Working with the Warlord

WARDAK Province- I spent most of July with Able Co. of the 2-503rd Infantry as they set up an outpost on a sandy plateau above 8,000 ft.  Until then I hadn't been to a place more dangerous.  107mm rockets accurately slamming the outpost almost daily.  They had to stop them.  To do so the company commander was negotiating to seat a powerful man to fill the position vacated by a sub-governor who'd fled.  But it was controversial.  When I left Jaghatu, they were wooing a warlord with Taliban connections, probably the only guy with the reach to bring tribal elders to the base and to stop some of the rockets.  And then the political winds shifted again as so often happens in Afghanistan.