Witnessed a book-burning today.
We took a trip out into eastern Kabul province near the Pakistan border. A beautiful place, crawling with Taliban.
They're promising a long, hot summer here -beginning right about now- and there've been several IED and small-arms attacks in the last few days, so the mood around Camp Phoenix has been pretty serious.
Getting ready for the mission, one of the soldiers asked my blood type. I said I didn't know.
His eyes widened. "How do you not know?"
I've never thought about that. I'm sure I knew at one time. I'll bet my mother knows-- but I'm not about to call from Afghanistan and ask her.
"We'll talk about that," he said, and went back to whatever he was doing.
In the civilian world, Capt. Chris Dieball's a Chicago cop who works out of Area 4. Like a lot of Chicago cops, he registers a little high on the "suspicion of the media" index. We hit it off right away. I don't know what kind of police officer he is -I've never run into him back home- but he's a great soldier-- smart, easy-going, compassionate and brave. There are a lot of people like Dieball here.
We never did have that conversation about my blood. Instead, someone else made it clear that if I wanted to come along, they would need to know my blood type.
"Up to you," he said.
So we went and typed my blood. A hilarious Sergeant in one of the medical buildings here stuck a needle (I hate needles) in the back of my hand, gave me a Garfield bandage (told you he was hilarious) and joked about how well I "took the pain." We shot the whole thing in case it fits somewhere into one of the stories I'm doing. It might.
Anyway- I'm A-positive.
Now, I could have just called my mom and got that information without the needle -I've been talking to her anyway- but I just couldn't do that.
"Hey Mom, it's me.. Yup, still in Afghanistan. Nope, haven't seen him. Uh huh, food's good.. Listen, crazy question- if you had to guess about my blood type..."
Yeah- no. Not gonna do it. Although, now she knows AND I got the needle.
When they type your blood for a military mission and put a Garfield bandage over the wound, that's the very definition of the term "mixed message." I was pretty sure I was going to be fine. Pretty sure, until a soldier I've become somewhat close to over here took me aside and said the following:
"This is serious. This is a dangerous place. If this goes bad- you put down the camera and you pick up a gun."
I'm thinking, "A gun?! Like with bullets inside?!"
Now, I've shot some guns. I'm from a small town. Plus- I've done all kinds of stories involving guns over the years- and some of my best friends are cops. I've shot a variety of handguns, shotguns- even machine guns.
Let me emphatically state: I hate guns. Hate 'em. They serve one purpose: to do a thing I could never bring myself to do.
That said, I ask my soldier friend to give me a refresher on his 9mm Beretta and M-4 assault rifle. Mag, slide, safety, trigger- got it. May I never think of it again.
At 5 in the morning, we're having breakfast. 5:30 we're getting briefed and moving out-- me shooting more shaky video on a bumpy Afghan road.
We get half-way to our destination, and there's a small mechanical problem with one of the Humvees. Everybody stops. They post security and make repairs. Posting security means everybody's out, weapons ready, on alert. I'm happily taking pictures. In one of the shots, with my zoom lens, you can see people gathering alongside a mud structure on a distant hilltop, watching.
"We're out of range," the man next to me says, "No rifle, no RPG."
Antonio doesn't need a zoom lens. He can see our observers with the naked eye. Antonio's not his real name- just what the soldiers call him; they say he looks like an Antonio. His real name I could never pronounce, but he's an Afghan national who works as a US military interpreter, loves America and plans to move there. Says he's already working on immigration and wants to live in Illinois. I think it's the only state he's heard much about.
I'll think of Antonio and his love of America many times today- because I'll see the other side, too.
We move on. Over chai, there's a meeting between the police chiefs of Ladd, Illinois and Khaki Jabbar, Afghanistan. I enjoy the tea very much. When I comment on it, the chief (from Illinois) says his church group sent it from back home.
People back home have been sending a lot of things. A day earlier, I filmed the soldiers assembling a-thousand packages of school supplies for the children of Khaki Jabbar. That's our next stop. They don't hand the gifts out themselves, but let the Afghan National Police do it as a show of good will. The kids know where the stuff comes from. As we soon find out, everybody does.
Not five minutes after the supplies are gone, I hear the slightly raised voice of a female soldier.
"Uh, Lieutenant.. "
"That didn't sound good," someone says, and dashes away. I barely notice. I'm taking shots of the kids. They're beautiful. Someone grabs me.
"You gotta come see this!"
The soldier from Springfield leads me back to the school- to a room where the Afghan police are holding some of the older kids- 17 and 18 years old.
"These are the ones-- they did it," Antonio the interpreter is saying.
They lead me to a clearing outside, where I can see smoke.
Soldiers flank me as I get shots of a small fire on the ground. The school supplies. The local police say the second the Americans turned their backs, elements they link to the Taliban entered the school, and with help from some young supporters there, grabbed the notebooks from the hands of the younger children, tore them up and burned them. Some of the kids are trying to save pencils from the flames, asking me not to shoot this-- afraid they'll never get more.
I'm in no way clairvoyant, but I saw this coming. Earlier, I'd gone back to my Humvee to get more batteries, and when I returned to the school, a handsome young Sergeant from the northwest side named Almodovar was shaking his head in disgust. He told me that when he got close to a window, one of the older kids leaned out and said "Go home, American son of a bitch!"
Pretty demoralizing to a guy who just came by to drop off some pencils and books.
They could have burned them after we left. They didn't. Message delivered. We don't rush out of there, but we don't stay long, either.
It's a long, dusty ride back to camp, where that Area 4 cop, Dieball, laughs the whole thing off.
"We know the Taliban are there," he says, "That's why we go."
We took a trip out into eastern Kabul province near the Pakistan border. A beautiful place, crawling with Taliban.
They're promising a long, hot summer here -beginning right about now- and there've been several IED and small-arms attacks in the last few days, so the mood around Camp Phoenix has been pretty serious.
Getting ready for the mission, one of the soldiers asked my blood type. I said I didn't know.
His eyes widened. "How do you not know?"
I've never thought about that. I'm sure I knew at one time. I'll bet my mother knows-- but I'm not about to call from Afghanistan and ask her.
"We'll talk about that," he said, and went back to whatever he was doing.
In the civilian world, Capt. Chris Dieball's a Chicago cop who works out of Area 4. Like a lot of Chicago cops, he registers a little high on the "suspicion of the media" index. We hit it off right away. I don't know what kind of police officer he is -I've never run into him back home- but he's a great soldier-- smart, easy-going, compassionate and brave. There are a lot of people like Dieball here.
We never did have that conversation about my blood. Instead, someone else made it clear that if I wanted to come along, they would need to know my blood type.
"Up to you," he said.
So we went and typed my blood. A hilarious Sergeant in one of the medical buildings here stuck a needle (I hate needles) in the back of my hand, gave me a Garfield bandage (told you he was hilarious) and joked about how well I "took the pain." We shot the whole thing in case it fits somewhere into one of the stories I'm doing. It might.
Anyway- I'm A-positive.
Now, I could have just called my mom and got that information without the needle -I've been talking to her anyway- but I just couldn't do that.
"Hey Mom, it's me.. Yup, still in Afghanistan. Nope, haven't seen him. Uh huh, food's good.. Listen, crazy question- if you had to guess about my blood type..."
Yeah- no. Not gonna do it. Although, now she knows AND I got the needle.
When they type your blood for a military mission and put a Garfield bandage over the wound, that's the very definition of the term "mixed message." I was pretty sure I was going to be fine. Pretty sure, until a soldier I've become somewhat close to over here took me aside and said the following:
"This is serious. This is a dangerous place. If this goes bad- you put down the camera and you pick up a gun."
I'm thinking, "A gun?! Like with bullets inside?!"
Now, I've shot some guns. I'm from a small town. Plus- I've done all kinds of stories involving guns over the years- and some of my best friends are cops. I've shot a variety of handguns, shotguns- even machine guns.
Let me emphatically state: I hate guns. Hate 'em. They serve one purpose: to do a thing I could never bring myself to do.
That said, I ask my soldier friend to give me a refresher on his 9mm Beretta and M-4 assault rifle. Mag, slide, safety, trigger- got it. May I never think of it again.
At 5 in the morning, we're having breakfast. 5:30 we're getting briefed and moving out-- me shooting more shaky video on a bumpy Afghan road.
We get half-way to our destination, and there's a small mechanical problem with one of the Humvees. Everybody stops. They post security and make repairs. Posting security means everybody's out, weapons ready, on alert. I'm happily taking pictures. In one of the shots, with my zoom lens, you can see people gathering alongside a mud structure on a distant hilltop, watching.
"We're out of range," the man next to me says, "No rifle, no RPG."
Antonio doesn't need a zoom lens. He can see our observers with the naked eye. Antonio's not his real name- just what the soldiers call him; they say he looks like an Antonio. His real name I could never pronounce, but he's an Afghan national who works as a US military interpreter, loves America and plans to move there. Says he's already working on immigration and wants to live in Illinois. I think it's the only state he's heard much about.
I'll think of Antonio and his love of America many times today- because I'll see the other side, too.
We move on. Over chai, there's a meeting between the police chiefs of Ladd, Illinois and Khaki Jabbar, Afghanistan. I enjoy the tea very much. When I comment on it, the chief (from Illinois) says his church group sent it from back home.
People back home have been sending a lot of things. A day earlier, I filmed the soldiers assembling a-thousand packages of school supplies for the children of Khaki Jabbar. That's our next stop. They don't hand the gifts out themselves, but let the Afghan National Police do it as a show of good will. The kids know where the stuff comes from. As we soon find out, everybody does.
Not five minutes after the supplies are gone, I hear the slightly raised voice of a female soldier.
"Uh, Lieutenant.. "
"That didn't sound good," someone says, and dashes away. I barely notice. I'm taking shots of the kids. They're beautiful. Someone grabs me.
"You gotta come see this!"
The soldier from Springfield leads me back to the school- to a room where the Afghan police are holding some of the older kids- 17 and 18 years old.
"These are the ones-- they did it," Antonio the interpreter is saying.
They lead me to a clearing outside, where I can see smoke.
Soldiers flank me as I get shots of a small fire on the ground. The school supplies. The local police say the second the Americans turned their backs, elements they link to the Taliban entered the school, and with help from some young supporters there, grabbed the notebooks from the hands of the younger children, tore them up and burned them. Some of the kids are trying to save pencils from the flames, asking me not to shoot this-- afraid they'll never get more.
I'm in no way clairvoyant, but I saw this coming. Earlier, I'd gone back to my Humvee to get more batteries, and when I returned to the school, a handsome young Sergeant from the northwest side named Almodovar was shaking his head in disgust. He told me that when he got close to a window, one of the older kids leaned out and said "Go home, American son of a bitch!"
Pretty demoralizing to a guy who just came by to drop off some pencils and books.
They could have burned them after we left. They didn't. Message delivered. We don't rush out of there, but we don't stay long, either.
It's a long, dusty ride back to camp, where that Area 4 cop, Dieball, laughs the whole thing off.
"We know the Taliban are there," he says, "That's why we go."
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