SEP 03, 2019
It has taken me years to tell
these stories. The emotional and moral wounds of the Afghan War have just felt
too recent, too raw. After all, I could hardly write a thing down about my Iraq
War experience for nearly ten years, when, by accident, I churned out a book on
the subject. Now, as the American war in Afghanistan – hopefully – winds to
something approaching a close, it’s finally time to impart some tales of the
madness. In this new, recurring, semi-regular series, the reader won’t find
many worn out sagas of heroism, brotherhood, and love of country. Not that this
author doesn’t have such stories, of course. But one can find those sorts of
tales in countless books and numerous trite, platitudinal Hollywood yarns.
With that in mind, I propose
to tell a number of very different sorts of stories – profiles, so to speak, in
absurdity. That’s what war is, at root, an exercise in absurdity, and America’s
hopeless post-9/11 wars are stranger than most. My own 18-year long quest to
find some meaning in all the combat, to protect my troops from danger, push
back against the madness, and dissent from within the army proved Kafkaesque in
the extreme. Consider what follows just a survey of that hopeless journey…
The man was remarkable at one
specific thing: pleasing his bosses and single-minded self-promotion. Sure he
lacked anything resembling empathy, saw his troops as little more than tools
for personal advancement, and his overall personality disturbingly matched the
clinical definition of sociopathy. Details, details…
Still, you (almost) had to
admire his drive, devotion, and dedication to the cause of promotion, of rising
through the military ranks. Had he managed to channel that astonishing energy,
obsession even, to the pursuit of some good, the world might markedly have
improved. Which is, actually, a dirty little secret about the military,
especially ground combat units; that it tends to attract (and mold) a
disturbing number of proud owners of such personality disorders. The army then
positively reinforces such toxic behavior by promoting these sorts of
individuals – who excel at mind-melding (brown-nosing, that is) with superiors
– at disproportionate rates. Such is life. Only there are real consequences, real soldiers,
(to say nothing of local civilians) who suffer under their commanders’ tyranny.
Back in 2011-12, the man
served as my commander, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. As such, he led
– and partly controlled the destinies of – some 500 odd soldiers. Then a lowly
captain, I commanded about one-fifth of those men and answered directly to the
colonel. I didn’t much like the guy; hardly any of his officers did. And he
didn’t trust my aspirational intellectualism, proclivity to ask “why,” or,
well, me in general. Still, he mostly found this author an effective
middle manager. As such, I was a means to an end for him – that being
self-advancement and some positive measurable statistics for his annual officer
evaluation report (OER) from his own boss. Nonetheless, it was the army and you
sure don’t choose your bosses.
So it was, early in my
yearlong tour in the scrublands of rural Kandahar province, that the colonel
treated me to one his dog-and-pony-show visits. Only this time he had some
unhappy news for me. The next day he, and the baker’s dozen tag-alongs in his
ubiquitous entourage, wanted to walk the few treacherous miles to the most
dangerous strongpoint in the entire sub-district. It was occupied, needlessly,
by one of my platoons in perpetuity and suffered under constant siege by the
local Taliban, too small to contest the area and too big to fly under the
radar, this – at one point the most attacked outpost in Afghanistan – base just
provided an American flag-toting target. I’d communicated as much to command
early on, but to no avail. Can-do US colonels with aspirations for general
officer rank hardly ever give up territory to the enemy – even if
that’s the strategically sound course.
Walking to the platoon
strongpoint was dicey on even the best of days. The route between our main
outpost and the Alamo-like strongpoint was flooded with Taliban insurgents and
provided precious little cover or concealment for out patrols. On my first
jaunt to the outpost, I (foolishly, it must be said) walked my unit into an
ambush and was thrown over a small rock wall by the blast of a rocket-propelled
grenade (RPG) with my apparent name on it. Since then, it was standard for our
patrols to the strongpoint to suffer multiple ambushes during the roundtrip
rotation. Sometimes our kids got wounded or killed; sometimes they were lucky.
Mercifully, at least, my intelligence section – led by my friend and
rebranded artillery lieutenant – did their homework and figured out that the
chronically lazy local Taliban didn’t like to fight at night or wake up early,
so patrols to the strongpoint that stepped off before dawn had a fighting
chance of avoiding the worst of ambush alley.
I hadn’t wanted to take my
colonel on a patrol to the outpost. His entourage was needlessly large and,
when added to my rotational platoon, presented an unwieldy and inviting target
for Taliban ambush. Still I knew better than to argue the point with my
disturbingly confident and single-minded colonel. So I hedged. Yes, sir, we can
take you along, with one caveat: we have to leave before dawn! I
proceeded to explain why, replete with historical stats and examples, we could
only (somewhat) safely avoid ambush if we did so.
That’s when things went south.
The colonel insisted we leave at nine, maybe even ten, in the morning, the
absolute peak window for Taliban attack. This prima donna reminded me
that he couldn’t possibly leave any earlier. He had a “battle rhythm,” after
all, which included working out in the gym at his large, safe,
distant-from-the-roar-of-battle base each morning. How could I expect him to
alter that predictable schedule over something as minor as protecting the lives
and limbs of his own troopers? He had “to set an example,” he reminded me, by
letting his soldiers on the base “see him in the gym” each and every morning.
Back then, silly me, I was actually surprised by the colonel’s absurd refusal;
so much so that I pushed back, balked, tried to rationally press my point. To
no avail.
What the man said next has
haunted me ever since. We would leave no earlier than nine AM, according to his
preference. My emotional pleas – begging really – was not only for naught but
insulted the colonel. Why? Because, as he imparted to me, for my own growth and
development he thought, “Remember: lower caters to higher, Danny!” That, he
reminded me, was the way of the military world, the key to success and
advancement. The man even thought he was being helpful, advising me on how to
achieve the success he’d achieved. My heart sank…forever, and never recovered.
The next day he was late. We
didn’t step off until nearly ten AM. The ambush, a massive mix of RPG and
machine gun fire, kicked off – as predicted – within sight of the main base.
The rest was history, and certainly could’ve been worse. On other, less lucky,
days it was. But I remember this one profound moment. When the first rocket
exploded above us, both the colonel and I dove for limited cover behind a mound
of rocks. I was terrified and exasperated. Just then we locked eyes and I gazed
into his proverbial soul. The man was incapable of fear. He wasn’t scared, or
disturbed; he didn’t care a bit about what was happening. That revelation was
more terrifying than the ongoing ambush and would alter my view of the world
irreparably.
Which brings us to some of the
discomfiting morals – if such things exist – of this story. American soldiers
fight and die at the whims of career-obsessed officers as much they do so at
the behest of king and country. Sometimes its their own leaders – as much as
the ostensible “enemy” – that tries to get them killed. The plentiful
sociopaths running these wars at the upper and even middle-management levels
are often far less concerned with long-term, meaningful “victory” in places
like Afghanistan, than in crafting – on the backs of their soldiers sacrifices
– the illusion of progress, just enough measurable “success” in their
one year tour to warrant a stellar evaluation and, thus, the next promotion. Not
all leaders are like this. I, for one, once worked for a man for whom I – and
all my peers – would run through walls for, a (then) colonel that loved his
hundreds of soldiers like they were his own children. But he was the exception
that proved the rule.
The madness, irrationality,
and absurdity of my colonel was nothing less than a microcosm of America’s
entire hopeless adventure in Afghanistan. The war was never rational, winnable,
or meaningful. It was from the first, and will end as, an exercise in futility.
It was, and is, one grand patrol to my own unnecessary outpost, undertaken at
the wrong time and place. It was a collection of sociopaths and imbeciles –
both Afghan and American – tilting at windmills and ultimately dying for
nothing at all. Yet the young men in the proverbial trenches never flinched,
never refused. They did their absurd duty because they were acculturated to the
military system, and because they were embarrassed not to.
After all, lower caters
to higher…
Danny Sjursen is a retired US
Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com.
His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill,
Salon, Truthdig, Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours
with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at
his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis
of the Iraq War, Ghostriders
of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. Follow him on
Twitter at @SkepticalVet.
