Stewart Nusbaumer's Latest From Afghanistan:
July 2009From Back Country to Big CityKabul, Afghanistan—Having spent 3 1/2 months embedded with Marine units in the Afghanistan hinterlands, I needed a change. In a war zone, however, is change really possible? In Kunar province on the border with Pakistan, we were rocketed and ambushed. Down south in Helmand province, danger was always near, shooting at you in Now Zad. In southwest Farah province, the poppies were blooming and the Taliban were threatening a bloody post-harvest. In the western Heart province, near the Iranian border the morning I slept-in, the Marines were called out on a QRF (quick response force) mission. Eight years into this war, each year is bloodier, each year the insurgency spreads. Yet, this spring and summer some 10,000 additional Marines arrived, recently fanning out in the Taliban heartland and strongholds. But after 3 1/2 months jumping around Afghanistan, I needed a change. And I found one. Kabul RisingComing in from the Kabul airport, the driver whips the Toyota around a horse-drawn wagon and darts his silver bullet between a truck belching coal black smoke and a car wobbling along on four shaky wheels. “How’s business?” I stammer. “It’s very good,” he replies with a broad smile, as he plays chicken with an oncoming convoy of British armed personnel carriers. After checking into my hotel, the famed Mustafa—Mecca for impoverished journalists—I take a short walk around central Kabul and ask, “How’s business?” to a sandwich seller on the street, a store owner selling eye glasses, and a waiter in a restaurant. All said, “Business is good.” In comparison to three years ago, the last time I was in Kabul, there are maybe three times the vehicles, and traffic jams are now common, whereas before they were nonexistent. When walking around the city, there is much construction. And Afghans hardly noticed me, whereas before they would stare. The streets are much more relaxing. Back at the Mustafa Hotel, as the sun set, out the large windows tiny lights dotted a large black mountain. That mountain didn’t have electricity three years ago. But is this improved Kabul an illusion? As security deteriorated in the provinces, people and resources rushed to the capital. Maybe it’s a bubble about to burst. Or maybe this bustling, building city is the new reality. Maybe progress in the capital will spread through the body of the country. I don’t mean to sound like I think Kabul is all great. There is massive poverty here, health care hardly exists, unemployment is sky high, on and on. But in comparison to three years ago, the city clearly looks much better. But what does all this have to do with our Marines out in the deserts and up in the mountains? In Kunar, in Helmand and Farah, in Heart? Marines TrainingThe mission of our Marines is summed up in three words, a mantra in counterinsurgency strategy: “clear, hold and build.” Clear insurgents out of an area, hold that area by having the Marines remain there, and help build both the economy and government. With one of the most impoverished countries in the world with forbidding terrain and strong insurgency, Afghanistan needs to build more than economy and government. It needs to build its security forces. A major mission of our Marines, then, is to train and mentor Afghan soldiers and policemen. When I was embedded with Marines—Embedded Training Team 2-7, “Kilo” Company of 3d Battalion, Eighth Marine Regiment, Marine Special Operations Team, Individual Augmentee Marine attached to 438th Air Expeditionary Advisory Group—nearly every Marine was mentoring and training Afghan security forces. Never—not in Iraq, in Vietnam, World War II or World War I—have Marines been so heavily engaged in training foreign forces. I saw Marines teaching Afghan soldiers to fire the M16 rifle and Afghan policemen to shoot RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades). I saw Marines accompanying Afghans on regular patrols through sleepy towns, up to mountain villages, out to desert market towns, on special “snatch” operations in the dead of the night and on reconnaissance patrols. I saw Marines partnering with Afghans on administration and maintenance and logistics and medical evacuation. Their training and mentoring of Afghans ran the gamut. But always the Marines’ focus was to move Afghan security forces one step closer to being able to defend their country. The City and The MarinesAs I sit in my hotel, I realize there is another major change in Kabul. There is a heavy police presence. Whereas three years ago, there were hardly any Afghan policemen here, especially after dark, now they’re patrolling in police vehicles, passing my hotel every 20 minutes or so. And the city has many more checkpoints, with what appear to be disciplined policemen. As business booms and Kabul takes on a more relaxed feeling, Afghan policemen are bringing a greater sense of security to the capital. There are no Marines in Kabul, but many of these policemen were at one time or another trained and mentored by Marines. Although the Marines are still out in the boondocks, their work is right here in the big city—here, in a rising Kabul.
June 2009: The Cook Is On Fire!Back to the topIt’s early June, I have been in Afghanistan for three months, writing for Leatherneck. I have talked with several hundred Marines, many outside of my writing assignments. Marines that were hanging around the USO at Bagram waiting for a flight; they may still be waiting there for a flight; a Marine playing basketball at Camp Eggers; one washing his clothes at FOB Bakwa— it’s hard to find a laundry mat in the middle of the desert—two Marines standing in the endless line at the Kandahar PX, (I know they’re still standing there); a Marine with a problem sitting near the flagpole in Delaram…. Nearly everywhere you go in Afghanistan, there seems to be a Marine. Some just want to talk, some need to talk, some have a whopper of a story to talk about, and then some have thoughts hatching out of their brains that are guaranteed to rattle your perspective on life. Although I don’t remember their names, and I don’t have photos of them, I remember them. In the chow tent at FOB Golestan—I was embedded with 2d Platoon, “Kilo” Company, 3d Battalion, Eighth Marines, Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Afghanistan—the cook suddenly started up a conversation. With Golestan being on a high plateau surrounded by beautiful mountains, his words ripped right through the thin mountain air and wrote themselves in my notebook. I don’t know his name. I don’t have a photo of him, but here are his words: “Over here you have to adapt and overcome,” he says in rapid machine-gun fire. “You have to have control of your kitchen.” He said “kitchen,” right? “I manicure meat in Coca Cola … use whatever spices I have … olive oil is always good … brown sugar is good….” With eyes stretched and hands in constant movement—a jab of the right hand, followed by both hands flying up in the air—with mustache and face ripped with intensity, the cook looks like a passionate artist, yet he sounds like a gung-ho Marine. Or is it the reverse? This is a Marine using his kitchen ingredients as combined arms for the correct integrated firepower to achieve a desired cuisine effect. His pots and pans are combat support. A carrot cooked in his special “firepower sauce” is a Hellfire missile. A potato covered in cheese is a 500-pound bomb. Steak—well, that is our R&R. “If all I have is a jar of honey, I use honey! If Tabasco, I use Tabasco!” He rattles off a long list faster than rounds can fly out of an M-16 rifle. “I have to take what I have and make it interesting.” When you hear, “Every Marine a rifleman,” this cook makes you understand the Marine Corps motto pertains to much more than combat skills. It is about grittiness, about the will to overcome, about a determination to succeed in whatever environment. It just so happens that his environment is the kitchen. And now being a day’s long and dangerous ride to the nearest Marine base, to any military base, his kitchen requires innovation and determination. So he takes the basic Marine attitude and cooks it into a delicious dish. While talking to me, I had finished my tender, juicy grilled steak. It had a unique spicy punch, which I have never tasted in steak— I have never tasted in anything. “Marines take pride in what they do,” his eyes flash, “You do what you have to do!” And what I have to do is get myself another one of these fine steaks. Once a mere slab of meat, a boot being fresh meat for the Corps, then reshaped and reeducated by a master Marine chef into one fine piece of devastating firepower enjoyment. Eat your heart out Ponderosa customers. You can email Stewart at SNusbaumer@gmail.com
Introduction: Riding the Sumo in Afghanistan
I hitched a ride on Sumo on the advice of Marine Lieutenant Lamb, a Public Affairs Officer at Camp Blackhorse. The convoy was about to conduct a Battlefield Circulation for a Pre-Deployment Site Survey. Colonel Michael Langley, commanding officer of Regional Corps Advisory Command-Central, was escorting Col Daniel Yoo, current commander of the 4th Marine Regiment, who in August will take over command of the Regional Corps Advisory Command-Central. For four days, from Kabul to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, we visited numerous COPs (Combat Outposts) and FOBs (Forward Operating Bases). The heart of the mission of the Regional Corps Advisory Command is to coordinate the Embedded Training Teams (ETTs), small teams of Marines that train, mentor, and advise Afghan Army troops. This requires the Marines to get close to Afghan soldiers, live nearby, empathize with them, and operate in a very different culture. This is not a job where a Marine can simply go by the book. As Sergeant Uselton said at Camp Joyce in eastern Afghanistan, “We do a lot of playing it by ear.” These blogs of my four-day convoy ride are not meant to give details of the Marine ETT program, its mission, the Marines’ duties, their thoughts. That will be covered in an upcoming article published in Leatherneck. Instead, the blogs will focus on my thoughts and what I saw while traveling on the convoy. This is, then, sort of a preface to my more in-depth article on the ETT Marines. Day 4: Sunday, March 15, North to Camp JoyceBack to the topAbout a half-hour north of Jalalabad, the children along the road change. No waving. No smiling. No thumbs up. No screaming for candy. Only serious stares and empty eyes! I have seen this in Iraq, and it’s deeply uncomfortable until you get used to it—if you get used to it. Children by nature are friendly, when they’re unfriendly it’s because their parents, possibly their extended family, maybe their whole community is worse than unfriendly. And the change can be fast, in the next village, yet most of the time the change comes slow. But you have to be looking. Otherwise you look up and the smiling and enthusiastic little ones are suddenly frosty and distant little ones. For three days as Convoy Sumo pressed through this terribly impoverished country, the kids nearly always offered cheery faces. Their little hands would be outstretched for the goodies the Marines in the turret would throw to them: mints, writing pads and pencils, crayons and coloring books, candy canes, soap—although some Marines felt uncomfortable with the soap, concerned the Afghans would be offended—cookies, all kinds of cookies were thrown. Now, driving in eastern Afghanistan near Pakistan, the little ones have turned dark looking. Not all, but too many. It’s an uncomfortable sight. Outside of Jalalabad on a hard ball highway there are medieval walls surrounding mud with wood beam homes. The green vegetation from the lowlands slips away as we climb higher into the mountains. Soon it’s the ragged ridgelines and stark moonscape. Brown envelops everything. Poverty blankets the land. Then a green vista below! It was just a peek. Around the next bend, another peek! Back and forth the road takes the convoy between desolation brown and sparkling green below. The road soon sinks down into the valley and remains in the green. The Kunar Valley, running from Jalalabad to the Pakistan border, is fueled by the Kunar River. Near Asmar, where we will stop at Camp Monti, I am overcome by the springtime beauty. Long and low stonewalls transgress the hilly, sharp green terrain. Wild yellow flowers, some purple, dance across the fields. The emerald of Ireland, yet so far from Ireland! After Monti—by now my mind has numbed out and I couldn’t remember the base when I was in the base—we drive to a small base as called, by the Marines, A-Bad. Don’t these guys ever call bases, say, B-Good? And we eat in the DFAC. That I do remember. We used to call the DFAC, or dining facility, the messhall. I’m still thinking about the kids. I noticed that in some of the villages, when adults are not present, the little ones will wave and ask for goodies. But this is Kunar Province, bordering the porous Afghan-Pakistan border, a major infiltration route for anti-Afghan government forces, consistently one of the most violent provinces in Afghanistan. I saw kids attempting to sneak a wave and when spotted by an adult, another time by a bigger kid, roughly pushed back from the road. After some delicious meat loaf, mashed potatoes and chocolate cake at A-Bad, Convoy Sumo drives to my new temporary home, Camp Joyce. It’s a small base, although next door is an Afghan Army base, and also a new U.S. Army base. Still, Camp Joyce feels small and remote, which even with its new Army neighbor, it is. I will stay at Camp Joyce for nearly three weeks and write an article on Embedded Training Team 2-7. They are 21 Marines, located at Joyce and three other sites, training and mentoring Afghan soldiers. After about an hour, Convoy Sumo pulls out of Camp Joyce. It felt great to be divorced from that rattling, groaning, shaking, burping Sumo 9 Humvee. It also felt bad to be left behind. In a dangerous country like Afghanistan, in four days you grow closer to people than you realize, even to Humvees. These melancholy thoughts were suddenly interrupted by my new neighbors, not the U.S. Army or Afghan Army. Before I could even unpack, a horrific boom ripped through my ears! A rocket attack! Yes the convoy was a grueling four days, yet it was also fascinating. For a journalist it was an excellent introduction to a country in the grip of violence, yet one, I believe, or I hope, is also moving forward to eventual peace. There are pockets of nearly everything in this country: towering mountains, desolate deserts, gorgeous blue lakes, Irish green valleys, people tremendously friendly, children both being children and being taught to hate, people scared stiff, “bad guys” —some who can be brought back from the edge and some forever welded to violence and hatred. And there are Marines training and mentoring the Afghan Army so that Afghans can eventually decide for themselves which way they will go. While other Marines—those in the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force down south in Kandahar, Helmand, and Farah provinces—are working on today’s security threat, here in eastern Afghanistan the Marine ETTs are working on tomorrow’s security. Camp Joyce turned out to be a great embed. Its Marines are top notch. I even grew to like Sergeant Callen, a twisted West Virginian with a warped sense of humor who somehow meshed with this top-of-the-line unit. And after a week, I started sleeping better having convinced myself that Sergeant White would not break into my room with eyes glowing and mouth foaming screaming we must immediately conduct a two-man mine clearing operation up on the Pakistan border. Yes, it’s strange how a group of strange guys can come together and form a top-of-the-line unit. Well, we know the Marine Corps has a real knack for attracting some strange guys, who somehow mesh with quality. Check out my article on the ETT Marines at Camp Joyce in the June issue of Leatherneck - Magazine of the Marines. Stewart Nusbaumer Leatherneck’s correspondent - Stewart is now embedded with 3d Battalion, 8 Regiment Marines in Farah Province.
Day 3: Saturday, March 14, East to JalalabadBack to the topWe were off early for the big city, Jalalabad, Afghanistan’s largest eastern city. “Jalalabad” has a special sound, twisting off your tongue. And kicks up vague remembrances of Afghan battles fought in the past. Maybe with Russians, maybe with British, maybe with Turks, maybe with Mongols … Afghanistan has a long history of battles. Yet, one battle in Jalalabad is not history. It’s too recent, still too raw. But that’s for later; the scenery is again stealing my attention. Before this convoy, I thought Afghanistan had nearly uniform terrain: steep brown mountains and flat brown wastelands. In two days, traveling only 60 or 70 miles, I have seen towering snow-capped mountains, desolate rocky plains, blooming green agriculture fields of wheat and rice, and now we’re headed into a full-blown desert -- the Gamberi Desert. There is a caravan of Bedouins, headed in the opposite direction, with packed camels. Sand dunes ripple across the sand. We arrive at a military base. This is a base under construction, to be occupied by the Afghan National Army and the US Army, and of course Marines training and mentoring the Afghan soldiers. It’s a massive construction site and expanding before it’s even finished. The latest plans include still around large section, according to an American working for the Army Corps of Engineers. What interests me is why. Why in the middle of a desert? But the rising heat evaporates the why, replaced by where. Where is some water? Many of the forward operating bases (FOBs) have construction sites, but only in the Gamberi Desert with row after row of shiny, long metal buildings are they building a mini-city. On the other hand, most of the influx in US troops will be stationed in the south, where I will not be for several weeks. Another hour drive and we reach J-Bad, what the Marines call Jalalabad. It’s a humming city, with commercial activity and even traffic jams -- again a glimpse of what progress looks like in Afghanistan, and on a larger scale than Mathar Lam. Next to FOB Hughie, where we will spend the night, is the Jalalabad Garrison, an Afghan Army base. It has an interesting history, visible in its buildings. There are Soviet-built apartment buildings, the “socialist grey” depressing in most societies, is only odd and out of place here. And it was a Taliban base when Afghanistan was ruled by them. I walk through thick clumps of trees, not just a scattering of several as is common, but thick groups of trees, and some palm trees. And down a stone path parting the vegetation is an unkempt, now closed, teahouse. This was once the favorite chai house, and hangout, of Osama bin Laden. Yes, after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, bin Laden lived in Jalalabad. His al Qaeda training camps ringed the city. But all that changed with 9/11. The square-shaped building is locked. The grass lawn, once manicured, is now uncut and spotted with dirt patches. The faded wall paint is peeling, and the two fountains are dry and quiet. This is the Afghanistan past, although the battle still rages. The mission of the US military is to ensure this Afghanistan past remains the past. Suddenly a familiar sound -- birds. I had not noticed, until now, the absence of birds in this country. Beautiful birds are chirping, singing, skipping from tree limb to tree limb. And another familiar sound -- overhead the thump! thump! thump! of large rotary blades slicing through the sky. Two US military helicopters are flying east. East towards the Pakistan border, toward where Osama bin Laden is drinking his tea. Stewart Nusbaumer Leatherneck’s correspondent -Traveling with Embedded Training Teams in Afghanistan Day 2: Friday, Mar. 13, East to Mathar LamBack to the topAs the yellow round heater rises higher in the clear blue sky, the morning mountain chill and the biting lake breeze begin to dissipate. Bones slowly thaw, MREs (meals, ready to eat) are eaten for breakfast, and gear is packed. We’re ready to roll, but there is a delay. We lounge around, read, chat, gaze at the stunning vista. Impatience grows, as it always does when Marines must wait. The order finally comes and we eagerly climb into our vehicles. After a short bounce on the “Kidney Kicker,” we make a left onto the hard ball and barrel due east. The Kabul-Jalalabad Road, when not in high mountains and parched deserts, is lined with small, low stores. There is moderate vehicular traffic on the road, both cars and trucks, and the number of customers at the stores also seems moderate. But the Afghan driver is utterly determined to go faster than moderation counsels. When on this major east-west hard ball, one can almost forget Afghanistan is entangled in an increasingly nasty war. Our first stop is a small FOB (forward operating bast) just off the Kabul-Jalalabad Road, called China, or Xio Haq. I’m told the FOB’s name derives from Chinese workers many years ago building the Kabul-Jalalabad Road. And I’m also told that Chinese workers originally constructed this small military outpost. With the late-morning temperature rising, I’m most interested in taking a nap. I skip the tour of the FOB and drift off in the back seat of Sumo 9. Like FOB Kutshback, FOB China lies on a desolation plain, on a huge brown frying pan. But a short distance away, we drive through land that quickly turns green—sharp green! This is an agricultural region, making the area relatively prosperous. In a briefing at FOB Mathar Lam, we are informed that the area has “few incidents, it’s pretty quiet here.” In the Afghanistan town of Mathar Lam, I learned there are many jobs and there are few IEDs-improvised explosive devices. I find this bustling yet relaxed medium-sized town, its white painted buildings, the people’s clean clothes, the smiling children, an encouraging hint of what is possible in this desperately poor and increasingly violent country. Yet, much of Afghanistan is rocky and mountainous and therefore unfit for agriculture. Still, if security can be established, if an effective government can be developed, if the economy takes off, then Afghanistan’s agricultural regions will dramatically increase output and other areas will build factories to employ the massive number of unemployed. In a country nearly blanketed in brown and struggling desperately to improve, a little green can really ignite your dream machine. Yet, dreams come true. The ETT Marines believe if they strengthen the security leg—one of the three pillars of a successful society—then honest government and a healthy economy will follow and the Afghanistan Dream will blossom. It’s a dream the ETT Marines work on every day. At FOB Mathar Lam, we drop our gear in a barracks. Some Marines head to the volleyball court, others to the DFAC—dining facility. For anyone who fought in Vietnam, or in earlier wars, the Afghanistan DFACs are ecstasy three times daily. The cuisine is simply fabulous. Steak and lobster, pork chops, shrimp in lasagna, fresh salad bars, stunning broiled fish, bulging pasty corners with endless delights, dessert tables with dark chocolate cake…. For this Vietnam veteran, this is one dream I have trouble believing. I’m haunted that I will suddenly walk into a mess tent and some unrecognizable mush of peculiar stench will be slapped on my metal tray. Not at Mathar Lam. Here the only slap was of ecstasy! Stewart Nusbaumer Leatherneck’s correspondent -Traveling with Embedded Training Teams in Afghanistan Day 1: Thursday, Mar. 12, From Camp Blackhorse to the King’s Lake HouseBack to the topAt 07:56, a humvee with call sign Sumo 9 slips through the fortified gate at Camp Blackhorse and is soon screaming through mountains, some towering more than six thousand feet, as the convoy heads east on the Kabul-Jalalabad Road. In four days and some 250 grueling miles—there are no interstate highways in Afghanistan—I would visit eight sites where U.S. Marines are training and mentoring Afghan National Army troops. The driver of Sumo 9 is Army Captain Leon, the vehicle commander and assistant convoy commander is Chief Warrant Officer-3 Shane Studer, and the gunner up in the turret is Captain Timothy Mix, the latter two being Marines. The convoy is combined and joint, rather usual here. The Afghanistan National Army ride in their Ford pick-up trucks, U.S. Army soldiers and Marines in MRAPS-mine resistant ambush protected vehicles-and humvees. The Kabul-Jalalabad Road, just outside of Kabul, winds through spectacular mountains with awesome cliffs, deep gullies and canyons. The ridgelines are ragged, like a hacksaw blade. The road twists alongside a winding river, snaking with nature. The color of the land, the mountains, even the river water is brown—giving emphasis to the starkness of the landscape: No vegetation, no green, only brown rock, brown mountains, and brown water. It’s as if this impoverished nation could not afford color. But that would soon change, as many first impressions soon change in Afghanistan. As we descend the mountains, the river water rushes faster, and white caps appear. Switchbacks bring the convoy to a slow crawl, and small clumps of green pine trees suddenly appear. In the distance are mountain peaks covered in snow, and below in the valley, hugging the banks of the river, are small plots of green land. After a few hours of driving, outside the town of Sorobi, the convoy crosses the river on a narrow bridge. It crosses carefully, one vehicle at a time. Convoys are, of course, constantly on the lookout for IEDs—improvised explosive devices—and ambushes. Leaving the smooth asphalted road, which Marines call the “hard ball,” we land on a real “kidney kicker.” With stones and rocks of various shapes and sharpness, ditches and mounds bouncing and rocking the humvees, the convoy crawls along at 5 MPH, occasionally sprinting to 10 MPH. The paved roads in Afghanistan are usually in good shape, unfortunately there are not many “hard balls.” The secondary roads are slow torture. Now we are driving through a rocky, desolate plain without vegetation or crops, but with an abundance of poverty. I have traveled in 109 countries, yet I’m not sure I have ever seen such extreme impoverishment. And sure enough there is poverty’s companion, strong insecurity. Nearly every residential building is surrounded by high walls, some climbing to twenty-some feet, with tiny slits for guns. These mud-caked walls, and the total absence of any signs of modernity, give the impression that we have just driven back to the Middle Ages. Our first destination is Forward Operating Base (FOB) Kutshback. There Corporal Justin Bradley Morton and Hospitalman (HN) Joshua Ryan Bowers both express intense commitments to training their Afghan soldiers, and neither are the least bit dissatisfied with living in this brown barren land. Then off to the French Army chow hall for lunch—hamburgers on flat Afghan bread with French fries, served with a smile and a French expression that we assumed meant, “Enjoy.” Actually, we were so hungry we would have enjoyed eating a raw cow. Leaving Kutshback, the convoy bounces back along on the Kidney Kicker and after an hour and half, at 17:50, with the sun slipping behind distant mountains, we stop for the night. There is a gorgeous vista of a clear blue lake with a background of snow-capped mountains. Awesome! And with each passing twilight minute, another billion stars are revealed as the overhead backdrop grows blacker. This used to be the King’s Lake House, when the King of Afghanistan was, according to a Terp (Afghan interrupter), the country’s party king. The Marines grab their sleeping bags and head straight for the patio bar. Although closed for decades, they’re hopeful its spirit still survives. And it does! Inexplicably, mysteriously, although exhausted, everyone turns jolly, fun rips out of our dirt-caked skins. With broad smiles, one by one we drift off to sleep in the total blackness and complete silence, the latter broken only occasionally by the thumping blades of a military helicopter high above in the big black with its spotlight stars. I doubt any of us will ever forget the night we slept on the patio floor of the King’s bar. Leatherneck Editor’s note: Stand by for more news from the Afghan front from Stewart. Reporting from Afghanistan Stewart Nusbaumer Leatherneck’s correspondent -Traveling with Embedded Training Teams in Afghanistan |
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