Warrior Pose Read online

  Every night, Dennis and I sit in one of the two decrepit and mostly empty “foreigners’ hotels” as Brockunier disappears into the dark streets to seek out his Afghan contacts. These are the people he has worked with for years, he tells me, and the only ones who can get us into Afghanistan. They always have to stay in hiding, and the dangers of meeting with us get greater every day. The longer we’re here, the more people are aware of us, the more visible we become.

  Peshawar is filled with intrigue. Soviet agents, secret police, spies, and snitches. Everyone on the lookout for an enemy or a chance to sell some information. A Soviet spy would kill an Afghan freedom fighter in a heartbeat, and vice versa. A bomb went off two nights ago at the other foreigners’ hotel, destroying several rooms and injuring some European businessmen. Yesterday, there was an explosion at the Afghan restaurant we’ve eaten at every day.

  Tonight, after a sixth day of waiting for contact with the mujahideen, I can’t sleep. I’m furious with myself for trusting Brockunier and am contemplating storming into his room, confronting him, and tossing all his lousy rugs into the street while I’m at it. It’s almost dawn when I doze off. Then I’m startled awake by a soft but firm knock at the door. I crack it open to see Brockunier standing there with two rugged men in Afghan dress. One is brandishing a Soviet AK-47 automatic rifle. The other looks like he could kill someone with his bare hands. It’s the most comforting sight I’ve seen since we landed in this country and I feel embarrassed for losing faith in my friend who buys all those fabulous carpets.

  “They have to blindfold us,” Brockunier says as I rouse Dennis from his bed. “They don’t want us to know where the safe houses are in case we’re captured and interrogated.”

  One of the mujahideen pulls strips of dirty cloth from his baggy pajama pants pockets and wraps them around our heads to cover our eyes. Then we’re stuffed into the back of a Jeep and driven to a safe house somewhere in the maze of the oldest sector of the city. When the blindfolds are removed, we’re in a dark cement room, surrounded by a half-dozen or so mujahideen sitting cross-legged on an ornate rug. They look tough as grizzly bears but welcome us with warm smiles as they gesture for us to sit and drink chai with them. As I’ll soon learn, nothing happens in Pakistan without this ritual of sitting on the floor and sipping tea as we are subtly scrutinized and deemed to be trustworthy…or not.

  After several meetings, each time at a different safe house, we finally win their trust. One morning before dawn, the mujahideen arrive at our room again without any notice. They give us a few minutes to gather our gear, then load us into the back of their Jeep, this time for the dangerous journey through the wild, tribal territories along the border and into the snow-covered mountains of Afghanistan. There’s no need for blindfolds now, but we need to lay low and do our best to blend in. Along the way, we stop at a tailor’s shop and quickly get outfitted with Afghan clothing. All we need now are beards down to our waists and AK-47s slung over our shoulders.

  With Charles Brockunier inside Afghanistan in 1986.

  The tribal territories line the amorphous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. They begin on the sloping plains that skirt the Himalayas and soon rise into jagged mountains. The main crop in this region is poppy flowers, grown to produce opium and heroin. Warlords hold sway here. In the few remote towns we have to sneak through, weapons are openly sold on the streets and frequently fired into the air—sort of a test drive of your AK-47 or Kalashnikov before you take ownership of it. Dennis and I stay curled up in the back of the Jeep on top of our gear. There are informants everywhere, and we would be a prize catch.

  “Are you doing okay?” I ask Dennis.

  “Fine,” he says with an impish smile. Dennis looks like a shorter, tougher version of Brockunier, with his ruddy Irish face, short-cut reddish beard, and broad shoulders. He’s strong as an ox, funny and charismatic, and utterly fearless. He’s also the best photographer I’ve ever known. He never misses a shot and always manages to step squarely into the action without ever getting in the way.

  “I’m just thinking about the gear,” he says. “I hope the solar battery recharging kits work right. I tested them before we left the States, but you never know.”

  I don’t have any doubts. Dennis keeps everything meticulously organized and I’ve seen him instantly repair his gear in the midst of a big story. He’s unstoppable.

  Brockunier is seated right in front of us, on the backseat of the Jeep with our guide and interpreter, Rasoul. The mujahideen with the AK-47 rides shotgun while his partner speeds across the rocky dirt roads. Every five minutes we hit a huge bump and our heads slam into the roof. We’re choking on dust. It’s hot as hell. And I love every second of it.

  It’s pitch black when we finally get through the territories and into the mountains of Afghanistan. We’re driving without headlights, still going so fast that I can’t believe the driver can stay on the winding road guided by starlight alone. But at least with the cover of darkness Dennis and I can finally poke our heads up and breathe more deeply, relieved that we’ve made it without having to get through any checkpoints.

  “The border guards come and go,” Rasoul says in perfect English as we head higher into the mountains. “None can be trusted. We must still be very careful.”

  Rasoul, which is surely a pseudonym, has thin, fine features, like a nobleman. In talking with him, I can see he is highly educated and cultured. He is fluent in English, French, German, and Russian in addition to all the major Afghan dialects. He loves conversation, but he is cryptic about his past, except for sharing that he is from Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan. My guess is that he’s a member of the Afghan elite, deeply connected to the government and business community, maybe even a former head of some intelligence operation. I imagine he would have been imprisoned or executed had he not escaped Kabul during the Soviet invasion. Rasoul is vehemently patriotic and devoted to the resistance, moving like a shadow behind the scenes. He has to be the contact Brockunier was waiting for all along. The one person making all of this happen.

  It must be close to midnight when I nod off to sleep. Suddenly, our driver slams on the brakes and my forehead smacks into the metal bar framing the backseat. “Get down!” Rasoul hisses with urgency. “Say nothing! No one speak! I’ll do the talking. Do not leave the Jeep!” He speaks like a general and we immediately fall in line. Brockunier freezes like a statue. The mujahideen who is riding shotgun grips his automatic weapon and holds it at his chest. Dennis and I curl up again, trying to disappear.

  As Rasoul jumps out of the Jeep and slams the door, Brockunier whispers, “We’re surrounded by armed men in military uniforms. They’re speaking Urdu, so they’re Pakistanis. This isn’t good.”

  I can hear Rasoul arguing loudly. I don’t understand a word, but it doesn’t sound like he’s getting anywhere. Suddenly, the Jeep is flooded with flashlights, the doors are thrown open, and we’re ordered out. Brockunier seems to pass for one of the mujahideen despite his reddish beard. But Dennis and I, even in our new pajama-like garb, still look very much like foreigners.

  Rasoul is ordered back to the Jeep and whispers, “Don’t say a word. These are tribal people. They don’t speak English, but they know it when they hear it. They hate Americans almost as much as Russians. I’ve told them you are French doctors, volunteering to treat the wounded. Right now, they are threatening to arrest us all. Whatever you do, do not show your passport.”

  Three guards walk up and yell at us to get out of the Jeep, then quickly rummage through everything, finding our camera gear beneath the duffel bags filled with Brockunier’s medical supplies. This stops the show. The yelling gets louder. Rasoul is incredibly courageous, alternately confronting the armed men with verbal assaults then switching to gentle persuasion. But he’s getting nowhere. Finally, he somehow manages to get the guards to wait in a group as he comes back to where I’m standing at the rear of the Jeep.

  “This is trouble,” he says with a sigh of resignation
. “They want to know what doctors are doing with camera equipment. They want documents.”

  My mind starts racing for some sort of solution. It’s too dangerous to change our story and tell them we’re journalists. There’s no way we can show them our American passports. Then it hits me in a flash. “Tell them I’m getting documents from my bag,” I whisper to Rasoul.

  He looks shocked and is about to protest when I say, “Don’t worry. No passports. Trust me.” Rasoul calls out to the leader of the guards and gets his permission as I slowly reach into the Jeep for my shoulder bag and open the zippered pouch I keep my passport in. Right next to it is the equipment manifest we had to obtain from the Pakistan Embassy granting permission to bring our gear into the country. It’s covered with official government stamps.

  “Tell them this is our permission document from Pakistan customs,” I whisper to Rasoul. The first two words beneath the government stamps are Sony Betacam. That’s our digital camera. “I’m Dr. Sony,” I whisper to Rasoul, pointing at the words. “Dennis is Dr. Betacam. We’re treating wounded fighters and filming it to raise more money back in France for more medical supplies. We’re on the side of their Afghan brothers.”

  Rasoul’s eyes widen. “This is good,” he says as he takes the paper and walks toward the guards. There are a few tense minutes. The document changes hands several times. Suddenly, everyone is patting Rasoul on the back. Our gear is returned to us and we cram back into the Jeep, start the engine, and roll past the guards, waving and smiling like one big family.

  “I have to remember this trick,” Rasoul says as he hands the manifest back to me with a huge sigh of relief.

  “I thought we were dead,” Dennis says. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him sound frightened.

  “Or at least going to jail and having everything confiscated,” Brockunier chimes in.

  “It’s a good sign,” Rasoul says, calming everyone down. “We still have a long way to go. Let’s get some rest.”

  I’m exhausted and try to close my eyes and doze off again, but it’s impossible to sleep as we wind higher into the mountains and the road becomes narrower and more difficult to navigate, especially with our headlights still off. Finally, we stop in the middle of nowhere. No more road. Nothing but mud and snow.

  “We must unload everything here,” Rasoul says, still whispering and gesturing for quiet. “No flashlights. No talking.”

  Once we have our things, our mujahideen driver and guard hug Rasoul, jump back in the Jeep, start the engine, and somehow find a way to turn around and drive off. The woods around us are pitch black. While it was hot in the valleys below, it’s freezing cold here. Deep banks of springtime snow are illuminated by the brilliant starlight. We just stand still and shiver, our gear held in our arms, as the drone of the Jeep’s engine disappears down the mountainside.

  “What the hell is happening?” Dennis whispers to me, risking a rebuke from Rasoul. “We might just freeze to death!”

  I look at him and shake my head. Shrug my shoulders. Then I pat the sleeping bag roped onto my backpack and wonder how warm it will keep me in the wet snow. Suddenly I remember we only have one or two days’ worth of food with us. As I start to think it might have been better had the tribal Pakistanis arrested us, we hear a faint, sloshing sound at the tree line. Now we can make out the silhouette of two figures under the starlight. A man with a rifle over his shoulder and a mule. They approach silently. He is mujahideen. His first glance is toward Rasoul, who then gestures for us to pile our gear on the mule.

  We walk behind the mujahideen, who leads us into the cover of the woods and up the mountainside. It’s slow going. Grueling, in fact. The snow is up to our knees and the temperature beyond freezing. We touch one another’s backs to keep from getting lost. An hour later, we arrive at a bombed-out farmhouse. More mujahideen appear in the darkness. There are no lights. Not even a candle. Nothing to give the Soviets a chance to discover their position. We stumble into a dark, frigid hallway of the home, finally making it to a room with a wooden floor covered in straw. About to collapse, we unroll our sleeping bags and slip in. Curling up, I roll over and whisper to Dennis, “We made it.”

  We’re beyond exhausted, but we get only two, maybe three, hours of sleep before we are told to roll up our bags and quietly depart before sunrise. There are three mules now, the one with our gear, the other two laden with rounds of ammunition, artillery shells, and grenades. It takes a full day of vertical hiking through heavier snow to find the hidden camp of a group of some two hundred mujahideen. The fighters line up in the glistening snow to meet us, surrounded by towering pines. They shoulder their weapons, from old rifles to AK-47s to rocket launchers, as a show of pride and dedication. Most are rustic farmers from small mountain villages. They range in age from fourteen to eighty-four. Several have lost a leg or an arm to land mines. It hasn’t slowed them down a bit. Instead, it has strengthened their resolve. I will soon realize the oldest among them could outhike me on my best day.

  Rasoul introduces us as American journalists who have come to document their struggle. Like the Pakistanis, most Afghans dislike America but again, the enemy of their enemy is their friend. At least for now. Brockunier delivers his medical supplies to the chief of the fighters and all the men chant “Allāhu Akbar,” meaning “God is great.” Dennis films them thrusting their weapons into the air, symbolizing that this is a holy war. When our viewers see this back home they’ll be blown away, I think, as Dennis deftly puts his lens a few inches away from a boy’s hand clutching the trigger of his weapon and then pans to his innocent face.

  We live with the mujahideen for the next week, sleeping in small huts while burning frozen wood soaked in kerosene to avoid freezing to death. There’s only enough food for one meal a day. It’s always goat fat boiled into a filmy yellowish grease and served in large, communal bowls, with broken goat bones at the bottom. We sit in circles on the ground and scoop up each bite with a traditional flatbread called naan that the mujahideen bake in makeshift clay ovens. The grease is rancid. The gristle on the bones is black with rot. We’re so hungry that it tastes delicious, especially the steaming hot naan.

  Dennis and I hold each piece of naan in our fingertips, carefully dipping it into the bowl and slipping it into our mouths. It’s challenging to do so without having grease run down our arms. I have to be especially careful since I’m left-handed. The left hand is the one used throughout the region for self-cleaning after defecation. Reaching my left hand into the food bowl would be the ultimate gaffe. For me it’s almost impossible to remember. I come close to muffing it every day.

  The mujahideen have well-camouflaged anti-aircraft guns posted high above the camp. Just before sunset, they fire at any Soviet MiGs seen flying at altitudes well beyond the range of their artillery. After shooting a few rounds, they circle the guns and chant “Allāhu Akbar,” then almost sing, repeatedly, in Pashto, “We vow to purge the satanic invaders from our homeland!”

  The real fighting starts long before dawn. The mujahideen slip down dark trails into the valley below to launch guerrilla attacks against Soviet outposts on major roads that connect the few major cities of Afghanistan, all of which are under Soviet control. When helicopter gunships counterattack, they scurry back into the mountains, hiding under huge boulders along the way, carefully moving toward the cover of the thick forest. Back in camp, the fighters treat the wounded with Brockunier’s medical supplies. They bury their dead before sundown. We film everything we can. Their war against the mighty Soviet Army is like a small shepherd boy against a towering, battle-trained giant. But these are the toughest people I have ever met and they fight boldly, like David going after Goliath with just a stone and a slingshot.

  With mujahideen inside Afghanistan in 1986.

  After leaving the mujahideen and saying good-bye to Rasoul and Brockunier, Dennis and I make our way into the sprawling camps along the Pakistani border. There are 5 million refugees—one-third of the Afghan population—livin
g in horrid conditions, many without so much as a ragged tent over their heads. This is the unseen horror of the Cold War as it’s played out around the world. The Soviets invade Afghanistan as a pushback to American influence in Pakistan. The Americans then push back against communist expansionism. Innocent people get hurt. Lots of them. I am thirty-seven years old and have been in some rough places, but this is human suffering beyond anything I have ever witnessed or even imagined. It sickens me. Angers me. Makes me want to cry. And it strengthens my resolve to tell this story.

  We film improvised burial grounds, where bodies are stacked atop one another and covered with dirt and large stones. They surround the edges of the camps like anthills. Those who survive cling to life with incredible determination, refusing to succumb to the diseases that spread like fire. More victims pour into the overwhelmed treatment centers every day. This is where we find Mahmoud and the other wounded Afghan children. We are here for three days, rushing to complete our filming in the camps and main refugee hospital before we fly home. In all, we have been gone less than a month, but it feels like a lifetime.

  Mahmoud in Refugee Hospital, Pakistan, 1986.

  Back in Boston, we air a series of reports entitled “Afghanistan, the Untold Story.” I knew this was powerful stuff, but I never dreamed the response would be so overwhelming. Viewers throughout New England rally to the cause. Schoolchildren launch class projects, draw pictures for the children in the camps, and mail them with bags of coins from their piggy banks. Viewers form groups to collect donations of food, clothing, and medical supplies, which Brockunier ships directly to the refugee hospital where we found Mahmoud. New England hospitals offer their facilities, time, and services. Airlines agree to fly in dozens of war-wounded children for world-class medical treatment. Our viewers open their homes to family members accompanying the Afghan children as they arrive in Boston for eye surgery, prosthetic devices, and burn treatments. Mahmoud is on the very first flight and will soon be cared for at the Shriner’s Burn Institute. I cover it all, with a new story almost every night. More than ever before, it makes me feel like what I do for a living is making a difference in the world.