The Taliban Shuffle_ Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan - Kim Barker [20]
“Iraq is like a war,” Crowley told me. “This is like a summer camp.”
And later, he was more serious. “The army doesn’t put a lot of effort into us here,” Crowley said. “It seems like the military as a whole doesn’t care about the welfare of soldiers in Afghanistan. Here, we get a lot more complacent. I don’t ever chamber a round in my rifle anymore. Because I know nothing’s gonna happen.”
How complacent were these troops? They told us we didn’t need to wear our body armor and helmets on patrol, that they weren’t necessary. Everyone complained about how Afghanistan was a “forgotten war.” They even got generic letters about Iraq from troop-supporting strangers back in the United States.
On patrol, I spent time near Crowley because he was so open and easy. Sometimes he talked about his fiancée and his ex-wife. He was leaving the base in a few days for vacation and was getting married in a week. It was an experience I would repeatedly have, where male soldiers, many starved for female company or for a new ear to listen, would tell me things that they shouldn’t necessarily have revealed. Divorce, infidelity, loneliness—they would tell me their secrets and watch me take notes. In return, I would give them nothing—no information about my personal life, my past loves, my own flaws. One soldier in Crowley’s platoon, always an outcast, always teased for not holding his weapon correctly, sat down with the photographer and me in the mess hall one afternoon and spilled out how he never should have joined the army.
“I’m just not the world’s best soldier,” the young man said. “If there’s a way to mess something up, I manage to find it.”
It created a dilemma. I knew that the soldiers might suffer for their indiscretions. But at the same time, some of their indiscretions would be the most powerful stories. With Crowley’s fellow soldier, the one who wasn’t cut out for the army, I chose not to quote him. It was a judgment call. I didn’t want to be responsible for anything bad that might happen.
Being on an embed created other problems, such as being dependent on the very people you wrote about, and naturally wanting them to like you, and wanting the military not to blackball you. The soldiers took care of us. They sent a translator to the market to buy sunglasses and sweaters for us. They were American like me. They reminded me of Montana. They yelled at Afghan men who tried to take my picture with their cell phones. “What would you do if we tried to take a picture of your women?” one soldier said to a smiling Afghan, who snapped the picture anyway.
Regardless of any of this, I wrote the story that was right in front of me—the “forgotten war,” the bored soldiers, feeling left out of the Iraq action, and Crowley, unlocked and unloaded. He left for vacation, to get married, the same day the photographer and I flew back to Bagram Airfield.
The story got a lot of reaction. I realized how carefully everyone read anything about the troops. Through an unspoken agreement, I was expected to leave out the boredom and the fact that Crowley repeatedly was not locked and loaded. I told my critics that I just wrote what I saw. I moved on.
I had no idea what would happen.
CHAPTER 5
ONE WAY OR ANOTHER
In Kabul that spring of 2005, the lack of war was as obvious as the bikinis at the pool of L’Atmosphère, the restaurant of wicker chairs, glass-topped tables, and absurdly priced wine that had become the equivalent of the sitcom Cheers in the Afghan capital. How quiet was it? It was so quiet that an award-winning