Tag Archives: Paktika

An Embed Revisited

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You and your fear are fenced in together. Nowhere to run to (Photo: Loesche)

A week after our return to Germany I’m still pretty knackered. Our embed with the Apaches in the dusty country called Afghanistan just lingers there, hasn’t completely sunk in yet. It was a physical and mental challenge, bigger than I had anticipated.

For now, I have found refuge in the microcosm of the work office, where things are orderly and clean and predictable. This is the settling back into “normal” life, the Western world wants the Afghans so desperately to share with us.

I like being back in Germany where people stand for five minutes at the red lights at the pedestrian crossing even though there are no cars to be seen for miles. On the other hand, I hear, the army sends their soldiers to some Mediterranean resorts to decompress for a week. I could have lived through that, no question!

Dust
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The Challenge

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A so called MRAP standing just outside Sar Howza on the day we visited the former girls school. I like this one, because it has a somewhat deceptive feel of tranquility to it (Photo: Heimken)

Afghanistan must be one of the most challenged countries in the world, at least the parts we got to see. This is by no means the fault of the general populace, but there are powers hard at work keeping this country down – they’re not just foreigners.

As Staff Sergeant Meredith of Apache Company 2-28 said, there are many men in powerful positions, who are not interested in educating their subjects out of fear they might start to want a piece of the pie.

War as a way of life
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The Way Back

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Finally, the full V.I.P. treatment on our way back through Sharana (Photo: Loesche)

Meanwhile, Axel and I are back in Kabul. We arrived here yesterday at the military part of the airport. We are scheduled to fly on tomorrow in the morning to Dubai. The further we get from our embed, the more we wind down. Now, that we have some time to gather our thoughts, we slowly realise how exhausting this journey really was.

Three weeks were plenty.

We left the COP Sar Howza late on Saturday after we had the encounter with the mullah and mujahedeen Tuti. We were driven to the 172nd’s headquarters by MRAP convoy to Sharana and got there at around 22.00. The brigade’s PAO Major Buccino was waiting for us. He showed us our rooms. I was lucky to get room V.I.P. 2 this time. (About time. Buccino had been promising us the whole V.I.P. treatment since we first got here!).

In the news
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Western Perceptions

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How to sell agricultural lessons. Teachers at Mata Khan boys highschool (Photo: Heimken)

Today, we first drove to Sharana and then on to Mata Khan, a much smaller combat outpost than Sar Howsa. I had fun listening to Frank Sinatra, Black Sabbath and some country tunes on our way over via an iPod connected to the intercom.

Mata Khan is home to the 1st Platoon of Captain Perkins Apache Company 2-28. The country side surrounding it is completely flat, unlike the Sar Howza region. Although it’s only about 15 to 20 kilometers away, the climate feels different too. It’s much warmer, at least 15 degrees Celsius more.

There’s much more arable land here. We drove past some really impressive castle like Qalats, big square compounds with high mud walls and small turrets on each corner. I guess they reflect the mentality of the people living in this region. Everybody who is wealthy enough protects their fortunes out of sight. Their home really is their castle here.

It might be a testament to the fact that there is no centralised authority, called the nation state that has vowed to protect private property and enforce sanctions against people who don’t respect that right. By now there are such institutions in place in Afghanistan, but they are young and not welcome by everyone. The province of Paktika is known for being stubbornly anti-government.

Hate the state
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School Patrol

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The deserted compound of a girls school in Sar Howza (Photo: Heimken)

After we went on patrol to the bazaar on the outskirts of Sar Howza on Monday, 3rd Platoon took us out to what used to be a girls school today. We got the usual briefing by the mortar pit before leaving. The school is infamous for having Taliban graffiti sprawled over the inside.

Apart from being told to watch out for IEDs by the graveyard the guys were warned by Lieutenant Wood and Staff Sergeant Nuñez not to get pissed off if the kids started pelting them with rocks again.

If the Afghan police who were to join the parade started firing in the air to scare off the youngsters, then so be it. This was there country. The soldiers were told not to hand out any presents. It hadn’t worked out last time, added Wood.

The Graveyard
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One Tree Hill and the Kuchis

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Specialist Gloria from Michigan looking out towards One Tree Hill near the village of Gulridin (Foto: Loesche)

Today, we went out on a mission for the first time since we got here. Lieutenant Chad Christian, 24, from Alabama took us with him in his MRAP to see for ourselves what Captain Perkins and his two platoons had accomplished on a previous five day mission.

A convoy of MRAPs and some Afghan National Police vehicles drove down the asphalted street to Gulridin where a check point by the street and two observation posts high above up in the hills had been set up.

Half way we stopped.

Suddenly the gunner in the turret fired a volley of shots from his machine gun. Empty cartridges tumbled into the air conditioned armoured truck. Shots were going off in front and behind us. The Police had dismounted from their pickup trucks and shot their AKs.

It was a test firing exercise, shortly before we reached the end of the asphalted road. Perkins told me yesterday: “The insurgency starts where the asphalted road ends”. Todsay’s mission was to further fortify the check point to be manned by the ANP – to build a shelter for the police.

While some of the guys started unloading building materials from the cargo truck Axel and I followed Lieutenant Christian up the hill. On the way, we met Staff Sergeant Neal Nuñez, 33, from Los Angeles of 3rd platoon 2-28.

One Tree Hill

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Soiree with Rice

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Dinner at the police chief"s compound (Photo: Heimken)

“I’m so full, I can’t breathe when sitting down“. That was my commentary after our first adventure outside the wire.

I had just finished my last blog entry when Axel turned up behind me at the computer booth with a piece of news: He had talked to Captain Perkins and we were invited to join him and two of his lieutenants for a meal with the local police chief in an hours time!

The problem was that we only just had dinner. Two man size burritos with loads of meat and sauce and rice. My first thought was that I couldn’t possibly go have a meal with Afghan dignitaries with the imminent danger of throwing up.

I went back to our hut and lay down to digest the burritos and prepare for some goats meat.
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Jokes on the Radio

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The Afghan DJ in his studio in the combat outpost Sar Howza (Photo: Heimken)

Today, we did an interesting story on an Afghan DJ who runs a radio station on camp, for the population outside the wire. The station was set up by ISAF. Interestingly Iranian music seems to be all the hype. It’s what the 20-year-old plays a lot.

Apart from playing music he also reads out news he gets from the 3-66 Battalion headquarters in Sharana and he reads out jokes every now and then. It must be hard for him living on base with all the Americans, the only company he has are the interpreters working for the unit.

Lobster and Steak

Captain Perkins and his two platoons came back inside the wire, the outpost, from their five day mission yesterday evening. The company’s cook made them a special welcome meal – lobster and steak – to greet the men that were living without showers and good food for almost a week.
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Travel Pt. IV – Sharana to Sar Howza

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Veranda in the Foward Operating Base Sharana (Photo: Loesche)

We slept in. I got up at 8.30 a.m. Axel and I had breakfast and prepared for our over land travel to Sar Howza. We were driven to the headquarter barracks of 3-66 Battalion and met the commander Lieutenant Colonel Curtis Taylor from Texas in charge of the western part of Paktika province.

We were briefed on the activity in our area and how the war was going in general. The most interesting point he made was that the structure or make-up of the insurgent force was changing. Taylor said that there was a split occurring within the movement.

The older generation of fighters who had joined the mujahedin in the 1980s to fight the Russians was retiring. Incoming were young more radical fighters from Pakistan who Taylor described as a more thuggish type of insurgent who unlike the older generation had less respect for the general populous and wouldn’t care for civilian casualties.

Just after we had our chat in Taylor’s office we met Lieutenant Wolfsley who was going to take us with him to the combat outpost some 10 kilometres from Sharana. The drive would take us 30 minutes.

We were relieved to hear that the threat of an attack wasn’t that great. The road to Sar Howza was paved, which means the insurgents couldn’t bury pressure plates to set off roadside bombs. All the military vehicles also have so called jamming devices which block any attempt to detonate explosive devices via mobile phones.

MRAPs

Four huge Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs) were waiting for us. Axel got into one, I into another. I drove in the last vehicle under the command of Staff Sergeant Travis Colter, 26, from South Carolina and three other soldiers.
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In those vehicles you feel like driving in a submarine with wheels. They are stuffed full of electronic equipment from radios to fire extinguishers. The armour that protects the passengers from anything from gun rounds, rocket propelled grenades to roadside bombs is probably more than 10 cm thick.

Beef Jerky

I handed out some beef jerky to break the ice. We rolled past a rugged semi-desert landscape. All traffic that came our way from motor cycles with men with black turbans to battered cars and colourfully painted trucks loaded with firewood stopped ahead of the convoy pulling up by the roadside to let the MRAPs pass.

Somehow the trip was less nerve racking than I thought it would be. After 35 minutes we reached Sar Howza without any incident. When we entered the home of Apache Company 2-28 we had after four days of travel reached our final destination for the trip – some 8300 feet (2700 meters) above sea level.

Travel Pt. II Kabul to Bagram

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We boarded the C-130 Hercules at around 4.30 a.m. Our first military flight in Afghanistan. The palette with our luggage had just been loaded into the plane (Photo: Heimken)

The flight yesterday to Bagram – well, we didn’t make it. It didn’t take passengers after all – cargo only. The flight after that one – well we weren’t that lucky, they couldn’t take the usual pay load – it was too hot (I don’t know how the correlation works out). So we dropped off the low priority list for the flight: It’s all persons military first, then contractors, then journalists.

At the end of the day we were able to sign up for a 9:40 p.m. flight. We checked our luggage in and were sitting in the terminal watching the Boston Red Sox play on a flat screen. The lady from behind the check-in desk came into the waiting area and announced that due to maintenance work on the runway the flight was going to be delayed six hours.

We grabbed our sleeping bags out of our luggage which already had been put on a pallet ready for transport. Although this is a military airfield the terminal works in principle like any other airport, everybody still has to put their luggage through scanning, which seems a bit strange, because most soldiers travel with their guns at their side.

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