As the family of New Zealand soldier Lieutenant Tim O'Donnell killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) in Afghanistan last week mourns his loss, another Kiwi soldier has published a book about his experience serving in Afghanistan. The following are edited extracts from 'A Long Road to Progress' by Richard Hall.
IED ATTACK
First thing in the morning, the reports began to trickle in of an IED attack in the northeast of the province, near the small town of Do Abe. As is always the case in situations like this, the first reports were garbled and confusing.
The picture eventually emerged of a
complex attack, involving two co-ordinated IED locations and two different ignition mechanisms, probably designed to hit an initial target and then the security force follow-up response to the attack.
But who was the intended target? The initial reports suggested that the first explosion had narrowly missed some coal trucks. Coal smuggling was a source of revenue; the ownership of the coalmines around Do Abe was always a cause of friction as various warlords tried to muscle in on the resource.
Perhaps the IED signalled a dispute between rival coal-smuggling gangs. Maybe it was an attempt to coerce a local official who had stopped turning a blind eye to coal smuggling. Both explanations were plausible. More alarmingly, was this an attempt to frighten the Afghan National Police or us so we would stop operating in the area?
The worst-case scenario was that the IED was the work of a Taleban cell from the neighbouring province of Baghlan and that the NZ Provincial Reconstruction Team was being deliberately targeted. We had heard rumours about such a cell, although there was little definite intelligence to support its existence.
The name of one particular mullah, though, seemed to crop up with regularity as the regional leader responsible for fomenting disquiet and organising insurgent activities in and around Bamiyan.
He became a phantom personality and was apparently everywhere but also nowhere. Attempts to curtail the seeming ease with which he was able to travel around the province came to nothing but several months after our return to New Zealand he was arrested by the national police, with recontruction team's support.
IED ALLEY
Leaving Sayghani, we met up with our escort at the police station in Sayghan, where they had spent the night, and headed for the village of Do Abe. After several hours of driving we crossed into the Khamard District and into "IED alley", the short stretch of road that had been the location for several mujahideen attacks against the Soviet forces and had also seen all of the latest IED attacks.
Our sense of ease disappeared. Soldiers gripped their rifles tightly. Having them nearby provided a strange sense of comfort. Our conversation stopped. Hearts began to race. Soldiers scanned the road ahead for any signs that might indicate a planted IED, while others looked for anything suspicious.
We were entering a stretch of road where twice, since our arrival, there had been attempts to blow up our vehicles. The road was similar to many others in the province - uneven, dusty and potholed - and the high brooding sides of the Ghandak valley, which blocked out the sunlight, gave it a menacing feel. We passed the national police checkpoint.
Half a dozen men in rough-spun woollen uniforms, brandishing AK-47 rifles and nonchalant looks, stood protected behind a wall of sandbags. They ought to have given us a sense of security. They did not. Badly trained, poorly paid and given only basic resources, the police struggle to inspire confidence.
For many Afghans they form part of the problem and complaints about having to pay bribes to get through police checkpoints are common.
Corruption devours trust. That distrust runs deep. My interpreter explained that fear of rape by police officers is the reason so many women wear a burqa.
Like rhinoceroses, our vehicles gingerly pace down the road, testing the air for trouble, ears pricked and ready to charge. We are partially blind because the cloak of normality masks the face of evil.
Why is the man in the field staring at us with rapt attention? Is there some sinister purpose behind his gaze, or is he just taking a breather from the back-breaking toil involved in earning a living from the barren and rocky soil?
Is the man on the broken-down motorbike using his cellphone to ring for help or is he warning someone that we are coming?
As we make our way through the gorge, the tense silence is shattered by radios bursting into life. Instinct and drills take over as the patrol commander, Sean McCulloch, quickly and calmly issues orders.
Corporal Stevens slams our vehicle into reverse; we stumble backwards retracing our path until we are around a bend in the road and out of harm's way.
Up on the high ground the patrol has spotted something suspicious. A small team climbs the heights to investigate. We wait anxiously as the four small dots in my binocular lenses slowly ascend the difficult terrain.
After what seems ages, fears are allayed - a false alarm. The patrol reassembles and completes its journey to the village of Do Abe. If villages are likened to dogs, Do Abe is a flea-bitten mongrel that has been in one too many fights.
The bazaar is dirty and smelly, the road littered with piles of rubbish and excrement. The stalls are threadbare and lean drunkenly against each other. Rotten fruit, shabby clothes and dubious cuts of meat languish for sale on the wooden benches as flies buzz noisily from one morsel to the next.
Bored and sullen stall owners stare at the passing patrol, flash hard eyes of contempt and disdain at us. There is no apparent love for New Zealanders here.
IN THE NAME OF HONOUR?
Her eyes were wide open with terror. As the team lifted her on a stretcher to the helicopter waiting in the dark, the combination of the noise, the downdraft of the blades and the fear of the unknown caused her to panic.
Yet she was a very tough girl who had already endured so much over the last five days and, unlike so much that had happened to her, this was an act of mercy.
Her story started in August. To understand it, you need to comprehend the Afghan notion of "honour" and the importance that Afghan society attaches to this concept.
Afghan men jealously guard their honour: a family without honour is considered to have less than nothing. In most sections of Afghan society, any sexual behaviour or suggestion of intimacy, other than that between husband and wife, is an "honour crime".
Maryam, the girl on the stretcher, was only 14 years old. She had been raped. This would have been distressing enough for her, but rather than upset her family she had said nothing.
In traditional rural communities, such as the village where Maryam lived, women who are victims of rape are often considered to be at fault.
The physical act of rape is compounded further by the fact that a woman who has been violated is highly unlikely to find a husband, for no Afghan man would want a wife who was not a virgin.
And a daughter who is not marriageable is considered worthless. Maryam's story got worse: the rape led to her becoming pregnant. When her condition became obvious, her family decided to act to prevent her bringing shame on the family.
Her mother and brother took her to their stable, tied up her arms and legs and, using a carpet knife, cut her open and pulled out the still-living foetus.
Her brother sprinkled ash from the fire on to the wound to staunch the bleeding. She was stitched up with a needle and twine that was used to sew flour bags. There was no anaesthetic, no sterilisation and no medical knowledge: just a desire to get rid of the life inside her that would have brought her family into disrepute. Not surprisingly, her wound became infected.
Her father, to his credit, realised that he had to do something. Many other fathers would have left her to die. Tying her to a donkey, he walked for hours across the snow-covered hills to get to the nearest road.
Once on the road, he found someone willing to take her to the nearest hospital. There she received some care, albeit rudimentary. They explored her wound and left it open, oozing blood.
After two days the governor asked if we could help to get her to better medical care. A simple task, but made more complicated by politics. The Afghan officials wanted her to be treated in an Afghan hospital in Kabul. Thankfully the governor agreed that she could be flown to the military hospital in Bagram Airbase. Shortly afterwards, two US helicopters descended.
Into the cloud of snow, two Kiwi soldiers carried a very brave young girl on a stretcher to the waiting helicopter. Maryam survived but her future remains uncertain.
When we left Afghanistan she was still living in a women's refuge in Kabul, although the governor was trying to make arrangements for her to live in protected accommodation. Her life has been shattered for good.
A Long Road to Progress by Richard Hall (Random House, RRP $39.99) available in bookstores on Tuesday.
