1 C AMP S TONE , A FGHANISTAN OCTOBER 29, 2009 HERAT, WESTERN AFGHANISTAN The chow hall line moved with interminable slowness. We stood together as a team, waiting with our trays in hand for the Filipino cooks to serve us omelets on Styrofoam plates. George had been in a foul mood. His humor could be abrasive and sardonic, and he'd been complaining so much that the other day Rob had finally asked him, "Is anything you're saying going to help our situation here?" He quieted down a bit after that. But his mood simmered below the surface. Truth is, everyone was edgy. Herat was garrison hell. Clean uniforms and M4 carbines being used as accessories abounded.
The closer to the flagpole, the more the little shit matters, and Herat was our flagpole. Not only was our MSOC headquarters element here, but the command element from Special Operations Task ForceWest (SOTF-W) had set up shop right next door since we were only about a hundred kilometers from the Iranian border. The chow line began to move. We shuffled forward and made small talk among ourselves. The uniforms around us reflected the diversity of the NATO effort here, which made us feel even more like strangers in a strange land. A sprinkling of Spanish, a few Italians, civilian contractors, a Dane or two mixed in with our Marine SOF (Special Operations Force) team and some Army paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division. Each group kept to themselves like little islands in a sea of unfamiliar allies. Four days in country and we were already sick of the mind-set here.
We'd been busting ass to prep for the movement to our permanent home about 180 klicks northeast of Herat. Zeroing weapons, prepping gear, modifying our GMVs with homemade metal side racks so we could carry more gear had dominated the last few days. While we worked to get into combat, the headquarters culture back here was cast straight from the peacetime stateside mold. Officers chastised us about the state of our uniforms and choice of footwear. Paperwork inundated us. The people here seemed out of touch with where they were and what we were supposed to be doing. And while Camp Stone was probably one of the safest places in Afghanistan, all of the personnel here drew combat pay and hazardous duty pay. Fortunately, this would be our last breakfast in Herat.
I'd jumped through all the administrative hoops and had been approved in theater as a JTAC, complete with my own call sign, HALO 14. Our gear was prepped and good to go. We'd be done with our final tasks later today, which included mounting a 7.62mm minigun onto one of our GMVs that would give a significant boost to our team's firepower. Tomorrow morning, we'd be linking up with a convoy from the 82nd Airborne that would make its way to the Bala Murghab Valley, which would be our home for the rest of the deployment. The chow line inched closer to the Filipino cooks, who seemed to be the only people in the place in a good mood. They chatted and tried to joke with the men they served. The language barrier was a challenge, but a good breakfast is a universal language we all speak.
I stood in line next to Jay, the only black guy on our team. The guys lovingly referred to him as "Token" after the lone black kid in the television series South Park . His mood mirrored George's. He'd been grousing on and off all morning as he worked to get the team's radios up and running for tomorrow's departure. Ahead of us in line, another black soldier, wearing an 82nd Airborne patch, glanced over his shoulder at us. He caught sight of Jay, who was the only other black guy in the chow hall. The soldier looked away quickly and fiddled with his tray. Jay was a squared-away Marine.
Meticulous with his gear, he wore an air of confidence that made him seem a little larger than life. He tolerated no fools, and he had zero social filter. He would have been a disaster in the Diplomatic Corps. As a Marine, he was first-rate, a man you could depend on to get shit done. During our final weeks in the United States as we finished our training together, I began to watch Jay closely. He was a Recon Marine like Mark, Billy, and George, as well as our team's commo guy. He had a real love-hate relationship with his communication duties. Every down moment we had, I saw him fussing over the radios and comm gear.
He also made a point of taking care of everyone's crypto changes. Our radios had encryption codes that were swapped out for new ones every few weeks as a security measure. Jay would hound everyone on the team, reminding them of upcoming crypto changes and telling them to bring their radios to him so he could take care of the swap for them. Several times back in the States, somebody had forgotten, and I'd seen him sigh in frustration. "Dude, I told you to get your radio to me last night," he'd scold them, but would take the radio and make the changes for him anyway. The 82nd Airborne soldier glanced back at Jay again. What was going on here? "Hey Jay?" I asked him. "Yeah?" he asked.
Well spoken and highly intelligent, he had a deep voice that could project like a drill instructor's when he got fired up. "You think you can show me how to load crypto properly in my radio and how to use TEKs?"-Traffic Encryption Key. "No problem. I've seen you watching me do it." Like Mark, he hailed from Texas, but you'd never know it by the way he spoke. Both our team's Texans sounded like Yankees. I'd learned a long time ago in the Corps that it never hurts to bag a new skill. If I could handle this, it'd make Jay's life a little easier.
Plus, I was anal about my own gear. I wanted to make sure I knew it inside and out, from the radios to the computer I carried to the M4 I slung over my shoulder. If something was fucked up, I wanted it to be my fault and no one else's. The 82nd Airborne soldier looked back at Jay a third time. Jay was waiting for that. Their gazes met, and the soldier nodded at him knowingly. Jay's eyes widened. His nostrils flared and he suddenly shouted, "Hey, nigger! I don't know you!" Everyone in earshot froze.
The place went dead quiet. The 82nd Airborne soldier appeared stunned. Around Jay, the rest of us wanted to find a fighting position and dive for cover. The 82nd guy couldn't tear his eyes away. "Why you nodding at me?" Jay demanded. I swear his voice could have been heard in Kabul. The man shook his head and turned his back to us. A tense moment passed, then gradually the hubbub usually resident in the chow hall returned.
We got our food and sat down at a table not far from the 82nd Airborne soldier and his buddies. It took a bit for me to screw up the courage to say, "Jay, I think he was just trying to identify with you a little." Jay scoffed, then bellowed, "I don't know that fuckin' nigger!" Ducking, I said, "Okay! Relax man." "Dude, no need to start a race war with the only other black guy in here," George remarked. Andy sat down next to me and shook his head. He'd been around Jay enough to know that trying to say anything to him was a waste of time. Besides, Jay did this sort of thing all the time just to fuck with us white guys and make us uncomfortable. There was also something more significant at play here.
Jay had joined the Marines at nineteen back in 2004, and had served with Recon battalions in Iraq and Afghanistan prior to this deployment. The commonalities that exist in civilian life back home meant nothing to him now. Common race or gender, it had no impact. His loyalty, attention, and the friendship he offered came only in the context of his team and fellow Recon guys. That bond transcended all others. He seemed genuinely offended when somebody presumed to be his brother just because their skin color happened to match. His brothers were Recon Marines, team guys and nobody else. And the scene in the chow hall that morning was a reminder to me to tread carefully.
I was still outside the circle. Presume and pay. We started eating in silence. Gradually, a conversation grew from the favored topic du jour: our future home. We knew little about Bala Murghab, so we pounced on any rumors or scraps of intel that came our way. Andy took a sip of coffee, then passed along the latest tidbits he'd picked up. The Spanish army originally established the FOB, the Forward Operating Base. There'd been some sort of firefight while their engineers were building a new bridge across the river that ran through the area.
After that, the Spaniards pulled out and turned it over to an Italian mechanized infantry unit to take control of the area. NATO politics sucked, and the word around Herat was that the Spaniards had absolutely no heart for this fight. "How about the Italians? Any word on them?" Rob asked Andy. "Fucking NATO. Pussies," somebody said. "Not sure yet," Andy told us. "They have different rules of engagement than we do. We'll find out more when we get up there.
" The NATO force in Afghanistan operated under a general set of rules of engagement. Under those, each nation had its own ROEs. Some countries were there as a token effort to show unity with the NATO Alliances. The Poles were like that. Their troops and aircraft were not allowed to engage unless they personally got shot at by the.