Deployment journal: Shoes for young travelers

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Kevin Wallace
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
HERAT, Afghanistan --  The elders met our convoy at the village edge as scores of dirt-covered children leapt from mound to mound, making their way from their mud huts and nomadic tents to the culvert that separated us from the Kuchi village.

The majority of the children were barefoot, so the fact that the main element of this particular humanitarian mission was to deliver shoes was very encouraging.

In addition to shoes, we presented the kids with candy and toys, and gave boxes of food, juice and other beverages to the elders. The types of gifts they received from our convoy were rare treats for them because Kuchis are nomads, and travel and sustain life with the bare essentials.

As the afternoon progressed, I learned this Kuchi tribe mostly kept sheep and goats. They sell the meat, dairy and wool, in order to buy other necessities like grain, vegetables, fruit and other commodities not available to nomadic travelers.

This tribe set up their temporary home near Camp Arena, where I'm temporarily based in Western Afghanistan.

Humanitarian missions are common in Herat, but this tribe had not benefited from such a mission in quite a while. However, efforts are currently underway to build the tribe a new well where they'll easily draw water. This should encourage economic development for the tribe ... I could tell they needed it, and hope they don't travel to a new location anytime soon.

Keeping the children at bay as we passed out toys and candy was very challenging, being that most of the kids had never seen store-bought toys and were excited to the point of little control. To keep the children from fighting, we asked our translator to encourage the village elders to have the kids sit in a semicircle.

After that, we had each child pull the bottom of their shirt forward and up, to make a pocket in front. At first the kids didn't seem to understand why they had to do this. But once they saw Army Col. Ricardo Ramirez, the Camp Arena Detachment West commander, pour a handful of candy in the first child's makeshift pocket, they all quickly followed suit.

Pure and utter joy exploded from the faces of all the children.

One boy quickly unwrapped his strawberry sucker, moved a good distance from the others to the top of a ravine and went to town licking away at his treat. Typically when I approach children with my camera, they either get very curious or clown-up a pose. However, when I took photos of this boy, he was far too busy to pay me any attention.

Moments later another boy approached me and asked me something in Pashtun. I couldn't be certain as to what he was saying, but assumed he wanted me to teach him what to do with the flying disc we just gave him.

Handing off my camera to Navy Chief Petty Officer Daniel Calderon, I happily obliged the boy and tossed the toy with him. He had never seen a toy like this, nor had any other child in the tribe. At first he struggled with the toy, but after a bit of coaching and practice, he got the gist of it. Once he did, he was happy to let me return to taking photos and played with the other kids.

I went on to take some more photos and then captured some video footage. Before leaving, one young boy came up to me excitedly telling me something in Pashtun. I summoned the translator as this boy seemed to be anxious about something.

As it turned out, the boy got his shoes and pieces of candy but, unlike the other kids, he did not get a toy. We were out of toys to give and the lad could tell we were mounting up to depart.

Without anything else to offer him, I handed him a Box-D coin, a souvenir depicting a KC-135 Stratotanker and verbiage designating the coin symbolic of the 100th Air Refueling Wing from Royal Air Force Mildenhall in Suffolk, England.

Being my home station, the coin has value to me but does not carry any monetary value. At first, I wasn't quite sure the boy understood this as he seemed very excited by it. Again, I summoned to translator and asked him to explain to the boy, and to his father, that the coin was just a keepsake and not worth money.

Still, the boy's excitement didn't cease. I guess he had no concept of money to begin with. I now believe he was so happy because, where other kids got toys, he was presented something directly from this Airman's pocket - something of obvious value to me, so it understandably brought joy to him.

Little does he know that the coin was precious to me and that I miss England dearly. Well, precious is a loaded word because even if I had a dump truck full of Box-D coins, I'd gladly trade them all for the smile I saw on that boy's face.

I don't know what his future will bring, nor do I know my fate in this deployment or in life. But, today was a good day. Tonight all those kids' feet are covered, and today that boy and I shared something that I believe we'll both keep with us for years to come.