The deserted compound of a girls school in Sar Howza (Photo: Heimken)

After we went on patrol to the bazaar on the outskirts of Sar Howza on Monday, 3^rd Platoon took us out to what used to be a girls school today. We got the usual briefing by the mortar pit before leaving. The school is infamous for having Taliban graffiti sprawled over the inside.

Apart from being told to watch out for IEDs by the graveyard the guys were warned by Lieutenant Wood and Staff Sergeant Nuñez not to get pissed off if the kids started pelting them with rocks again.

If the Afghan police who were to join the parade started firing in the air to scare off the youngsters, then so be it. This was there country. The soldiers were told not to hand out any presents. It hadn’t worked out last time, added Wood.

The Graveyard

The armored vehicles climbed up the slope to Sar Howza and passed the graveyard that stretched on both sides of the road. It seemed a spooky place, but in a fascinating way – very different from our grave yards.

Some of the graves had tall masts next to them, some with fluttering flags. Stones lay on most graves and brush was growing through out the huge field. The whole atmosphere was strange. For the first time since we got here, the sky was overcast. It seemed that summer is beginning to loose its grip.

The local workers were making head way paving the street into the city. However, the asphalt ended just before the graveyard began. Captain Perkins said the insurgency starts where the paved road ends.

Red Adobe

War graffiti drawn by children on the walls of the school compiled by Axel

Soon after, we passed the typical red adobe buildings the typical wooden ladders leading up to the roofs. At the end of the streets we dismounted. Together with the Afghan police we made our way through alley ways towards the school.

At one point a bunch of kids ran off into an open gate leading into one of the bigger Qalats, compounds, once Axel started taking photos. His long lenses could be mistaken for gun barrels. They seemed genuinely scared.

Some of the kids were dressed in amazing colors. It seemed as if some wealthier families were living here on the outskirts. But you can’t really tell, because all is hidden behind the red adobe walls of the compounds.

Problem Area

One of the classrooms

The school lay right at the edge of town, a steep and rocky ridge rising up behind it. Because there were caves in the ridge some of the soldiers went up to check them for any traces of the insurgency. “This is a problem area”, Staff Sergeant Nuñez let me know.

Next to one on the caves they found a firing position made of rocks. The strangest thing about this war is that the enemy is almost like a ghost. This cliff on the edge of town is where the low intensity insurgency begins. Behind it lies Talibanland, an area so remote and inaccessible, that the soldiers would only seriously venture into it by helicopter.

To choose such a site for a girls school seemed pretty thoughtless – with the benefit of hindsight. The school was built in 2008 by the local Provincial Reconstruction Team. It operated for two months, before it was shut down.

The inside of the school was indeed sprawled with graffiti. Most of the ones I picked out for the interpreter to translate, he said were poems. Anything that could be removed had been taken away. Windows and doors had all been removed. It almost seemed as ghostly a place as the graveyard.

It would be interesting to find out if it really were the hard line Taliban who closed the school down. Perhaps the ultra conservative ways of the people of this town stood in the way of this project too.

Once again nothing much happened on this patrol – we didn’t get pelted with rocks – but there is a strange feel of enigma to this country. To a Westerner it seems unreal. To grasp it’s reality it probably would take more than dismounting from our armored spacecrafts and just dipping into the world outside the gated community of the cop.

Mortars

A mortar round exploding on target on the mountain ridge

In the afternoon we drove back out with three MRAPs and did some military stuff closer to home. This time we just drove a few hundred meters off road to secure the target area for a Mortar rehearsal.

They were shooting live mortar ammo half way up the mountain ridge in some kilometers distance to the west of the COP. The 120 and 81 grenades were close on target and sent out detonations echoing through the whole area.

We just sat in the desert near a wadi on some rocks chatted and watched.

Specialist Gloria from Michigan looking out towards One Tree Hill near the village of Gulridin (Foto: Loesche)

Today, we went out on a mission for the first time since we got here. Lieutenant Chad Christian, 24, from Alabama took us with him in his MRAP to see for ourselves what Captain Perkins and his two platoons had accomplished on a previous five day mission.

A convoy of MRAPs and some Afghan National Police vehicles drove down the asphalted street to Gulridin where a check point by the street and two observation posts high above up in the hills had been set up.

Half way we stopped.

Suddenly the gunner in the turret fired a volley of shots from his machine gun. Empty cartridges tumbled into the air conditioned armoured truck. Shots were going off in front and behind us. The Police had dismounted from their pickup trucks and shot their AKs.

It was a test firing exercise, shortly before we reached the end of the asphalted road. Perkins told me yesterday: “The insurgency starts where the asphalted road ends”. Todsay’s mission was to further fortify the check point to be manned by the ANP – to build a shelter for the police.

While some of the guys started unloading building materials from the cargo truck Axel and I followed Lieutenant Christian up the hill. On the way, we met Staff Sergeant Neal Nuñez, 33, from Los Angeles of 3^rd platoon 2-28.

One Tree Hill

He had a whole case of energy drinks. We grabbed some cans, Nuñez explained where we could find the mortar team securing the area from one of the opposite hills. We started first down through a dry wadi and then up the hill to where the soldiers had set up their position to secure the works.

At this altitude (2500 metres) and carrying a vest and a helmed a minor hike turns into a major mountain climbing exercise. Completely out of breath and sweating we reached the mortar team who had trained their tube on an elevation dubbed “One Tree Hill” (no, not this one).

Staff Sergeant Arias and Private First Class Gloria at an elevation of 2528 meters in the district of Sar Howza

We stayed long enough to catch our breath and then made our way further up the hill, where we were greeted by Staff Sergeant Marciel Arias, 29, from California and Private First Class Carlos Gloria, 26, from Michigan.

The 360 degrees view from the top was breath taking. Axel and I stayed up there chatting to the soldiers for three hours. They explained to us the complex relation ship between a platoon Lieutenant and his non commissioned officers.

Basically all platoon sergeants by definition are more experienced than their officer counter part who never the less outrank them. A good platoon lieutenant will always heed his sergeants advice. Sergeants can make or break lieutenants.

Check point

At 4.00 p.m. we went back down the hill because we heard that down below they were now stopping cars together with the ANP and doing iris scans and taking finger prints with the HIDE-System. When we got there, they just stopped a red Mitsubishi pickup truck with four guys in it.

They seemed understandably less than elated to have to go through with the procedure, especially because the machine wasn’t working properly, not recognising the iris. Slowly a queue of lorries and cars was forming.

One pair of guys who had a the whole car full of loose grapes seemed outright scared by the soldiers and the police. At the end, the procedure seemed useless as the ANP, who were in charge, waved through many cars and lorries or just searched them sporadically.

Cars with women were a no go. Anybody smuggling goods or weapons would be well advised to take a female passenger with them.

The Kuchis

The most interesting and intriguing people of all are the Kuchis, Pashtun nomads. They travel with colorful tractors pulling carts, full with elderly passengers, women and children, stuffed with goods of all kinds, dogs and goats.

All women hid their faces with scarves from us some of the very young children seemed frightened. At least five of such vehicles past the check point. The police stopped none of them, because of the women on the open trailers.

It was a truly astonishing and intriguing sight. I would like to know much more about these people, who seem like from another planet, whose rights are guaranteed by the central government in Kabul.

I had first heard about the Kuchis from an analyst from Human Terrain System I interviewed two days ago in the COP. The nomads stand accused of smuggling weapons for the Taliban, which they apparently hide among their herds of camels and goats.

We saw one of those flocks from the peak where we had stayed. Some of the Kuchis, who live in tents, must shepherd the herds and others then follow in their tractors and carts.

Combat Medic Badge

In the evening we witnessed how the platoon’s medic was awarded the Combat Medic Badge for saving three Afghan police’s lives at the end of Juli, after their pick-up truck was shredded by a roadside bomb.

We passed the truck on the ANP’s compound on our way into the base twice today, where it sits as a reminder that this still is a war, in which people are killed and maimed. I was totally knackered after nine hours outside in the mountains.