9th Inflation and the KarezChapter 87 of Balloon Wars: An ISR Operator's Account Of The Wars In Iraq & Afghanistan
Chapter 87 – Ninth Inflation and the Karez
Preparations. Inflation procedure. Camel caravan. Karez / Qanat.
We worked for almost two weeks getting things prepared for the inflation. Pete’s pace was what he said it would be and he was right about the difference between Baghdad and Waza Khwa. We were in a real war in Iraq. General Patreus himself wanted the balloons up in Baghdad. At Waza Khwa we were hundreds of miles from anybody who gave a hoot and in comparison to the fighting in Baghdad the war outside the wall where we were in Paktika Province was nothing. Actually, from what I’d seen so far it was literally nothing.
Pete had led or participated in several inflations. Another crew member, Wade Ugland, had been in on several also and this would be the ninth one I was in charge of or helped with since I joined the program. The inflation procedure was my creation so we had plenty of experience this time.
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OTHER SELECTED CHAPTERS
Chapters 1 & 2 – PTDS & the ISR Network
Chapter 12 – Battle in Al Atiba’a
Chapter 17 – Muqtada al-Sadr
Chapter 33 – Urged to Jump
Chapter 40 – Mortar Attack
Chapter 78 – UTAMS Repair
Chapter 79 – IRAM – A Deadly New Weapon
Chapter 82 – Bagram and Waza Khwa
Chapter 86 – Captain Ellis
Chapter 116 – Just Living
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During our training in Florida our flight to Iraq was repeatedly delayed so I went back to Avon Park where Team 5 was inflating their balloon. Wayne Scardo had me work on the inflation procedure, which at that point was little more than a checklist. Every inflation I worked on after that was an opportunity to improve and add detail to the procedure so by the time we were preparing in Waza Khwa we had a document that I was proud of.
The most significant change I’d recently incorporated in the procedure was to stage all the avionics on the ground before the balloon was unfolded, connect it all and turn everything on. Steve Carter was with me when we went through the training in Florida, at every inflation at Site One, the one at Site Three after I got back from Greece and then the one at Site Four. After the problems with the first inflation at Site One Steve always set up all the airborne boxes and equipment on the ground next to the platform, attached the optical fibers and power through the tether to the airborne gear and to the GCS and tested everything prior to inflation. That way we knew everything was working and wouldn’t have to fix anything while the balloon and crew were on the platform and exposed to enemy fire. Although Steve did those preliminary steps I didn’t make them part of the written procedure until later.
Minimizing the time on the tower was critical at Site Three in East Baghdad in 2007 and to a slightly lesser extent at Site Four in 2008. The “74K” (74,000 cubic foot) aerostat was one-hundred-seventeen feet long and thirty-nine feet at it’s maximum diameter so it was a big target and irresistible to the Iraqi jihadist. It was less of a problem elsewhere and even though it was no problem at all at Waza Khwa it still made sense to check everything according to the procedure.
With all the systems and weather checked and frequencies assigned, the GPS components calibrated and aligned, pre-assembly complete, rigging attached and hardware staged, we started flowing gas. As the helium bubble grew and the aerostat slowly took shape Wade and I moved continuously from one side to another and from front to back to be sure that cables, lines and fabric were unrestrained. When the balloon is fully inflated it’s aerodynamic and ready to withstand the elements. Before then it’s unborn. In that state it is easily damaged so everyone is attentive and engaged.
It just takes a couple of hours to get all the helium in and then everything that couldn’t be attached before is laced, pinned and bolted on. The final item to be mounted is the camera.
While we were on the platform in the early afternoon finishing with installation of the camera a herd of camels appeared just outside of the FOB between us and the village to the west, Wasel Kehl. It was a large herd of about a hundred animals driven by a handful of men, maybe Kuchi, the Afghan nomads. We all got our cameras, took pictures and video and watched them slowly go by.
The high plateau we were on is dry with very little growth. Beyond that was either low, bare hills or barren mountains. There was little for the camels to eat and the herdsmen probably ate the camels. There was no truck or chuck wagon with them. The animals are valuable so there may have been a worthwhile reward at the end of their journey but in the meantime the men that drove the herd led a very hard life.
Camel herd passing through Waza KHwa
Afghans are nothing if not stoic. Capt. Ellis mentioned it. He said he treated mine victims whose limbs had been blown off who came in on their own and children with terrible wounds who didn’t cry. They are very tough people.
There is a feature on the landscape I discovered the first time I operated the camera at Waza Khwa that speaks to this national character trait as much as the stories of pain tolerance. It’s the way they get water from where it is to where it wasn’t through a Qanat, which in Pashto is called a Karez. What I saw from above were crater like depressions in the ground placed about twenty meters apart that went from the south side of Waza Khwa to the neighboring village, Wasel Kheyl, across the ground the camel herd had traversed. On studying the 5 meter CIB (Controlled Image Base) aerial photos that were part of the background imagery in the CLAW display I found these strings of bomb crater like holes to exist in many places. The string outside the FOB was several hundred meters long but elsewhere they were several kilometers. No one at the site knew what they were so I looked them up on the internet. Since I didn’t know what I was looking for it was a more difficult search than most but eventually I found the answer and was amazed. The fact that none of us had ever heard of this ancient means of conveying water was pretty interesting too.
Camels outside FOB Waza Khwa
The builders pick a spot where there is or likely to be underground water, often at the base of a mountain, and dig a well there. They then dig holes on a line from that well, the “Mother Well”, to where they want the water for use on the surface. Several factors affect how far apart the intermediate holes are spaced but they can be much further apart than the ones I could see around Waza Khwa. Then they dig tunnels from the bottom of one hole to the bottom of the next allowing the water to flow between them until it eventually reaches an outlet at a garden, field or reservoir.
Excavating the tunnels between the holes is the most amazing part. It’s all handwork of course, in any kind of ground and at depths of tens and even hundreds of meters! In Iran, where the Qanat was invented, the deepest channels are over two hundred meters underground.
It can take decades for a skilled team of four men to finish a Karez, which will be of benefit to the builder’s descendants and their communities for centuries. Ownership and use of the water is according to custom and Shari’a law. The Kitab-i Qani, the Book Of Qanats, written in the ninth century, is one such code.
It’s an amazing feat that requires specialized knowledge, skill and courage. Once I learned what they were, every time I saw one from the balloon camera or from the window of a helicopter I admired the Afghans who built them. The fact that I had no knowledge of their existence illustrated how little I understood about the people and their history. Qanats are an outstanding, perhaps the quintessential, example of what Middle Eastern man can produce. They require cooperation and long term commitment as conveyed in the instructions by the emissary prophets Moses, Jesus and Mohammed and they’re significant in an anthropological sense. Survival depended on controlling the environment by digging canals and Qanats in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Despite all this I had no idea what they were. My Western education and none of my reading had informed me of them. I’m not a highly educated person and I haven’t read everything but I know more than most and I know the men with me in Iraq and Afghanistan had less knowledge than me of Qanats, prophetic teachings and anthropology. It’s little wonder we haven’t won the hearts or minds of the people in Waza Khwa or that they don’t make their hearts available to us.
This program is about my job in the war zones and how the events of September 11, 2001 affected my family. It isn’t the television version of the memoir. The resources to produce that are beyond me, but the video and stills in this more modest production compliment the book.
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Book Chapter and photos © Robert A. Crimmins, Felton, Delaware, USA
(photos on this page are by others)
