Word: colonels
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...Colonel is here to sort out why none of the camp's men are working on the bridge, earning money to help their families. He quickly learns that the contractor is hiring his own relatives and cronies for the job, and that when the men from the camp applied to work there they were turned away. He looks over the anxious pleading faces of the ragged famished men, and then he turns to his constant companion, Staff Sgt, Groce, who already has notepad and pencil ready...
...afternoon is more of the same. A long bumpy drive up the Fuladi Valley to another damaged school. An impromptu visit to a potato farmer, who proudly tells the Colonel his harvest was the best in years. Three more bridges, all of them recently collapsed and needing urgent replacement. A sit-down meeting with an earnest young Hazara who wants to know if the Chiclets can help him start up a computer training center in Bamiyan. (Col. Walker tells him to submit a written request...
...Even when the day is over, it's not over. Everyone in the little Bamiyan garrison takes their turn at cooking, housekeeping, sentry duty. Tonight it's the Colonel's turn to make dinner, and that means hamburgers, fries and salad for the troops and a guest list that includes two visiting journalists and a local warlord and his bodyguards. There are even centerpieces on the tables, with candleholders sculpted out of green peppers...
...hours later, at two a.m., the Colonel, his Chiclets and the rest of the outpost personnel are out on the Bamiyan airstrip for a resupply by parachute from a C-130 with A-10s providing air cover. And three hours after the eight pallets of supplies have been picked up and the drop zone policed, the Colonel is up again, at his desk, planning the Chiclets' next...
...wonder the Taliban and al-Qaeda hate the Chiclet teams. "Every one of us in Chiclet-5 has a price on his head," the Colonel says. "There are still al-Qaeda and Taliban out there. We see them shadowing us, looking for any weakness they might be able to exploit. We know they're going to come after us: it's not a matter of if, but when." He smiles. "But I'll tell you something, when they come they'd better be loaded for bear. Because we're good. Real good...