by Rich Johnson
****
When he was 14, Husam al Din was given a Kalashnikov automatic rifle and the training to shoot it with a high degree of accuracy. From then on, part of each day was spent on the firing range. Some days, he went with his trainers into the western desert wilderness to practice shooting and moving, shooting and moving, as if he were facing an enemy force of many men. He carried the rifle held horizontally out in front of him as he ran an obstacle course of boulders and logs. The training was rigorous and, at first, his muscles ached and quivered with exhaustion.
“It is good,” he was told. “It is meant to build your arm and shoulder muscles, and the burn and trembling mean that your muscles are being torn down so they can be built even stronger.”
In the midday heat, he ran along the tops of logs that were suspended high above the ground, to develop his balance and endurance. To teach flexibility and balance on the beam, three trainers at once threw rocks at him, and he was forced to either dodge the rocks or suffer the pain of failure. Bruises were common, but as he continued with his training, the bruises became fewer in number. His goal was to pass through an entire training session without falling from a beam and to dodge every stone.
One day, he reached that goal, and he was openly praised by his trainers in front of all the other boys. It was a day he never forgot, and it made him think how fine it would feel to one day hear the praise of Allah for having done a good job with his mission of jihad. Although he was not large of stature, Husam al Din developed powerful muscles, quickness on his feet, and an uncanny sense of incoming weapons. Because of his excellent efforts, among all the boys at the madrassa, Husam al Din was the favorite of Imam Waziri.
“You are the pride of the madrassa,” the old man told him, “but you must beware of pride in your heart.”
Husam al Din thought about that advice for a long moment. “That is a hard thing,” he said to his mentor. “How do I do that?”
“Pride is poison for the heart and is a thief of your strength. Stand with honour before Allah in all things. Defend the faith with all the vigour of your soul. But do it all for Allah, not for your own personal gratification. That is how you will defeat pride.”
****
It was the end of September when a new boy came to the madrassa. Ali was sullen and he intentionally picked fights with the other boys.
“His heart may seem cold, but his life has been difficult,” Imam Waziri told the students privately when Ali was not present. “His family lived in Qandahar and his parents were killed in an accident, as they travelled on the road to Qalat. Ali was spared but now that his parents are gone, he has no one to care for him, so he was sent to the madrassa orphanage here in Lashkar Gah because there is no other family member to take him in. For the sake of courtesy, let none of you speak of these things,” Imam Waziri commanded the students. It would be too difficult for Ali to think about – at least for a while.
****
Ramadan was about to begin, the holy month of fasting, a time of worship and personal contemplation, a time when most Muslims draw close to family and community. But neither Husam al Din nor Ali, nor many of the other students at the madrassa, had families. They were their own community, secure behind protective walls that kept out the world. They were safe here – safe from the influences of the world, safe from contamination from outside, safe to preach and practice the traditions of Islam in exactly the way Imam Waziri wanted it to be taught and practiced.
“Not everyone who professes Islam is a true Muslim,” the old man taught his class. “There are false Muslims who follow another path, and you must be watchful of them. It is an old conflict that dates back many hundreds of years, to a time just after the Prophet was carried into heaven, and there were those who wanted to steal the faith and change it to suit their own desires. They are kafir, and as much to be despised as any other infidel.”
The words of Imam Waziri thrilled the heart of Husam al Din. There was no question what was right and what was wrong, and he had the madrassa to thank for teaching him these things that kept him safely on the right path. Ramadan, he decided, would be a special month for him when he would fast and pray and give thanks to Allah for showing him the way.
On the first day of Ramadan, in the chilly morning air, as the boys were standing at the water pump waiting their turn for the ablution before prayer, Husam al Din spoke to Ali. “You have lived all your life, until now, outside the madrassa. I have lived since the time of my birth inside these walls. The only times I have been outside, I was with teachers. Tell me, what is it like?”
The new boy had never looked happy since coming to the madrassa. His shoulders were rounded and slumped, and his face downcast. “Ah yes, life before this prison,” Ali whined, “I played soccer and had many friends. Some of them travelled to other countries and they told me about those places and the things they saw. And I had many books to read. It wasn’t anything like the madrassa. There is nothing interesting to do here.”
“You should be thankful for the madrassa,” Husam al Din said. “The Imam took you in. It is a safe place, and there are people here who will take care of you.”
Ali’s eyes flashed. “There are people here who beat me when I do things wrong,” he complained under his breath, so the other boys could not hear what he said. “I hate it here.”
“I do not,” Husam al Din said. “This is my home.”
“That is because you have never known anything else.”
“What else do I need to know? Here I have the Holy Koran. The Imam leads me in the way I must live. I have the mosque and my prayers, food and a bed. What else do I need?”
“You need—” Ali began, then broke off his words when the way suddenly cleared for him to step into the shallow puddle below the pump and perform his ablution. “Ah,” he bitterly spit, “never mind. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Do not be so sure of what I would or would not understand,” Husam al Din said. “I may be an orphan from birth, and have not seen all the things you have seen in the world outside the madrassa, but I am not stupid.”
Ali quickly made a pass at his ablution, a hit-and-miss sprinkling and spattering, but no serious cleansing. And as Husam al Din watched, he knew that Ali’s heart was not in it. Ablution was one of the most holy rites before prayer, and yet Ali was just rushing through it as if it did not matter.
“How can you approach Allah when you are still unclean?” Husam al Din challenged.
“Hah!” Ali turned to face him with a scowl. “You worry about your approach to Allah, and I will worry about mine. Okay?”
“You mock Allah. I hear it in your voice.”
Ali pointed a finger and hissed through clenched teeth, “Allah allowed my whole family to be killed and left me an orphan. Do not lecture me about how great Allah is or how I say my prayers.” Then he turned back to the pump and slapped a little more water on his hands.
“Do not say such things. That is blasphemy.”
“I can say whatever I want,” Ali insisted, “and there is nothing you can do to stop me. What are you going to do, tell the Imam so he can beat me again? Someday I will get out of this hole and I will be free.”
An ugly thought rose in Husam al Din’s mind. “You are not truly Muslim,” he blurted. It was out before he realised it.
Ali turned on him. “What do you mean I’m not Muslim. Of course I am.”
“I said you are not truly Muslim. Not in your heart. You may be Muslim from the lips outward, but not in your heart. You are an infidel of the worst kind, because you pretend to be what you are not. How dare you stand here in the waters of ablution, at the very doorway to the mosque, and yet in your heart you are kafir!”
Without further thought, Husam al Din gripped his dagger, slid it from its scabbard, crouched low and lunged. The clean upward thrust of the blade split the fabric of Ali’s shirt and sunk easily into the soft flesh just below the breastbone, penetrating Ali’s heart. The boy’s head jerked forward, butting into
al Din’s eyebrow, but the sudden pain only made al Din more determined. Blood flooded over the dagger’s guard and down the hilt into Husam al Din’s hand, past his wrist and up his forearm to his elbow. He felt the warmth and watched the red drops fall from his bent elbow and mingle with the water of ablution at the base of the pump.
How fitting, he thought, as he watched how the blood ran all the way to his elbow, but no farther. The ritual washing required cleansing to the elbows. I will have to wash that arm carefully, to cleanse myself from the blood of this infidel.
He dragged the body away from the pump, then calmly washed himself in preparation for prayer. Intentionally, he left a trace of blood on the hilt of his dagger, where the stain would remind him of his first infidel kill. Then he inserted the knife into the scabbard at his waistband, stroked it as other boys might pet a dog, and smiled. “Jihad feels good,” he whispered to himself.
****
Imam Waziri sat with a serious face as Husam al Din entered the room. The old man was bent with age, but his mind was sharp and his eyes clear. “It is time for you to leave the madrassa.”
“I am sorry if you think I have done something wrong,” Husam al Din began.
“Do not apologise. I do not hold it against you.” The old man shifted in his chair, looking for the right words. “You have been trained from birth to defend the faith. What you did at the pump of ablution will be spoken of by all who remain and all who follow. It will be a long time before anyone will disrespect Allah again in this madrassa. You have begun a legacy that will live on after you are gone.”
“Why must I leave?”
“It is time for you to receive further training and preparation. We have done all we can do for you.”
The boy stood before his revered teacher. “It is my only desire to serve my mission of jihad,” he said. “Tell me what I am to do.”
“You will be sent to the tribal land, and there you will receive your final preparation.”
“I am ready, but I will miss this place. It is all I have known from my birth.”
The old man smiled. “I will miss you, my son. But it is for the greater good. Tomorrow morning, after first prayer, a man will come to escort you. You must do as he says, even as you have done here.”
He bowed his head in humility and repeated his mantra. “I am Husam al Din. I am the Sword of the Faith. My life is for jihad. I will prepare in every way.”
****
The next morning, after prayer, a man drove a Land Cruiser to the front of the madrassa. Husam al Din had rolled his few clothes inside his prayer rug and tied it with a string. With his head up and shoulders back, as a real man should stand, he went out to meet the one who had come for him. Inside the car were two other men, and Husam al Din crawled into the empty space in the back seat, closed the door and the Land Cruiser sped away northward.
All day they travelled, and Husam al Din sat looking out the window at sights he had never seen. One of the men gave him a hard piece of bread, a bit of cheese and a flask of water. At the appropriate hours, they stopped for prayers, unrolled their prayer rugs toward Mecca, then afterward they continued their travels. Sunset came, then darkness embraced everything. In the middle of the blackest night he had ever known, and with headlights switched off, they crossed a high mountain pass and descended into the tribal area that spread across the ragged mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Many hours later, the Land Cruiser came to a stop in a small dusty village where the air was thin and the night was very cold. One of the men in the car gave Husam al Din a wool blanket, and he wrapped it around himself and was led to a small house made of mud brick. A hard bed awaited him, and he spread his blanket and slept the first night of his new life.
In the village, he met men who had fought the Soviets. These men were lean and hard. They wore their skin like leather, and not one of them showed a smile. These were warriors who had slept out on the unforgiving ground among scattered rocks, living in crags and caves when everything froze solid. They had gone days without food or water, hiking the high passes on ragged shoes and bloody feet, fighting with antique weapons that were scavenged, rebuilt and pressed into service. These men were giants in Husam al Din’s eyes, and those who were wounded bore the scars of war like a badge of honour. It was these men who would be his trainers.
****
Months passed, then years. Each day was the same as the last, filled with prayer and training. Weapons from all around the world were there for his study, and he learned to dismantle and re-assemble rifles, shotguns and handguns in the dark of night or while his eyes were covered. From scattered components thrown on the dusty ground, he was able, by touch alone, to pick out the right pieces, clean them and assemble a weapon.
It was the same with explosive devices, firing systems and booby traps. On the training range, anti-tank and anti-personnel mines were booby-trapped and buried, and he was required to locate and disarm them. Then he devised a different way to use the same components to booby-trap the mine and lay it for the next trainee to locate and disarm. The mines were dummies, but the blasting caps and booby-traps were live, and a mistake could be painful and possibly even disabling. Dangerous as the training was, humiliation from his peers was the biggest deterrent to failure. As part of his demolition training, he was taught how to use everyday household products to formulate and detonate improvised explosive devices.
During his second year in the village, he was schooled as a driver and mechanic, and was taught how to defeat automobile security systems and steal a car without getting caught. High-speed attack driving techniques were part of the curriculum, as well as counter-attack methods, the first training him to chase another vehicle and run it off the road and then how to avoid being the victim of the same thing.
In his third year, he was taken to a remote beach in southern Pakistan and taught powerboat operations, to prepare him in every way to conduct a suicide mission against enemy ships, if he were ever called upon to do so. The training was comprehensive, including the use of radar, GPS, electronic chart plotters and the use of paper charts and rudimentary navigation tools in case electronics were not available. He learned to operate marine radio systems and to rig up an emergency antenna.
Regardless of the nature of the military training Husam al Din was undergoing while at the village high in the mountains of the tribal territory, every day included strict adherence to the schedule of prayer and the study of Islamic fundamentalist doctrine. With what he considered to be a righteous pride for his people, he looked upon the old men, the weathered warriors of the Soviet conflict. They were his teachers, his mentors, his idols. He listened to their stories and admired their scars. Someday, he vowed to himself, I will wear the scars and be a hero. Perhaps one day, a martyr. I will be the Sword of the Faith, as my name has destined.
****
In October, 2001, the Americans invaded Afghanistan and for Husam al Din the reality was that the infidels of the new holy war were the Americans.
Chapter Four
September, 2007 – Northern Afghanistan
“Sergeant Adams,” the voice called from across the empty street. “I’ve got mail for you.” Josh Adams had been in Afghanistan for seven months, and it seemed that incoming mail was never frequent enough.
“Thanks, corporal,” Adams shouted as he sprinted across to meet the young troop who handed him the envelope. “Ah, good, it’s from Rachel,” he said as he held the envelope to his face and inhaled. “Hmmm, she must have forgotten the perfume this time. Well, no matter, at least it’s a letter. I do love to hear from that girl.” He grinned at the corporal. “Now you better run off and deliver the rest of the mail. I’m going to sit down here in the shade and enjoy myself.”
“Right, sergeant,” the corporal half shouted. He was young and was new to the unit, so he was a bit intimidated by sergeants and tended to come to attention and shout in their presence.
Josh laughed at the corporal. “Stick around; you�
��ll get over that.”
“What?” the corporal asked.
“Ah, never mind.” Josh laughed again. “I was just joking.”
“That’s one of the things I like about you, sergeant,” the corporal said. “You have a great sense of humor. Over here, I think that’s very important.”
“Why thanks, corporal. Better keep moving. Lots of other guys waiting for their mail.” He pulled out his Special Forces combat knife and carefully slit the envelope open, then pulled out the single sheet of paper. There wasn’t much writing on it, and that worried Josh right away.
Dear Josh,
I don’t quite know how to say this, so I better just get it over with. You and I have been together so long, but it seems like the time we’re apart is even longer than the time we’ve spent together. The army is your life. I understand that. But I have to have a life, too. And I just can’t have it with you. Rand Stroppe has proposed marriage – something you never seemed to get around to. I have accepted. We will be getting married next month. I’m sorry to have to break it to you this way, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Goodbye,
Rachel
He pushed his helmet back and sat in stunned silence, collapsed back against the wall as if all the air had gone out of him. The sheet of paper rustled in the breeze, held by loose fingers of a hand that lay limp on the ground. Two of the village men walked by and looked at him, but he didn’t even pay attention to them. The men found that very strange, because these Special Forces soldiers were always sharp and aware of everything that went on around them.
“Marhaba, Sergeant Adams,” one of the men said, meaning hello. Josh ignored him. “Kayfa haluk?”
Without looking up, Josh muttered, “Bihey. I am fine.”