Letter from Kabul......
I stay in touch with many people from my days of service in the Army. One of those is my old company commander in the 25th Infantry Division, Bill Schofield. In one of the strangest coincidences of my life I first ran into Bill in civilian life in mid town Manhattan four years after I resigned from the army. I was waiting for an elevator in a very large office building. When the elevator door opened, there was Bill, the only person getting off, while I was the only one getting on. I think it shocked us both. Since that time Bill has been with the U.S. State Deptartment and has advanced to Senior Attache, now stationed in Kabul, Afghanistan for a two year tour. While in Santa Fe, I got an email from him. I thought you might like to read excerpts.
-----------------------====Letter from Kabul=====--------------------------
"I have been in Afghanistan just over two months now and wanted to say hello and pass along some observations you might find interesting.
I arrived August 29 on a flight from Baku. Once we passed over the Caspian Sea, the landscape turned brown and we flew over one ridgeline after another until we reached Kabul. Mountains surround the city. There is almost no greenery. Dust covers everything. On a clear day, the mountains are spectacular, even a little snow on top of some. When it is dusty, however, you cannot see all of them and the sun is dim.
The embassy is a construction site inside of a firebase. We work in the old embassy building. Next to it, we are building a new, six-story embassy and an apartment building. They are scheduled to open summer 2005. A wall topped by concertina surrounds everything and there are guard towers on the corners. A Marine rifle company secures the embassy. We also have some civilian “shooters” and Ghurkas. Most people now live in CAFÉ (compound across from embassy) across the street. It is several rows of white “houches” - renovated shipping containers, a dining facility, and a few offices surrounded by a wall with wire on top. It looks like an upscale POW camp or prison.
Living is much better than I had anticipated. Some people have even started to wear ties to work. The work-week is Thursday through Sunday. The “hooches” are comfortable; there is TV, a gym, and a track. There is time to read or study Dari. The food is good, but aimed at a 19-year old Marine. In the dining room next to the Marine barracks you can get all the meat and fries you want. The troops lean their weapons against the wall and watch sports or action movies on a big screen TV during meals.
Kabul is a congested, bustling city. It suffered a lot of damage in the fighting after 1989. The streets are torn up and buildings damaged. About 2m refugees and displaced persons came here in the past two years, so the infrastructure is over-taxed. The city is full of little shops with good-looking fruit and vegetables. There are quite a few brick office buildings and blocks of six-story Soviet-style apartments. Some large, luxurious homes are springing up, allegedly owned by drug dealers. Most smaller houses and shops are made from mud bricks. They cover the sides of the hills, as well as downtown. Traffic is heavy, a combination of little yellow and black taxis, Toyota Landcruisers that the foreigners drive, big, brightly painted trucks and buses, military vehicles, horses, little donkeys, and the occasional camel. Since Ramadan started, it has gotten worse as people often go home around noon
Security is an overriding concern. ISAF, the NATO-led force, patrols in and around Kabul. The day I arrived, a car bomb exploded at an office in downtown Kabul and killed a dozen people, including three Americans. Since then, we have not been able to go to stores or restaurants. We can go to work-related meetings and there are bazaars on Friday at military compounds. In Kabul, you can drive without protection. If you go outside the city, military or civilian “shooters” must accompany you and you wear a flak jacket in some places. Occasionally, the Taliban or their associates fire rockets at the city. These old, inaccurate Soviet weapons have not hit near the embassy or, fortunately, populated areas of the city. You can hear the explosions, then sirens sound and you go to the bunker until the all clear. The bunker is a building protected with sandbags and other barriers.
I get out almost every day and have had the chance to travel outside of Kabul. A few weeks ago, a couple of us went to Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan toward the border with Pakistan. We flew in a small Beechcraft over the mountains and then down a green valley to the airstrip. We stayed with a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), a military unit composed of a civil affairs team, a security force, and representatives of State, USAID, and sometimes the Agriculture Department. A PRT is designed to strengthen security in the countryside and do some civic action work. This PRT had a company from the Iowa National Guard, some elements from Utah, and a Marine company. Within the city – Jbad to the troops – a couple of soldiers went with us. When we drove an hour east of the city, we traveled in five Humvees with 20 Marines.
The drive along the main east-west road was fascinating. It was a combination of new truck stops and scenes right out of the Bible: brown desert broken up by green areas; small donkeys carrying wood or pulling carts; mud huts surrounded by walls; a group of Kuchi nomads and their camels in the distance. On the way back after our meetings, we ran into a stand off over land between two families. They had faced off about one hundred yards apart, blocking the road. One man was wounded and evacuated in a new, silver taxi. We dismounted and waited until this ended. Everyone along the road was friendly and resigned to the delay.
A few weeks later, we went to Parwan, north of Kabul, for a DDR (disarm/demobilize/reintegrate) meeting with the governor and local militia commanders, the polite word for warlord. This group was part of the Northern Alliance that had fought the Soviets and then the Taliban. They had recently agreed to turn in their weapons and return to civilian life. After the meeting, the commander invited about 50 of us to lunch at his headquarters in an old Soviet base. He had a few hundred mujahideen (fighters) in formation for a ceremony. Someone sang a few verses from the Koran, the commander gave a speech, and then we had lunch of rice, lamb, chicken, and nan (bread). There were forks for the foreigners, but most ate with their fingers and nan.
The elections October 9 had been our focus for a couple of months. I went to Peshawar in the Frontier Province in Pakistan to observe voting in the refugee camps. I do not want to seem too much of a Pollyanna, but it was very impressive. There was a good turn out and everything was organized. A lot of young men, old men right out of central casting, and quite a few women voted. There were separate polling stations for men and women. Some women did not want people to know they had voted and asked the poll workers to put the ink they used to mark the fingers of voters only on the inside of their thumbs. It took courage for women in some places to vote. There were problems with the election, as the media reported, but overall I think it was a major success. We all expected some efforts by the Taliban to disrupt the voting, but they did nothing. Still a long way to go in stabilizing Afghanistan, but this was a good step.
A few of the addressees on this message served 30+ years ago in the 35th. Infantry, 25th. Infantry Division. TF CACTI, 2/35 Infantry, now operates in Paktika Province south of Kabul. MG Olson, CG, 25th Div, commands TF 76, the US force that chases the Taliban. I sat in on his briefing a week or so ago on security for the elections. The soldiers still refer to the “Tropic Lightening” patch as the “Electric Strawberry.” It was odd to see that patch on desert camouflage rather than the old green jungle uniform. These soldiers and Marines are a bunch of good young men and women doing a sometimes dangerous job a long way from home.
I hope this message finds you well. I look forward to seeing you when I get home.
Bill"
I stay in touch with many people from my days of service in the Army. One of those is my old company commander in the 25th Infantry Division, Bill Schofield. In one of the strangest coincidences of my life I first ran into Bill in civilian life in mid town Manhattan four years after I resigned from the army. I was waiting for an elevator in a very large office building. When the elevator door opened, there was Bill, the only person getting off, while I was the only one getting on. I think it shocked us both. Since that time Bill has been with the U.S. State Deptartment and has advanced to Senior Attache, now stationed in Kabul, Afghanistan for a two year tour. While in Santa Fe, I got an email from him. I thought you might like to read excerpts.
-----------------------====Letter from Kabul=====--------------------------
"I have been in Afghanistan just over two months now and wanted to say hello and pass along some observations you might find interesting.
I arrived August 29 on a flight from Baku. Once we passed over the Caspian Sea, the landscape turned brown and we flew over one ridgeline after another until we reached Kabul. Mountains surround the city. There is almost no greenery. Dust covers everything. On a clear day, the mountains are spectacular, even a little snow on top of some. When it is dusty, however, you cannot see all of them and the sun is dim.
The embassy is a construction site inside of a firebase. We work in the old embassy building. Next to it, we are building a new, six-story embassy and an apartment building. They are scheduled to open summer 2005. A wall topped by concertina surrounds everything and there are guard towers on the corners. A Marine rifle company secures the embassy. We also have some civilian “shooters” and Ghurkas. Most people now live in CAFÉ (compound across from embassy) across the street. It is several rows of white “houches” - renovated shipping containers, a dining facility, and a few offices surrounded by a wall with wire on top. It looks like an upscale POW camp or prison.
Living is much better than I had anticipated. Some people have even started to wear ties to work. The work-week is Thursday through Sunday. The “hooches” are comfortable; there is TV, a gym, and a track. There is time to read or study Dari. The food is good, but aimed at a 19-year old Marine. In the dining room next to the Marine barracks you can get all the meat and fries you want. The troops lean their weapons against the wall and watch sports or action movies on a big screen TV during meals.
Kabul is a congested, bustling city. It suffered a lot of damage in the fighting after 1989. The streets are torn up and buildings damaged. About 2m refugees and displaced persons came here in the past two years, so the infrastructure is over-taxed. The city is full of little shops with good-looking fruit and vegetables. There are quite a few brick office buildings and blocks of six-story Soviet-style apartments. Some large, luxurious homes are springing up, allegedly owned by drug dealers. Most smaller houses and shops are made from mud bricks. They cover the sides of the hills, as well as downtown. Traffic is heavy, a combination of little yellow and black taxis, Toyota Landcruisers that the foreigners drive, big, brightly painted trucks and buses, military vehicles, horses, little donkeys, and the occasional camel. Since Ramadan started, it has gotten worse as people often go home around noon
Security is an overriding concern. ISAF, the NATO-led force, patrols in and around Kabul. The day I arrived, a car bomb exploded at an office in downtown Kabul and killed a dozen people, including three Americans. Since then, we have not been able to go to stores or restaurants. We can go to work-related meetings and there are bazaars on Friday at military compounds. In Kabul, you can drive without protection. If you go outside the city, military or civilian “shooters” must accompany you and you wear a flak jacket in some places. Occasionally, the Taliban or their associates fire rockets at the city. These old, inaccurate Soviet weapons have not hit near the embassy or, fortunately, populated areas of the city. You can hear the explosions, then sirens sound and you go to the bunker until the all clear. The bunker is a building protected with sandbags and other barriers.
I get out almost every day and have had the chance to travel outside of Kabul. A few weeks ago, a couple of us went to Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan toward the border with Pakistan. We flew in a small Beechcraft over the mountains and then down a green valley to the airstrip. We stayed with a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), a military unit composed of a civil affairs team, a security force, and representatives of State, USAID, and sometimes the Agriculture Department. A PRT is designed to strengthen security in the countryside and do some civic action work. This PRT had a company from the Iowa National Guard, some elements from Utah, and a Marine company. Within the city – Jbad to the troops – a couple of soldiers went with us. When we drove an hour east of the city, we traveled in five Humvees with 20 Marines.
The drive along the main east-west road was fascinating. It was a combination of new truck stops and scenes right out of the Bible: brown desert broken up by green areas; small donkeys carrying wood or pulling carts; mud huts surrounded by walls; a group of Kuchi nomads and their camels in the distance. On the way back after our meetings, we ran into a stand off over land between two families. They had faced off about one hundred yards apart, blocking the road. One man was wounded and evacuated in a new, silver taxi. We dismounted and waited until this ended. Everyone along the road was friendly and resigned to the delay.
A few weeks later, we went to Parwan, north of Kabul, for a DDR (disarm/demobilize/reintegrate) meeting with the governor and local militia commanders, the polite word for warlord. This group was part of the Northern Alliance that had fought the Soviets and then the Taliban. They had recently agreed to turn in their weapons and return to civilian life. After the meeting, the commander invited about 50 of us to lunch at his headquarters in an old Soviet base. He had a few hundred mujahideen (fighters) in formation for a ceremony. Someone sang a few verses from the Koran, the commander gave a speech, and then we had lunch of rice, lamb, chicken, and nan (bread). There were forks for the foreigners, but most ate with their fingers and nan.
The elections October 9 had been our focus for a couple of months. I went to Peshawar in the Frontier Province in Pakistan to observe voting in the refugee camps. I do not want to seem too much of a Pollyanna, but it was very impressive. There was a good turn out and everything was organized. A lot of young men, old men right out of central casting, and quite a few women voted. There were separate polling stations for men and women. Some women did not want people to know they had voted and asked the poll workers to put the ink they used to mark the fingers of voters only on the inside of their thumbs. It took courage for women in some places to vote. There were problems with the election, as the media reported, but overall I think it was a major success. We all expected some efforts by the Taliban to disrupt the voting, but they did nothing. Still a long way to go in stabilizing Afghanistan, but this was a good step.
A few of the addressees on this message served 30+ years ago in the 35th. Infantry, 25th. Infantry Division. TF CACTI, 2/35 Infantry, now operates in Paktika Province south of Kabul. MG Olson, CG, 25th Div, commands TF 76, the US force that chases the Taliban. I sat in on his briefing a week or so ago on security for the elections. The soldiers still refer to the “Tropic Lightening” patch as the “Electric Strawberry.” It was odd to see that patch on desert camouflage rather than the old green jungle uniform. These soldiers and Marines are a bunch of good young men and women doing a sometimes dangerous job a long way from home.
I hope this message finds you well. I look forward to seeing you when I get home.
Bill"
