Kandahar 15

The upstairs MWR (morale, welfare and recreation) room is right next to the chaplain’s office, which is convenient because the chaplain always has snacks. They receive box upon box of goodies sent over from people in the States. There are usually some cards from some second-grade classroom of students. I just go there for the sugary goodies, though. I randomly received a care package the other day from little kids and Girl Scouts, etc. My favorite part was the card from some kid named Juan that said, “I will prey for you.” Coincidentally, I received five boxes from my own mother last week, but all they contained were old magazines, medical junk mail, and a couple of Pez dispensers. Thanks, Mom.

Happy hunting, Juan! Now learn to spell ... and get off my lawn!

I have a small stash of goodies in the office, and if he sees something he likes, Joe occasionally asks me where I got it. I usually reply that I “stole it from the chaplain.” It’s not true, but it sounds scandalous. It’s almost as fun, though equally false, as telling others that “I stole the wig in that picture from some woman being treated in the cancer clinic.” Or, “Punching whiny little kids breathless in the solar plexus keeps them still long enough for you to perform a good ear exam.” What can I say? It’s fun to pretend to hate little kids:

“Dear God, make them all better or make them all die; either way, it’s not my problem.”
(Prayer of the Pediatrics Intern – Lance McAdams, 2007, UC Davis)

Yes, I’m most definitely going to hell.

So I was digging through this big plastic container full of candy the other day, taking out the Butterfingers, Baby Ruths, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Milky Ways, when the new chaplain walked in. He started some small talk, and I indulged. We talked about life at Kandahar, where to eat, what to do. He asked what books I’ve read recently, and I mentioned that I’d read an interesting book about Afghanistan’s cultural and political history.

He then asked me whether the stories about homosexuality between men and boys are true. I told him I didn’t know much – not exactly a topic I’m personally all that interested in – but, I’d read and heard a little about it, as well as about practices in other cultures where young boys/men live with an older man for some time before they get married. These relationships sometimes have a sexual component to them.

We talked about how American men are definitely less touchy-feely between each other, as a general rule, than men in other parts of the world. Here in Afghanistan, grown-ass men walk hand-in-hand and arm-in-arm all the time. My friend, Charla, works with the ANA (Afghan National Army), and tells me how it makes the US soldiers a little uncomfortable, but they have one day a week on which they allow the hugging and holding of hands. In her words:

Man love Thursdays. It's the day before Jumaa (Holy Day), so they sin and ask for forgiveness the next day. They're practically Catholic! The Afghans hold hands and hug each other all the time, but when the coalition guys do it and aren't called gay is on Thursdays. The Navy guys are the exception...

I also explained to him that my friend, Shane, told me how he’d seen security camera tapes at the base where he was stationed observing Afghan guys making sweet, bleating love to their goats while keeping watch over their flocks by night. And no kidding, on the front page of the Stars and Stripes, below the fold, I saw an article titled, “Sex with animals still not OK for US military.” I mean, I’d expect to see a story header like that from The Onion, not a military-affiliated newspaper. "And just in case you weren’t sure, bestiality is still illegal in the US military ... Pentagon officials say the deletion of bestiality is a legal technicality and does not represent any fundamental change in the military’s moral code for servicemen (and service animals).” Glad we got that sorted out.

You can put lipstick on a dog ...

... but it's still a dog. *

So the chaplain gave me this look like he was disgusted, and while I clearly think man-boy and man-Labradoodle relationships are wrong, I added that it’s not like Afghans have a monopoly on the man-boy love thing; there are very recent examples of it in the US, e.g., the Penn State scandal with Jerry Sandusky. This is probably the best article I read about it – the author puts all of it into perspective very well:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7233704/the-brutal-truth-penn-state

I stopped there, but considered whether to rehash the Catholic church’s embarrassingly notorious past, and present for that matter, problems with sexual abuse, but decided not to mention that to Father Close.

After a brief, slightly awkward pause, during which I suspected he might have been thinking about more or less the same thing, I said, “Nice chat, Father. Gotta go.” And left.

* No Maggie Gyllenhaals were harmed in the making of this update.