Leaving
This
was the first time I’d been south of Kabul
at all. While I’d driven some in the city, my trips past the city limits had
mostly
been to the east at Pul-i-Charkhi and north to Bagram Air Base, the latter a 2-hour drive north over a deplorable road and
through an arid countryside. This road to Gardez showed a different Afghanistan, running past a river, with trees (!) and countless plots of land being farmed.
Most
of the plots were small, tennis court size or less, irregularly shaped to fit
wherever possible, with higher footpaths between them. This early in April, it
looked like they were growing a lush green grass. In
About
an hour later the road passed through the town of Logar, shops lining its length. Obai warned us to stay especially alert in Logar, and
to drive through it quickly. Only 23, Obai had seen more combat than most
American soldiers. He had secretly studied English as a teenager, dangerous
under the Taliban, enabling him to get hired as an interpreter when we Americans
arrived. He had worked with the US
Special Forces two and three years ago when the fighting was fierce, joining in
their combat operations. Though attacks on our forces were now infrequent in
most areas, Obai worried about our drive through Logar. Our small convoy could
be cell-phoned ahead to accomplices setting an IED or ambush.
Three
weeks after this trip, I happened to pick up “The Other Side of the Mountain,” a book
commissioned by the US Marine Corps to help learn from the Russian experience in
Afghanistan
in the 1980s. The book collects first-hand mujahadin accounts of ambushes,
raids and battles.
The
very first two battles described in the book were ambushes of Russian convoys, in
Logar, on the very same road we traveled.