A Jump Straight into the BAF

Mother's Day 2012 fell on Sunday, May 13. In 2011, May 13 was a Friday. It was also the day I launched into Afghanistan as an embedded civilian reporter. In doing a little personal archeology this weekend, I came upon this never-before-posted Red Bull Rising blog entry. I thought I'd share it now. File it under "Where Were We One Year Ago ..."

MAY 13, 2011—Having cashed in some 95,000 of my wife's airline miles, it cost me $63 U.S. to get to Dubai.

Further opening the family wallet, it cost another $1,000 for a round-trip ticket straight into Bagram Airfield. A jump into the "BAF."

In my research into civilian routes to Afghanistan, I'd talked to a couple of Midwestern journalists who'd also recently made the Afghan trek. An Ohio TV crew reported they'd almost been escorted off the plane in Kabul, with officials citing their allegedly illegal possession of body armor and helmets. A U.S. State Department rep on the scene had advised not to fight it.

A newspaper reporter buddy had his protective equipment "confiscated" at an Afghan police checkpoint outside of Kabul International Airport (K.I.A.). One of the hard-and-fast rules for embedded media is: You need your body armor and magic helmet to board any military aircraft or ground vehicle. Lucky for my buddy, he was on his way out of the country—transferring from military to civilian transportation, rather than the other way around. Still, it was a sticky-fingered situation. "Not allowed," he was told with the wag of a policeman's finger, as that same policeman began to take the reporter's stockholder-funded gear. The police offered this compromise: "I give back to you when you come back to Afghanistan."

Yeah ... right. Or maybe I can by it back by watching the Taliban Home Shopping Network?

I regard travel like I do baseball—I've never really been a very strong fan of either, but it seems somewhat un-American to say so. For me, however, both activities seem full of questionably prepared foods, unthinkable latrines, uncomfortable seating arrangements, and arcane languages. Plus, I get the sneaking suspicion that the guys with the money make up their own rules. You want me to pay my hard-earned money to subsidize all that?! I think I'll stay home and have a beer. I can make my own nachos.

To extend the sports metaphor a little: In planning my Afghan travel, I've got the problem of transporting $2,500 of personally purchased equipment to my next away game. In fact, it's my own Big Show. My Kelvar stuff is heavy, but still breakable. And it's illegal in a growing number of countries. I buy the wrong ticket, make the wrong move, go through the wrong airport, and it's a potential show-stopper.

When Uncle Sam is your travel agent, everything is easy. You are told what to pack, when to show up, and to wait for the next flight. You are escorted and eased through customs. Nobody steals your stuff. When you go free-agent, however, you get the bum's rush. "Hurry up and wait" turns into "you can't do that here."

Consider this cautionary language from the U.S. State Department:

All US personnel - to avoid violation of Emirati laws by the intentional or accidental transport of any arms or items considered as law enforcement equipment or military gear. UAE airport personnel will x-ray all baggage - checked or carry-on - and cargo shipments, including household goods, both incoming and outgoing. UAE authorities will confiscate any weapons, weapon parts, ammunition, body armor, handcuffs, sensitive electronics, cryptographic devices, and/or other military/police equipment transported to or through a civilian airport. Persons found to be carrying such items will be arrested and face strict criminal penalties, including imprisonment and large monetary fines. One such incident involved one bullet, found in the bag of a traveler who had unknowingly left the item in his bag. [Emphasis added.] This individual was detained by the police and now faces a possible jail sentence and large monetary fine. In other similar incidents, U.S. defense contractors transiting the U.A.E. with weapons were arrested and are now serving jail sentences of several months.

Do I have anything to declare? Why, yes, that I'll do anything to avoid traveling through your country, thank you.

Safety is another factor, although one with ever fewer clear solutions. One of my favorite passages regarding travel to Kabul comes from Lonely Planet:

Flying into Kabul has always been a bit of an adventure. In the 1980s and ’90s, approaching planes had to steeply corkscrew when approaching the airport as an antimissile defence, while as recently as 2006, new arrivals were greeted by the sight of the ‘Ariana Graveyard’, a twisted and shattered junkpile of destroyed airliners. The same year also finally saw the installation of a radar system at the airport.

Poor maintenance has been a worry for Ariana flights, and the UN and many embassies ban their staff from flying with the airline, which has also been barred from EU airspace. Much of the fleet are second-hand planes from Indian Airlines, but these are slowly being replaced. Kam Air uses newer planes and is generally regarded as being better run, but it has Afghanistan’s one recent fatal crash to its name: a flight between Herat and Kabul crashed in February 2005 with the loss of 104 lives. Snowy conditions were blamed.

I'll take "Travel Insights I Won't Tell My Wife for $200," please, Alex?

If you're flying a charter, you can often make up your own rules. One of my more surreal deployment memories? While returning from a deployment to Egypt in 2004, I field-stripped my M-16 rifle so that I could stuff it under my airline seat. The smaller parts went into an air-sickness bag. Waterproofing bonus!

Back when I worked at the Better Magazine Factory, my fellow workaday editors and I would roll our eyes at our snooty editors-in-chief, who were rumoredly too posh to carry-on or check-in their own luggage. Such high-roller-bag behavior might fly at Condé-Nasty New York, but here in River City, Iowa? Allegedly, they'd overnight-express their goods to their next night's destinations.

Still, while the Devil may wear Prada on the plane, however, she never wears Kevlar. I swallowed my Midwestern carry-it-myself pride, and mailed my body armor to a Bagram buddy via the U.S. Postal Service. I flew through Dubai, and flew a chartered 737 directly into Bagram. The name of the outfit--Middle East affiliate of "Diplomat Freight Services"--made me feel like I was about to cuddle up in a romantic cargo bay alongside some ambassador's in-bound stash of Johnnie Walker Blue.

The reality of it turned out to be far more pedestrian: A 737 full of contractors, ex-military, one Middle Western media guy, and other ne'er-do-wells. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My original itinerary was to fly American Airlines from Des Moines to Chicago, and Chicago to London; then British Airways from London to Dubai. Due to storms over Chicago, however, I was delayed getting out of Des Moines, and rerouted to Dallas-Fort Worth.

When I got to Texas, the next flight to Los Angeles had been cancelled. So I spent the night circling DFW in a tram, launched to Los Angeles in the morning, then made a Los Angeles connection to Dubai via Emirates Airlines. From Los Angeles, it was one excruciating no-hitter of a non-stop flight from Los Angeles to Dubai: Up the West Coast, over Canada and the Arctic Circle, down Eastern Europe. I think we even flew over Iran, but I may have been hallucinating by that point.

The in-flight entertainment on Emirates 218 was exceptional, however, with on-demand video served to each and every seat—even those of us in the nose-bleed section. Over the course of 16 hours or so, I watched a series of recent-vintage movies, including: the Coen Brothers' remake of "True Grit", the unnecessarily bromantic update of "The Green Hornet", and "The King's Speech"

Only in retrospect did I realize that each of these selections involved unexpected heroes: Rooster Cogburn, Britt Reid, and Lionel Logue. A lawman turned drunkard, a newspaper publisher turned "criminal," and a ne'er-do-well thespian turned speech therapist.



For the rest of the trip, I thought myself in characteristically good company.

The Constant State-by-State of War

When I started the Red Bull Rising blog in late 2009, I was preparing to deploy as a member of the Iowa Army National Guard. My buddies and I kept a digital ear out for news of Vermont's 86th Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), the unit we planned to replace. We sifted and scanned Vermont newspaper and television reports, U.S. Army public affairs releases from Afghanistan, and posts from mil-bloggers and Facebookers.

The 1,500-member 86th BCT had originally deployed as the command-and-control headquarters for Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix, a U.S. and coalition training mission that had been in place since 2003. (A quick review: In Army speak, the term "combined" means "U.S. plus allies." The term "joint" means one or more branches of the armed forces: Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy, Coast Guard. A "task force" is an group of disparate units organized around a specific mission.)

The CJTF Phoenix mission was to advise and assist the Afghan National Security Forces (A.N.S.F.), including various forms of Afghan police and military units. It controlled 8- or 16-person Embedded Training Teams (E.T.T.). Coalition partners call their ETT personnel "Operational Mentor Liaison Teams" (OMLT, pronounced "omelette").

An additional irony? Such Foreign Internal Defense ("FID") training missions have traditionally been considered a core mission of U.S. Special Forces. The National Guard, on the other hand, often has to battle "second-string" stereotypes when encountering active-duty soldiers in the field. Even after more than 10 years of deployments, and transformation into an operational reserve.

That U.S. National Guard soldiers tend to have civilian-acquired work experiences and skills is often touted as an advantage in the advise-and-assist context. Citizen-soldiers who are law enforcement professionals back home can be used to mentor Afghan National Police, for example. Teachers and coaches, business owners and managers can be more familiar with non-military mentorship models. With the possible exception of the National Guard’s joint Agribusiness Development Teams (A.D.T.), however, in which citizen-soldiers and -airmen are deployed based upon their civilian-acquired agricultural skills, it’s hard to move such assumptions and assertions beyond the anecdotal.

In 2009, in the middle of a foreign country, a deployment, and a war, Vermont's 86th BCT reconfigured to a mission in which they would act as "battlespace owners" for the provinces of Parwan, Panjshir, and Bamiyan Provinces. Two more U.S. National Guard brigades—each approximately 3,000 personnel each—would follow. Rather than being sliced up into smaller companies and battalions, and assigned to support active-duty brigades, the National Guard brigades were kept relatively whole.

Iowa's 2nd BCT, 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (2-34th BCT) deployed to Afghanistan from October 2010 to July 2011. It took over the mission in Parwan (where Bagram Airfield is located), Panjshir, and Laghman Provinces. One Red Bull battalion, the 1st Battalion, 168th Infantry Regiment (1-168th Inf.) was attached to active-duty brigade in Paktiya Province. A 400-member Nebraska Army National Guard unit with historical ties to the Red Bull, the 1st Squadron, 134th Cavalry (1-134th Cav.), deployed alongside the 2-34th BCT. Based at Camp Phoenix in Kabul, the 1-134th Cav. deployed as mentors and trainers for Afghan National Police.

Oklahoma's 45th BCT ("Thunderbird") took over the Red Bull's mission in July 2012, maintaining responsibility for Laghman Province and other areas. After the Thunderbird took over, my Red Bull buddies and I again took to the Internet, this time watching for Oklahoma newspaper and television reports, U.S. Army public affairs releases, and posts from mil-bloggers and Facebookers. As of this week, nearly all of the Thunderbird units have returned home to Oklahoma. Rather than hand-off to another U.S. National Guard unit, in February the Thunderbird transferred authority to an active-duty unit.

Watching a war through the lens of brigade-sized deployments, state by state, is an accessible way to perceive the ebb and flow of the past 10 years. In the beginning, it was team after 16-person mentor team. Occasionally, a state would get tapped for the CJTF Phoenix mission—a brigade's worth of headquarters staff, plus yet more advise-and-assist teams. Then, for a grand and glorious moment, the states were asked to muster fully trained, fully resourced fighting brigades. Newspaper reporters wrote sentences like, "the largest deployment of Iowa troops since World War II."

Now, with American resolve, purpose, and troop numbers waning in Afghanistan, U.S. political and military leaders have taken to describing a "new" mission of advising and assisting Afghan forces, and withdrawing troops by 2014. Given that the advise-and-assist mission started in 2003 and never stopped, this latest language seems like rhetorical repackaging. Meet the new mission, same as the old mission.

During mobilization in 2011, Ohio's 37th BCT ("Buckeye")—was re-configured to fulfill an advise-and-assist mission in Northern Afghanistan. It arrived Afghanistan in February 2012.

The Red Bull Rising crystal ball is currently in for servicing and recalibration, but it seems as if the moment of brigade-sized deployments might be over. Perhaps National Guard units will be more likely to deploy piecemeal as companies and battalions, or as 16-person mentor-and-trainer teams. Even the National Guard-specific Agribusiness Development Teams (A.D.T.) may be winding down. In a recent ceremony in Paktya Province, for example, the outgoing Nebraska ADT transferred its responsibilities to the co-located Provincial Reconstruction Team (P.R.T.).

During the Association of the United States Army (A.U.S.A.) annual convention and trial-balloon festival last fall, there was much talk of assigning the advise-and-assist mission to the Reserve Component. (Other, contradictory balloons: Assign to the U.S. Army National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve most or all of the heavy/armored and field artillery forces.) Proposals to create and train specific advise-and-assist capability, whether in the active- or reserve-components, seem to have stalled. The consensus seems to be that the military will continue to take such teams ad hoc and out of hide, rather than create specific organizations or structure. Every soldier wants to grow up to be Patton or Schwarzkopf; few aspire to be Lawrence of Arabia.

That's not to say that operational deployments are over, or that war isn't still a dangerous business. While 70 headquarters soldiers of the Indiana National Guard's 76th BCT ("Night Hawks") were engaged in send-off ceremonies to Afghanistan last January, the Hoosier state simultaneously learned of the loss of four Indiana combat engineers assigned to the 713th Engineer Company, Valaparaiso, Ind.

Sobering times.

War beats on.

*****

For additional insights into the history of the advise-and-assist mission, see Jeffrey Courter's "Afghan Journal" and Benjamin Tupper's "Greetings from Afghanistan" and "Dudes of War." Also, check out former U.S. Marine officer Jonathan Rue's "Build a House and Burn it Down," in which he reflects on his experiences training Iraqi soldiers. And Joseph Trevithick's insightful attempt on Tom Ricks' "Best Defense" blog to untangle the historically convoluted U.S./coalition command structures in Afghanistan.

Poetry as Diplomacy During a Hot War

Christopher Merrill, a poet, essayist, and director of the University of Iowa's International Writing Program in Iowa City, Iowa, recently published an essay recounting his impressions of two cultural diplomacy missions he made to Eastern Afghanistan. In May 2011 and again in January 2012, Merrill travelled to the Afghan capital of Kabul, as well as the city of Jalalabad in Nangahar Province. While in Afghanistan, he travelled via U.S. military convoys, as well as contracted helicopters.

Merrill's essay, "Leaving Afghanistan," was published Feb. 20 by the U.K. literary magazine Granta. In a Feb. 28 interview on Iowa Public Radio's "River to River," Merrill told IPR's Ben Kieffer that his visits, funded by the U.S. State Department, were intended to win hearts and minds by finding common ground with Afghan partners. He participated in roundtable discussions, writing workshops, and even a televised mushaira—a traditional poetry reading. Said Merrill:

There were a lot of soldiers—National Guardsmen from Massachusetts--one of whom could be heard to be saying, "We're doing a mission for poetry"?! They probably thought this was a pretty outlandish idea. But the fact is [...] the colonel riding next to me in the M-RAP and is a long-time veteran in Afghanistan—he thought this kind of thing is exactly what we now need to be doing. Trying to find ways to connect with Afghans, in ways that are important to them. To Afghans, poetry is absolutely essential. They are known as great poets. They have rich poetic traditions everywhere I went—in Kabul, and Jalalabad—I was hearing about the poetry festivals. To have a chance to connect on a level that is important not only to me, but to them, was really pretty thrilling.

Later, Merrill put the mission into larger strategic context, explaining that efforts to build sustainable governmental, economic, and cultural institutions must take place at the same time soldiers are fighting insurgents.

[A]ll cultural diplomacy missions from the outside might look a little complicated. But in fact, that cultural diplomacy is the key to every country's effort to find common ground with other people. We only do missions to places of strategic interest, to places where we hope to make a difference. Think about the missions that these [soldiers] do every day. Some times they're taking a U.S.A.I.D. official out with his or her counterpart in a ministry. They're trying to develop a crop. They're trying to get a distribution for crops. They're trying to build courthouses. All of the different parts to rebuilding a society. Cultural diplomacy plays a part in the larger diplomatic effect.

Merrill described meeting in U.S. State Department-funded "Lincoln Learning Centers", which are library rooms and computer labs administered by the Afghan Ministry of Information. "In Afghanistan, you can't call them an American space, because they'll be a target for the Taliban," said Merrill. "So they're called a Lincoln Learning Center." Some Afghans word business suits to the cultural meetings. Others wore traditional garb, including a woman who wore the blue burqa familiar in the region.

The idea was to create a space in which we could talk freely and frankly about the things that mattered to us. And what we really wanted to talk about was poetry. The interesting thing to me was that this woman in the burqa began the conversation by talking about with the oppression of women in Afghan society. She ended by reciting a poem in Pashto that was translated for me, that ended with a three-fold curse: "May you fail all your exams, may you become a slave like me, may tears run down your face like mine." It left the room just silenced.

Merrill's interview took place in the days following riots in Afghanistan, incited by the accidental burning of Korans by U.S. personnel stationed at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. "There are an awful lot of people working very hard [in Afghanistan], but the odds are very long," Merrill said. Later in the interview, he observed:

It reminds us how absolutely fragile the situation is, how quickly things can go south with an act of blasphemy ... even if, as it seems likely, it was done accidentally. It seems like sparks applied to tinder that was already there. The grievances that Afghan people feel that their government is corrupt, there's no work, there's no heat in a lot of places, there's so few jobs ... And there's this large occupying force that may be working on their behalf. Still it seems very difficult to them. An incident like this happens, and all bets are off.

Omaha Newspaper Launches Red Bull blog

The Omaha World-Herald recently launched a blog titled "At War, At Home," which covers Nebraska and Iowa citizen-soldiers currently deployed to Afghanistan. The blog now appears in the Red Bull Rising blog-roll, at right.

Reporter Joseph Morton and photographer Alyssa Schukar are currently embedded with 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division (2-34th BCT) units downrange--the deployment includes the Nebraska National Guard's 1st Squadron, 134th Cavalry Regiment (1-134th Cav.)--while reporter Matthew Hansen and editor Cate Folsom are covering the home front. Read more about the blog team's background here.

In October 2010, Morton and Schukar also covered the units' pre-deployment training at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, Calif. Click here for more details of that coverage.

The new Omaha World-Herald blog regularly presents eye-catching news photos and portraiture, environmental videos, and question-and-answer sessions with individual soldiers. The editors also promise to regularly post "round-ups" of the newspaper's coverage, to help readers ensure they haven't missed anything. For two such round-ups click here and here.

Recent Omaha World-Herald coverage has included:

• "Nebraska troops deliver food," (Mar. 3). A 1-134th Cav. humanitarian-assistance mission delivers food to Afghan families.

• "Neb. troops make a difference" (Mar. 4). Kabul's police chief is thankful for the assistance of Nebraska National Guard soldiers and trainers, but thinks U.S. presence will still be required for another five to 10 years.

• "Mealtime in Afghanistan" (Mar. 5). How soldiers of Bravo Troop, 1-134th Cav. dine on local delicacies.

• "Troops coax out rural cops" (Mar. 7). How Alpha Troop, 1-134th Cav. uses humanitarian-assistance missions such as "Operation United Front" to bolster Afghan police image and presence.

• "A smokin' oasis for soldiers" (Mar. 12). Cigar-scented "Tiki Hut" hang-outs at Camps Phoenix and Dubs, Afghanistan, serve as places where Nebraska soldiers can blow off steam ... and smoke.

• "Working their way back" (Mar. 13). Veterans groups and other organizations are preparing to assist National Guard members find new employment after they return home from deployment.

• "Marathon man: Gretna Guard member plans to run the 26.2-mile Lincoln race in Kabul" (Mar. 14). Deployed to Camp Phoenix, Afghanistan, Army Maj. Spencer Giles continues to work toward his goal of making the "Lucky 13" club, which is made up of people who have run the Lincoln, Neb. marathon 13 times.

• "Guardsmen's job: Policing the police," a Mar. 15 article describing how Nebraskans daily train Afghan law enforcement personnel, while suspecting that some locals--both police and civilian--may be less than honest.

Here's a friendly reminder: If you find local and regional news coverage of Nebraska and Iowa citizen-soldiers meaningful, compelling, or useful, please be sure to buy some newspapers; make positive reader comments on newspaper and television station blogs; or send editors, reporters, and producers words of thanks via postal mail.

Three-Shot Burst of Red Bull News and Views

Earlier this week, my buddies and I got to play with all sorts of Army toys, including the Squad Automatic Weapon ("SAW"), the M-240B ("Em-two-forty-bravo"), and even a brand-spanking new tripod-mounted .50-cal M2 ("Ma-Duece") machine gun.

Reflecting the concept that one should conserve one's ammo by displaying a little trigger discipline, here's a short burst of Red Bull news and views:

MINNESOTA RED BULLS ALERTED FOR IRAQ, KUWAIT

According to this Associated Press article, some 2,700 soldiers of the 1st Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division have been alerted for potential deployment to Iraq andKuwait sometime in summer 2011. In 2007, 4,000 "Red Bull" soldiers--including the 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry "Ironman" Regiment from the Iowa Army National Guard--achieved the distinction of the longest deployment of any U.S. Army unit to Iraq.

The AP article offers interesting perspectives of a few our fellow Red Bull soldiers, many of whom have faced multiple deployments and separations from family:

In Rochester, Fire Battalion Chief Eric Kerska, commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, announced the expected deployment at a news conference on the scene of a fire-training exercise. A house engulfed in flames crackled in the background as Kerska talked about the mission.

“Our soldiers are the best our great state has to offer, and we are committed to ensuring they are prepared for this likely call of duty,” he said.

This would be Kerska’s third deployment. He served during the first Gulf War and returned to the region in 2005.

“On the one hand, I really don’t care to go back a third time,” he said. “But on the other hand, it would be kind of nice to tie a bow on that thing and say, ‘OK, we’ve got it done right.’ ”

YOUNG U.S. TRAINERS IN KABUL LAUNCH BLOG

As part of the newspaper's evolving "A Soldier Writes" feature, U.S. Army 1st Lt. Mark Larson recently wrote a thoughtful description of the challenges faced in training and evaluating Afghan soldiers:

The Afghan soldier was giddy. Only seconds before he had spotted the improvised explosive device lying along the roadside. His sharp eye had ensured that the convoy was called to a halt before rolling through the blast zone. Yet his enthusiasm was such that he jogged up to the I.E.D. and triumphantly picked it up.

The U.S. trainers could only shake their heads. The Afghan National Army unit would be marked as having failed the “React to I.E.D.” validation exercise. Instruction would be given. But because of the strict training timeline, the unit would have to move on to the next validation exercise. If it passed the minimum number (and had fulfilled other minimum requirements), it would be given approval to deploy.

Larson and a couple of buddies are apparently launching a blog, called "A Handful of Dust," about their adventures and mis-adventures in Kabul. It's obviously still a rough work, and full of youthful hijinks and high-spirits. While Larson's words in the New York Times indicate some real depth and insight, his words at his blogs indicate a potential vibe along the lines of "Lawrence of Arabia meets amusement park ride."

In other words, keep an eye on it. And keep your hands inside the car at all times.

'SEMPER FI, MOON' POST MENTIONED ON 'BEST DEFENSE' BLOG

Once upon a few nights ago, just before Sherpa's bedtime, he was checking on the next day's Red Bull Rising post. Imagine his gobsmacked expression when he saw that Foreign Policy magazine blogger and former Washington Post reporter Tom Ricks had written about an RBR post titled "Semper Fi, Moon"! (The headline popped up in the Red Bull Rising blog-roll sidebar, where Ricks's blog regularly appears under the heading "Afghan Intel and Insight.")

Ricks, who grew up in Afghanistan, had used "Semper Fi, Moon" as a stepping-off point for a brief reflection of happier memories of Kabul. If you hadn't heard, Anti-Afghan Forces (A.A.F.) are on the move and the attack this week, as U.S. and Afghan forces prepare for a campaign in the southern region later this summer or fall. There have been suicide-bomber attacks on NATO convoys and U.S. bases in the capital of Kabul. Soldiers and civilians from many countries have been killed.

In light of such events, it's good to remember that love and innocence exist in the world, too. They're just harder to see.

Movie Review: 'The Kite Runner'

"The Kite Runner," 2007, DreamWorks.

Here's entry No. 1 in the virtual (?) Red Bull Bull Film Festival, in which we explore movies that may have something--anything--to teach citizen-soldiers deploying to Afghanistan: "The Kite Runner," released by DreamWorks in 2007.

Let me say right up front, I don't see Joe sitting still for this film. (Further disclosure: Having not read the book, I am directing my comments here solely to the movie.) It's too arty, and it's subtitled, and it's a fictional narrative that features neither big bullets or big breasts. Every since my high school honey tricked me into watching "The Crying Game," I've known the red-faced blustery embarrassment typical of the young soldier. Soldiers do not like watching stuff that depicts homosexual activity of any sort, nor stuff otherwise labeled as "gay" by their friends, nor stuff they think will somehow label them "gay" in the low-browed, locker-room eyes of their homo erectus buddies.

For good or ill, "The Kite Runner" is too easily lumped into all three of those categories. The story follows the estrangement of two boyhood friends in pre-Soviet Afghanistan: Amir, son of a well-to-do Pushtun intellectual; and Hassan, a member of the Hazara minority and son of Amir's family servant.

The boys fly kites as a team, competing against others in aerial combats in which the losers' kite string is cut. Amir is the pilot, while Hassan is the runner. After a loss, Hassan recovers their kite; after a victory, Hassan hunts and claims the losers' kite as a trophy.

Warning: One small spoiler follows. It's one that I knew prior to viewing, however, and discovered that the movie cannot and should not be reduced to one scene or fact.

A group of delinquents bullies the sensitive Amir and his protector Hassan. Later, they attack and sodomize Hassan, while Amir cowers outside of view. Amir wrestles with how he failed to defend Hassan, but lacks the emotional tools with which to reconcile the event. Instead, he pushes Hassan away, even though the latter remains loyal and committed to their friendship.

Cancel spoiler-alert.

Later in the movie, Amir encounters the Soviet invasion of his country, becomes a writer, and attempts to reconnect or make amends for his childhood treatment of Hassan.

Assuming Joe would squirm his way through some of the tough scenes, here's what soldiers could potentially takeaway from this film:

• A sense of the big mountains and bigger sky of that part of the world. (In filming, the Chinese region of Xinjiang stood in for Afghanistan, as well as urban parts of Pakistan.)
• The idea that pre-Soviet Kabul was a cosmopolitan, Westernized metropolis.
• The connections between Iran and Dari-speaking parts of Aghanistan: "Iran and Afghanistan share a language," author Khaled Hosseini mentions on the DVD comments, "They call it Farsi in Iran and we call it Dari in Afghanistan--it's essentially the same language, but the accent is very different."
• The idea that corrupt and hypocritical behaviors may exist as much in the Taliban as in other religious organizations. (Not trying to start a religious conversation here, I'm just saying ...)

Review: 'The Places in Between'

"The Places in Between," by Rory Stewart

With the Afghan Taliban then-only-recently overthrown in late 2001, Rory Stewart proceeded to go on walkabout across Afghanistan in early 2002. A British foreign service and Army officer; Iraqi provincial administrator; later the director of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation (a Non-Governmental Organization working to preserve Afghan archeological heritage and arts); and now-Harvard professor, Stewart has written a couple of go-to books about the wars in Iraq ("The Prince of Marshes") and Afghanistan ("The Places in Between").

Given his experiences, Stewart has a unique ability to advocate and translate on behalf of the many peoples of Afghanistan. In The Places in Between, he describes a series of frustratingly random experiences gathered while walking a segment of an ancient Silk Road between Herat and Kabul.

On first read, his encounters with various personalities and populations seem arbitrary and inscrutable. Upon deeper reflection, however, readers may conclude that Stewart is merely depicting, rather than describing, the many complexities faced by those seeking to effect change in Afghanistan. He is showing, rather than telling.

Early in his journey, he writes (italics mine) ...

I lay down reflecting on my first full day of walking--the gravel underfoot, Qasim's lies, our host's dead son, the old man who had scrutinized Abdul Haq, the terrified boy. The abrupt episodes and half-understood conversations already suggested a society that was an unpredictable composite of etiquette, humor and extreme brutality. (p. 62)

Stewart's insights add up to an Afghanistan exponentially more complex than the easy black-and-white, us-versus-them distinctions sought by many soldiers. Given the seemingly endless red-state-versus-blue-state banter-and-battering here at home, I'm sure we'd like to be similarly spoon-fed downrange in Afghanistan. There's a new sheriff in town, cowboy, and you're either us or agin' us.

Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't work that way--and Afghanistan, especially so. You can't reduce it to pro- or anti-government, Taliban or non-Taliban, religious or secular, radical or reactionary. There are too many variables, too many motivations, too many world-views. You have to deal with each group on its own terms, and those terms may not be readily apparent. Stewart writes:

Versions of Islam; views of ethnicity, government, politics and the proper methods of dispute resolution (including armed conflict); and the experience of twenty-five years of war differed from region to region. The people of Kamen understood political power in terms of their feudal lord Haji Mohsin Khan. Ismail Khan in Herat wanted a social order based on Iranian political Islam. Hazara such as Ali hated the idea of centralized government because they associated with it subjugation by other ethnic groups and suffering under the Taliban. Even within a week's walk I had encountered areas where the local Begs [fuedal lords] had been toppled by Iranian-funded social revolution and others where feudal structures were still in place; areas where the violence had been inflicted by the Taliban and areas where the villages had inflicted it on one another. These differences between groups were deep, elusive, and difficult to overcome. (p. 246)

There are other takeaways here, other lessons to be learned. Stewart's Afghanistan is as much in flux in time and history as it is in space and territory. Proud traditions that customarily protected all visitors and guests, for example, may have been undermined by outsiders, or rejected by younger generations. Years of conflict may have destroyed not only infrastructure, but also Afghans' knowledge of their own histories.

My buddies used to joke about bombing the Taliban back into the Stone Age. As more of us experienced the country and its challenges first-hand, however, such jokes became less frequent. After all, how do you turn a parking lot into a parking lot?

History has little meaning if people feel they have no future. Early in his Afghan journey, Stewart travels trips between caravanserai--small mud-walled fortifications, located a day's walk from each other, that once sheltered traders and transporters on the Silk Road. This history is lost, however, even on the current occupants. They need only shelter.

[M]styerious objects had moved down such trading routes: diamonds that could make you a king, Buddhist texts on birch-bark scrolls in characters that could no longer be deciphered, Chinese astrolabes to mystify the Vatican. But now I that I was walking, I found it more difficult to be interested in the Silk Road. Such things had little to do with modern Afghanistan and I doubted whether the people who lived in the building had a clear idea of its past. (p. 57)

One particularly heart-breaking scene described by Stewart involves the willful, ignorant plunder of intellectually priceless, pre-Islamic pottery shards and other items. Removed from their archeological context, such items can at best only be appreciated for their aesthetics--trinkets worth a few cents--rather than for their potentials to unlock untold segments of ancient history. But, to use a clumsy archaeological analogy, people can't eat a pyramid. People do what they can to survive.

"In my village," said the man from Beidon, "we have found weapons where my father said Genghis's first attack was defeated. He made his second attack at this very time of year, while the snow was still on the ground, sending one army up the old wooden causway from Kamenj."

"It was destroyed twice," Bushire added, "once by hailstones and once by Genghis."

"Three times," I said. "You're destroying what remained."

They all laughed. (p. 156)

Having now travelled vicariously with Stewart, I am left with a strange desire not only to help protect non-combatants, not only to help plant the seeds of a national Afghan identity, but to help preserve the various customs, traditions, and even historical birthrights of its peoples. These goals may be contradictory. They may not be realistic. I recognize that, as a soldier deployed in pursuit of these objectives, I may only help destroy what remained.

It is not a simple world, after all, and there are few absolutes. Yet if I talk the talk, I must walk the walk.

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In an interesting parallel to Stewart's travels, two U.S. Air Force personnel deployed with NATO's International Security Assistance Force are blogging and vlogging their ways around Afghanistan, in a project imaginatively called "30 Days Through Afghanistan." It looks to be interesting, if only for the experimental form and format. Their walk starts today ...

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And, speaking of walking, Indiana National Guard soldier Spc. Troy Yocum's is fund-raising to support his fellow veterans. Starting April 17, 2010, he's going to walk and drum 7,000 miles across the United States on behalf of USA Cares! Quick-step yourself over to drumhike.com for more details, or find him on Facebook.

On the Net: Blogs of Interest

As always, Sherpa's looking for plain-speaking news, books, and blogs for citizen-soldiers heading downrange to Afghanistan, as well as for those soldiers' friends and family.

When it comes to blogs, I'm disappointed to find that there's a lot of "link rot" out there, particularly when browsing other mil-blogger's "blog rolls" of allegedly favorite sites. I'll try to avoid this with Red Bull Rising, and only put stuff out there that's well-maintained and specifically relevant to the mission at hand.

Unfortunately for Sherpa's purposes, the Marine writing "Embedded in Afghanistan" is now mission-complete, and it doesn't sound like he's going to continue writing. He operated as an Embedded Training Team (ETT) member in Kunar Province from November 2008 to August 2009. I hope he keeps his archived blog on the Internet, however; he gives great detail and insight into working with the Afghans. He's probably got a book in him.

Fardin Waezi is a professional freelance photographer based in Kabul, who regularly posts photos at "Thru Afghan Eyes." Like they say, pictures are worth thousands. Just browsing his pictures gives you a feeling for the country, its people, and the challenges we face together.

In the "coming attractions" category: "A Major's Perspective," a blog written by a North Carolina National Guard (?) officer, is currently off the net while he transitions downrange to Afghanistan. This will be "Major C's" second or third deployment--evidenced by pictures of him in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He's definitely got the mil-blogging battle rhythm thing down, however, and I look forward to seeing what he has to say when he comes back on-line.