My First Afghan War

My first Afghan war was twenty-five years ago. I was on a ship of war, orbiting off the coast of Iran , preparing to do something rash to militant Islamic militants. We had the huge helicopters onboard our ship that later flew to disaster at DESERT ONE.

In the midst of the Tehran Hostage Crisis the Russians decided to finish the Great Game. The Brits had dropped out of the struggle long ago, exhausted by the Great War and the madness that cost that sceptered isle a generation of young men. Then, after the last magnificent flowering of Their Finest Hour, Mountbatten was sent out as the last Viceroy to turn the Raj into Pakistan and India .

The Russians had always coveted Afghanistan as step in their march to the warm waters of the Gulf. The northern lines of communication were blocked by ice much of the year. To the south was unrestricted access to the world ocean, and oil. More oil than anyone could dream of. Warm water ports where a great Red Fleet could sortie out on the bounding waves and challenge the Americans.

I reported the deployment of a Soviet airborne battalion to Bagram airfield to our Admiral in September. We were in the South China Sea , doing something else. But September was a hell of a month. The Shah of Iran came to America for medical treatment. The Afghan warlord Taraki visited Breznev, who advised him to take out Prime Minister Amin. Amin, in turn, found out about the conversation and had Taraki executed, along with anyone else who opposed him.

The Russians did not like what was going on in their back yard and took down their war plans. They deployed more troops to the border. We were in the Indian Ocean on the 4 th of November, headed south, when the Iranians seized the embassy in Tehran. After some vacillation in Washington, we were finally ordered to appear off the coast of Iran in the middle of November, and there we sat as the Warsaw Pact went to advanced readiness.

Soviet Special Forces- the Spetzialnaya Naznachinya- were flown into Afghanistan in early December, and we tracked it all on our charts and maps. This motorized rifle brigade here, another there. On the 12th the Politburo decided to invade. They went in on Christmas Day.

I know that because I was working, just like the Godless commies. There isn't anything else to do out there, except eat. And sleep.

The planning for rescue of the hostages was extremely sensitive, done behind the curtains that hung from tracks on the ceiling. We used them for special mission planning, hush-hush stuff. If you were not directly involved, there was little else to occupy the time.

So we became passive players in the Russian war. We plotted troop movements on charts and learned the place names. Masar e-Sharif was one, a gateway city straddling the lines of communication to Kabul and the slightly less hostile terrain of the southwest. We knew Herat and Jalalabad and Bagram Airbase and its helicopters and jets.

We read Mitchner's marvelous book Caravans as we followed the progress of the motorized rifle divisions down the valleys.

The Russians consolidated their positions and pounded the Islamic fighters for a decade. We rooted for the gallant Mujahadeen, and we gave them rockets. We dreamed of what it would be like to assault the roof of the world.

And now we know.

Copyright 2004 Vic Socotra