Outside the Wire: American Soldiers' Voices from Afghanistan

Preface

xv Preface The e-mail at the top of my Yahoo list read, “Doc, sorry I couldn’t make it to class last night, but with the suicide bomber and everything , I was kept really busy. Can you send the assignment?” I assured my student that our English 101 class had been canceled. In fact, on the evening of the suicide bomber scare on Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, I had sequestered myself in my 6 x 10–foot sleeping quarters in a plywood B-hut (a semi-permanent wooden structure used as a replacement for a tent, which housed six to eight soldiers and civilians). The civilians working in the camp had not been immediately alerted to the “situation.” We surmised there might be a problem when the camp first turned eerily quiet and soon afterward became frenetic with the pounding of boots on cement and gravel. There were no other sounds—no shouts, no whispers . Every soldier was executing his or her mission, each wearing a flak vest and a Kevlar helmet and grasping an M16 at the ready. Meanwhile, civilians like me hurried to our unprotected B-huts. We closed the door behind us, locking ourselves in with a flimsy screen-door latch. I can only describe as fate the turn of events that led to my teaching for the University of Maryland University College Europe and to a passion for teaching soldiers and veterans. As a forty-six-yearold with a new PhD in hand, I had intended to teach as an adjunct while applying for tenure-track positions. Then my husband, Jacques, called from work one day. “Listen,” he said, “the military is looking for a pharmacist in Germany. What would you think of just selling the house and moving?” The logistics fell into place. In researching teaching possibilities I came across UMUC Europe’s program for military members and spouses, contacted the Academic Director for English, and was soon assigned a couple of classes on an American military base in Kirch-Göns, Germany. Fine, good enough, but what I most wanted was a full-time position. I again contacted the Academic Director. “Sure,” he said. “You can teach for us full-time. Would you be willing to go to combat training in Hohenfels, Germany, and then on to xvi PREFACE Bosnia in a couple of weeks?” The Dayton Agreement, which ended the Bosnian conflict, had been signed only a couple of months before , so for the first time since the Vietnam War, UMUC Europe would be sending faculty to a war zone. I could hear the sneer in the Director’s laugh on the other end of the line stop short when I said, “Yes, absolutely.” No one in my family had ever been in the military. I lacked a personal cause. But in a moment of epiphany, my path was clear. Following the signing of the Dayton Agreement ending the Bosnian conflict, I had the honor of teaching soldiers deployed to Bosnia. I taught, in American military camps, courses in English, literature, creative writing, and speech for UMUC Europe, which has held the contract for classes in active war zones for several decades . In fact, for the next three years I rotated between teaching soldiers deployed to camps in Bosnia and teaching those assigned to bases in Germany. I also taught active-duty soldiers deployed to Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo, following the Kosovo conflict. In 2002 I assumed the position of Academic Director for English, Communications , and Foreign Languages for UMUC Europe, which meant I lived and worked in the university’s office in Heidelberg, Germany. I held this position for several years before my husband and I decided to return to the States—specifically, to Austin, Texas. Once settled, I resumed teaching active-duty soldiers and veterans, only now online from the comfort of my suburban study. But I missed the interaction of the live classroom, and I missed teaching deployed soldiers. I soon volunteered to teach in military camps in Afghanistan—both on Bagram Air Base and on a FOB (acronym for forward operating base, pronounced “fob”) near the Pakistan border. I knew there would be plenty of students, since deployed soldiers take classes because they are working on a degree, need a diversion from the military, or are earning college credit in order to move up in rank. On Bagram Air Base we sat together in cement classrooms in a building left over from the Soviet occupation of the 1970s...