by Sean Parnell
More members of the elder’s family ventured out. They came to the boy to hug and reassure him. He whimpered softly, and I wondered if he was crying. Then I realized he couldn’t cry. His tear ducts had been burned away.
“Ask the elder what happened to the other children,” I said to Yusef. That stirred another long discussion. When it ended, Yusef reported, “The enemy came back to the village and beat the other children as punishment.”
Why would they do this to their own people? This village was no threat to anyone.
Greeson had taken a knee. He was trying to coax the little girl I’d seen out from her mud-hut home. Eventually she ventured to him. Greeson produced a piece of candy and gave it to her. She took it with delicate, dirt-stained fingers and placed it in her mouth.
“Yusef,” I said, “tell the elder we’re bringing him medical supplies, food, and water. Anyone who needs help, we will treat.”
Yusef did as he was told. The elder’s emotions swamped his self-control. He thanked us profusely.
Campbell returned with some of the men and bags of supplies. We went to work treating the battered children.
Greeson chitchatted with a little girl. It didn’t matter that neither understood each other’s words. Their body language broke through that communication barrier. Every time he smiled, she lit up, her dark eyes bright and full of mirth. How that could even be possible in this awful place just underscored how the human spirit adapts to hardship.
In other villages, when we’d enter and visit with the people, we’d discovered a grim reality of the Afghan social structure. We’d first noticed it in one particular village when the boys and girls had come to us wanting candy. We’d passed out what we had, taking note that the girls hung back behind the boys. Not wanting to leave them out, my men had made a point of getting candy into their young hands. When we had run out of things to give them, we’d loaded up into our rigs and rolled out of town. That’s when our trailing vehicle’s gunner had seen the village boys descend on the girls. They’d beaten them senseless right in front of their parents and stolen the candy we had just given to them. After that, we always made sure the girls had ample time to escape before we left.
In this village, there was none of that. The community had been too traumatized by the enemy’s assaults to inflict violence on one another. The boys who came to us stood side by side with the girls, all sharing the same purple-yellow bruises across their vulnerable bodies.
Doc Pantoja went from child to child, treating each one with his typical gentle manner. I marveled at his ability to connect with his patients. His face had not quite healed from his June 10 wound, and as I looked at the jagged scar, I remembered how he had shielded Sergeant Garvin with his own body even after taking the bullet to his face. He was a gift to our platoon, the resident keeper of empathy and tenderness. Until now, the rest of us had been forced to wall off such emotions in order to maintain our ability to kill without remorse.
Nearby, Yusef had started to play with several battered boys. They joked and laughed together, and I saw the ’terp’s professional demeanor vanish, if but for a moment. I wondered how he could be so jovial now amid all this suffering. Maybe he’d just seen so much of it that he too had become desensitized to such things. Or maybe he was just a better actor than Greeson.
I tried to stay focused on the tasks at hand. I oversaw the distribution of the food and medical supplies. We gave the elder’s people all our medicine, and Doc Pantoja carefully explained their use and function. The villagers had gathered around us now, their wind-lashed faces full of smiles as they shared words of gratitude with my men. On his return, Campbell put on his best game face. He smiled and laughed as he helped pass out the supplies. The Afghans around him reacted with delight at the things he pushed into their eager hands. But when he glanced at me, I knew him well enough to see past the facade. He was swimming in two rivers simultaneously, his outward demeanor driven by the necessity of the mission to be cheerful. But in that other river, the one that flowed deep within him, I sensed that the sights here had left his soul wounded. Just like Greeson’s.
Part of me wondered why I didn’t feel that way. This place would have had a huge effect on me four months ago. Now I recognized the horrors, but there seemed to be a cushion between them and the recesses of my spirit. No doubt keeping busy and focusing on the mission had a lot to do with that. But when that little girl had died my first day at Bermel, I’d felt something collapse within me. After the other things we’d experienced, I’d grown weary and numb. Now that numbness served as a shield. I relied on it, used it to stay functional.
Had it turned me cold? I wondered what kind of person was emerging inside me. I wasn’t sure who I was anymore. For a moment I dwelled on where my heart was headed. And I grieved for the loss of the Sean Parnell I once had been.
Unconsciously, I reached for my St. Christopher medal. Touching it, I felt my grandfather’s spirit close. The medal served as our anchor now that death had separated us.
The gesture attracted a child’s attention, so I bent and showed it to him. He looked it over, feeling the inscription on its flip side with a doll-sized finger.
All my love, Virginia. 12-25-49.
It will keep you safe.
But will it protect my soul?
I stood up. The child smiled. I tucked the medal back under my IBA, the feel of silver between my fingers suffusing me with a sense of peace.
I was going to return home a different Sean, one my grandfather might not have recognized. How that would play out was still ahead, and I could not ponder that right then. Those were thoughts for lonely, darkened rooms far from this miserable country. In the meantime, there was work to be done.
The village elder thanked me again with an earnestness that almost embarrassed me. His grandson clung to his leg, listening to us as his sightless face tracked the sound of our voices. Yusef conveyed my sentiments. We were here to help. This was why we had joined the army in the first place. We hadn’t done it because we lusted to kill. We had joined because with our flag on our shoulders and the power of the army at our backs, we thought we could help change the world.
Today, we had changed a tiny piece of it. But as we said our farewells, I noticed Greeson’s face and wondered about the price we’d be paying for it.
Greeson was my rock. He stood calm in every fight, rarely taking cover as he radiated confidence. Now he walked with a weight on him. Greeson could take more than any other man I knew. If he was at breaking point now, that was a bad sign for the entire platoon.
We walked back down the slope together, our horror and grief spinning together into a ball of molten rage at the men who could inflict such torture on innocent people. When we encountered them again, there would be a reckoning. And mercy would not be a factor.
We loaded up into our Humvees. Weary engines coughed to life. We rolled forward to continue our patrol. Behind us, on a hilltop half a kilometer above this trail, a village existed on the edge of nowhere, its brutalized children sustained by love alone.
Twenty-two
Shake and Bake
Late July 2006
Pinholt and I sat together watching an episode of the TV series The Office. We howled with laughter and thought about how foreign the world of cubicle land was to us.
“This is the greatest show ever,” I told Pinholt.
“I knew you’d like it, sir.”
For a rare change of pace, we were inside the wire with the day off. We had desperately needed the break, and the men were relaxing, sleeping, or lifting weights.
The episode ended. “Got any more?” I asked.
“Whole first season, sir.”
“You’re awesome.”
We started another episode. Midway through, Pinholt wrinkled his nose and looked at me.
“Uh, sir, that’s pre
tty nasty.”
“What?”
“That shit coming out of your ear.”
I reached up and felt something like Jell-O on my neck. It was pink and red and streaked with yellow.
“It smells like bananas, sir,” he added.
I got up and wiped it off, thoroughly embarrassed.
“Sir, you need to go get checked.”
I nodded as I sat back down. “I know. I’ll get a scan at Bagram in a few days when I head home on leave.”
“Thank you. Everyone’s worried about you.”
I was worried too. But I knew that if a real doc examined me, he’d never let me return to the men. I was having bouts of double vision and frequent migraines, and at times I was having trouble remembering things. As a result, I made an obsessive effort to write everything down before missions.
We finished the second episode, and I said good-bye to Pinholt and headed back to my room.
“Lieutenant?” a deep and booming voice called.
A staff sergeant was walking down the hallway in our hooch, a cigarette dangling from tight lips. About my age, with receding brown-black hair, he walked with gravitas, as if he were made of chiseled granite. He had a rounded face with sharp cheeks, eyes partially concealed by a squint, a Ranger tab on his shoulder.
“What can I do for you, sergeant?”
Who the hell is this fucking guy?
“Jeff Hall. I’m your new squad leader, sir.” He stuck out his hand. I shook it and nearly had my fingers squashed like sausages.
“Glad to meet you, Hall,” I said. “Welcome to Outlaw Platoon.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I’d been a little nervous about this development. The platoon’s chemistry was working great with Wheat, Cowan, Sabo, and Campbell as my squad leaders. When battalion told me we were getting a staff sergeant to permanently replace Waites, I hated to have to shuffle the platoon’s leadership. With no other choice, Greeson and I had decided to move Wheat to Cowan’s squad, where he’d go back to being a team leader. Pinholt would be promoted and take a team under the new guy. That seemed like the best way to handle the situation.
An outsider made for an unknown quantity. Would we get a Burley or a Baldwin? An R. Kelly or a Bennett Garvin?
“Lieutenant, I’ve heard about what y’all been doin’ here,” Hall said, a slight smirk on his face.
“You have?” I asked, taken off guard.
“Yeah. Here’s the thing, you’ve been too fuckin’ soft on the enemy.”
“Excuse me?”
He punched his palm with a fist. “We gotta get after ’em. Come on, sir. Yer a Ranger too. Ya’ll know this!”
I raised an eyebrow and suppressed a burst of anger. Who was this guy to say this shit? Then I saw that his squint had opened up, revealing mirth in his hazel eyes.
I couldn’t help but laugh. He stood rigid, regarding me until I stopped.
I spent a little time getting to know Jeff in that hallway moment. Jeff had served in 3rd Ranger Battalion and later completed a tour as a Ranger instructor in the mountains of Georgia. He’d only recently joined the 10th Mountain Division.
He was from Huntsville, Alabama, but somehow had escaped from the Deep South without Wheat and Colt Wallace’s accent. He worshipped at the altar of Crimson Tide football. He loved the outdoors and extreme sports such as skydiving. “There ain’t nothin’ like jumpin’ outta a perfectly good airplane to make yer day.”
But there was a flip side to Hall as well. I discovered that he loved to read, both fiction and nonfiction. As the conversation turned to good books we’d recently finished, he mentioned how much he loved the Harry Potter series.
Finally.
I couldn’t get Pinholt to read Rowling’s books, and the platoon’s NCOs hassled me mercilessly over my Potter obsession. At last I had somebody to talk with about Dementors and Diagon Alley and whether or not Snape was in Voldemort’s pocket.
I made a mental note to get Hall to work on Cowan with me. Of any of the other NCOs, I sensed that Chris might actually cave and start reading the series too.
As we chatted, time passed without effort; whatever I had to do was forgotten for the moment. I had no doubt that Jeff Hall would fit right in with us.
“You married, Hall?”
For the first time, he cracked a smile. “Not yet, sir, but I sure as hell plan on it when I get home. Her name is Allison, and ya know somethin’? She is way too hot for me.” He paused, considering whether to go on, then he added, “I’m her Southern Stubborn Baby.”
Badass, without a doubt, but Jeff Hall was a man who was comfortable with that designation without taking himself too seriously.
Hall’s arrival could not have come at a better moment for the platoon. His innate tenacity gave the whole platoon a much-needed boost. On his first patrols with us, he seemed to be everywhere at once, fearing nothing and wanting nothing more than a chance to kill the enemy. He seethed with impatience, and I knew he would not have long to wait.
Rumors abounded that a coalition of Taliban-led insurgents from Waziristan had entered into negotiations with Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf. Exactly what they were negotiating was unclear, but none of us had any illusions that such talks would benefit Afghanistan or us.
Meanwhile, the battle rhythm continued without letup. We spent most of our days out beyond the wire, stopping into Bermel only to grab water, MREs, and hot chow. Once again, the enemy proved elusive. From the chatter our Prophet spooks detected, they were avoiding the Green Skull platoon again. But they were out there, watching us all the time.
On the afternoon of July 26, we checked in at Bermel for a half-day refit. We were filthy, coated in layers of dirt and dried sweat, and giving off such a stench from our ACUs that we elicited gags from the Fobbits.
As I walked to the operations center to discuss the night’s mission with Captain Dye, it dawned on me that I’d missed my birthday. It had been the week before. That was the first time in my life that it had passed unnoticed. I’d been so busy that it had never even entered my head.
Captain Dye waited with an interesting night mission for us. We were to roll out with Delta Platoon and slip behind Rakhah Ridge at dusk to establish snap traffic-control points and observation posts along the main routes to Pakistan. If the enemy decided to engage us, we’d have the advantage, thanks to our night-vision equipment.
After meeting with Captain Dye, I found a mountain of paperwork awaiting our attention. I told Greeson to hang back and work on it; I’d lead the night’s patrol. He didn’t like that. “Sir, lemme take the patrol,” he argued. “You’re due to go on leave. Stay here.”
“I got it. Besides, I need you here to catch up on all this shit so that when I am gone, you can be completely devoted to the men.”
Grudgingly, he accepted that.
He locked himself away with a computer, a carton of smokes, and a six-pack of near beer. Greeson and computers never quite got along, so before I even left his frustration level was already spiking.
“Fucking machine!” I heard him growl as I headed out to grab chow.
Late that afternoon, Captain Herrera, Sergeant R. Kelly, and I sat down to plan the mission. Big Red was on leave, and though Herrera was a fine officer, he had very little experience with the infantry. Captain Dye wanted Delta on point, a fact that rankled me a little. We’d taken point on every mission to date; bringing up the rear seemed out of place.
We selected our route. Same as always—down to Malakshay, push east around Gangikheyl Hill until we reached Route Excel and the wadi system behind Rakhah Ridge. We noted departure times and rally points and preplanned our indirect fire support. When we finished, I returned to my hooch to take a quick nap. As I lay down on my bunk, I glanced over at the wall where Freddie’s picture used to hang. I had replaced it with a map of our battle space that I had carefully marked with every ambush we’d experienced since arriving in theater. The red dots were clustered around the road leading from Malakshay.
A lightbulb flicked on in my head. We’d all been trained to be unpredictable, and had there been more roads leading to the backside of Rakhah Ridge, we would have used them. There weren’t, so we’d been forced to rely on the same road mission after mission.
I studied the map, remembering all the things wrong with it that we had discovered during our early patrols around the area. Just north of our June 10 fight sat the abandoned village that Captain Dye and Delta Platoon had burned that day. I recalled that a goat track ran east from the village of Malakshay. It intersected our main infil route just outside our destination.
The village was labeled Kamid Ghul, and it sat on a hill overlooking Route Excel. The little dirt track that ran through it continued east toward Pakistan, then dipped into the wadi system that became part of Route Excel. If we could use that track, we’d be able to take a shortcut around most of the earlier ambush points and get in behind Rakhah Ridge, moving from east to west. It would be risky. Since we’d never used the track, we wouldn’t know if Humvees would fit on it until we were actually out there. It would be dark, and we could get stuck, forcing us to double back and use our old route east of Malakshay. We might even be forced to back up in the dark for kilometers until we found a spot wide enough to turn the rigs around.
I left my hooch and ran the change of routes past Captain Herrera. He agreed it was worth a try. An hour before sunset, our two platoons hit the road, Herrera’s rig on point. We found our detour and cautiously took it, looping south of our destination. A few minutes later, we rolled into Kamid Ghul from the east as planned.