Digging

The Lieutenant woke from a deep sleep and silently cursed the fact he was still on a base in Eastern Afghanistan. His boss, Captain Foote, was knocking on the plywood wall that separated their rooms. The LT’s bleary eyes caught the green glow of his wristwatch, which read 02:46.  

The rude awakening became still more unwelcome when the LT learned its purpose: another overreaction to guys digging on the road. CPT Foote explained that he wanted to accompany a patrol to the village of Dona’i. First platoon had been sent there when the surveillance blimp identified a group of diggers.  

When the platoon arrived on scene, supported by Apache helicopters, the suspects had fled south. Pilots confirmed the men were carrying weapons and killed two of them on the road. Then the men of First platoon searched the surrounding ridges, identified a third armed man, and shot him. CPT Foote wanted to link up with the platoon and provide additional security for them as they recovered weapons and bodies.

As the LT approached the commander’s vehicle, the enlisted crew began to accost him. 

“Another night mission. Can you believe it, sir? You must’ve brought us bad luck, LT. This never used to happen with the officers we started out with,” the driver growled.

The radio operator deflected the criticism upward a degree. “Yeah sir, this new CO’s really cutting into my sleep this week,” Leroy whined. He was a tall, thin kid in his early twenties with short blond hair. “This is getting ridiculous. Why don’t you have a word with him, sir?”  

The driver piped in, “I don’t care about the sleep, but I was about to try to call my wife. The middle of the night here is morning in Hawaii. I get the feeling she’s going to ask for a divorce again.” He was an old soldier, nearly forty, with a bald head and a face like a gargoyle. His left eye bulged and his right eye nearly closed in a squint. His wife was a tiny Filipina, half his age, who made Subway sandwiches on post back in Hawaii. The LT was not surprised someone wanted to divorce that face. 

“Man, fuck that. This some bullshit, is what it is,” the gunner growled from inside the truck. 

“Well, hopefully we won’t be out there too long,” the LT responded. He was disappointed, too, but he was annoyed by the emotional outbursts. These guys, who often prided themselves on their status as warriors, had become prone to hissy fits commonly observed among little girls by this point in the deployment.

The commander’s vehicle reached Dona’i at 03:30 and parked a hundred meters north of where the dead men had been digging. The explosive disposal team was on scene already. The team had recovered the device: a large fuel can filled with explosives. They sent out a warning call on the radio and blew the explosives in an enormous blaze.

Then the men got out of their vehicles and walked over to where First platoon had laid two dead men on the road. The moon was full and bright. No one bothered with night vision goggles. The commander and the LT walked up to a group of chatting soldiers.  

Here the LT saw his first corpses in Afghanistan. One man must have been killed by rocket concussion, because he had no visible wounds. He lay on his back with eyes closed and mouth slightly open above a huge black beard. He looked peaceful. The other man was lying next to him. Soldiers had already placed an unzipped body bag under him to prevent more of him from spilling out onto the ground. The second man’s stomach and right hip were missing. It looked like a massive shark had taken a bite out of his body. Bits of red flesh stuck out from a many-sided wound. His eyes were open, frozen in a pained stare. The LT had spent nine months in a combat zone, but this was his first encounter with death.  

He wondered whether or not these men really had to die. The rules of engagement always allowed American soldiers to defend themselves by responding to contact. But anything more aggressive than self-defense drew suspicion from higher headquarters. In this case, the digging men had been trying to kill Americans by emplacing explosives. These devices had proven deadly in the past.  

On the other hand, the diggers had left the device unburied and run away as soon as they heard the choppers coming. It might have been better to detain these men for questioning, or even to let them escape. The diggers no longer posed any immediate threat. Those who emplace IEDs are typically the least skilled and least committed fighters. Most men hired for this purpose are poor, ambivalent villagers paid by the hole dug. The tactical benefit of taking these men off the battlefield was probably lower than the cost of angering local Afghans about American aggression.  

The real threat out there was not the man who dug holes. The real threat was whoever organized and paid for the digging. Still, the Apache pilots had been happy to add more tallies to their deployment kill count.  

Leroy bounded up from behind. “Fuck yeah!” He clapped his left hand on the LT’s shoulder and pumped his right fist in the air. “We got ‘em!”

The LT turned in speechless horror toward the young soldier.

Leroy did not catch his superior’s reaction in the moonlight. “We got that fucker good, huh?” He pointed toward the man with the part missing from his midsection.  

“Yeah, I’d say,” the LT managed to mumble.

“C’mon sir, take my picture next to the dead hajjis,” Leroy nodded toward the camera hanging from the LT’s neck and posed with his rifle resting on his shoulder, the muzzle pointed toward the sky. He had never seen Leroy smile so wide before. What a change from his pre-patrol gripes. The LT turned away in disgust. His hatred for Leroy far outweighed his ambivalent feelings toward the men digging in the road. 

About an hour passed as the Americans catalogued and photographed all weapons and personal belongings recovered from the enemy fighters. The LT watched as one soldier used a handheld machine to take fingerprints from the corpses, to aid in their identification once they had been brought to the local Afghan police station. By the time all this was complete, the sun had made its way over the horizon, though most of its warmth and light was still blocked by mountains to the east.

***

About three months later, after they got back to Hawaii, the LT had to accompany Specialist Leroy while he moved his stuff out of his house. His wife had started sleeping with one of the sergeants on rear detachment some time before. After Leroy got back, she got a restraining order against him. So now he had to move into the barracks.  

The LT felt some relief when he saw Leroy move the last boxes from his car into the barracks. At least he got out of there without killing anyone. No incidents on the road.  

Leroy was on suicide watch for a couple weeks. First sergeant took all his knives and shoelaces for safe keeping. He had to have a buddy with him at all times, including when he went to take a piss. 

But after a while, Leroy came around. The LT could tell he was getting better when he started to joke around at morning formation again.  

“Hey sir,” Leroy ventured one day. “Whuddya call a dead hajji with an exit wound?”

The LT frowned in thought for a moment. “Dunno.” 

“Hole-y warrior.”  

The LT rolled his eyes as a reluctant smile crept across his face.