Blog: In The Trenches

CAMP BEATLEY, AFGHANISTAN - It took time for my eyes to adjust when I woke up the next morning, for a second I thought I was looking at stars. I soon realized there were tiny holes scattered around the tent roof. This place had been hit by something before, and still had the scars to show it.

The tent heater, similar to an old wood stove, had been left on high all night, even in the early morning sun the air was stifling.

I looked around, most everybody was waking up now to, my chirping alarm clock had been going off for an hour, that probably had something to do with it.

I dug around in my bag to shut it off.

“Morning,” Coscomb said, “you coming with us today.

“I’m here for you guys,” I told him, “Wherever you’ll be I’ll be.”

He laughed, another guy, Munzlang, offered to help me pack my bag.

“You’re not gonna want to pack to much,” he cautioned, “We’re gonna do a lot fo walking today. Get your stuff packed and I’ll check it to see if it weighs too much.”

Kind, I thought, but I could manage just fine, I guess he’d seen me struggle to get all of my stuff inside the day before, but I wasn’t bringing all that with me.

I packed my bag with one of my smaller cameras, and a few bottles of water. I took one final look at the pants they offered to let me wear, they may fit with all the weight I was about to lose from walking 5 kilometers, but not now.

I put on my jeans, tightened my body armor, and headed to the meetup spot in front of the map.

“Jesus Christ,” Sgt. Holton said, “It’s muddy where we’re going today, he can’t wear those.”

I looked up and his eyes met mine, “The other pants didn’t fit,” I explained trying not to cower, for a small man he was intimidating.

“What size are you, small, medium?”

“They gave me a small last night and—“

He dashed off, and came back from his tent with a pair of tan camo pants. He thrusted them at me, I took them and ran off, tail between my legs, I couldn’t get them on fast enough.

I came back out wearing these much talked about pants, “Better,” I asked?

“Much,” he said in a way that implied I’d thank him later, and I would.

Everyone else gathered around the map and we got a briefing for the operation we were going to embark on. It involved taking helicopters from Beatley to an Afghan Bazaar. The plan was to engage the local population and let them know we were there for them, considering how many bases there are in country I was sure they knew we were there, but I offered up no opinions.

After the brief, Capitan Sacchetti pulled me aside, “This is a dangerous place, you’re up for that right?”

I shot him a look, and he laughed, “Ok, ok, I figured as much I just wanted to ask.” The Captain was a tall thin man, fair skinned with a moustache that looked as if he took it straight off of an 80’s Tom Selleck.

He was a talker, and made it clear he wanted me to have the full experience. I wanted that too, though I wasn’t sure we were talking about the same full “experience.” He was outspoken about defeating the Taliban, about how he wanted to do it, the kind of guy that wouldn't mind picking a fight, and he was in a position to do it.

We made our way to the front of the base and headed out toward where the helicopters were landing. Sgt. Powell, leader of  2^nd Squad, pulled a container out of his pocket, pulled the tab and tossed it. Yellow smoke filled the air, a quick way of letting the pilots know where we were.

Two appeared through the smoke, sending every bit of loose dust and rock flying. “This is gonna hurt,” someone yelled, they weren’t kidding.

Head down, rocks pelted my skin and dust collected in my eyes as we ran single file toward the chopper, I only knew someone was in front of me because their steps settled dust long enough for me to make out their boots.

I got on board, and belted in. The ride was up, and then down almost as quickly. We ran off the chopper, and straight into a poppy field. Recently flooded, poppy fields are muddy, and by muddy I mean with the consistency of peanut butter. You either run, or sink.

I figured this out quickly as you might imagine, and ran as hard as I could. Doc ran off in front of me and landed face down in the mud. I stepped over him and kept running, I looked back but stopping meant sinking, and I was instantly glad that wasn’t me.

We were headed for ditches about 500 yards away. Once we got there, my heart was beating so fast you may have thought I’d just run the Boston Marathon. I was having trouble catching my breath, I plowed into the ditch where we were all meeting.

“You alright man,” Coscomb asked.

“Yeah, I just need a little water,” which was a lie. What I needed was an oxygen tank, but water would have to do.

We waited in the ditch to regain the element of surprise, a tough thing to do when you’ve just flown in two very loud, very large 53’s with the words Marine Corps affixed to their side. I imagined this didn’t happen often enough to make it forgettable, but I was just glad for the break.

After about 30 minutes we collected our things and headed for the bazaar, though I had just caught my breath, I was sure to lose it again in due time.

In the distance, you could see traffic leaving the bazaar at a breakneck pace.

“Taliban,” the Captain assured me, pointing to the droves of people streaming away, livestock in tow, “You see the people who have nothing to hide stick around.”

“They must have heard us come in,” he yelled to some of the guys up front. “Imagine that,” I thought to myself.

Half of our team split off to check out the folks who were headed for the exits, the Capitan, Sgt. Holton and I headed straight for the bazaar.

It was similar to an American flea market, vendors of all kinds, selling everything from popcorn to fake Rolex’s.

Sgt. Holton had renamed the outing, Operation Get Daddy A New Pair Of Shower Shoes, and as soon as we got there he began searching.

The people who stayed seemed happy and curious to see us. Kids followed us around from place to place, at first one, and then an entourage. Once I pulled out my camera, they seemed mesmerized, and started talking to me in Dari. I smiled, but had no idea what they were saying.

The Captain walked around talking to everyone he could see, in English of course, but most seemed pleased enough, giving him the same half cocked smile I’d given the children.

He stopped at a butchers stand, the man instantly recognized him. “Hello,” he said.

“Hey, hey,” said the Captain turning his head toward Sgt. Holton and a man they called Ricky Bobby, “This guy, we see this guy everywhere.”

The Captain walked from stand to stand, one man was selling lamp cord.

“What’s this for,” he asked the man, pausing to look back at me, “The only thing that this is for is to make IED’s, there’s no other reason for it.”

He told me they couldn’t shut him down, but that coming to these places was likely to scare those people off.

We made our way through the bazaar, stopping every so often to chit chat with the locals.

Sgt. Holton found a shoe stand, and opted for a black pair of knock off Crocs. How much he asked the vendor. The man punched in the number 80 in his calculator and handed it back.

Our translator said something to him and the man settled on 2 dollars, a fairer price I thought. Sgt. Holton gave him three and we moved on. The most important part of this mission seemed to be accomplished.

The walk back to Camp was long. We stopped in a field about 3 miles from the bazaar, the Captain and Ricky Bobby were hearing traffic on the radio about a squad in Fox Co. under fire. They set up on top of a dirt mound and tried to assist by getting them air support.

They screamed commands back and forth into their radios, Charlie Bravo Charlie, and the like. They seemed to be having some trouble communicating with the communication center back at Camp Hansen, which I would soon find out first hand was a very big problem indeed.

After an hour we left the field, and headed back toward Beatley. It was hot, I was tired, and I was ready to be back on base. Never have feet of razor wire and dirt walls sounded so appealing.

“If that was so dangerous,” I thought to myself, “then it wasn’t bad at all,” little did I know what tomorrow would bring.

On the way back the Captain asked me about my report from the night before.

“Saw what you did last night, nice work,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“You know I think they have you going up to Kotu once we’re back.”

“A different FOB?”

He nodded yes. I launched into a tirade about the difficulty of honing in and doing stores if I couldn’t stay in one place long enough to catch my breath.

“Well we’d like you to stay if you want to,” the Captain stopped me, “You know I think the guys like having you here, and you’ll see more with me than you will anywhere else.”

“I would like that a lot,” I told him, “I need some time to get my bearings and do my thing.”

As we got back to base a 5 vehicle convoy was waiting, “Is that all for me?”

“Yep,” he said, “but don’t worry about just come back inside, we’ll take care of it.”

I felt good, these guys wanted me here. I was becoming an asset, and that’s what I had been waiting for.

The Captain called back to Camp Hansen, talked with someone in the Chain of Command, and it was done.

“You’re with me now,” he said smiling.

Perfect.

We got back and settled in again. Some guys from Dakota were there again, Muller included. Today he was shirtless and you could tell at Dakota he spent his time on the weights.

He stuck around talking to everyone, keeping them occupied, I stared at him as he spoke but was too tired to listen. I grabbed a dusty bottle of water and headed for the tent, I wanted to look over the video I had and figure out the best way to put this story together.

By now, everyone had seen Coscomb’s interview, and everybody, from the Captain down, wanted one of their own. As the sun set, I decided to give everyone who was around their shot, this was after all about them.

After working in this business, even for a short period of time, you’ll find that some people were born to be interviewed, and some just were not.

Half of the Marines from 3^rd squad gave yes or no answers to questions that didn’t call for one, or would say things like, “Is good,” or, “I don’t like it,” not exactly TV friendly. It’s those people that you have to work harder at, but in the end just about everyone has something interesting to say, you just have to figure out how to ask them.

It took a couple hours to do all of the interviews, and a couple more to sort through them all. By now it was dinner time. The food here was something I was sure not even Oliver Twist would want more of.

Rehydrated meats, starches and vegetables, heated up for you to pick out of the water and slop onto your plate. It all tasted the way the pile of burning trash in the corner smelled, as far as I was concerned none of it was edible.

My first night at Beatley we had breakfast; biscuits and gravy, link sausage, cinnamon rolls, and orange juice. Sounds good, right? Wrong.

The biscuits were pumped with something to keep them from going bad, they tasted like a smoky bar the day after, the cinnamon rolls had the same problem. The gravy was watery, chalky, and the bits of sausage didn’t help matters. Link sausage, wasn’t terrible, at least it wouldn’t have been if you didn’t have to bob in a pool of what I’ll call ‘sausage water.’ The O.J was powdered and I wasn’t even going to go there.

I settled for my last bag of trail mix and a granola bar I’d left in my bag. When it was time for dinner tonight, I was famished and couldn’t wait to see what joys awaited me.

“I wonder what’s for dinner, cheeseburgers,” I asked the tent.

“No that was two nights ago,” Coscomb replied, he was getting my hopes up, it had to be something good, “I think we’re having breakfast again.”

He was right, breakfast, yet again. I ate a cinnamon roll and hated every bite.

I walked back to the tent and sat down on the makeshift bed the guys had put up for me. The heat was going and the outside air was cool, it felt nice. I leaned back and closed my eyes, when I opened them again, it was morning.