Blackstone Audio Inc. - Outside the wire: ten lessons Ive learned in everyday courage

When you get ready to deploy, you go through a bunch of training. I did my convoy training during intelligence school with Humvees that werent armored, but we were told, youll have the real deal when you get over there. The idea that it would be different over there or downrange was a pretty common refrain from the trainers at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. So when I got to Afghanistan and was preparing for my first convoy to the camp where I would be stationed, I was picturing the vehicles you see in the movies and on TV. Big, armored trucks or Humvees under a machine gun manned by a badass-looking infantryman the size of a house.

After all the training and all the anticipation of being in a combat zone, I was feeling pretty tough in my battle rattlebody armor, Kevlar helmet, pistol on my hip. This is it, I thought, Im finally going outside the wire. I didnt even have a rifle yet, but I felt like GI Joe.

A marine captain introduced himself as the convoy commander and went over what we were to do if we were attacked and who was in charge if he was killed during the roughly one-hour trip from Bagram Air Base to Camp Eggers in Kabul. His rifle was hanging across his chest from a fancy sling and his load-bearing vest was packed with extra magazines of ammunition.

But while he was talking, I realized he was referring to the vehicles behind him, which were not at all what I had expected. Over there had become over here, but these were not armored Humvees with a big machine gun on top. In fact, they werent Humvees at all. Not even close.

I realized we were about to traverse the sometimes IED-ridden open roads of Afghanistan in unarmored Mitsubishi Pajeros. I instantly felt a whole lot less tough. In fact, tough was now several country miles away from where I stood emotionally. This was, for the first time in my life, the raw physical fear of being killed.

I was sweating, my heart was pounding, and my feet felt heavy as I climbed into the Pajeros gray cloth backseat. As the new guy, I was scrunched into the middle.

I was trying to play it cool and decided I could best pull it off by not speaking or making eye contact with anyone. The navy lieutenant next to me told me to take off my Kevlar helmet. I noticed I was the only one wearing it, so I took it off, but I apparently looked confused enough that another sailorour driveroffered me an explanation about what happens when the bad guys can make out the helmet in a far-off silhouette.

Theres no armor at all on this vehicle, so if we get blown up, were all going to die anyway. She drew a pistol from her thigh holster, pulled back the slide, and put a round into the chamber. If some Taliban asshole has his finger on an IED trigger, just waiting for us, its better if it takes an extra beat for him to spot a clown car of Americans. She slid the pistol into a holster on the chest of her body armor before turning the ignition key and starting the little SUV.

The lieutenant next to me did the same with her pistol. Basically, if you wear that thing, she said, picking up where our driver had left off, he can see a bobblehead silhouette from a lot farther away, and we go boom.

Another navy lieutenanta guy in his late thirtiesturned around to face me from the front passenger seat. Theres no armor underneath us either, so some guys prefer to sit on their Kevlar. You know, just in case you survive and wanna have kids. He turned back toward the front. Up to you, dude.

I noticed navy guy wasnt sitting on his Kevlar, so I thought it best to go with the flow and just placed mine at my feet. Each of them had introduced themselves a few minutes prior, but my brain was too scattered to memorize any of the names yet.

I was too busy thinking, What the hell am I doing here?

I thought about how crazy everyone back home thought I was and, for the first time, wondered if they were right. I had left behind a well-paying job as a lawyer that included a very safe office with a nice view of the Kansas City skyline. Bagels and doughnuts were free in the conference room on Friday mornings. My wife, Diana, was probably asleep right now in our bed in our ranch house in KCs quaint and historic Waldo neighborhood.

As we slowly crept along the dirt roads of Bagram Air Base toward the front gates, my fellow carpoolers were chatting it up like it was any other road trip.

So where ya from?

How was your flight?

Howd you like the landing?

The colonels excited to have a fellow army guy inbound.

Ha! Yeah, hes been surrounded by all us other branches lately.

I hoped I was doing a passable job of pretending I was not the most afraid Id ever been in my life.

When we passed through the front gates, our driver put her foot down and out we went into the wild beige yonder of a distinctly unfriendly-looking dust bowl of one-and two-story buildings. It was quiet for a couple of minutes as each occupant of the car eyeballed every passing pedestrian and motorist, performing multiple individual assessments per second.

Soon the buildings became farther apart and then tapered off completely, and all I could see in any direction was a sparsely inhabited desert landscape with mountains visible on the horizons to our left and right.

Like the moon with mountains, I thought to myself.

I asked what the potential IED plan was, meaning what we were supposed to do if we saw something that could be a possible bomb buried in the road. Everyone just laughed morbidly and then told me the roads in Afghanistan were so messed up that, unlike in training, we just had to speed up and drive past, hoping for the best. If we stopped to check out everything that looked suspicious, the trip would take forever, and wed never get to Kabul.