A day in one southern Afghan village begins with gesture of peace, ends on note of war

US troops fight, then work to win hearts, minds

BADULA QULP, Afghanistan — As U.S. Marines fought Taliban insurgents down the road, Army 1st Lt. Daniel Hickok hunted Afghan men willing to repair an irrigation canal for cash.

It’s a tall order in a Taliban-controlled area where some villagers are scared to take money from the Americans.

Yet in the revised U.S. war strategy, the fight against the insurgents is as important as winning the allegiance and confidence of Afghan citizens. For American soldiers here, their days are often a mix of winning hearts and minds and fighting a determined enemy.

A rumble of explosions could be heard shortly before Hickok, of Puyallup, Wash., and his soldiers from the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry, left their Stryker armored vehicles Saturday and walked into farm fields in search of laborers.

Repairing the irrigation canals is an important step toward reviving agriculture in the area. And the Americans were offering hard cash for anyone willing to work.

But conditions for sustained economy-building appeared a long way off.

“Once we’re up here, just kind of spread out and try not to look menacing,” Hickok told his men as they approached a home near the canal.

The area is about six miles (10 kilometers) from Marjah in Helmand province where thousands of Marines and Afghan soldiers launched a massive offensive on Saturday to break the insurgents’ grip over a wide swath of southern Afghanistan.

The conversation with a farmer seemed positive at first. But it was ultimately inconclusive — an illustration, perhaps, of the difficulty of winning over civilians who know the Taliban are a longterm presence, and that the Americans will eventually leave.

Staff Sgt. Christopher Wootton of Richmond, Va., serving with the 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion, asked the farmer if he could fix a stretch of canal road — a dirt, uneven, narrow track that became unstable in recent rains and restricted movement of the heavy Stryker infantry vehicles.

An Afghan interpreter, known colloquially by the Americans as a “terp,” translated into the local language, Pashto.

But the discussion progressed haltingly, with the “terp” seeming to have trouble keeping up with the conversation.

“You might want to stick with shorter sentences,” Hickok suggested to Wootton.

Eventually, the farmer, whose construction skills seemed a big question mark, agreed to travel to the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah about 15 miles (24 kilometers) away to buy pipes and other building materials for the road. Wootton gave him 7,500 Afghanis in banknotes, or about $160, filled out a receipt and photographed the man as he took it.

The farmer, however, wasn’t sure whether American troops on the road to Lashkar Gah would allow him to pass, and whether there were roadside bombs, a lethal threat to American forces.

“He’s going to have to do the best he can do to get down to Lashkar Gah as safely as possible,” Wootton said to the interpreter. He gave the man an English-language note of safe passage, and warned him to conceal it in case any Taliban found it and called him a collaborator.

In a parting gesture, Wootton cleaned and bandaged the injured finger of an elderly man at the farmhouse. Later, he said the meeting was the most positive in several days of interviewing villagers.

“A lot of guys are unwilling to do anything,” he said. “They’re worried about the Taliban.”

Hours later, soldiers from the same company got into a firefight further up the road with insurgents who ducked in and out of buildings, and moved around on motorcycles. Fragments of military radio chatter played out the confrontation.

“Can you shoot him with a 50 cal?” someone asked, a reference to a 50-caliber machine gun.

“I don’t have a shot,” came the reply.

Then news came that a suspected insurgent was down.

And the fight went on:

“There’s a guy in the second-floor window who’s playing peekaboo with us.”

Then came a report that a U.S. Army sniper was shot in the hand, and that the bullet had apparently deflected into his shoulder. A chopper was called in to evacuate him.

In this one village in southern Afghanistan, a day that began with a peace gesture ended on a note of war.