The Taliban pay tribute to The Doors

It’s official. Fighting season has returned. Those crazy Taliban even announced the date it was to begin anew – May 12th. But they took it even one step further. The Taliban used their public relations ploy of announcing the start of fighting season to also pay homage to Jim Morrison and The Doors. Who would’ve ever thought that those bearded guys with their AK47 rifles and RPG-7 rocket launchers were closet 60’s rock fans? Well their secret is out now. They revealed their love for The Doors by actually giving a name to this year’s fighting season – “Khaibar”, which translates to “The End”. Now every time we get an IDF on Bagram I will be thinking of the opening sequence of the movie “Apocalypse Now” and Jim Morrison’s voice will be the earworm playing in my head. Our local Taliban wasted no time either once the official announcement was over. Just that evening we received twelve rockets. One came around 2000. It missed and the “all clear” came very soon afterward. Then at 0300 on the morning of 13 May the alarm sounded again. “Incoming! Incoming! Incoming!” sounded over the warning system repeatedly. Soon after, the C-RAMs began sending their streams of red 20 millimeter tracers arching across the night sky. I wiped the cobwebs from my eyes, muttered a few obscenities at our enemy, and pulled my uniform back on. Just as I stepped outside on my way to my HQ the little shards of C-RAM shrapnel began to rain down on my billets. I yelled at some folks milling about watching the light show to “get the f*&k in the bunker!” I’m irritable when awakened abruptly under these circumstances so early in the morning. Then I sprinted over to my HQ to monitor our emergency response. Eleven rockets had been launched over a ten minute time span. Thank God we all emerged unscathed, albeit cranky and tired due the sleep disruption. The entire time this was going on the haunting voice of Jim Morrison sang “Khaibar” in my head. We’ve got all summer to go. I’ll be completely sick of The Doors by then if the pace is like this for the remainder of my tour. I’m thankful the Taliban didn’t choose a song by Radiohead to immortalize because I’d be really pissed if by the end of summer I was sick of their music.

Fortunately, it’s been very quiet since that night. I’m sure there will be more IDF. It’s as inevitable as sunshine around here. At least those crazy Taliban gave us the official word that the war is back on. I hate those stupid guys.