Umbrellas and Baguettes

I started smoking pretty late in life. Certainly, I dabbled in the fine art of fucking my lungs up throughout my young 20’s bouncing from rave tent to bar room and back again. The cool menthol smoke coursing through my sweaty chest as I danced around tents and clubs in Germany while stationed there during my enlistment in the U.S. Army. Oversized baggy Jenco jeans pockets stuffed with Newports or Marlboro Menthols, with their green packaging, rested comfortably within an easy arms reach while laser light shows and pulsing rhythms forced my feet to dance. It was the thing to do during nights of altered states and techno music.

I never put much cred in my habit. It was under control then. A pack could reasonably last me an entire weekend. I smoked more for the need to fiddle with something in my hands or chit-chat with other like minded sweaty wide eyed German girls. A Newport had a magical power to break the ice and start conversations because they were so American that they weren’t even sold in that part of the world.

During my previous war tour to Afghanistan with the military I smoked a bit more frequently but nothing close to resembling a habit. This is actually my second trip to Kandahar. In early 2002 I invaded this country and air field with 101st Rakkasans, an elite Air Assault infantry division from Ft. Campbell Kentucky whose name was given to them by Japanese civilians as they watched the unit parachute into Japan during a training mission. Roughly translated it means ‘falling umbrellas from the sky.’ The name stuck.

At home a pretty girlfriend soon to be wife waited patiently for me sending gifts and letters doused in perfume, pillow cases which she would sleep on before sending them to me so that I could enjoy one night of home before the dust sucked her sweet smell from the linen. She sent me love.

At 27 I started taking this smoking thing more seriously. I had been out of the military for 2 or 3 years living the white picketed fence life with my new wife and a career. I spent money as though it would be gone tomorrow and I worried about issues that really weren’t there to begin with. Making mountains out of mole hills and bringing the stress of military life with me to the civilian world. I was high strung, and I expected a lot of things from my wife. Through fogged glasses I thought myself compassionate to her problems, but in the end I was demanding things of the person I lived with and loved but should have been more than a roommate. I was the clean freak due to years of getting paid to be neat and orderly. She was the cluttered soul who worried about more important things then clearing off the table or closing a cabinet.

In the end she left me, and I deserved it. At the rough age of 27 I found myself amidst the biggest failure of my life. I was busy pounding through a college program knee deep in math courses of which I felt I had no business even trying to comprehend as my wife packed her belongings and left me sitting there in my neat and orderly house lonelier then I’d ever been. Smoking seemed like something to do. It felt like a good idea.

Fast forward 5 years and I’m standing in line at the French PX at the Kandahar Air Field, a military shop stocked with toiletries, clothing, knives, food stuffs, and those blessed cigarettes. Amongst the overpriced foot powder and Justin Bieber CD’s the cheapest cigarettes on post can be purchased for $1.90 American. Any smoker with discerning eye for a great deal on cancer sticks will jump at this price. I can smell fresh baguettes and coffee emanating from the “café” at the end of the shop. A sweet aroma that’s strange in this place amid the dust and rocky gravel paths.


Everything about this military installation is out of place. Out the front door of the French café I step foot onto a wooden boardwalk circling a large dirt field. Along the boardwalk local Afghani vendors sell rugs and hookahs, gyros and scarves, mobile phones and off brand electronics. A bright TGIFridays sign marks the entrance to an establishment so out of place that everyone new to this post takes notice. Inside this completely American establishment transplanted as though through magic the walls are decorated with Michael Jackson album covers, electric guitars, and old road signs. Limited portions of American favorites are served at hefty surcharges. Shipping in onion rings and Cajun shrimp costs money. A wooden laminate floor collects dust as wait staff wearing suspenders decorated with buttons and flair deliver food and drinks to booths and tables filled with soldiers and civilians from all over the world. The food is subpar, and the service comes in a heavy Pilipino accent.

I tried the food while the taste of real world food was still savored in my palette. I haven’t been here long enough to enjoy this pour excuse for food. Give me another year and I’ll probably be eating it up as if it was mana passed down from the gods.

Outside, on a park bench I wait for co-workers to finish their meal. I smoke and I think. A beautiful Belgium soldier sits down on the bench across from me. Her bangs frame her face and I try not to look as I steal glances out of the corner of my eye while she chats in her Dutch vernacular with a bearded soldier friend. I’m realizing that this is the first time I’ve been sent to the Middle East on a war deployment with no one at home to miss and love me in a way that I can be familiar with. Right now I miss my ex-wife and the other few loves of my life from times past. The times when I had someone to miss while covered in the fine dust of this Afghanistan air field.