From the sandbox

[BLUEHAWK]

From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan

From the Sand Pit. It's freezing here. I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt
between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains, along
The Dar 'yoi Pomir River, watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave.
Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.

I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen seconds to
avoid another scorpion sting. I've actually given up battling the chiggers
and sand fleas, but them scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts
like a bastard.
The antidote tastes like transmission fluid, but God bless the Marine
Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.

The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they
are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water.

That requires couriers and that's where an old bounty hunter like me comes
in handy.
I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities,
type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite
link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware.

We bash some heads for a while, then I track and record the new movement..

It's all about intelligence. We haven't even brought in the snipers yet.
These scurrying rats have no idea what they're in for. We are but days
away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin.

I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot
On his throat as I spit into his face and plunge my nickel-plated Bowie knife
through his frontal lobe.

But you know me, I'm a romantic. I've said it before and I'll say it
Again: This country blows, man. It's not even a country.

There are no roads, there's no infrastructure, there's no government. This
is an inhospitable, rock pit shit hole ruled by eleventh century warring
tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs.

Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the
opium trade or join the army. That's it. Those are your options Oh, I
forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened,
Crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu, if that's your
idea of a party.

But the smell alone of those 'tent cities of the walking dead' is enough
To hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen
hours a day.

I've been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks, and Turkmen and even a
couple of Pushtuns, for over a month-and-a-half now, and this much I can
say for sure: These guys, all of 'em, are Huns... Actual, living Huns. They LIVE to
fight. It's what they do. It's ALL they do.

They have no respect for anything, not for their families, nor for each
other, nor for themselves. They claw at one another as a way of life. They
play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human
cockfights to defend the family honor.

Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other's
barbarism. Cavemen with AK-47's. Then again, maybe I'm just cranky.

I'm freezing my ass off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer is
running out of juice, and I can't recharge it until the sun comes up in a
few hours.

Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write a
letter to CNN and tell Wolf and Anderson and that awful, sneering, pompous
Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban 'smart.' They are not smart. I
suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for
Is 'cunning.'

The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines They are
sneaky and ruthless, and when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful,
malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else.
Smart. Pfft. Yeah, they're real smart.

They've spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very
Good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products
of the devil. They're still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter

Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like
trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets
frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it.

OK, enough. Snuffle will be up soon, so I have to get back to my hole.
Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice, but I'm good at
it.

Please, I tell you and my fellow Americans to turn off the TV sets and
move on with your lives.
The story line you are getting from CNN and other news agencies is utter
bullshit and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to
the screen through the commercials.

We've got this one under control. The worst thing you guys can do right
now is sit around analyzing what we're doing over here, because you have no
idea what we're doing, and really, you don't want to know.

We are your military, and we are doing what you sent us here to do.

You wanna help? Buy Bonds, America.
Saucy Jack
Recon Marine in Afghanistan