The Bobs

We were in Qatar when the Bobs asked me “You want to watch Roswell?”. Both Bobs then devolved into fan gossip about their favorite parts of various romance arcs and such. They’d seen every episode at least thrice, and couldn’t get enough of it. This was strange for two reasons:

1. If you’ve never heard of the CW teen drama Roswell, it was basically “Dawson’s Creek” with aliens.
2. The two guys asking me to watch said show were for sure not the CW’s target audience. Look, Supernatural is an all-time favorite of mine (Team Dean), but that show had a much broader appeal than Roswell, which was tailored for the CW’s clearly delineated boundaries of 14-19 year old girls. The Bobs were not girls. And they were not teenagers. They were two Special Forces soldiers (Green Berets) in their late 30s, assigned to an unspoken unit given top level carte blanche to do what they saw prudent in the entire mideast theater. 

I’m not into sports, but if you are, this would be like Michael Jordan asking you if you wanted to trade pokemon cards. 

When the Bobs offered to share their mini DVD player so we could see how things were going between Maria and her alien love interest, I was equally honored and perplexed. I spent just under a week with the Bobs, but looking back, the experience taught me much about what it meant to be a man, a soldier, and made me question things I’d previously never given two shits about. 

Here we go:

It was early 2005. Had just gotten back to Afghanistan from my two weeks of leave in the US. The leave was fine. 

During week one I did what any other 22-year-old would do with a thousand bucks and some time off in the US of A. The second week I was sick as hell, recovering from the first week as well as the lingering effects of cholera. When it was time to head back, I was relieved. 

The seven months in Afghanistan before leave seemed more real than the previous 7 years in the US, and I missed my friends. Home felt off, especially since I knew I’d be going back. Another 5 months in-country, and then I could worry about pretending to fit in with civil society again. 

Plus I was looking forward to my new assignment. Our unit primarily operated out of Kabul, and we did stuff all over the region. Mostly straight infantry stuff, but other interesting things at times. A week after it was my turn to take leave, my squad rotated down to Kandahar. They’d spend the next three months doing PSD (military level bodyguard stuff) for some big wig, which also involved doing some more interesting stuff. Plus Kandahar was hotter than Kabul, both temperature and enemy activity-wise. I didn’t want to miss anything, and wanted to get back to pulling my weight. Felt bad my friends were dealing with more crazy while being a man down. 

It was time to head back, and I dove into the giant logistical mess which is the military. By then we’d been at war for four years in two major theaters, and a bunch of small ones. The military was constantly rotating troops in and out of these places, either to begin or end their tour, to take leave like I had just done, or to rush them to a better medical facility when stuff went pear shaped. 

If the military industrial complex was an animal, it would be a thousand legged octopus, constantly moving pieces between hundreds of chess boards, all while functionally drunk. It worked great when shit was dire; when our platoon sergeant got hit, he was flown to a trauma center in Germany within hours. But when things were ho-hum, the system barely lumbered along. After my Plt. Sgt recovered, it took him weeks to mesh together various flights to get back to us. 

In theory, when the military tells you to go somewhere, it’s someone else’s job to coordinate every aspect of your transportation to get you there. In reality, not so much. Moving between friendly countries is as simple as finagling a voucher for a commercial flight. The closer you come to a combat zone, the more messed up this process gets. 

It’s still somebody’s job to get you on whatever military flight is going in your general direction, but that person is just like everyone else in the military; overworked, underpaid, and straight done with this shit. They’re juggling peeps going two dozen different places, and trying to order them by some semblance of priority. Plus you’re sending people to a combat zone, so the return flights tend to have some scheduling issues. 

Ok, some more basic military stuff. So my unit was made up of four squads. At any one time, three of these were based in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. The other one was 300 miles to the southwest in Kandahar, the second-largest city in the country. Like I said above, my squad had taken their rotation down to Kandahar. It would have made lots of sense for me to fly directly to Kandahar Air Base. Did I? Of course not.

I was able to get all the way from the US to Kuwait with relative ease, but then shit went bureaucratic quick. Spent days buttering up various logistical people, and was finally able to squeeze my way onto a C-130 heading for Bagram. The opposite direction from Kabul I wanted to go, but at least the right country. From there I was able to hitch a ride on a convoy heading to our Kabul base with comparative ease. 

When I met up with the rest of my unit, sans my actual squad, they were understanding of my desire to rejoin my comrades as fast as possible. But things were hopping in the capital, and they couldn’t send a bunch of vehicles away just to get my butt down south. US soldiers didn’t just drive by themselves wherever they wanted in Afghanistan. Anytime we went anywhere in an overt capacity, we rolled at least three trucks deep. Each truck requires at minimum a driver, dude rolling shotgun, and one in the turret. Math means they’d have to pull 9 guys from their tasking to get me to my squad. My ass wasn’t worth that. 

So I was stuck, longing to join my friends. My unit said they’d keep an ear out for any routine convoys I could jump on which were heading south. I spent a few days in Kabul working with the other squads, and finally our commander pulled me into his office. Sitting in his dinky plywood headquarters shed were two other soldiers I’d never seen. Both of their uniform name tapes read “Smith”, and they had nothing else on them beside rank. 

The Army is kinda like the Cub Scouts; you can read someone’s accomplishments by the various badges sewn to their uniform chest. Everyone in my unit at bare minimum had a CIB and Airborne wings sewn onto the uniforms we wore around our FOB, mostly to deter legs from fucking with us. Many of our guys looked like fucking Mexican generals their bling was so deep. I would soon learn the Bobs were beyond such pissing contests.  

My boss introduced us, where I found out both guys were named Bob. Well, not really. Maybe. Honestly, I can’t remember. It’s been like 20 fucking years, man. The point is, both of them had the same generic first and last names. And they were obviously fake. So we’re just going to go with Bob. Mostly because I love Office Space.

One Bob was a Major, the other a Master Sergeant, which put them both in the upper middlish of the respective officer and enlisted military rank structure. They were also somewhere between laid back and tired. Maj. Bob shook my hand, and said my guys had hooked them up on some mission while I’d been on leave. I never found out what this was, and judging by my Boss’s cold eyes and shrug, I knew not to ask. We don’t talk about Bruno, or something. 

MSG Bob asked me how long I needed to get my stuff packed. I told him it already was, and he squinted his eyes, clapped my shoulder, and said “let’s roll”. We swung by my hooch to grab my backpack, and then headed for the base’s headquarters.

My unit was among many on our FOB, and like the rest of the Army, the stupidity was consistent. To ask for a ride from our HQ involved lots of back and forth, paperwork, risk assessments, burning an effigy, carbon copies of obscure forms…..uggg. 

We got to base HQ; Maj. Bob told me and MSG Bob to hang tight outside. Here we go, I thought. Officer stuff; he’ll probably be in there the rest of the afternoon dealing with whatever POG officers were on HQ duty. Most of us on the FOB were National Guard. Though my LRS unit went beyond the one weekend a month/two weeks a year commitment (I spent about half of the ten years I was in the guard on active duty), most every other unit there were weekend warriors who’d been yanked into the war. This meant the POG’s on HQ duty were lawyers and accountants stateside; don’t know if this made the paperwork better or worse.

To my surprise, in less than a minute Maj. Bob came walking back out and told MSG Bob we were good to hitch a ride with the QRF (Quick Reaction Force). The Bobs looked at me, MSG Bob asked “where you guys at?”. 

My unit’s three Kabul squads rotated through manning QRF duty. This meant at anytime we had a squad ready to roll out of the base within 2 minutes to respond to any shit going down. This squad would spend 24 hours at a time living in a shitty version of a firehouse. All our gear and weapons were laid out for fast access, guns were mounted on humvees, tanks and rations topped off. We’d get a call for help, throw our stuff on, and speed out. Most days we spent on QRF duty we played halo, lifted, and read. Some days we did not. 

Some astute readers will ask “But if the Bobs and JSD are road tripping with the QRF, what happens if the FOB needs them?” Great question, reader. My unit rotated another squad to RRF (Rapid Reaction Force, because rapid is slower than quick…?), which would cover the QRF any time they left. For those of you who really have been keeping track, you’ll notice I haven’t talked about what the third squad was doing while the other two were on QRF and RRF. 

In a perfect world, one squad would spend 24 hours on QRF, then spend another 24 on RRF. They would then have 24 off, aside from having to do a short 2-6 hour foot patrol or recon and surveillance (R&S) mission near the FOB. Then they’d be back on QRF. This three day rotation schedule was ok, and actually went as planned during the winter when enemy activity died down (the enemy is solar powered). Outside the winter, foot patrols and R&S took a backseat to a bunch of other random taskings, which meant one or two squads may be gone days or weeks while the remaining stayed on QRF and crossed their fingers. 

Just in case you think I’m implying random taskings meant we were doing sexy black ops type shit, know that one of them involved us trying to get an ice cream machine back to our FOB. That mission was actually hairy as fuck, and we almost died in several traffic accidents. All due to our desire for some chocolate swirl. But that’s another story. Back to the Bobs.

I lead the Bobs to our little corner of the base. HQ had already radioed ahead; the squad on ORF was standing by, engines running. RRF squad was running around behind them, making ready to backfill. MSG Bob did his squinting thing again, and nodded slightly. Both Bobs seemed to relax just a hair, which was odd. I hadn’t noticed they were tense before, with their air of surfer dude cool. But they were now even more chill. 

Threw our things in the humvees, and we were off to Bagram. Though I’d just been there a few days ago, this time it was different. Like the difference between flying coach and whatever the double secret section is above first class. Previously I’d waited for days to get on a flight out when I left on leave. Had to check in every few hours with the guy running the flight schedule, and stay close to the airstrip in case space became available last minute. This time, Maj. Bob walked up to the same flight logistics guy I’d dealt with, handed him something. The logistics guy’s eyes went wide, he made a quick call, and then did lots of nodding. Maj. Bob walked back to us, “We leave in an hour, let’s go grab some coffee.” 

What the fuck?

As we walked to the local Green Bean coffee shop, MSG Bob filled me in. Apparently they carry some letter, signed by some guy with stars in his rank. Maj. Bob handed me it; in flowery bureaucrat it essentially said “Give these guys whatever they ask for, treat anything they say like an order from me. You fuck with them, I will piss on your grave. Call this number to confirm. 🙂🦄”

Well that was new. I handed it back, and MSG Bob gave me some general explanation of what they did. Something to do with getting information from different sources across the various theaters, and trying to pull it all together. Lot of shrugging was involved. Then they told me they’d been at it pretty much non-stop for four years now. 

Back then conventional Army Soldiers like me did year long tours. Jarheads did six months at a time. We all hated the Air Force; one airman complained to me his 2-month deployment had been extended another 30 days. The Bobs had been in-country for four years straight. After the first couple of years they got to go back stateside for a few weeks, and lately they get back every 6-9 months for a week or two. Holy fucking shit. 

Look, I actually really enjoyed Afghanistan. For a lot of reasons. One of my big regrets was only going for one tour; though my unit kept trying to get back, the big green machine never sent us back, and then LRS essentially got replaced by drones. But I remember feeling like a zombie the last month I was there. I was so tired, it felt like all the sleep in the world would never be enough. 

~

A few weeks before our deployment ended, we were on some mission where I had to stop traffic on a busy street. I remember jumping out of the humvee, shouting in pashto, pointing my machine gun at some taxi driver who was taking his sweet time slowing down. As they always seemed to do, but then some invariably were car bombs, so I mentally established the point at which I would push my M249’s safety to the left, and walk rounds into the engine and driver. I was also scanning the rest of my sector, and telling my friends on either side what my intention was. 

By then, I’d done the same thing at least a hundred times. The first time there was a huge adrenaline dump. This time, like the last 50 or so, there was nothing. I didn’t even think about what I was doing. It was like I was a barely conscious entity watching myself do all of that from some birds-eye perspective. 

Maybe the taxi will stop. Maybe it won’t. Maybe I’ll shoot somebody. Maybe we’ll all die in a fiery explosion. Whatever. 

The taxi stopped. I didn’t care. Went back to scanning, and then yelling at the next possible threat. Just doing my job, completely on autopilot. 

~

No wonder the Bobs seemed like they didn’t give a shit. Four years of that? With no end in sight? Fuck. 

We flew out of Bagram, to some other small country in the region. It’d been a long day, so after chow we grabbed some bunks at the transient tents. Such housing was on every US base; giant open bay tents or buildings, maybe the size of a football field, lined with rows of basic canvas cots. First come, first serve. 

Before I laid down, I did what I always did. Opened the feed tray of my M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW); confirmed the status of the machine gun which lived with me. Made sure the linked bullets were secure in the sack attached to the bottom, and they were ready to be quickly loaded. Took a small paintbrush out of my kit, and dusted off the light sand which had accumulated all over. Then placed it next to my bunk so I could roll over and grab it, while looping the sling over my foot, so I’d feel if anyone tried to take it. Then I laid back, closed my eyes, and touched the SAW a few times, confirming I could get to it without looking. Next I touched the fixed blade knife strapped to my thigh a few times, and ensured that was ready as well. Breathed a few times, and was out.

The next morning, I got up, and did the whole thing in reverse. Knife. SAW. Confirm status. Clean. MSG Bob stared at me from the bunk next to me. “You do that every day?”. It was like he was asking me if the sky was blue. “Of course” I said. “All of us do. Our lives depend on these things.” He nodded; Maj. Bob was waking up and then started doing the same thing with his M4. I motioned towards him, and shrugged at MSG Bob, as to say “See? Duh.”

At this point, the Bobs had not said much to me. They talked to each other a little, but got on like an old married couple. They seemed to know what each other was thinking, and gestures generally sufficed. It was clear from their nonverbal communication that I was just along for the ride. Which suited me fine. I was Spec-4; way down on the rank ladder, and a member of a JVish special unit. I knew my place, and just wanted to get back to my friends.

But after that first night, things changed. MSG Bob explained: “Most don’t do that. They get over here, and they treat their weapon like a purse. Some thing they’re ordered to carry everywhere, a burden really. They forget what’s going on around them as they do their job. They look at you and yours like you’re some death worshiping psychos, treating your weapon like what it actually is. Someday things will go to shit, and they’ll remember. If they’re lucky.”

The Bobs opened up. I wasn’t on their level; nowhere near. But we walked the same path. 

We spent the next few days going to chow halls, getting on buses and planes, going to different small countries in the region. They said shit was going down which was preventing us from going straight to Kandahar, so we’d make a circuit of the bases with the best food while we waited for things to open up. We talked a lot. Normal stuff, not whatever they were doing. It was clear they had no desire to think anymore about work than they had to. So we had those long, deep discussions, which always come about when you have nothing else to do. Our families, our lives, the women in them. Philosophy. What the hell was going on in the world. 

The second night was when we started watching Roswell, and we watched every night after. It was actually pretty good. I didn’t consciously realize it, but that really opened up the world for me. Though I was in a LRS unit, we fell under the umbrella of the Infantry. Back then, such combat arms jobs were male only, and all the Infantry units were super into everything masculine. Lifted trucks, heavy metal, tattoos of skulls or whatever. And of course deriding the opposite.

My unit didn’t really go in for that; we cared about results, not wasting time on macho bullshit. Despite that, it still permeated our sub-culture. But the Bobs, who were like Jedi Knights to us Stormtroopers, ran completely counter to all that bullshit. They were giddy about some teen-chick show, and didn’t give a fuck because it was good. 

Looking back, this was a major turning point as I realized how stupid parts of my culture were, and how it was good to seek out things completely different which had value. There’s something to be said for being able to blend in with the mainstream. But being able to leave that bullshit behind with no remorse is crucial if you’re going to do what you want instead of what society is telling you should. 

As we hopped around the Middle East, the Bobs would comment about all the construction. “There’s another Chinese one” kept coming up, usually followed by a “Those fuckers are smart”. I had no idea what they were talking about. All I saw was some buildings being built. But the Bob’s explained; China was investing heavily in various infrastructure improvements and social support all over the region. They had been doing it quietly in the background for years, all part of a long term outlook. The Bob would comment about how we’d change strategic direction daily, while our friends to the east kept plugging along for decades. 

One night MSG Bob was off doing something, and me and Maj. Bob watched the sun set on another airstrip. I asked him how much longer he was planning on doing this. While I can’t remember the exact words, I’ll always remember the gist. 

He said he was done with being a pawn in somebody else’s money making scheme. When his contract was up, he was buying a tiki bar to run in the Keys. He then gave a concise explanation of the geopolitical and economic factors at play in this war we were in. It boiled down to this: there were some things we were currently doing which were helping to prevent future US attacks. I knew this; like many, I’d joined up after 9/11. Why I was there. But then Maj. Bob explained about how a big chunk of what we were doing was the downstream effect of lining the pockets of some people who were friends with our decision makers. 

Maj. Bob said he and his compadres had noticed the money making side of the war kept expanding at the expense of the actual mission. Maj. Bob then started pointing out all the various equipment and civilian contractors which were scattered about the twilight air strip. He listed who owned the companies which provided all that stuff and people. If it was anyone else telling me this, I would call bullshit and write it off as a conspiracy theory. But this was the guy’s job; go around, figure out how the pieces fit. Do things that aligned with the primary mission when they arise, suggest changes to the top to make shit better. 

Maj. Bob described how multiple people from similar consulting groups like his had figured out we could accomplish our mission with a much smaller footprint, and it would be more effective as it would get better buy in with the locals. 

They’d pitched it, and everyone at the top was in agreement. Definitely the way to go. But the direction was clear. Make this thing as big as we can. Keep building up. At first, no one could understand; as students of insurgency, they knew this would make everything difficult, and increase risk. But the order kept coming. As it was their job to put two and two together, it didn’t take long for the high level consultants like the Bobs to figure it out. Bigger costs more. They traced the budgets, and noticed who was getting paid. At this point, the Bobs realized they were pawns in this game.

Maj. Bob explained how they’d raged against this initially, but came to accept it as the cost of doing business. To get all of our leaders to agree to do what was necessary, compromises had to be made. Wheels needed to be greased. So it goes. Doesn’t make it any more fun to be a pawn, though. 

The cost of such extreme mission creep, aside from the dollar amount, was great. 

A bigger footprint means more troops on the ground. Which means more troops exposed to the enemy. The enemy gets more support from the locals, because no one likes to be occupied, and the occupation becomes more apparent when more soldiers are around. So the attacks increase, and more people die. Maj. Bob was explaining this, and I couldn’t help but think of the 4 guys we’d lost a few months prior. Writing this now, I think of other friends lost in the 20 years of war. Did they have to die? How many deaths were downstream of strategic choices which were at least somewhat influenced by monetary motivations? I have no idea.

It took awhile for all of this to sink in. It’s hard not to roll your eyes when someone says “military-industrial complex”; I’m usually waiting for the tin foil hats to come out once that gets dropped. But it’s interesting to remember that the guy who coined the term was not only one of our Presidents, but also the dude who ran World War Two. Earlier, some Jarhead aptly wrote “War is a Racket”. He wrote that after fighting in five separate wars, and earning two Medals of Honor. Maybe they have a point. 

Before talking to the Bobs, I was a true believer. Ready to give my life to the cause. Afterward, I became more circumspect. I think we were somewhat doing what was kind of necessary, but there were a lot more factors in play than I originally thought. While I still believed, I also acknowledged my motivations were more mercenary than alturistic. I’ll do the thing if I think it’s either net good or at least net neutral, but I better be getting paid. Each time I reenlisted, I made sure I got mine, but also knew I was rolling the dice partially so someone else could make way more than I’d ever see. 

Hanging with the Bobs was enlightening. And we had some fun along the way. But in the end, our final destination was the nail in the coffin for any trust I had in the system. After almost a week, it became clear that even with special orders all the way from the top, the Bobs couldn’t get me to Kandahar. With all of their resources and experience, the bureaucracy was too deep, and they had to drop me off back in Kabul. No one was getting into Kandhar. Not because of some major shit going down; the logistics people were tied up like spaghetti and nothing could penetrate the bullshit. At least I got an all expenses paid tour of half a dozen countries, and got to watch lots of Roswell. Got to get what you can.

We parted ways, and I waited around Kabul for a few more days with my unit. Another unit had a supply convoy going to Kandahar, so I tagged along. I rejoined my squad and went to work. No idea what happened to the Bobs, but I hope they made it out of that 20 year mess alive. 

Postscript, now. 

I say all of this in the midst of a super special time of American history, which may end up being like all the other totally unique times which were the magical snowflakes of their days. 

Once again, half my friends think it’s Armageddon, and the other half think we’re all set to pave the roads with chocolate covered blowjobs. Either side could be right. This party has to end sometime; entropy, heat death, whatnot. But maybe not.

As a reformed true believer, you’ll have a hard time convincing me any initiative will pan out as planned. And if you think things are fucked, I will agree with you. But I will remind you that things….have always been fucked. Yes, things generally improve, but it’s a bumpy road which invariably leaves some dying on the side of it. 

I just hope Maj. Bob got his tiki bar. Who knows, maybe you’ll get to carve out your own.