Transcript
The Americans were very generous and they were our friends and allies, they still are our friends and allies, so we stand by them. But they had different grades of troops there, so some of them were really good, some of them were not so good. They had different roles, they had different jobs. A lot of the Americans I met there were, how would I say it, they went to uni, they went to college, I think how they call it. They went to college and they had a deal that if you did reserve, join the reserves, they'd pay for your college fees. A lot of them didn't realize that war would start up, and then after they finished their training, their card would be called in, and they'd say, "Okay. You're a reservist, you did that training, we paid for your college fees and all, we've a got war." So a lot of them really weren't expecting to be in a conflict or to be even called up for any sort of service.
So there was a lot of engineers, they had an awful lot of engineers there that were recently come out of college, and they had a limited understanding of the war. They did their job I suppose, they did a lot of mine clearance, lots and lots of mine clearing. But they just handled, sometimes interpersonal skills with the Afghanis really were a bit worrying. There was one incident there where, I wasn't there it was recalled to me, where a helicopter had some engine problem and had to land.
So they landed in a field what appeared to be empty but lo and behold, all these people start milling around and the Americans, it was both Americans and Australians on the helo, the Americans hopped out and did what you would expect. They did a 360 degree defensive perimeter around the helicopter and the Australians climbed out, they went out and they shook everyone's hands and said g'day, they said hello. That was they needed to do, is to de-escalate. Just to be able to, and I think it makes a big difference in just how you treat people. We were there, it was impressed upon us that it's not our country, it's their country. How would you like the shoe to be put on the other foot? Another nation in your place? So we tried to be very respectful where we could.
I remember there was a time there, this is not far from where I was in Bagram, and they had a roadwork party, supervised by American engineers, and the work party were all these locals and they had picks and shovels. Thank God I didn't have that job, I wouldn't like having a pick and go pick, pick, pick, boom. But they were walking down the street and this either an officer or NCO was riding along the main road on top of his Humvee and he was yelling at these workers to get out of the way. He was saying, "Get out of the effing road. Can't you see... ", and I thought to myself, "What a silly way." He didn't think anything of it, but I thought to myself, for starters, that work party was under American control already.
He should have just said to the person in charge saying, "Look, buddy. Can you get your men off the road, because we need to do this or whatever?" But instead, he just wanted to throw his weight around saying, "Oh, you get out of...", and I thought to myself, if I was one of these on the work party, as I said, if I was like a 16-year old adolescent there, I would go home that night and say to Dad, "Look, Dad, I wasn't sure before, but I'm going to join Uncle Achmed, and I'll help him with his job and I'll do what he asks me to do."
It would be enough to tip someone over to saying, "I don't think I'm going to fight them " to saying, "Yeah, I hate them, I'm going to fight them ". And things like that, you've got to be smarter, and you've got to be more respectful. So , that was the bad side. But, on the fighting side, they'd do anything they could for you. They were brave. And I'm only seeing little snippets here and there, from what I saw, they could probably relate to the locals a little bit better.
