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The grizzled Afghan army captain, who jointly commanded the outpost with me, ordered the captured deserter stripped naked, dressed in a white gown, and forced to crawl back and forth on his belly through the coarse gravel interior of the base. All the while, the captain trailed him, alternately whacking the prone crawler with a wooden stick and forcefully kicking him in the genitals. Jordan, Alex (another lieutenant) and I watched for far too long. I knew, heck, I could feel, what everyone was thinking: “Is Danny going to put a stop to this?” I didn’t—not soon enough, anyway. When the captain and I finally talked about the incident, he was apoplectic. How dare I, a 28-year-old American, question the way he, a 50-year-old veteran of 30 years of war, disciplined his own men. Through an interpreter, he told me it was “the Afghan way.”--Maj.DS

Another excellent piece by this Afghanistan War veteran. I'm surprised his superior officers let him publish this stuff.


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