As American troops leave Afghanistan, veterans of the Afghan war are watching with concern for friends they made while they served in Afghanistan.
Gerald “Jerry” Meyer of Seward is one of those veterans watching the chaos unfold at the Kabul airport.
“Watching people fall off the plane – it’s like the helicopter in Saigon,” he said Aug. 24. “It’s tough watching.”
Meyer served three tours in Afghanistan. During his time in the country, he said, he got to know the people, especially his interpreters and their families.
Meyer’s interpreter for all three deployments was Mushfiq.
Mushfiq helped Meyer learn the language, mainly by going out to eat, which also gave them an opportunity to get to know each other.
His first deployment was in 2003-04, and his role was to train the Afghan army. Meyer was teaching in Columbus at the time, and his tour was only supposed to be six months.
He arrived on Nov. 11, 2003, which was during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. Gen. Zamari of the Afghan army had a tailor come to the base to measure Meyer for new clothes.
“We called them man-jammies,” he said. “They are really comfortable.”
Muslims celebrate the end of Ramadan with a feast, Eid al-Fitr, to which the Americans were invited. Meyer described the creation of the meal as “Afghani trick or treat with meat.”
After a goat was killed at the general’s home, each American was given a chunk of meat. They took it around the neighborhood and traded pieces of the goat meat for pieces of other meat. By the end, they had a kabob that was “a potpouri of meat,” Meyer said.
Meyer’s unit had members from 26 states, each with different skill sets. He was assigned to work with Major Zahir of the Afghan National Army.
“We were identifying needs people had that the army could help,” he said.
Among those was building schools and girls’ schools. Meyer said one school they worked with had a volleyball court built by the Japanese. It had nothing for science equipment, though, so the soldiers got money for microscopes and other items. Meyer said the looks on the school officials’ faces were priceless when they were able to set up science labs.
“That was a real positive,” he said. “I learned the power of what Americans could do.”
The soldiers also dug wells for the Afghans to provide them with clean water. Meyer had a couple incidents with dysentery during his time there because of the water.
The first came when he was traveling in the Freedom Bridge area. The bridge crosses the Amu Darya River, one of the most polluted rivers in the region. At a restaurant, Meyer had the fish, which was caught in the river. He was OK until they reached the hot springs on the way back to base.
Two months later, he suffered again after eating watermelon. The locals used the water to cut the melons, and that contaminated the food.
Meyer said he enjoyed the food overall, especially the mantu, which is a wrap made with meat, steamed and served on a bed of beans or yogurt. Kabuli palau, a dish of sweetened rice and carrots, was another favorite.
“I miss the food and the camaraderie,” he said.
Working in Afghanistan was hard because of the number of tribes in the country. People speak two distinct languages – Farsi and Pashti. Farsi is the primary language. Pashti is spoken in the border regions and Khandahar.
On Meyer’s first deployment, he did a lot of traveling around the country. He visited the Bamiyan area where two giant statues of Buddha, carved into the mountains in the sixth century, were destroyed by the Taliban.
“It’s the most beautiful spot,” Meyer said.
The Silk Road went through the area, connecting the East with the West. At 8,000 feet, Meyer saw rice fields that reminded him of pictures of Vietnam. Fields of poppies and marijuana were also common.
Meyer didn’t see much fighting while he was there the first time. However, as he returned from Jalalabad to Khandahar for a Toby Keith concert, he was on the receiving end of an rocket-propelled grenade attack. Meyer was the only person injured. He was driving and got hit in the right elbow.
“I was late for the concert,” he said.
He was injured other times, as well. He worked with the Wounded Warrior program when he came back after his third tour.
“My right side is all messed up,” he said.
Meyer spent three Christmases in Afghanistan. While the Afghanis don’t celebrate like the Americans do, they enjoyed the celebrations, using it as another feast opportunity.
Meyer’s daughter Meghan was born in 2002, so on his first deployment, they hosted a birthday party for her. The Afghans don’t celebrate birthdays like Americans, but the general brought presents to the party.
“Their traditions are so much different,” Meyer said. “It was a big deal to have a party.”
Camp Blackhorse, where Meyer was stationed, was in an area with no modern facilities. People used wood-burning stones to heat their homes, Meyer said.
Soldiers were paid with American dollars, but the exchange rate to the Afghan currency was about 70 to 1, he said. One day when they went to make the exchange, the Afghans were printing more money.
“It was definitely old school,” he said. “You set your clock back to the seventh century.”
Meyer’s second and third deployments, from 2010-12, were very different. His job during his third tour was at the war college in Kabul. His first assignment was teaching history. His second was teaching the police.
“Being in the field is for young people,” he said with a smile. “It’s hard work, and I’m not young any more.”
In 2010, he worked on the same base he’d been before, and the soldier who served him in the mess hall knew him.
“It was like I’d never left,” Meyer said.
He was stationed at Gamberi, which was a modern base north of Jalalabad. On April 16, 2011, a suicide bomber killed 12 soldiers on the base, some of them Meyer’s friends.
“I hardly remember any of that day,” Meyer said. “It happened so quick, but when you’re in a stressful situation, it seems like it goes on forever.”
Jeff Agusti of North Carolina, Meyer’s bodyguard, told him later he was calm throughout the post-bomb chaos, taking notes and pictures. Communications were shut down, which was standard procedure after a bombing.
“The guys from Nebraska did a lot of hauling bodies and medivac,” Meyer said.
Training the police was different from the other training Meyer did in Afghanistan.
“They were not as trustworthy,” he said.
He worked with American allies from Poland and the Czech Republic, both of whom had great food and beer, he said. He said the French soldiers were also great to work with.
“All the NATO allies were outstanding,” he said, adding that the Australians and Kiwis were the best.
As he watched the evacuation from Afghanistan, Meyer said he thought the Americans would go back and get people like the British did.
He was surprised the U.S. forces didn’t hold Bagram Air Base and at how much equipment was left behind.
“I could sense something was wrong when the northern cities fell first,” he said. “They fell so fast.”
He fears for the people he knows there like Malik, who was the chief of staff for the 201st Corps and who liked Twin Bings candy bars.
“He made them the official candy of the 201st Afghan National Army Corps,” Meyer said.
He said he’s afraid justice in the country will go back to medieval times. The Taliban uses executions to keep people in line, and in some villages, people are stoned.
“The Taliban has no compunction about shooting people. I don’t trust them,” Meyer said.
He said he’s most concerned about the Afghans who helped the Americans.
“I have a feeling it won’t go well,” he said. “People will suffer.”
Even now, smells and sounds can take him back to Afghanistan. Early on, he said, the smell of a wood-burning stove reminded him of Kabul.
After returning from his third deployment, Meyer was working as a crop adjustor and visited a farm in Iowa. When he opened the car door, the smell of diesel fuel and manure took him back.
“It was distinctly Afghan,” he said, adding that the fight or flight reflex kicked in.
He and his family went to Omaha to see a Norman Rockwell exhibit at the Joslyn Art Museum. Stopped at a stop sign in Omaha, the driver of a pickup in front of Meyer got out to adjust his load.
“I reached for my weapon,” Meyer said.
Adjusting after his return was tough, he said. Meyer said the British have a good system for soldiers returning from deployment. They allow a transition period under controlled circumstances to help them reacclimate.
On his last deployment, he went through a rocket attack on his last day while training his replacement.
“On Saturday I flew out,” he said. “Monday morning I was in Mississippi, and Monday night I was in a cinderblock barracks.”
That night, the base was struck by a tornado, but Meyer didn’t hear the siren and didn’t wake up.
“Tuesday night I was in my living room,” he said.
He heard the Islamic call to worship five times a day. Most Afghanis don’t read the Koran, their holy book, because it’s written in Arabic.
On his first deployment, Meyer saw a man in the chow hall dressed in the traditional Afghan dress who looked just like pictures of Jesus.
“The Afghans said, ‘That’s not Him,’” he said, adding that the man looked uncomfortable as the Americans stared.
Meyer brought a lot of mementos back to America with him. The Americans left a lot in Afghanistan, too. Books, pencils, school supplies, Girl Scout cookies and clothing were popular among the Afghan people.
It wasn’t all serious work, though. At Camp Phoenix in Kabul, an Afghan man known as Rambo worked at the base gate. At the time, Meyer was working with Gen. Mancino, a literature teacher from Oklahoma and big fan of the Oklahoma Sooners. The OU football team had lost to Louisiana State, so Meyer asked his friends in Louisiana to send beads and LSU gear.
Rambo was asked to wear the LSU clothing and say “Go Tigers” when the general arrived at the base.
On his second deployment, Meyer went to the Pakistan border where the dust is as fine as powder. When the helicopters came in to land, they had to slow down to keep the dust from damaging their equipment.
Meyer jumped out of the helicopter and found two boots on the ground in front of him. He looked up at one of the biggest Afghans he’d ever seen. He picked up his camera and took a picture of the man.
Meyer took hundreds of photographs during his time in Afghanistan. He visited Alexander’s fortress city where you can still see the walls.
He took a picture of a farmer, who believed that photographs stole a person’s soul. That had to be explained to the man, he said.
Meyer regularly emailed his father, who printed paper copies of every one. He said those messages helped him remember some of the details.
