloud of dust kicked up into the air behind him. I couldn’t believe it: he was wagging his tail.

  I took it as an invitation to move closer and crouched down to get a better look at him. The dog’s fur was mostly white, with large spots of light orange-brown. He had a long snout with a big black nose and floppy ears. As he looked at me, his eyebrows twitched from side to side, curious. He continued to wag his tail, and his expression was soft and easy, as if he was smiling.

  The dog seemed happy as a clam, but I could see he was covered in black bugs the size of dimes. They were buzzing around him, then burrowing into the fur on his face and neck.

  I extended my arm, holding out the piece of beef jerky. “Here you go, buddy,” I said.

  The dog stood up and shook, as if to rid himself of as many bugs as possible before getting near me. He took a few steps forward, his nose leading the way, and inspected my offering before carefully pulling it from my hand with his front teeth. I laughed watching him chew the jerky. Most dogs I knew didn’t bother chewing treats before sending them down the hatch.

  “Well, you’ve got better manners than most, don’t you?” I said, and extended my other hand so he could give it a few sniffs. With his permission, I massaged my fingers into the fur around his neck and under his ears. It was coarse and matted in dust; it felt unnaturally stiff, almost like a dirty pair of jeans. But the dog happily leaned into me, pleased with the neck rub. I wondered if it was the first time he’d ever been petted.

  I’d always wanted a dog as a kid. I even went so far as to buy a leash with my own money, then went around knocking on our neighbors’ doors after school, volunteering to walk their dogs for free. Some of them actually let me. My favorite dog was an old basset hound named Irene. She had these big paws and enormous floppy ears. When I walked her, she’d trot ahead of me, out at the end of the leash, with her snout high in the air, taking in all the smells she could. This dusty pup with his long body and short legs made me think of her.


  Before I got carried away with him, though, I stopped myself. Cozying up to dogs was off-limits in Afghanistan. When I first arrived in-country, back at the main base, I’d sat through two full days of orientation where they laid out all the rules, big and small. No alcohol. No porn. No saluting superiors, for tactical reasons. One of the memorable ones came from a veterinarian from the military police K-9 unit. “No dogs,” she said plainly, then proceeded to tell us horror stories about guys contracting rabies. Get caught with a stray dog, she said, and that dog will be euthanized, no questions asked. On top of that, I was still hyperfocused on proving myself to the RECON guys. I had to show my worth on this mission, not sit around in the dust with a dog.

  With that in mind, I reluctantly got up. The dog just stood there, gazing up at me. “Okay, buddy,” I said. I turned and headed back toward my corner of the compound.

  But after taking just a few steps, I felt a little nudge at the back of my ankle. I looked down to see the dog staring up at me with a toothy grin, tail wagging again. From across the compound, Matt, one of the EOD guys, had been watching our exchange. “Looks like you made a friend!” he shouted. But what I heard was, “Looks like a Fred!” The name stuck.

  Fred trotted along behind me back to the makeshift campsite where I had my sleeping mat. I didn’t try to stop him. Maybe there wasn’t that much harm in giving him another piece of jerky and some water, I thought.

  I grabbed a large tin bowl that was lying around—it had probably been for the cows—and filled it with water from my canteen. Placing it down in front of Fred, I watched as he licked the thing dry. I stood over him and smiled. Just as he’d taken the jerky from me with a gentle tug, he drank water the same way, with polite little laps.