Meanwhile, Mosher called in air support. The A-10 jets arrived as Mosher saw an armored SUV with blacked-out bulletproof windows pull up in front of the convoy. Mosher went to meet the vehicle. Out of it stepped Dostum.
Mosher describes the notorious strongman as a large, bloated figure dressed in a Western-style suit, sporting a thick moustache. When Mosher attempted to engage the general in introductory conversation, the man drunkenly roared "Me Dostum!" and shoved away Mosher's interpreter. As the two groups of soldiers stared at one another across gun barrels, the general ripped a cell phone out of his pocket and called President Karzai, screaming into the phone.
"A guy like Dostum has seen the Russians come and go, the Mujahedin come and go, and the Taliban come and go," Mosher says. "A guy like him really doesn't mind rolling the dice every now and then. I think he wanted to let Karzai know he had us if he wanted us."
Within moments of finishing the conversation with Karzai, Dostum would exclaim to Mosher that he wasn't "afraid of American planes."
"All the while, he kept looking up at the A-10s circling overhead," Mosher remembers.
Like a summer cloudburst, the moment passed. Dostum hung up the phone. Reeking of liquor, he embraced Mosher in a bear hug.
"We are both soldiers," the general told Mosher, glancing up at the planes. "Let us not have troubles like this." He ordered his troops to part and allow Mosher's unit through. As if the confrontation had never happened, Dostum's men waved and cheered at the convoy passing them.
Basic Training
The ANA started in December 2001 as a group of "volunteers" more or less donated by various warlords. The First Kandak consisted of about 400 soldiers trained in an ad hoc fashion by U.S. Special Forces. That kandak suffered an attrition rate of 50 percent in the first month as the soldiers grew tired of full-time military life and returned to their villages. Similar attrition rates continued through the first two years of the ANA's existence, although they dropped steadily as equipment, uniforms, facilities, and pay improved.
Training came under the 45th Mountain Division, then was transferred to National Guard units by late 2003. A private's pay rose from about $40 a month to better than $70 a month, still a low figure but considered a living wage for an Afghan. Perhaps just as important, that rate is sustainable for Afghanistan's third-world economy. By the time 15 kandaks had been formed, completing the army's Central Corps, the desertion rate had dropped to less than 2 percent a month. Such a rate is still considered high for a Western power but is acceptable in Afghan terms, said Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino, the commander of the 45th Infantry Brigade. The 45th, a.k.a. the Thunderbirds, inherited the Afghan Army training initiative in November 2003.
"In the early formation of the army, there was an issue of a high loss rate," Mancino reports. "I don't like to use the word desertion, because to the Afghan that means you leave under fire. They have a unique term. They refer to them as 'escapees.'"
These "escapees" leave their kandaks for up to a month sometimes, taking their pay home to their families. Because the banking system is all but nonexistent in Afghanistan, the soldiers are paid in cash. Some travel for days or even weeks to their families to pay for rent, food, etc. Then one day, the soldiers return to their kandaks fully expecting to be welcomed back into the ranks, fully intending to continue their work as soldiers. Except for those who are gone more than a month, most are taken back.
"Once they get to the unit, they are well fed, well equipped, and well trained," Mancino said. "Attrition is down. If you look at the loss rate in basic training, it's less than what you'd find in American basic training."
Equipment and weapons are mostly donated Eastern Bloc items -- old AK-47s from the former East Germany, light artillery from the Czech Republic, mortars from Poland, communications equipment from Romania. These items are not only already familiar to Afghans but more easily sustainable in the long run than high-tech, expensive military equipment produced by the West.
Afghan uniforms are American battle dress uniforms. The boots at first were made locally, and they fell apart within a couple of months, a matter of some consternation for the U.S. authorities when ANA soldiers had to train with tennis shoes. Now the boots are made in the U.S.
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