by Sean Parnell
“Roger, sir. Be sure to get some sleep this time,” Baldwin said. He and Sabo disappeared into the night together. I heard them giving each other grief until they walked out of earshot.
I watched them go and missed Abdul’s departure. I stood beside Pinholt’s door and deliberated. Eat something to settle the burning in my stomach, or troop the line and check on the boys?
I could eat later.
The men seemed to be in good spirits. At the northeast corner of the perimeter, I found Sergeant Michael Emerick in the truck commander’s seat of his Humvee, hunched over a sketch pad he’d illuminated with his headlamp.
We greeted each other, and I leaned on his door to peer over his shoulder at his latest creation. Emerick was an outstanding NCO and team leader whose men loved him. He was also a gifted artist, a skill I’d recently tapped by asking him to create an emblem for our platoon. When we had a break in patrolling, we were going to paint it on each of our vehicles.
“Whatcha workin’ on, Emerick?” I asked.
He showed me the sketch pad.
“Jesus, man, that’s outstanding,” I said, looking at his creation. He’d drawn a fierce and toothy skull bursting from the “O” of “Outlaws.”
“Isn’t finished yet, sir,” Emerick said a little self-consciously.
“Emerick, this is perfect. We’ll put it on every truck. That way, the enemy’ll always know who they’re dealing with.”
“Thank you, sir.” Like Wheat, Emerick hailed from Louisiana, though he didn’t have Wheat’s deep accent.
“No, man, thank you. That image is going to give us our identity.”
When I had first taken over the platoon, I wanted us to have our own unique persona. We’d settled on calling ourselves the Outlaws, and I’d paid out of pocket to have T-shirts made for everyone. We’d also come up with our own guidon—we were the only platoon with one (they’re officially for company level and above). By the time we got out here, we were known as the Outlaw platoon throughout the brigade. Now, thanks to Emerick’s design, the enemy would get to know us as well.
We talked shop for a while. He detailed the sleep cycle he’d established for the men in his truck and his security plan. He had everything handled. No worries with Emerick, ever. I wished him good night and continued along the line.
I spoke with Baldwin next, and as I left his rig, I noticed a figure in the darkness, sitting alone near the fort’s outer wall. I changed course and approached him. Abdul was sitting in the dirt, opening an MRE.
He’s with us, but he’ll never be one of us.
I took a knee next to him. “Abdul, how you doing?”
“Good, thank you, Lieutenant.” He looked away and added, “Better since I have a seat in an armored Humvee.”
Since we’d begun operations, there’d been times when we didn’t have enough armored Humvees for the entire platoon. That had forced us to use the hated M998s—pickup-truck versions with hillbilly armor bolted on the doors. The beds were protected with plywood and sandbags. They were death traps, and everyone knew it. The first time we’d rolled out with one, Abdul had tried to take a seat in one of the armored rigs. Our platoon sergeant had stopped him, saying to me privately that armored seats could be used only for Americans while they were in short supply.
Abdul had complained bitterly, but I had stood by that decision. Our first responsibility was to our men and their families. It was a very difficult call, and I knew it made Abdul feel like a second-class citizen. Given all he’d done for the coalition, it was a painful sight to bear.
“Well, we won’t have to worry about that anymore, Abdul.” A few weeks ago, Lieutenant Colonel Toner had heard of our plight and gone ballistic. Extra armored Humvees had showed up soon after. They’d been dribbling in ever since, and the whole company would soon be able to dump the Jed Clampett M998s. This mission to Bandar was the first time our entire platoon was properly protected.
“Tell me something, Abdul?”
He looked back at me. Making eye contact with him provoked a pang of guilt in me. “What’s that, Lieutenant?”
“Why do you do this job?”
He didn’t speak at first. Instead, he dug into his MRE pouch and found a package of crackers. As he opened them, he said, “At the beginning of the war, my father worked for the Americans at FOB Shkin.”
I couldn’t conceal the surprise in my voice. “Really? Doing what?”
“Interpreter.”
His answer intrigued me. “Is he still working there?”
More silence. Abdul studied his exposed cracker, took a bite, then glanced back at me. “He’s dead.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“He was killed by the Taliban four years ago. We received night letters.”
I sat down, peering at Abdul intently. “Is that why you do this?”
He nodded. “Every mission I go on, I avenge my father’s death. I am the head of my house now. It is my duty.”
That explained everything, his courage under fire, the trust Captain Canady had placed in him, his standing with the locals. I understood why he didn’t cover his face. He wanted the enemy to know what he was doing.
“How about you, Lieutenant? Why are you here?”
I opened a bottle of water and downed half of it, thinking back to the day I had found purpose in my life. Unconsciously, I touched the St. Christopher medal at my throat.
“September eleventh,” I said simply.
I remembered back to the night before the attacks. It had been a typical college Monday. We had studied, drunk, and eaten pizza until I staggered off to bed long after midnight. The next morning, I’d awoken to an apartment scattered with empty beer cans, clicked on the television, and watched the towers collapse.
I flashed to a moment a few weeks after the attacks. I’d been drifting through life without purpose, studying elementary education at Clarion University. My heart hadn’t been in it. I’d gone down to a recruiter and talked about joining the army. I mentioned it to my father, who objected to the idea of his oldest son dropping out of college to enlist.
“My father was a good man,” Abdul said quietly. “He worked for your Special Forces.”
I had no words for that. How could we ask a man like Abdul to have faith in us when our most elite warriors could not protect his father?
My own father’s face came to me right then. He was frustrated with me that day, and the words that had passed between us were bitter ones. He wanted me to finish school first, then go in as an officer. I wanted to get into the fight right away. I had found my mission, I knew it in my heart, and I didn’t want to wait. I was going to seize the moment, and I was angry that my father didn’t support my decision. He had supported me through everything else.
Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I shouted at him, “Well, what the hell have you ever done to be proud of, Dad?”
The moment the words came out, I regretted them. His face broke. We stared at each other, both of us aware of the line I had just crossed.
“I have four kids that I’m proud of every day of my life, Sean.”
My dad’s childhood dream had been to become a naval officer. Two years into Annapolis, he had given up that dream after my mom became pregnant with me. He’d never once complained or mentioned any regrets.
I sat in the dirt 13,000 miles from home and felt the abiding guilt of that moment return to me. In the end, I had agreed with my dad. I�
�d transferred from Clarion to Duquesne University so I could join the ROTC program there. Two years later, I’d completed my coursework, earning a degree in history, and the army had commissioned me as a second lieutenant.
After I’d made it through Army Ranger School, my dad had come to my graduation and pinned on my tab. I’d seen the look in his eyes as he approached me, and I’d realized that there would be no prouder moment in my life.
Abdul and I sat in silence for a few minutes, two men whose lives had found purpose in the same tragedies that had befallen our people. Had it not been for 9/11, I would have continued to drift. Abdul’s father would still be alive, and he wouldn’t have sworn a blood oath against our mutual enemy. Two men. Two cultures. Same mission.
“Someday, I would like to bring my family to New York,” Abdul said. He sounded resigned about it.
“Maybe we can make that happen. There’s a program that gets ’terps to the States,” I said.
“Lieutenant, I would like that very much.”
“I’ll see what we can do. In the meantime, we’ve got the contract set for your brother. He should be able to start working in the chow hall in a few weeks.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. My family needs the income.”
Abdul’s brother was twelve.
“Thank you, Abdul. I couldn’t be doing this without you. I appreciate your input.”
“Then, Lieutenant, you must listen to me. Yusef is not to be trusted. He is a bad man.”
Yusef was one of the other ’terps at Bermel. He was easygoing, laughed a lot, and liked to hang out with the men, telling exceptionally dirty jokes. Several times, Abdul had mentioned his qualms about Yusef. At the same time, Yusef had come to me more than once to complain about Abdul and make his own case for being promoted to the head interpreter on the base. I’d blown it off as politics between the ’terps. But Captain Canady had warned us about Yusef too. I couldn’t just dismiss Abdul’s concerns.
“I’ll keep an eye on him, Abdul. If you see him do anything suspicious, tell me. How’s that?”
He looked mollified. “Thank you, sir.”
Abdul was my age, but his eyes were much older. He regarded me with a combination of pleasure and sadness, as if he wanted to be one of the team but knew he would never be a full-fledged member no matter how well he did his job.
“Sir? Have I done well enough to get your Ranger tab?” he asked.
I touched the tab on my shoulder and thought about my dad again. The day he pinned it on me I weighed less than a hundred and sixty-five pounds, down from the two-ten I’d been at the start of Ranger School. I’d gone through hell to be able to wear it. “You’ve gotta do a lot more to earn a Ranger tab, Abdul.”
“I guess I’ll keep trying, then,” he made a melodramatic show of sounding disappointed. He was a good man. I enjoyed his sense of humor.
“Outstanding. In the meantime, get some sleep.”
“Roger, sir. Goodnight.”
I got up, dusted off, and started to walk away. After only a few steps, I heard him say, “You know, I will earn that tab someday, sir.”
“Yeah, I have no doubt you will, Abdul. None.”
Three
The Long, Dark Reach
We’d been back at Bermel for about ten days when Abdul interrupted a company meeting to say he needed to speak with our commander. Our six days at Bandar had been a complete waste of time. After that first night, we’d never seen Major Ghul again. Apparently, night letters or not, he had returned home or was just deliberately avoiding us. His men continued to slog through their days, their lethargy deepening by the hour. We patrolled at times, though we had to be very careful about doing so. Bandar had no diesel fuel, and though we’d brought seven gas cans each for our Humvees, their thirsty engines burned through our supply at a rapid rate. When we did sortie out into the valley, we found it devoid of human life. There were perhaps three villages within fifty miles of Bandar. Just getting to those villages drained our fuel supply to dangerously low levels. In the end we spent our final few days sitting around the fort running through some training exercises.
By the end of our time there, we had failed to build much of a relationship with the Afghan police. We sat around their shit-strewn outpost, watched these slovenly, dispirited cops, and wondered how on earth such a group could ever be molded into an effective force. Certainly it was beyond our means, especially after Major Ghul took a powder. We spent our days mired in futility.
I think all of us were relieved to head back north to FOB Bermel, where mail, showers, and hot chow awaited us. After a week without even an outhouse, sleeping in our Humvees at Bandar, Bermel, our home away from home, seemed like paradise.
Now Abdul looked shaken as he stood outside the door of our operations center. First Sergeant Christopher told him to wait outside. When we wrapped up the meeting, he and our commander went to go find him.
Abdul’s mom had received a night letter. Abdul had known there was a bounty on his head, but this was the first time his family had been threatened directly. Anxious for the safety of his younger brother and mom, he asked our commander, Captain Waverly, if the company could send a platoon down to Shkin to check on them.
Captain Waverly rejected that idea. He told Abdul that he couldn’t change the patrol schedule. Besides, the Shkin area was owned by the Special Forces unit stationed at the base down there. Sending a platoon into their battle space would have required coordination, and Captain Waverly just didn’t want to jump through those hoops.
Truth was, Waverly didn’t want to make any decision that could get him in trouble with Lieutenant Colonel Toner. Waverly had not impressed Toner in training before our deployment and had earned the battalion commander’s wrath more than once. The relationship had frayed completely within our first month in Afghanistan. Captain Waverly had become so paranoid that at times it paralyzed his ability to make a decision. Earlier in the month, our base had come under rocket fire. Even though our sentries could see the launch points on Rakhah Ridge and reported that there were no villages or dwellings anywhere near them, Waverly could not bring himself to order our guns to return fire. He had been immobilized with the thought that he could cause an incident if one of our shells inflicted a civilian casualty.
Though his fear of collateral damage was certainly valid—especially within the context of counterinsurgency operations—it incapacitated his tactical decision-making ability. Knowing when to engage the enemy or back off to protect civilians was a cross that all commanders had to bear in combat. Any disruption in this delicate balance could prove disastrous for a new commander. For Waverly, it would be the final straw with Lieutenant Colonel Toner.
As Waverly had dithered, we had taken forty 107mm rockets without firing a shot back. The rest of the command group had been so upset that a shouting match had erupted. Eventually Waverly had ordered our 105mm guns to send rounds back at the enemy, but by then it was too late. We’d been battered for hours, with everyone’s lives in danger, and when the attack finally ended, Waverly’s actions had destroyed his leadership presence within the company. From then on, the men had whispered that Waverly’s indecision was someday going to get one of them hurt or killed.
Abdul knew how the men viewed Waverly. He’d been with many units before and had seen good leaders and bad ones. He would not have gone to Captain Waverly unless he was desperate and took the threat seriously. Since Waverly was the commander, Abdul had nobody else he could turn to for help.
Later that night, after deliberating on Waverly’s refusal to send a patrol to check on his family, Abdul came back with another idea. He asked Waverly to give him a few days off so that he could return home to ensure his family’s safety. Waverly shook his hea
d and told him it would be too dangerous for him to leave the base.
Lieutenant Taylor and I were angered at the decision but could not do anything about it. Part of our stated mission here was to build relationships with the local Afghan communities. If we could not foster a healthy relationship with our best ’terp, how were we going to do so with the villagers around Bermel?
The next morning, Outlaw Platoon rose early to prepare for another long patrol mission. This time we would be out beyond the wire for another six days, tasked with setting up snap checkpoints and observation posts all over our area of operations. We were to be unpredictable, stay mobile, and keep the enemy off guard. That way, we could impede the insurgents’ movements as they would not know which infiltration routes were safe to use.
An hour after dawn, we had the trucks lined up and filled to capacity with ammunition, food, water, and fuel. We were ready to roll, but Abdul had not yet shown up. This was highly unusual. Normally, he would be right among the men, loading the rigs and prepping them for the mission ahead. I sent Baldwin off to find him.
We waited. Chris Brown entertained us from the turret of my Humvee. Sometimes, part of his premission ritual included doing a variant of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” dance. The men would watch and catcall as he went through his moves, visible only from his rib cage up. Down the line of trucks, Wheat whittled and Emerick sketched. Sabo stood to one side, chatting quietly with another member of the platoon. Pinholt tried to engage me in a discussion about the Fed’s latest change in interest rates, but I didn’t rise to the bait this time. Eventually, he gave up and stuck his head in a beat-up copy of Atlas Shrugged.
We missed our start time, which made me anxious as we never rolled late for anything. At last Baldwin returned. No sign of Abdul. Instead, he brought Bruce Lee with him to serve as our ’terp.
Bruce Lee had joined the interpreter contingent at Bermel only a few weeks before, and he’d patrolled with us only a few times. But we’d seen enough of him to realize he was a whack job. Obsessed with martial arts, he’d stand by himself and pretend to be grappling an invisible opponent. He’d never had any formal training, and from what we could gather had learned kung fu from watching bad Chinese movies. When he tried out his moves, he looked like he was having seizures. I once saw him attempt a back flip. He almost slipped a disk. Not much of a “Bruce Lee,” but that’s what we called him nevertheless.