Trying to figure it out

(Soldiers help Qala Wona villagers inaugurate the digging of a coalition-funded well.)

"Hey Jim. Thanks for the B-day wishes. Not a bad day today. But last night we received a rocket attack that hit a barracks and killed one Soldier and injured 9. The Soldier who died had 6 children. And all this happened when I was in a CONEX getting hundreds of hand crank radios, scarfs, hats and prayer rugs to give out to some of the same people who fire these rockets at us. This is not at all like Iraq."

This message was sent by a soldier I knew in Iraq. He's in Afghanistan now.

I'm trying to figure out why this message grabbed me like it did. It starts with the rocket attack that killed the soldier. The fact that he had six children.

But it's the writer's observation that it happened while he was in the CONEX getting the goodies that Afghans prize as part of the war on "hearts and minds", that gets me most. "To give out to some of the same people who fire these rockets at us."

A lot of soldiers will tell you these kinds of things. These are...the same guys who fire at us, or in the case of Iraq, used to shoot at us and are now paid by us. Seeing as soldiers interact with locals daily, as both intelligence gatherers and ambassadors, it's hard to write off their statements to simple cynicism. They speak to deeper frustrations and survival instincts.

Of course they are the "same people who fire rockets at us", and they aren't. Given the language, cultural barriers, the fact that enemy information is traded and sold, it's kind of hard for the average guy to know who the bad guy is. Anyone who's done a little reading can tell you the Taliban is a loose coalition of fighters, ideologues and mercenaries with different beefs and goals for their violence.

But the last line struck me too. "This is not at all like Iraq." It seems Afghanistan is now exploding with insurgent attacks. They haven't reached the inventiveness of projectile IEDs in Iraq, but it's the Talib coordination of harassing fire, ambushes, IEDs, an array of increasing bloodletting across the country that is particularly disheartening.

Everyone has their own little view of this ugly war business depending on where they go and when they get there. This particular soldier and I were in Iraq in 2008. The tail end of the surge. The bases we were on got rocketed a couple of times a month, but they were so huge, a few stray mortars maybe hit the outer wire. IEDs still killed and maimed soldiers, but they were more infrequent and less effective. More Iraqi soldiers and police were getting killed than U.S. The MRAPs had come fully into force and were protecting from blasts like never before. American platoons could patrol through Tikrit and Samarra, formerly hard-core cities, and be greeted and thanked. It was like we were watching the U.S. command finally getting a handle on the beast.

This is not at all like Afghanistan. But it doesn't mean it's impossible. Iraq looked impossible from all angles in 2007. It doesn't mean the long-term investment, some say sinking, of blood and treasure shouldn't continue. Why? As one soldier told me in a village outside Balad, Iraq, "I lost a lot of friends over here. I want to see this place turn out alright."