War as an Attachment

Life as an attachment sucks, especially in war. We breath the same air, eat the same food, walk the same route, and can die just like everyone else yet we are never a part of the core group of guys, the grunts who do all the sweating and bleeding. Try as we might, attachments hover slightly off the "tip of the spear" earning a dubious gratitude from their infantry counterparts.

The basic Marine warfighting unit is the infantry platoon, which varies in size but usually contains about thirty-five people. These guys must be augmented to provide a full spectrum of offensive capabilities: machine gunners, snipers, assaultmen (think rockets), and others as dictated by the mission.

In Afghanistan the (ideal) standard loadout also includes engineers to sweep for IEDs, a dog and dog handler for explosive detection, an Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) team to dispose of any IEDs, an interpreter for the patrol leader to talk to locals, a Human Exploitation Team (HET) guy to question any shady characters, and poor ol' Civil Affairs bringing up the rear to gather information on VIPs, identify projects to help out locals, and pay claims for damages or deaths.

This never happens. In fact, I have never seen an infantry patrol with all elements together ever - even in training. Two reasons for this: one, there aren't enough personnel to cover down on every platoon; and two, attachments can be viewed (rightly, sometimes) as another mouth to feed. So instead we end up moving around a larger area, attaching and detaching as instructed.

For Civil Affairs the default infantry attitude is skepticism if not downright hostility. Most of our work is seen as a joke - the whole hearts and minds crap that no one sees as useful in a place as violent as Sangin. When you first start out with a new platoon you have no friends and cry yourself to sleep every night. Or maybe that last part is just me.

Anyway, there's nothing to do but plug away day after day - patrol, debrief, stand post, fill sandbags - until the guys start to open up to you. Eventually you get know the names of the squad leaders, then the fire team leaders, then the individual Marines. You learn the "in" jokes, get made fun of, wrestle or box someone and win/lose (usually lose), and work your way in. Depending on the platoon this process could take two days, a week, or even a month.

And then you leave. The relationships you built are gone. The guys you've learned to work with, respect, and trust are gone. You're gone, headed off to a new group where you will face a sea of uncertain, even unwelcome faces again.

Lather, rinse, repeat. War as an attachment.

Rocket launchers and Pharmacists

It's very easy to lose perspective in Afghanistan. Marines tend to forget how they look in the eyes of the population, both figuratively--an occupying force--and literally--gigantic alien-looking guys with big guns). Creole saw this first hand a few months ago.

He was on a patrol in the bazaar with an infantry squad and needed to speak with key health care personnel in the area to determine the level of care provided to the locals. True to form, Creole offered to carry some ammunition or gear to lighten the load for some of the grunts. This is a fairly standard practice; it helps us integrate with the guys and shows we're willing to carry our fair share. This seems intuitive but you'd be surprised how many attachments pretend they are above the normal responsibilities of a Marine.

Anyway, before this patrol Creole takes an AT4 anti-tank rocket launcher and straps it to his back. About an hour later, they reach their destination - a pharmacist's shop toward the southern end of the bazaar. Creole is of course the guy who goes in to speak with the pharmacist (AKA someone can pronounce the names of drugs in Pashto). Just to make sure everyone's tracking, we have a giant Texan in full body armor and bristling with weapons walking into a shop simply to ask how business is doing. The guy at the counter was (justifiably) scared and refused to answer the questions. I'm pretty sure he thought his shop was going to get blown up. And Creole was getting pissed because he couldn't understand what the guy was so scared of. Finally the interpreter sorted out the problem and the Marines left to finish their patrol.

I didn't hear this story until several weeks later and I couldn't stop laughing. Dark military humor, I guess. The reality right now is we can't be the baby-kissers and money-spenders in Sangin because security is all anyone cares about. It'll get better, in sha Allah, but for now I'd prefer to have that guy with a rocket launcher, even if he is Civil Affairs.

Team Love

I wish I could explain exactly what happened a few night ago in our hooch. It was just one of those weird moments you know you'll remember for the rest of your life. All the enlisted guys were lying around killing time. It was two days until the junior guys were due to leave Sangin for good.

I was sitting on my cot cleaning my M4 sort of half-assed. I wasn't getting much carbon off the bolt, but the sound of bore brush's constant scraping relaxed me - put me in a reflective mood, I guess. I looked up and slowly gazed around at my team.

Buddha sleeps to my left. He had a white sheet hung up between us, and I could see his fuzzy silhouette as he fiddled around with his laptop. He's always messing around with it because everyone picks up viruses when they share movies on external hard drives. Buddha, though, never accepts degraded performance from his machine; he diligently dissembles the computer, diagnoses the problem, and fixes it. This process sometimes takes days, and we all give him shit for being such a stereotypical Asian.

Dominicano lay on his cot across the walkway watching a movie. His boonie cover rested low on his head and was pulled down, almost completely covering his face. With his earphones in, I don't think he was aware of anything but a bootleg action movie with russian subtitles.

Mumbles had moved over from his normal spot down to the left. Instead he sat on a stool on Dominicano's near side so he could watch Creole play Plants & Zombies. This is a very popular (and incredibly stupid) video game played by 90% of the junior enlisted Marines. The volume was turned up, so the sound effects blasted out of the computer speakers. This ceased bothering me after month #2 or so - I tuned it out completely.

To my immediate right, Big Daddy was also enjoying some electronic entertainment. He had discovered the HBO Series "True Blood" the day before and was already an addict. I'm pretty sure he watches seven or eight hours a day right now. In any case, his attention was absorbed in the dramatic lives of vampires with bad southern accents constantly trying to sleep with each other.

In other words, the team was together and happy. We had finished almost all of our RIP (relief in place) with the new team and had nothing to do but enjoy each other's company. I looked from one guy to the next, lingering a little on each face as memories of the deployment swirled around in my head.

I don't know what to call the emotion I felt. Love, maybe. Affection, probably. Kinship, definitely. These were my guys and we'd been through a lot both separately and together.

Creole must have felt me staring at him - we locked eyes.
"Hey Sarn't T."
"Yeah?"
"Quit being gay."
"Shut up."
"Roger that."

Yup, my team.