The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War and Sacrifice by Gezari Vanessa M

Author:Gezari, Vanessa M. [Gezari, Vanessa M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2013-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

EPILOGUE

In October 2010, nearly two years after the attack on Paula Loyd, I returned to Maiwand. I landed at Forward Operating Base Ramrod amid news that a group of soldiers recently stationed there had been accused of killing Afghan civilians for sport. They had snapped pictures of themselves with the corpses, and cut off the dead men’s fingers as trophies. Things had changed since Loyd, Cooper, and Ayala had arrived there, full of hope for what the Americans could achieve.

In conversation with a young American officer that fall, Abdul Salam’s name came up. The Afghan police had recently told the Americans that Salam’s brother was planting deadly homemade bombs around the district. The Americans and Afghans were planning to raid his home and arrest him.

The Afghan police commander who had told the Americans about this was named Hajji Ahmadullah, but everyone called him Hajji Lala. He was built like a troll, brief and squat with a black beard, a gold watch, and rough hair sprouting from his toes. Lala was a powerful man in Maiwand. He was in charge of the police post at the district center, and the Americans held him in high regard.

Abdul Salam’s brother was named Omar Bank, Hajji Lala told me. Bank was a committed insurgent, just like Salam. In fact, by Lala’s lights, the whole family was a bunch of radical jihadis. Lala had learned of Bank’s insurgent activities some time back, when the Americans had seen someone planting a bomb and radioed him to investigate. He had driven to the site and when he got out of his truck, he saw a man running. The police fired at the man, but he got away. They questioned some children who had been standing around. One of the boys identified the fugitive as Bank and said that Bank had given him ten Afghanis, about twenty cents, to go to a shop and buy himself corn chips for a snack. Lala surmised that Bank wanted to get rid of the kids so they wouldn’t see him planting the bomb.

The allegation that Bank was Abdul Salam’s brother weighed heavily against him. Abdul Salam had been “a Talib,” Lala told us without hesitation—“a big person of the Taliban.” He entirely rejected the notion that Abdul Salam had been mentally ill, but his argument was a self-fulfilling loop: Abdul Salam was an insurgent because his family were insurgents, and his family had to be insurgents because Salam had been one. “Is his brother also mentally sick?” Lala asked. “Then why does he love bombs and things like that?”

Lala exemplified a certain kind of old-school Afghan official whose survival depends on patronage. He griped that the Americans took his intelligence informants for granted, underpaying them and spending too much money on fuel, roads, and other “useless things.” Lala had a better idea. “Give some money to those Taliban,” he suggested, “and buy them.” Lala had consolidated his power in Maiwand by making himself valuable to the Americans, and he knew that in some corners, Paula Loyd’s killing had not been forgotten.

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