Kenneth Taylor's blog

Letter to a Friend

Adrian,

No holiday we celebrate is immune from over commercialization. It is human nature to capitalize on popular events in order to profit. Profit is a means to feed babies. It is easy for some of us to lose sight of the importance of the days we choose to hold sacred. For some, it’s Christmas, others Easter or even Valentine’s Day.

I happen to like Thanksgivings. There really is very little not to like about it compared to other holidays.

There is no ridiculous requirement to love someone even harder because of St. Valentine. Who the hell was he anyway?

Halloween is fun but it really is the Dentist’s equivalent to Black Friday. It was great when I was a kid because I didn’t have to worry about dental insurance. Now, I cringe when my kids come home with pillowcases full of future dentist appointments.

Christmas, is commercialized to the point that they mark the beginning of the Christmas season with “Black Friday”. It reminds me of other dark times in our history, the Dark ages, the Black Plague, etc.

(I know the origin of the term Black Friday has to do with retail profits soaring in to the black, indicating that they are making money, as opposed to being in the Red, signifying a dismal sales day. However, if you have made it out to a Wal-Mart at midnight on Black Friday, you’ll easily be able to draw comparisons between the madness you will witness and the panic that must have enveloped medieval European villages when the plague was running rampant.)

Thanksgiving is better than some of the other popular holidays in many ways. There is no list of toys, gadgets or the latest must-haves of the season. There is no look of disappointment when someone doesn’t get something that was on his or her list of can’t-live-without items. There are no exaggerated expectations or crushing disappointments.

Also, there is no lying to your kids about a jolly old trespasser that breaks into your home while you are sleeping, raids your refrigerator, and then leaves gifts as if that makes up for the fact that he broke the law by breaking and entering into your home. How do you explain that to your kids?

“How does he get into the house, Dad?”

“Magic Fairy Dust.”

“Doesn’t he know that, in most states, B&E carries stiff penalties and even jail time?”

“Yea, but he’s Santa Claus, he breaks in to leave presents for all the good boys and girls.”

“So does that mean that I can steal a car if it’s to get Grandma back to the retirement home?”

“No, of course you can’t do that. It’s illegal!”

“What if I leave a present in the ashtray?”

Thanksgiving is a holiday centered on the only gift that really matters. The gift of the company of loved ones; your children, your wife/girlfriend, your parents, brothers’ sisters, and good friends. The only expectation is that the turkey is not too dry. And, even if it is, we all know that all the food on the table has the one ingredient that is usually absent from food served at other holidays. Everything prepared for us at Thanksgiving dinner has generous servings of the time and love dedicated in its preparation.

Remember the things that are important about the holidays. You have the ability to make the people you love happy with the gifts you give them, but more importantly, with your time; that you willingly sacrifice for them to show them they are special.

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and a merry Christmas.

Ken Taylor

My Mamita

On December 3, 2010, I sent the following email out to my family. I had forgotten all about it until my sister, Lelani, reminded me of it.

My Grandma had died earlier in the week and I was not going to be able to attend her funeral. I wanted to be able to share some of my thoughts and feelings about her with the rest of my family. Today, my Grandma has come to me at a time when I needed her love and inspiration. I love you Mami. Thank you for watching over me.

“My child hood memories of my Grandma are scattered but vivid. I remember her small, two-room house where she raised my mom and my aunts and uncle. The front entrance of the house was on a built up concrete porch that, to a small child, seemed to be about five feet high. In reality, it is not much more than a foot high.

From the dirt path that led you up to the front of the house, a series of steps got you to the front door. Inside, the main room of the house was built on a concrete slab. Beyond that first room was the kitchen. It had a dirt floor and a wood fired stove. As kids, my grandmother would serve us breakfasts of weak, sweetened coffee and corn flakes made with powdered milk.

We would be bathed out behind the house, standing naked on a tree stump. We would be washed and rinsed with cool water poured from a tin tub. I remember the warmth and security in being scooped up from the stump, wrapped in a towel and carried to a clean, dirt free area to be dressed. The warmth that comes from the towel wrapped around your cold, wet little body is exceeded only by the warmth of the arms that embrace you. Sometimes those were the arm of my mother; other times they were my Grandma’s.

My grandma had fruit trees in and around her property. There seemed to be such a wealth of fruit in her yard; tangerines, cashews, mamones and, my favorite, mangos. Using a long, thin tree branch with a forked tip, I could twist the mangos from their branches high in the trees. I remember filling up old coffee cans with mangos and sitting in the yard gorging myself on mangos like a starving little monkey.

During the day, my sisters and I would run the streets barefooted and carefree. At night, we would chase fireflies in the lot in front of my grandma’s house. When the day was over and it was time to sleep, everyone in the house shared the same bed. My grandma, my mom, my brother and sisters all together, warm and comfortable little peas in a safe and loving pod.

My grandma was a big part of our childhood. She wasn’t like the Norman Rockwell image of grandmothers. She was better because she was our Mamita. My mom has told me that grandma was very strict and enforced her rules with an iron fist. A small, calloused but tender and loving iron fist. It’s funny that I can’t remember ever being disciplined by her. I remember only that she loved each and every one of us kids.

In 1976, my family and I left Panama and moved to Colorado. Since then, I was only able to return to Panama three times, in 1994, 2004 and 2009. In 2004 when I got off the plane, my grandma was waiting at the airport for me. She looked so old and frail, but as soon as I looked into her eyes, I saw the woman from my memories, the woman that had loved me and my brother and sisters when we were so young. I realized how much I had missed my grandma. I held her and cried in her arms like a little girl.

In 2008, I deployed to Afghanistan. All deployed service members get to take leave anywhere in the world and the military will pay the airfare. A lot of guys went home, others went to places they had always wanted to visit; Rome, Paris, London. I wanted to see my family in Panama. I was lucky enough to be there as my Grandma celebrated her 95th birthday. Even though she was partially blind and her mind was slipping, she was still as feisty and sharp-witted as ever. She would have moments of profound clarity where she could recall obscure memories from her youth. She was amazing.

My Grandma died this week. She was nearly 97 years old. She was such a strong woman that not even the ravages of time could do her in. Ironically, the most powerful organ in her body gave out. I guess it makes sense. She had a dozen children of her own that have children, grandchildren, and maybe even some great grandchildren. She leaves behind a family so vast I don’t understand how my mom manages to remember everyone’s name. My grandma’s heart was a perpetual machine. She loved so many people for so long and gave so much of her heart to so many people that in the end, her heart finally needed a rest.

I feel sad about losing my Mamita. I am glad that where she is now, she has her youth and vitality back and she can always be with us no matter where we are. I love you Mami and I am going to miss you.

Kenny”

My fantasy footbal team logo. My team name is the "Militant Muskrats".

Marine Embedded Training Team (ETT) 7-4 - Afghanistan

Feeling Sorry For Myself

Hammin' with the ANA

I was in a sorry mood when I wrote this.  I do not regret volunteering to come to Afghanistan to be embedded with the ANA.  If I reached even one person then it was worth it; and I hope I showed them the spirit that we as Americans embody.  We have a can-do attitude and Marines in particular don’t know when to quit.  At the very least, we showed them that there are always options and with some perseverance and creative thought, you can change your world. 

6 August 2009

Please, allow me to vent…, it will be over tomorrow.

The ANA and ABP wanted to throw a party.  I had a good time with my fellow Marines.  We joked and made fun of others in our small circle.  It was no different than what I would have done if I were home.  We sat and watched a movie.  Then everyone left and I was alone.  In the tranquility of solitude, when there are no distractions, your mind wanders.

I found myself realizing that my time here was a waste.  I didn’t get anything accomplished.  I had set lofty goals for myself and realized tonight that I had not accomplished any of them.  I honestly thought I could help end the war by giving the ANA the sum of my knowledge.  I poured my precious fluids into a bucket with no bottom.  I never realized that all of my efforts were being spilled onto the ground…, unrecoverable.  Why didn’t I see it sooner? 

It has been difficult for me to keep my motivation up.  The Marines around me are disillusioned and don’t feel they have made any difference.  It sucks.  We came here to make a difference.   I wish I could come up with the perfect argument to make them see that there are positives about what we have done here, that we have made a difference.  It is hard for me since I don’t believe it myself. 

I like these Afghan soldiers.  Some of them are people I would have over to the house for beers and wings.  Why don’t they understand that there will come a day when we, the Americans, will take all of our wealth and power away, back to the land of milk and honey we came from?  We will return to a land where we don’t worry about being mortared in the middle of the night.  Most of us will never have to worry about receiving a ‘night letter’ threatening our lives and those of our children because we supported the very people who are trying to improve the lives of our friends and neighbors.  We don’t worry about someone taking our lives because we wished to walk around without our faces uncovered.  We don’t worry because we live in a land where it is okay to be different, to be artistic, eccentric, rich, or poor, black, white, or any combination of race or creed.  We don’t worry because we are protected by a constitution that says we have the inalienable right to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness; that ALL men (and women) are created equal.  That means that there are rights, not privileges, which we are all born with.  If you don’t know the difference between rights and privileges, please allow me to explain; privileges can be taken from you, rights cannot.  No one should have to live in fear, no one.

I don’t understand why it is okay for a person to sit back and accept the life they have been handed, when they have a chance to make a difference.  We came here to help them.  This is the time to stand up and strive to make changes.  It will not be easy.  In fact, it will likely be lethal.  But the alternative to not doing anything is that your children will have to do the work for you.

The only consolation is the thought that I know I did my best.  There is nothing else I can do.  I have put myself in harm’s way to help them achieve something that most take for granted: The ability to be able to decide for yourself the direction that you wish to take your life.  I chose this life.  It was my choice as a free American.  I don’t expect all the word’s people to make the same decision.  I don’t expect the entire world’s people to want the same things I want.  But there are certain undeniable human freedoms that I had thought all people wanted.  I thought that all people want to be safe.  That all people want to know that they are protected; that their families will never know any harm.  That their children will be able to go out into the world and pursue a life which will allow them to make a positive impact.  If not for themselves, then for the children they leave behind to push our civilization forward.

May 15, 2009

On May 15th, I went on a mounted patrol with the Afghan National Army.  There had been intelligence reports of 40 Anti Afghan Forces (AAF), the new euphemism for the enemy in Afghanistan, operating in the area.  This is my story of that day.  I used the radio call signs of the US forces involved to protect their privacy.

BOOM!  The blast rattled the armored Humvee.  It was difficult to tell where the explosion came from.  The sound of the blast was muffled by the headsets we each wore that allowed us to communicate over the noise of the Humvee’s motor and transmission. Dirt and rocks were falling onto the Humvee’s hood; then, vehicle parts began to fall.

“What the hell was that?” I screamed.

“An IED!” someone in the back seat yelled back.

“Did we get hit”, I asked as I slowed the vehicle down to a crawl.

In the gun turret, US Army Master Sergeant Highlander Seven yelled back that we had not been hit.

“Keep moving, drive through it”, I recognized Grizzly One's voice and instinctively followed his orders.

I drove the Humvee another 20 or 30 meters and stopped the truck off the road facing towards some houses on the northeastern rim of the small valley we were in.

“Are we hit?” I asked no one in particular.  I knew we had been hit but couldn’t figure out why I could still drive the Humvee.  Outside the Humvee, shots were being fired.

“Who’s shooting?  Is it incoming or outgoing?”

Highlander Seven responded that that he didn’t think we had been hit.  The vehicle behind us was fine as well.  Also, that the Afghan Border Police (ABP) were firing into the surrounding hills.

“We need to dismount and find out what’s going on”, stated Grizzly One.

In the passenger seat of the Humvee, also known as the vehicle commander’s position, US Army Captain Highlander Six was busy sending a preliminary situation report up to the FOB.

I disconnected myself from the vehicle and opened the Humvee door.  The driver’s side door of the vehicle always sticks and is difficult to open.  For some reason the door didn’t stick this time.

I scanned the ground outside the vehicle door for potential booby traps and then stepped out of the safety of the armored vehicle.  In front of my Humvee, some ANA soldiers had dismounted from one of their trucks and were pressed tightly against the earth wall along the side of the road.

I quickly performed a 180 degree visual scan around the back of my vehicle and was surprised and relieved to find no damage.  I then looked to the rear of our convoy and was horrified to see the twisted remains of one of the Afghan National Army (ANA) trucks that had been a part of our convoy.  The mangled hulk of twisted steel and shattered plastic had been a Ford Ranger, 4-door pickup truck.  The type used by all Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), the ANA, the ABP and the Afghan National Police (ANP) all used the same trucks.  Now, it was an unrecognizable pile of shredded steel twisted by the force of the blast.

I don’t want to go down there, I thought to myself.  If I go down there, I will never be the same again.  There had been six soldiers in that truck.  Sergeant Shamal was the driver; the vehicle commander in the passenger seat was Lieutenant Hayatullah.  Behind them in the rear seat, Sergeant Zakerullah was manning the radio.  In the bed of the truck there were three more ANA soldiers. 

I was hoping that someone else would be quicker than I and run down to the vehicle to check it out.  Then, from within the wreckage, someone began screaming.  Someone was still alive and I had to go help.  I braced myself for the gruesome sight of six fragile humans caught in the middle of a destructive force so powerful it could twist and shred steel like tin foil.  I sprinted the 100 meters to the wreckage.

The blast had ripped the vehicle apart.  The engine was more than 50 feet in front of the truck.  The remains of the cab were 100 feet away from what had been the passenger side of the truck.  The right side of the trucks frame was mangled but still held the grill assembly to the rear of the truck.  Behind the truck, the IED had left a crater eight feet in diameter and two feet deep.

The radio operator, Sergeant Zakerullah was lying on his left side in the void where the cab of the truck should have been.  He was reaching out to me while screaming and crying in agony.  I grabbed his hand, knelt down next to him and tried to comfort him.  I lied and told him he was going to be okay.  I had no way of knowing that he would be okay.  He cannot speak English so it didn’t matter what I said.  I just wanted him to know that I would help him as much as I could.  I started to do a quick assessment to determine how serious his injuries were. 

Before I could start my assessment, an ABP soldier started firing into the ridge to the north east.  I took cover behind the wreckage and scanned the ridge in the direction the soldier was firing.  I could not see anyone on the ridge nor did I detect any incoming fire. 

When it was clear there was no threat, I tried to resume my assessment of Sergeant Zakerullah. His face and hands were blackened by the explosion and he was covered in blood.  I checked his back and chest but could not find any wounds.  I pushed him over onto his back so I could check his left side.  He screamed in pain and clutched his legs.  I couldn’t find any wounds on his upper body.  The majority of the blood that covered his face and upper body was not his.  I looked down at his legs and could see his trousers had been shredded and his legs were bleeding.  I moved down to check his legs.  Both of his legs were broken just above his boots.

By that time, the rest of the ANA soldiers had gathered around.  The three soldiers that were in the back of the truck had been blown out and escaped serious injury.  They were lucky to have only received cuts and bruises.  The ANA soldiers that had gathered around began to grab and tug at Sergeant Zakerullah.  They started to drag him out from under the wreckage.  I yelled at them to be careful with him.  He was screaming in pain as he was dragged out by the well meaning ANA and ABP soldiers.  His legs dangled uselessly beneath his knees sending shocks of pain through the wounded sergeant with each tug.  I screamed at them to stop moving him because each time they did, he screamed in agony.  I grabbed his ankles and tried to limit their movement as he was pulled away.  I wanted to splint his legs but before I could even suggest it, they put him into the backseat of an ABP Ranger and sped off towards the FOB. 

Moments after the ABP Ranger sped away another explosion went off to my right front.  I looked up to see an ANA RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) gunner standing in a cloud of dust.  He had fired a RPG to the north west of our position.  His rocket flew out of sight over the ridge.  I looked for his target but could not see one.  I doubt he even had a target.  I imagine he felt like he had to do something, anything, even if it was firing blindly at an unseen enemy.

When the rest of the ANA that had been standing near the RPG Gunner determined there was no enemy, each of them began to yell at the gunner.  He didn’t seem to care and reloaded his weapon, presumably so he would be ready if an actual enemy was sighted.

“We need to get accountability of the remaining ANA that were in that truck”, Grizzly One had made his way near the wreckage.  Just then, someone shouted that they had found the driver, Sergeant Shamal.  He had been blown out of the driver’s side of the vehicle and his body lay more than 50 feet from the wreckage.  The IED had gone off directly beneath his seat and the blast had torn him apart killing him instantly.  Later that afternoon, I would spend a half an hour searching for Sergeant Shamal’s missing leg.  We never found it.

From the opposite side of the truck, someone yelled out that Lieutenant Hayatullah’s body had been found.  He had been thrown more than 100 feet from the truck.  His mangled body lay face down in a dried up creek bed.  I stood over his body thinking about the day before.  He had not even wanted to be here.

Thursdays are when we do our operations and planning meetings.  Capt Hasham, the company commander, was on leave so Lieutenant Hayatullah was in charge and had to attend the meeting.  Grizzly One was to go on leave himself in a few days so I was to sit in on the meeting since I would be covering for the Lieutenant while he was gone. 

Lieutenant Hayatullah had a reputation of being lazy.  When he was at COP Lowell, he would not participate in any of the training; instead, he chose to stay in his hooch, lounging around in his ANA track suit.  Because of this behavior, the ETTs had nicknamed him Caesar.  He lacked only the toga and servant girls feeding him grapes. The operations and planning meeting was the first time I had the opportunity to interact with Lieutenant Hayatullah.  I thought he was a very charismatic man who was intelligent and had a good sense of humor.

Thursday evening, the ABP executive officer, LtCol Daud came by to talk with Lieutenant Hayatullah.  There had been an intelligence report received about a number of fighters moving through the Lakalay area.  The ABP was going to send two trucks north to talk with the village elders.  Daud wanted a small force of ANA to accompany them on the mission.  Daud felt this would be a good opportunity to put an ANA face on the mission and to demonstrate to the local population that the ANA and ABP were working together. 

Lieutenant Hayatullah did not want to go.  The day of the planned mission was Juma (Friday) and he didn’t think the mission was worth losing their one day off for. I was thinking, ‘great, Caesar is at it again’.  He stated that it would be better to go on Saturday but that he would discuss it with his ETTs and let Daud know his decision later in the evening.

Intelligence is a volatile commodity, if you don’t act on it quickly, it dries up and you lose any value it may have.  It was important that we investigate this intelligence report as soon as possible.  Besides, if the enemy doesn’t take the day off, we could not afford to either.  We convinced him it that going on the mission was the right choice.  He agreed.

Standing over Lieutenant Hayatullahs’ body, I realized that I felt nothing.  No emotions, no fear.  I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t pissed.  I do feel bad for the men who died, I would be inhuman not to, but it didn’t seem like reality.  I was acutely aware of my surroundings but the whole experience still felt like a training exercise.  I have always wondered how I would react at a stressful time in an impossible situation.  I imagined I would be filled with fear and reeling from the shock of the horrible sights.  Instead, I felt nothing.  I didn’t even feel lucky that I was not the one laying face down in a dry stream bed with someone standing over me.  I know that I am lucky and there is a great deal of luck involved when an IED destroys the vehicle behind you instead of the one you are in.  I get it.  Luck does play a major part, but more than that, I am well trained and know that I did all the necessary things I had to do to be the one standing.

Sergeant Shamal was single but he left behind a devastated family and the soldiers who loved him.

Lieutenant Hayatullah was married with two daughters.

Sergeant Zakerullah would eventually make it to the FOB and be airlifted to Bagram airfield.  He survived this IED attack and his survival is the first miracle I have ever witnessed.

Engine

ANA Ranger

Road Rage

 

ANA Sunset

The last mission we were to perform in this country was to provide security so the Afghan people could vote for a new president.  Democracy in action in a country that, less than ten years ago, had been ruled by a fanatical religious group and that was still struggling to free itself from the remaining vestiges of that group, the Taliban. 

Our Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers were to make up the second layer of a concentric ring of defenses for the election sites.  The Afghan National Police (ANP) would be the primary defenses providing security at the polling locations throughout Afghanistan.  The ANA, with their embedded Marines, would secure the adjacent country side by conducting mounted and dismounted patrols around the districts in an effort to stop or slow any Anti-Afghan Forces that would disrupt the voting process.  (Anti-Afghan Forces (AAF) is one of the approved names for the enemy. The ANA world for enemy is ‘Doshman, pronounced ‘Douche-man’ which is appropriate and even funny).  The US Army would provide the final layer of defense acting as a quick reaction force (QRF) for the ANA and ANP as necessary.

Our area of responsibility was the Sherzad district.  Sherzad is on the other side on Nangarhar province from our area of responsibility.  In fact, it was outside of our company’s area of responsibility (AOR) but it was one of locations that would most likely be threatened and we were pulled out of our comfort zone to ensure it was secure.  So we packed up 50 ANA and all the supplies necessary for ten days in the field and made the five hour trek to FOB Connelly in the Khogyani district.  FOB Connelly would be our staging area where we would refuel our vehicles, add an additional ten ANA out of second company to the fifty we had from 1^st Company, coordinate with the Army who would be the QRF and await a route clearance patrol (RCP) from the Mega-FOB at Jalalabad.

A RCP is a convoy of specialized vehicles outfitted with state of the art electronics equipment designed to detect IEDs in the road.  The RCP rolls out in front of major convoys clearing the route of any danger.  Ordinarily, you want to have an RCP out ahead of your movement.  However, this instance would prove to be the exception to the rule. 

Our route to the Sherzad district center was about twenty kilometers over unimproved, narrow dirt roads typical of Afghanistan.  A few months ago, three of 2^nd Company’s ANA soldiers were killed in one of their up-armored Humvees (UAH) when it was obliterated by and IED which detonated beneath it.  Since we were to travel on the same route, we knew the addition of the RCP to ensure the route was safe was a good idea.

Our first indication that this would be a difficult trip was when we first met the RCP.  They had traveled too far on the road we were to meet them on and they had to turn their entire convoy around.  This took about thirty minutes.  As we were leaving, we watched the RCP miss the first turn of the route and for the second time in an hour, the RCP had to turn around.  I worried that the RCP didn’t know the route.  I thought that if the entire purpose of an RCP was the clearing of routes, they should know the routes they were clearing.  I thought that would be helpful and it would improve the efficiency of their missions.

We moved along the correct route at a slow and deliberate pace occasionally stopping when the RCP thought they found something.  I hoped that they were more skilled at finding things in the route than they were in actually finding the routes.  More often, we stopped to try to fix communication problems.  The vehicles within the RCP were having comm difficulties and were barely able to talk to each other much less to the convoy they were supporting.  Each time we stopped, the civilian traffic behind us would grow larger until at one point, there were eighty vehicles behind us making the civilian convoy much larger than our own.

We finally were able to contact the RCP commander and asked that the find a suitable location to allow some of the traffic to pass.  The ANA searched the vehicles and allowed them to move past the convoy where they were stopped by the last vehicle of the RCP.  The roads are narrow and it is difficult for the large vehicles to move enough for other vehicles to pass.  We decided it would be best if we just kept moving; however, in our efforts to allow traffic to pass, the road gave way beneath the weight of one of the RCPs 36,000 pound MRAP vehicles and the MRAP slid off the road.

Several hours later, the RCP extracted their stuck vehicle and we slowly plodded on to the Sherzad District Center (DC).  Along the way, we had to stop the ANA portion of our convoy in order to place a small 20 man force near some of the polling sites.  The RCP moved ahead but I was confident that we would eventually be caught up with them. 

We soon caught up with them at a wide stretch of road that they allowed the eighty civilian vehicles that had been delayed behind them to finally pass.  We continued our movement.  During some of the most dangerous areas of the road, the ANA felt it would be in their best interest if they dismounted their vehicles and walked parts of the route.  The RCP pulled ahead of us during our slow progress on foot. 

When we caught up to them, they were stopped in the road.  It was near dark now and I wasn’t too comfortable about being stopped in a potentially hostile location with night fast approaching.  Since the RCP was doing a horrible job of keeping us informed, my Lieutenant attempted to contact them.  After trying repeatedly, we were finally able to get through.  We asked about the delay and when we could expect to get moving again.  It was then we found the lead RCP vehicle had hit an IED and the vehicle’s gunner may have a concussion. 

IED detonations are not something you should keep a secret and the entire convoy needs to know about any IED detonations ASAP.  This allows all the eyes in the convoy to scan the immediate area for secondary devices or worse, ambushing bad guys.

Most RCPs carry EOD with them.  Once they find an IED, EOD can disarm and then exploit the sites for intelligence.  According to the EOD with our RCP, the IED that went off was small and hastily emplaced.  Once the soldier was evacuated, we continued our movement to the Sherzad DC.  Before we arrived, the RCP took one more wrong turn.  Luckily, our Marine driver had been to the DC once before and knew the RCP was going the wrong direction. 

It took us 13 hours to make the trek to the Sherzad DC.  Normally this trip takes 4-5 hours. 

EOD suspects that the person that emplaced the IED was in one of the vehicles caught behind our convoy.  They placed the mine in the road as revenge for having to endure our traffic jam.

Thank You to our Supporters and Anymarine.com

01 ANA with ETT

    I wanted to take the time to thank each and every one of you for the tremendous support that you have shown my Marines and me.  It helped us to pass the time here more quickly.  I can say without exaggeration that the response I received through AnyMarine .com was far more overwhelming than I had expected.  Thank you all for helping to make our time in Afghanistan more bearable. 

    There were more times than I can remember that we needed something that had been sent.  Sometimes we didn’t even know we needed them until we received them.  There were many thoughtful items sent out to us and everything sent to us was put to good use.  Here are some examples:

• Battery operated socks.
• Battery operated squirt guns with a small fan attached
• Batteries, for the socks and fans.
• The Sunday comics from local papers.
• Pictures of appreciative Americans doing the simple things we take for granted, barbecuing, spending time with family on the beach, sitting together on the couch with the kids and the family pets.
• Starbuck’s Via Ready Brew coffee
• Custom blended chili powder, to help make the goat meat more palatable.
• Crocs.
• Hooters Calendars.
• Canned soups and fruits with the easy open pop tops.
• Can openers for all the other cans.
• Marine Corps stickers (Leanne Tweeden wrote to tell us that she kept our Marine Corps sticker on her body armor for the entire USO tour).
• A Rubik’s cube, which after countless hours of unsuccessful attempts at solving, was repurposed as a target on our small arms range.  Problem solved.
• Cards and letters from Americans of all ages.
• Drawings by kids in elementary school.
• A Teddy Bear from my daughter.

 

    The Afghans do not have the same support network we have; in fact, it is a concept alien to them.  When they see us with the packages we are inevitably asked if they are from our families.  I tried to explain to them that the packages are not from any of our families but from good, hardworking Americans.  Americans that may not believe in the politics of war or even the reasons our nation sends us into harm’s way, but believe in the men and women who are on the front lines of our nation.  The Afghans lack the sense of national pride which would foster the kind of grass roots support like that of you for us. 

    It has become easier for me to tell them that the packages are indeed from family.  Who else but a family could rally around their sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers with no expectations save the safe return of a homesick warrior?  I do not feel like I am lying to them when I say the packages we receive are from family.  You are all a part of my military family. 

    We still have more time left in this dangerous and desolate place and I have found that these posts are a form of stress relief for me.  

    Thank you for your support and I hope to be able to hear from you again.

 

Kenneth Taylor

Gunnery Sergeant, USMC

Marine Embedded Training team (ETT) 7-4

Nangarhar, Afghanistan

Celebrities and the USO

I am a Marine and think that is a big deal.  Not because of anything I have done, but because of the deeds of all those that came before me.  Many fine Americans sacrificed a lot more than I ever hope to for the freedoms we enjoy as free people.  All the men and women in uniform know about service, to include firefighters, policemen, EMTs and other unsung heroes that live and work among us.  If I were to be a fan of anyone, it would be these people.  I never thought that celebrities deserved as much attention as they get.  They are actors.  They entertain people.  I am more impressed by men like Joe Foss, a Marine fighter pilot who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Pacific.  Men like Joe Foss who, without concern for their own safety, risked everything they had or will have for the sake of someone else.

Anyway, I had this pre-conceived notion of celebrities.  I imagined they would be arrogant, conceited, and self interested prima donnas who were involved in charities because of their image consciousness.  I admit now that I was wrong.  I have been wrong once before.  Once, when I thought I was wrong, but, it turned out that I was not.

We were told a couple of days in advance that we would be recieving celebrity visitors.  I was not too excited about it (see paragraph above) so I decided it would be fun for us if we had a mission.  Marines are notorious for our need to put our Eagle, Globe, and Anchor on everything we own.  Go to any Marine base and 99% of the vehicles will have a Marine Corps sticker on it.  We tattoo our bodies with the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor.  Retired Marines are no better.  To an outsider, we must look like a cult that worships a fierce looking Eagle perched on a globe.  Our mission, if possible, was to put a sticker on one of the celebrities without them knowing about it.

So the celebrities came.  They mingled.  They talked with the service members on the COP.  They signed autographs.  They had their pictures taken with anyone who wanted a photo.  Don Shula let me see his 1972 Super bowl championship ring.  They fired our weapons.  They shattered the image I had of what they would be like.  I genuinely liked them as people and forgot about their status as celebrities.  They had left all the trappings of Hollywood and put themselves at some risk just to visit with some doggies in the desert.   They left the comfort of their luxurious lives to spend a few miserable days in the intolerable heat and dust of this hostile landscape.  For that, I admire them.  I almost forgot all about our mission to tag one of them with our mark.  But, I am a Marine and the mission always comes first…

Celebrities

Cute little Kitty

Tagged

Humanitarian Assistance (HA)

One of the guiding tenets of Counter Insurgency (COIN) Warfare is that, as much as possible, you need to gain the trust and favor of the indigenous people of the country you want to assist.  In Vietnam, US Army Special Forces and Marine Combined Action Platoons (CAP) conducted these missions and proved to be successful.  ‘Winning the hearts and minds’ was the phrase made popular by the military during that time.  Today, in Afghanistan, we, the military, have come to believe that winning the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan is the way to help bring a successful conclusion to this conflict we are currently embroiled in.

To that end, we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on such things as bridges, roads, schools water wells, etc.  In some parts of Afghanistan these projects have improved the Afghans quality of life and brought some peace to their part of the country.

Recently, we conducted a Humanitarian Assistance (HA) mission.  Our mission was to deliver food, blankets and hygiene gear to a local village.  In keeping with the principles of COIN, we had to let the ANA deliver the HA to the local village.  This is meant to show the locals that the Afghan government cares about them and has sent the Afghan military in to provide them with assistance.  In my heart, I know the Afghan villagers know where the stuff comes from because before the Americans showed up, the Afghan government never gave the people squat.  I realize that before the Americans showed up, the government was Taliban, and that the Taliban was more likely to behead someone than to provide them with a bag of flour, but that point would be lost on the local villagers since they generally aren’t bothered by politics outside of their villages.

We met with the district sub governor to coordinate a distribution point for the HA and security for the site.  While the meeting was in progress, the crowd began forming near the ANA truck which was loaded with the HA items.

The crowd followed the ANA truck to the location where the distribution would be made.  The location  was one of two medical clinics in the village.  This one was ideal since it was enclosed by a wall and had a gate securing the entrance.  The ANA pulled inside and the soldiers prepared to distribute the items.  Outside the gate, the crowd had grown much larger.  An old man that resembled a hermit crab resolutely defended the entrance issuing open handed slaps to anyone who attempted to enter the compound without authority. 

The ANA started distributing the HA and everything was going well.  We were able to get people to line themselves up in nice orderly lines as we began the distribution.  This didn’t last long. 

Have you ever been to a Japanese garden?  Typically, most Japanese gardens have a pond.  In the pond is a type of goldfish called a Koi.  The ponds I have seen have hundreds of these Koi in them.  Anything tossed into the water will cause the surface of the pond to boil with fish, each one trying to be the one that gets whatever morsel fell into the pond.  The fish don’t even care what it is.  You can spit into the pond and the fish will frantically try for it.  Imagine trying to convince the Koi to line up so you can ensure every fish gets a fish treat.  It is not going to happen.  The same is true here.  In the end, the ANA just tossed items into the crowd.

The Hermit Crab