The Taliban Don't Wave

by Robert Semrau

  I realized Stephens's team and mine weren't on the same PRR channel so I asked which one they were on so 72A could switch over. I thought to myself, That could've been bad.

  We waited ten more minutes until Stephens's 2 I/C said, “Here comes their recce element,” and pointed over my shoulder toward the ANA buildings.

  We turned around to see a lone ANA soldier walk slowly, methodically over toward us. He was wearing an old American, forest-green camouflaged uniform and carrying his AK on his shoulder and holding it by the barrel, as the ANA liked to do. He came to a full stop in the middle of the open area and just stood there, looking at the ground, extremely bored. After another five minutes, some more soldiers bumbled into the rendezvous (RV) point, and finally, their CSM arrived and started shouting at everyone to hurry up. Finally, their officer walked over, and Stephens introduced me to him.

  “Captain Rob, this is Captain Ibrahim, the ANA First Company commander.”

  “Ah salaam ah'laikum,” I said, placing my right hand over my heart while saying hello, as I'd been taught by the Canadian Forces' Afghanistan cultural advisor (a scholar, I later learned, who hadn't been back to his home country of Afghanistan in the last twenty-odd years).

  “Wa ah'laikum salaam,” he said back, touching his right hand to his heart as well. He called over a young, long-haired interpreter named Ali and began talking in rapid-fire Dari, the language of the ANA. Ali wore some old American pattern camo pants, a green American-issued helmet, and a maroon PPCLI T-shirt. He also wore a shemag around his neck, a type of Afghan scarf that he would use to hide his identity if he thought the Taliban were trying to sniff him out. Working for the coalition forces as an interpreter was a crime the Taliban considered punishable by death through torture.

  “The captain says he is sorry for the late . . .” Ali searched for the proper word, “arrival. They thought the patrol was not starting until six-thirty.”

  “Please tell him that's fine. Are they ready to go now?” Stephens asked.

  “Yes, he says they are ready now,” Ali told us.

  “Okay, Rob, stay with me; Warrant Longview, join Warrant Joe at the front. Mike and Chris, you guys take your opposite numbers. Okay boys, let's get this flying gong show on the road.” He pressed his radio pressel and reported to the CP that our patrol was now leaving Sperwhan Ghar, as we slowly started walking to the west and then down the small slope to the lower level. I realized that once we were on the hill going down to the main gate, we were almost on even ground with the village, and anyone to the west of Sperwhan could see us leaving and then report our patrol's size and composition to Timothy. I asked Stephens about it.

  “You're totally right,” he said. “The moment we come down the slope, they've got eyes on us. I get my terps to carry an Icom-brand radio—I think they're out of Pakistan or something; sort of a cheaper version of a Motorola radio. But anyway, it's the preferred non-encrypted, two-way radio of choice for the Taliban. They use them everywhere in the Stan, and talk in the clear over them, so if you get your terp to listen in, sometimes Timmy shows you his hand and lets you know what he's doing.”

  “So you've got dickers in the village, watching you all the time?” I asked.

  “Sorry, dickers?”

  “Oh, sorry, ‘dickers’ is what the Brits call them. I mean ‘spotters,’ guys whose sole job is to monitor your movements and then report in to their higher HQ.”

  “I'll say it again, the moment we come off the plateau and start down the hill, they've got us clocked. You'll hear them talking about your patrol over their Icoms, all the time. They refer to the ANA as ‘green Christians,’ trying to insult them by calling them Christians, and of course we're the ‘white Christians,’ and terps are the ‘little Christians.’ ”

  “Nice. So they talk openly on their Icoms? Not too big on OPSEC?” I asked.

  “No, they're lazy as hell. Sometimes they'll speak in code, you can task Ali to try and figure it out; they'll be talking about the weather for ten minutes, storm clouds, when the sky is actually clear. They know we monitor them, so sometimes they'll try and feed us disinformation—‘We see them now, our ambush is ready,’ crap like that. You shouldn't completely change your patrol plan, but you can't entirely ignore it either; because like I said, they're lazy, and they may actually be telling the truth about their upcoming plans.”

  “That's good advice,” I said, “Thanks. So we stay next to the ANA captain and try and mentor him, and the warrants go with their CSM?”

  “Yeah, we always stay next to the ANA captain, because obviously, that's who you're supposed to be mentoring. The warrant will be with the CSM if the ANA actually have a guy up front who knows how to navigate. Otherwise, your warrant and his fire team partner will be your nav [navigation] team, usually right up at the front. Believe me, you'll want an experienced Canadian up front helping them find their way around. Seriously, say you're in a village, or a field with high walls, and they can't see Sperwhan's hill anymore, suddenly they'll get all excited and worked up, thinking they're lost; but really, you're only a hundred metres outside the wire!”

  We walked past the watchtower with the Canadian sentries, past a few ANA guards, and followed the road to the front of Sperwhan, winding our way through the concrete barriers. I looked over to my left and saw a small roofed building made entirely from sandbags.

  “What's that?” I asked.

  “That's where you'll place any UXO [unexploded ordnance] or IEDs that you find on patrol. Put them in there, let the guards at the main gate know, and then tell the CP to get the engineers to come down and BIP [blow in place] them. We've done it a couple of times.”

  Our column started to string out as the ANA split themselves into two groups, one on either side of Route Brown, heading north toward the culverts. The plan called for us to check out culverts one and two, then make our way east into the villages and have a shura, or chit-chat, with the village elders. The villages were supposedly fairly stable, and relatively free of Taliban interference, but you never let your guard down. Always a first time.

  We marched down Route Brown and checked the culverts as we passed them, but they were clear. The sun was coming up and we could feel the heat under our helmets and the weight of our gear. Sweat began to trickle down my forehead.

  The captain told his warrant up front to lead our patrol to the east, into a small village. We slowly meandered our way through the village, which was made up of about ten huts. Some kids were playing near the pathway and stopped to say hi to the ANA soldiers, who gave them some goodies.

  “I didn't think we were supposed to give the kids candy,” I remarked to Stephens.

  “Usually we don't, but if there's only a kid or two, and we're not going to start a riot over the chocolate, then yeah, we can give out a few things. As long as the kids don't start following you and begging for more. Just make sure when you give it out that there's only a kid or two, 'cause they'll fight to the death over it if there's a group of 'em and you don't have enough for everyone.” I nodded as I remembered some of the ugly things I'd seen before in Kabul.

  He got out his map, checked his GPS, and radioed the CP, giving them our locstat (location and status). I checked my watch: it was almost 0700 hours and the sweat was really starting to pour out of me. I looked over at Fourneau, who looked like he wasn't sweating any more than if he was walking across the street.

  “How you doing?” I asked him. “Staying topped up on water?”

  “Good, sir. I'm fine. But how are you doing?”

  Stephens overheard him, finished putting his map away, and came over to see The Incredible Sweating Circus Freak for himself.

  “Holy shit! Are you all right?” he asked with a concerned look on his face. I'd seen that look on people's faces before, too many times to count. But I had fooled them all because I was still alive. I guess I just looked worse than I thought.

  “Yeah I'm good—I have water-retention issues. I'll be all right. I just gotta drink enough w
ater to supply a small village, that's all.”

  “Your shirt's soaked already!” he said, looking at my sleeves, which were already dark with sweat. “Okay, um . . . we'll go a bit farther and then try and find some of the elders to have a friendly chat,” he quickly suggested.

  “Don't change the plan because of me,” I said, probably a bit more angrily than I should have. “I'm good, seriously; this is all very normal for me.”

  Stephens pressed his PRR radio pressel, so team members, but not the battle group CP, could hear him. “Warrant, go fifty metres farther and then come to a halt. I think we're almost at the village centre. We'll stop here and have a Lima November shura.” He used the phonetic alphabet for L and N, meaning, in this case, local nationals.

  We walked on a bit farther until he seemed to recognize a certain gate in front of a large compound. He walked up to it and gave it a good hard knock.

  Several elderly males greeted him through Ali and asked us to come inside. Ali and I followed him in and I “watched his six,” or covered him, as he discussed some issues with the village elders. I remembered Trevor Greene, the Canadian officer who had removed his helmet as a sign of respect during a shura and was attacked and axed in the head by a Taliban who almost killed him. The officer who gunned down the Taliban told us the story during our officer training, and it wasn't something you'd ever forget, so I stayed close to Stephens to cover him.

  The elders were all wearing the Afghan male fashion statement: man-jammies—loose, flowing, one-piece shirts that came down to their knees. Stephens joined them as they sat down in the dirt to form a circle. I walked over and stood on the edge of the meeting so I could cover him properly and overhear the conversation.

  He greeted all of them and then got right down to business, asking if they had any problems with the Taliban. Had any recent recruiters come through the village, trying to get fighting age males (FAMs) to join their cause? No, they all said collectively with much gusto, they hadn't seen any Taliban in these parts in years, certainly no recruiters. Obviously we thought their claim was highly dubious, but Stephens let it go and changed his angle of questioning.

  “Has anyone in the village received any night letters lately?” he asked.

  “No, no, there have been no night letters; the Taliban hasn't been in these parts for years,” they replied through smiles that were missing a lot of teeth. Clearly that was the party line, and the village elders were doing their absolute best to seem convincing. The night letters were death threats the Taliban posted on people's doors, obviously at night.

  It was a psychological operation they conducted: terrifying the poor villagers into thinking on any given night they'd be ripped out of their beds, put up against the nearest wall, and shot to death. “We're watching you. We know you ratted us out to the coalition!” or “We know your son works on the highway project; we're going to kill all of you!” Their intention was to sow terror, and it worked remarkably well. It would work on me, I thought to myself.

  After talking back and forth for about fifteen minutes, Stephens called the village meeting to an end. He thanked the elders, reminded them to let us know if they needed help or if the Taliban was coming around, and then shook their hands and said goodbye.

  We started patrolling back to Route Brown, when our terp, Ali, pointed out a young male who looked like he didn't belong to the village. The captain told the ANA to search him, but they did a terrible job. I pointed this out to Stephens, who said I couldn't search the guy again because I'd cause the ANA to lose face. He was right, of course, but I was worried any number of weapons or IEDs had gotten through the ANA's haphazard search.

  Through the interpreter, Stephens asked the young fighting age male if he could conduct a GSR (gunshot residue) test on him, looking for traces of explosives or gunpowder on his beard or hands. He agreed, and the test quickly came back negative.

  Unfortunately, Stephens chose to conduct the test right in front of a pen where a cow had been staked out to be impregnated by a randy bull, and we found ourselves blocking the locals' view of the live bovine sex show. Each hut and wall had several villagers perched on it, and they quickly became upset and began shouting at us to “get out of the way,” and “down in front,” only, of course, in Pashto. I thought it was pretty funny, but Stephens (who was near the end of his tour) experienced a total sense-of-humour failure and quickly stomped off.

  I looked over at Ali and started laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole thing. Good first patrol story, I thought to myself. Some guys get shot at; other guys have front-row seats for bovine coupling.

  We caught up to the captain and I changed the subject as I pestered him with questions the whole way back. He was incredibly patient and always took the time to answer them. We made it back to Sperwhan, he asked the ANA for their input on the success of the patrol, and then he thanked them for the good patrol. We split up and dumped our kit at our bed spaces and then gave our weapons a quick brush-down.

  Thankfully the patrol had been a milk run (an easy patrol where nothing exciting happened), and it was just what we needed for our first trip outside the wire.

  I asked the warrant and Hetsa if they felt there was anything we should know about their side of the patrol. The warrant seconded the captain's assessment that the ANA couldn't navigate to save their lives. I asked him if he and Hetsa were willing to stay up front with our ANA when they arrived and we started going on patrols.

  “If they're anything like this group,” the warrant said, “I don't see as though we'll have much choice. How was it for you guys, sir?”

  I looked over at Fourneau and we both started smiling. “Well, Warrant, it was . . . a real journey of self-discovery. Wouldn't you say, Fourneau?”

  “Oh definitely, sir.”

  Hetsa looked at us and clearly wanted to be let in on the joke. “Why, what happened?”

  “You tell it, Fourneau,” I said. “It's all too fresh for me. I don't want to relive it again, so soon.”

  So Fourneau told them they'd just missed the greatest show on earth because they were up front navigating, but he and I had had the best seats in the house.

  The warrant cursed his bad luck and commanded, “Next time, call me back, and we'll get some pictures for the OMLT yearbook!”

  With their last patrol ending on such a glorious high note, the PPCLI lads decided that would be enough for them. They'd been patrolling for the last eight months, so we all knew they had done their part, no two ways about it.

  Stephens and I talked and mutually decided that from now on, it would be 72 Alpha's show. He offered to come and play guns if things got particularly hairy and we needed backup, but otherwise, 72A would start conducting daily patrols just as soon as enough of our ANA turned up. I was fine with that, and more than eager to get started.

  The day after our auspicious first patrol, some of the ANA from the First Company, 72 Kandak, rocked up in their brown Ford Ranger pickup trucks and started off-loading their kit, just chucking it anywhere. I grabbed 72A and we went off to meet them.

  I spotted a fairly tall Afghan, sporting the standard black beard, who seemed to be giving directions and barking out orders. Longview had gone off to find Ali to translate for us, and when they came over, I asked Ali to approach the ANA officer and introduce us.

  “Captain Rob,” I said to the ANA officer and placed my right hand over my heart. “Ah salaam ah'laikum.” While on tour around Afghanistan, I had decided to call myself Captain Rob, knowing that nobody pronounced my last name correctly anyway, and that Rob would be easier for everyone. The officer spoke to Ali and then shook my hand.

  “He says his name is Lieutenant Aziz,” Ali said, standing beside me. “He asks where his men are supposed to place their equipment.”

  “In this building right here, for a start. The outgoing ANA are moving out today, so there will soon be enough room for his men.” I paused to give Ali time to translate. “Please ask Lieutenant Aziz how many men from the First Company
will be arriving.” I looked over at the warrant, Hetsa, and Fourneau, who were watching the ANA dump their kit all over the place.

  “He says there will be one hundred and fifteen, maybe one hundred and thirty, if they find some of their men who have run away. In the next few days, there will be around fifty turning up. His OC, Captain Shafiq Ullah, will not be here until next week; he is still on leave. Lieutenant Aziz is the executive officer [the ANA used the American system of rank and titles for their companies] so he will be in charge until Captain Shafiq Ullah arrives. Another officer, Lieutenant Azmar, will be here later today.”

  “Great. Please tell him thank you, it was nice to meet him, and to come by for chai [tea] or coffee any time.” Ali translated, we shook hands, and we walked off as the ANA began shouting at each other. I looked at the ANA and realized that the outgoing ANA were loading up steel bunk beds into the backs of their trucks, and the incoming ANA had just caught them red-handed. Nice. I could foresee massive fisticuffs over who gets the kitchen sink and who gets left with the dirty dishes!

  I asked Ali over to my building for a friendly talk. Even in the late afternoon, and in a bit of shade, it was still stupid hot. I excused myself for a moment and walked into Stephens's building, going over to their fridge. I said hi to the boys. The Wizard was at the computer with Warrant Joe, and Fourneau was watching Hetsa and Mike playing an Xbox game. I grabbed two bottles of water and headed back outside to my interpreter.

  “The ANA don't seem too keen to go out on patrols,” I said, wiping the sweat from my forehead and the dust off my sunglasses.

  “The truth is, sir . . .” Ali hesitated for a moment, unsure whether or not he should continue.

  I saw the opening I'd been after ever since I'd met him, so I took it. “Ali, no matter what, you and I will always tell each other the truth. We must trust each other. You can tell me things, and I promise I won't repeat them to the ANA. I have to know what's going on here. I have to know the truth, or I can't do my job properly. In war, not being able to trust each other could get us all killed.” I looked at Ali with a very serious expression, hoping he'd get my point.