"It's never when you expect it"

(C) simon klingert the outlines of soldiers saluting as the body is carried towards the chopper.)

Nuristan- The U.S. soldiers formed a line in the moon light as the helicopter descended. The Afghans carried the body of their comrade swathed in white cloth on a homemade stretcher. The line saluted as the stretcher passed. Then the body of Spc. Mohamed Hashim, 29, of Kunar Province lifted into the night.

He'd been shot through his armpit less than an hour before. The bullet had passed through and out the other side of his body. He'd been on a 12-hour patrol the Afghan Artillery team was conducting with 2nd-77 Field Artillery Regiment (4-4th ID). Hashim was shot while manning a gun in the back of a Ford Ranger the Afghan Army (ANA) typically uses on patrols.

They had been rolling slow enough for whoever was waiting in fields to pick out a target and let off a burst of fire. The Afghans counter-fired, but the killers disappeared.

"We saw them tonight. I saw them, the anti-Islamic bastards!" Major J.D. Southall, a provincial reconstruction team officer, said to an interpreter he'd been riding with just behind Hashim's truck. "We knew they were taking rounds in front of us. I saw shadows in the field, but I didn't have a positive ID."

"I really think that was them," Maj. Southall repeated, "hopefully tomorrow we can track them by footprints. I wasn't sure it was humans and lo and behold, a dog appeared and they shushed it off. We saw them on infrared light, and the dog came, lord have mercy, I couldn't ID them for sure," the Major said rapid-fire, wracked with a combination of guilt and desire to go on the hunt.

But his guilt was nothing compared to what Marine Lieutenant Steven Murello, 25, was feeling. As an embedded trainer(of the E.T.T. 4/4 regional corps advisory command 201st), Lt. Murello had mentored and trained Hashim and 135 other Afghan artillery soldiers for the past nine months. He'd agreed to help them make a mosque out of one of their living huts. He'd spent long nights going over old Russian field artillery manuals with the fire teams and had battled with the commander over his habit of hashish smoking after lunch, and now one of his men was dead about a week before the lieutenant was set to go home. "It's never when you expect it," he said shaking his head.

Lt. Murello had trained Hashim and knew him as a man. "He was a soldier," he said. "He wasn't literate. He was the guy on the gun line who took the charge and brought it to the gun. He was a good soldier, never a troublemaker. He was always one to do the work."

The lieutenant's eyes drifted. "My point of view is, did I do enough? Did I train them enough?" Murello asked himself. "Whoever was shooting was targeting their vehicle because they were going slow for route clearance. Probably a handful (of enemy) opened up. As soon as we shot back, we saw them taking off over the ridge line."

"Two hours earlier we were all sitting, eating and joking," he said, shaking his head. "My fear is they'll blame me. But the first sergeant reminded me that in Islam they believe when your time comes, your time comes."

"The Afghans asked me to call for a helicopter and when I asked the Army (2-77 FAR) command, they got the helos to come in a half hour. I know the (Afghans) appreciated that. The big thing is to get the body back to his village within 24 hours," Murello said.

The names of Afghans killed in action are not reported or released by coalition forces, but on this small base the honor detail and the waiting chopper, seemed to show more than the usual lip service of respect and working together. One could simply tell the Americans felt the loss of the Afghan soldier. The next day the base flag was at half mast.