Day 82, Walk for Warriors

Covering as much ground as possible has been my focus each day . Today I must have left a trail of sweat forty five miles long on those routes from the KOA to Toomsuba to Alamucha. My first four miles this morning were the toughest. I made a decision to walk along the road out toward the Interstate and Toomsuba. I spent much of the time diving into bushes and zigzagging across the road to keep from getting splattered by logging trucks and a bowling team from Alamucha that insisted on driving huge red pickups. There were about ten of those boys coming and going like they had someone to see in a hurry.

I doubled back at the four mile mark and made my way to the KOA Campground road for a more civilized approach to my business. I went out toward the Alamucha-Why Not Rd. and found good clean walking for miles in two new directions. The red dirt roads seem to provide me with the kind of quiet and desolation that fits a journey such as mine. Every once in a while a logging truck would come jamming out of a side road, full of stripped pine trees and a deadline that said, “Get outta my way.” I did.

I made it back to the Yasger’s Farm II so I could see if the bird that serenaded me yesterday would return. There was this starling or some kind of skinny mimicker that talked in tongues to me yesterday. She sat on a wire and changed her song twenty times before I told her I had to leave but that I would come back.

I don’t know if she was copying someone else’s song or if she had a lengthy repertoire all her own. All I know is that each song was distinctly different from the other. In the end she wowed me with a hissing sound that resembled more the sound of a serpent than a songbird. I gave her a round of applause. She must have been used to that because she just stared back at me without expression.

For a long time this morning there wasn’t a breath of wind coming to my rescue from any direction. The air was still and smelled of forest decay and occasionally, urea. There was a cow pasture nearby on top of a rolling knoll. That had to be the culprit since the runoff would have descended to my spot along that road for some distance. Without wind to carry the smell away that part of the walk was down right nasty. I tried my best to pick up the pace to get past all that.

There was a lot of lawn mowing going on today too. I counted eight men and one woman sitting on mowers as they clipped grass on acres and acres of lawns throughout this whole area. It looked like something I might enjoy. “Don’t worry Honey, I’ll cut the grass this weekend,” I could hear spouses say. I think certain couples probably fight to see who gets to cut the lawn on the fancy personal tractor.

For most of the day I was sort of unconscious. I mean I saw the trees and heard the birds and smelled the smells, both pleasant and otherwise, but my thoughts turned inward. I have found that as enjoyable as it is to space out on a long walk, it has proven to be a careless thing to do. I’m not sure if it was related to low blood sugar or a frame of mind but I tried to snap out of it. My general rule when walking alone in the bush is to keep alert, know where I am and watch where I step. Those are rules learned over a lifetime and ones that have to be adhered to. To bring me out of my own kind of ten thousand mile stare I stopped at every bridge on the route. There were three.

Stopping at bridges allowed me to refocus and zero in on specific visual stimuli. Okay, I was looking for fish as usual. But I did focus. There were no signs of snakes or fish but I ran into quite a few snapping turtles within this twenty mile diameter.

I was reminded today of the incredible variety of wildlife I have been afforded the chance to be with for my whole trip. It makes me wish I were an expert at entomology, botany and theoretical physics. The wonders of the world seem closer when you are on foot. I have stood still at the foot of the forest so many times wondering what the insects and birds were saying, both to each other and to us.

Last night I heard the inevitable sound of a crashing tree limb. These forests of pine and oak and sassafras have developed a technique of shedding limbs that are waterlogged or rotten. They let them go in the night to fall wherever they may. It seems like a form of house cleaning. They drop the soggy tree’s branch and make way for another, healthier one to grow. After a big rain branches dropped like flies. It made me glad I slept in my truck, but I must admit the occasion of a crashing branch has become a kind of entertainment for me.

After my walk I talked with a boy along the fence outside the pool area at the KOA. He was in his in bathing suit and we were in the shade as I waited for some clothes to dry. “Are you going in?” I asked.

“If my Daddy say I can.”

“It’s pretty hot. I’ll bet he’ll say yes.”

“I don’t know. We been swimmin’ all day.” He looked at me and realized that I was a stranger.
“Where you come from, sir?”

“I’m from San Diego in California.”

“That’s far away, ain’t it?”

“Far away. Where are you and your family from?”

“Mt. Vernon, Alabama.”

“Is that near Mobile?” I asked, taking a wild guess.

“’Bout thirty minutes if Daddy drive real fast.”

Just then Daddy arrived after a cool shower. Another son joined us informally. He was a chunky kid with tight curly sun-bleached hair. Daddy said, “I bet you cain’t tell dese ah twins?”

“I would never have guessed. Must be fraternal, right?”

“Yassir, dey is dat.” He said with a willing smile. “I seen you comin’ into camp all sweaty after a run today. You working out in dis heat?”

“Naw, I’ve been walking across the country for wounded vets and their families. I walked today like every day.”

“Well, isn’t dat just fine?” he said shaking his head. “Where you headed next?”

“Mobile Bay, Alabama. Your son said you live close by.”

“Dat’s a fact, mister. We show do live thirty minutes away from Mobile Bay. Just a skip and a holler away.”

“I am really looking forward to going down there on Wednesday.”

“Now see, dat’s good. You just go down 45 South, then over tah 10 East. You keep yo eyes open cause that 165 is gonna come up quick. Now you take that until you see 59 and you follow that one right to the beach. Cain’t miss it.”

“Thank you, I appreciate the advice.”

“Alright, den. Y’all have a safe trip. And don’t get no tah on yo feet down nehr. Da whole beach is covered wid brown tah.” He said as he turned and walked to his van.

I thought we should follow a Marine Corps Fire Mission into Helmand Province. No picnic.

Danger Room in Afghanistan: Echo Company in the Eye of the Storm
• By Noah Shachtman
• August 24, 2009 |

MIANPOSHTEH, Afghanistan — For three days, the Marines of Echo Company wondered when the next one would come. Since they got here at the beginning of July, Echo has been in a near-constant series of battles with the local Taliban, making this one of the most violent flashpoints in America’s renewed war in Afghanistan. On Thursday, election day, militants woke Echo up by firing rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifle rounds into the school compound these Marines now use as an outpost.

It was the 39th day out of 50 that the Taliban and Echo had exchanged lead.
And then, silence. None of the AK-47 attacks Echo had come to expect on patrol. None of the improvised bomb strikes that had become so common on Mianposhteh’s roads and dirt pathways. Nothing.

Officers here tried to guess why. Maybe it was Ramadan, the Muslim holy month; believers are supposed to fast during the day – and the Taliban only fight here during the day. Maybe it was the 500-pound bombs and mortars and artillery shells and rockets Echo dropped on the Taliban’s firing positions the week before. But the Marines really weren’t sure. Echo – who call themselves “America’s Company” — has been here for less than two months. To them, their enemies remain largely a mystery.

“If the rest of Ramadan is like this, I’ll be thankful,” says First Lt. Josh

Faucett, as we walk through melon patches and mud and corn fields, an hour into a quiet patrol, about a kilometer southeast of the base. “I’ve seen enough fighting. I can go home happy.”

We continue on for another half-hour or so – chatting with a few farmers, trudging through shrubs, sweating in the 110 degree-plus heat. We leap over an irrigation ditch, behind an adobe compound. That’s when Echo company’s three-day lull ends.

Bursts of AK-47 rounds crackle from three directions – the desert to the east, the trees to the southwest, and fields to the south. It’s an ambush. Everyone goes chest-first into the dirt to avoid it. Then comes the rattle of machine gun fire, headed in our direction. Some Marines scamper across the field to the south, taking cover behind a berm and some tall grass. They respond with guns of their own, and grenades. Others are stuck at the far north end of the field.

Including me. “I go up, you go up. I go down, you go down,” a Marine turns around and says to me. We run.

We make it to the southwest corner of the compound. After a call for covering fire, to tall grass. A series of thunder booms rings out – American mortars, detonating on the Taliban positions. “OK, motherfucker, you want some of this?” shouts Sgt. John Spring, as he stands up. “Take some!” He fires a grenade round into the air.

Despite the grenades, despite the mortars, the Taliban continue to attack. But their fire seems now to be coming mostly from a treeline to the southeast, perpendicular to the Marines’ position.

Faucett — an Echo company “joint tactical air controller” – talks loudly into a radio. A pair of Harrier jets and Cobra attack helicopters are on their way, he says. Someone drops a yellow smoke grenade, to show the aircraft our position. Of course, it’s a dead giveaway for the Taliban, too. A Marine fires right above my head. My ears ring like they’ve just been through a Slayer concert. Then shots from the other direction zip by — very close.

Faucett tries to tell the aircraft where to target. But figuring out the distance and range – and relating that distance and range to the jets, to the choppers, and to his commanding officer a kilometer away – is tough. The radio keeps breaking up.
The militant fire dies down. A Marine lies on his back, hooking a tree with his left hand, trying to recover from heat stroke. Faucett waves off the Harriers; the

Marines are too close to the Taliban, to risk the jets’ 500-pound bombs. But the copters emerge in the sky to the east. It takes maybe 20 minutes to determine the exact Taliban position – and whether they’re even still there. The wait makes the Marines anxious. “Do this! Come on!” Spring yells. There’s a smell of mint in the air. A pair of swallows appear from the bushes.

Finally, the attack is approved. The two helicopters turn south, towards the Taliban. “Oh my f%$#ing God! Hallelujah!” says Sgt. Jonathan Delgado. The Taliban send popcorn AK-47 rounds into the air – to no effect. The first copter, a Huey, shoots off .50 caliber rounds. It fires its Gatling gun, making an angry, chainsaw buzz. Then Cobra swoops in for its pass, sending four Zuni rockets into the Taliban position.

The militant fire stops. Within a few minutes, everything is calm again. Later, recalling the day’s sudden turn, Faucett tells me: “That’s the way it goes. You’re on the way to shaking hands and kissing babies, and of a sudden, you’re in shit sandwich.”

Not that he was surprised. For Echo, “today was normal,” company commander Capt. Eric Meador says. “What happened today has happened just about every day since we’ve been here.”

After the fight, the Marines try to determine if any Taliban were killed or wounded –to no avail. The Taliban only left a few spent shell casings behind when they withdrew. But they’ll be back.

Photo: Noah Shachtman

©2010 John Van Dyke Cote’
All Rights Reserved

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