A Drive Through Kabul

Benjamin Collins served three tours in Afghanistan rising to the rank of Captain with US Special Forces. He has since left the army to launch a new business. The first part of his new series can be read here.

I set the alarm for 3:30 am. 30 minutes to shower, put on the uniform that smells the least, grab my body armor and weapons, and stumble out of our warm compound into the pre-dawn morning of another cold Afghan day.

Walking down the snow covered steps, I see that our gun trucks have already been turned on and the men are going over the weapon systems and ensuring we have all the necessary ammo, food, and extra fuel for the planned convoy. This day’s mission is a relatively easy one, a re-supply run to Bagram Air Base and back. Normally we receive a re-supply via the weekly helicopter circuit around the country, but the weather has kept us socked in for the last three weeks. Two days of eating through the endless supply of candy and Ramen soup from family sent care packages and we were ready to brave the chaos of Kabul.

Our drive was only a two-hour trip through the city and down the long road that connected the capital to Bagram, our main air base. Nobody was complaining about the early wake up however…the best time to drive through Kabul is just before first morning prayers when the least amount of vehicles and pedestrian throngs crowd the streets. The foremost threat on our minds in and around the city was a suicide attack, either vehicle or body borne. IED attacks had been on the rise, yet the Taliban had been reacting to an angry public backlash due to the number of civilian casualties that resulted from their IED attacks. In their estimation, a suicide bomber, walking right up to a coalition vehicle and detonating would have less collateral casualties than a roadside bomb in the city center.

I have driven this route dozens of times, the first in early 2003, and the last in 2008. I remember the excitement I felt driving through the city for the first time. The buildings were a mix between third world shanty and communist grey concrete structures. All had visible signs of the struggle between warlords that ravaged the city prior to the rise of the Taliban. There wasn’t a building standing that did not have large bullet holes and evidence of barely surviving an artillery barrage. Still, amid all the chaos of destruction there was a visible excitement in the people in the early days after the fall of the Taliban. Most faces held hope, and curiosity towards the Americans. People and traffic quickly deferred to our convoys and did so with respect and a smile. That was 2003.

2008 found no more smiles, and no more curiosity. Gone was the hopeful prospect of betterment, having been replaced with at best, an angry acceptance to “business as usual”. While the military and political hierarchy had done quite well over the last few years, the general public still felt maligned and invisible. While I saw more western suits and cell phones as capitalism took its baby steps, the slums and poorest neighborhoods of the city were by and large unchanged.

We drove the two miles towards the city center through little traffic. The majority of vehicles on the roads were the usual American and NATO convoys and the occasional private security companies tearing through the city. A drive in Kabul is very much like a game of Grand Theft Auto…everybody driving at breakneck speeds and swerving through traffic and pedestrians in an attempt to get to whatever destination as quickly as possible. Speed is security. If we are moving fast enough, we give the enemy the least amount of time to target us. This generally accepted practice leads to the Kabul 500. One obvious consequence is an angry public at the way we drive, and while I always took that into consideration in route planning, I was a firm believer in the speed principle.

As we neared the heart of the city, radios were turned down and everybody sat up and began to scan their surroundings more intently. The center square by the American embassy had experienced two suicide bombings recently and we definitely wanted to avoid a third. Our intelligence warnings usually consisted of “be on the alert for a suspected white Toyota Celica”. It seemed 90% of the cars in Kabul were white Toyotas so the only thing the intel was generally good for was a chuckle.

Conversation ceased as we intently watched each vehicle and individual that approached our trucks. Drivers found the path of least resistance and with a few quick turns we were out of the center square and onto the Kabul riverside drive that we would take until the turn towards Bagram. As we made the turn we knew there was one last real obstacle before the long and relatively safe road to the base, a police checkpoint.

The Afghan police have gone through a major transformation, with new training facilities and hundreds of new recruits. There are however, full time, part time, and the equivalent of reserves in the police force. It is a well-known fact that many in the police force would shake down the average citizen at gunpoint and Afghan citizens were as scared of the police in certain areas as they were of the Taliban.

With the sun not yet fully up and limited visibility, there was a real threat that the ill-trained police would fire on our convoy as we approached. Slowing down, we turned on the inner lights on the truck and displayed the American flag to be easily recognizable. As we drove through the checkpoint the police stared at us and we stared back in distrust.

With the checkpoint behind us, the music was back on, conversation and jokes started again, and all thought longingly of the Pizza Hut and Dairy Queen we were going to take advantage of at the main air base. A day to re-supply and spend time with friends we hadn’t seen in a while was ahead before the late night return through the city and another round of obstacles to get through before arriving home.

This was a routine day. Most days and drives passed such as this one, with little difference, and little issue. The more time spent driving through the streets of Kabul, the more resentful one can become. Risking our lives on a daily basis on those streets, one would expect at least some semblance of gratitude. Gratitude however, has been used up. The one question I saw on many of the faces of the people I drove by was “when are you going home?” Good question.