John Cook
Lieutenant Colonel (LTC)
There is no place, anywhere, quite like Camp Eggers in downtown Kabul. Home to over 1,600 military and civilians, Camp Eggers is also home of the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan as well as the newly-formed NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan. Both of these organizations are commanded by LTG William Caldwell. In very simple terms, the mission of these two commands is to show the Afghans how to save their country and provide them the tools to do the job. The camp is named in honor of Captain Daniel Eggers, a Special Forces officer killed in action here in May, 2004.
Camp Eggers is a fifteen-acre parcel of once-prime real estate in the heart of downtown Kabul, very near the U.S embassy and the presidential palace. At one time, when Kabul was a civilized place, this area was home to members of the diplomatic community. Several of the stately buildings inside the perimeter had swimming pools, servant quarters, and magnificent, manicured lawns. Today, very little is left of this Eggers of a bygone era.
Now, large, metal shipping containers rest on top of the empty swimming pools, providing office space for the new tenants. The lawns are long gone, replaced with concrete slabs that serve as the foundations for even more shipping containers converted into living quarters. It is this eclectic blending of past and present that gives Eggers its unique charm.
Gator Alley is the main street of Camp Eggers, running north from the main gate and terminating at the front of Warrior Gym, one of two well equipped athletic facilities available for the troops. Before you get to Warrior Gym, you will come to the Post Exchange, or PX, on the right. The PX is where the residents and visitors do their shopping. For the most part, it is adequate for finding essential items such as soap, shaving cream, toothpaste, teapots and the like. However, there is one major exception. Listerine is almost always missing from the shelves. The PX carries their own brand of mouth wash, euphemistically marketed under the brand name SELECT. The label proudly announces that “SELECT compares favorably to Listerine.” It doesn’t, of course; Listerine is the real deal and SELECT is a knockoff.
Unlike Listerine, there is always an abundant supply of early pregnancy tests, carried as a courtesy, no doubt, for the ladies assigned to the embassy since the underlying cause for needing an EPT is banned by the Army’s infamous General Order One. In the back room of the PX, there is a nice selection of DVD movies. You can pay $19.95 for one of these or you can buy the same DVD at the Eggers Bazaar on Friday for $2.00; the choice is up to you.
If you turn left off Gator Alley just past the PX and make a right turn when you get to the Goat Mess Hall, you will wind up at the Green Bean. The Green Bean is Eggers answer to Starbucks back in the world. The Green Bean serves the same kind of assorted, exotic and very much overpriced beverages that Starbucks offers. However, the Green Bean has something very, very special to the residents of Eggers. It houses the only ATM on post. Here, you can get cash for items at the PX and the all-important Friday bazaar.
Going to the Friday bazaar is the high point of the week. This is the one day of the week when the camp commander allows local merchants into Eggers to display a wide variety of items. Since the residents of Eggers are not allowed to go downtown and shop, the merchants bring their wares to the customer. Aside from the $2.00 DVD movies that are still being shown in theaters around the world, there are silk scarves, fake Rolexs, hand made carpets, IPODs, cameras, precious and semi-precious gems, knives, swords, antique rifles, mink jackets, cell phones, paintings, onyx chess sets, and hundreds of other treasures awaiting the residents and visitors to Eggers every Friday. Haggling over the price is all part of the process and the only rule is “buyer beware.” A genuine emerald from the Pansier Valley will look a lot like a fake. Both are readily available at the bazaar. Often, the vendor doesn’t know the difference. The bazaar opens at 11 o’clock and closes sometime close to 4 pm. Experienced bazaar shoppers will wait until closing time to close a major purchase. The odds are you’ll get a better deal. If not, there’s always next Friday to score a great price on a Coach handbag knockoff.
The Friday bazaar is both a microcosm and metaphor for Afghan-American relations at all levels in this broken country. The Americans insist on ground truth and the Afghans smile and say they’re getting it but ground truth is in short supply everywhere here. So, perception becomes reality and you cut the best deal you can and move on, hoping to God that the emerald in your pocket is real and not a piece of green glass.
No matter what kind of day you’re having at Eggers, you can always count of getting three great meals a day at either on two mess halls, officially known as dining facilities. The Marshall and the Goat both open at 5:30 am for breakfast. The quality and variety of food at these facilities is first rate by any standards. Add the fact that we are in a combat zone, and this accomplishment becomes remarkable, considering that everything is transported across Pakistan and there is very little storage space here at Eggers to stockpile food. It must come in every day, rain or shine, Taliban or no Taliban. Both dining facilities are operated by KBR and everyone here that depends on these facilities know that the folks that keep these facilities humming are the real heroes. On Friday, we get steaks and lobster for dinner. The Friday night meal is truly something to look forward to after a hard day of bargainning at the bazaar.
The new week starts all over again on Saturday morning as Eggers comes alive before daybreak. Long before sunup, the Afghans line up at the gate, ready to be X-rayed and patted down before they move into the camp to assist the military in a hundred different way in keeping Eggers running. Convoys form up in Gator Alley, ready to take members of the command group to various meetings around town. At 9 am, the PX will open. Today, we might get lucky. Maybe, just maybe, Listerine is in the overnight delivery. If it is, it will be gone by noon. Best to be there when they open.
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