It’s another night where I get the dubious honor of being the Staff Duty Officer (or, factoring in the military’s love of acronyms, “SDO”). Now, the job of the SDO is to monitor the progress of night operations and be watchful of attacks and command troops until the command arrives. In the tactical operations arena, this position is called “Battle Captain”. Well, our business tends to be primarily mine clearing where operations close down with the sun and we are in a comparatively quiet province in Afghanistan, so “SDO” suits me fine. Besides that, if you are going to call me a “Battle Captain”, I will insist on being issued a large gothic helm (or at the very least a Napoleonic hat).
Needless to say, being SDO is a chore of boredom. The most likely event to occur is a call from the Red Cross bearing bad news from home for one of the soldiers, where your duty is to start the compassionate leave paperwork and rouse the chaplain. Fortunately, those events are far and few between, leaving the soldiers to concern themselves with far more light hearted matters like working in the most heavily mined country in the world where each local is armed and has a bone to pick with ten other people and tribes.
Still, the last time I was SDO, something happened that did not involve the Red Cross. At about 9 pm and our mail clerk had just headed off to bed after beating me handedly in another chess game. All was quiet on the eastern front, leaving me free to roll steel balls in my hand and determine who helped themselves to an extra ration of strawberries. It was then that I heard a loud bang from outside the wire. If it were a direct attack, an alert would be blaring on the loud speakers. Occasionally you’d hear shots in the middle of the night which turn out to be nothing more than locals celebrating a wedding by firing shots into the air (and, depending on the size of the wedding party, sometimes a call for a MEDEVAC to their infidel pals). No, these weren’t shots. It could be a mine or it could be a controlled detonation.
As I began to log into the base’s computer system to see if anything was amiss, the Executive Officer (or “XO”) came into my office. Like any good XO, he was working another marathon day to ensure that the Battalion runs as smoothly as possible so that the Battalion Commander may continue to present an air of congeniality.
“Biggs, what’s going on?” he asked.
“Checking that out now, sir. Probably a mine,” I responded to prove that an intelligence officer assigned to an engineering battalion could learn something.
“Anti-armor most likely,” supplemented ye auld schoolmaster. It’s an engineer’s world. I just live here.
I looked over the computer screen. “No controlled demolitions. No alerts. The computer system is up. Worst-case scenario: higher headquarters has been taken over by a crack Taliban unit. Best-case scenario: the one guy who knows Front Page decided that it could wait until the morning.”
I’d like to see an engineer come up with a split second assessment like that. Hah! My display of dazzling brilliance and rapier wit was critiqued by a simple grunt from the XO. “Probably a mine strike.”
Yes, I thought, it probably was a mine strike. When a country has been in a state of war for some 25 years, a bumper crop of mines is what you reap. Bagram Air Base is covered with them from the days when it was a Soviet base and later when it was a base for the Taliban. If it were just a former-Soviet base, our job would be much easier out here. The Soviets were positively anal about mapping out where they placed their mines. When the Taliban (as well as other various and sundry factions) came about, they found out where the mines were, unearthed them and moved them about elsewhere. A Royal Australian Engineer stated it best when he told me, “It’s not the professionals that you worry about – it’s the bloody amateurs.”
We try marking the outer perimeter of the base with signs in Pashtu, Dari, and Farsi telling the locals to stay away from here – it’s unsafe. Unfortunately, the signs are made of wood and metal – two very valuable commodities – and the locals tend to run off with them along with the barbed wire.
“Anything on the medical channels?” Asked the XO.
“No, nothing sir.” This was a relief. If one of the coalition residents hit a mine, there would have been a call for a MEDEVAC by then.
“It was probably one of the locals looking for scrap metal,” opined the XO.
“Is a local heavy enough to set off an anti-tank mine?” I asked.
“By the book: no,” replied the XO, “but in reality it depends how old the mine is.”
“A twenty-five year old mine,” I pondered.
“Probably a lot older than that,” corrected the XO, “how long do you think it was sitting on the shelf before the Soviets invaded?”
“So you’re factoring in corrosion?”
“Yep. Standing on watch for over thirty years; the perfect soldier,” said the XO with a hint of irony and a sad shake of his head.
“A perfect soldier can distinguish between friend and foe,” I said to no one in particular.
“I know. That’s why we really don’t use them anymore, except for claymores.”
“Yeah, but claymores are set off manually and you don’t leave them lying around.”
“Exactly. Well, let me know if anything crops up. Good night, Biggs.”
“Good night, sir”
Yes, a perfect soldier can distinguish between friend and foe. When the report came out, I had an addendum to add to that. A perfect soldier can distinguish between an enemy and a little girl collecting scrap metal.
We have got to get this garbage cleaned up.
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Needless to say, they wouldn't sell to him.
