THE voice on the other end of the radio said: “There are two people digging by the side of the road. Can we shoot them?” It
was the middle of the night during my first week in Afghanistan in
2010, on the northern edge of American operations in Helmand Province,
and they were directing the question to me. Were the men in their sights irrigating their farmland or planting a roadside bomb? The Marines
reported seeing them digging and what appeared to be packages in their
possession. Farmers in the valley work from sunrise to sundown, and
seeing anyone out after dark was largely unheard-of.
-NY Times
