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April 9, 2007 By DougT
Posted in Guest Blogger
[Here is another great guest blogger post from Capt Doug Traversa from A*W*A*C]
I’ve been interested in the military since a young age. I used to devour books on WWII, build models, watch war movies, and generally submerse myself in the topic every chance possible. My best friend in junior high school was much the same. We argued the merits of the Russian T-34 tank against the German Panzerkampfwagon III. We knew the gun sizes on virtually every battleship in the war. Yes, we were geeks, WWII geeks.
Ending up in the military seemed inevitable. Yet one of the more fascinating aspects of warfare escaped us. Yes, we knew the hardware inside and out, we knew the dates, locations, and tactics of most battles. We laughed at war movies that tried to pass off modern, angle-decked aircraft carries as authentic WWII versions. You couldn’t slip much past us. But one thing that didn’t come up much was how war forms friendships and bonds that civilian life seldom does.
Coming to Afghanistan last summer would introduce me to a new world in many ways. Never mind the completely alien culture of the place, the primitive living conditions, and the suicide bombers. I would learn about a new form of friendship, one forged by imminent danger and hardships.
I have always been a loner, not forming many close friendships. Yes, I have friends, just not many close friends. My family has been the focus of my attention for the last 22 years. So when I arrived in Kabul, the people most important to me would be absent from my life for the next year. I settled into my old habits. When going to meals, I went alone and read a book while eating. I was not being unfriendly, it’s just what I enjoyed doing. I wasn’t concerned with making friends; I’d just get through the year and move on.
Originally our hut had six people in it, a lieutenant colonel, a major, and four captains including me. However, after a couple of months, we had a new major move in, and at this time the boss decided to divide the hut in half, which angered us captains. Yet being walled off into one half of the hut was a catalyst that drove us to form a closer friendship. I started joining the other three for meals, and slowly we became closer friends.
Living in the plywood huts known as “B-Huts” can be a miserable experience if you are living with a jerk. In our case, we each had a small section about 8 feet by 12 feet in size. We could build plywood walls for privacy, but even with that, if someone played their music loud, banged around early in the morning, snored loudly, or any of a number of other unpleasant things, life could become miserable quickly. Indeed, this happened in some other huts.
I have been very fortunate to have three great hut mates. Doug Templeton, Mike Toomer, Drew Morton, and I have spent most of the last year in Hut R5 (East Side). We’ve shared experiences like having the front gate of Camp Phoenix (where we live) destroyed by a car bomb or having another one go off just outside the wall, shaking our hut and sending up a huge black cloud of smoke. We all head off to work each morning in full body armor, lugging two weapons. When we return we say things like “Lucy, I’m home,” or “How was the office today?”
We’ve shared each other’s pain and joy on more than one occasion. Doug’s father died, Drew got engaged, Mike debated at length about applying for active duty status as a lawyer with the Air Force (he’s in the Guard now), while Drew agonized over whether to leave the Air Force since there is a massive draw-down occurring this year. I missed the graduation from college of my oldest son, and my youngest son played his first season of football ever for his high school, and I missed all of that. I am hopeful that I can see my daughter graduate from college in May. It will be close.
We have had to deal with inadequate equipment, dangerous conditions, and genuine fear for our lives on many occasions. Yet somehow we manage to turn our anger into humor. If you’ve ever watched M*A*S*H (and who hasn’t), you may wonder if all the witty banter that went on in that show was realistic. Yes, it is. I have laughed harder and longer here over the last year than most people ever do. The stress and Spartan conditions seems to have sharpened our wits nicely, and now Mike is actually producing humorous videos during our remaining time here, and naturally we give him inputs all the time.
The truly amazing thing about this is that we are all very different. We’d probably never have met each other back home, even assuming we were all stationed at the same base. We all have very different interests and hobbies, and would certainly have run in different circles. Yet here we truly have become as close as brothers. I finally understand what camaraderie is all about. You can read about it in books, watch it on movies, even hear about it from people who have experienced it, but until you go through something like this, you won’t fully grasp it. Although the price was steep, being away from my family for a year, it was a wonderful lesson to learn, and I am a much better person for having learned it.
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March 13, 2007 By DougT
Posted in Guest Blogger
[Here is another fantastic post from guest blogger Capt Doug Traversa].
I’m not the same man I was a year ago. Not even close. I have been through the wringer of life, survived, and come out very different. Afghanistan does that to you.
One year ago I was sitting at my desk at Arnold AFB, and going to Afghanistan was the farthest thing from my mind. Iraq was very possible, but I never really gave Afghanistan a thought. Yet I was suddenly tasked for a year-long tour in Kabul, and not only that, I’d be embedded with the Afghanistan National Army (ANA) as a mentor and trainer. So I wouldn’t only be out at an American base in a foreign country at war, I’d be traveling around daily, working closely with the Afghans.
I certainly had mixed feelings about this. First of all, it would clearly be dangerous, as I would be filling an Army position, not exactly what I signed up for when I joined the Air Force. I’d get to go to Army combat skills training, I’d be wearing body armor and carrying a weapon every day. I was 44 years old, and the thought of going through combat training was scary enough, never mind then going into a war zone. I was also not happy about leaving my family for a year, but I knew that was part of being in the military.
On the plus side, I would be doing something very few Air Force personnel had ever done. The sheer uniqueness of this was fascinating, and I was eager to see Afghanistan. If I survived, I’d certainly have some good stories to tell.
Step one was getting through a month of training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The training was nothing like boot camp, so my worst fears were not realized. However, the heat was staggering, with many days well over 100 degrees. We often joked about how we couldn’t wait to get to Afghanistan or Iraq. It had to be better than this. One month later I was deemed fit to go into combat, though I would beg to differ. However, it was over, and we went our separate ways.
Once I got to Afghanistan, my world was turned upside down. As we drove through villages and towns crumbling from 25 years of war, my jaw hung open. Intellectually I knew such places existed, but seeing them with my own eyes was still pretty amazing.
The fact that I was viewing them through the bullet-proof window of a Humvee while wearing body armor and holding my loaded weapon just made the experience that much more intense.
My home for the next year would be Camp Phoenix, a series of plywood huts on a former Russian transport base. My “room”
would be an 8′ by 12′ corner of the hut, and ultimately seven officers would share this modest abode. Showers and latrines were 30 yards away in a trailer, and the chow hall was a couple of hundred away, at least. And that was about it. Things would be pretty spartan over the next year.
I work at Central Movements Agency (CMA), an ANA transportation base in Kabul. I am part of an Embedded Training Team, assigned to help CMA evolve into the main transportation unit for the ANA. Our job would include training, mentoring, and advising CMA personnel on a day-to-day basis, working closely with them without actually running things. For an Air Force officer like me, it was a unique and amazing experience.
In order to explain how I’ve changed, I needed to provide the history first. Now let me tell you why this experience, while certainly trying and exhausting at times, has had a significant impact on who I am.
First of all, I have lived for a year in the poorest country outside of sub-Saharan Africa. I have befriended many people who live a life of such poverty it boggles the mind. Each day I hear about their lives, and the struggles they go through. My main interpreter lives in a two-room house with five other people. They have no plumbing other than a single water faucet. If they are lucky, they have three hours of electricity a night. He eats the same meal almost every day. He has no car of his own, no refrigerator, no bed (just a mat), no computer, no luxuries of any sort, and little hope of a better life. He assures me that they are middle class citizens. At least they have a water faucet.
Medical care is poor, if you get it at all. You visit the dentist when you can’t stand the pain anymore. My interpreter had to have two crowns put on his teeth. His teeth were ground down with no Novocain or other painkillers. Then I watched him suffer for a week waiting for the crowns to be made and put on what remained of his teeth.
When you spend a year of your life listening to the stories of the local people, problems back in the states start to seem very small indeed. My perspective on what constitutes a major problem has changed dramatically, and I think when I get back home I will be able to face life’s little challenges with much greater equanimity.
The other thing I’ve been forced to do is think about dying, each and every day. When I first got here, the threat seemed low. But last fall suicide bombings started occurring with great frequency. A massive car bomb exploded near our base, and I felt the ground shake and saw the huge cloud of smoke climbing into the sky. I assure you, that is a significant emotional event. We all started thinking more and more about how much risk we faced each day as we went outside the wire. Some even wrote death letters, to be delivered to their families if they died. I remember one night vividly. It was the night before the anniversary of 9/11. We assumed that there would be an attack the next day (we were wrong), and that night I was sure I would die the next day. It was a night unlike any other I’ve ever had.
However, as time went on, I made my peace with the universe. I had lived a happy life, and if I were to die here, there wasn’t much I could do about it. Slowly I was able to overcome my fears, so much so that even when a suicide bomber rammed a car full of explosives into our front gate at Camp Phoenix, it didn’t really faze me. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t want to die here.
I want very much to go home to my family and life for many more years. But I’ve faced the possibility of imminent death so often, and thought about it so much, that the terror is gone.
My year here is almost up. Soon I will head home, a very different person, and in my opinion, a better one. The cost was high. I spent a year away from my family. I missed the college graduation of two of my children. I missed my son’s first season of high school football. I lived in a plywood box for a year. Yet, if I manage to get through it alive, I’ll have had a part in rebuilding Afghanistan, made many friends with people I would never have had a chance to meet, and most importantly, literally have become a changed man.
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February 6, 2007 By DougT
Posted in Guest Blogger, Why We Serve
[Continuing on with the “Why We Serve” series is Doug from Afghanistan Without a Clue. This is an excellent post and you can get updates from his experience in Afghanistan from daily updates on his blog.]
My path to military service and my current assignment in Afghanistan is rather unusual, but it just shows that those of us defending our country are as different and unique as the general populous. When I was growing up, joining the military did not seem so far-fetched. My father was an Air Force officer, and I was a huge military buff most of my childhood through high school and college. I studied World War II, built models from the period, and memorized all sorts of military trivia.
Yet, soon after I graduated from college (with a degree in English Education) I became a high school teacher. I also got married, and after four years of teaching, I was tired of poverty. I had a wife and two kids to take care of, but there isn’t much you can do with an English degree other than teach. But I did discover that you could join the military and go to Officer Training School with any degree, assuming you scored high on their tests and were selected by their board.
My wife Jancy was an Army brat, and of course I was an Air Force brat, so we both knew how tough a military life could be on the kids, as they switched schools over and over again. We weren’t keen on going back, but we weren’t keen on being poor either, so I took the plunge and joined. I have never regretted it.
The Air Force has indeed been a tough life. After our last move a couple of years ago, we both never wanted to move again. But we’ve had the pleasure of living in Germany, as well as many places in the US, and I’ve been fortunate to have a series of fascinating jobs. The pay is pretty good too, and after twenty years, you can retire and get half of your basic pay for the rest of your life. Not too shabby.
So far I sound more like a mercenary than a patriot, but economics does lead many people into the military. However, it isn’t mere money that keeps people serving year after year. Since being deployed to Afghanistan for eight months so far, with four to go, I have changed quite a bit.
It all started about a year ago. The Air Force was going to be filling Army positions in both Iraq and Afghanistan. That meant that not only would we be deployed for a year, we would have to go to Army Combat Skills Training first. We would be wearing body armor, carrying weapons, and going into harm’s way. You can’t imagine how shocking this was to us in the Air Force. We didn’t do that sort of thing. We did our fighting from airplanes, and those who didn’t fly were stationed well behind enemy lines at air bases. Now we were being thrown into the Army. Yikes! This was scary. I was certainly afraid. In fact, my current boss, Maj Apple, is filling a slot that was turned down by six previous majors. By that I mean they decided to get out of the Air Force rather than do this job. These are guys with 12-15 years of service, and they got out. I don’t say this to insult them, just to show how frightening it was.
I had almost 18 years in when I got tagged, and for me it was an easy decision. Even though I was 44 years old, I’d take whatever the Army was going to throw at me. I wasn’t real excited about it, but I was going to stick it out. I’m glad I did, and not just because I’ll get my retirement pay either.
Arriving in Afghanistan was like going to another planet. You can check out my blog for daily descriptions of the culture shock I experienced as I tried to adapt. But I have learned so much here, made good Afghan friends, overcome my fears, and generally become a better person (at least in my humble opinion). I’ve also come to more fully appreciate how precious our freedoms are, and how vigilant we must be to protect them.
Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic, which means the laws are based on the Qu’ran. If any Muslim leaves the faith, they can be executed. Anyone who admits to being a homosexual will probably be killed by their own family, but if they survive that, they will certainly be arrested and probably executed by the state. Trying to convert someone to any other religion will either get you deported, jailed, or executed. Many women are still treated more like property than like human beings. It was even worse under the Taliban, and it’s pretty bad now. It is people with this mindset that we are fighting, and they aren’t going to go away.
We often talk with our interpreters, or the Afghan soldiers we work with, and try to explain things like freedom of religion or equality of the sexes, and I think while they understand the words, they don’t really understand the concepts. But they do understand that we are one of the wealthiest nations in the world, and Afghanistan is one of the poorest.
Virtually everyone here would move to the US in a second, given the chance.
With all our problems, America is a fantastic place. Our freedoms and prosperity offend the Islamists that seek to destroy us. We have a long way to go before we dare relax. If they ever get a nuclear weapon, they will not hesitate to use it. Do not be deceived; they hate us that much. I’ve seen first-hand how much the Taliban hate their own people.
I’ve rambled a bit, but now to the crux of the matter. I now serve with a new sense of pride that I am contributing in a small way to the protection of our country and the rebuilding of another. I have no desire to die here, and I hope to return in one piece and enjoy my retirement. But for these last two years in the Air Force I am part of something important and essential. I will have amazing stories to tell, and I have been changed for the better. As I say to my men as we drive around Kabul, It’s hard to believe we get paid to do this.
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