Casualties of war

An incident of the drone war gone horribly wrong in Afghanistan: Anatomy of an Afghan war tragedy. It is worth it to flip through the slide show but there is much more detail in the article that follows it. 


These are some of the relevant facts:

1. The story is based on hundreds of pages of previously unreleased military documents, including transcripts of cockpit and radio conversations obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the results of two Pentagon investigations and interviews with the officers involved as well as Afghans who were on the ground that day. 
2. This incident happened on a cold morning of Feb 21, 2010. Meaning, this was after we have been there for close to 9 years. We still cannot distinguish between insurgents and harmless folk with women and children among them and no identifiable weapons. 
3. "We all had it in our head, 'Hey, why do you have 20 military age males at 5 a.m. collecting each other?' " an Army officer involved in the incident would say later. "There can be only one reason, and that's because we've put [U.S. troops] in the area." In a hair-trigger environment, critical life and death decisions can be made based on such flimsy premises. 
4. Cell phone chatter was intercepted and they suspected a high-level Taliban Commander was nearby. But neither the identities of those talking nor (more importantly) their precise location was known. But that's all it took for them to conclude that these folks were insurgents. 
5. By the U.S. count, 15 or 16 men were killed and 12 people were wounded, including a woman and three children. Elders from the Afghans' home villages said in interviews that 23 had been killed, including two boys, Daoud, 3, and Murtaza, 4. Regardless of who got the figures right, it is horrible and preventable tragedy.
6. McChrystal issued letters of reprimand to four senior and two junior officers in Afghanistan. The Air Force said the Predator crew was also disciplined, but it did not specify the punishment. No one faced court-martial, the Pentagon said.
7. Several weeks after the attack, American officers travelled to the villages to apologize to survivors and the victims' families. They gave each survivor 140,000 afghanis, or about $2,900. Families of the dead received $4,800.

If there's a silver lining, it is only the fact that we can get hold of this information through the FOIA. Awareness helps us understand what we are up against. The military has taken steps to address the problems that caused this tragedy. When two cultures, vastly different from each other, are forced to co-exist in a violent environment such mistakes are inevitable. But a  justifiable war at one stage is turning slowly but surely into a catastrophy. 

All roads lead to Dad

In my childhood, I always turned to my Mom for emotional solace.  Mom's have that comforting aura around them that you can't find in anyone else. You can always go to Mom to explain away your worries, your pains, your distress. Unless of course, she was the cause of the pain and distress which was quite often in my case, since she'd be the de facto punisher for any indiscretion on my part. Even then I'd go to my Mom.

I remember one incident during 1st grade when I was eying this fruity ice on a stick (pop on a stick, don't call it popsicle since its trademarked by Unilever!) sold by a street vendor right outside our school. He had all kinds-orange, grape, cherry, peach. But, Mom had forbidden us from even having ideas about it. She'd warned us that its not hygienic. And she always ends all such warnings with 'It'll give you the common cold'. Anything cold can give us the common cold in my Mom's handbook. My elder sister (by just a year and I never seriously counted it against me) went to that school. My big bro must've been in some other school because he was blame free on this one! Naturally I got hold of some money and enjoyed a delicious grape pop. We come home and my sis rats me out. Mom asks me. I say 'No! What is she talking about??'. Mom's clever: 'Open your mouth and stick your tongue out'. Uh oh.. How do I explain this purple tongue? Mom brings out the tongs from the kitchen. 'Stick your hand out, knuckles on top'. I get whacked. Bruised and bloodied (mostly emotionally) I am balling my eyes out. And I go straight to my Mom for solace! She massages my hand, kisses my tears away and she's my Best Friend!

But my Dad was the Rock. He will shower you with love but you'll never see him distressed. He won't show emotion. When he does show it, and only on extremely rare occasions, it is anger and it is a sight to see. Well, actually, its a sight I hoped I would never see because it was scary! But very very rare. I've never seen him cry in my life. Never. I was told that he cried once but I didn't see it. This was 1992. I had my tickets to the USA. I was going to grad-school with a scholarship! I was going to fly 10,000 miles away to Boston and then to Durham, New Hampshire.  I'd never spent any time in a dorm. Always went to School and College from Home. Don't know how to cook. Don't know how to wake up in the morning by myself. Don't know when to eat, when to sleep, when to shower. It was mostly Mom keeping me on track on all of these things. I'd been on one flight and it was to a town called Trichy about 300km (~200 miles) from Chennai where we lived.  On a twin-propeller small plane. We took off and the stewardess gave us kids, chocolates and then it was time to land! This was the mother of all trips for me. So, I say my final goodbyes and my Mom's crying, my sister's crying (this was a pleasant surprise!), even my big bro looks emotional. I look at my Dad. Of course, he's not crying. He's wishing me good luck and I feel his emotional strength flow into me. I am not gonna cry. I feel a sense of calm in me. I take off. My family is preparing to leave the airport after waiting a very long time to symbolically wave goodbye at the plane as it successfully takes off. And they can't find my Dad. They locate him in a corner in a chair and he is crying and shaking with tears. He is crying like a baby. They are shocked! This man, who is never out of control, is as vulnerable as a child. It takes a long while to calm him down. I am emotionally touched whenever I remember this story. I know I have been truly loved by someone special.

Perhaps I've inherited this quality of controlling-your-emotions from my Dad. I know I've inherited a ton of other things from him including his anger. Sandy says 'I never see you crying'. Except once.. We are on vacation in South Carolina. The wife and I are driving somewhere and I get a call from my sister. I barely say hello when she blurts out: 'Where have you been? We've all been trying to reach you. It's all over. He's gone! Just like that. Can't even say Goodbye'.

I didn't cry right away. Nobody cries immediately after hearing bad news. You digest it, you get tense. You think things, as you know them, are changing and are out of your control. You calm yourself down. It's not the end of the world. You digest it. You get tense. Rinse. Repeat. We interrupt our vacation and start driving back and I am sitting in the back of the van.

Then the memories come. Before you know it, you're balling.

When my Dad is finally sent into the furnace, my sister's balling. My brother, standing right next to me, suddenly and explosively breaks out. Scares the bejesus out of me. And I am just staring. I am thinking, this is silly.. Why cry now as if this is some final ending. He's been gone for several days. What we've been seeing since is a rock literally. It's been prepped up sure by the fine folks at a funeral home.. But he was never this dark. Never had this expression. This is not my Dad. My Dad is gone already. This final moment when we won't see this rock anymore is nothing special. Then, I feel like the relatives are looking at me odd. Like they're judging me. What's really happening is I am judging myself. And I feel guilty that this is what I should be thinking of at this moment. How I should react to this moment. I force myself to think of something else. STOP THINKING!  My cousin Karthi, who is like a best friend, is by my side anticipating that I'll break out any moment. It's over. We're waiting outside for the ashes. The cremation takes some time and the ashes have to cool down. Then they can be collected. My brother and I have to pick out the pieces. Another excruciating experience to look forward to. We're planning to scatter a sampling of the ashes in the sea. I walk away from everyone. My cousin wants to come along but my Uncle stops him. I sit on a platform under a tree by myself. It's a hot day. It's always hot in Chennai! But I am under a nice shaded tree. There's nothing else to do but wait.

Then the memories come. Before you know it, you're balling.

I believe crying is an emotional outlet when you have cherished memories and know that you'll never again experience them in real life as that participant. But what you can hope for is creating similar memories with your family as a different participant. You're not the child looking up at your Dad. You're the Dad looking down on your child.