It's a beautiful day: arrival in Afghanistan��continued

A narrow beam of bright sunlight pierced through the cracks in the plywood that replaced the room's windows. Particles of dust danced in the sliver of light. It was morning. I was exhausted from the 24 hours of travel to get in country. For a moment, I was disoriented. Where was I? The steady snoring around me brought me back to reality--headquarters, Afghanistan.

From my sleeping bag, I looked around the small, cramped room. Men, soundly asleep on cots, surrounded me. Military equipment and weapons were suspended haphazardly from nails in the wall.

One bare light bulb hung precariously from frayed wires from the center of the ceiling. It was off, as it was last night when the Marine and I found empty cots.

Someone pushed his way into the room. Dim light from the hallway lightened the room slightly. I could not make out who it was. "Time to get up," the voice came from the open doorway. "Put on civilian clothes," he added. "No uniforms here." Then he was gone.

The Marine was getting up, too. No one else stirred. The warmth of the sleeping bag gave way to the bitter coldness of the room. I was exhausted but excited.

I made my way downstairs and stepped past the bearded young man guarding the door leading into the intelligence fusion cell. A classified area. He did not say anything to me because I was heading past him toward the main entrance of the building. He acknowledged my presence with a nod.

There was a hole in the door where the handle was supposed to be. I curled my fingers into it and pulled. The wooden door was heavy. A water bottle filled with sand as ballast was used instead of a spring to keep the door closed. A lanyard tied to the upper corner of the wooden door fit through a small hole in the door jam. The sand weight pulled the door tightly closed.

Then I was outside. The air was cold in my lungs. The wind blew slowly across the dusty road just outside the barbed wire. The dirt it stirred hung low in the air. A chill ran through me.

What I saw then will be forever etched in my memory: a picturesque view of the mountain range and a valley pitched the mountains on two sides. The lowlands curved around the mountains, giving the effect of being surrounded by the majestic bluffs.

I stepped away from the building and looked around. Ice formed over little puddles of water. I could see my breath.

The crimson rays of the sun reflected off the snow on the mountains. Puffy white clouds interrupted the cold blue sky, filtering the beams into hues of colored light. I was overwhelmed for a moment.

"What a beautiful day!" I said aloud, although I did not mean to blurt it out. Good thing no one was around to hear my thoughts. But then, for a moment, I did not care about the Army or the war. I thought about God. You could feel His presence here. At the same time sadness could be felt.

It was a haunting feeling. What was it that stirred such emotion? I tried to quantify it in my mind. Explain it. Something was definitely not right here. What was it? The bright morning sky was filled with optimism--full of promise. But the ground was dark and foreboding. Death and destruction fighting the light. There was a peace here, and there was evil.

My thoughts turned to the issues at hand. I was a Reservist from New Orleans. A lawyer. A few weeks ago if someone had suggested that I would be standing here contemplating the sunrise in Afghanistan I would have dismissed him or her with a wave of my hand.

Reservist. No one made a big deal of it. It was just a practical way of doing the business of war. Reserve officers and senior NCOs were the representatives of the intelligence and criminal justice agencies.

The General had come up with the idea to assign senior, staff officers (Reservists) to the task force who were frill-time employees of the agencies themselves. They would report to the military but have a back channel to their government bosses. They, like me, would also bring civilian- acquired skills to the war. Active-duty soldiers are single-faceted. Reservists are multi-functional.

I walked around the barbed wire-enclosed compound to get my bearings, then returned to the old building. Just inside the hallway to the fusion cell area were two small offices. One, I would share with the military signals technicians, who monitored communications equipment 24 hours a day. The other office housed a senior intelligence official (who was, like me, a Reserve officer) and his special communications equipment and three-man staff.

The task force had put out a request for Reserve signals men and women, from all services, who had national intelligence experience. I had already been briefed about the two men assigned to this important site, one an Air Force sergeant, "the Kid" (I had named him) and a senior Marine, "Gunny."

The Kid played an important role. He provided the link to virtually any database, secure or unsecured, for the intelligence analysts in the fusion cell. A very powerful tool.

The baby-faced technician set aside his M4 Carbine (SOF version) he was cleaning when I entered. His hair was already too long by regulation. He was unshaven but the sparse facial hair showed his age. The room was cold. Air still. Dust filled every breath I took. Already I longed to be outside once more.

"What a beautiful day," I said before I could catch myself.

He laughed. "That's what everyone says when they first get here."

"Just unexpected!' I replied. "Nothing in the press or the operation reports prepares you for how beautiful it is here."

"Yes, sir," he said with a smile. "Some of the guys hate to admit it. But they love it. The cold crisp mornings give way to warm sunny days. The clouds disappear. The sky stays a deep blue. At night you can see every star in the universe."

"Saw the stars last night." I could not help but say. "The Air Force put us out of the plane. Left us on the runway when they flew away."

"Happened to all of us when we arrived, sir," he said over his shoulder. He was doing something with the array of laptop computers in front of him. "Something is just not right, you can feel it," he added under his breath.

I heard him but did not respond. He, too, felt it.

Afghanistan. The hard, rocky earth hiding indiscriminate death. Mines and unexploded ordinance. The enemy all around us. Yet it was a strangely beautiful world. The snow of the mountains was no longer on the highest peak but moved down toward us as winter arrived.

I had read the reports before departing. We had already lost two soldiers and an Afghan child this week. Animals, it was assumed they were dogs, were constantly tripping the explosions, mostly in the middle of night.

My thoughts were stopped by the technician's U2 update.

I had never seen a U2. Probably never would. But it was an important part of our intelligence collection. It had provided critical intelligence data during all phases of Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield, and in Afghanistan relays critical intelligence. Now, I was part of the operation determining what intelligence was required from the aircraft.

I knew I had to get to work. I grabbed a steaming cup of coffee from the large pot just outside the fusion cell door, in the hallway. The caffeine would cut through some of my tiredness. This promised to be a very long day. I knew the "battle rhythm," the schedule of meetings and briefings throughout the day.

We participated in U.S. Central Command briefings by secure television link. At 1700 hrs, our time, it was still morning to them. As their day progressed, we would be called upon to provide intelligence information and recommendations for future operations.

After a large gulp of the strong black coffee, I was ready to get the information I would need to brief the General and the others in the fusion cell. I turned my attention back to the Kid.

The technician's job in the morning was to provide an update on which reconnaissance assets were available to us. We had first priority when calling in missions.

It wasn't that we would get bumped--have another intelligence task force call for an area search or monitoring that would take the data collectors away from Afghanistan. No, we had dedicated support. But usually the team back home was a step ahead of us. They knew our mission.

All of us were duly impressed with the technicians--they were experts. To us, though, many were nameless and faceless.

The technician would report what was "up" in the last 24 hours and what was expected to be available in the next 12. The analysts in the fusion cell would know the actual information obtained. That briefing would come later, with everyone present.

One of our jobs as the special staff was to work problems out before they affected the mission. We also had to keep the analyst and operatives focused.

"Sir," he turned away from his array of laptop computers. "U2's up. Predator's up."

The RQ-1 Predator is a medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle system. It is a Joint Forces Air Component Commander-owned theater asset for reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition in support of the Joint Force commander. The Predator can be employed in moderate-risk areas, minimizing the risk to human life.

The aircraft is equipped with a color nose camera (generally used by the air vehicle operator for flight control), a day variable aperture TV camera, a variable aperture infrared camera (for low light/night) and a synthetic aperture radar for looking through smoke, clouds or haze. The cameras produce full-motion video and the synthetic aperture radar produces still frame radar images in addition to "feeds" from the predators owned by the Air Force. Our task force had its own dedicated plane.

"All satellites are in a green status."

"So, to get back to the Predators," I interrupted. "Any maintenance problems?"

"No, Sir," he said matter-of-factly. "All flying." We knew that the technician would be the first to be aware of any problems. He would be able to see if the data had been interrupted.

The Air Force's reporting channels would also tell us, but it would take hours to filter the information through to us. Meanwhile, the General said, we could lose valuable fix time. "Data coming in strong..."

A knock on the door interrupted him. It was pushed open by a woman wearing an Afghan sweater that was too large and bulky for her frame and brown flannel pants with heavy climbing boots.

She headed the counter-intelligence detachment. Daily reports from her troops were digested intently by decision-makers. Her information had saved lives. She was good at what she did and her soldiers, counter-intelligence agents, were considered the best.

She reported that we could expect, or should at least prepare for, an attack any time. Indirect fire. This morning, a mortar position had been detected just across the runway from our secured area. It was nearly complete and rockets had already been dragged to the site, although the base plate and tube were not yet in place. It would have been operational by tonight, ready to rain hell on us, had it not been found in time.

The Taliban had gotten too close. A breakdown in security from the Northern Alliance guards who held that sector.

I took down the notes. The General would be interested in this, I knew, but he had little time for force protection issues. He had bigger things to worry about.

He relied on his staff to make sure that the base was adequately guarded. He would only weigh in if we needed him to meet with the local warlord. That would not be likely. The General and the Afghan warlord would keep things on a social level.

We knew that the local powerbrokers would not want a head-on clash with a senior American officer. They had to save face. Just mentioning the General's "concern" would result in beefed-up security. At least for a short period of time.

The locals have convinced themselves that the American general controlled millions of dollars. They did not want to deny the Americans anything that would affect the payments to them. "When are the payments coming?" the counter-Intel Chief's reports would have them asking. "How much longer before we get paid?"

"Mortar attacks," I said out loud as I made a note in my journal.

There was so much turmoil here on this earth. Good against evil. Battles that have waged for centuries on this very soil. We were caught up in something far more serious than routing terrorists. This was a dark world. A vast battle ground. It was a sinister place, Afghanistan.

But there was also a feeling of hope and victory. Goodness penetrated down through the cold air. It was the warmth of sunlight. At first, an overwhelming feeling of peace before the mind successfully rationalized the thoughts, trying to make sense out of the unexplainable.

Shadows and darkness retreated quickly from the light. It was a beautiful day.

RELATED ARTICLE: Reservists provide experience for expeditionary squadron

When the Air Force was tasked to support airlift operations in Afghanistan with the C-17 aircraft, it wanted experienced crews to fly long, difficult missions. The Air Force also needed people who had cockpit experience executing missions that had never been flown before.

Active-duty airmen could do the job, but the job got so big they soon needed help. C-17 crews from Air Force Reserve Command's 315th Airlift Wing, Charleston Air Force Base, S.C., volunteered to meet that need.

"We stood up the 17th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron at Rhein Main on 16 January," said Lt Col Peter A. Herneise, 17th EAS commander." In the beginning, we were flying so much that our crews were running out of flying time at an alarming rate. I asked for help from the 315th and they gave me all I asked for and more."

Colonel Herneise said he called the 315th Operations Group commander, Col James B. Roberts, who said the 315th could provide eight crews. That soon increased with the wing furnishing five to seven new crews each week to support the operation. According to Herneise, the Reservists not only helped out with the mission but added something else to the mix: experience. Reserve crews sometimes collectively have 4,000 to 6,000 hours of experience. "You can't put a value on that," he added.

According to Pentagon officials, the Air Force flew nearly 4,800 airlift missions, totaling about 100,000 flight hours, during the first six months of combat operations in Afghanistan. These missions moved more than 64,000 passengers and more than 125,000 tons of cargo from the United States to the Afghan theater of operations.

The 17th EAS was a big part of that operation. It was scheduled to go over 500 combat missions before the end of March.

"We run around six to 13 missions a day," said Lt Col Joseph S. Heirigs, 17th EAS director of operations. "The Reserve crews tend to be 50 to 60 percent of our assigned manpower. We could not do this mission without the participation of the Reserve crews who volunteered to help us Out."

Most of the Reservists volunteered for two weeks of duty. "That allows us to use them a lot during that time without them burning out of flying time," Colonel Heirigs said. "They give the active-duty crews an extended life." Reserve vehicle operators from Charleston also volunteered to help transport crews to and from the flightline.

Flying so many missions can stress the crews and support people. One of the people in the 17th EAS who helped manage stress was Senior Master Sgt. Winston Moses. He said Reservists assigned to the unit made his job easier.

One reason his job is easier, according to the commander, is the maturity level of the Reservists. "Most of the Reserve crews are older, and they bring a maturity level to the job that we do not always find in the younger crews," Herneise said. "Although we have some outstanding young active-duty crews, I believe the maturity of the Reserve crews is a plus for us. We welcome their experience."

Colonel Herneise also appreciates their candor. "They are not afraid to give me feedback," he said." Most of my young crewmembers will not come into my office and tell me something needs to be fixed. The Reservists will and they know the fine line between discussion and griping."

Secretary of the Air Force Dr. James G. Roche recently said that the current conflict in Afghanistan is the first time in recent history where, because it is land-locked, everything that is moved in or moved out has to be done by air. This includes the water the troops drink, the food they eat and the equipment they use.

The 17th EAS has been at the forefront of that operation and the way the squadron is using Reservists is the way of the future, according to its leadership. "Using volunteer Reserve aircrews and support personnel has been an overwhelming success to this operation," Colonel Herneise said. "It has helped to make our mission work."

By Lt Col Chris King, USAF 315th Airlift Wing Public Affairs Rhein Main Air Base, Germany

COPYRIGHT 2002 Reserve Officers Association of the United States
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