by Kip Cassino
Telemarketers at Mountain Orchard typically worked seven-hour shifts, carefully orchestrated so none could compile enough weekly hours to claim full-time employee status. Slow workers or “non-performers”―as those with low close rates were labeled―might find their hours attenuated further, the first step toward eventual dismissal. Naturally, no one on the phone line got medical coverage or any other benefits.
For all its downside, the Captain didn’t mind the work. He was a glib talker, and always made more than his share of successful calls. The pay wasn’t great, but it more than took care of the rent and utilities for the dilapidated mobile home he shared with Pauley, and left them a few dollars for groceries besides. Pauley was working as well, in the kitchen of a Banner Burger on Patterson, near the university. He had the night shift, which he always preferred. His pay went into the kitty they kept for emergencies, bought the clothing they occasionally needed, and paid for small treats they allowed themselves when the world treated them kindly for a while. There was a V.A. hospital in town, and the men had registered themselves for meds through it, as soon as they found jobs and lodging. Neither wanted to risk running out of the drugs they depended upon.
The Captain was not a tall man, well under six feet tall even in his work boots. He was clean shaven and slim, with slate grey hair cut short above intelligent yellow-brown eyes. Years on the road had given him a reddened, wind-burned complexion and walking kept him lean. Preternaturally quiet, he seldom spoke to others unless addressed. When he spoke, his voice was deep and well-modulated, with no discernable regional accent. All this, along with his ramrod straight posture and quick sure movements, hinted at some military time in his past.
Both Pauley and the Captain were disabled veterans, eligible for V.A. pensions which might have eased their personal situations considerably. The Captain’s ex-wife still got his disability payment every month, with his blessing. After all, she had their two boys to raise. Pauley’s pension went somewhere else. He never spoke of it, and the Captain never asked. It was one of many secrets he carried within himself.
The Captain had owned another name once. Indeed, the world still called him “Vernon Taws.” Over time, even before he and Pauley had begun their wandering, it had fallen away from him and become a set of sounds with little real meaning. Vernon Taws had graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1994, having earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering. He had married, bought a home in Grand Forks, and started a family. He was an up and coming field engineer for a heavy duty hauling and drayage company. He’d helped design rigs to carry enormous awkward machinery to the strikes just beginning to flower at Elm Coulee Oil Field and the Bakken Shale. He was on the verge of establishing a successful career in his field. In the process of all this, Vernon Taws made what would become a terrible mistake for him: in 1998, he joined the National Guard.
He was prompted to make the decision by friends at work. “Come on,” they told him. “The money sure comes in handy, and we don’t do much unless the river floods. With your degree and background, they’ll send you to OCS for sure. You’ll be an officer within a year.”
North Dakota’s National Guard has a proud history. Since its establishment in 1883, its men and units have performed with honor in every U.S. foreign campaign since the Spanish-American War. When called upon to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan after the national bloodshed of 9/11, these forces marched forward again. By that time, Vernon Taws had become a lieutenant in a combat sustainment support battalion. He helped command troops doing a job he knew well from civilian life―supplying soldiers with the supplies they needed by truck.
In 2003, the national guard unit Taws belonged to was ordered to Iraq. He spent a harrowing but uneventful six months running convoys to firebases, carrying ammunition as well as food and other needed supplies. His unit suffered no casualties, but Taws came back more quiet than he’d been before he left―more watchful, far less calm. The threat of violence possible at every turn a road took had affected him. He had lost friends to IED (Improvised Explosive Device) incidents. Margie, his wife, noticed the changes. She was glad he was back, done with the war, and ready to move on with his life. She assured herself that his unspoken inner tension and quickness to anger would abate over time.
Perhaps that might have happened, if Taws had not been ordered to Afghanistan a little less than a year later. By now he had gotten “tracks.” As a captain, he was assigned to run a transportation company. His responsibilities increased, and the war he entered was far different than what he’d experienced in Iraq. Neither his marriage nor his sanity would survive it.
Taws had become a pawn, one of thousands trapped in a Faustian bargain the Bush administration devised to prosecute large scale, long term combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. These wars required massive troop deployments over a lengthy period of time―far more manpower than the U.S. all-volunteer army had available within its ranks. In the past, such a shortage would have been answered with a draft, but neither popular nor political reality would support that solution in 2001.
The nation’s military leaders themselves were against calling up civilians. Draftees were hard to train, difficult to manage, and left the service as quickly as they could, taking their developed skills and experience with them. The solution to this conundrum, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld decided, was to raid the reserves in a kind of covert draft. National Guard soldiers and reservists were already trained, and already obligated to their periods of military service. Still, even with such infusions, the heavy demands of two simultaneous conflicts exceeded the force levels available over time. That could only be reconciled by sending soldiers, sailors, and airmen into the caldrons of Iraq and Afghanistan more than once―perhaps several times, in separate six-month or one-year tours of duty.
This was uncharted psychological territory for the nation. Until the end of Vietnam’s sadness, most combat soldiers either fought through the length of hostilities or endured a prescribed tour of duty and then returned home. In the latter case, seasoned career military veterans might see multiple combat tours of duty. The draftees who made up the bulk of the army never would. The concept of sending large numbers of people who had not chosen the military as their career into multiple long-term combat experiences had never been tried in modern history. For Vernon Taws, the result was disaster.
In theory, Taws and the men he commanded had a simple job. They loaded ammunition, artillery shells, and other supplies on big HEMTT trucks and hauled them from their site near Bagram to outlying firebases. A day in and a day out, three times a week―a nice drive in the Afghan countryside. In practice, each convoy was a nerve-wracking journey through the edges of purgatory.
Taws and his convoys drove through hilly deserts, sometimes on roads which had carried human traffic for more than ten thousand years. More often then not, they travelled past small groups of people, sometimes on their own journeys, sometimes still. The presence of people was a good sign most of the time, Taws quickly learned―unless, of course, they were acting strangely. Nothing could be taken for granted in this utterly foreign place. Areas along the roads that were lower than the land around them were dreaded. Taliban ambushes could lurk above the trucks there, waiting to wreak havoc on vehicles passing below.
Convoys moved slowly, cautious of the ever-present threat of IEDs. These might be repurposed unexploded aerial bombs or artillery rounds, or simply large batches home-made explosives attached to some sort of detonator. Scouts sent ahead in armored Humvees combed the roads and the land beside them for implanted explosives and other dangers. Meanwhile, the ever-present, milling dust denied much forward vision for all but the first few trucks in the convoy line. Afghan dust had been ground underfoot for millennia. Over the ages, it had attained the thick consistency of talcum. Laundering clothing and washing vehicles would not remove it from their seams. After a while, it seemed to the soldiers in the convoys that the dust had seeped wi
thin them as well.
Even in peacetime, on well-paved highways, military convoy control is a jaw-clenching, frustrating task. Interval is always a major concern. Maintaining uniform distance between convoy vehicles is of ultimate importance. If vehicles come too close to one another, collisions become a danger. A driver may not be able to stop his truck in time if the one to his front hits an obstacle or is impeded in some other way. Speed is the key to interval. If all the vehicles in a convoy maintain their designated speed, interval should―theoretically―never become a problem. Perhaps in the future, when robots control trucks instead of fallible human beings, this will be true. As long as people remain at the wheel, some will be more heavy-footed than others. Today, even the best-run convoys expand and contract like giant accordions as they travel. In peaceful conditions, this is an aggravation. In war, it is a recipe for disaster.
Hours after their trucks parked, Taws and his drivers would remain gripped by tension generated during a day on the roads of Afghanistan. This could be softened by alcohol or drugs, by near-combative card games, by rough and tumble physical sports, or by writing long letters home―some of which were never meant to be read by other eyes. Unlike previous wars, where immediate personal contact between loved ones and family left behind was rare or impossible, Taws and his soldiers could converse via Skype with their wives, children, parents, sweethearts―almost as though they were in the next room. Sadly, these communications did not always alleviate tension. As often as not, frayed family dynamics made them hard for the soldiers who viewed them to endure. Money was always an issue, especially for those who had good civilian jobs but were now reduced to military pay. Taws sometimes wished for a signal-ravaging solar storm, just for a few days respite. After a while, he contacted his family less often than he had at first. They didn’t seem to mind.
Three months after his arrival in-country, Taws met with his XO (executive officer), his first sergeant, and a few other senior noncommissioned officers to plan a mission assigned to his company. It was 0400 hours―four a.m. civilian―long before the sudden blaze of an Afghan dawn. The enormous necklace of stars that is the Milky Way filled a black sky overhead. Their orders called for a twenty-truck convoy, which would split in two on the last leg of its journey to resupply a pair of firebases. The route to be travelled was well-known to everyone present. The Taliban and their allies had yet to interdict a convoy on that road. History was no guarantee of safety, and did not make the men who had risen so early from their CHUs (containerized housing units) feel more secure.
Four Humvees would control today’s operation. Taws and his first sergeant would use one. They would travel at the convoy’s front. Two of the vehicles would work as scouts. They would range beyond the convoy, searching for IEDs, enemy activity, or anything else they thought was out of place. The fourth Humvee would trail the convoy, coordinating with Taws to make sure speed and interval was holding up among the trucks ahead. Lieutenant Bob Hansen, the company XO, had this dust-eating assignment. The convoy would have no armor or infantry support. Their route was mostly through as yet uncontested territory. A pair of helicopter gunships would be on call in case trouble developed, but none was expected.
The men went over radio frequencies to be used and their call signs. They assigned drivers and their vehicles to positions within the convoy (Taws liked to place heavy-footed drivers at the front, where he could better control them), and plotted checkpoints. Their load today was mostly artillery ammunition. The howitzers and rocket launchers at the firebases were hungry.
Their plans completed, the men walked to the staging area, where the big trucks were already lining up to receive their burdens. Hansen paused to talk with Taws on the way. “I’m worried about this one, captain,” he said. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”
Taws nodded. In civilian life, Hansen helped run the trucking business his father had founded. He was an excellent officer, ten months into his second Afghan deployment. Just two more months and he’d be back in Pennsylvania, with Agnes and his little girl. “I know how you feel, Bob,” he said. “During the final months of my last tour, I got jumpy too.”
“It’s not that, sir. Really. This isn’t my first rodeo either. We’ve just had it quiet for too long. Everybody’s getting too relaxed, like we were moving frozen chicken up interstate 95. Haji’s smart. He likes to hit us when we’re not looking.”
“You’re a good officer, Bob,” Taws said. “One of the best I’ve worked with. Look, neither one of us is trying to make general. We just want to get home to our lives. If you really feel bad about this one, stay back. I’ll get Redmond to take over for you.”
“No, sir,” Hansen said. “That’s not what I’m after. Just wanted to tell you how I feel. Sometimes, these hunches mean something.”
“I agree,” said Taws. “Listen to me, though. We’re both going to make it today. You have my word.” With that, the two men continued their walk toward the forming line of trucks. Two hours later, they were on the road.
The convoy’s destination was a set of firebases―Asp and Adder―placed at the edge northern Wardak province, roughly forty kilometers from Bagram. They were ten kilometers apart, so each could provide the other with supporting artillery coverage. The road to each―more path than highway―split from the main route south just beyond the province border. The terrain along the way was hilly, but Taliban interdictions had not occurred. Not yet.
While the bulk of the convoy lumbered south, the scouts in their Humvees ranged several miles ahead, checking the route for IEDs, possible ambushes, or any activity that looked spooky. Their vehicles were protected by scrap steel welded to their frames, as well as the armor kits now starting to arrive from stateside. The use of armor plate was a compromise. Too little could mean casualties from enemy fire. On the other hand, the armor was heavy. It limited Humvee performance and degraded the efficiency of a vehicle’s suspension system. In some cases, it could impede doors from opening properly, possibly trapping soldiers inside. The Humvees were armed, as well. Their gunners crouched in powered turrets equipped with grenade launchers and Browning machine guns.
The road seemed clear as the scouts moved south, until they reached the turnoffs to their destinations. Here they found a stalled Afghan truck―one of the native vehicles called “jingle trucks” by Americans who saw them, because of their wild calligraphy, woodwork, mirrored pendants, and the chains and cables hanging from them. This mobile work of art was stopped, its hood open. Several Afghans were peering inside. One was puttering with its engine. The scout Humvees stopped, one on each side of the gaudy truck. Sergeant Timothy Alvord stepped out of his, along with an Afghan Army interpreter. “Tell them they have to move,” Alvord said. “Tell them many trucks are coming.”
The interpreter nodded, and the men walked to the jingle truck. One of the Afghans, probably the truck’s driver, began speaking in Pashto with great emotion and hand waving as they drew closer. “He says they’ve been here a while,” the interpreter said. “He says his beautiful truck will not move.”
“Tell him if he can’t move it, we’ll have to drag it off the road,” Alvord said. “The convoy’s going to be here in less than an hour.” The sergeant was wary. An Iraq veteran, he didn’t like the way these Haji’s were acting.
Another tirade of speech and gesture followed. Afterward, the interpreter laughed and turned to Alvord. “He says that with Allah’s grace, some gas, and water, he will coax his wounded heirloom down the road.”
“Hell, we’ll get him going,” Alvord said, already walking to get a gas can from the Humvee. “Tell him he must move past the place where the road divides.”
“He says he will,” the interpreter said, pitching in to pour water from a jerry can into the gaudy truck’s radiator. “He blesses you and all America for your kindness.” The men laughed as they clambered into their Humvee. Both scouts were soon moving past the road junction toward the destination firebases.
Back at the convoy, Taws considered his scout’s report. He radioed Alvord to keep an eye on the truck, to watch where it moved. The sergeant complied. “He’s stopped again,” Alvord reported a little while later, “on the main road, about three hundred meters south of the fork. Looks like everybody’s out of the jingle truck, but the hood ain’t up. There’s six or seven Haji’s, just hanging around.”
“Stay put and keep an eye on them,” Taws advised. “There could be something hinky going on.”
The convoy continued its slow, caterpillar-like crawl toward the road junction. Within twenty minutes the side roads to the firebases became visible, as did Alvord’s Humvee and the stalled jingle truck. “I’ll be turning down the right fork, toward you,” Taws radioed Alvord. “Have your gunner set his weapons on that jingle truck, in case they try something.”
By now, the convoy’s first truck was moving from the main road to the right fork. As the second truck approached its turn, it was swallowed by an enormous explosion. Dust and debris arced hundreds of feet skyward, propelled by the detonation of what must have been a five-hundred-pound bomb. The truck itself was lifted into the air, and fell back to earth, broken-backed and burning. It had been carrying small-arms ammunition. The rounds began to cook off, adding to the calamity.
Meanwhile, the Afghans by the jingle truck rolled back its tarp to unveil a mounted machine gun, which they began firing at the convoy and Sergeant Alvord’s Humvee. Alvord’s gunner returned fire immediately, silencing the machine gun and setting the truck ablaze. The scout drove overland toward the burning truck, firing as it moved, until it hit a concealed mine. Then it rolled on aimlessly for several meters, uncontrolled and on fire. No one inside it moved.
Upon seeing the carnage unfurl, Taws contacted the convoy’s third truck, and told the driver to try to get by the wreckage of truck two. “I’ll be off the road if I do,” the driver answered in a tremulous whisper.