Sergeant Godsmack vs. Nazar

27 March 2012

PTSD is a serious problem.  Suicides by veterans happen many times per day, every day.  At best, PTSD can degrade the quality of life of veterans and their families.  At worst, unmanaged, the human toll is incalculable.

Other problems with “military PTSD:”

1) PTSD for profit: Disability payments.  Profiteers learn the symptoms, mimic, and then get paid, often for life.  Most symptoms are self-reported, in response to interview questions by military or Veterans Administration (VA) psychologists.  Chaplains also serve as a resource.  The PTSD mockingbirds, the fakes, often sing to chaplains, to establish a precedent for later favorable diagnosis.

2) Dueling Scar PTSD: Long before the recent wars, many people “suffered” from PTSD as if it were a dueling scar. “PTSD” was evidence that they had “been there.”  Rambo had “PTSD,” and wannabes needed it, too.

Dueling scar

Dueling scars were fashionable early in the last century in places like Germany and Austria.  Many were real, the result of genuine duels, or academic duels.  The cult of the scar was so compelling that a market emerged for anti-cosmetic surgery to create them.  Stuffing scars with horsehair made them even more disfiguring.  Dueling scars were supposed to be seen. Everybody knows that chicks dig scars.

A psychologist at a VA facility who treats PTSD reviewed this dispatch and commented, “You can also see this in VA hospitals where some veterans seemingly embrace the PTSD diagnosis (legitimate or self-diagnosed…) like being part of an elite club. There is overlap with the service compensation seekers but there is an identity factor independent of secondary gain that seems to drive certain individuals.”

3) PTSD as justification/excuse/alibi: “Yes, your honor, I beat my wife. And I wrecked my car with a bottle of whiskey in my gut. I have PTSD.” “What did you do in the Army?” “I was a cook.” “Were you in combat?” “The sirens from the rocket attacks still ring in my head.”

4) PTSD as Negative Brand: Nobody wants this. True case: a war correspondent wrote that two generals needed to be fired. In order to squelch bad press, or to make sense of unpleasant assertions, many people said (accused, really) that the writer had “PTSD.”  They said that he had “been in war zones for too long,” and that he was “crazy.”  (But then both generals were fired). The false branding was a handy tool to discredit an unwelcome messenger. Unfortunately, there is a persistent negative bias against soldiers, or anyone, really, who has PTSD.  This is the scar that chicks do not dig.

Veterans with authentic PTSD know about shunning. Those with legitimate diagnoses often display opposite behavior from the Dueling Scar crowd: they try to conceal their honorable wounds. Their symptoms are not what they wish to flaunt, but what many times they cannot hide.  Their memories are not what they want to remember, but what they cannot forget.

Man in Bangladesh who was attacked by a tiger in late 2011. He never smiled during our conversation.

For some people, one serious bomb or firefight overfills their cup.  They actually seem to crack. It is like they snap. One day they are fine, and the next, they are different. Maybe they will regroup. Maybe not.

Others who experience the same event, and sometimes dozens more, keep going.  They draw current like a battery.  Some are like rechargeable batteries, and they seem to lose chargeability over time.  I saw an entire American platoon in Afghanistan that kept doing very dangerous missions, but you could tell that they were spent. I saw a British platoon with a similar feel.

Everybody has limits.  Some crack like eggshells, and others seem hard like diamonds. All will splinter under sufficient instant pressure, or wear down over time with persistent mental abrasion.

PTSD is also a big business for “patients” on the scam, and for doctors, both honest and not. The disorder has become a “slip and fall” con for our generation, but with a hint of “Agent Orange.”  One side can make a credible claim, then the swindlers pile on, and our government does not want to pay for any of it.

Troops have a motive to “get” PTSD, while the military is incentivized to diagnose a “pre-existing personality disorder.”

From our psychologist friend: “I often hear about individuals being med-boarded out for post-trauma psychiatric problems that are mislabeled Personality Disorder NOS, but I do not hear about this mislabeling as much in regards to denied service compensation claims for veterans. Usually, you see insufficient evidence for the diagnosis, the problems are better explained by a comorbid psychiatric condition or the examiner is unable to link the PTSD to a service-related incident if there are other significant traumatic events in the life of the claimant.”

Unfortunately, veterans with legitimate diagnoses of PTSD can end up excluded from treatment. There is vigorous debate in Washington on this matter. During a March 2012 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, the issue was specifically raised.

Aside from the political and economic dramas surrounding PTSD, authentic and fictional stress can have disquieting legal and social consequences. The effects of bona fide PTSD can echo through generations, when a parent is psychologically and emotionally damaged (often with substance abuse issues).  Children suffer diminished parents, with adverse repercussions that can impact subsequent generations.  Suicide is epidemic.

New road facing away from Panjwai to Kandahar City: Auto accidents are the primary cause of PTSD in America, yet we do not expect survivors to go shooting up the neighborhood.

According to our psychologist: “Many people don’t seem to get that PTSD is not a ‘thing’; it is a constellation of symptoms that exists on a continuum and in certain combinations, intensities and frequencies, surpass an arbitrary threshold to meet diagnostic criteria. PTSD means one’s symptoms are severe enough to create impairment in function and warrant the diagnosis. Those who cross the line into the diagnostic zone vary incredibly from highly functional and dealing with significant, silent internal turmoil to total, dysfunctional train wrecks.

“The train wrecks often have a complex trauma history, legitimate personality disorders (not the kind the military dishes out on DD-214s), comorbid conditions or just really severely disabling genuine PTSD.

“It is not a synonym for crazy, unstable, etc. Not to say someone swerving off the road because the dead armadillo suddenly has a bomb stuffed in it and the terrified driver in a moment confuses past with present appears to be a dangerous lunatic to others…yes, these things happen sometimes but these moments are usually very brief.  Even when I hear about reactive acts of violence when trauma triggers occur, it is almost always a spontaneous, immediate response to a (mis)perceived threat, not a sequence of calculated behaviors that result in a spree of violence.”

Outpost in Panjwai

Every sane person is a psychologist. Tuning into ourselves and to others is an essential survival skill, though many of us believe that we are better psychologists, or more informed, than we really are.

To whit, less than a day after the Panjwai 17 massacre, before the suspect was named, we began debating whether or not he suffers from PTSD. The public did not know, and still does not know, whether the accused even committed the murders, or if he acted alone. The public certainly does not realize that an individual with PTSD will almost always not engage in a “sequence of calculated behaviors that result in a spree of violence,” as our psychologist explains above. In general, the mass media has failed to divine this attribute of PTSD, much less explain it to anyone.

Of course, from our side we will drag in PTSD, Lariam, traumatic brain injury, and no telling what else, and there may be truth to it.  The bottom line is that due to the circumstances, we have a predisposition to excuse mass murder.  We must wait to see what comes to trial.

Panjwai

The lawyer of the accused said that there is no forensic evidence, but if his client committed these crimes his footwear and his clothes should tell a story.  A forensics laboratory is 10 minutes from the crime scene at Kandahar Air Field (KAF).

Robert Bales: charged with committing 17 murders in Panjwai

We harbor scant empathy for Afghan children who breathe interminable war, and who in many cases will see much more combat than our own troops.There were two more “green on blue” incidents yesterday (26 March, 2012) in Afghanistan. Afghans in two different provinces wearing friendly uniforms shot a total of three ISAF members to death. We will probably not wonder whether the shooters had PTSD.

US Forces in Panjwai

Weeks before the Panjwai massacre, I warned that something was coming. This is not voodoo, prognostication, or mere chance. It is more like a forest ranger who sees a hundred thousand acres of trees (or 91,000 troops), and no rain for a year.  No special skill is required to note the severe and growing fire hazard.

Most Afghan Security Forces do their jobs. It is incorrect to characterize them all as traitors, but it happened again just today.

Our troops are becoming disgusted and angry in what has gone from a promising start in Afghanistan, to something that many believe is a lost cause for an unthankful people who treacherously murder our own. President Karzai cannot be bothered to apologize.

The ingredients for hatred: take two fistfuls of steaming anger, slam that anger into a bucket filled with slimy, smelly disgust fetched from a roach-filled outhouse. Stir that hot anger and wretched disgust and the result is hatred.

Hatred is a compound emotion consisting of anger and disgust.

Hatred can be super-boosted by fear. Toss in a dash of injustice, a scoop of frustration, and two squirts of testosterone, then put an automatic weapon in the corner, and see what happens. (For instant effect, stir in alcohol or other accelerant.)

We hate al Qaeda because they are disgusting. We fear them. They make us very, very angry.  So we chase them like roaches, and we blast them to smithereens, and we do not care what their mothers think.

When the Marines urinated on Taliban corpses, they demonstrated disgust and contempt for our enemy.  Afghans were disgusted and angry. If Taliban defecated on the faces of dead Marines, then laughed about it, and published the video on the Internet, many Americans would call for genocide.

“Crazy” is not needed to commit mass murder. Anger will pull the trigger.  Hate will take it to mutilation.

The overall professionalism of our forces remains strongly intact, yet it would not be surprising to see another massacre, especially in the immediate aftermath of an insider attack, or other stress incident. That such retaliation is historically uncommon is testimony to the discipline of our troops, not to mention indicative that their American character remains whole, with the exception of a very few.

Panjwai District: The majority of Afghan Soldiers are foreigners here.

Panjwai is a Pashtun area, while probably less than 2% of the Afghan National Army (ANA) are Pashtun.  NATO published that Southern Pashtuns were “up to 3.6% of ANA new recruits in January 2011.”  (What are the ethnicities of the Afghans committing insider attacks?)

Let’s talk about Panjwai.

I have been to Panjwai, and spent months in the general area of Kandahar City and Province, and the adjacent Arghandab River Valley.  The area has been a thunder zone for a decade.  Fighting occurs broadly and daily.

ANA outpost at Panjwai

Imagine a 15-year-old boy, born and raised in Panjwai.  His name is Nazar.  This war began when Nazar was about 4.  His birth date is unknown, but he was born before the harvest. If Nazar reaches thirty, and you ask his age or birthday, he might look at you curiously, as if you asked a random man his shoe size. He might smile at the strangeness of the question, and tell you that his age is about 35, but that he does not know.

At 15, Nazar has no television and no idea what New York is. Is that a fruit, or a vegetable? He has never heard of 9/11, or of Osama bin Laden.  He met some Navy SEALs when they killed his uncle. He heard that they were British or Russian. He knows that they were foreigners who shot his uncle—who was a Taliban commander.

Nazar’s family is illiterate, but they are not dumb.  There are two cows inside his family courtyard, chickens, a rooster, and a big kuchi dog.  Nazar bathes in the river.  For cooking and drinking, the family has a well inside the family compound. They haul water up using a bucket attached to a radiator belt.

In the summer, his family sleeps on a raised wooden platform under the stars.  At night he sees aircraft high above. Sometimes he can see and hear an AC-130 Spectre firing its cannon. The aircraft makes no flashes, but he can see the silhouette of the airplane against a million stars. The thumping of the cannon imitates the pounding of his heart, but much louder.  First comes the boom of the cannon, there is a long pause, and then a crack from the explosion. The loudest are the bombs, and after that, the strafing runs.

Panjwai

At night, helicopters and jets and Predator drones can see the white or black heat signatures of his family, their cows, and even their dog, but not their chickens.  Helicopters fly more when the moon is bright.

Nazar sees all sorts of helicopters. Sometimes they have Red Crosses on them, which his father says is a sign of the Crusaders. His father says that the helicopters with Red Crosses are good to see, because they cannot shoot them, and they come to retrieve the Crusaders killed by the Taliban. The Taliban love to see the Red Crosses, and they laugh and celebrate when they fly over.

Our symbol of failure: “Crusader Copter” at FARP in Afghanistan. The Army has a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing going with the Red Crosses. The crosses are big enough to underscore incompetent Army leadership, but small enough that anyone pretending to abide by the Geneva Conventions can make a strong case for not seeing them. Taliban love the Red Crosses: The crosses show that the helicopters have no machineguns, and also that they are coming to pick up dead Crusaders. After years of pretending to follow a “COIN” (counterinsurgency) strategy, the Army still uses a symbol associated with the Crusades by most Afghans.

Games in the sand

Nazar and his friends have never seen a computer. They play with sticks and rocks and drawings in the dirt. When the children get their hands on a mobile phone, they take it and play games until the battery dies.

Grape Rows: Russians, Canadians and US forces have taken many casualties in the vineyards. The squat building in the background is for drying grapes to raisins. The enemy uses these buildings, and so we often flatten them.

Nazar’s home has been raided and searched dozens of times, and there are bullet scars on its walls. In the winter, his family lives in Pakistan.

The boys play war in the grape rows.  When the season is green, they can hide inside the grapevines, until the enemy is only a foot away. They know all the good ambush spots, and how to get to them and away. They are careful to avoid the bombs that the Taliban have buried.  Sometimes when Taliban from other areas come, they accidentally step on the bombs. His father is proud to say that a Canadian was killed in his grapes, and his blood made the grapes sweeter.

When the Canadian was killed, the helicopter with the Red Cross landed.  The villagers celebrated, because if not for the Red Cross, they would not know for certain that a Crusader was killed. The villagers heard the helicopter, and they rushed out in time to see the Red Cross.  Calls went around, and they gathered in celebration.  Every time that the Red Cross flies, hundreds or even thousands of Afghans see it, and the Taliban gets free advertisement for their success.

Afghans keep derelict fighting vehicles all over the country as monuments to defeated enemies. This one in Panjwai.

The boys play war using the same ambush spots that their grandfathers used to attack Russians.  The same places where their fathers hid to kill the Canadians, and now, the Americans.

Panjwai, near the river. The vehicles were ours.

Nazar’s skin will never know air conditioning or electric heating.  He has never heard of toilet paper or seen a flush toilet.  His mothers cook over a fire, and they have no electricity.  His father wants revenge for the death of his brother, and he believes that he got it many times, with the bombs that he buries.

Panjwai: You know that you are a redneck when your house has horns.

Panjwai

Panjwai: Our movement is often channelized. Bombs are dug into the walls, or buried underground, and grenades are thrown from concealment. This way of warfare is cheap, it is easy, and it works. It is not readily negated.

Mobile phone advertisement in Kandahar City, about 14 miles from Panjwai.

It is unlikely that Taliban in Panjwai would put up with al Qaeda these days. For instance, graveyards are adorned in a way that al Qaeda would find intolerable.  This has caused frictions in the past.

BlackBerrys and iPhones work, other than in areas where the Taliban coerces telecommunications companies to turn off the towers at night. The Taliban like cell phones, but they also know that we track them.

Cemetery in Panjwai: al Qaeda does not like flags on graves.

There are more cemeteries here than I have seen anywhere else in Afghanistan. Locals say that many of the graves hold dead Taliban.

Afghans keep cemeteries away from their villages to avoid being cursed at night by the dead. (Sounds like stories I heard growing up in America.) An Afghan friend said that 12 years ago, a woman in Nimruz Province buried her husband inside her home so that she could touch his soul. This spooked other Afghans, just as it would many Americans.

Derelict cemetery in Panjwai: Coalition forces killed off many people here.

Panjwai is the birthplace of the Taliban (1994). Kids born that year are today reaching fighting age.

The imaginary Nazar was born about 3 years after the Taliban was founded in Panjwai. He was 4 when the Twin Towers fell.

His home is near the Arghandab River, flowing down from the Arghandab Valley, and near the great fighting that has occurred for hundreds of years.  Sometimes after the fighting, he has seen bodies floating through Panjwai and down into the Dasht-i-Margo (Desert of Death).

KAF is ten minutes away by helicopter.

On KAF there is 24-hour electricity, hot showers, pizza, ice cream, coffee joints, a French bakery, and a T.G.I. Friday’s with steaks, non-alcoholic beer, and fancy desserts.  It houses possibly the only T.G.I. Friday’s ever to be hit by a missile.  The warhead ripped a hole through the roof, but it did not explode. (Back left corner by the road.)

From T.G.I. Friday’s, you can see the helicopters with the Red Crosses taking off and landing, fetching our dead and wounded.

This spot is 10 minutes from T.G.I. Friday's.

There is WiFi on KAF.  And a writer.

Between 2011 and March 2012, a senior Noncommissioned Officer (a “Master Sergeant” or MSG) in the US Army has been tweeting, blogging and bragging about his heroism and his breakdowns from PTSD.

The Master Sergeant briefly experienced combat in Iraq almost a decade ago. He received a Bronze Star for “actions” the same day that Jessica Lynch got hers in a different incident.  (Jessica admitted that her award was fraudulent, for which she earned respect). The writer has been bragging about his decoration for years, and about his combat prowess based on his practically non-existent war experience, as a non-combat soldier.

Before going to Afghanistan in 2011, he alerted the press that he was available for interviews. The writer-soldier never stepped off KAF. He is just a guy stuffed into a uniform.

Master Sergeant Godsmack vs. Nazar

While Nazar labors in the fields and sleeps under the stars, the nearby Master Sergeant works, dines, showers, and blogs in air-conditioned or heated buildings, possibly munching a chocolate chip cookie while sipping a frappe, as he pecks away with greasy fingers about these terrible deployment hardships. (It can get mighty hot between the air-conditioned buildings.)

The senior soldier, leading by example, writes about the frightening rockets that sometimes land within a mile. He cannot sleep at night. He advertises his fears from deep inside the giant base, ten or twenty miles from the fighting that he never will see. America’s Twitter Hero broadcasts to the world, and to the Taliban:

The Taliban uses Twitter, and they monitor feeds from our troops:

Meanwhile, outside the wire, Afghan boys and men shoot rockets and frighten the American Master Sergeant whose fingers must twitch on the keyboard.

Master Sergeant C.J. Grisham is an intelligence NCO.  The Taliban, those who live in Kandahar City, Kabul, and in Pakistan, have competent intelligence specialists who read blogs, Facebook and Twitter.  Grisham publicizes his meltdown:

“Today, I listened to the advice of more than a few people and finally went to the TMC and Combat Stress hospital. My right hand hasn’t stopped twitching after nearly a month and it’s beyond irritating. I’m not sleeping, not eating, and highly irritable. I’ve been under a lot of stress and feel like many of those above me are just making things worse. So, for three hours today, I sat and got to revisit many issues related to my PTSD, depression, and anxiety as well as some new ones.”

The Taliban must be laughing at America’s public display of weakness and stupidity. There is no better way to describe one of our intelligence soldiers drawing so many family and friends out into the public, as they tweet along with him, all while encouraging the Taliban to keep on shooting rockets.  Stupid is as stupid does.

Master Sergeant C.J. Grisham (next stop Sergeant Major) has become a de facto representative of the US Army. The Army permits him to promote his agendas while wearing a uniform purchased by American taxpayers. He uses his rank, his uniform, and the Army in his many public writings.  He may be free to speak, but he is not free to invoke his employer without permission. That the Pentagon allows him to speak while using its name makes him a de facto speaker. Grisham speaks on behalf of the US Army and its intelligence community, whether we like it or not.

The Taliban must be belly laughing while watching our intelligence people crumble:

“Faizullah!  Have you seen this?  Our rockets have frightened the Crusader who reports that his hand is shaking! The rockets are working. Give them more!  Show this to Essa and beg to double our supply of rockets!  May Allah grant this American a long life to continue to report his fears in Kandahar.”

Unfortunately for the Taliban, the soldier was sent home with mental problems.  Grisham tweeted:

“I’m no longer in theater. I requested to come home early to deal with some issues.”

(That tweet disappeared: Grisham frequently removes posts that backfire.)

The Taliban must be disappointed. He was the best damned soldier that the Taliban ever saw.

January 2012: Grisham at Sick Call at KAF making his case to be sent home. He was sent home in March 2012 in time for a Godsmack concert.

Grisham tweeted:

“I love my wife. She got me tickets to the @Godsmack and @Staind concert for when I return from Afghanistan in Belton, TX!!””

Master Sergeant C.J. Grisham abandoned his subordinates, “his Joes,” for Godsmack.  Now that he is home, he is tweeting about his “battle experiences,” and using “PTSD” as a pretext to raise money in Texas, even while his young subordinates are still at KAF.

Combat troops who have watched wounded buddies languish on landing zones while waiting for late helicopters, can thank Grisham, who tweeted about contacting Congressman Todd Akin, to make sure that the Red Crosses stay on.

Grisham has a lot of time to attack people and to chase down MEDEVAC Red Cross issues. He so damages the military media war that it is enough to wonder if he is taking instructions directly from Mullah Omar.  Master Sergeant Grisham reports that Congressman Todd Akin pulled back:

Since that time, Congressman Akin, who had led the charge on MEDEVAC, has gone silent: Infantry Soldiers who have fought in Afghanistan might want to ask Grisham face-to-face, why he is ready to leave them to die.

Grisham has invested great energy attacking his commanders (who are too weak to confront him), gays (saying they are unfit for battle), the media (who will expose his actions), and President Obama.

The Army does not stop Grisham from dressing up in his uniform, posting photographs of himself, and bashing President Obama:

Master Sergeant C.J. Grisham, United States Army, abandoned his subordinates, and his unit. While talking smack, Grisham quit.

The Taliban consists of harder folk.

Nazar stays in the war. This spring, he is back in the fields.  He watches artillery and airstrikes, GMLR rocket strikes, Predators launching Hellfire missiles night and day, Apache helicopters firing missiles and cannons, A-10 Warthogs and F-18 Hornets rolling in for strafing runs, or dropping bombs.

He has watched massive IEDs explode, killing Americans and allied forces, and he has helped place the bombs. He celebrated when the helicopters with the Red Crosses came.

He has been shot at, dozens of times.  At night, he sees orange illumination flares floating down, and he glimpses black helicopters thundering through the darkness. The Canadians had Leopard tanks in Panjwai, and they fired their big guns.

Nazar has seen a lot.  Back in 2006, the fighting had dragged on and left NATO frustrated.  NATO decided to “clean up” the area.

When Nazar was about 9, the first large Battle for Panjwai unfolded (Operation Zahara), and then there was another (Operation Medusa). The fighting was intense.  During this timeframe of 2006, I published twelve dispatches that the Afghan war was being lost, but I soon headed back to Iraq, and I missed this Panjwai fighting.

During Operation Medusa, ground troops swarmed in. Jets, helicopters and artillery were hitting targets. On 3 and 4 September 2006, strafing runs and bombs had been striking day and night when the pilot of an American A-10 Warthog accidentally shot up Canadian Soldiers in Panjwai.  No doubt the Taliban celebrated that.

Bottom of map is “Desert of Death.” KAF is on right. Zangabad, area of the crime, is lower left.

JOURNEY TO PANJWAY

Robert Bale is charged with murdering 17 Afghans. His attorney, Lance Rosen, says that he wants to visit Afghanistan. There is no value in going unless he goes to Panjwai.

If locals realize that Mr. Rosen aims to exonerate Robert Bale, he will surely face grave resistance. If Rosen survives, he will better understand the Afghan reality that his client experienced.

In the event that Mr. Rosen ventures to Panjwai, here is some free information. By following these instructions, Mr. Rosen should be able to get from any major airport in America, to Panjwai, in about 48 busy hours, or perhaps 72.  I accept no responsibility for the outcome.

Murders occurred in general area of Zangabad, lower left. (Disregard the red traces; some of my old routes.)

Start

Fly to Dubai. Drive to Abu Dhabi, to the Afghan Embassy, and get a visa. It should take no more than a few hours. Find an Afghan tailor, have some native clothing made, and arrange for it to be delivered to your hotel.  Sleep.

Next morning, fly to Kandahar.

KAF has one of the busiest runways in the world. As you descend, there will be A-10 Warthogs, Pedros, Dustoff MEDEVACs with their Red Crosses, F-16 Fighting Falcons, and dozens of other aircraft types parked on the aprons.  There might be a CIA RQ-170 Sentinel stealth UAV taxiing, while your commercial jet rolls by and passengers whip out their iPhones to take photographs. CIA has a big building just by the tarmac.

USAF/CIA RQ-170 at KAF. The “Beast of Kandahar” used to take off and land at the Kandahar International Airport where commercial jets landed, filled with everything from Iranians to Chinese to Taliban. I made this image before bin Laden was killed. Our government disclosed that the RQ-170 observed bin Laden’s compound. Later, the Iranians seized one intact.

At KAF, Predators or Reapers frequently take off with Hellfire missiles hanging beneath their wings. There will be Apache and Kiowa helicopters, all variety of aircraft thundering and rumbling away.  This is not an air show: those bombs and missiles are live.

The combat support hospital (CSH) is just at the runway so that Dustoff and Pedro can deliver the wounded and dead from the battlefields. The CSH is about 13 minutes’ flight away from where Chazray Clark was hit. If you get killed on this trip, a helicopter with a Red Cross might pick up your body, and the Taliban will rejoice as your remains are delivered back to the CSH.

While clearing immigration, if you hear loud sirens, it is probably due to inbound rockets. The enemy seems to shoot for the runway, and for the area around T.G.I. Friday’s.  From the direction from which some rockets fly, the terminal can be in-between the apparent targets. Dive to the ground, or take your chances standing. Big boy rules apply.

From where you are standing, or from where you are lying flat on the ground, Panjwai district center is about ten minutes by helicopter.  It is much faster to get there by A-10. The 17 murders happened about 15 minutes away by Blackhawk.

After formalities, grab a taxi. Head to the gate. Car bombs often explode around the gates.  Do not loiter. Take a left on highway A-75 and head North toward Kandahar City. This road is reasonably secure, but suicide attacks and other assaults do occur.  You are outside the wire.  (Of course, you brought all sorts of tracking devices, and you have a kidnapping plan.)

Traffic Circle: are those guys looking at you?

Drive over the Tarnak River Bridge that General Daniel Menard allowed to be hit with a suicide bomb. That bomb tossed an American MRAP off the bridge, and killed a US Soldier. You can see scars from bombs here.  Keep going to the traffic circle up in Kandahar, and tour the city a bit.  Do not loiter.  Stay alert.

That’s the Red Mosque. When President Karzai’s corrupt brother was assassinated, services were held here, and a suicide bomber got inside and filled more graves. People have been shot and blown up all around this neighborhood.  Keep moving. Enjoy the tour. Stay alert.

Those who live and travel “outside the wire” stay in constant tune with breaking news. You never know when the Coalition will accidentally run over a family or bomb a wedding, or when some nut will burn a Koran.  People at home in America will say, “Burn baby burn!” For you, however, this can translate into being shot in the head and your body hanged upside down from a light post. A Pulitzer winning photo can encapsulate the endgame.

Security firms use various feeds and chat rooms to keep their fingers on the spider’s web, alert for twitches that can ensnarl clients. Stay alert.

The Afghan police might shake you down.  If you have body armor, they might steal it. The driver should know the way to the new road to Panjwai.  Do not tell him that you are here to free the American.

Take the new road to Panjway, down past the road sign of the EOD technician disabling a bomb (it will be on your right). This road looks safe.  It is not.

Nearly to Panjwai.

That might be a Special Forces detachment with their ANA counterparts.

Special Forces base from the opposite direction, heading away from Panjwai toward Kandahar City.  (The guy on the motorbike might be Special Forces.  The jackasses blocking the road are senior Public Affairs Officers.)

You will pass by a small Special Forces base on the right.  The Special Forces guys will not bother you.  There will be no sign, but the base is obvious. This means that you are in no-kidding Taliban country.

Stay away from the base.  If you see US forces, stay away from them. If they approach you, there is a 99.9% chance that they will be friendly and professional.  If they are Special Forces or other combat troops, you are good to go. They might say that you are a lunatic and ask if you are lost, but if you want to go on, they will not stop you. They might hand you a bottle of cold water and ask that you reconsider before going on.  Ask them about the situation in the area, but remember that they are bullet magnets, and when they get attacked, they shoot back, and then it is a mess. Just stay away. Believe me.

Afghan police wreck a truck near small mosque. They constantly smash these trucks.

Afghan checkpoint. Notice the bullets wrapped around the barrel of the machine gun.

This is a few miles away from where Chazray Clark was hit with an IED, where we waited for his MEDEVAC last September.

Welcome to Panjwai

It is best to start at the District Center.  There should be US troops there, and plenty of Afghans, including police and Army.  The accused killer, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, walked out of Camp Belamby.  The murders occurred in nearby Balandi and Alkozai.

The chances of finding these villages without dying and without a local guide are not good. You will need to do some negotiating with the locals to have a shot at safe passage. Coming from the West coast of the United States to the Panjway District Center is only half the journey.  The other half will be the few miles remaining to the target.  People in the District Center will know people from the villages, and it is possible that you can meet them at the District Center.  If you ask, the Afghans might let you stay overnight, which can give you a chance to figure out the situation.

(Note: I have difficulty believing that one soldier committed this act.)

Afghans use many bicycles and motorbikes.

Gas station: many IEDs are in similar yellow jugs

The river is just ahead. More yellow jugs.

This is the river near Nazar’s home.  Nazar still works the fields and plants bombs and cheers for the Red Crosses.  Master Sergeant Godsmack failed and went home.  Today he is peacocking his invisible dueling scar.

This is not the truth that I want, but the truth that I found.  There is no nice way to end this.  Maybe that is why this story is so long.  I was searching for a happy ending that I could not find.

Another day drags on, and ends jaggedly, like war.

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