Day One

Meet with Col. Fetterman and Maj. Hilferty in the officers' tents, between the main hangar and the flight line. Fetterman has scheduled to meet with me at noon, but he's munching on lunch; so the appointment is pushed back half an hour.

Hilferty walks me over, through the cavernous hangar, under a steel girder the Russians foolishly placed at head-knocking height in a darkened corridor, and out into the tents. I take off my boonie cap as we step to the threshold.

Fetterman gets up from his desk and meets us outside. He's 40, short, solid, with a salt-and-pepper fade and the stiff, no-nonsense bearing of a career military man.

"Hello, sir," says Hilferty.

"Hello, sir," I say.

"Hello."

Handshakes all around.

Fetterman sizes me up with his sad blue eyes.

"It's pretty simple," he says. "You're going to be living with the guys on the QRF [Quick Response Force]. Third battalion is on QRF status, and within that there's also a QRF platoon, under Capt. Cox. We'll be placing you with Capt. Cox. If they go out, you go out."

"Unless it's a special forces mission," Hilferty breaks in.

"Special forces, you won't go out," Fetterman agrees.

I go along with that.

"Most of our enlisted men are 19, 20, 21 years old," Fetterman says. "Most of our NCOs are 23, 24."

I'm not quite sure what Fetterman is getting at. After a pause, he adds, "They're immature. But I can tell you that they're out there every day fighting for our country."

"I know your men, Col. Fetterman. They're great," I assure him. "I'm not trying to embarrass anyone."

"David's not a commie," Maj. Hilferty adds for good measure.

"Do you have any questions? If you do, you know where I am."

A soldier on a gator, a four-wheeled ATV that is very popular in this desert theater, pulls up. I hop in the front seat.

"Did you bring any magazines?" he asks as we drive.

"Unfortunately, no," I say. "I had to pack light." This is my stock response to a question I am asked almost every time I'm introduced as HUSTLER's man in Afghanistan.

"Son of a bitch!" the soldier says.

We pull into Viper City, the main encampment for soldiers on base, and up to a tent with a blue battle flag emblazoned with crossed rifles.

"He didn't bring any magazines," the soldier announces to men lounging around the mouth of the tent. "But I brought him here anyway."

I'm introduced to Capt. Cox., the commander of Alpha company; he's stocky, clean-cut, fresh-faced, with blue eyes and a smart buzz cut that makes him look like a capable soldier.

I get a warm welcome, a cot and an introduction to 1st Sgt. Lyle Walcott, who occupies the cot next to me. He's tall, gangly, loose-limbed, and he wears a buzz cut, of course. Before long, I might submit my own shaggy head to the clippers.

The first thing Walcott does is introduce me to his M-4 rifle.

"That's my baby," he says. He pulls out the magazine. The first three rounds are tracers.

"That's so if we come under fire, I can say to my men, 'The enemy is right...there,'" he says, pantomiming a pulled trigger. The last three rounds are tracers as well.

"So I know when I'm out of ammo. It's an old hand's trick."

He passes me the weapon. I shoulder the rifle, squint down the sight. It feels good. It's got a scope with a laser viewfinder that makes every soldier in the company a crack shot. "I can't wait to take you out to the range," Walcott says.

The tent is troubled by the wind, which has been blowing incessantly for weeks.

We set up in the anteroom, where Capt. Cox keeps boxes of ammo, crates of hand grenades and 40 mm rounds for the grenade launchers, and watch Blade 2, a Ninja/commando vampire flick. A cloud of dust blows through the tent like a ghost. Later, from outside, a voice calls out, "Incoming!" A second cloud drifts through, in the front door, out the back.

I've been sitting on a cot next to a soldier, who glances over at me nervously from time to time. I wonder if he's bothered that I'm sitting on his cot. After the movie, I get up to go to bed, and his hand shoots over and grabs his rifle. I was sitting between him and his gun.

6.29.02

Sgt. Warren, a Ranger, wakes me at 5:30 to go running with his platoon. I've been expecting this.

Outside in the dirt, we stretch. The guys all have their weapons, M-4s. One very large soldier humps the SAW, a heavy machine gun. We walk out to the road and everyone breaks into a sprint. I sprint with them and try to keep up a conversation with Sgt. Warren.

After about a mile, we stop, and a soldier unfurls a stretcher with no poles. The slowest guy in the platoon (a small, Thai guy with an equipment problem--his shoe) gets in.

Six guys carry him. We jog very slowly back down. Why are we going so slow? I'm ready to run.

"You want to get in on this, Dave?" Sgt Warren asks.

I grab a rung and fall into step with the guys. After about 30 seconds, I can no longer feel my hand. The fucking Thai guy weighs a ton.

6/31/2002 2:36:15 PM

In the mess tent in Viper City, a morale-boosting speech from Col. Fetterman. And a morale-boosting meal: steak.

Outside I'd overheard a soldier talking to Fetterman.

"Don't you remember about that Larry Flynt lawsuit?"

Is the soldier warning Fetterman that I'm not to be trusted?

I sit down to eat with a sniper. He has more important things on his mind than war.

"Got to get a tan for the ladies back home," he says.

"That's a high priority."

"Number one."

Fetterman: "Right now a lot of you guys are wondering when we're going home. And to be honest with you, I don't know. I really don't. I've been hearing mid August, which is the same thing I've been hearing from the very beginning. But I can tell you that this war is not over. You've been here a long time. You've been doing a great job. You've been out on missions, and you've done exactly what was expected from you. Expect a couple more ops. But while you're waiting, don't do anything stupid. I know you guys know there's alcohol up here. Just stay away from it. Listen to your NCOs, keep doing a good job, and we'll get you all home. Are there any questions?"

One soldier raises his hand.

"Colonel Fetterman, sir, where's that liquor at?"

7/1/2002 9:55:07 PM

Today I read Heart of Darkness and Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, which I thought was a sham. I ran hard; that felt great.

Today, the guys watched Training Day and Face Off and South Park Two and that Bruce Willis movie, incredibly stupid, that takes place at a German prisoner of war camp.

Capt. Cox is checking and cleaning his weapon, snapping the bolt back, then pulling out a pair of pins, and dismantling it. He cleans the blue steel bolt with a cloth, then a spring-loaded slide, then puts it all back together, pops in a magazine, snaps back the bolt, flicks on the safety and puts the weapon aside, satisfied. I think it's very hard for guys to be pacifists with guns like that around.

Foot powder is common in the tent, and indispensable in this heat. One soldier hangs a photo of a family, cut into a heart, above his bunk. He has a Satanic-looking tattoo of a goat on his pectorals.

It's late, 10:19 p.m. In the next tent over, the guys are hollering, laughing.

"Prairie dogs? Prairie dogs will kick your ass." Laughter. Happiness.

This tent's occupants are almost all asleep, except for one guy who's been reading Stephen King all day and all night, and is making steady headway in the 800-page book. The medic is also awake, doing nothing, staring out into space. He's also covered in tattoos. He's a staunch Republican, who got the hell out of his native Boston because he couldn't stand the liberal politics and found a home in Kansas City. He's mellow, earnest, straightforward, quiet and calm.

Down at the end, two black troopers bunk next to each other; one fixes his Walkman for sleep.

The tent is dominated by the color green in the lower altitudes-- green cots, jungle camo bags and liners, jungle camp packs, radio packs--and by yellow in the ceiling, beige on the floor, plywood planks knocked together and covered in a thick coat of dust. Dust blows in continually, fine, like talcum powder, and inescapable.

7/2/2002 9:24:56 PM

Today we watched American Pie, Resident Evil and now, a Schwartzenegger film is playing next door.

I don't know what it's called, but I can pick up Arnold's lines from the other room: "We'll catch some terrorists, beat the crap out of them and feel a hell of a lot better."

And later: "I'm starting to like this guy. But we still got to kill him. I mean, that's a given."

Resident Evil, I hate to confess, I liked, what with the apocalyptic subject matter, and the beautiful Mila, in the red dress/miniskirt and black Nancy Sinatra boots, the trained killer who's forgotten how to kill, and only picks it up as she goes along.

"Now there's only one hottie left," laments a soldier.

The guys in this tent are quiet, not depressive, but subdued by the presence of the commanding officers. 1st Sergeant is E-8, very high rank for an enlisted man, trumped only be Sergeant Major, the highest rank an NCO can attain. They can only be busted down by an act of Congress.

I pick up some desultory conversation:

"You got a sticker on your ass. A sticker...on your ass."

The guy twists around and looks.

"I do."

Our tent seems especially quiet next to the rowdy tent next door. They're fully formed as rowdies, hecklers, laughers, jokers, wrasslers.

Tonight: "Good night. I love you."

"I love you."

"Puerto Rican? Bullshit!"

Over in this tent, Erik, from Wisconsin, is covered in his combat shell. The tall shaved head with the goat tat on his chest is writing. He's been reading Stephen King for two days straight. A tall tough guy with a blond buzz cut is playing a Game Boy with an extended arm light. An entire squad of soldiers, with buzz cuts, Army shirts and gray shorts, have laptop computers and DVDs running all day. The routine is well established. Resident Evil got watched twice.

I've been thinking about how hard it is to oppose the military, since they're so nice. I chatted with Gen. Dan McNeill. He's in charge of this whole operation in Afghanistan. Today he had to fly to Kabul to talk to Karzai about the errant US bombs that the Afghans say killed 40 people in Uruzgan. England's Defensive Secretary, Geoff Hoon, was also around to talk to the British troops. McNeill talked about the natural beauty of the place. I said it was like Colorado. He said it was more like eastern Montana. He said he had a deployment in Montana in 1975, and many of his men had never seen snow before. They were from Florida. He told me about growing up in North Carolina.

He said, "Hoon got off easy."

"Being a parliamentarian toughens you up," I said. "You ever watch them on C-Span? Getting hooted at toughens you up."

"I'm glad I'm not the only American who watched those things Sunday night on C-Span." he said. "Not that I favor C-Span above any other broadcast outlet, but they do run those parliamentary debates."

Today was mail day. Letters from home. And then, back to the movies. The insularity is total. The men have no contact with Afghans. It is not the job of the QRF to understand Afghanistan. The mission is to respond, quickly, with force and straighten out whatever mess needs straightening.

7/3/2002 9:44:54 PM

A robot on two plastic treads comes into the tent, rolls over shoes, pulls my sleeping bag onto the ground. A cap put in front of the eyeball. The intruder is remote controlled from another tent.

Today: Tomb Raider, South Park, U 571, Bring It On and Liar Liar.

Today, reports of fire on a US caravan. One American injured.

Julio gave me a haircut.

The dust storm continued. We swept out the tent in the a.m., and there's a layer of dust already.

Haircut too short.

Gun talk. Anger about the shooting in Los Angeles International Airport.

Bitch talk.

No noise from next door.

Watching Varsity Blues, one soldier is publicly gassy. He rips one after another.

"I sure farted," he says with a faked Southern accent.

"You sure did," I tell him.

7/4/2002 9:05:13 AM

The Fourth of July.

Here at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. I woke up in a the QRF tent with fourteen American soldiers, infantrymen. It's a yellow tent that eddies with the wind like it's underwater, pushed and bothered by currents. Some of the guys are still sleeping. Their gear is all packed and ready to go. They're watching that moronic South Park movie for the third time in three days on a laptop at the far end.

A soldier woke me up with an hour to go before the 5k. I laid in bed for almost an hour, then popped up and ran to the starting line. It was only at the starting line, milling around with a few hundred soldiers, that I realized that today is the Fourth of July. Without a word, or a sound, the race started. I sprinted the first 100 meters, which tired me out. And then I was sucking down the first straight-away, cramping, getting passed, having a bad race. The whole thing hurt, from start to finish. We bent around on a dirt road past the laundry, passed the back hangar, to the flight line. Up past the Apaches, up the straight-away. I kept my head down, just ran my race. Looked at the pockmarks on the asphalt from the fighting, from rocket rounds falling back to earth. Saw a bright new brass shell casing, probably from an M60, door gunner. Up to the British compound, then back down Disney to the finish line. I did manage to end strong after all, passing people on the way to the finish. 24:50. Could have been worse.

At the finish line, I asked who won. It was a Brit. In 16 minutes.

"Colonel Fetterman, A Brit winning on the Fourth of July? Say it ain't so."

"He'll be disqualified," Fetterman said.

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