The Taliban Don't Wave (24 page)

What happened next was hotly contested during my court martial for second-degree murder. Depending on who gave testimony, a few different versions played out. One soldier said we came across a wounded insurgent that some ANA soldiers had just finished kicking and spitting on. He had a small, fist-sized hole in his stomach, a partially severed foot, and an injured knee. Another soldier said he thought the insurgent was already dead, with a hole in his stomach the size of a dinner plate. Captain Shafiq Ullah said the man was torn apart, had lost all of his blood in a nearby stream, and was ninety-eight per cent dead. And although they differed in their testimony as to the manner and what was said before and after the incident, two witnesses basically agreed that I had shot the insurgent two times, in what was later dubbed by the international press as a mercy killing.

As a Canadian citizen, I had the right to remain silent during my trial. I could not be forced to testify. I chose to remain silent during my murder trial, and I never gave testimony on the stand, nor did I make a statement for the police. The truth of that moment will always be between me and the insurgent.

The ANA were ordered to continue on their patrol to the south and we passed two more torn-apart insurgents, laying in the cornfields. The Apache had been absolutely devastating—it was like the hand of God had come down and just ripped the legs and arms off of people. Shafiq Ullah approached the two bodies and said something to Max.

“Pakistan,” Max said. “They are from Pakistan.”

“He can tell, just by looking at their dead faces?” I asked.

“Yes, and I can tell too. It is obvious to us.”

We patrolled for a while until we came alongside a road, and I saw some blood trails leading off in different directions. It also looked like the Taliban had put some wounded into vehicles. There would be a large pool of blood, and then nothing, like they were picked up and moved. We came up to a large compound, and I saw bloody handprints on the walls. It was very eerie to see blood everywhere—sometimes in big pools—but no bodies. I remembered hearing that in the Vietnam War, Charlie would drag away his dead, wanting to give them a proper burial. Timothy was apparently the same. The Taliban's religious beliefs said their dead had to be buried before sunset.

Fourneau called me over to a wall and showed me several empty boxes of Winchester ammunition, with a “made in Michigan” stamp on them and a bunch of brass cartridges littering the ground. They were deer-hunting rounds for a civvy rifle, but they would work in an AK-47. I got Fourneau to take a picture and zoom in on the lot number on the boxes; maybe they could be traced back to their source. Shafiq Ullah came over and said, “See? We told you the Americans were supplying the Taliban!” Almost every ANA soldier I met would swear on his family's lives that the Taliban were being secretly supplied by the States. I had gotten into a heated debate one day back at Sper on the subject and tried to show them how ridiculous the theory was, but when we found boxes of American ammunition, in the middle of Helmand Province, I was fighting an uphill battle. Later when I was at FOB Mushan, we patrolled into an Afghan civvy compound and found a huge stash of American medical supplies, and of course, nothing I said could convince the ANA that America wasn't secretly in cahoots with the Taliban. I didn't know if the ANA thought it was all part of the American military-industrial complex or the Tri-lateral Commission making business from the war, but there was no changing their minds.

We decided to take a lunch break, and made our way onto a strip of grass near a compound. I was just digging my spoon into an MRE (meals ready to eat, a.k.a. “meals rejected by the enemy”) pouch when an incoming round cracked loudly in the space right between Captain Shafiq Ullah's head and my face, missing my nose by an inch. I automatically flung myself backwards and lay on my back for a while, with my legs still crossed underneath me. Fourneau asked if I was okay and I replied, “Fine; just wanna stay like this for a bit.” I asked him how he was doing, and he said he was fine too.

“How's your water, do you have much left?” I asked as I stared up at the cloudless sky, pondering my own mortality.

“Yeah, I'm good for a while, sir.” Fourneau just looked down at me.

“Let me know if you need any; I packed extra just in case you guys ran out.” I slowly picked myself off the ground.
That was a bit too close.
Clearly they didn't want the son of Jor-El to become a Jedi! They feared my “medicine.”

The ANA picked up stakes again, and we could see Longview and Hetsa off in the distance. We gave a big, friendly wave and they waved back. I hoped they were doing okay.

We realized we wouldn't be able to make the required distance that night, so the ANA began to look for a suitable place to make a patrol base for the night. Major Hobbles and Colonel Morris had gone ahead, again, and found a nice compound that would suit our purposes, right next to a hill.

I saw Rich a few minutes later. His company had marched a bit too close to mine, or more accurately, Shafiq Ullah had patrolled closer to them, hoping they'd keep up their shit shield routine for us. I gave him a big, happy wave and he waved back, shaking his head. I could hear his voice in my head:
Savages. Goddamn savages.

Our call signs split up again and we patrolled farther along, until the ANA decided to stop and pray at a mosque. Fourneau and I took some cover and just sat down. It had been a very long, hot day, but I was proud of the boys. We'd marched close to twenty klicks in one day, and even though Fourneau looked exhausted (I'm sure I did too), I think he could've kept going if he had to.

The ANA and Max finished their prayers, and I was anxious to get moving before last light. The sun was starting to go down and we still had about a klick left to go to the patrol base. Suddenly my combat antenna began to buzz, so I told Fourneau to go firm. He was about to crest a small hill past the mosque and cemetery, but I wanted him to let the ANA with us go first. He walked over and joined me as we let an ANA soldier, the PKM gunner Adam Khan, pass us and go slightly over the crest.

Suddenly hundreds of incoming rounds cracked all around us, showering us with dirt and rocks as they smacked into a wall behind us and the crest in front of us. I threw Max to the ground and quickly dropped behind the crest, into dead ground where the enemy couldn't see us. I crawled to the crest and peeked over, looking for Adam Khan, absolutely sure he'd be lying dead in a pool of his own blood.

I got to the edge and then saw him standing tall, giving a big, friendly wave to the shooters over by the treeline, just like I'd taught him. But I told them to wave
before
the shooting started, not
during
! He wasn't fazed by the hundreds of rounds cracking into the rocks and sand all around him, passing over his head and kicking up sand between his legs. He just kept waving, knowing that the Taliban don't wave, trying to get whoever wanted him dead so badly to kindly stop shooting at him.

“Adam Khan,
pro-at, pro-at
, get down, get down!” I screamed, as the incoming rounds began to slowly taper off and then stopped completely. It felt like five minutes had gone by, but it was probably closer to ten seconds, when I quickly crawled to the edge, and looked to see who was shooting at him. I saw about thirty of the high friends of Jesus, the Afghan Border Police, hanging out by some trees around fifty metres away. I guessed they were
still
high if their poor marksmanship and target identification were anything to go by.
As if this freaking day hadn't been crazy enough, to now almost get killed by the Afghan Border Police!

Looking at Adam Khan, at the bullet holes in his shirt and pants, and at the dust kicked up all around him, it completely reaffirmed my belief in the concept of “when it's your time, it's your time,” because clearly, it
wasn't
his time. He didn't have so much as a scratch on him, let alone a hundred bullet holes through his thin body! It was nothing short of divine intervention that he hadn't been totally ripped apart by the amount of incoming fire, all directed solely at him. I wanted to reach out and touch his Wookie ammo bandolier, hoping his mojo would rub off on me and keep me safe, but he just shrugged and kept walking down the slope, leading the way.
Inshallah.

As we passed by the border cops, Shafiq Ullah shouted something derogatory at them and they shouted something back. We marched over to the hill and then into the compound, where we'd be staying for the night. We cleared the compound to make sure no one was hiding in the back, and used a broom to sweep a bunch of used hypodermic needles into a corner. A bunch of old heroin pods littered the ground. Obviously, the compound was used as an opium den and someone had been shooting pure heroin oil with the needles. We grabbed some water from the ANA trucks and topped up. I looked over at Fourneau and realized he was absolutely finished, both physically and mentally. But I couldn't blame him. I wasn't exactly feeling a hundred per cent myself.

We finally reunited with Longview and Hetsa and I gave them hearty slaps on their backs, happy to see them alive and well. They looked the way I
felt.
I found out the warrant's radio had crapped out at almost the very beginning of the patrol, but I'd figured as much. But the warrant and Hetsa seemed good to go. I was confident if we had to, most of us in the compound could've kept going, and that was a real testament to the Canadian soldier, because it had been a very long march through crushing heat, with lots of TICs thrown into the mix.

A big cheer went up as Rich and his men arrived in the compound. We all ran over to greet them and help them with their kit. Warrant Smith looked absolutely hilarious! His helmet was askew, he had dust and dirt all over his face, and he looked like he'd been through the damn wringer. Of course, at the time I didn't know he'd been caught in an RPG explosion and launched ass-over-teakettle in the air like a rag doll. I found Rich and gave him my seat and handed him a coffee I'd brewed especially for him.

“How you feeling, champ?” I asked, smiling away.

“Fuck me, Rob. Holy shit, man.” His thousand-yard stare had improved considerably. He now looked like he could see through time.

“I know, brother,” I said as I handed him the brew. “Have some joe. Don't talk, just take a sip.” After a minute he really began to open up and told me the story of their two firefights. It sounded incredible and hard to believe at the same time. I said I was sorry I couldn't get Shafiq Ullah to come and help them out, and I told him I felt really ashamed by what happened. I felt like I'd really let Rich down and it bothered me a lot. Rich called me a dickhead and told me they probably just would've ended up killing
us
too. Maybe he was right.

Hobbles called an O-group and gave out some good pointers. Everyone took the piss out of me when they explained how I had cut off Rich during the middle of his contact report to give my locstat, earlier that morning. Hobbles turned it into a cautionary note for all of us, and it was a lesson I'd never forget. He also warned me of the dangers of being
too
eager to go and help out a buddy, and he explained it from his perspective and it made total sense. But he was a klick and a half away, and I was only five hundred metres away, listening to Rich's voice as he shouted on the net with all hell breaking loose around him, so my perspective was different as well. But I could see his point and took it on board.

He wrapped up the O-group and, as was his custom, insisted that everyone make at least one point, even if it was only to say, “No comment.” I liked that idea; it was sort of Chinese Parliament–inspired. Our wounded Canadian had a banged-up knee, so he'd be sitting the rest of the foot patrol out with Ross in the RGs. It was an absolute miracle that we only had one guy with a sore knee, after the day we'd just had.

A real festive mood overtook the compound as everyone realized how close we'd all come to being killed. Rich was on the sat phone with his missus when Hobbles fired off a full mag of AK tracer rounds into the air, trying to bring the other ANA vehicles into our leaguer. Rich had to explain to his concerned girlfriend that it was fireworks going off.
Oh how we lie and lie!

I went over to the ANA HQ truck and asked Colonel Morris how he was doing. It had begun to get cold, and he didn't seem to have anything besides a small blanket. We talked for a while and he asked about me and my family. He had come to visit us in Sperwhan once, and when he opened up our OMLT door, he immediately began speaking to Hetsa (who was resplendently bearded) in Dari, asking Hetsa to introduce him to our team. He began to get frustrated until Hetsa finally broke his silence and explained he wasn't a terp. We had a good laugh and he talked for over two hours with us that night, getting to know all of us and just having fun.

I knew I had my sleeping bag, and my outer “bivvy” bag to protect the sleeping bag and add extra insulation, so I offered Colonel Morris my Ranger blanket from the States. He seemed very grateful, and when he tried to return it the next morning, I told him to keep it. I didn't know at the time, but I had made a friend for life. Later when I was in FOB Mushan, he would radio the ANA on their net and tell his captain to go and get me, just to talk and ask about my family. He was just that type of guy. I think it burned Major Hobbles pretty good to see me getting along so well with the officer
he
was mentoring.