I stupidly sit up, just in time to see tracer fire from a PKM pouring down the hill at me. Without getting out of my sleeping bag, I slide down the hill to my HUMMV, slink through the door, and crawl up to my 240G machine gun in order to return fire. 

The back blast from the RPG has caused a fire on the hillside, providing me an excellent target, and I quickly fire 200 rounds off in 8-10 round bursts. Of course the enemy, or "dushman" to the ANA soldiers, has already safely departed. Soon A10 war planes and Apache gun ships are circling the area scanning for a target, but they have already slipped into one of the mountain's many cracks and crevices.

     

It is now 4:00 am, and we have organized a patrol consisting of a squad of US Marines and a squad of ANA along with us, their ETTs, to climb the mountain and investigate the area where the attack came from. My job as Embedded Training Team (ETT) member is to advise and mentor the ANA. I have been with them for over nine months now, and training them has been a roller coaster ride of highs and lows. When our Kandak (Battalion) was first formed at the Kabul Military Training Center, we had just over five hundred soldiers. After six weeks of training at Camp Darulamon, we were down to less than four hundred. The rest had gone AWOL, deciding that military life wasn't for them. When we moved "downrange" to the Kunar province, nearly three hundred remained. Now, after six months of combat operations with the Marines and Special Forces, we are down to about 250 soldiers. I am happy with that number, though, because we have gotten rid of the cowards and uniform welfare that had been feeding off the system. The soldiers we have left are brave and mission focused. That fact is evident in their eagerness to pursue our attackers.

When asked to describe the Mexican countryside, Cortez is said to have crinkled up a piece of paper and thrown it on the desk before King Charles. This, he said, is what Mexico looks like. That demonstration could easily have worked for Northeastern Afghanistan. 

Since I have been downrange, I have been humping up and down these mountains. They are steep, rocky, and filled with caves. We have found numerous weapons caches in these hills, some modern, some dating back to the first Anglo-Afghan war in the late 1800s. Every hill has fortified fighting positions on its summit. Sometimes, the enemy shoots at us from them and sometimes they hide in them to detonate IEDs on our convoys. However, by the time I reach these positions, they are always empty. Here in Kunar, we have had four ANA soldiers KIA (three to IEDs and one shot in the head), and many more wounded. Some of those wounded have returned to duty, and they accompany us on this patrol. They are awarded no purple heart, no bronze star, they wear no body armor, and lack the technological advances that make our military so powerful. Although they are not very disciplined soldiers, I have come to respect them.

     

The mountain is very steep, and it takes us five hours to climb over four thousand feet. We find the POO (Point of Origin) some 900 meters from our position. We are amazed at how capable the enemy is with his weapon. He fired three RPGs from that range and all landed within 20 feet of our position, one as close as five feet. A plane flying high above tells us that there is a village not too far, so we go to investigate. Up up up, we finally reach it exhausted and shocked. 

Here, on top of the world, there is an entire village. Imagine living in such a remote location, isolated from civilization. Through interpreters, we question a few of the elders, but, as usual, they have not seen anything. We take a suspicious character with us as we descend back down the mountain for questioning, but nothing will come of it. Just another day in Afghanistan.

     

Back at our fire base, we watch CNN's special report on the War in Iraq. Sometimes I get upset because there is no mention of us, but mostly the news makes me think of people I know who are serving in Iraq. People I met in Kuwait when I was going on leave, friends I made in Ranger school or some other training, or even people I grew up with. I wonder how different their experience is.

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