| Subj: | Fwd: FW: Afgan |
| Date: | 12/7/01 6:08:42 AM Pacific Standard Time |
THE LANGUAGE IS CRUDE -- AND PERHAPS TOO SMOOTH FOR AN INFANTRYMAN,
BUT IF ONE READS IT WITH AN EYE TO THE POSSIBILITY IT MIGHT BE SO --
IT IS WORTH THE THREE MINUTES IT TAKES TO READ.
Message from a Recon Marine in Afghanistan. Just outside of Ab
Gach,
in the northwest panhandle of Afghanistan between Tajikstan and
Pakistan. November 11, 2001
Hello Bizarre,
It's fucking freezing here. I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt between
rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush mountains along the
Dar 'yoi Pomir River watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads
to a cave. Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands
of
miles. I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen
seconds
to avoid another scorpion sting. I've actually given up battling
the
chiggers and sand fleas, but them fucking scorpions give a jolt like a
cattle
prod. Hurts like a bastard.
The antidote tastes like transmission fluid but God bless the Marine
Corps for the five vials of it in my pack. The one truth the Taliban
cannot
escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they
have
to eat food and drink water.
That requires couriers and that's where an old bounty hunter like me
comes in handy. I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and
storage
facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates
up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop
the
hardware, we bash some heads for a while, then I track and record
the new movement. It's all about intelligence. We haven't even brought
in
the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no idea what they're in for.
We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing
the
eradication to begin. I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing
over
him with my boot on his throat as I spit a bloody ear into his face
and
plunge my nickel plated Bowie knife through his frontal lobe. But you know
me.
I'm a romantic.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: This country blows, man.
It's not even a country. There are no roads, there's no infrastructure, there's
no
government. This is an inhospitable, rock pit ruled by eleventh century
warring
tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs. Afghanistan offers two
ways
for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army.
That's
it. Those are your options.
Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat
plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach
flu if that's
your idea of a party. But the smell alone of those "tent cities of
the walking dead" is
enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen
hours a day.
And let me tell you something else. I've been living with these Tajiks
and Uzbeks and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtins for over a month and
a half now and this
much I can say for sure: These guys, all of em, are Huns. Actual, living
Huns. They
LIVE to fight.
Its what they do. Its ALL they do. They have no respect for anything,
not for their families or for each other or for themselves. They claw at
one another
as a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old
sons
into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of
savage, heartless
beasts who feed on each other's barbarism. Fucking cavemen with AK 47's.
Then again,
maybe I'm just cranky.
I'm freezing my nuts off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer
is
running out of juice and I can't recharge it until the sun comes up in a
few hours.
Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write
a letter to CNN and tell
Judy and Bernie and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling
the Taliban
"smart." They are not smart. I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because
the word they are looking
for is "cunning."
The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines. They
are sneaky and ruthless and, when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful,
malevolent parasites
who create nothing and destroy everything else. Smart. Pfft. Yeah, they're
real smart.
They've spent their entire lives reading only one book (and shitty one, as
books go) and consider
hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil. They're still figuring
out how to work a
Bic lighter. Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of
life is like trying to
teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks
you in the eye with it.
OK, enough.
Snuffle will be up soon so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my
tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice but I'm getting good at it. Please
tell my fellow
Americans to turn off their TV sets and move on with their lives. The story
line you are getting from CNN
is utter bullshit and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you
glued to the screen
through the commercials.
We've got this one under control. The worst thing you guys can do
right now is sit around analyzing what we're doing over here because you
have no idea what we're doing
and, really, you don't want to know. We are your military and we are doing
what you sent us here
to do. You wanna help? Buy some fucking stocks. I wanna go home!
Saucy Jack
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Subject: Fwd: FW: Afgan
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