The Last Journey
Tajiman (Interpreters)
Every now and then, I have
to write something that I know will usually end up getting me into hot water.
But sometimes, I just don’t care.
Today is one of those times. I will
be careful, but I will say my piece of mind.
Today
was the second day of school. It was
even more full of children than yesterday.
Three tents now were full and it won’t be long perhaps before more
tents are utilized. It is too bad that
the project to construct a new school is not progressing rapidly. Is a matter of fact, it is going rather
slowly. From what I have gathered, a sum
of about $200,000 has been allotted and paid out to build a school. I do not see the school ever being
completed. The way things go around here
is we seem to pass out money like it is bubble gum in hopes of somehow buying
off the population. I’m no rocket
scientist but from 
what I know during my brief
life experiences is I do not think trying to buy hearts and minds really is
ever successful. I know this much, the
$200,000 spent on the school is never going to produce anything near what it
should. There is no reason this type of
mess up cannot be rectified before we continue to bankrupt ourselves in hopes
of winning the hearts of minds of the people here in drug infested Helmund
province.
I
am not the only one who sees this or verbalizes this. Is a matter of fact it pretty much is the
topic of conversation around here among everyone that I speak with. How so much money is just thrown at projects
that do not necessarily really ever get finished is a real sore spot for
me. These are the kind of things that I
am not sure can ever be explained. What
I do know however is this...giving people fish and teaching them to fish are
two different kettles of fish.
During
today’s school session, there were some sustained gunfire off to the east
for a while. There was a time that those
of us with the school children were wondering if the enemy was in fact going to
make a move on the school or just keep harassing in order to prove a point
about being upset with the school being opened in the first place. Many here believe that it is only a matter of
time before something is done on a larger scale by the enemy to put a damper on
things about the school being opened. In
the mean time, increased patrols are being conducted around the area close to
the school and I have 
noticed increased air
traffic above seemingly to keep an eye on things from above. I do not know how long operating in a
defensive type of position will remain effective, relatively speaking. But for now, should the enemy try something
brazen, he will be met with severe force, if he can be located.
During
time with the children today, I noticed a new face among the Marines being
brought to the school yard. It is a civilian
interpreter from the 
Her name is Heela. Today was
actually her first day on the job. Prior
to coming here she told me she was a retail store manager for 
point here is that there is
a huge discrepancy between wages for Marines, wages for local national terps
and wages for US terps. My question has
always been how much the company that hires these terps gets paid per person,
whether that person is US or local national.
That is always the hard part to find out but somewhere, somebody knows
that answer. Those kind of answers usually
come out years later in some Senate investigation. Not my problem at the moment.
But,
what I did notice about this female interpreter on her first day on the job was
that she is not so fluent in Pashtu which happens to be the main language here
in these parts among the local population.
How she got sent to here is beyond my understanding. I will say this however, she is youngish, she
is attractive and there is a New York times reporter showing up on the scene in
the extreme near future to do a story on the female engagement teams mingling
with the local population. From what I
have seen, there is not so much “mingling” with the female 
population as of yet. Yes, it is in the early stages, however, my
suspicions are that most of it is a dog and pony show and my suspicions are not
mine alone. Many here will tell you the
same thing. This is the part of war fighting that always gives me a sour taste
in my mouth. Such is life.
Later
this day, in the afternoon, I went on a patrol with the PMT guys again which
was designed to more or less give the new female terp a taste of what is going
on in her new neighborhood. That means
we would walk around the market area for a short while with her being
accompanied by the two female Marine FET team members along with some other
members of the PMT squad providing security.
Walking through the bazaar area is generally considered a safe thing to
do. On this day however, as we were
walking towards the west end of the bazaar, we all heard gunshots coming from
the west area and we took cover in the canals and behind some adobe walls. I pushed forward to where Cpl Dillon was and
decided to stick with him from now on when things go down. I’ve decided that Cpl Dillon is more or
less a magnet for bullets lately and in my mind I have given him a new name,
that being, “Magnet”. The
Afghan Police were pretty much handling the 
situation and if it got
closer, the Marines would take over the engagement. As this was going down the new terp was also
behind a wall sitting down taking out her pocket camera and snapping photos as
well. I had been told earlier not to
take any photos of her doing her job by one of the female Marines which I found
to be a little absurd. Everyone in this
camp has a camera on them and many have already taken her picture. As she was snapping photos from her sitting
down position, she was asked to do some translating to the Afghan cops. She did not respond. Then again, she was asked. Again she kept taking photos and observing
the situation. Finally it dawned on her
that she was not a tourist and actually needed to do her job at the moment,
that being translating some information to the Afghan cops from the
Marines. Needless to say I took note of
all this and it just kind of put more fuel on the fire of the sour taste I have
about contractors in general working in war zones.
This female terp is not a
bad person and I have nothing against her personally, however, it is really a symptom
of the whole situation about how contracting works in general here in the war
zones. There are things that always need
to be repaired or tweaked. I feel for
sure, the handling of interpreters, especially the female ones is for sure one
of those areas that needs tweaking.
Again, what am I to do…I’m just an historian. Such is life, again.
The
mission to the bazaar was directed to continue and we proceeded as
ordered. We wound around the back side
of the bazaar and all was just fine. The
shooting to the west subsided and no one was really too concerned. We came back into the COP and that was pretty
much the end of the day. What I had seen
this day here in Helmund province weighed heavily on the thinking side of my
brain. These are the reasons I generally
try not to think about such things because it always causes a rise in my blood
pressure and sometimes makes me lose focus of what I am doing here. However, it is also a component of what I see
here in this place and it is 
quite similar to what I saw
in
I
ate dinner with the guys in the CMOC this night and then I bedded down
early. I was tired and I knew I had an
early patrol the next morning. I got a
good night’s sleep this night, but I woke up the next morning still
thinking about contractors and money and being told not to take a photograph
and a few other things. It’s never
a dull moment but it is frustrating at times.
This
was the end of
Jim
Spiri
jimspiri@yahoo.com