So I received some questions about the title of the site, and figured I would take half a minute to provide some insight. The Texan Who Would Be King is an altered version of the Rudyard Kipling tale, (and subsequent Sean Connery movie) named, ‘The Man Who Would Be King.’ The story follows two friends, soldier types, on a journey to become the rulers of Kafiristan, known today as Nurestan, an Afghan province. The two friends make their way to the top, defeat their enemies, but find out that the true enemy is greed. Daniel Dravort, played by Sean Connery, has his mortality exposed by a local girl he tries to marry. Peachy, the other friend, is chased out of the kingdom after Daniel finds himself head first into a canyon.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073341/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNb6SxXcD7g&feature=related

Be advised, I have no aims of becoming the actual king of Zhari District or anywhere, but I do love the Kipling story. Perhaps, in my own way, losing my platoon was 4-4 reminding me of my own professional mortality. That being in charge cannot last forever. Good news, though. Currently I am the king of paperwork and all the little gnomes and other fantastic creatures that come with it. All hail!

Short post. Until next time,

1LT Wm Treadway

Leave. Leave complete.

It is a bit strange trying to sit down and write about exactly what went down over the last month. Hopefully the midtour leave videos kept your whistle wet. Technically leave lasts two weeks, but that is the two weeks spent at my final destination. It took a deal of time to travel from the COP to FOB Pasab, then to KAF, then to Kuwait, then home. On the way back it takes a good clip too. My leave was split into thirds between Houston, Austin, and Lyford Cay. Congrats to 1LT Pat Jones on his engagement that occurred over leave. He and Allie make a spectacular couple. I am pumped to hear how the proposal went in a totally manly way. Football.

I landed in Houston to a welcome from friends and family. They had a banner and all hugged and welcomed me home. Someone should have been filming, the whole thing looked like an ad spot. I was initially concerned about having adverse reactions to things. Surprises, loud noises, people in general, walking, all are dealt with differently in Afghanistan. I had none of these problems really. I think it had to do with the fact that 1st world America is so drastically different from 3rd world Afghanistan that my learned reactions didn’t kick in. Walking through the concrete jungle and neon lights is a far cry from grape rows and illumination rounds. Really, the only adverse reaction I experienced was short temper. Perhaps I have developed a quickness to aggression that may need to be investigated further. I’d be in a bar, something would get said or done to chap my loins, and it would require leaving. Thankfully, I rolled around with good friends who could act as handlers when they saw me start to come unhinged.

Houston and Austin were remarkably similar. Good friends, bars, overpriced drinks, general debauchery. For the first time in my Austin visiting experience I went to the far end of 6th street and discovered it is a side populated by a slightly older crowd. I’m assuming it’s the post-grad group that hangs out there. It was much less frustrating than the other end. There wasn’t so much an clash of maturity. Young folks were there too, but an there were mitigated expectations. I’ll let you figure out what that means. Also, I randomly ran into several friends from the high school era who are working on law degrees. They kindly loaded me full of good tequila and beers and we had a great time. I’ll have to look them up again next time I go back.

The most relaxation and freedom I experienced was in Lyford. There was no schedule, no clock, nothing to do but drink Kalik, Havana Club|cloōb|, and boat around. We would boat and dive, sometimes taking the catch of the day back for lunch. Fresh seafood is something I have been missing immensely, and few things on this planet beat fresh ceviche. It’s still amazing to me that the lime cooks the fish. Turns out, cleaning fish is a good deal easier than cleaning out a conch. Addressing the shell took a full sized hammer to get that slimy little mollusk to comply with its own demise. Reminded me of some Talibs running into a grapehut. Trying to pry them out takes far more effort and has much less effect than just dropping a bomb on them and being done with it. Once freed from the defensive shell, reduce the carcass to the muscle tissue by dissection and serve in any manner you wish.

Several of my friends have said that coming back from leave is tough. It was for me, but not because I was returning. It was because I was in fact, not returning. I learned right before leave that I would be losing my platoon. I have been a platoon leader now for eighteen months and have reached my expiration date. I feel a bit bitter and lost, but I also know this is normal and has to happen. The trick now is doing my new staff job with a high level of motivation. When I went to the Academy and signed up for this game, I did it to be a platoon leader. To be on the ground and lead guys in combat. Now I come off the line to push a desk at FOB Pasab. I am not sure what I will update about from now on. Nobody wants to hear about paper cuts and air conditioning and hot meals. They want to hear about the grit of the front lines, the friction points, the space where fighting surface of the Army grinds against the enemy. I should be able to keep track of my soldiers even though they are no longer my platoon, and should hopefully be able to give you stories from their fight. It reminds me of the scene in Saving Private Ryan where Tom Hanks has just lost his command. Tom Sizemore’s character says, “Jesus, Sir. They took away your company.” To which Hanks replies, “It wasn’t my company. It was the Army’s.”

It wasn’t my platoon. It was the Army’s. I suppose.

I think back at all we have been through, good, and bad. There have been moments of triumph, elation, and sadness. I think about the victory at the Graveyard where we smoked more Talibs than there are soldiers in the platoon. The image of SPC Barroga and friends shooting off fireworks on the 4th of July, happy as all get out, is still fresh in my mind. Then there were the rough times. Having soldiers get wounded, and everyone be worried about them through convalescence. The harsh reality of Adam Hamilton’s death, and finding the fortitude among each other to push on through to missions completion. This platoon is a very tight brotherhood. They will operate just fine without me, and will take the new LT and mold him into a useful person. I toast to all of them. There is great appreciation to be had for all my NCOs and soldiers for their patience, drive, and skill. My platoon sergeant, SFC Rogers, has been with me since last year, and we made a good team. My section leaders, SSG Blacker and the senior scout, SSG Pierce, are experts and true professional soldiers. They push boots and make good, sound decisions. Any officer would be lucky to have this team working for them. New up and coming junior leaders, SGT Larson, SPC Knight, and SPC Conner, have great potential. They will ensure that the credo of minimize the enemy’s survival, maximize ours, is kept.

To my peers and superiors I also owe thanks. CPT Hensel and 1SG Carey have been a grounding force to my excitability and tendency to overreact. Their professional development and mentorship have proven invaluable. The XO, CPT Ingram’s no-nonsense diligence is worth emulating even though I often lack his ability to perceive great scope. Our FSO, 1LT Jon Flores, has been a profoundly good friend to me. His birds and mortars have bailed me out on more than one occassion. It is odd to have so many good officers and NCOs in one troop and not a dud among them. I hope to work with all of these people again.

With regards to care packages: Please use the same address with SFC James Rogers in the name line. This will ensure your good will gets to the soldiers on the front lines and not to a solitary staff officer. Should care packages not be your thing, I encourage you to donate to Wounded Warrior. I still have men there and every dollar helps them get better. New address should look like this:

SFC James Rogers
A Troop, 4-4 Cavalry, FOB Pasab
2nd Platoon
APO-AE 09370

This will be the last post from the Graveyard, and my last post as a platoon leader. We will see where it goes from here.

Still nine and a half hours ahead, HE heavy (for the last time), and until next time faithful readers,

1LT Wm Treadway
2/A/4-4 Cavalry

I am currently at the beach and will make this quick to prevent my Kalik from warming.

The following is the promised video by Pat Jones. To clarify, last week’s video was made by me, and shows Apache White in their normally badass state. This video, however, is of Fury Platoon and was put together by their Platoon Leader, 1LT Pat Jones. He is one hell of an officer. His platoon and my platoon have wound up helping eachother in firefights before. Of all the platoons in the Army, his is the one I want watching my back.

Anyway, enjoy! We will get back to the normal postings as I make my way back to Afghanistan.

On island time, Kalik Heavy, and until next time faithful readers,

1LT Wm Treadway

I intend on making another post on my way back to detail the wild times, but to tide you over for the couple weeks I am gone, I will be posting two videos.

This week, you will get the one I made that covers from early June to mid August. It incorporates footage from the big summer offensive Apache troop went on, the 4th of July festivities, and a late July Air Assault.

The second video is made by 1LT Pat Jones, leader of the Fury Platoon. He is a stellar individual, and I promised him while I was home I would get his video some air time. His should be up thursday of next week and covers some of the same offensive as well.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this video as much as I am enjoying my time off

Back in normal time, Bud Heavy, and until next time faithful readers,

1LT Wm Treadway

Greetings, readers of character.

The platoon has just returned from a most successful excursion into enemy territory. It was a 48 hour air assault mission that met the enemy head on and sent them on their way bloodied and bruised. I would compare it to a group of Longhorn fans walking into a bar in Norman, Oklahoma, whipping a passel of Bummer Sooners, then hanging out till last call. The last time we did one of these I mentioned that the air assault is not generally on tap for an armored reconnaissance squadron. No real surprise though. We left our Bradleys back at Fort Riley and have been on foot for most of the deployment. So much for ‘death before dismount’. Anyway, as missions go, this one went pretty smoothly from the perspective of my platoon with a few bumps along the way.

A key element of the mission was that the enemy had little idea exactly what was going on. It seemed as though the body language of our troops that flew in made the Talibs think we were going one way and we went another. What’s funny is that facet of our mission was totally unintentional. In all frankness, our direction and plan seemed pretty obvious. That said, I suppose knowing the plan from lift-off makes for a biased observer. Perhaps had I watched it all from a removed perspective it would have been as confusing as it was to the bad guys. The effect of the mayhem was a delay in counter-attack. By imposing chaos on the Talibs, we allowed ourselves to set in to good fighting positions, and control the fight from there, even if we didn’t mean to.

Once we landed, the clearance began. One of the places we went into had a family still inside, and we had a very positive interaction. This guy didn’t give a damn about the Taliban threat. He said he knew they worked around there but didn’t let the thugs (the terp’s word) bother him. He had a big family and we stayed with them for a little bit. The man was unobtrusive and didn’t beg us for anything. Before we left, we accidently damaged some of his property and he didn’t even ask to get paid. He just kind of shrugged his shoulders and said “bad things sometimes happen.” So pleased and surprised was I at his attitude that cutting him a generous claim actually felt good. This time I knew he wasn’t trying to cheat or extort me.

I spoke to a few other civs while clearing my part of the town. One guy, we will call him Frank, said there were no Taliban in the area. Right. Frank also said that his brother was the Mullah of the mosque across the street. Interesting. The next two guys, Amos and Andy, said there were Talibs here usually, but they left when we started coming in. This made more sense. Amos told me that they usually hang out at the mosque across the street. And how. As we left Amos’ place, we took fire from off to the southeast. Once we were finished getting shot at, I paid Frank another visit. “Frank, you little shit,” I said, “those were your friends huh? Shooting at my friends?” Frank replied, “Oh no, there are no Taliban here.” Seriously? “Ok, Frank. Since there are no Taliban here you won’t mind showing the ANA this mosque where your brother is in charge.” He agreed. I should have known already, but the Talibs had cleared the place out. They escaped this time with their gear. Perhaps next time they would not be so fortunate.

The ANA had a breakthrough on this mission. We used their best soldiers for this operation and trained them on how to use some of our equipment. Without complaint or refusal these top soldiers led the way. They cleared compounds, searched rooms, and interacted with the locals. This is the kind of behavior we need to see more continuously from them. In an ideal world, we could promote these guys and give them awards. Recognize them in public and show their crappier soldiers how a man should act. During one engagement, the ANA actually started the fight. The soldier, known as Little John to us gringos, was on guard with his M249 squad automatic weapon. He kept a keen lookout and identified two Talibs with AK-47s sneaking up on us. Little John cut down one of the Talibs in place, but missed the other. This was a red-letter firefight because normally our engagements start with them shooting at us from cover, and we kill them in response. Little John smoked this guy in place after sitting in the hot sun for hours. He wasn’t high (at the time), thankfully.

The mission butted up with Ramadan on 1 August. Initially there was friction from the ANA command because we were to get back to FOB Pasab only a half hour before Ramadan began. Despite the great inconvenience, they still came and fought well. On that day, I was proud to have these guys with us. Because of their solid performance, I will extend the publish date for last post’s Madlibs until they tick me off again. Some intelligence suggests that during the days we fought on this air assault that Mullah Omar’s brother was wounded in the fighting. I really hope this is the case, though it is a shame we didn’t kill him. It is a fitting start to the Muslim holy month. We, my squadron and the ANA, gave the Taliban a bloody nose to think about while they fast and pray. Props to all involved.

The Talibs are still active, despite the Ramadan fast of food and water and tobacco during the day. They have taken up sport firing RPGs at COP Graveyard with some frequency. Without inviting too much hubris, their percentage from the free throw line is pretty abysmal. At the time this was written, they were 1/18 or 5.5% from the free throw line. Not so hot.

Christmas came early to COP Graveyard. Our stalwart Dakota Troop brought us a RAID camera that would make the paparazzi jealous. I’ll put on my nerd cap for a moment to describe this awesome piece of equipment. This thing is basically the all-seeing eye of Sauron (Reference, Lord of the Rings, 1 each). It sits on top of a massive tower and scans our domain. When a skippy Talib comes out to shoot an RPG, it hones in quickly and delivers distance, direction, and location. The altitude allows us to track the shooter everywhere and talk the Apaches on. It allows us to maintain eyes on the enemy when they try and escape. Once we talk the birds on to the bad guy, the 30mm cannon slung underneath the Apache will make short work of the shooter.

This is a good time to talk about reintegration. Attention Taliban bloggers: you can give yourselves up now and get paid to do so. This is part of the ISAF reintegration program to assimilate poor fighters into society. Those who choose this path and complete certain requirements can get paid, educated, and given a job. It is a wise thing to do for both ISAF and ANSF because in most cases it is cheaper to pay these guys not to fight than it is to kill them, and also reduces risk to our soldiers. It is a wise thing to do for the fighter level Taliban because we eventually will kill them. The turnover rate for the low level fighters is high. We kill a whole lot more of them than we do the leaders, and they constantly have to replace their numbers with green fighters. The green fighters don’t know how to stay alive very well and tend to get tossed into the meat grinder. It’s fine with me, but were I a poor 17 year old recruited by the Taliban only to meet the business end of grenades, bullets, and helicopters, I might give this program some serious consideration.

Staying nine and a half hours ahead, HE heavy, and until next time faithful readers,

1LT Wm Treadway

2/A/4-4 Cavalry

Contractors working outside the COP

A bong, recently used, indicates someone left in a hurry. And left baked.

Chilling inside a compound.

SSG Blacker looking a bit pink.

1LT Flores with a local national child.

From myself and everyone who helps out at The Texan Who Would Be King, we would like to extend its appreciation to friends of the blog. Over the last six months, there have been people kind enough and motivated enough to help share the story of White Platoon, Apache Troop. Their generosity has been able to give  people from all over the world perspective on what goes on in one of the most dangerous places on the planet, and the men who live in it. Some of these people I have never even met in the real, yet they extend their friendship.

The first person to extend their friendship to me was an expat writer for the UN Dispatch Online, Una Moore. She maintains her own blog, Transitionland: Absurdities and Atrocities and spends a good deal of time devoted to improving the lives of Afghans everywhere.

Second, a toast to my friends at the Lagat Group, Lucien Ziegler and George Foulard. Lucien and George run a network of blogs including Arabianomics, an online publication to which I contribute.

Thanks again to everybody, and I look forward to our continued friendship and partnership.

Always HE Heavy,

1LT Wm Treadway

Welcome back! After a brief interruption, we now return to Bullit already in progress…

It happened. Sort of. On the 7th when we moved down here permanently, my platoon took charge of the new COP. Still under construction, though I still have my own bosses who visit from time to time. For the present, COP Graveyard and its occupants are my responsibility, as is the welfare of the farmers in the nearby homes. My men and I run the castle, and though its walls are but dirt, its moat but a tank ditch, its towers but wood and sandbags, its keep a tent, it is still our castle. These valiant knights keep the enemies at bay by hurtling steel slugs from a quarter to a half-inch wide at twenty-seven hundred feet per second (varies) at the enemy attack positions. The grenadiers lob the 40mm high-explosive shells over the walls to rain death on the Talibs. The only thing I need now is a cauldron of piping hot oil at the front gate ready to pour on a would be assault force.

So, until the rest of Apache Troop graces us with their presence, COP Graveyard is the White Castle (ha). I fear though I lack some kingly qualities that may paint me a tyrant in the eyes of the locals. It makes for an interesting comparison with the Rudyard Kipling tale (and Sean Connery movie) from which this post derives its title, though I have serious doubts about being proclaimed a god or finding myself thrown from a rope bridge by angry natives.

I had a man come a few days ago looking to make claim to property we destroyed to build the COP. He presented me a piece of paper indicating the quantity of owned land affected. The figure was far larger than the amount we bulldozed and detonated. The man, let’s call him Jack, swore up and down that we leveled exactly this much land, that it was all his, and that he wanted payment.  Did this man think me such a fool as to simply write him a check from the American taxpayer? Does he think that I am like ACORN and just dish out federal funds to anybody? Maybe he thought I wanted a kickback. This ruffled my sensibility. I called Jack a liar and a fraud. Jack took offense that we destroyed his land and won’t pay him for it. I said that I have no problem paying for the land he actually owns, but I do not appreciate being treated like an idiot. He was silent. I told him to return the next day with a more accurate and appropriate sum of land and he would get his claim. Jack did not return.

Were I actually a king, my honorific would likely not be William the Merciful. The platoon relentlessly pours ammunition on the Talibs. Ninety percent of our engagements are started by the enemy, and we punish them for such arrogance. During the push down here, we fired so many grenades that we stressed the supply of the entire squadron. They told me to conserve my ammo, but I believe in ceaseless thrashing on the people trying to kill my men and me. We don’t shoot civilians, but we stack Talibs like cordwood. Some of you may have heard the statistic from Vietnam about soldiers firing millions of rounds per enemy killed, but I assure you that is not the case. When they shoot at us, my men aim their weapons and deliver ire in an aggressive manner. The Talibs prefer to attack units that only sputter a response. My platoon sings. The goal is to make them think twice, but it sometimes causes more issues with locals’ property when the Talibs shoot from peoples homes. I apologize that armor piercing fifty caliber bullets punch through houses like your ticket when the conductor comes by your seat. I am clear, however, that we defend ourselves with the required force to prevent repeat. We still pay for the damage we cause. People like Jack can look at the bright side though. The perforation should bring more sunlight and circulation into those damp, dark compounds.

The last several interactions with locals have been poor. The subject has solely been about getting paid for supposedly destroyed lands, of which tales similar to Jack’s were told in similar epic proportions. I don’t know why I am so concerned about it. I am not paying them from my bank account. I have the full faith and credit (chuckle) of the United States with which to play. It seems that my disgust and refusal is more primal; I resent being cheated even if it isn’t my money. They seem completely helpless when they allow the Talibs to use homes as bunkers from which to fight and are offended when we return fire. So are they complicit in the attacks or fence-sitting cowards for allowing it without a fight? I suppose though after decades of being the anvil on which the hammer of war pounds, this entire population may be paralyzed by sheer trauma to culture, unsure yet about who will be in charge after the pullout. Such an assessment might be the nation-sized version of a child born to an abusive family and bounced like a pinball between foster homes with wildly differing child-rearing philosophies. Let me spoil the ending. In this version, Afghanistan won’t get the record deal after Dr. Dre watches it perform in rap battles against Yemen and Pakistan on 8 mile road.

We employ local contractors to do work outside of the COPs. These contracts generate jobs and put honest money into the economy and, overall, are a good thing. The terps are contracted, some construction is contracted, even the guys who clean the latrines are contracted. However, there can be tension involving these contracts. This is a bartering culture and they do not understand the binding nature of contracts like we westerners do. After a contract is signed, the locals tend to negotiate things from us, on an informal basis, that are not included in the written agreement. One group of workers asked for us to provide them water (not in the contract). Basic compassion led me to give them water (no biggie). If you give a mouse a cookie, then he is going to want cots and fuel too. These latter items, however, I did not feel compelled by my humanity to provide. Not that I could have anyway because the availability of both items were scarce. Seriously, not my problem.

The contractors have recently become a target of the Taliban. I think they have figured out that unarmed and unarmored sedans, filled with unarmed and unarmored civilians, are a much softer target than our convoys. To attack one of my trucks that either spits grenades with the ka-chunk of a typewriter, or plays the deep bass solo of the M2, is folly. The  M2 .50 cal tends to sound a bit like the intro from Led Zeppelin’s Communication Breakdown. The Talibs who attack these civilians are like the old fashioned road agents from the territories that would ambush innocent travelers on the move. The frontier stagecoaches that were appropriately prickly got hit far less then oh, say, a soft-minded Oklahoma-bound Sooner meandering in a covered wagon with lackluster security as over-assessed as their modern day football team. Like the road agents, the Talibs find a good spot concealed from the view of our outposts and attack the civilians. If the contractors are lucky, they escape with their lives but lose their goods or vehicles. If they are unlucky, the end comes face down in a grape field staining the green grapes red.

I hear pretty abhorrent tales about how the Pashtun Taliban sympathizers treat their children as well. For instance, a few kilometers north of us sits another COP where an injured child was dropped off at the front gate by his father, who then left. The young man presented with a skull fracture and exposed brain matter. He was still conscious and able to speak to an interpreter, but was fading fast. The terp asked him what happened. The boy said that his father had ordered him to go out to the road, count American convoys and mark the times they came past. The boy refused, and his father took to beating the child in the head with a hammer. After the bludgeoning, the father put the kid on his motorcycle, drove him to the COP that he was gathering intelligence against and left him there. The kid died before the medevac bird touched down.

Before we moved down here there was an Xbox set up at COP Shangri-la. From time to time we would play Call of Duty, a first person shooter video game. In the artificial world of the video game, we would laugh and play at killing each other. Regardless of how many times you were shot or blown up, there was always a respawn. Most of the real weapon systems we use out here are represented in the game, though with poor effect. It’s the difference between actually hanging out with a swimsuit model, or just seeing her on the pages of sports illustrated. While observing a particularly intense match between the officers and NCOs, I had an epiphany. Video game war is the perfect war for three reasons. In virtual conflict, there are clearly defined unarguable success/failure criteria. You know when you’ve won. The objectives are not absurd or obscure thus making accomplishment of them feasible. Second, the end to the conflict is set at a timeline or on completion of the mentioned criteria. Regardless of where you stand or how hard you engaged in digital combat, when the time runs out or the objective is met the war ends. Last and most important your friends don’t actually die. I say friends because if I watched every Talib suddenly and spontaneously combust it would be a spectacular and lighthearted end to this conflict. I would not be heartbroken. But in the world of binary code combat, the bullets don’t skip out of the TV and smoke your melon. I’m never responsible or guilty for players on my team having to watch the killcam and hitting X to return to the fight. If war was to mimic these traits, the world would be better off as a whole. Now, I am not so naive as to think that global crises will at any time be solved by a couple of rounds of international Team Deathmatch between prime ministers and presidents, but as philosophical conjecture, I’ll entertain it.

Coordination on the COP construction is proving difficult. While my charge is to defend the COP, these engineers are building a home for my platoon and ultimately the troop. The squadron and the brigade and the engineers have three separate ideas about what specific things are to be made, where they are placed, and how. The grand plan that was set a month ago before the offensive is beginning to slip in terms of support. The engineers are needed elsewhere, there is no more wood, the scope of the project doesn’t include structures, etc. These excuses for being unable to complete the COP as was designed are very convenient for people who didn’t make the appropriate coordinations and will never see the result of their bumbling. Add to that the pressure on the squadron to keep on the offensive in order to maintain the push throughout our area of operations and keep the collective Taliban heads down. The next dangerous area must be fought for to allow another troop to secure and build. The illuminated focus on our efforts here will dim as The Graveyard becomes old news. Even so, we will defend a half completed castle and continue to meet mission success. Coordination between military units should not be this difficult.

Where this passage sits was once several paragraphs about how useless the ANA are. I re-read it again (redundantly, it seems) and it just ticked me off more, so it was deleted. Madlibs may be less frustrating:

“Today an ANA soldier _______. This was _______ because ________. They could possibly be the _________ army in the _______. This is an example of ________ and how it negatively effects _______. They may as well _______ with _______ for all the good it does. Perhaps trying _______ they would learn to _______, otherwise I have _______ about Afghanistan’s ability to _______ itself ________.”

If someone responds with a funny one, I’ll put it up in a post. Phrases as well as words can be put in the blanks.

A care package of awesome note deserves mention in the main body. A couple days after moving down here I received several large boxes from the Treece family. They were full of wholesale size boxes of chips and cereals. This sustained the platoon almost exclusively for near a week. Our resupply has since delivered us a style of instant meal meant to feed the entire platoon, but before we got that it was either the Treece rations or crack open another MRE. The Meals Ready to Eat, for those unfamiliar, are the standard army meal packages nutritionally capable of sustaining life but little else. A nod to the Treece family, yet another of many beers I owe to the good people back home. If you bump into me on leave, I will probably be slumped and slightly coherent on an inflated raft. Two ropes will tie me off, one lashed to a group of rafts containing a passel of beautiful women, another anchored to an inner tube containing the beer cooler. I promise to retain just enough grip on reality with which to dispense beers yet undrunk enough to pay my debts to you fine people. Should I break my promise, George will act as my proxy.

Staying nine and a half hours ahead, HE heavy, and until next time faithful readers,

1LT Wm Treadway

2/A/4-4 Cavalry

White Platoon soldiers build tents at COP Graveyard.

Sunset over the northwestern mountains.

Engineers working on the COP.

SGT Cunningham and SGT Rupprecht hang out at the end of the day.

SSG Pierce and I burn one down after his return from KAF.

As Will’s communications situation has grown less ideal, he asked me to post a message letting you, his faithful followers, know that all is well and that he is looking forward to issuing his next update from the sandy beaches of Afghanistan.  However, at the moment, he is unable to transmit any updates until his internet connectivity posture is improved. As always, I will post a notification of the next post on facebook.  Otherwise, please check back early and often, as Will might be hitting us with another fantastic write-up at any moment.

Best,

George Foulard

Down in South Zhari things are going well. The COP is coming together nicely, and the Talibs are as scared of it as they should be. They learned after the last shindig to not screw with White Platoon. They have tried a few probes and have met with disaster. I have heard some of their commanders have scurried on back to Pakistan, tail firmly placed in between their legs. We tore down or blew up most of the places in which they could hide and, consequently, changed the game quite a bit. They can’t really sneak close enough. There are several awesome videos that will be included with the next video update, which, while we are on the topic, should be released around the time I go on leave. It will blow back your hair. It blew back mine. Literally.

I am pretty sick of having to write about my friends dying, but it must be spoken of. 1LT Dimitri Del Castillo died out east of us. His loss is pretty horrific to me. Dimitri was in Elvis Company, Fourth Regiment at West Point with me. He is the third member in or close to our company to have died in combat in the last six months. Daren Hidalgo died in February, John Runkle in May, and now Dimitri. We have also had a companymate severely wounded. Lost his legs from an IED strike. In memorial of the dead, we wear black bracelets with the names and dates of the fallen we were close to. I fear by the end of this deployment there wont be much space left on my arm to bear their names.

Dimitri was altogether an outstanding individual. I know his family well; both of ours are from the Houston area. In a way, every member of our company spent the last bit of adolescence growing up together. From eighteen to twenty-two, thirty men and women grew close and learned how to lead and fight together. Dimitri was no exception. He was a rugby player at school and a warrior on the field and off. His fiance, Katie, was a rare gem of women at the Academy. She is the kindest of individuals and never self-absorbed. We all spent our summers together training. Thanks to the adjutant’s random number generator, Katie and Daren ended up with our company for these summer events. The pain she is feeling right now over the loss of her love must be as blinding as it is unreal.

At school, we called him Del, and his family and mine went to the All Academy Ball in Houston all four years. There were also several of the balls that occurred at the Academy itself. I loved hanging out with his siblings and his parents. I hope to see them all again when I return so that I may offer my condolences in person. I don’t know why our company has had to suffer like it has, but if there is one thing I have learned there is no rhyme or reason to people getting tore up. It just happens. All I can really do now is make sure that my platoon kills as many Talibs as possible. Maximize our survival, minimize theirs.

Cavalrymen who die go to a place called Fiddlers Green. It is halfway down the trail to Hell in a shady meadow green, and the souls of all dead troopers are camped near a good old-time canteen (bar). Adam Hamilton and Amaru Aguilar are there now. I’m not sure where Dimitri, John, and Daren are because they were infantrymen, but hopefully they passed the columns of defeated Taliban on their way. I imagine the Talib ghosts with their heads down, come to reconcile with their cowardice and perfidy. We caught a guy the other day who shot at the COP. He dropped his rifle, picked up a shovel and tried to pretend he was a farmer; hidden behind the innocent. Their dishonor knows no bounds. It makes me want to believe there is an afterlife just to imagine these contemptible yellow-bellied bastards suffering in it sans the virgins.

Independence Day has come and gone. While most of America chilled by a barbeque, ice cold Coors heavy (the banquet beer) in hand, my platoon guarded the new COP. It was not without celebration though. I had the men gather as many forms of illumination we could find. Star clusters of varied colors, parachute flares, pen flares, anything that shot in the air and made a pretty color. As the sun set we posted up the American flag, right next to my Come and Take it flag. When it got dark, COP Shangri-La and all the other COPs around joined us in lighting up the night sky. My soldiers in the middle set off flares and shot off 40mm illumination rounds. Some 120mm mortars from a ways away light the night up as well. I can only imagine how this looked to the Taliban. They must have soiled themselves seeing every one of us foreign devils conjuring these streams of light in synchronous. It was pretty cool.

The flags we put up broke a rule sadly. I am sure once one of my leaders hear we put a flag up, probably from this forum, hell shall be had. It is currently against ISAF policy to fly US flags over our COPs because we do not want to be seen as occupiers and invaders. I would loved to have seen Lee turn to Stuart and say, no flags on this raid, we don’t want them Yanks thinking we are occupiers. If Nelson had ordered the Union Jack struck before Trafalgar, I am pretty sure it would have actually been illegal. Our colors should accompany us everywhere and fly proudly. Men used to die carrying those colors, charging into battle with nothing but the flagpole. I am of the opinion that regardless of our status as assisters instead of occupiers our colors should fly. It represents control an dominance of terrain. It says that we own this COP, and our enemies do not. I am not opposed to flying it with the Afghan flag, since our armies are allies and co-located, but nonetheless it should fly free. That flag has stood up against people tougher than the Taliban, and if it brings them out of the woodwork to futilely crash against my machine guns, grenade launchers, and mortars, as a wave crashes on the rocks, dissolving into mist then retreating, then I welcome it.

The heat of the summer out here is mind bending, even for a Texan. Regularly the temperature gets above 115 degrees, and it makes for some smoked soldiers by the end of the day. But they do it, and do it without complaint. Constantly proud of these men. With the heat came the grapes. They have gotten sizable enough to pick and eat or dry into raisins. We crushed a good sized grape field to make the new COP, and had to pay the farmer who owned it a pretty penny. He got more then I thought he deserved, but the amount we paid wasn’t my call. They are green grapes that are smaller than what I see in our grocery stores back home. Honestly they don’t even really taste that good, but perhaps they are not ripe enough yet. I am not a grape farmer, but I am, in the words of Ben Stiller, a lead farmer.

Mid-tour leave is coming up. Not too long till that ice cold Coors heavy (the banquet beer) is gripped in my hand, made slippery by the flowing waters of the Guadeloupe River. Also no one should be shooting at me; that will be nice. Once we permanently move, there might be a longer gap between updates. I know I have threatened that several times now, but the full move of all the gear will begin soon. I’m not sure when I can hit up the interweb again.

I’ll leave you with some lyrics from The Killers that have been in my head the last few days,

I took a shuttle on a shock wave ride, where people on the pen pulled the trigger for accolades.

I took a bullet and I looked inside and running through my veins an American masquerade.

I still remember Grandma Dixie’s wake.

I’d never really known anybody to die before Red, white, and blue upon a birthday cake, my brother he was born on the 4th of July.

Staying nine and a half hours ahead, HE heavy, and until next time faithful readers,

1LT Wm Treadway

2/A/4-4 Cavalry

MATV guards COP Graveyard at sunset.

1LT Pat Jones and myself.

All along the watchtower, princes kept their view

This man was vastly overpaid in my opinion for his crappy grape fields.

Some of my soldiers and I were presented our CAB (Combat Action Badge) by a British 3 star.

My FO stands in front of our frowned upon flags.

Flags at sunrise on July 5th, about the time everyone at home was shooting off their fireworks.

Our fireworks on Independence Day.

In starting this segment I was pretty concerned about OPSEC, operational security. Too many times have people posted stuff on the internet that have subsequently led to attacks or worse from the information divulged. Some genius out West took pictures of his COP from every angle and posted them on the internet with markings as to the layout. Some Talib probably surfing the web for porn, or training videos involving monkey bars, found the photos and gave the COP a seriously bad day. I look at the operations we are currently conducting and ask myself what I should say. Then I realize something. I realize that the plans for this operation were given to the district government, and thus to the Taliban. Were that not enough to telegraph our movements, these plans were divulged to the population at large in an announcement, and thus to the Taliban. It’s sad, not just a who, what, when, where, why, and how, but timelines, locations, contracts, and other vital pieces of information that can be used to hurt US soldiers, Afghan security forces, and local contractors. Brilliant, really. Couldn’t have done it better myself.

Anyway, we are going to a new place, right in the heart of insurgent territory. We have been fighting in and around there for some time, and now will deal a critical blow to the enemy’s infrastructure. Our troop has attacked, and will stay right in their backyard. It’s satisfying, like driving your truck through a really irritating neighbors dining room, using the toilet without flushing, smashing the TV, and putting your feet up on the couch. When the neighbor comes up and says, “hey man, this is my house,” my soldiers will turn and say, “not anymore, jackass.” They have tried very hard to prevent this. The TB threw most all of their arsenal at the troop, with little effect. When we brought ours down on them, they paid dearly for their transgressions. The Man frowns on us discussing numbers, but lets just say there will be a substantial amount of digging involved for the enemy undertakers. Alas, poor Yousef, we knew him well.

One of my favorite events of the past few days has been the employment of our mortars. These nifty little contraptions drop warheads of varying types and sizes on the fighting positions we take contact from. Picture this. A Taliban fighter wakes up and is told by his commander to go attack the Americans. The young man grabs his AK-47, opium infused snuff and sets on his way accompanied by several other bros. They sneak through the wadi lines and hide under the trees, eventually arriving to a good place to attack from with cover and concealment. They prepare, set up the RPG’s, lock and load, take a man sized hit of opium-snuff. High as a kite and ready to kill for god, the young man peeks around a corner, takes aim, and fires his weapon. His buddies do the same. What they did not anticipate was that our response would be doubly violent. High-explosive grenades, accurate rifle fire, and ear-shattering heavy machine guns chatter our virulent response. Oh no! the Talib fighter is pinned down, but behind cover. If he waits it out, he can drop the weapon and walk away unscathed to come down from being all jacked up on something significantly stronger than Mountain Dew. Then the bass kicks in on the Symphony Ferocious, No. 9, scherzo. An American soldier, same age as the Talib, places a bulbous mass of steel and explosive attached to fins into a tube. It slides to the bottom where it hits the firing pin and is ejected like a clown from a cannon. This clown, however, will bring no smiles. It sails through the air and reaches the apogee where it turns over. Nose downward, it hurtles towards the young fighters crouched behind cover from our bullets. On impact, the cap is crushed and the explosive ignites, blasting lateral frag everywhere, Inception style. We call this positive effects on the enemy.

According to my tarjiman (interpreter), this area we are going to translates from Pashtun as “The Graveyard” and will be where these updates are sent from now on as the COP is built. I expect they presumed the fight would be so costly for us as to resemble a graveyard, and now, ironically, it has become many of their own.  The TB have been here for years without significant impediment from us, and that time ends now. Cut off from many of their resources, continuing to make calamitous attacks, they will feel the hurt as it strangles and stretches them thin. Victory may not be immanent, and the war certainly not over, but it’s hard times to come for those murderous pederasts.

Almost had an ANA kill himself. When we are on mission, the condition of our weapons is known in Army parlance as ‘red’ indicating there is a bullet in the chamber. In this status, all a soldier has to do is flip the safety switch and pull the trigger. The ANA know when to go red or back to amber (no round in the chamber), but have really poor safety discipline. It was the morning, pretty early and before all the attacks began when we established security in a strong point. A truly gifted ANA soldier had gotten mud in the muzzle of his M16 on the walk there. To eliminate the blockage, he lifted the weapon to his mouth, still red, and blew on it like a trumpet, thumb in the trigger well of a loaded weapon not on safe. Pause. I’m going to restate this again for effect. To get the mud out of the barrel of his loaded weapon not on safe, he used his mouth, thumb only a hair from the trigger. SSG Pierce, being the good NCO he is, yelled at him and made the on the spot correction before Darwin took over. Ladies and gents, I present the future defenders of Afghanistan.

I’ve had an idea recently to remediate some of these issues. Though I have told my higher, I am not sure they will be receptive. As ridiculous as that last anecdote was, it is a serious problem. If these ANA soldiers are not ready to shoulder the burden of defending their country when we leave, the house of cards will fall. My idea is that we take a break from patrolling for a few weeks and focus on a training regimen for these guys. I am talking about time where my soldiers and NCO’s can sit down and teach these guys how to use their equipment, how to avoid IEDs, and how to kill Talibs efficiently. Basic things like weapons safety, maintenance, and marksmanship. The culmination of this training event would be to start patrolling again with the ANA in the lead. Right now we have to run partnered patrols, and the term “ANA led” is just appeasement doublespeak for “we did all the work, exposed ourselves to all the danger, and the ANA happened to be present.” It is time to get these guys in gear, get them leading their own patrols to clean up their own country’s bad guys. We’ll watch their backs.

I was struck the other day by the historical similarity of our strategy in the Arghandab river area compared to the U.S. Cavalry’s operations in the American Southwest. Out on the frontier, equine-borne troopers maneuvered to the points where they could best dominate the countryside and established forts. These forts and outposts have been glorified by John Wayne movies as wildly romantic and clearly left out the part about sweating your cojones off in the West Texas summer, getting scalped by a native, or losing your arm to snakebite. Thankfully, our medical capabilities are much greater, but so are our military capabilities. The similarities lie in that both the horseback U.S. Cavalry and the boot traveling scouts of today used these forts to dominate terrain. I hope we will see similar outcomes and drive the Taliban from their homes and strongholds in a vastly more justified version of the trail of tears. Despite being so justified, I am sure Al Jazeera will release a commercial featuring a Taliban gazing over his westernized homeland, single tear rolling down his cheek as he watches children get educated and women come out of their homes like, gasp, human beings.

Staying nine and a half hours ahead, HE heavy, and until next time faithful readers,

1LT Wm Treadway

2/A/4-4 Cavalry

 SPC Barroga glasses a possible enemy.

PFC Samaniego helps move some C-4

40mm dunnage after a prolonged firefight.

SFC Rogers catches a nap. With gum in his mouth.

SFC Rogers takes care of SPC Knight on a strong point.

The ANA XO and I.

SPC Mizzelle makes the breakfast of champions: powdered eggs.

ANA pose for a photo before we leave the strongpoint. Mr. Suckstart is the special kid on the left.