Afghanistan

[Josh]

RobC,

I just wanted to let you know I've found myself thinking A LOT about you in Afghanistan this week. It probably has a lot to do with the conjunction of your posts with the news footage I've been watching from Afghanistan.

Last night the two major stories on the nightly news were Swine Flu and Afghanistan. I don't know how to describe it but I felt some strange connectedness.

Much of it could be chalked up to my mental state right now, but anyway, I'm thinking of you.

How much longer are you there? How dangerous is your current assignment? What can and can't you even say on a public forums?

[Kirby]

I've been thinking along the same lines...You are in my thoughts RobC!

[robcantrell11]

Josh -

Thanks bro. Your thoughts and prayers are always welcome. It makes sense that your thoughts were here more this week - I was out on a 5 day patrol. We were clearing some villages that had a heavy Taliban presence. We had cleaned up a lot of the area, and they had been pushed back to these villages so it was kind of like a clean sweep. We fought them back to a point where the road became impassible for us due to IED emplacement, but we were able to clean out quite a few of them, including some commanders. Good trip. We lost one of our Afghan Commandos, and had one US injured, but he wasn't that bad. A through and through in the shoulder that missed all the important stuff. The final count on Taliban KIA was 90 I think - although those numbers are often inflated.

At any rate, the only sensitive stuff I can't write about are times, places, tactics, that sort of thing. Results are ok.

Hope you are feeling better. Thanks for the post. I am looking forward to getting back into posting. After missing so many days, the threads get a little long and there is too much to respond to. Have a good one.

[Josh]

Intense.

I can't imagine what needs to happen psychologically to be in that environment.

How often do you go on missions like this?

Hope you are feeling better.

Thought I was, but not quite. They put me on a second stronger round of antibiotics

[robcantrell11]

Nov 7, 2009 10:03:54 GMT -8 Josh said:

Intense.

I can't imagine what needs to happen psychologically to be in that environment.

How often do you go on missions like this?

That is a really good question. I think it is just a process of brain washing that starts in Basic Training, and just intensifies throughout the training we receive. Everything always falls back to that - making decisions under pressure. I remember when I was a Private and I was in Ranger School leading a patrol. I stopped our patrol in the woods to do a map check, and as I'm looking at the map an instructor comes up to me, stands over my shoulder, and asks me "Hey Ranger, you know where you are?" and I reply, "Yes Sergent, right here," pointing at the map with a pine needle at a set of coordinates. He looks me in the eye and says, "Are you sure?" At that moment I was absolutely not sure. I had been, but..anyway, I said "Absolutely, we are right here, and we need to move this azimuth at this distance." He said, "Alright, lets move out." I got the patrol up, and we headed out. I was totally off on my map reading, but I had made a decision, and we eventually found our patrol base, but were lost for a little while. I thought I had totally botched my patrol and would fail. At the end of the cycle, the instructor pulled me over and told me I'd passed my patrol. It wasn't because of my impeccable map reading skills (they've improved greatly, by the way) but it was because I had made a decision and had not backed down in the face of the pressure he had put on me. No big deal, I mean, that's what we all do in life, but the military exerts a special kind of pressure on it's soldiers in order to get them used to a certain set of circumstances, namely fighting. That was a long time ago, but it's lessons still hold true today. No matter the circumstances, no matter the pressure, you rely on your training, and act. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't. That face of the battlefield can change dramatically in moments - take one wounded, get one more big gun in the fight, get air support - all these things can either turn things in your favor or not. At any rate, whatever happens, you always just fall back on your training and trust yourself. And pray. Cause you never know which round has your name on it, lol. Seriously, that is something we think about all the time - where and when it is coming for you, not if. Training, luck and providence. We are not special, but our mission usually is.

Hope you are feeling better.

Thought I was, but not quite. They put me on a second stronger round of antibiotics

I'm sorry brother, our prayers are with you. Be well.

[Josh]

Do you find that you feel like that all the time? Or are you able to switch gears when you're back in civillian life? I've always heard that's difficult for soldiers.

I recently listened to a lecture series that theorized that the story of the Odyssey is all about what it takes for a hardened soldier to get back to a life where he can still relate to his wife and son and yet retain his manhood.

So, at this point are you a career soldier? What are the long term plans?

It wasn't because of my impeccable map reading skills (they've improved greatly, by the way)

That's good cuz I remember a time when a certain kid named Lincoln got lost at a school retreat and had his best friends worried stiff searching everywhere for him- even defying the principal's instructions.

Turns out he was "just following the sun"

[rbbailey]

I've thought about this issue as well, dealing with the people I know who are in-country, and how it is for them when they come back.

These are some of my completely unscientific observations:

1. It does take a certain type of person -- thus people like RobC who are in deep, and the training/selection process that goes is meant to figure out who these people are. Ranger school being a prime example.

2. The brainwashing is cool.

3. The support structure from home/country/religion etc...

And I too conjured up memories of when you got lost in the woods during the retreat after reading your post about Ranger school.

I find it fascinating to speak with old soldiers from WWII who came back from history's most horrific conflict and were able to make it through the process of returning -- even if it took them 30 years -- one of the main things they tell me is that it was their family and God that got them through. I think a lot of the modern issues we have with our returning soldiers is that the family is broken in America, and the overall view of the conflicts we are in is so mixed.

I'm sure everyone deals with it in their own way though. A Liberal, anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-Christian (really) friend of mine (really) once asked me, "Do you think the numbers being reported about soldiers with PTSD are skewed low to make the war not look so bad?" I said that I thought that someone is probably not normal if they don't go through combat without some PTSD -- the question is a matter of how intense the PTSD is and how it manifests itself.

But again, I'm no expert, only a close observer.

[robcantrell11]

These are some interesting questions/observations.

PTSD is a real thing, and I've seen some soldiers who were really effected by it. Especially the young guys, straight out of basic that go to there first units, deploy, and then went through some of the horrific encounters that happened in Iraq - major mortar attacks, where a lot of their buddies were killed. That is where the brainwashing part comes in - it's not just cool, it's absolutely necessary - it helps you build a strong mind to deal with whatever is going on around. Brainwashing is a little loaded though, maybe it is better to say we go through intense Mind Training.

I am interested in the idea about the Odyssey. My buddies and I talk about what war must have been like for the ancients - putting on that heavy armor, or none, and just having a major brawl with any type of sharp or blunt metal object that was in fashion at the time. Really brutal. We like to think of ourselves along the same lines, but we all realize that what that took was a special type of hardness that isn't easy to fabricate in these days of sterile warfare. I mean, really, our most casuality producing weapons are airplanes - A10's and F16's and the like. We claim the numbers, but they are really doing the job. We just guide them in and give them clearance. The firefights I've been in, for the most part, have been at 300 meters and over. I've had a lot of buddies die, but not like it was Vietnam. SOG at one point had years of 100% fatalities. Probably not going to being seeing the likes of that soon, if ever.

For us, in my unit, not many guys come back with real PTSD - but we are effected by our experience. Depending on each individual and thier combat experiences, everyone is effected. If it is only just a heightened awareness of security, that is an effect. Still, the one that I've seen myself go through the most is a sense of almost boredom when I get home - having been in a high state of alert for 9 months, and then get home and have nothing to be alert for - that is odd.

Also, the transition from talking to your wife/girlfriend/family at long distance for months, and then having them day in and day out - to be honest a lot of guys look forward to deploying again after about 3 months at home. It takes a little while to just decompress, but after a few deployments you get used to it. Right now we are on back to back - got home in Feb 09 and deployed again in Jul 09. I am definitely looking forward to spending some time with my new wife when I get home. All in all, though, I would not trade these experiences for anything.

I'd forgotten about being lost in junior high - that is really funny. Although, we don't call it being lost - I was just temporarily misoriented. Take care guys.

[Josh]

You know, as I recall it, the climax of that incident was an "angel" picking you up hitchhiking, wasn't it?

[robcantrell11]

Nov 9, 2009 9:29:01 GMT -8 Josh said:

You know, as I recall it, the climax of that incident was an "angel" picking you up hitchhiking, wasn't it?

That angel had 3 kids in his pickup truck with him - but yeah, providence uses everyone. Funny memory.

[rbbailey]

So, about Afghanistan. You seem to be busy again, Rob, and since you last posted, so has the President.

Since I'm no expert, I'll certainly be wanting to hear from you, and from some others I know, about my theories.

I think Obama is right to rethink the Afghanistan policy. I'm finding it hard to put into words, but without making it sound like our armed services are doing anything wrong, I think the past few years there are showing how a good plan, over time, ends up being routed by all the other good plans people have.

Put it this way. There is a lot of military history in Afghanistan, and when it comes to the history of an outside force trying to accomplish something in the region, the only people who have ever had success is... us. And that success came on the heals of a very specific way of doing things. Obama's plan does not go back to that way of doing things, it mirrors all the other plans that all the other commanders have had for Afghanistan. Therefore, if we take a lesson from history, we can predict that this plan, a surge for Afghanistan, will not work.

I think if we are going to stay there, which is another debate altogether, we should rely on people like you, Rob, and on our airpower. I'm sure you understand what I'm saying -- probably even more than I do.

[robcantrell11]

Yeah, I've been pretty busy. Mostly, though, I tend not to post anymore because I usually come in at the middle of a conversation, and by the time I've read all the updated posts I have too much to say, so I don't. It's fun to read, though.

As far as Afghanistan goes, there are no simple answers. Really we are dealing with a people that is literally stuck in the past - both technically and culturally. Imagine taking the Pashtun and Tajik tribes of 1000 years ago, giving them cell phones, AK-47's and Hi-Lux trucks. That is Afghanistan. There are a few forward thinking individuals, but that is it. Most revert quickly back to tribal affiliation, and have no real loyalty to Afghanistan as a country. Now, if you pitted them up against, say, Pakistan, you would quickly see a unity converge, but left to themsleves they will not get past these ancient boundaries.

So, our difficulty is not in winning a war, but helping a really old, stuck in their ways, culture to evolve. Given a burgeoning industry and a growing middle class, that could occur - but there is no industry in Afghanistan. They barely have an infrastructure. One major city, Kabul, is still a center of slightly more liberal thinking, where women wear their hair out and can have jobs. But outside Kabul, in almost any other city or town or region, especially in the Pashtun dominated south, the old ways still hold strong. Women walk around in full burquas, are limited in their movement, and the Pashtunwali code is the law, where I can kill my wife/parents/sisters for being "immoral" according to Sharia law or the Pashtun code. I've been told many times that burquas are a cultural element, and are not necessarily dicated by Sharia, but regardless, here for many it is a shame for their women to be seen in public. I know that that is focused on the women only, but it goes across the board. Violence is always the answer here, and one of the only things they understand. Many of the soldiers in the Afghan National Army that we train are from the mountains or rural areas where all they've ever known about the world is what the mullah told them, and that was truth. So they come to us, uneducated and illiterate, and that is the majority of the people in the country. More later.

[Josh]

Thanks. I really like it when you are able to take the time to share your thoughts.

A quick question- what is the nature of the tension between the Afghans and the Pakistanis?

[rbbailey]

I think your observation and analogy of going back 1000 years and handing them the little bits of modern technology is something a lot of people are not grasping through the TV news reports they get.

Your post confirms a lot of what others have told me, and it only makes me wonder what the purpose of 10's of thousands of troops is. I can understand the idea that, for instance, intelligence reveals a particular tribe in a particular region is allying with a particular terrorist group, therefore we need to send a team there to take care of the situation. But I don't understand what thousands of our troops parked in Kabul and raiding the countryside is going to do.

Am I totally ignorant and acting on my bias against Obama's politics? Or do I at least have a debatable point?

[robcantrell11]

The nature of the tension between the Pakistanis and the Afghanis is multi-layered. Historically, Peshawar was a Pashtu city, being, I think, the winter retreat for the Pashtun king, when there was one. So when the British split up the region in the late 1800's, during the Great Game with Russia, the Brits wanted a buffer zone between Russia and British controlled India, which Pakistan was part of at the time. The Brit Empire put the borders of Afghanistan right through the cultural Pashtunistan, and grouped the northern Pashtuns with the southern Tajiks and Uzbeks in a nation called Afghanistan. That was their buffer. That is why the map has that weird little tail in the east - no borders with the Russian empire. Well, as you know the Brits carved up India, putting the majority of the Muslims in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Pakistan was historically a Pashtun area, given to the Urdu speaking Muslim Indians. Still, there is a large number of Pashtuns in the Northern Pakistani mountains - being a relative haven for Afghan Pashtuns in times of trouble, such as for the refugees of the war with the Soviets, and for the Taliban right now. Most of their leaders stay in Pakistan to keep out of our way cause they know we can't go in there.

For a better history, read Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban. Quick read and very interesting - especially when it gets to the British wars in Afghanistan, the Pashtuns slaughtering them, and then the war with the Soviets. Vivid stuff, and frighteningly relevant to what we are experiencing today.

I'm sure that you have heard about the Northern Alliance. It was primarily Tajik and Uzbek - with Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir, being one of their most influential and successful leaders during the war with Soviet Russia. Well, the Taliban, too, were at war with the Soviets, and when the the finally pulled out, there was a giant black hole created for control of Afghanistan - with each group working to take the state. If we had gone in then to do some nation building things might have been a little different. But we didn't and we sat back let em fight it out, in spite of Massoud asking for aid. The Taliban quickly took control of the Pashtun dominated south, eventually taking Kabul, which is, more or less central Afghanistan. So, fast forward. The Northern Alliance is our first contacts in our initial push into Afghanistan. They point out the Taliban strongholds that they've been fighting for a decade, and the CIA and Special Forces bomb the crap out of them. Not relevant to any questions but interesting on it's own. Fast forward.

Our efforts here have not been entirely in vain. Yes, there is a lot of work to be done, but we've isolated Taliban influence to several pockets. Those shifted after the end of Iraq and the influx of foreign fighters to train and arm the new Taliban recruits, since a lot of the old Taliban fighters were dead. Money still flows in from Pakistan and Iran, and we just don't have enough boots on the ground to cut off these supply and money trains. And we are getting a little worn out. This is my third tour here, and for many this is 4, 5 or 6, often 12 to 15 months, with a 6-9 month break. We need more boots here to hold the ground that we take, and to help continue the training of the Afghan National Army. By, with and through. We read the intel reports, and from our own direct experience, know that there is a lot of work to be done still, a lot of growing up for the Afghan nation. It often feels like we are making little to no progress, but it is there. Will it work? Maybe. Will pulling out quick create a black hole? Absolutely. None of us necessarily want to be here, but none of us want the work that we have done here go to waste. The unfortunate truth is that we wasted so many resources in Iraq that we are playing catch up in Afghanistan. It's frustrating, but it is done. So we take what we have and do it with it what we can, cause that is what we are good at. What we don't have, and this is something we actually came up against in this rotation, is a force to hold the ground we take. There Taliban strongholds can be thick, and often we have to fight little by little to make it in to the heart. Unfortunately, the coalition forces don't have the manpower, and the Afghan forces don't have the strength, to hold these areas. For instance, recently we fought our way into the edges of a Taliban stronghold. We fought for three days, killing a lot of bad dudes and clearing a part of the area. But we had to pull back. It is not our job to hold ground, but to take it. We had no force to come and hold the ground we had. Sub sequentially, it has been retaken by the anti-Coalition forces. Very frustrating.

For the most part, there aren't that many Coalition forces in Kabul. They are stationed throughout the country at forward operating bases, strategically located to influence the national security, and cut off Taliban supply lines. But there are whole regions that have not been entered by Coalition forces at all, because we just haven't had the numbers since the focus has been on Iraq for the last 6 years. Logically, wherever Coalition forces are not, the Taliban are. My team is in an area that has not had an SF team since the initial push in 2001, and the anti-Coalition forces are dug in. They have had free reign to establish their shadow government and run things in the countryside as they saw fit. We are there now, and are working to take these areas back, but it's slow going. Ok, thats enough for today.

[rbbailey]

Dec 10, 2009 7:56:27 GMT -8 @robcantrell11 said:

But we had to pull back. It is not our job to hold ground, but to take it. We had no force to come and hold the ground we had. Sub sequentially, it has been retaken by the anti-Coalition forces. Very frustrating.

This one quote gets to the heart of what I'm talking about. You've demonstrated the need for more troops, but what good are more troops if they are not going to be used correctly? Somehow I cannot imagine these new troops being told to take and hold land. In fact, we've already been told that they will start to leave Afghanistan 18 months after they are put in. It seems like the perfect set up for exactly what you are saying is so frustrating -- sacrifice and effort only to have what was gained taken back.

This is why I think we need to do something totally different with Afghanistan. I think the specific work that people like you do is exactly what we should be doing -- fight the bad dudes in the mountains, a long way from civilization. The special operations forces should become the strategic plan for this war on global terrorism.

It is what is effective. It takes much less man-power. Less cost. It does not get us so entangled (on a national level) in the politics of the country in question. In short, it avoids all things imperialistic while providing for the strategic and tactical needs of our country.

I know it's a simplistic statement. I guess I'm just saying we don't want to repeat all the mistakes the others have made. Therefore, we should not have the same goal the others have had.

I also hope none of what I've said sounds like I'm criticizing anything you or the SOC/F community are doing. You guys are very close to my heart for several reasons. In fact, I'm saying exactly the opposite. I'm saying you and yours are much more valuable an asset than we may realize, but we have to shift our long term goals for the region or your efforts and sacrifice are wasted.

[Josh]

Rbailey, but if we just stick with "fighting the bad guys in the mountains", how does that really help the country evolve, as Lincoln (RobC) is stressing?