Carrot and Stick

A wayward Afghan village is wooed with gifts and a show of force. But there is still resistance.

GUYAN,

Afghanistan - First Lieutenant William Mariani tends to lead like someone working a yo-yo, rather than an officer who spent four and a half years at West Point.

With his men of the 10th Mountain Division's First Platoon, he is constantly rolling it down, then reeling it back up — joking, keeping them relaxed, then pulling the cord taut again when circumstances require.

As we head outside the wire of Forward Operating Base Tillman in eastern Afghanistan, at 6:30 a.m., he is chatty and pumped for the mission.

"O'Brien," he tells his driver, "Don't get stuck today or you'll never see your wife again."

"Don't threaten me with a good time sir," the driver, Pfc. John O'Brien, shoots back.

It's this kind of banter that will characterize the two-hour drive on perilous, barely existent roads, threading multi-ton humvees with nine-foot wheel bases through the needle of sharp-rock canyons, sheep trails and nearly dry riverbeds.

Today Mariani and his platoon are pulling security for a mission to Guyan, a lawless village near the Pakistani border. The soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division's 2nd Battalion, 87 Infantry, are tasked with bringing the village back on line — hopefully with carrots, but also with sticks, if necessary.

There are fifteen vehicles, 49 soldiers, four translators and 20 Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers when the convoy leaves the compound. In the early morning light, the mountainous countryside has a crisp, hard-edged beauty that is still largely untouched by the modern world.

A child in the Afghan village of Guyan

But for those who live here, it is a life of attrition. Years of manual labor to provide even the most basic of life's necessities can turn people's faces here as deeply creviced and dusty-colored as the landscape. And the work begins early. We pass children leading a donkey laden with water jugs just filled from an icy stream.

The convoy moves slowly. Constant radio chatter blends with the chatter in our vehicle. We are far ahead of the rest and are told to stop momentarily.

O'Brien asks Mariani for permission to get out and pee. But when he tries to, the radio comes back to life and Mariani orders him back into the humvee before he can go. This happens several more times— to everyone's amusement but O'Brien's.

When we finally reach Guyan, Mariani looks at an open area at the head of the village market. He decides this will be the distribution point for humanitarian assistance items that will be airdropped from a C-130 (for some dramatic effect) later in the morning.

"We'll get the ANP (Afghan National Police) to hand out the stuff," Mariani says, "to put an Afghan face on it. We want them to be out front on all this."

The convoy rolls through the marketplace and into an Afghan National Army Base on a bluff overlooking the city. The base is ringed with large Hesco barriers (flexible wire containers filled with rock and sand) and topped with concertina wire.

Inside, Lt. Col. Chris Toner, commander of the 10th Mountain Division's 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry, and Capt. Chris Nunn, commander of Alpha Company based in the region, prepare to meet with local village elders as well as their counterparts in the Afghan military and police.

Meeting in Guyan

In groups of twos and threes, grizzled men in large turbans and senior military officers in crisp green uniforms and berets gather in the courtyard of the base, seating themselves cross-legged in an expanding circle on the ground. Pitchers of hot tea are served in small, clear glasses. As much as a handful of sugar is placed in each before pouring.

"What we're going to offer them," says Toner, "is an entire package. We will provide the funds for a new government center, a police station, cobblestone roads and solar lights."

The idea, Toner says, is to provide an infrastructure which helps with not only physical improvements in the quality of life for people here, but also helps to create a psychological barrier against Taliban insurgents infiltrating from Pakistan.

"The more people feel the Afghan national government is here for them," he says, "the less likely they'll be to let the insurgents back in."

He says this is backed by success stories of using the same formula in other eastern border villages.

"And we're not asking anything from them in return," he says, "only to help us and the ANA to secure the area."

The money, he says, comes from a

Pentagon program called CERP ("Commander's Emergency Relief Program"), being used both in

Iraq and Afghanistan. Under the program, regional U.S. military commanders have access to funds that can help in the process of community building.

Meanwhile, Mariani is coordinating with a Civil Affairs officer, Capt. Paul Lohmann, to get the Afghan police and military to help recover the air-dropped supplies and also to help with distribution.

When the C-130 appears overhead, two large containers are pushed out the tail and float to the ground on green parachutes. One hits the targeted landing zone but another ends up in a gulch about 300 meters away.

Retreiving an errant aid drop

The first container is broken down and loaded into one of the Afghan police pickup trucks. It contains blankets, bags of rice and flour, toiletries and — strangely enough — dozens of pairs of white women's pumps.

More police officers head into the gulch to retrieve the other container, breaking it down as well, then hauling the items out on their backs like pack mules.

The whole process has delayed the distribution by about an hour. The open area at the mouth of the marketplace now has filled with eager villagers hoping for some of the bounty that has just fallen from the sky.

Also included in the airdrop are medical supplies, which the army medics use to treat dozens of locals lining up for care.

One boy is diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, which can be easily cured with antibiotics provided by the medics, but is painful with potentially serious complications if left untreated.

Mohammed Gul, 65, says his knees are bad and he can barely see. He had his grandson Akram lead him here, hoping to get help from the Americans.

"We're glad they are here," he says. "They bring more security and this kind of help."

I ask the other men waiting in line if they would take the same kind of help if it came from the Taliban. They all laugh in a knowing way.

"We like the Americans," one of the other men, Pir Gul, says with a sly smile.

Each person comes forward to receive items that arrived in the airdrop: a bag of flour, a carton of tea, a plastic tarp, blankets, bags of coal — or even a pair of white pumps. Regardless of what is put in their hands they seem to leave smiling.

Lohmann, the civil affairs officer, draws a line with a black marker on the right hand of each person who has received aid, to prevent them from getting back in line for more.

Nearby, Sgt. Jeremy Robertson, platoon sergeant for Mariani's team, organizes security around the perimeter to keep a growing army of children at bay.

The soldiers give them candy. But the children, more than anything else beg, plead and demand pens from the soldiers.

Ahmad Shah, who teaches math and English in the village school, looks on knowingly. School supplies here are as rare as hot fudge sundaes.

"They are so poor," he says. "They have nothing."

After the distribution has been going on for about an hour, Mariani gets a call on the radio. He tells the civil affairs captain that they have to cut the distribution short.

His platoon needs to secure a humvee that was hit by an improvised explosive device (IED), while leaving the village. Only the driver was slightly hurt, with a cut on the bridge of his nose.

Troops respond to a roadside attack

"The whole vehicle heaved into the air," says Lt. Col. Eric McGraw, who was riding in the passenger seat at the time. "It was like a roller coaster. My head hit the roof of the humvee but I was wearing my Kevlar. The explosion still knocked me out for a few seconds."

At the location of the attack, First Platoon inspects the stricken humvee, which apparently was disabled with a bomb made from a 107mm rocket. It was command detonated, meaning someone exploded the device manually. In this case, ANA soldiers detained a man who looked suspicious on the ridgeline, starting to walk away just after the incident.

Mariani's team baby-sits the humvee for two hours until it's decided that the ANA will guard it until arrangements can be made to have it airlifted out by a Chinook helicopter the next day.

As they drive back to their base in the dark, the mood is a bit more somber. It's unsaid, but there is a feeling that they've just been slapped — possibly by the same people they were trying to help. If nothing else, it reinforces the notion that the mission of taming Guyan will take more than an afternoon of medical aid and household handouts.

Is it time for the stick, I ask, in Guyan's case?

"Not yet," Toner tells me later. "We have to give them something first. We have to move ahead with the program then we can demand accountability after we've followed through on our promises."

The next day, Mariani seems unfazed by it all, seeming to keep in perspective the incremental nature of his own impact here.

"I'm not here to change their way of life," he says. "They have their own culture and you have to respect that. Some people back home might think they are ass backwards. I don't agree with that. This country has been at war for thirty years. We're here to do what we can to help."

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