On the road with Sgt. 1st Class Jacob Widhalm in ... AFGHANISTAN

Beat-up yellow and white Toyota Corolla taxis full of bearded men wobble to the side of the road. Overloaded, ornately painted “jingle” trucks lumber to a halt in clouds of fine dust. Teenage boys in white “man jammies” whose fine black whiskers are just beginning to form shadows on their upper lips and chins slow down and weave their motorbikes and bicycles to a level spot where they can safely plant both feet.

Sgt. 1st Class Jacob Widhalm, a resident of Lincoln whose father is from Humphrey, is honking the horn of a fast-moving, 7-ton Humvee, which he maneuvers along a narrow, heavily trafficked, two-lane blacktop through the busy urban area of Khost city, Afghanistan.

His Humvee is the lead in a convoy of six vehicles going from Camp Salerno, on the greener side of Khost, only miles from the Pakistani border, to the other side of the city, where Camp Clark, a small FOB (Forward Operating Base), lies at the dry and dusty foothills of the KG (Khost to Gardez) Pass. Today’s mission is to bring a disabled Humvee to Camp Clark where it will be repaired. Widhalm’s Humvee acts as the tow truck.

Though the distance is a mere 15 miles, the trip can take upwards of an hour to drive. The road is rife with potholes, washouts and a hundred different possibilities for insurgents to plant IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) powerful enough to flip the 7-ton behemoth upside down like sardine can.

“When I drive, I have tunnel vision; I’m totally focused,” the 33-year-old Widhalm says, tightening his gloved hands on the steering wheel. “You have to look out there a long ways to see the hazards coming up. You always got to react to those hazards long before they come, because if you don’t, you can roll your vehicle trying to avoid them.”

Hazards include depressions, bumps and things that weren’t there the last time.

“We own the road,” Widhalm mouths into his black Bose headset, which all five occupants wear in the rattling Humvee. “We drive down the middle. The cars have been told that they must pull over. If not, we have to implement an escalation of force.”

Escalation of force means the gunner in the turret first puts up a stop sign with his or her hand to warn a moving vehicle that it must come to a halt. If that doesn’t work, they fire a warning shot into the air. “Sometimes you have to fire the warning shot into the car hood because there are so many people around that it’s the only safe place to put it,” Widhalm says in his slow, measured manner.

If a moving vehicle still doesn’t respond, then a decision has to be made, sometimes within a split-second, whether to disable the vehicle or hope that it’s simply an uninformed driver who doesn’t realize he’s putting his life at risk by not stopping for a U.S. military convoy.

For military vehicles the risks are considerable.

Besides IEDs, VBIED’s (Vehicle Borne Improvised Exploding Devices) are a viable and constant threat on urban roads in Afghanistan. VBIED attacks, like the one in Kabul near the U.S. Embassy a few days before the fifth anniversary of 9/11, when a blue Toyota Corolla sped past another car on the inside lane then rammed into one of two U.S. Humvees, killing 16 people, including two U.S. soldiers, and injuring at least 29 people, have become more prevalent than ever.

“You got to be on the lookout for erratic drivers and for a chassis sitting low on its wheels or leaning to one side,” Widhalm warns. He explains that where in Nebraska the low or tilting chassis might be the telltale sign of some large farmer driving to the store or church, here in Afghanistan it could mean that the vehicle is loaded with explosives, waiting for the right target to detonate. “With a VBIED you generally don’t have time to shoot. About the only thing you can do is duck down and hope the explosion goes out and over the vehicle,” Widhalm concedes, his eyes continually scanning the road.

Widhalm slows down. He’s spotted two men carrying AK-47 assault rifles near a crowded intersection. In this Pashtun area of Afghanistan it is normal for men to carry weapons out in the open, but to crack down on insurgents the Khost chief of police, Abdul Qayoun, has recently forbidden civilians to do so.

“Should we stop them, major?” Widhalm asks, his voice rising.

A brief pause ensues while Major William Appel, a National Guard reservist from Bangor, Maine, assesses the situation from the passenger side. Motorbikes and cars stream by. A group of children in dirty clothes play in the background.

“Nah, keep going, they look safe,” Appel tells Widhalm, deciding that stopping the six vehicles in the middle of a congested road isn’t a good idea.

The convoy trundles forward.

When the convoy reaches a rather new two-story building constructed with orange bricks, everybody in the Humvee becomes quiet. In front of this school a few month ago, an insurgent wearing a vest of explosives pushed a small child in front of an ANA (Afghan National Army) convoy of tan-colored LTVs (Light Terrain Vehicles) that was passing. The child was struck and killed by the first pick-up, and the convoy stopped. The soldiers piled out of their LTVs to see what happened. The bomber then snaked into the middle of the crowd and detonated his vest. Five ANA soldiers and a number of civilians were killed.

Widhalm generally doesn’t tell his wife, Cheryl, about such mishaps during his daily call to Lincoln.

“That’s what my dad and brother are for,” he says flatly.

Widhalm explains that this deployment, his first since joining the National Guard in 1992, has made his family stronger. Besides a brief mission in Egypt for a few weeks, this is the longest he has ever been away from his wife and two children, one who is only 7 months old. “Every day I realize that this woman is supporting me being in the military, and I’m very grateful,” Widhalm says, his voice freighted with emotion.

At only $3 a month to stay in touch with his family, Widhalm says that Skype is a beautiful thing. He plays virtual chess and other games with his 10-year-old son who is a fourth grader this year. Both can physically see each other on camera as they play.

Widhalm says this closeness with his family from nine and a half time zones away focuses him on his mission: “to get out of here safely and soundly ... to get back to my family.”

When Widhalm isn’t driving a Humvee he acts as a PMT (Police Mentoring Team) trainer. Here in the Province of Khowst, Widhalm works with regional police, in the Administration and Logistics Department. He mentors the police in the administration office, trying to get them into the 21st Century, which he admits is a challenge.

“Everything here is done by hand,” Widhalm says, shaking his head. “Tasks take four times longer than normal. We’ve been trying to teach them about computers, but it’s slow going.”

Preparing two copies of a form often means writing out a document in long hand twice.

As for logistics, Widhalm explains in Afghanistan they have 10 people doing what one person would do in the U.S.

“Here they have an officer for clothing, an officer for food, an officer for communication, yet they’re always chronically understaffed,” he said.

He further explains that the concept of logistics here can at times seem alien to the people he mentors.

“In the U.S. we order something and either they don’t have it, it’s on back order or it’s on its way. Here when you order something you have no idea if it even exists, let alone whether you’ll receive it,” he said.

Widhalm’s goal before he leaves Afghanistan in late November is to create an administrative name list to achieve accountability.

“Sometimes you’ll see somebody on the payroll who was killed in a blast two months ago and he’s still getting paid,” Widhalm said. “We need better accountability of police personnel here. Kabul needs a grasp on numbers, where what they pay out reflects the actual number of people they have.”

Widhalm realizes that some Americans might see Afghans as inept or lazy because of such blunders, but he sees things differently.

“There are a lot of hard-working people who want stability here,” he said. “You see people cutting a field of wheat down by tying a string around a sheaf and cutting it with a knife. Now that’s hard work. We wouldn’t want to do that.”

Widhalm says his experience in Afghanistan since he arrived in March has made him appreciate what Americans have.

“I can’t wait to go back to Nebraska and have water out of the tap again, to take a bath,” he says, smiling at the thought. “The first thing I’ll do when I get home is take my shoes off and roll around in my yard. I miss having grass underneath my feet.”

Widhalm, who was scheduled to arrive in Lincoln this weekend for a two-week leave, yearns for a few things that only Lincoln can offer: a double pastrami burger from M&N (Millie & Norm) Sandwich Shop at 27th and Randolph and to attend the Virginia Tech and Missouri home football games, among the best of the season according to him.

Widhalm, a full-time National Guard employee, works security at the gate when in Nebraska. Since 1995, he’s only missed two home games. “I used to live Scottsbluff, and after work on Friday nights I’d drive to Lincoln so I could be at the game on Saturday morning,” he said proudly. Although he will not be able to attend the games while in Afghanistan, Widhalm says he gets up at 3:30 in the morning to hear them on the radio because he can’t watch them on TV.

The mere mention of the Cornhuskers gets Widhalm excited.

“I can feel it in my legs, they’re pulsating,” he said, squeezing his left thigh. “My family comes first, but Nebraska football is a very close second.”

He adds with a chuckle that his job in the army also is pretty important.

Widhalm keeps his eye on the radiator gauge, which is nearing the red zone in the relentless Afghan 90-plus-degree heat. He turns the air-conditioning off in the Humvee to make sure the vehicle doesn’t overheat while towing the second Humvee. As he nears the gates of Camp Clark, having avoided IEDs, VBIEDS, suicide bombers and children throwing rocks, he waxes philosophical.

“The solution for Afghanistan is to get all the people on board here: the government, the army, and the police,” Widhalm says. “They need to all work together and be effective. We have a lot of good things in the U.S. that we’re fighting for here. So whatever a soldier’s mission is in Afghanistan, he or she has to do it to the best of their ability.”

He pauses a second, then continues ... “that also goes for Nebraska football players.”