Chinook in Afghanistan

KABUL — First things first. Sometime around the 2001 invasion, the powers that be decided that we were to pronounce the capitol city of Afghanistan "KAH-bull," a linguistic shift equivalent to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. If memory serves, the change in stress to the first syllable — away from the comfort of the familiar, previously dominant second — was to indicate greater sophistication, cultural sensitivity, authenticity. I can report: that’s total bullshit. The locals call this place "Ka-BOOL."*

Second thing: getting from Zormat to Kabul — holy shit. If you’ve ever flown on a Chinook, you know two facts concentrate the mind: it’s as frigid as a New England blizzard and louder than two hours of Motorhead back when Lemmy was on crank. In most cases, you get contorted into impossible positions, since you’re strapped inside the ribcage of the bird facing the other side, with all the strapped-down cargo stacked in between you and the fellow seated opposite. What matters to the crew is getting the cargo from point A to point B. You’re an annoyance, something to be tolerated. If a hard-plastic-shelled crate is digging into your kneecap, and will be for 90 minutes, it’s not their problem.

At one point on an impromptu 3 a.m. Chinook ride between Zormat and Salerno, the bird stopped and let off all passengers and cargo, except for me. The crew proceeded to throw my luggage out onto the flightline of some unfamiliar base before I ran after my shit, yelling into the ear of a deafened crewmember that the bags were continuing on to Salerno with me. He shrugged, which cleared me to gather my bags, throw them onto the threaded-plastic netting that acts as your seat-bench down the sides of the helicopter, strap myself in, throw my hands into my hoodie under my body armor, and try to fall back asleep.

Except for one thing. Immediately after the wheels went up, it occurred to me that in my exhaustion, I had thrown my bags on the bench, out of my reach, rather than strapping them down to the belly of the helicopter as I should have. See, when the Chinook flies, its backside is completely open so a dude, strapped in to the helicopter, can aim a mean-looking gun out of the bird for protection. If your bags aren’t tied down, they’re going to land on an unsuspecting Afghan tribal elder and ignite a new phase of the insurgency.

Adrenaline hit. Eighty pounds of baggage — my laptop, my clothes, the expensive videocamera the Windy gave me, my Ariana Airlines ticket from Kabul to Istanbul — could, at any minute, dislodge from the bench and go spinning out of the helicopter. I did something I never do: I prayed. Oh God, I know I’m an asshole, but please please please don’t repossess my bags right now. Prayer being too passive, a thought occurred: what if I unstrapped myself, gripped the side-netting, and pulled myself the 15-foot distance to my bags? A second thought followed that one: probably better if I don’t go flying out the Chinook, even if the bags are fucked. A third thought: but what if the bags go flying and knock the gunner off his balance and he goes dangling out the helicopter??? At that point, the crew would be within their rights to summarily execute me. Fuck, what do I do?

Necessity yielded a strategy. I would fix my eyes on the silhouettes of my two bags and stare my luggage down. Motherfucker, I told it, you are staying put. Do you hear me? There will be no jostling, no readjustment, no movement of any kind. I don’t know how much longer we have in the air, but you are to think heavy thoughts and fix your position. Any insubordination will be met with instant death. Amazingly, it listened. I’m in a hotel room in Kabul now, a day later, with my bags at the foot of the bed. Later, it would become apparent to me that the Chinooks’ method of keeping parallel to the ground at all times largely prevents the bags from slipping, as the Army kind of has experience getting shit from one place to the next on these things. But for that moment, I bent inanimate objects, and gravity itself, to my iron will.

*I’ve figured out a potential exculpation here for those who decided to shift our pronunciation of "Kabul." The only Afghans I’ve talked to have been Pashtuns. Yet those whom U.S. correspondents and intelligence operatives and military leaders linked up with in late 2001 for the invasion were Tajiks and Uzbeks — people who spoke Urdu or Dari or other, non-Pashto languages. Perhaps they call the city "KAH-bull" and our media overlords followed their lead. But since the 18th century, when Shah Durrani founded this country, Pashtuns’ ruled everything around me (P.R.E.A.M.), and now they do so again for the most part, so if the Pashtuns call it Ka-BOOL, so will I.