You’ll Never Guess Who I Ran Into

Commentary

There have been many conversations in which someone shares a story about how they went to a strange place and met a familiar friend. Then, there is the Next A person shares their story of when they met someone who was a bit different and how it made them feel. They knew. For those kinds of conversations, I’ve got a trumpcard.

In early ‘04 I was stationed at the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team, an 80-man firebase, as a civil affairs team engineer. This meant many meetings with Afghans to discuss their policies and projects. To try and coordinate all of our efforts, we also attempted to work with other units on varying missions.

However, we found ourselves at the PRT meeting (Provincial Reconstruction Team), along with other units from different bases. We had each our own interpreter and there were approximately 20 in the room. One of the colonels who came to visit me had an interpreter, and he kept looking at me throughout the meeting.

He looked pret