The woman works for the post, frisking female patients as they arrive for the daily three-hour medical clinic for local villagers. Poisonous snakes, parasites and hot cooking oil pose the greatest dangers. Two children bitten by cobras were brought in last month. Neither made it.
Outside, a soldier waves a bag of cookies from his care package and lets out a triumphant cry: "Bimbos!" -- a favorite brand in his native Puerto Rico. "Quieres Bimbos?" he asks a passing buddy.
Kilpatrick leaves his mark on the head of an unidentified soldier in Gardez. Wanting to contribute after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Kilpatrick called the Defense Department and the USO and eventually got on the seven-base tour.
(Photo Mike Theiler For The Washington Post)
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Meanwhile, Spec. Lee Gilliard, a 30-year-old reservist from Coral Springs, Fla., discovers Cheetos, candy and the carton of soy milk he requested from AnySoldier.com. Gilliard sees the two Afghan children watching and gives away a bag of Snickers and a box of candy canes, instantly regretting the latter. "Man, I should've saved those candy canes for our tree!" Gilliard worked at the Wal-Mart snack bar back home, and the store manager regularly sends care packages. Last time, it was an artificial tree with lights.
Inside, Kilpatrick has an arm around one of the two women assigned to the post. "She's armed, and she's cute. That's an enamorable combination," he announces.
Three days in Afghanistan go by in a sleep-deprived blur, strange encounters lingering like a Tylenol hangover.
'The Greatest Privilege'
Their last night in Bagram, the celebs are invited to a steak and lobster dinner (with plastic utensils) by the Morale, Welfare and Recreation unit hosting them. Morale is a constant concern in Afghanistan, and each base, no matter how small, has its big-screen TV and movies, often a theater-style popcorn machine, and events, events, events to take the soldiers' minds off the loneliness. There are contests to throw a pie in a colonel's face. There are karaoke nights and bingo games and latte bars and massages for $15 an hour.
Food is so plentiful that soldiers' wives complain about how paunchy their husbands get, fighting this war. The troops often ask for toys and school supplies and clothing for the Afghans instead of goodies from home. One base puts up an "angel tree," decorated with envelopes for money to buy items for local schoolchildren. Their requests are written on the outside of each envelope. Nadya wants a winter coat. Ludmila asks for shoes. Galya needs $100 to buy a gravestone.
When Chuck Younglove, the morale chief at Bagram, thanks Rollins and Kilpatrick at the surf 'n' turf banquet, telling them how much a moment's time and a few words of support mean to these soldiers, Kilpatrick is embarrassed. He gets up to speak.
"The secret thing is, these people don't get it," he tells his hosts. "This is the greatest privilege I'll ever have."
A sergeant major who befriended Rollins on his last visit presents each member of the small USO entourage with an old Soviet helmet left from the Russians' ill-fated 1978 invasion. Afghanistan is a vast junkyard of abandoned Soviet weapons, explosives and stripped military planes. Last time they were here, Rollins and his road manager crawled around the wreckage they encountered in search of scraps with Cyrillic writing to keep as souvenirs. Sgt. Maj. Timothy Green remembered their interest.
Now Green has brought the helmets to the send-off dinner, and he makes macabre jokes about them being soaked with blood as he hands them out, suggesting that "they're a little wet, so just wipe 'em off with your napkin."
Green's timing has always been off. Sixteen years in the Rangers, and he keeps getting orders only when the action is over and the peacekeeping missions have begun. He thought Afghanistan was just his latest missed opportunity, but it turned out to be his epiphany.
"I thought my entire purpose in life was to kill things," he will readily explain. And then here, a different possibility suddenly hit him, "like the blinding flash," and he came to believe that only goodness could truly eradicate evil. He is proud of the humanitarian missions the American military carries out here, building schools and clinics, bringing medical care to isolated villages, working with provincial governments to create infrastructures to bring water and electricity to multitudes of impoverished Afghans.
Green befriended the dozen or so ragamuffins who hang out at Bagram's front gate. "You gotta see what kids do here," he says, "6 years old and working on generators."
Green launched the "Good Boys Club" and put the front-gate kids on the payroll, $10 a week to pick up trash. He got them guest ID badges and brings them on base for lunch each Friday. In return, he ordered them to stop cutting school, keep themselves clean and stay out of trouble. His wife and daughter sent warm clothes and toiletries. Green's deployment will end in a few months. His boys are worried. "Who will take care of us when you leave?" they ask Green. He has no answer. He is worried, too.
The next morning, the VIP guests are gone, strapped in the dark belly of a cargo plane for a five-hour flight to a U.S. Air Force base in a Middle Eastern country that -- through the State Department and the base public affairs office -- requests anonymity. The U.S. dispatches spy planes from this place, and there's no need to rub it in the noses of disapproving neighbors. After a few hours here, the visitors will race along the highway, past the camel racetrack, past the Dunkin' Donuts, on their way to the airport for a 3 a.m. flight home.
Before they go, Kilpatrick takes the outdoor stage to offer greetings to this last group of men and women waiting for snapshots and autographs. The question he poses is carried by the cold desert wind into a starless sky, resonating as if it has been asked by thousands of men instead of one.
"How many people out there actually know who I am?"
