DISPATCHES FROM AFGHANISTAN
Troops 'in awe' after first patrol
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — On her yearlong deployment here, Sgt. Michelle School was looking forward to learning a lot about the country and its people.
PHotos by Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Maybe, though, not all at once.
Sgt. Michelle School, a member of Schofield's 58th Military Police, surveys the snowcapped vista near Bagram Air Base in the company of two Afghan militiamen. "It's a beautiful country," says School, who is from Bay Village, Ohio.
Sgt. Albert Matel, a 58th Military Police member, took part in a "presence patrol" convoy of 11 Humvees.
Staff Sgt. Pedro Sandoval receives a poster of Ahmad Shah Masood, the leader of the Northern Alliance who was assassinated two days before the Sept. 11 attacks. His photos are ubiquitous in the area.
On her military police squad's first "presence patrol" to Kabul and back, School trudged up a rocky path at more than mile-high altitude to see an old Northern Alliance fighting position; stopped to meet former Afghan militiamen — one of whom insisted on holding her hand for a photo; passed nomadic tribespeople toting a U-Haul's worth of belongings on camelback; felt the press and stare of children and adults in villages along the way; and ate tangerines with a regional governor.
"There really are no words to describe it. I'm in awe," said School, who's with the 58th Military Police Company out of Schofield Barracks. "We've been on the ground for 11 days waiting for something to do, and it was like, bam!"
The MPs will be on the road every day from now on, meeting with former Afghan fighters now paid by the Ministry of Interior and on the lookout at checkpoints for members of the Taliban and al-Qaida. They'll also be pulling security for convoys.
It's an opportunity to be "outside the wire."
Most 25th Infantry Division (Light) soldiers at Bagram rarely get to leave the base. Going outside the base brings greater danger.
Attacks are less frequent here than in Iraq, and there has been one rocket attack on Bagram Air Base in the past six months. But in Kabul last June, a suicide bomber blew up a taxi next to a bus carrying German soldiers on their way to the airport. Four were killed and 29 were wounded.
School, 24, is both awed and overwhelmed at the moment.
"One minute you're driving down the road and you see a guy with a two-way radio (who can be planning an attack), and the next you're handing out candy and pens to kids," the Ohio woman said. "It's going to take some getting used to."
Ten Schofield MPs made the daylong "relief in place" familiarization trip, heading out on "new" Kabul Road, and returning by "old" Kabul Road.
MP equals 'multi-purpose'
The 805th Military Police Company, a reserve unit out of Raleigh, N.C., is rotating out of Afghanistan, and seven soldiers rode with their Schofield counterparts to show them just one of myriad tasks they will perform.
"Like they say — MP, multi-purpose. We do everything," said Spc. Keith Anderson, 26, an 805th soldier from Washington, D.C.
The MPs also have pulled security for Special Forces mission in addition to performing base duties.
Anderson said they look for "irregularity."
"That sounds kind of odd," he said. "(But) we're here on the (major supply routes) so much that certain times of the day, if nobody's on the road, something's wrong."
Driving out of the mountain-ringed base, the soldiers passed through a mud-brick village where a group of Afghan men sat on the porch of a home, the front yard of which was occupied by an old Soviet tank minus its treads. The road soon took the troops into a high plain.
Camels are a primary mode of transport in Afghanistan. This one is being used as the equivalent of a moving van.
One of the first stops required a scramble up a rocky hill to an Afghan Militia Force lookout with a commanding view of the plain and an old Soviet 50-caliber heavy machine gun on a mount.
Gul Patsha, a 32-year-old mustachioed Afghan wearing a long brown shirt and purple sweater, said through an interpreter that, "When the Northern Alliance came, all these mountains belonged to the Taliban."
Patsha said the Americans gave him a contract to provide gravel, and he also operates the outpost.
"He says that it's been more than two years since we control this area, and if we saw Taliban, we beat them," interpreter Abdul Sama said.
As a goodwill gesture, 805th soldiers dropped off a case of water and military Meals Ready to Eat.
In doing so, the soldiers also noticed nine 107-mm rockets in a stone hut. But needing to maintain good relations, they didn't seize the ordnance.
"You guys will eventually have to talk him out of them," Staff Sgt. Shawn Beckett, 38, with the 805th, told the Hawai'i soldiers. "Just like anything, they're a good bunch of guys, but you only trust them so far."
Late warlord revered
At the first of several traffic checkpoints the convoy of four armored Humvees stopped at, the Schofield soldiers were directed to the picture of a local icon they would see over and over: Ahmad Shah Masood, the Afghan warlord known as the "Lion of Panjsher," whose Northern Alliance fought against the Taliban.
Masood was assassinated two days before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Even though U.S. military officials now believe the number of hard-core Taliban fighters is relatively few — possibly in the hundreds — their influence still is widely felt.
"I think most of these people want things to be better, but for survival, they play both sides of the fence," said Staff Sgt. Rick McGehee with the 805th.
The convoy drove beyond the foothills pass that's the usual turn-around, and continued into the outskirts of Kabul, passing Afghan women wearing light blue full-body veils, or burkas, and the farming valleys that lie between snow-capped peaks and treeless foothills.
Sgt. Jamie Brewer, 25, from Dallas, a Hawai'i-based soldier on his first overseas deployment, said the patrols are "pretty cool because it makes the time go by fast."
"We get trained on a lot of stuff we don't get to practice," he said, "and now that we're here, we get to put our training to use."
Along the route, children smiled and waved at the passing convoy, and so did many adults.
"(Afghanistan) is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I could see how it could be a lot worse," Brewer added.
"There were a lot of units that came before us and cleaned up a lot, made their presence known."
School, who has been in the Army four years and was stationed in Germany before being assigned to Hawai'i, has seen a good side of Afghanistan.
"Anytime people think of Afghanistan, they think of third-world country, desert, dry, no beauty whatsoever," she said. "But if you stop and look, it's a beautiful country."
That, despite a dozen Afghan men staring at the female soldier at one stop-off spot.
"It makes me feel uncomfortable, but I know it's going to happen," School said. "It's like everything else, it's going to take some getting used to."
