WHEN THE HELICOPTER touched down at Camp Leatherneck, I lifted the duffel bag with Fred inside and tucked it under my arm. As I walked across the airfield, I felt like I was stepping on land for the first time after a month at sea. The sun was bright overhead, and the wind from the rotors shook loose a cloud of dust from our uniforms.
There was a welcome-back reception for us right there on the airfield, complete with pizza and cold Gatorade. I hadn’t had a cold drink in weeks, but I was going to have to wait a little longer. With my four-legged stowaway in my bag, I slipped away from the guys and walked toward the road where I planned to meet Sergio.
I knelt behind a barrier of dirt-filled barrels and looked anxiously into the distance. Fred squirmed inside the bag. I opened the zipper and let him pop his head out. He lifted his snout toward the sky and sniffed the air, then scanned his surroundings, panting and blinking under the hot sun.
When I arrived at Camp Leatherneck for the first time several months earlier, the size of the base shocked me. It was big enough to drive around and get lost. There were three dining halls, four state-of-the-art gyms, a hospital, clinics, a post office, and row after row of office buildings, tents, and barracks. There was a huge internet lounge, a place where soldiers could get a cup of coffee and play video games. Camp Bastion, the British-run base with an airfield, was connected to Camp Leatherneck, too. That was where the helicopters and drones went in and out.
At Camp Leatherneck, I felt safe. I saw civilian contractors walking from building to building and marines driving around in civilian vehicles. A lot of marines spent their entire deployment at Camp Leatherneck. Those who worked in supply and some intelligence analysts stayed on base. Every job was important, but I was grateful to have spent as much time in the field as I did.
Fred waited quietly. Finally, a little black Toyota pickup came down the dirt road, kicking up a dusty cloud in its wake. As the Toyota came closer, I spotted Sergio behind the wheel and Mac sitting beside him, with his oversized cowboy grin. They pulled up next to my hiding spot, and I zipped Fred back into the duffel bag and put him in the bed of the truck. I jumped in beside him. The diesel engine let out a groan as Sergio shifted gears, and we lurched forward, speeding toward our barracks on the opposite side of the base.
As we drove, I opened the duffel bag and let Fred out. He struggled to keep his balance as we bounced down the road.
“You look like hell, man!” Sergio shouted from the cab, grinning and handing me a bottle of water. I took a swig and was shocked by how strange it felt to drink something cold. I found a plastic cup rolling around in the back of the truck and poured some water for Fred.
Camp Leatherneck was always expanding and changing. As we drove toward the barracks, I spotted a new compound off to the side of the road that hadn’t been there when I left a month ago. In bright red letters against a yellow background, a small sign near its entrance read DHL, the international shipping service.
Sergio pulled up to our barracks. The long white trailers were lined with bunks and slept about ten guys each. No one else was there, which worked in Fred’s favor.
I plopped Fred down on my bunk.
“Hey, Freddy, here’s your first bed,” I said. Impressed, the dusty dog curled up right there, blinking his eyes sleepily and letting out a sigh.
Sergio, Mac, and I laughed at him. After talking for a few minutes, Mac said, “Hey, man, go get a shower. We’ll stay with the little guy.”
In the shower, the water felt amazing. I turned it as hot as it would go and stood under the faucet, letting the pressure rinse the sand from my hair. Brown water pooled at my feet. Afterward, I shaved and put on fresh clothes. The pants were so clean they felt stiff and foreign against my body.
We spent the rest of the afternoon camped out in the barracks with Fred. Mac brought us some food from the dining hall, and we watched movies on my laptop. I found some rope and planned to use it as a leash for Fred. Once it was good and dark, Mac kept a lookout while I took the dog outside for a walk.
The night was clear and cool. Our barracks was at the end of the row, so we didn’t have to go far to reach a field that was fairly secluded. Not many people drove around at night. Fred was calm; he didn’t struggle against the leash or make a sound. In the dark, his white fur seemed to almost glow against the moon-dusted earth. I watched as he sniffed around, nose to the ground, finding places to mark. Once he was done, we went back inside. Fred seemed to understand what was happening, so he was especially cooperative.
That night, lying in bed with Fred between my knees, I was too anxious to sleep. I would be going back to Sangin after a two-week break on base. I needed to get Fred out before going back into the field.
I thought about the DHL sign I had seen. The shipping company had likely popped up to meet the growing shipping demands on Camp Leatherneck. We had a military post office to handle troop mail and care packages. DHL was a civilian company. Instead of military staff, they’d have their own workers. Getting civilians to help me with Fred seemed safer than involving other marines. The place was crawling with military police, but the civilian-run contractor buildings were off the radar. If Fred was going to get shipped home, DHL would be his ticket out.
The next morning, with Fred hidden back at the barracks, I went over to the DHL compound. A twelve-foot chain-link fence surrounded the area. I walked up to the gate, which was closed but not locked. I pushed it open just enough to squeeze through.
The place looked abandoned. A forklift was parked just inside the gate. In the back, a few trailers sat quietly. Propped up against one of them, I spotted a small yellow sign that read OFFICE in red letters.
I tapped on the door, and it swung open. Inside was a cheap, wobbly-looking desk with a computer monitor and keyboard. From underneath it, I heard a man with what I thought was a thick Ugandan accent. “Come in!” he said as he lifted his hand and waved me inside.
The DHL worker picked himself up off the floor with a groan and wiped his forehead with a white towel. Without looking at me, he pressed his index finger against the power button—tapping repeatedly—until the computer whirred to life. A satisfied smile on his face, he finally turned to me.
“Yes, Sergeant. What can I do for you?” he said.
“Please, call me Craig,” I told him.
The man smiled and nodded as he came around the desk with his hand outstretched.
“Okay, Craig. My name is Tinashe. It is nice to meet you. And what can I do for you?”
Tinashe was about five foot eight and in his forties. He was bald and clean-shaven. With his blue DHL polo shirt tucked into his belted khakis, he looked sharp, and he smiled generously.
“I’m thinking of shipping something, but it looks like you guys aren’t quite up and running yet,” I said, scanning the room.
Tinashe smiled even bigger and said, “Oh, don’t worry, my friend! We’ll be up and running within twenty-four hours. Things move quickly here; I make sure of that. What were you thinking of shipping?”
I took a quick breath and tried to sound smooth. “If someone had a dog—hypothetically—would that be something you could ship?”
Tinashe looked at me, still smiling. “How big is this dog?” he asked, crossing his arms across his chest.
“Oh, I’m just curious if—,” I started to say, but Tinashe, laughing, cut me off.
“Bring him over! I want to meet this dog!” he said.
“Okay, man,” I said. “I’ll bring him over here tomorrow.”
“I can’t make any promises but I will promise you I’ll do what I can,” he said.
First thing the following morning, I snuck Fred into the pickup, making him ride on the floor of the passenger side. We drove toward DHL, cautiously passing by a military police vehicle parked outside the dining hall.
When we pulled up to the DHL compound, I was shocked. It had been transformed. The forklift operator lifted a pallet of water bottles onto a flatbed truck. Tinashe stood, wearing the same blue polo, clipboard in hand, giving orders to workers as they zipped around. When he saw me, he waved me over to a parking spot by the office.
Fred popped up onto the passenger seat, and when Tinashe got a look at him, his face lit up. He went over to Fred’s side and opened the door for him.
“Look at this funny guy! You didn’t tell me he was such a good-looking dog!” Tinashe said as Fred spilled out onto the dusty ground, excitedly prancing around Tinashe’s feet.
We walked into the office and Tinashe handed me a printout.
“That is a list of forms that you’ll need to get this guy home,” he said, bending to rub Fred behind the ears. “What is his name, by the way?”
“Oh, I’m sorry—this is Fred,” I said.
Tinashe burst out in laughter.
“Fred!” he said. “Fred the Afghan with the American friend!”
I couldn’t help but laugh, too. A couple of the DHL workers wandered in to see what all the excitement was about. One of them introduced himself as Peter; he was in Afghanistan to make some cash and send it to his family in the Philippines. He said most of his coworkers were Filipino, too. Well-paying jobs in the Philippines were hard to come by, and Peter had traveled half a world away to support his loved ones. Most overseas military bases I have seen are staffed by third country nationals. They are people from one country—such as the Philippines—working in another country—such as Afghanistan—for a company from a third country—such as DHL. I respected the sacrifices these people were making to survive and support their families back home.
Tinashe pointed to a huge chart on the wall. It was a long list of things they weren’t permitted to ship—mostly obvious stuff like grenades, rifles, bullets, spent ammunition.
“There’s nothing here about live animals, my friend,” he said.
I thanked him, and Fred and I made our way back to the barracks.
In the room, I looked at the paperwork, and my heart sank. The list of required forms was long, including papers that sounded nearly impossible for me to obtain, such as customs forms and veterinary certifications, one of which required proof of a rabies vaccination and a thirty-day quarantine supervised by a veterinarian. How was I going to get that?
I pulled out my phone and called Sarah, but she didn’t pick up. Rambling nervously, I left a long voice mail describing each of the forms I needed, asking her to find out if she could get her hands on them and mail them to me.
I looked at Fred, sitting on the bed. He looked back at me with raised eyebrows as if asking, “What now?”
Over the next few days, I corresponded with Sarah, who was trying to find out what needed to be done to get an animal shipped from Afghanistan to the United States.
Meanwhile, hiding Fred in the barracks was becoming increasingly stressful. I heard rumors of room inspections. First Sergeants and other higher ups were looking for alcohol and other illegal items, as well as making sure our rooms were clean. Under normal circumstances it would have annoyed me—we weren’t in boot camp anymore—but with Fred in our room, I was terrified. There were no locks on the door. Anyone could come in at any time.
After a few days of hiding Fred, I thought I was going to get caught. I went over to the part of the compound where my friends who worked with explosives lived, and my friends Matt and Dave agreed to help hide him. Their compound was farther from most of the activity in Camp Leatherneck, and their commander was a bit more relaxed. We all agreed it would be easier for Fred to stay there, and I drove him over that night.
The next time I talked to Sarah, it was clear that shipping Fred was going to be trickier than expected. She didn’t have any of the forms yet, and we needed extra time to mail them. The days were slipping by. I realized I had to shift my focus from sending Fred home to finding a way to keep him safe while I went out on my next mission. I hated the thought of leaving him on Camp Leatherneck without me, but I didn’t have any other choice.
The safest place at Camp Leatherneck would be with civilians. If Fred stayed with the marines, it was only a matter of time until he would be found. In addition, Dave and Matt were finishing their deployment and going home. I had to ask Tinashe if he could hide Fred at the DHL compound.
At dusk, I put Fred in the truck and we drove to DHL. The setting sun and desert haze turned the sky yellow in its last burst of daylight. When we pulled up to the compound, Fred and I hopped out and met Tinashe in the office.
The words came tumbling out.
“Tinashe, I’ve got a problem. I’m going back out in another week. I’ll be gone for a while—like a month—and I don’t know what I’m going to do with Fred. We’ve been trying to hide him, but if we get caught, he’ll be put down,” I said. “My sister is working on the customs forms but she needs more time. . . .”
Tinashe placed his hand on my shoulder. “My friend, didn’t I tell you I would do what I could? Fred will stay here with me while you are gone. This is a special dog, and I want to do my part to make sure he gets to America.”
I hugged him.
Tinashe walked outside and moved like a hummingbird, quickly putting together a plan. He picked up a long strap. “Here,” he said, tying it to a metal pole. “While we’re working all day, Fred can stay here.”
Peter and a few of the guys appeared. It was the end of the day and they were off the clock. Several simmering slow cookers sat on a folding table at the back of the office. It was dinnertime, so after hearing the news about Fred, they brought him a plate of chicken and rice.
We were from different countries—separate continents—yet we had been brought together by this one little mutt in the middle of the Afghanistan desert. We were all transplants here, trying to survive in our strange circumstances. These guys didn’t have to help me, but they did. I was humbled by their generosity.
As I slipped out and drove away from the compound, Fred barely noticed. He had made new friends, and he was happy.
My two weeks at Camp Leatherneck flew past. In addition to getting Fred settled, I had to prep for the next mission, spending hours in the intelligence office with Sergio while he briefed me on what to expect from the Taliban next time out.
The plan was for us to return a few miles north of where we’d been before, continuing to remove the Taliban along Highway 611. Our goal was to establish a patrol base that would serve as a semipermanent fixture along the highway and secure the area so the engineers could continue to make their way toward the dam.
The farther north we went, the narrower the Green Zone became, cut off by an eastward bend in the Helmand River. This area of the Green Zone was dense with Taliban. From our experience in Sangin, we could tell that the Taliban had been coming down from this area to attack us during the day, then retreating at night. After we left, we monitored the area by drone and saw the Taliban move around completely at ease, unafraid. It was almost as if we’d never been there.
On this mission I was heading out with Ali, the interpreter, as well as two new explosives experts, Justin and Ysa. We met the night we were heading out. Justin was about my height, a big guy, in shape, with huge hands. He had a quiet confidence about him. I knew he was a staff sergeant, but he introduced himself by his first name.
“You’re the guy who snuck the dog out in a duffel bag last time out, right?” Justin said.
Someone must have told him about Operation Fred.
“Dude, you’re from Pittsburgh, aren’t you?” I asked, changing the subject. “I’d recognize that accent anywhere, you freaking yinzer.”
Justin immediately smiled. I told him my dad’s side of the family was from a small town outside of Pittsburgh. Every time my dad said house, it sounded like hass. I hadn’t heard the western-Pennsylvanian accent in a while but I still had an ear for it.
I also busted Ysa about his name. “Y-S-A?” I said, pronouncing it why-essay in a goofy tone. Ysa—which is actually pronounced ee-ssa—was, like Justin, easygoing. He was a little shorter than Justin and from a small town in Texas, but his personality was as big as the state itself.
“Look, guys,” I said. “The Recon guys are great, but they’re their own unit. We should stick together.” Justin and Ysa had more combat experience than I did, but this would be their first time in Sangin. We needed one another.
We lugged our gear over so we could load up on the helicopter together. As the sun sank into the dusty horizon, I felt a moment of peace. Fred was safe. I knew Sarah would find a way to get the forms we needed. I was doing a job I loved, surrounded by a good team of guys.
As the light faded in the sky, we walked across the tarmac and boarded the helicopters, headed back to Sangin. I didn’t know it then, but that moment was the quiet before the storm.