Lt. Col. Chris Lozano, USMC

Operation Enduring Freedom
Travelogue

These are Chris Lozano's travelogues for Operation Enduring Freedom. Chris was deployed on September 16, 2001, the Sunday after 9/11.

Travelogue 3

My editor... I mean my wife, says I strayed too far last time from telling you about what goes on here on a daily basis. So, this time I'm going to include more of a narrative and put three new short stories at the end. Thank you to everyone for your love and prayers and packages. I've also enjoyed immensely the e-mails a lot and look forward to hearing from you all in the future.

Since the last travelogue I've had some pretty big changes professionally. I am no longer in charge of daily countermine operations. This means that I am not traipsing around minefields on a regular basis. Now I'm a barrel-chested staff weenie. Through a series of events that don't bear repeating I ran headlong into "Big Army" and rather than getting fired was promoted. I am now working for TF Mountain, the higher headquarters here at Bagram. In this job I oversee not only countermine operations but all engineer operations in Afghanistan as well as participate in planning of combat missions. The trip is getting longer and stranger as days go by.

TF Mountain is the nerve center of the war in Afghanistan. It is from this collection of tents that the battle is planned and carried out. Step inside and you find a beehive of activity, desks jammed together, phones and radios ringing, people talking over one another and orchestrated chaos. In the front of the tent large flat screens project images from our reconnaissance aircraft as well as maps and other information. The equipment may change but the feel of an operations center will always remain energized.

The "office" is a windowless room in an old Soviet hangar. The walls are covered with peeling institutional green paint and smells of mold. Whenever it rains the place gets 2 inches of water on the ground and we have to cover our things with plastic because of the dripping from the ceiling. My "desk" is made of plywood and 2 x 4's and nailed together.

There are a dozen of us squeezed into a windowless space no more than 15' x 8'. The plywood partitions are covered with maps, clocks and other classified information, interspersed with pictures of loved ones and drawings from children. A single light bulb hangs from the ceiling. The glow of computer screens adds an eerie feel.

In an even darker back room we have supplies and our weapons and combat gear strewn about. The primary form of entertainment is a driving range somebody made by hanging a tarp from the ceiling. From this very room the Bagram Open is being played, complete with a leader board scrawled in chalk on the wall.

With the new job I moved out of the "Marine tent" to be closer to my new job. After a brief stay with some secret squirrel guys I moved in with the Norwegians because they had been offering for me to do this for some time. They've adopted me and have made me an honorary Viking. This doesn't mean I get to "burn and plunder" or sail around in a long ship but I do get to drink some really good coffee.

Camp life has evolved dramatically since Operation Anaconda. Gone is the roar of 24 hour combat ops replaced by lots of joggers and construction. The camp is slowly evolving from an expeditionary camp to a long-term base of operations. . The A-10 fighter pilots are prima donnas. Of course they have put an end to such fun as: dashing across the runway unannounced and ammo strewn everywhere around the runway. They also have demanded nicer tents and air conditioning and complain a lot about everything.

In spite of this the place is still very rugged and even when it rains it still manages to be dusty and muddy at the same time. Go figure.

You probably heard about the injury of one of the Norwegian soldiers. He was injured while probing for a mine. I was at the field hospital talking to one of the Norwegian officers when the doctor came out and handed us a garbage bag filled with Torbjorn's bloody and tattered clothes. In the bag was his brand new wedding ring, which had to be cut off his hand. Watching him carried out on a stretcher, his body covered in bloody bandages, was very difficult. I've written a story about the incident which I'll include in a later travelogue.

Then only a couple of weeks later I saw one of my friends go through a terrible ordeal. Four of his soldiers were killed in Kandahar by a booby-trap while clearing a cache of rockets. He knew them all, young men in their 20s. By far the hardest thing about being here has been all the deaths and injuries.

On a lighter note I've watched with intense amusement as the Army has spent an enormous amount of time, money and manpower to build a 1 story command center smack in the middle of a cavernous old Soviet airplane hanger; while simultaneously working furiously to build a hangar for the helicopters that have no place to be worked on.

It's springtime here and the ground is covered with beautiful flowers everywhere including in barb-wire, minefields and building ruins. The weather is still cool and either bright and sunny or cloudy and stormy.

The Norwegian camp is directly in back of the detainee facility. The facility is in a building that looks abandoned on the outside and is surrounded by coils of barbed wire. As I walked to the Norwegian camp yesterday there were a bunch of detainees in blue jump suits and shackles outdoors guarded by soldiers. I stared at these sub-humans and as I stared I made eye contact with one of them. He glared at me menacingly and I did the only mature thing I could think of...I made a face at him.

I hear I'm coming home in July but that seems years away. Time has passed quickly I guess because I've been so busy but being away from home since September has been the hardest thing I've ever done. Nancy and the kids are doing well under the circumstances but it's hard on Nancy being the mom and dad and dealing with the minutiae of child-rearing with nobody to pass it onto when it's too hard to deal with. Being a military family takes a special family and particularly a special spouse, which I've been blessed with.

David's knee surgery went well and he's recovering nicely and is looking forward to football. Andy went out for track and is now throwing shot/discus for the varsity. Eric has started baseball and is on a hot streak with the bat. Ali and Sophie are taking skating lessons and promise to skate rings around me when I get home. Sophie has already asked me if she can have a boy/girl birthday party NEXT year and Ali had a boy give her a plastic ring from a gum machine (grrrrrrrrr). Alex is Alex, wears a camouflaged t-shirt and asks when I'm coming home every day. Nancy would love to have me home, if for no other reason than to kill me because I signed Eric up for two baseball teams and the girls for skating lessons when I wasn't going to be home :)

Let me wrap up with some lessons I've learned since I've been here:

* Socks have no saturation point when it comes to how badly they can smell
* Wet wipes are a butt's best friend
* Americans are extraordinarily generous and indifferent at the same time
* It's okay to fart in public during war
* If the cook says "I don't know" when you ask him what it is, don't eat it
* If you don't have a flashlight you will always step in the mud
* If you have a flashlight you will forget it when you need it
* Meals Ready to Eat, aren't
* If the young men and women I've met here are any indication, this generation has a bright future

"Ahnold" Comes to Afghanistan

A cool evening breeze blew through the Norwegian camp. There was a noticeable sense of relief that the accident investigation team had just departed. The mine accident that had left one of their comrades gravely wounded had taken its toll on them emotionally and the ensuing investigation gave them further reason to worry. "So, Lozano, do you want to watch a movie?" said Ole, their sharpshooter. "Sure" I responded, not having seen a movie in two months.

"What are you going to watch?" I inquired, though I would've watched Bart Conner in Gymkata if it had been on. "Terminator 2" came the response. Time stood still. I nearly hyperventilated because this was one of my favorite movies of all-time from one of my favorite action heroes of all time "Ahnold". We quickly agreed on a time to watch it and I went back to my tent to change out of uniform. I quickly changed and jogged back.

The Norwegian camp itself is situated just off the airfield and consists of a series of tents and milvans. However, in the back squeezed between some wire is a single small building made of stone. Abandoned and filled with junk when they arrived they had turned it into a combination storage shed, weight room and toilet.

I brushed back the canvas "door" and entered a dimly lit room. Squeezing past the weight bench and boxes of water bottles I heard laughter ahead. As I pushed back a second canvas divider I was greeted by the most curious sight, a HDTV and DVD player playing T2. I plopped myself down on a cot and leaned back. Soon I felt a tap on my leg "Lozano, would you like some Pringles?" asked Eiven in his boyish voice. "Sure" I said, grabbing the can without thinking about it. I shook some out and ate them even though I can't stand the green onion version. "Lozano, would you like a Coke?" It was Eiven again and I nodded my head even though I don't like regular Coke. He returned and handed me a can of Coke, apologizing that it was warm. I gulped it down, the fizz building an uncomfortable knot in my stomach.

I leaned back and immersed myself happily in the movie, particularly enjoying watching the reaction from the Norwegians to this American action classic. These young soldiers laughed hard, nudged one another and chattered away in Norwegian as they passed snacks and drinks around. The appeal of a good-guy action figure like Arnold is universal. Then, as the bad terminator drove his tractor-trailer over a bridge and it continued to run everyone roared with laughter. "Good American construction!" they joked. As the movie wound down some of the soldiers quietly collected their things and went to bed, tired from a long day in the minefields.

When it was over we exchanged small talk about Arnold, his movies and over the top characters and we straightened up the room. As the lights were turned out we filed out of the building into the night. The sky was bright with the outline of clouds lit against the stars. The air was filled with the pungent smell of JP8 and the roar of Chinook helicopters, moving troops in and out of combat operations. Fork-lifts scurried in the dark moving pallets of goods and munitions with a sense of purpose.

Quietly we walked the short distance to the tents. As I pulled my flashlight out of my pocket Jorn spoke up "It does seem strange doesn't it? That here we are watching a movie about war, while we're far from home, ourselves at war". The irony of his comment was obvious and we chuckled. But, as I walked back to my tent I was quietly grateful that for these few hours I could sit eating Pringles, drinking warm Coke and watch "Ahnold", while sitting in an abandoned building in Afghanistan...and briefly feel normal.

Damn This Place

It was a day just like all the other days here in Bagram. After rising and getting dressed I ate chow, grabbed my pack and headed to the Norwegian camp. Today we were getting a class from Explosive Ordnance Disposal on unexploded ordnance in Bagram. I was particularly looking forward to this class because we'd be blowing some things up at the end. Engineers, after all, love to blow stuff up and the more explosives the better.

We arrived at the "demo pit", a place open only to the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) and combat engineers, our "sandbox" if you will. There at my feet was a dizzying array of bombs, mortars, rockets, missiles, grenades and things that didn't have names. I listened intently to the soldier's instructions on each item and what was safe to handle and what wasn't. As the class ended the Norwegian vehicles were loaded up with items to be blown up. We moved to the "pit", a place between two earthen berms where controlled demolitions took place. Like every demo pit I've been to it was devoid of vegetation and strewn with scrap. A light wind whistled through the berms and the sun shown brightly down on the barren ground.

Then, methodically and with great deliberation we unloaded the munitions and explosives. The stacks grew higher and more ominous. With a "snap" of a Leatherman, the soldier broke open the cases of C4 explosives that would turn these deadly munitions into harmless scrap. As the pieces of C4 piled up I turned and walked from the pit. After all, this was the Norwegians training time and I had to be careful not to intrude on it. So, I grabbed my camera in search of something interesting to photograph.

The glimmer of green between two berms caught my eye. My first thought was an obvious one for anyone who has ever been on a military range. "There's the range flag" I said to myself, pleased that even in war we adhered to good military principles of safety. But the flag seemed out of place, after all they are usually prominently displayed at the entrance to a range, and this was in a low spot between two dirt berms. So, I walked closer to inspect, now annoyed that my initial pride might have been misplaced.

I walked around the Hummer and stopped abruptly. There at my feet was not a range marker at all but a grave where only a few years ago a MiG jet had sat and now soldiers blew things up. Neat and carefully attended this was the grave of somebody who had been loved. It was oddly out of place, but in Afghanistan the odd is commonplace.

"That's the grave of a child" came a voice from behind me. It was one of the Norwegians. I had not seen him come up behind me and I turned quickly. "He stepped on a landmine crossing this field. His family buried him right here". Then just as abruptly he turned and walked away.

Now, this little grave was neither odd nor common, it was wrong. This was not the body of a warrior who died gloriously in battle. This was the body of a beautiful and innocent child of God, undeserving of such a brutal and violent death. "Sir, we're ready for the demolitions we need to get to the bunker". I picked up my pack and headed for the vehicle, the sting of tears behind my sunglasses. "Damn this place" I muttered.

God Hates Vegetables?

It was late afternoon Holy Saturday and I was looking forward to attending Easter Vigil with the Polish engineers who had their own Catholic chaplain. It had been a stressful month and the pace of countermine operations had left me drained physically and emotionally.

As I stepped onto the main road in camp I was met by a military policeman. "Sorry sir we're directing all traffic onto the side path", a path that runs parallel to the main road. Without much thought I jumped onto the dirt path and quickly made my way to the chapel tent about a half mile away.

In all my years in the Marines I've always enjoyed the paradox of warriors praying, like the Centurion in the bible. This is never so evident as a church service in the field; soldier's heads bowed deep in thought, rifles slung over their backs.

This mass was just a little more out of place because it was presided over by the Polish chaplain, who didn't speak a word of English. Behind him a large American flag hung decidedly out of place in back of the crucifix. It was about to get stranger.

Though I was the only American, the Poles had been kind enough to try and read the scripture readings in English as well as Polish.

"...and Gawd cast de carrots into da sea"."Carrots? God hates carrots?" I said to myself with confusion, my catechism suddenly thrown into chaos. I know I don't always pay attention during mass but in 42 years I had never picked up on the fact that God dislikes vegetables.

"...and de carrots and carroteers drowned in da sea". This statement sent me flipping through the missilette furiously. "Carrots..carrots..carrots" my finger ran down the reading. "And God cast the chariots into the sea". "Whew!", I sighed, relieved that God did not in fact hate vegetables, much to the disappointment of many small children.

I had just bowed my head and settled back into deep prayer when a flash jolted my head upright. "What the heck was that?" I thought. A second flash directed my head to my right. There several of the Poles stood taking photos, the priest smiling for the camera.

It was in fact, bizarre. A Polish priest robed in camouflaged vestments, saying mass in a tent, standing in front of an American flag, posing for pictures as God casts carrots into the sea. Now tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor.

Take care and God Bless. Thank you for the prayers and support and encouragement. Keep the e-mails coming and I promise to answer each one.

- Maj. Charles C. "Chris" Lozano
April 22, 2002