Crossing the Wire

by AnnaMaria Cardinalli

  Because HTT is already doing precisely this work in addition to our other responsibilities, it falls to us to train, mentor, and serve on the first iteration of the team.

  Day 137

  We stood at perfectly still attention as roll call was read. Each name was answered with “Here!” until the roll reached Cahir. No answer. “Sgt. Cahir?” No answer.

  Finally, louder, “Sgt. Cahir?” Someone finally answered for him.

  “Sgt. Bill Cahir, United States Marine Corps, Killed in Action, August 13th, 2009.”

  Complete silence followed.

  Before us was a pair of boots and a standing rifle hung with a set of dog tags. Grown men, strong men, cried as they passed them, touching the tags with a final goodbye. The Marine had lived an exceptional life.

  Sgt. Cahir was an example of the unique breed of person who chooses to serve in the American military today. He was a Penn State graduate. He had a renowned career as a journalist. He was a national political figure—both a 2008 candidate for Congress from Pennsylvania and a Congressional committee staffer for Senator Ted Kennedy.

  Following September 11th, he was already too old for military accession. A man of his age should never have survived boot camp. He worked and pleaded for an exception to the rule. He was allowed to go to boot camp, and he came out a Marine.

  He chose to become an enlisted man—a “grunt” as we said with all affection—and he loved his role as an “Old Sergeant” to young Marines. He had every qualification to become an officer, but he wanted to do his work as close to the ground, and as close to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, as possible. He was assigned to Civil Affairs—a job we all called the Peace Corps with rifles on steroids.

  His work was that of heroes—the truest warriors of a counterinsurgency. He sought to fulfill the needs of Afghan communities by building strong relationships with them. More importantly, he sought to give them the protection and the knowledge to fulfill their needs themselves. He was entirely about serving people, both his Marines and the people of the countries he visited.

  He was killed by a single sniper’s bullet as he returned from one of the villages he loved to help. The poor man was always frustrated trying to explain that his name was not pronounced “Ca-here” but instead like “Care.” It seemed to define him. Care he did.

  After the evening service, a hand touched my shoulder in the quiet. An officer brushed aside a real tear. “Your guitar. Do you think you could get your guitar?” he asked.

  I retrieved it from a tent and ran to catch up with him. I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do, but I wasn’t going to say no to anything the Marines needed at this point. I’ve been to as many funerals as anyone, I suppose, but I never felt the intensity of collective emotion that was present here.

  He led me to a boarded facility that some very senior leaders used for an office. They sat, and brought what food they could find. “Play something, the way you do. We just don’t want to be in the quiet tonight. Play something beautiful.”

  I played to put an end to their sadness. Somehow, though, it became a part of my own. I hope the “caring” the sergeant did so well triumphs for all of us in the end.

  Day 139

  I find myself looking out across an impromptu plywood classroom of young Marines—pretty bright faces, some shadowed with worry, and each wearing a flawless bun and the fierce determination that makes a Marine a Marine.

  They have been plucked from their jobs all around Afghanistan to attend the selection and training for the FET, simply based upon the fact that they are women. They are officers with advanced degrees and enlisted girls who looked to me as though they have been teleported from their high schools. Their occupational specialties and training range from aircraft mechanics to food service workers to intelligence personnel.

  While each had obviously joined one of the most adventurous branches of the military and were deployed to Afghanistan, many are extremely wary of the idea of venturing outside the wire. It is not unusual for military personnel to spend entire deployments without ever leaving the base to which they are assigned. My first job, both formally and informally, was to try to give the ladies a realistic perception of what the experience is like.

  Especially for the youngest learners, it is hard to express the lesson that the people of the villages, who sometimes may seem exotic and sometimes may seem frightening, are simply people—possessing the same needs and issues that we all share and equally deserving of respect and consideration—when I have to mitigate that statement with the warning that some of the people may occasionally try to kill you. And they won’t be wearing a uniform to help you differentiate them from the innocent people you will be trying to help.

  Sergeant Cahir’s story wasn’t far from anyone’s mind. I found it both beautiful and poignant, especially because of this, that every single one of the Marine women embraced this dangerous dichotomy, and not one backed down from the commitment to help her Afghan sisters. I had to wonder how many of them also knew about Paula. I had to wonder what I was encouraging them, by training them, to do.

  My job, nevertheless, was to boil down ethnographic technique into what I officially titled a “field-expedient model for conflict environments.” Academia aside, I needed to teach the girls what to look for in order to quickly assess a village or home. They needed to know how to spot danger and how to spot need. They needed to know how to pick up on social cues and learn how to avoid offense in entirely foreign environments.

  I realize now that I need to teach analytical thinking skills that seem natural to some and entirely revelatory to others. I need to make everything both practical and immediately useful. I will work on tomorrow’s lesson plan tonight.

  Oh, and back to my pet peeve—the chow hall was supposed to open yesterday, and it didn’t. We all got excited for nothing. I have recently learned from knowledgeable sources that it will not open for some time yet.

  It was built to use American electricity! Of course, there is no available electricity in that voltage here. The kitchen will have to be ripped out and re-fitted. Morale has taken a nose-dive, my own included.

  Day 140

  It’s the final day of training for those who have made the selection. With my teammates I have taken to acting out possible village scenarios for the FET selectees and letting them practice their new skills. (They like it best when I play the grouchy old grandma—complete with my ragged black shawl.) I am proud of these Marines. I am also proud that I will serve with them, continuing my HTT work but also co-assigned to be a guiding member of the FET on their early missions.

  The ladies had other instructors to refresh their firearms and tactical training. As a new member of the FET, I asked that I too might have the firearms paperwork issue cleared up, and shot a particularly excellent qualification on the developing range to prove my accuracy. Still the range wasn’t certified, so it didn’t count. The ladies had officially qualified before they came overseas.

  I found it funny, however, that the Commander at Leatherneck, in a caring and fatherly way, vehemently insisted today that no female Marine would be allowed to patrol without a rifle because it would be too great a danger. He announced this in my presence without noticing the irony or making any attempt to see to my safety as well. Of course, as a Govie, I wasn’t his responsibility in the way that the Marines were. Still, a little humanity would have been very appreciated.

  An odd thought occurred to me. I had never actually spoken to the Commander. I perhaps wasn’t even an actual person in his eyes. As the team leader, it was Lanky’s job to coordinate our work within the command structure, and information could only be “passed up the chain,” or back down to us, through him. Tex and I had never had so much of a conversation as “hello” except by Lanky’s proxy.

  Was the Commander even consciously aware of my firearms issue? Was that why he spoke the way he did? Was he aware that the work he read was mine? Who knew what he actually knew or thought, except through Lanky? I had
to wonder.

  Finally got to prove my accuracy—still didn’t count.

  Day 145

  I can’t be sure why it is, but the realization has crept up on me that for the last month or so the Marine officers I see have been even more gentlemanly and warm toward me than they usually are. It’s not that they were ever not nice, it’s just that now they happen into the work tent to invite me to lunch, or drop by asking if I need a coffee, or offer to walk with me to my tent when it’s dark. Sometimes, they’ll just stop by my desk, settle in, and tell me about their day or their worries.

  Maybe they just need a sympathetic female ear. Maybe I’ve been here long enough that people in general have gotten to know me well enough to be friendly. Maybe they know I’ve faced a hard breakup. But I’ve noticed that this change came significantly about once my own team made so clear their dislike of me. For that reason, I find the friendship of the Marines especially welcome and comforting.

  Tonight, though, I was genuinely stunned when a Colonel, who I never truly had the chance to know very well but respected for his impressive rank, strode energetically into the tent and told Lanky he required my assistance on a matter. Lanky smoothed down his uniform and rose to accompany us, and the Colonel, in a way that wasn’t quite unkind but was clearly pointed, let him know that it was only my assistance he required. Lanky cleared his throat uncomfortably and sat back down, while the Colonel happily escorted me out.

  “Please join me, Doctor,” he said, emphasizing the word. Nobody ever called me Doctor here, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. Here, I’m CC.

  “Sir,” I said, as we walked into the evening, “I’m confused, but whatever that was about back there, it wasn’t necessary for you to have acted so kindly on my behalf.”

  “Ah, CC, but it was very necessary,” he said, and caused me to wonder. Perhaps Lanky had actually said something unkind in one of his meetings with the command structure, and it provoked a certain protectiveness of me in response. A friendly “backlash” of sorts.

  “Now, let’s get some of the good chow, over on the British side,” he put in cheerfully. He had a jeep, a wonderful luxury, and we drove. We chatted about the operational impact of cultural intelligence. We chatted about home. We had coffee. There was no other work he had for me to do.

  Day 147

  This was one of those rare days when something exciting, in a good way, happened! If not a chow hall, a store—a real store—opened on Leatherneck! I had been watching workers mill in and out of a large tent for weeks, and it was clear that something mysterious was going on. People speculated that it might be a store, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

  Today, the tent flaps opened, a banner went up above the entrance, and everyone was welcomed in. Just the concept of having a tent to go into that wasn’t your sleeping tent or work tent was in itself exciting. The idea of being able to get wonderful things there, like cold sodas and familiar candy and American magazines, was almost overwhelming.

  It’s funny the childlike delight it’s possible to experience about some things when it’s been forever since you’ve seen them. I heard even the most grizzled of Marine sergeants exclaiming things like “Wow!” and “O my gosh! Lemon drops!” Grins broke out on faces that were carefully disciplined to scowl.

  It was a huge store, not like the little one on Bastion, and it had cases of the really good energy drink that everyone loved, all the way from the United States. I was so giddy, I bought a whole cold case so everyone in line behind me would get a can before they sold out. Finally, the camp was beginning to reach more desirable levels of caffenation!

  The store had aisles of the supplies one might need as well. It had patches in case you tore your uniform, and t-shirts in case yours were revolting, and rifle slings in case yours broke. I passed a display of the Marines’ knives, the Ka-Bars they so loved.

  I hefted one in my hand and tossed it. (I should have remembered to kick that habit after the Mojave.) It balanced beautifully. Grandma’s switchblade would always be my closest and last line of defense, but lately it seemed like a good idea to have a first one, as well, I thought. I presented it, along with my drink request, at the counter.

  One of my many filmy leopard-print scarves had begun to wear, so I ripped it in strips and wrapped the knife’s handle, both for reasons of fine fashion and for making its presence against the mottled tan of my pack a bit less obvious. I affixed it—hard to see but easy to draw—close on my gear. “Ooo-rah!” approved passing Marines, toasting me with their energy drinks.

  The new Navy chaplain came out of the store and sat next to me on the cement wall I occupied. He liked what I had done with the drinks, and he bought a case to distribute after mine. “So, your Govie-issue outfit says you’re intel, but are you a Sailor or a Marine?”

  “Both at heart, Sir, but neither here.”

  “How ’bout you explain that over some chow?” he offered, so we went to lunch.

  He told me his life’s story, he talked to me about politics (not a favorite subject of mine), and he finally asked me, as a Chaplain, if anything had troubled me over the deployment. It was the first time someone had asked me that question, and I knew what I said to a Chaplain could go no further than him, so I told him I was still troubled by certain dreams.

  I dreamt of the suicide bomber, and of the trap of the children with the snipers, and of the lost boy I somehow failed, and of the times my “protectors” had left me to defend myself alone, despite the fact that I had managed to do so.

  “Oh, it’s easy to explain why that last piece happened,” he offered.

  “Why?” I asked, welcoming the insight.

  “You’re not family, hon, not yet. They’ll protect you when you’re family. Go home and put on the uniform. Then come back, and you’ll see the difference.”

  “I plan to,” I told him, as I picked up my tray and thanked him.

  Day 151

  Today marks the FET’s first mission. We went out with a large group on a MEDCAP—an official and approved offering of general medical aid to the community. We helped set up large tents, and men came from the surrounding areas to be seen by dentists for toothaches, doctors for wounds, and whatever other little help our medical staff were able to provide in the field.

  Of course, only men came to the open offering, so it was our task, as the FET, to visit local homes and find out what the needs of the women and smallest children might be. We took a female doctor with us. To some degree, it was shocking for FET members to see the chronic illness and malnourishment with which most women live, as it had been for me.

  The ladies also saw, for the first time, the rage some men had against the idea of their wives receiving any help. Our feet were tired and our minds were sore with the experience by late afternoon. It was then that we finally came upon the Kuchi families I had visited earlier.

  It seemed that in them the ladies spirits were lifted by some unspoken hope for Afghanistan and consolation for their fears, yet it was hard to say exactly why. It wasn’t the colorful clothes of the women or the brightly decorated spaces. (They tried their best to make the inside of their new mud homes look like the inside of a traveler’s tent.)

  Far more striking was the easy laughter in and around the Kuchi homes. The friendly children giggled their exuberance. Women and men—husbands and wives—would share a joke and laugh wholeheartedly together.

  I realized it had been a long time since I had heard genuine laughter in Afghanistan, and I was strangely moved. This was not laughter tinged by cruelty or mockery. With shared smiles and sparkling eyes, the gypsies’ laughter reflected their simple delight in long years of companionship.

  I strangely thought to myself that somehow in these gypsies, the outsiders to “proper” Pashtun society, I was witnessing the only truly happy marriages I would encounter. Why was this so striking to me? Why was I so touched by the sight of men and women content to be together? I would never have thought twice about it back home, but it stood out to m
e as an anomaly now.

  I had slowly begun to absorb the normalcy of the culture around me, to the point where I accepted it without naming it. Thanks to the defining contrast of the Kuchi culture, I could name it now. To a great number of men, women were offensive. They were something perhaps necessary, but generally undesirable to be around.

  Here, at least, in the remote parts of southern Afghanistan, women weren’t “so treasured” that they were kept like princesses in their homes, which was how I was first taught to understand the gender segregation I would witness. As a rule, women weren’t particularly liked. That’s what made the gypsies’ laughter so beautiful to me. Men and women liked one another.

  Now all the experiences that gradually taught me of this offensiveness came rushing back. I remembered the first men I met—the ones who kept that brave unknown young boy—seeming to share a secret joke about their disgust at having to touch a woman. I remembered the day-to-day encounters that taught me how unworthy of simple, life-sustaining resources some village men thought their wives and daughters to be.

  I remembered the extreme examples, from the sexual haven of the translator’s tent, where the disgust at my presence was (understandably) tremendous, to the Mullah who tried so hard to convince me that he, unlike the “uneducated” men I would encounter, “actually liked women” and would be delighted to touch one.

  The reason my job in this place was so challenging, in contrast with that of the FET which was charged exclusively with women’s interaction, was that I was a woman, trying to help foster social and military relationships, more often than not, with men. However, this detriment also gave me a certain perspective that my male colleagues, however wiser it would have been to put them into the position, could not possess. I saw through the lens of experiences only I could have had.