The Foreign Service Journal, January 2004

tive glass, my eye caught a collection of color in the drab interior, halfway up the stairs to the second floor. It was an “art in the embassies” mon- tage of photographs capturing the spirit of the Afghan people in their untamed land, a rare sign of hope amidst the harsh interior and exteri- or of the mission. After meeting with the regional security officer and securing our pouches in the classified vault, we headed off to find our assigned quarters — two spaces in a contain- er (the ambassador has a whole one to himself). The embassy grounds are filled with rows of freight con- tainers, both for permanent employ- ees and those on temporary assign- ment. Ours was a 12-person con- tainer with six bunk beds, recently vacated by the Karzai Protective Detail. It was close to an old bomb shelter, where shower and toilet facilities could be found deep underground. The Marines are housed in triple-wides, while all employees eat together at a canteen made from several containers fas- tened together. Bathrooms are found in a few remote containers, so in the middle of the night, it’s typi- cally a long, cold walk to find relief. Guided through Ruins After we tossed our suitcases on our respective bunks, Bob and I marched off to the motor pool in search of a driver. The RSO had authorized a tour of Kabul as long as we used a light armored vehicle. Fortunately for us, it was a fairly quiet day in Kabul, so motor pool was more than happy to assign a dri- ver to guide us through the ruins. Our first stop was the heavily shelled mausoleum of King Nadir Shah, the resting-place of the royal family. His son, former King Zahir Shah, age 87, was flown in from Italy where he’d lived in exile for nearly 30 years, to convoke the Loya Jirga of June 2002. The view from this barren hill crowned by the mosque-like mau- soleum was of total devastation, especially to the east. The densely packed adobe structures in the late afternoon shadows at the base of the hill were completely wrecked, yet people wandered through the rem- nants, seemingly at home in the rub- ble. Our driver explained that the mausoleum hill had become a firing platform for Abdul Rashid Dostum and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s troops from 1992 to 1996, when the Mujahideen, who defeated the Soviets and their puppet, President Muhammad Najibullah, turned on each other and fought for control of the city and country (the conflict killed 50,000 in Kabul alone). Dostum and Hekmatyar combined to oppose then-President Rabbani and Defense Minister Shah Ahmed Massoud. To the south the azure Idgah Mosque rises untouched (along with several other structures) from what’s left of the city center. Downtown Kabul is backed by craggy hills, whose bases are thick with shanty- 66 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 4 Along the eastern end of this spectacular range glistening in the winter sun was a dark gash penetrating its icy peaks — Tora Bora.