I think everyone in the US and the rest of the world would be amazed that everything and I mean everything needed by the US military and NATO forces is moved by local trucks and contractors. US mail, high value items such as multi-million dollar MRAPS are moved by local national trucks with ex-pats providing security. I have to laugh looking at these high value items sitting on a truck that should have been scrapped 10 years ago! And the security while riding the roads here is by ex-pats, i.e., US and other non-Afghan personnel. These trucking concerns also move food, mail, fuel, and other essential items to keep the military running.
To give a more personal view of these movements I rode along and provided security too on a few of these missions. The first was with a fellow american and Nepalese national. We escorted about 25+ trucks with fuel, food, US mail, and other items to Ghanzi PRT-(Provisional Reconstruction Teams) and FOB Sharana, both in the heart of Taliban country. Oh, almost forgot to mention that we also employ local “commanders”, (i.e., warlords) as added security and depending upon the number of trucks could number anywhere between 15 to 30 local nationals. Our company provides weapons for them, and yes we are loaded to meet most threats. This includes, the usual AK47, PKMs, RPKs, hand grenades, and thermite grenades-(these are used primarily to destroy the US mail trucks to prevent them from falling into enemy hands), and a couple of RPGs. Sounds impressive but heck the bad guys come at us with that and more!
Now back to the mission… We left the FHI compound around 10pm to head to the motor pool to pick up the mail trucks, then the 2 hour drive to Maidan Shah gate to meet up with the local national security teams. This is where we unload all the weapons and give them to the local commanders for distribution to there guys. We also get the other supply trucks lined up and ready for movement down the road, (i.e., check paperwork to see that they are in fact our trucks and not tag along trucks for free security). An important fact and one that most of you out there will call me “NUTS” our vehicles are all soft skin or NOT ARMORED! But really we move materials not there to fight. If and usually we are hit by the bad guys we return fire and get out of the kill zone. When lining up the trucks the local security guys ride up front and lead, then the non-essential supplies and last is the US mail which we, FHI and ex-pats ride right behind and have “eyes on” the whole trip. The run from Maidan Shah to Ghanzi PRT is about 2 hours with no break downs. We arrived at Ghanzi about 430am and escorted the mail truck inside and left it by the post office there for unloading. By the way all mail is loaded onto 20 foot containers and then dropped on those aforementioned “crappy” local trucks for movement. We leave the truck there and move on to Sharana with the rest of the trucks and there mail truck. Arriving at FOB Sharana around 730am and luckily we get a hold of the NCOIC of the post office and he gets that crane to unload there container which arrives in about 30 minutes. During this time we hit breakfast and Green Bean for some Latte’s, yep Latte’s, you cannot fight a war without our fancy coffee!
My partner in crime on these runs has been with the company for about (FHI) 3 months and stated that the road between Sharana and Ghanzi is rather rugged to say the least. When the weather breaks, i.e., snow melts in the mountain passes it will heat up considerably. This particular run is uneventful and we move back to Ghanzi PRT to pick up the mail truck we left there earlier. We then head to Ghanzi gate to re-fuel the trucks and security vehicles. Our only trucks heading back with us is the outgoing US mail. We make pretty good time and pass some more “hot” areas that we should expect some activity this coming spring. We have a couple of breakdowns and that slows us up but reach Maidan Shah all intact. Pay the local security personnel and collect our weapons from them and move out to the FHI motor pool to secure the US mail trucks until the next day when we off load them at Bagram for shipment to the US and collect incoming mail for the FOBs. I have to mention, being shot at is sometimes better than driving on these roads. For instance, I am from Chicago, and after the winter the streets there are pretty bad with pot holes. But here in Kabul and outlying areas, they are Off-Road paradise! You could get sea sick with the bouncing and turning. Since we leave Maidan Shah about 230pm it takes us about 2 hours to get to the motor pool and another hour to get “home”. We also have to dodge, intimidate, and sweet talk just about every police check point en-route. They all want to stop us, usually for a bribe and just wonder what the heck we are doing there. Now for the record we FHI is a registered company with the US and Afghanistan governments, one of the few security companies in country that can say that, and have a good reputation with the Ministry of Interior. Even so, the cop and army guy on the street still has to look at our “paperwork”. Just one of the many nuances of the job.
My next run is just US mail, with 4 fuel trucks added at the last minute for Torkham Gate and Jalalabad. Kind of a homecoming for me heading to Jalalabad and looking forward to seeing the city rather than just the base. We head out to the FHI motor pool at 230am to meet our local security and pick up the two mail trucks for Jalalabad and FOB Blessing. The route we take is the historical Kabul – Jalalabad Road which leads to the Khyber pass and Pakistan, now we are not going that far but interesting to be on a road that was used by Alexander the great to the Mongols and British Army. We push through the pass and another hot area, Sorobi which is where one of these fuel trucks has a flat and takes about one hour to fix it. Did I mention how crappy trucks they are? Well the tires are usually bald if that good! We hit Jalalabad about 830am, and I must say compared to Kabul, Jalalabad is a nice town pretty valley, trees and farm land surrounding it. When I can secure a camera or borrow my partners pictures I will post them here. This area of Afghanistan is beautiful. We get the mail truck onto Jalalabad and leave our Nepalese national to watch it while it is being unloaded/loaded for the return trip. We push on to FOB Blessing. Now I must say this drive, yep a long one 3+ hours round trip, is nice. Beautiful valley with river formed with the mountain snow run-off, heck this could be Montana or anywhere in the Rockies if not that it is hard core, Pashtun/Taliban country. We pass some small villages and lots of ANP check points-(Afghan National Police) and FOB Asadabad. We hit Blessing around noon, have lunch there while the army unloads the mail and up loads the outgoing mail. I meet the KBR security guy for the Jalalabad area which covers Blessing, Asadabad, and others, Rich, whom I met while working as a CI Screener with KBR/WWLR. We cover old times and I introduce him to my co-workers and give him update as to my travels. We exchange e-mails and phone numbers and I will keep in touch his access to intel and the area bases will be valuable to us. We finally push out of Blessing to Jalalabad around 230pm. But go figure the mail truck breaks down just before Asadabad. We dismount to provide security and give the village some entertainment for about an hour. While messing around with the kids, I see this kid with a baseball cap on backwards, I ask him to turn it around to see what it said. And now we are in the middle of now where and this Pashtun kid has on a “Chicago” hat! It is not a sports hat with Chicago sports teams but a kind of hat that you would buy at O’Hare airport, orange color with Chicago spelled out in different colors. I got a picture with my partner’s camera and will post soon. That made my day… The local security guys where pushing the kids away, but I told them it was fine they were here, I would be worried if they left or where not there! The driver gets it running for our push to Jalalabad, which we make at around 530-6 pm where it breaks down again. We dismount again and pull security for it while the driver runs out to get part welded. We have some fun with the locals as they are “staring” at us with all our guns and gear out. At around 730 pm we head out for the return home. Now this time the pass between Jalalabad and Kabul is BUSY! We get jammed more than once and have to “assist” with traffic control. Because lane control is a non issue with Afghans, i.e., they will cross lanes into on-coming traffic to get by and making a bad situation worse. The ex-pats and our local security take control of the situation and get traffic moving, at least moving… This last about 20 kilometers until we meet up with a NATO road block run by the French, luckily they lets us by with a little sweet talk them and I will be damned we get an Afghan National Police escort to boot! It being Thursday night-(Islam’s Friday/Saturday night), traffic in both directions on the pass was heavy. We start to move and the trucks hold together until Kabul Gate where we do the weapon turn in etc, similar to Maidan Shah on the Ghanzi run. Then onto the FHI motor pool to secure the mail trucks arriving at our “home” around 1130pm, or a 20+ hour day!
Leon and I, one of my partners on the Jalalabad run do the mail truck escort mission to Bagram for downloading and uploading of the mail trucks. We do this a couple of times a week to get the outgoing mail and incoming mail sorted. We also make sure the trucks are fueled for the that night/next day’s missions. I find out from Kircho, our operations guy for FHI that I will be doing the run to Ghanzi with Rene’. He is the team lead for the Ghanzi run, and Kamal our Nepalese Ghurka.
We left that same night at 10pm and boy was this ever the smooth run! We hit Maidan Shan gate, do the weapon distribution, count the trucks, examine paperwork, and fuel the vehicles and are on the road by 130am. We hit Ghanzi around 4am, dropped off the truck, get some coffee and fruit and hit the road for Sharana. Now this was interesting, we get all the trucks lined up in proper order but most of the drivers are sacked out. Having to bang on the doors, yell, etc… to get them up. While I getting the mail truck driver up, damn he sleeps like a rock, I hear a loud BANG, it is Rene who threw his unopened coke can at another truck because that driver was not sleeping but almost dead! Well the can thing worked and he finally got up and started his truck. We move out and we are way ahead of schedule and should hit Sharana around 530am. But all of a sudden we come to a stop, we drive up to the front of the convoy finding one of our trucks flipped over. Later finding this was the same driver I had a hard time getting awake, and it looks like he fell asleep and rolled over trying to recover before he hit the ditch. The other drivers got him out and he was hurt but nothing serious thank god. We drag the vehicle out of the way, call the trucking outfit for a wrecker and crane. We head out to Sharana without incident arriving around 6 am. Again, no issues, the crane arrives within minutes unloads and loads our outgoing mail, we have breakfast and coffee and head out. On the way back, we test fire the PKMs at the old Russian dam and find out one of them is defective, thank god no incidents with bad guys during this trip.
We meet up with the wrecker at the crash site and find that they are almost done loading the wrecked vehicle onto a wrecker and have a replacement truck loaded with the container. We are told to send that container onto Sharana and dispatch a couple of local security vehicles to escort it. Again so far we are moving right along… we get to Ghanzi PRT and as soon as we hit the front gate to enter to get our mail truck, that same truck is leaving, our luck is running good! We head out to Ghanzi gate to meet the others there who are refueling. We arrive there at 955 am and we are thinking we could be home before 3 pm a record for this Ghanzi run. But the luck is running out, we are told to send Kamal back to Ghanzi to pick up some trucks for escort back to Kabul. Well, Kamal gets there and there are no trucks! We find out that they are not even done downloading, so Kamal heads back to Ghanzi Gate, and while en-route the local security vehicle breaks down. Also, operations tells us to wait for the local security we sent with the rolled over vehicle to Sharana. All in all with this FUBAR stuff, we stay at Ghanzi Gate for almost 2 1/2 hours, finally leaving around 1230 – 1 pm for Maidan Shah. That was uneventful thank god and we get there about 2 pm and take back the local security’s weapons and load them onto our vehicles for the final leg back to FHI motor pool then home.
NOW the interesting shiite happens! We get just past FOB Airborne and we are pulled over by NDS, a special police unit of the Ministry of Interior. I would have pulled away from them except for the Russian 12.7mm machine gun (there version of the US 50 cal) and the AK47 that were pointed at me. I pleaded with them as they let our mail trucks drove off unsecured. Now the NDS has an interesting reputation of “screwing” with security companies here, taking weapons, body armor, radios, etc… Stating that the paperwork is not right or wrong. They lock and cock us, that is pulled all of us out of our vehicles and search our trucks, taking all weapons, and other gear out and putting it on the ground for them to confiscate. Rene’ at this time is showing them our paperwork and licenses, which are in order and up to date! Rene’ then calls our office who has our local national attorney on the phone and send him running to the Ministry of Interior and from what I am told they were messing with him there, stating our licenses were out of order, etc… But back at the farm, Rene’ and I were the told that our licenses had to be ORIGINALS! WHAT? Which of course if B** S****, the NDS were going to take our weapons and we would never see them again. So they started counting our guns and stuff, not separating types, i.e., PKM v. RPK v. AK47, they just called all of them AK47s, which Rene and I knew the deal. They even said our GPS and Thuraya Sat phone were illegal which again was wrong because there in our book was copies of licenses for those too. But there come back again was we needed originals! While this was going on, the NDS commander was on the phone with MOI constantly, and which we did not know at the time, the US Embassy was getting involved. Now interesting law here, since we are US citizens with DOD cards, we cannot be searched, our person that is. These guys did search me and were committing a felony by international law and SOFA agreement by TELLING our mail trucks to move along effectively stealing US Government property. And thus if this happens in the future we-FHI- have the “obligation” under our contract to defend said mail. This incident goes on for about 2-3 hours, during which Rene’ and I are saying take the damn weapons, we are tired and want to head home and get a shower and go to bed! We also we tired of this BS and were in no mood for this, so I told Rene’ that we should write all the serial numbers down and photograph the gear. Funny, the guy that drew down on me had a cell phone camera and he was shooting a video of the area including us and the gear. I told him, “what are you going to do with that put it on YouTube? And I want a copy. He did not find the humor in that at all, but did I give a rip, NO! Side note here, the guy taking inventory, NDS guy named Ismael, who by the way looked more Russian than typical Afghan, was telling me not to be nervous. I was shaking, not from fear but from fighting the urge to snap his neck, which I told him in English and smiled while telling him. He laughed as I did while telling him but damn was I in the mood… but it passed.
Kircho also was going to call Airborne FOB for there ORF-(Quick Reaction Force) to assist. Which was funny, since about 20 minutes into this incident about 5 army vehicles roll by us, while we are waving our arms and DOD cards to get them to help us. NDS guys got a little nervous but got cocky again after they blew by us. I laughing to myself now remembering the hard ass looks from a couple of the NDS personnel I got, especially the one that pulled his weapon on me and the one that I should have ran over at the beginning of this mess. I always heard how “tough” these guys were, sure two heavy machine guns, 10 of them to 3 of us-(ex-pats that is). But when the MOI finally got the message that they F***** up and had to give us our stuff back, BOY did they get friendly all of a sudden. And for effect, Rene’ loads his shot gun and locks and cocks a round in the chamber! Nothing in this world gets someone’s attention like the slamming of a round in a shot gun! I mean while give “stink eye” to my two buddies, slam the magazine into my Baretta and hit the slide to slam home a round into the chamber. I honestly think these NDS guys thought we were going to do something! We just drove off and found the mail trucks and drove to the FHI motor pool then home arriving around 730 pm. Almost forgot, on the way home after dropping off our mail trucks at the motor pool, the ANP attempted to stop us, I just yelled US military and almost ran him over. After today, unless he pulled is weapon and shot at me I was in no mood to be stopped again! A day that we thought was going to end really early… Just goes to show you this is Afghanistan and a war zone.
Stay tuned, more to come…
