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Still, Ellis was confident the operation would go forward. This was just a bureaucratic glitch. Everyone thought so. On April 3, I spoke with Ellis' immediate superior, Lieut. Colonel Reik Anderson, commander of the 1/12, and with the Canadian in charge of Joint Task Force Kandahar, Brigadier General Daniel Menard, who was furious about the delay. "We're going to have a letter signed by the district and provincial governors, insisting that we go ahead," Menard told me, then proceeded to talk like a general. "This is essential. It would be the first nonkinetic breach of Taliban control...
...over the people of this town - and we haven't produced anything tangible. They are sitting on the fence, waiting to see which side is stronger. We haven't had much luck with development projects. We haven't proved that we can take care of them. Reopening the school would be our first real...
...Conversation It was unimaginable that the higher-ups - those in "echelons above reality," as Ellis liked to say - would actually stop the Pir Mohammed project. He figured it would be delayed a day or two and decided to move ahead with his plan. He needed to have some troops in place, in an observation and listening post near the school, on the night before the operation took place. On Sunday, April 4, Ellis joined the 2nd platoon on a patrol to scout locations...
There was a two-story house across the eastern canal from the school that Ellis thought would be perfect, and we proceeded there carefully, in the dusty golden haze of late afternoon. The soldiers handed out pencils, plush toys and cheese crackers to the local kids, who gathered as the patrol snaked slowly through town. The kids, who had seen all these offerings many times before, weren't satisfied. "Qalam," they shouted, surrounding me. "Qalam...
...asked if he had heard about the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The boy said no. He asked what Rahman thought about the Americans. "I've heard that they bomb civilians from the air," the boy said. But the Taliban bomb and booby-trap schools, Ellis pointed out. "Why would they do that?" Rahman didn't know. Ellis asked the boy how he thought the war would end. "Whenever you guys get out from here, things will get better," he said. "The elders will sit down with the Taliban, and the Taliban will lay down their arms...