Enduring Freedom, page 9
“Smile, Baccam!” Joe said. “We’re going to war!”
Many hours later, after a stop to refuel in Bangor, Maine, their jet was back in the air, leaving America, heading to war.
May 27, 2003
Over New Brunswick, Canada.
Several hundred Iowa Army National Guard soldiers departed the United States this evening on their way to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Over the past three months, the soldiers have trained nearly constantly, sharpening their shooting skills, practicing reactions to various enemy threats, and learning about the tactics of the ruthless, cowardly Muslim terrorists they will soon have to fight.
Joe put his pen down for a moment. There was more to write, much more, but he couldn’t figure out how to express the way he was feeling, at least in the context of the morale of the hundreds of other soldiers on the plane with him, most of whom were asleep by now. For so long, he’d wanted to be an objective journalist, reporting the facts, telling the unbiased truth. The who, what, when, where, and why of the story of his unit was easy to tell, and yet, the summary of it felt completely inadequate.
He yawned and settled lower in his seat, trying to remember something he’d read near the end of Ernie Pyle’s Brave Men. It was something about how the soldiers had been gone for a long time and how so much had happened to them. How they’d done things people back home could not know or understand. How the soldiers would be changed.
Will I change? Joe wondered. Had he already changed since he’d been activated for duty, beyond turning nineteen and realizing that Army training often left a lot to be desired? And if I survive my time in this war, how do I get back into real life?
The view from the window had turned completely to the dark water of the North Atlantic. Goodbye, America. I hope I’ll see you again.
Farah, Afghanistan
May 27, 2003
When do you do your homework?” Baheer asked his brother in their bedroom before school.
“My classmate does it for me.” Rahim shrugged and left the room.
Rahim had been acting strangely for months. School wasn’t easy. Some of his teachers were very strict. But none of them beat the students, and there were no Taliban to harass them. For Baheer, time spent studying or at school was a welcome break from farm work. Rahim didn’t see it that way. Why did he bother with school at all, if he refused to try?
Out in the main room of their house, Baheer’s father shook his head as he looked over papers, probably the latest figures from the rug business. Mother held out a small plate with a piece of naan.
“Here,” she said quietly. “You’ll feel better if you eat something. The business will work out. Insha Allah.”
Baheer’s stomach rumbled as he looked at the bread. Breakfast had been small. Dinner the night before hadn’t been much bigger.
Father waved the food away. “No, no. For the kids.” His father seemed to notice Baheer then. “Off to school?” Baheer nodded. Father forced a smile. “Good. Study hard. But hurry back after. Your grandfather has a lot for you to do on the farm. We’re all counting on the next harvest.”
“Of course, Father,” Baheer said.
As usual, Maryam met Baheer in the front courtyard as he picked up his bike, so she could close and lock the compound door behind him. She smiled, eyeing his schoolbag. “Will you please remember to write down more of the questions your teachers ask you so I can go over it all when you get home?”
Baheer smiled. “I always do.”
She bumped her shoulder against him. “Last week you left out a lot of what was discussed.”
Baheer laughed. “I’m doing my best. It’s hard to keep up.”
Maryam let out a long breath. “I just wish I could go with you.”
“I know.” Baheer patted her arm and walked his bike out to the street. She closed and locked the door behind him. Rahim must have ridden on ahead, for he was nowhere in sight. Just as Baheer was about to hop on and pedal off, an enormous truck roared around the corner onto his street and rolled up to the compound next door. It was hauling gravel and sacks of cement. When no one was looking, Baheer sneaked in with a large group of workers who had gathered around the compound door. He was nervous about trespassing, but no one had lived in this compound since his family had moved to the neighborhood.
Who is moving in now?
Inside, a dozen workers spread a pile of river rock to blanket the muddy compound floor. Beyond a tree at the far end of the compound, workers shoveled wheelbarrow loads of manure out of the back stables. Other men stacked sacks of cement. One group was building a concrete platform a little over a meter high by the front wall near the main gate.
Baheer wanted to explore more, but one of the workers shouted, “Boro, kid!”
Baheer hurried out, hopped on his bike, and headed down the road.
At school, Rahim was already playing soccer with his classmates. The bell rang, and the students gathered in front of the principal’s office, lining up in order from the best student to the worst.
Baheer watched Faisal, the current genius leading his class, from his own place in the middle of the line. That will be me someday.
A middle-aged man in Western-style clothes came in through the main gate, heading toward the office.
From behind him, Omar asked, “Who’s that?”
“No idea,” Baheer answered.
A low rumble of barely contained laughter rose up from the students.
“You can see the outline of his butt in those American-style pants.” Omar laughed and lifted his own tunic, pulling his loose pants tight over his own butt, shaking it at Baheer.
“So what?” Baheer said. “I wore pants and shirts when I went to school in Pakistan. Everyone did.”
“It looks ridiculous.” Omar chuckled.
Baheer’s cheeks burned hot. When he’d first started school here, everyone had assumed he was an unlearned illiterate dirt farmer from one of the remote tribes. It had taken a lot of work, patience, and studying to make his way to the middle of the line and to gain the respect of the other boys. Now, he shut his mouth before they mocked him simply because he’d once dressed like people outside of Farah, Afghanistan.
The headmaster emerged onto the concrete platform outside his office, and the students settled down. The man dabbed his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief.
“Qari Esmat! Come up here and recite some verses from the Holy Quran to begin our day,” he said. Esmat was in eighth grade and was often chosen as the Qari, the reciter of scripture, because his voice was soothing.
After prayers and the national anthem, the principal came forward. “Students! Today we have our deputy director Saheb from the education department with us here. Afghanistan has changed a lot recently. Girls are going to school today. Many of you study English. Two years ago, we had only one or two institutions. Now we have many. It’s a new Afghanistan.”
Why is he giving this lecture now? Baheer glanced at Omar, who shrugged.
“Our country has changed so we must also change,” the headmaster continued. “Now, our deputy director wants to speak to you. Welcome him.”
The official nodded. “President Hamid Karzai has ordered all employees of government offices to wear pants of any color along with a shirt. This rule also applies to public schools and universities.” He pointed at his pants and shirt as he talked.
After the announcement, the students were sent to their classes.
“Let’s ask our parents for the clothes,” Faisal said. “We can wear them starting tomorrow.”
“They can’t force us to change. I’ll never put my butt on display,” Omar replied. “It’s a dumb Western rule. Just because the Americans are in our country.”
Baheer couldn’t keep quiet. Even if this idea came from the Americans, they’d forced the Taliban into hiding. How bad could they be? But this had nothing to do with the Americans anyway. “The dress code isn’t a Western or Eastern idea. In Pakistan, all Afghans and Pakistanis wore a uniform unique to their school. Here, we’re allowed to wear whatever color or style we like.”
“Baheer is right,” Faisal confirmed.
“You Pakistani lentil eater!” Omar shouted. Everyone laughed.
Baheer’s cheeks flared hot. This ridiculous hostility toward anything a few people considered non-Afghan was part of the dangerously backward thinking that drove the Taliban. Baheer hoped school was to be the key for a new Afghanistan, so it hurt to see this ignorance in his classroom. He would have said more about it, but the teacher would be in the room any moment. “I didn’t expect this from you, Omar.” Omar didn’t seem to hear him.
The next morning Baheer was careful to delay his departure for school so that Rahim would leave without him. As soon as his brother was out of sight, he pedaled quickly on his bike to reach the spot under the twisted tree by the irrigation ditch. If he timed it just right, Baheer would see his Mystery Girl, and she would see him in his fancy Western-style school uniform. He dismounted to walk his bike and hold on to the moment as long as he could. Although both he and Mystery Girl would be in terrible trouble if anyone found out about them, he was amazed at how much he looked forward to seeing her. That morning she hadn’t covered her beautiful face. He felt the sweetest ache deep in his chest at the sight of her bright smile, and he remembered Maulana Balkhi’s poem: “Disclosing your blushing, rosy face / Its ecstasy enlivens a stone.”
He replied with a quick smile of his own, and, after he passed her, he risked looking back. If anyone saw him do this, they’d know at once this wasn’t an innocent interaction.
Mystery Girl raised her eyebrows, pointing at his bag. His cheeks flared hot. They were practically talking now! He couldn’t believe it.
He held his palms up like an open book to indicate that he was going to school and had books to read. She showed her books as well.
Baheer climbed onto his bike again and rode off, his heart pounding. He didn’t look back, but he couldn’t stop smiling. When he’d first encountered Mystery Girl, he’d been dressed in work clothes, looking like an illiterate village peasant. Now he was a solid middle-of-the-line student, with his eye on the top position. If he ever did lead the line, how could he let her know?
He wanted to know more about her, but he would never dream of dishonoring her in any way. He’d like to know her name, though. Was that so terrible? Who was she? Where did she live? How had she managed to get permission to go to school? And maybe the answers to these questions would allow him to help Maryam get an education, too.
After school at the farm, as Baheer changed into work clothes, he wondered if he could trust his brother enough to tell him about Mystery Girl. Rahim could be helpful in the future—he could be a lookout when Baheer passed her on the road—but how could he even begin such a serious discussion? They all went to school. Maybe he could start there. “School here is better than in Kabul.”
Rahim didn’t look up from the big tuft of grass he was cutting. “At least here they don’t beat us.”
Baheer rested his sickle by his side. “Thanks be to Allah, the Americans sent the Taliban running. Everything’s so different now. A new Afghanistan, you know?”
“Cut, man. It’s getting dark,” Rahim said.
“I just mean,” Baheer said, picking up his sickle again, “a year ago, who would have thought we’d have new uniforms for school, and that there would be so many girls going to school too?”
Rahim finally looked up, a scowl on his sweaty face. “The uniforms are terrible. The stupid pants are so tight. It’s just the Americans trying to make us be like them.” He grasped another handful of grass and smoothly whipped the sharp scythe into position. “And what’s the point of all these girls in school? They say education is supposed to help us do better in life, but I don’t see how reading dumb old poems or learning about stuff that happened a hundred years ago is going to help us cut more grass or fix the family rug business. If school won’t help us, it’s double useless for girls.”
Baheer forced a little laugh. “You sound like a talib.”
“No!” He spat on the ground. “But maybe with the no-girls-in-school rule, they had at least one thing right.”
Baheer stared at his brother. “That’s not funny,” he said. “Especially with the rumors that Taliban cells are moving back into Farah.”
Any hope Baheer had harbored for his brother’s help with Mystery Girl died with this one little statement of sympathy for the Taliban.
“You hear, boys?” Baba Jan said later that night. “Tomorrow after morning prayer, go to the farm. Water the vineyard. Then cut double the amount of grass because I’m buying another cow. Finally, water the grass because the land was quite dry yesterday. You’re not doing your work.”
“Another cow?” Baheer said.
“One cow’s not enough,” Baba Jan said.
“We have midterm exams soon.” Baheer tried his best to avoid sounding disrespectful, but if he did well on these exams, especially in his English class, where he was already one of the best students, he had a real chance to move himself to the front of the line.
“Work. Then study,” Baba Jan said casually as he left the room, as if exams didn’t matter.
Baheer looked at Rahim and Maryam. “He wanted us to go to school. Now he’s torturing us,” he said quietly.
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but the family is struggling,” Rahim said. “Relax about the stupid exams. No amount of studying ever provided food for the family.”
“Shut up,” Maryam shouted at Rahim, surprising him. Even though she was two years older than Rahim, it was still uncommon for girls to yell at boys like that. “You should be more serious about your studies. At least you get to go to school!”
Rahim frowned darkly. “Who are you telling me what to do?”
“Stop it, Rahim. She’s right,” Baheer said.
Maryam broke into tears and left the room.
“What’s the matter with you?” Baheer said to Rahim, going after Maryam. He caught up to her before she entered her room. “Forget Rahim. Something’s wrong with him lately.”
Maryam tried to stop crying. “It’s fine, Brother,” she said, and went into her room.
Baheer went up to the roof of the guesthouse and sat on a folding chair. Looking up, he saw billions of stars shining in Farah’s pitch-black night sky. A brighter star glittered in the east. He watched it shine and whispered to himself, “I hate the farm. That’s not the kind of work Allah intends for me.”
Maybe Rahim had a point. It was hard to see how studying would lead to more money, and the family business was struggling. But the farm wasn’t bringing in much money either.
Baheer loved his teachers, his books, and learning. He put his face in his palms, his thick, rough calluses scratching his cheeks. He whispered, both in prayer and as a promise to himself, “I no longer fear the farm. It will not break me.” He looked again to the stars and smiled as he stood. There had to be a way to make school work. Nothing will stop me from learning.
Kandahar, Afghanistan
May 29, 2003
You step off the trail, you die!” An Air Force technical sergeant who looked like he’d spent over half of his time on his deployment lifting weights in the base gym was briefing Joe’s platoon about Kandahar Air Force Base. “The Russians left millions of land mines buried all over Afghanistan. We ain’t cleared ’em all yet.”
He went on talking about base regulations and chow hall hours. Joe struggled to stay awake. The flight had been eternal. From Texas to Maine to Germany to Turkey to former Soviet territory Kyrgyzstan, there’d been so many sunrises and sunsets that nobody knew what day it was. Finally, after waiting half a day among the Soviet ruins in Kyrgyzstan, they were sorted into groups to board military planes on their way into Afghanistan, their new home for the next year. Apart from Army training in Georgia and Texas, Joe had barely been out of Iowa. Now in one trip he’d been in four different countries. It was all so strange and different. He felt like an astronaut landing on another planet. What should he do? How should he act?
“Wake up, soldiers!” the Air Force guy shouted. Joe sat up straight and took in a sharp breath, blinking away sleep. The tech sergeant continued, “Since you gonna be here at Kandahar Air Base on a temporary basis, we got you set up in temporary housing, in the tents on the other side of the runway. Now remember we got problems with snakes, rodents, and camel spiders. Check your boots before putting them on to make sure nothing’s crawling round inside.”
Joe looked to Baccam in the seat next to him like, Is this for real? Being stuck in a war with the threat of IEDs and the Taliban was bad enough without having to worry about being bitten just putting on his boots.
“Sounds awesome,” Baccam whispered.
The sky was beginning to brighten by the time they were released from the briefing and led to the small tent city where their whole infantry task force had assembled. Joe rubbed his hands over his face. He needed a shave. After so much traveling and with no chance to clean up, he was way out of Army shaving regs. But then, so was everyone else.
“Up all night,” Baccam said. “But I’m not that tired. I hope the Army lets us adjust to local time.”
Joe could see more of the base now, a mix of tents, wood buildings, concrete structures, and tan mud-brick ruins full of bullet holes. On the flight line, the control tower looked a little more modern and permanent. Dry sand and powdery dust was everywhere, interrupted by a handful of palm trees. Definitely not Iowa. How could people live in this dried-out wasteland? Joe flopped down on a dusty green cot next to a concrete bunker that had been fortified with sandbags. Baccam yawned, put his SAW down on its bipod, and took a seat next to him.
