An interesting letter from one of our own in Afganistan . . .
Here's a hard dose of reality from a Marine literally on the Front!!! --
Phil Walsh
Message from a Recon Marine in Afghanistan
Published: November 11, 2001
Author: Saucy Jack
The following was read on the Sully and Scooter (Radio KOGO in San
Diego) Show Saturday, November 17th.
Just outside of Ab Gach, in the Northwest panhandle of Afghanistan
between Tajikstan and Pakistan.
November 11, 2001
Bizarre,
It's (expletive) 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 (expletive)
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 andallowing 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 Ill 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, rockpit
(expletive) 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.
(Expletive) cavemen with AK 47's. Then again, maybe I'm just cranky.
I'm freezing my (expletive) off on this stupid (expletive) 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 not a very good 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 (expletive) 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 (expletive) stocks, America.
Saucy Jack |
