A Patrol on the Berq River
Austin Bay Blog
The MP motor patrol left Bagram Air Base at 0800, four armored Humvees on a swing through the hard-scrabble farms along the Berq River. This particular patrol had a definite Alaskan slant, with the patrol leader, SSG Matthew Taylor, serving in the 164th MP Company (Fort Richardson, Alaska). The 164th is currently part of the 716th MP Battalion, Ft Campbell, Kentucky. I rode in the second Humvee, along with Major Dennis “DZ” Zink, XO of the 716th, Specialist Joshua Fisher, the driver, and Specialist John Reid, our machine gunner. I told Fisher I’d try and include him in a column since he’s from Wichita Falls, Texas, and his local paper, the Times-Record, carries my column. I think the most interesting member of our crew, however, was our gray and grizzled translator, who goes by the nom de guerre of Jdhooshi. Jdhooshi, he told me, is a city north of Kabul. It seems to fit this spry 69 year-old Afghan– or maybe I should call him an Angeleno. Jdhooshi has lived in Los Angeles for 27 years. He has three engineering degrees, and a comfortable life in Southern California. But when the War on Terror came to Afghanistan he knew he had to get involved. “This is a chance to change this place, my country, my first country,” he told me. “It has suffered so much. Thirty years of war has left it with nothing. Now we, America, we are giving Afghanistan a chance. I knew I could help by working as a translator.”
Jdhooshi also does a heckuva job passing out bottled water — Jemaa’s the brand, not LA Perrier. In the first hour out on patrol the temperature rose from the high seventies to the mid-nineties and I drank at least a liter of water. Dust swirled on the plain of Bagram as we approached the bridge over the Berq. Or what was the bridge over the Berq. The Taliban blew up the narrow metal bridge — to punish the locals and harrass coalition patrols, one soldier said. We stopped briefly and I walked across the bridge. It can still carry foot and goat traffic, but wheeled vehicles and wagons must use the ford. I pulled out my video camera and filmed the patrol as the Humvees dipped into the stream, churned mud and rocks, then climbed the muddy bank.
Our next stop was the village of Bakhshe Khil, a farm town growing wheat and rusted truck parts. The local farmers told our translator that the rains were very good this year. Jdhooshi produced a sack of candy and began giving it to the flock of children that appeared. The kids mobbed him but he’s an experienced candy man. He used a short stick –something like a British baton– to gently shoo the children as he plopped mints into their hands. One tiny little girl in a red dress couldn’t squeeze through the big boys –they kept bumping her to the rear. I pointed her out to Jdhooshi and Specialist Fisher. Jdhooshi ran the boys off and walked over to the saucer-eyed girl. He leaned toward her, his gray beard almost touching her head. Wham– there’s the candy. Talk about a small hand clamping a big prize.
We left Bakshe Khil and started kicking up dust again, until we stopped for a Code Yellow break. I walked off the road with Major Zink and a couple of other soldiers. The experts weren’t sure, but we may have fertilized a wild poppy. It looks like a weed topped by a boll. Twenty minutes later we checked out an abandoned farm. The main structure is a mud-walled fortress, possibly built sixty years ago. At one time it housed an extended family — parents, children, grand-parents. The family grew grapes, Jdhooshi said, pointing to a ventilated two-story house where the grapes (still attached to the plucked vines) ripened into raisins. At one time the Russians occupied the farm house–using it as a place to rest troops. It now lies empty, with the mud walls slowly collapsing.
Once back at Bagram we got a quick tour of the 74th Fighter Squadron’s operation. The 74th is the descendant of the AVG –American Volunteer Group, also known as the Flying Tigers. The unit is now an A-10 Thunderbolt II unit. USAF Captain Lee Gentile of Wrentham, Massachusetts, walked us down the flight-line. Yesterday –June 21– CPT Gentile was flying strikes missions near Qalat.
Tomorrow will be another long day. We will take a motor convoy to Kabul, and with any luck, head for the commercial airport and begin the long trek home."
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