by Bob Ritchie
The sun rests on its mid-morning perch. The steep angle of the summer rays reflect off of every surface, scorching all that lack shade while the humidity seals in the heat like a Tupperware lid. Sweat leaves a dark wet ring around my Braves hat and trickles down the back of my neck. A few more passes with the mower and the small patch of grass that has become a makeshift soccer field at the Asheville Islamic Center will be ready for the group of future soccer stars already gathering around.
I make one last pass around the outer edge, hit the kill switch, and the mower rattles and coughs as the engine cuts off. I signal to the children with a wave that the tiny field is all theirs. The quiet of the silenced motor lasts only seconds as yips and hoots fill the air and the children reclaim their temporarily forsaken field of dreams. I stop for a quick drink of water and watch as the group sets up the orange cones that serve as a net and begin chasing the ball around like it’s a loose chicken, only this time… no dust. That damned dust.
***
It is late January in the Sangin Valley. On patrol again. If hell is in Afghanistan then the Sangin Valley is Satan’s behind. A real shitshow. Every patrol in the last three months has involved multiple firefights. It doesn’t matter whether we are chasing insurgents up north through the green zone, slogging through canals, traipsing over poppy fields, pushing through heavy vegetation, or working our way through the district center’s narrow dirt roads hemmed in by fifteen-foot mud walls; we are harassed, ambushed, and challenged for every inch of ground we take.
This, however, is not the worst of it. All of these things a Marine expects from his enemy. These are the things we train for. The IEDs are what make this place so dangerous. You can’t walk a hundred meters in any direction without running across an IED. They are everywhere, in the streams and canals, ditches, footpaths, and roadways. Hell, a Humvee hit one just thirty yards from the main gate.
For two weeks, we had been outside the wire on daily reconnaissance patrols along the edge of the Sangin district center. Most days I was on point with the EOD team and combat engineers. We led the way with metal detectors, probing sticks, dogs, robots… on hands and knees probing the ground with a knife when we had to. Usually, by 1400 hours we were already twenty IEDs deep. All day long we set countercharges, called out “fire in the hole” and then the angry blast of controlled detonations filled the air. We’d move on past the blast hole another fifteen to twenty feet and start the cycle all over again.
A few days later, how many exactly I don’t remember, we chased the Taliban out toward the green zone and were moving along the edge of a stream that ran parallel to a poppy field adjacent to a good-sized compound. Smitty and I were getting a break that day and were closer to the rear carrying some additional render-safe gear. We moved slowly, single file behind a point man with a mine detector. About twenty minutes into the patrol, at the front of the column ahead of our position, two concussive thumps ripped through the air. We squatted low to the ground, but no one moved, nor dared take a step, like a dangerous game of twister. Someone shouted for a corpsman and everything was in motion again. Soon after, the radio sounded off passing the word, 2 KIA, 2 WIA.
Smitty and I made our way to the front of the column and the seat of the explosions. Outside the blast crater severed legs, arms, shattered bones and genitals littered the ground. Blood and human tissue stained every nearby surface. Moments ago, they were hopes and dreams, they were fathers, brothers, and husbands. We knew them, all of them. Staff Sergeant Stone was standing, bloodied, full of shrapnel but conscious. “Jesus, Jimmy, what the fuck happened, you alright?”
The corpsman was working on Jimmy trying to get him to the rear but he refused to go. His breath was sharp and shallow and his eyes darted from Smitty back to the ground. “I don’t know. One minute Russo’s down on the ground probing, telling me he’s got something… the fucking thing detonates. Mo must have stepped on a secondary, I don’t know, because a second later another one goes off. Navarro took some shrapnel too, but I think he’s okay.”
Sergeant Marco Russo’s faceless, armless torso lay twisted and riddled with shrapnel, his combat helmet and most of his head missing. Corporal Malik Moses was legless, his torso split at the groin. I pushed it all down inside, forced it down, sealing myself off to keep from crying out. To keep from running away. I consider the insanity of it all, the absurdity, how pointless it seemed, only to be jolted by Captain Hollins, “Smith, O’Connor, get your gear. You guys are on point. Let’s go, move out.” Because that is what Marines do.
And we kept on doing it. Another week of same shit different day and then Ramadan was upon us. The fighting came to a standstill. I didn’t understand it myself. The Afghans spent most of Ramadan fasting and praying. Some days there were festivals and celebrations, other days they mourned. It began with the crescent moon and ended with the same. Military Intelligence reported that the Taliban had pulled back in reverence of the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. Anybody with boots on the ground knew better. I suspected a “Tet” style surprise at any moment. I didn’t trust the sneaky bastards. It did mean, however, more counter-insurgency missions…rolling into the tribal compounds, winning the hearts and minds of the Indigenous tribal people, including the compound adjacent to the poppy field along the stream where two good Marines lost their lives.
The sun was high in the sky and the temperature was a balmy sixty degrees as the convoy came to a stop. We were wearing goggles and haji scarves to keep the dust out of ears, noses, and mouths…when in Rome. The dust kicked up easily but never seemed to settle back. Everything was covered in a dry dusty film. We secured the perimeter and checked for insurgents. All was quiet.
The Tribal Elders came out to greet us, smiling, nodding, hands out, waiting to see what supplies we had brought. The Tribal Chief, or warlord, or drug baron, or simple farmer and friend, or whatever title suited his needs that day, offered a loose handshake and then placed his right hand over his heart and nodded gently. He had deep brown eyes set inward of high protruding cheekbones and bushy black eyebrows. He was probably less than sixty but looked like he was well into his eighties. Afghanistan will do that to a man. The other elders looked much the same with turbans and flowing gray beards resting on the patus wrapped around their upper bodies. They sat quiet and resolute, only slightly less stoic than the Tribal Chief.
A local Afghan served as the Terp. He had been vetted, but still, I didn’t trust him. Introductions were made and the tea poured. We promised clinics, medicine, food, improved infrastructure, and schools. We asked about Taliban insurgents, their weapons caches, and bomb-making workshops. “Grow crops instead of poppy,” we said. “Help us help you. We’re on your side.”
But their eyes betrayed them. They were dark and menacing, filled with contempt. To them, we had only come to obliterate their compounds, eradicate their poppy fields, and imprison or kill them and their family members. They didn’t care for our war. It was not their war. The nation of Afghanistan meant nothing to them. They had one priority – opium. That they killed for.
They told us they hadn’t seen the Taliban. They didn’t have any weapons and they knew nothing of explosives or IEDs. They knew the game and played it to their advantage. At best, they would rat out rival tribes, especially if they thought it would provide them with an advantage in the ever-continuing tribal squabbles. At worst, they would protect their stake in the opium trade. Their allegiance was always to the highest bidder and the bidding was constant. They saw us as no different from the Soviets. They made assurances to us that they would give up insurgent fighters and the next morning they were planting IEDs for the Taliban. It was hard to tell one from the other, the Taliban from the drug lord from the bystander, but it was easy to hate them all.
The Shura was a waste of time. Perhaps my eyes betrayed me as well. Neither of us told the other what was really on their mind. I wanted to tell them, I know you bastards set those IEDs that killed Moses and Russo. I wanted them to know I hated them and I would kill as many of them as I could. In return, they would tell me, you’re damn right we set those IEDs. We don’t want your hospitals or schools. Get out of our valley or we will kill as many of you as we can. Instead, we smile, and lie, and seethe. The absurdity of it will be in ten years when the U.S. government pays them ten times what their poppy is worth not to grow it. We will still smile, we will still lie to one another, but we won’t kill each other anymore.
After the meeting, the medical teams unassed themselves and moved through the compound to treat the various maladies as best they could. Across a small courtyard a group of boys were kicking up more dust, chasing a makeshift soccer ball made from trash all balled up and secured with tape. Smitty tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the boys. “An opportunity to win some hearts and minds,” he said with a sarcastic grin.
“I’d feel better if we swept the area,” I said. We grabbed a couple of mine detectors and went to work. I had already walked up on too many kids blown to bits by misplaced or stray IEDs meant for Marines.
After we cleared the area and stowed our gear, Smitty reached down under the seat and pulled out a brand-new soccer ball. “What do ya think?” he grinned.
I shook my head in disbelief, “Where the hell did you get that?”
“That’s classified, need to know and you don’t need to know. The fewer people who know the better,” he said with a shit-eating grin.
“You stole it from the Brits didn’t you?”
“Forget about it. They’ll never miss it. I was saving it for some hacky sack back at the FOB, but this will be a lot more fun. C’mon, let’s go.”
We ran over to the dust bowl currently serving as a soccer field and I snatched up the trash-filled tape ball and wagged my index finger, shaking my head. Arms immediately extended outward pleading for the ball, shoulders slumped, heads bowed, I even saw a few tears forming when Smitty pulled the virgin white soccer ball from behind his back and baptized it with a hard spike on the dusty ground. The ball bounced away followed by a wild herd of Afghan boys, some barefoot, some with sandals, some with what looked like dress shoes, none with soccer cleats, but all with smiles.
Two rocks served as the goalposts, there didn’t seem to be any out-of-bounds markers, and the ground was nothing but sand, but no one cared. A few more Marines joined in. Dust filled the air and settled back down in our hair, in our ears, in our nostrils, down in our boots, and truth be told, some settled right down in our ass cracks. I don’t know how it got in there, but it did.
I stopped for a drink of water and I saw a small Afghan boy. Ten, maybe twelve years old, hard to tell. His back was resting against the compound wall as he leaned on a single crutch. His left leg was missing from just above the knee. I walked over and stopped in front of him. He looked past me, keeping his eyes on the soccer game. I reached into my pocket, and found a stick of gum…a peace offering. He stared at it for a moment and then took it and shoved it into a pocket. I pointed to the soccer game with one hand and waved him towards me with the other, shaking my head yes. He shook his no and held out his crutch. I told him, “Never mind that crutch, come with me.” I squatted down and motioned for him to climb on my back and hang on piggy-back style. It took a good bit of coaxing but he finally climbed on. I sprinted back to the game with the boy hanging on my back. He had a good grip, strong. He grabbed me over the shoulder with his arms and wrapped his one leg over my hip. And we ran. I carried the boy all over that soccer dustbowl. Within minutes he was shouting and pointing, directing me, telling me where to go, “Gargandi mandah kara… gargandi mandah kara.” I think he was telling me to run, to go fast, but my Pashto was not that good. No matter, I just kept running like hell and he kept shouting and pointing.
Finally, we sat down in all that dirt and dust, completely out of breath. Smitty brought over a case of water and we all grabbed a bottle. Another boy jumped up, retrieved the crutch, and handed it to my one-legged passenger. He pulled himself up and stood on his good leg. He leaned over on the crutch and kicked the soccer ball in a quick hopping motion. Then he pulled the gum from his pocket, slipped it between his teeth, and wagged his finger at me as if to say that’s how it’s done.
***
A black and white checkered soccer ball rolls over beside me reminding me it’s time to load up the mower and get a move on. A young voice calls out, “Excuse me, sir, could you throw the ball back, please?” I smile and toss the ball back to the future World Cup stars. I pull a stick of gum from the soggy pack in my front pocket, pop it in my mouth, and stop to watch for a few minutes. There are shrieks and screeches of joy as they enjoy the thrill of the chase. Wherever the ball goes, they go, like the tide following the moon. I think about joining in, about running in a dust bowl, about letting go of the world for a moment. The freedom of it all. I think about bare feet and the dust in my face, the little arms wrapped over my shoulders. How the laughter filled my soul when my soul was empty.
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Bob Ritchie is a veteran of the United States Coast Guard. After serving on active duty and in the reserves, Bob embarked on a twenty-five plus year career in law enforcement. Bob served for over 10 years as an FBI Special Agent Bomb Technician. In 2005, Bob was assigned to the Combined Joint Task Force 76, CJ2 as a member of the Combined Explosive Exploitation Cell in Bagram, Afghanistan. Bob was tasked with the collection of critical enemy intelligence and the development of counterterrorism measures specifically related to IED related intelligence, post blast forensics, the development of TTPs and countermeasures. While in country, Bob successfully investigated and reported on over 30 recovered IEDs and his investigative work was crucial in forensically linking persons in U.S. custody to devices recovered from post blast investigations. It is through these experiences that Bob writes and reflects on his experiences and the experiences of others served with in a combat zone.
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