War is hell. Take tonight, for example. My steak was tough and the lobster tail our Bosnian cook gave me was a little on the skimpish side. At least there was mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert. Yes, America, your tax dollars are going to Baskin Robbins ice cream and lobster tails—after all, it is important that our morale and waist lines are kept up. But don’t worry—American tax dollars are going to much, much more here in Afghanistan. As you may have seen in the news, Afghanistan’s vice president recently showed up at a Dubai airport with $52 million in cash. He and his duffel bags cleared customs.
People ask me what we’re doing here. And that’s an excellent question—one that I ask myself each morning as I shiver in an icy shower, one that I can’t really answer. All I can answer is what I’m doing here. I’m deployed to Kabul for six months to help establish the rule of law in a lawless country, in a place that has been destroying itself for over 30 years, in a land that had already been bombed back to the Stone Age well before 9/11. I advise several Afghan JAGs, including the one-star Judge Advocate General of the Afghan National Army (ANA). The goal is to root out corruption and unlawful command influence within the ANA—and establish a disciplined army capable of taking over the unenviable mission of beating back the Taliban and al-Qaeda once we leave in 2014. It’s an uphill challenge to say the least, one that moves slower than time when you’re on the other side of the world from your beautiful wife and children.
My hope with this blog is to share a little bit of that challenge with you. As many of you now, I deal with challenges and stress with humor, and I hope to share some of that with you as well. But while I often joke about my experiences, I don’t intend to minimize the very real dangers that face all of us in Afghanistan. I’m fortunate to be in a relatively safe location. My friend Sean wasn’t so fortunate—he was deployed to eastern Afghanistan and about two weeks ago, he was seriously wounded by in an explosion just outside of his base. I have a cousin who is a true hero, conducting foot patrols in the dangerous south of the country. Men like Sean and my cousin are in my thoughts and prayers, and I hope they’re in yours too. I can’t help but think of them when I start to complain that my crappy plastic knife can’t cut through my shoe-leather steak. Or when the TV reception is bad in the Afghan general’s office . . .
In just about every Afghan Army office I've been, there is a television set in a prominent location. It's always on. The reception is almost always horrible, but occasionally you get lucky and have something to
watch while your translator struggles to misinterpret a 20-minute stream of English into Dari. And while all the televisions are imported from the U.S. by way of Japan -- and while the TVs run on American-paid
electricity -- we have not yet managed to import anything of importance. Like quality TV shows and the accompanying cavalier sense of morality. One of the more popular shows here is a game show modeled on "Deal or No Deal." In fact, it used to be called "Deal or No Deal," but the mullahs felt this was too Western, so now it's called "Treasure." The concept of "Treasure" is the same as the U.S. show -- greedy people hold on to the illusion that they're going to strike it rich while refusing to walk away with a reasonable amount of money. Only, in the Afghan version, the women holding those silvery suitcases of cash are not nearly as attractive as those in the U.S. version. In fact, they all have Adam's apples. Some of them have beards. Oh, and there aren't any silvery suitcases full of cash – those have all been taken to Dubai by government officials. Instead, they're cardboard boxes housing scraps of paper with large amounts of Afghan currency scrawled on them -- well, "large" until you realize the exchange rate is 44 Afghanis per $1. But it's still a great show, and it's particularly amusing watching the Afghan Howie Mandel avoid shaking any of the contestants' hands.
Then there are the Spanish-language soaps, translated into Dari. They're also translated into Afghan morals. For example, every actresses' midsection is blurred out. Not that I've been looking, but hey, it's hard not to notice all the women seem to be walking around in strange hovering cirrus clouds. The censors haven't gone so far as to digitally impose burqas on them yet, which I believe will be one of the key signs of progress cited in the upcoming presidential review of the war. But by and large, it's the same histrionic slapping and crying and homoerotic tussles between beefy Argentines we've come to expect from Telemundo ... although I wouldn't be surprised if all of the extramarital affair plotlines have been changed to something more benign, like "Oh Pedro, I love your strong, glistening [POPPY CROP]. You are sooo [GOOD AT FARMING]. I want to have your [EXCESS GOAT'S MILK]!" I guess I will have to learn Dari to know for sure.
My favorite, though, are the Afghan music videos. I saw one the other day where a young man was singing to who I think was his girlfriend or maybe his sister? Somewhat confusingly, the camera kept cutting to what looked like a disco straight out of Saturday Night Fever. Only there were no women in the entire joint -- in fact, the only people on the multicolored dance floor were men. They seemed to be having a lot of fun, in a YMCA kind of way. They also made Germans look like excellent dancers. I'm not completely sure, but I think I caught a glimpse of a goat at one point. The music itself was a real treat – somewhere between a cat stuck in a tree and a calf looking for its mother. It seemed an appropriate soundtrack for just another day in Afghanistan.
watch while your translator struggles to misinterpret a 20-minute stream of English into Dari. And while all the televisions are imported from the U.S. by way of Japan -- and while the TVs run on American-paid
electricity -- we have not yet managed to import anything of importance. Like quality TV shows and the accompanying cavalier sense of morality. One of the more popular shows here is a game show modeled on "Deal or No Deal." In fact, it used to be called "Deal or No Deal," but the mullahs felt this was too Western, so now it's called "Treasure." The concept of "Treasure" is the same as the U.S. show -- greedy people hold on to the illusion that they're going to strike it rich while refusing to walk away with a reasonable amount of money. Only, in the Afghan version, the women holding those silvery suitcases of cash are not nearly as attractive as those in the U.S. version. In fact, they all have Adam's apples. Some of them have beards. Oh, and there aren't any silvery suitcases full of cash – those have all been taken to Dubai by government officials. Instead, they're cardboard boxes housing scraps of paper with large amounts of Afghan currency scrawled on them -- well, "large" until you realize the exchange rate is 44 Afghanis per $1. But it's still a great show, and it's particularly amusing watching the Afghan Howie Mandel avoid shaking any of the contestants' hands.
Then there are the Spanish-language soaps, translated into Dari. They're also translated into Afghan morals. For example, every actresses' midsection is blurred out. Not that I've been looking, but hey, it's hard not to notice all the women seem to be walking around in strange hovering cirrus clouds. The censors haven't gone so far as to digitally impose burqas on them yet, which I believe will be one of the key signs of progress cited in the upcoming presidential review of the war. But by and large, it's the same histrionic slapping and crying and homoerotic tussles between beefy Argentines we've come to expect from Telemundo ... although I wouldn't be surprised if all of the extramarital affair plotlines have been changed to something more benign, like "Oh Pedro, I love your strong, glistening [POPPY CROP]. You are sooo [GOOD AT FARMING]. I want to have your [EXCESS GOAT'S MILK]!" I guess I will have to learn Dari to know for sure.
My favorite, though, are the Afghan music videos. I saw one the other day where a young man was singing to who I think was his girlfriend or maybe his sister? Somewhat confusingly, the camera kept cutting to what looked like a disco straight out of Saturday Night Fever. Only there were no women in the entire joint -- in fact, the only people on the multicolored dance floor were men. They seemed to be having a lot of fun, in a YMCA kind of way. They also made Germans look like excellent dancers. I'm not completely sure, but I think I caught a glimpse of a goat at one point. The music itself was a real treat – somewhere between a cat stuck in a tree and a calf looking for its mother. It seemed an appropriate soundtrack for just another day in Afghanistan.
1 comment:
We love you & miss you Shane. You and your family are in our prayers daily. We count the days until you are safely home.
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