my pistol, I followed him to one of the ANA barracks rooms. One of the team’s interpreters, Hik, was lying on the mat, bloody. He had gone to the bazaar with his father to buy supplies for the soldiers and was stopped at a checkpoint by the Afghan National Police. The ANP were known throughout Afghanistan for being corrupt, untrained thugs. They wanted a bribe, and when Hik refused, they threatened him and his father. For his loyalty to his father, the police thugs beat him and punctured his lung.
We took Hik to the team’s medics’ shed, where they started patching him up while I went with Taz to the ANA compound. There I found all of the ANA armed and clustered outside a small storage building. Inside, the two ANP thugs had been dumped on the dirt floor of the shack, bound into human balls lying in the fetal position.
After the terp had staggered back to the camp, Taz had gone to the checkpoint, beaten the corrupt police officers, tossed them into the back of his truck, and taken them to the shack, but hadn’t killed them. Our classes on civil society and human rights were partiallyworking. It took several days of negotiations between the ANP and the ANA, but we finally convinced Taz to release the two miscreants. The bigger lesson was that Taz had taken the ragged group of ANA, formed them into a unit, and taught them absolute loyalty, albeit Afghan style, by going after the corrupt guys who’d hurt the terp.
All too often people get wrapped up in the popular Hollywood action version of what we do and forget that the Special Forces were created not just to destroy things, but to work within foreign cultures to turn their soldiers into a functioning army.
I’d studied sociology in college and have been fascinated by foreign societies, cultures, and languages since I was a boy. I also grew up in the mountains of North Carolina, where hunting, fishing, and the outdoors are a way of life. Special Forces scratched all of my itches. My career started when I enlisted in 1993. I served with the 25th Infantry in Hawaii before earning my commission. I served with the 82nd Airborne Division during my first rotation in Afghanistan. I’d learned a lot from the 82nd Airborne, especially leadership and how to build unit cohesion. I got a glimpse of Special Forces in Kandahar on that rotation. Their missions—learning the language, respecting the culture, and fighting as guerrillas on the enemy’s ground—appealed to me. I realized then that I wanted a bigger challenge.
Now that challenge meant forging the ANA into a fighting force that could handle the resurgent Taliban. Since arriving, I’d heard nothing but bad news. The account of Taliban fighters almost overrunning Shef’s team, and Shinsha telling me that the Taliban moved openly along streets where they once feared taking even one step, obsessed me. We were five years into the fight. This shouldn’t be happening.
I was trying to focus again on the celebration when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. It was one of the soldiers from our firebase’s TOC.
“Sir, come with me now,” he said. Shit, another good meal wasted.
I excused myself and headed for the TOC. I remember thinkingabout the scene in the movie
The Green Berets
when John Wayne is interrupted during his dinner with the code word “Tabasco.” The code word was for an emergency situation. Whatever the TOC wanted now, it was not good and not scripted. The only thing missing was the code word.
The TOC was alive with frantic radio calls for assistance. I could tell from the accent it was not a Special Forces team. An ISAF unit had been ambushed—in a big way, from the sound of it.
“Have you heard from KAF or the TOC yet?” I asked the radioman.
“Sir, they’re waiting for you to call on the satellite phone,” he said.
I picked up the bulky black phone and headed for the rooftop to get a clear signal.
“This is 31. Put me through to the boss,” I said. Bolduc got on the line moments
We took Hik to the team’s medics’ shed, where they started patching him up while I went with Taz to the ANA compound. There I found all of the ANA armed and clustered outside a small storage building. Inside, the two ANP thugs had been dumped on the dirt floor of the shack, bound into human balls lying in the fetal position.
After the terp had staggered back to the camp, Taz had gone to the checkpoint, beaten the corrupt police officers, tossed them into the back of his truck, and taken them to the shack, but hadn’t killed them. Our classes on civil society and human rights were partiallyworking. It took several days of negotiations between the ANP and the ANA, but we finally convinced Taz to release the two miscreants. The bigger lesson was that Taz had taken the ragged group of ANA, formed them into a unit, and taught them absolute loyalty, albeit Afghan style, by going after the corrupt guys who’d hurt the terp.
All too often people get wrapped up in the popular Hollywood action version of what we do and forget that the Special Forces were created not just to destroy things, but to work within foreign cultures to turn their soldiers into a functioning army.
I’d studied sociology in college and have been fascinated by foreign societies, cultures, and languages since I was a boy. I also grew up in the mountains of North Carolina, where hunting, fishing, and the outdoors are a way of life. Special Forces scratched all of my itches. My career started when I enlisted in 1993. I served with the 25th Infantry in Hawaii before earning my commission. I served with the 82nd Airborne Division during my first rotation in Afghanistan. I’d learned a lot from the 82nd Airborne, especially leadership and how to build unit cohesion. I got a glimpse of Special Forces in Kandahar on that rotation. Their missions—learning the language, respecting the culture, and fighting as guerrillas on the enemy’s ground—appealed to me. I realized then that I wanted a bigger challenge.
Now that challenge meant forging the ANA into a fighting force that could handle the resurgent Taliban. Since arriving, I’d heard nothing but bad news. The account of Taliban fighters almost overrunning Shef’s team, and Shinsha telling me that the Taliban moved openly along streets where they once feared taking even one step, obsessed me. We were five years into the fight. This shouldn’t be happening.
I was trying to focus again on the celebration when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. It was one of the soldiers from our firebase’s TOC.
“Sir, come with me now,” he said. Shit, another good meal wasted.
I excused myself and headed for the TOC. I remember thinkingabout the scene in the movie
The Green Berets
when John Wayne is interrupted during his dinner with the code word “Tabasco.” The code word was for an emergency situation. Whatever the TOC wanted now, it was not good and not scripted. The only thing missing was the code word.
The TOC was alive with frantic radio calls for assistance. I could tell from the accent it was not a Special Forces team. An ISAF unit had been ambushed—in a big way, from the sound of it.
“Have you heard from KAF or the TOC yet?” I asked the radioman.
“Sir, they’re waiting for you to call on the satellite phone,” he said.
I picked up the bulky black phone and headed for the rooftop to get a clear signal.
“This is 31. Put me through to the boss,” I said. Bolduc got on the line moments
Similar Books
