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asked.
    Still the guard stared at me. It was as if we were having a silent conversation, one with the other, me speaking into my phone and he into his radio.
    That is all, said the voice, hanging up.
    I approached. The guard put down his radio and stepped from his booth, rubbing his eyes sleepily. His khaki uniform was too small and his brown suede boots too large. The thick mat of stubble on his cheeks was unkempt and seemed the result of laziness, not any effort to grow a beard.
    I gave him my flight number. Shkin, eh? he said, grinning. You don’t look like a soldier.
    How does a soldier look? I asked.
    Not like you.
    He banged against the gate with the butt of his Kalashnikov. Another guard ran down from his tower to open it. We stood, waiting. Shkin’s a brutal place, he told me.
    It is, I said, my words not quite a statement but not a question either.
    Good hunting for a soldier, he said, but I think it is better to be on the gate.
    Maybe, I replied.
    He laughed at me. You see, he said, you are no soldier.
    How do you know that?
    Soldiers don’t want to watch gates.
    Soon I’ll be a soldier, I said, finding confidence.
    Maybe you will be, but I’ll never know. The flights to Shkin carry soldiers, but the flights back never do. He shook his head in an unkind way.
    A door was cut and hinged into the gate so it didn’t have to be opened fully each time. The other guard poked his head through it.
    Him? he asked.
    Yes, to Shkin, said the guard.
    Now they both shook their heads.
    Good hunting, said the gate guard as I entered the FOB. I couldn’t tell if he were wishing me luck or making another statement about the fighting. I was glad to leave him.
    Inside, metal stakes threaded with rope formed a pen in the dust. This was the holding area for the helicopter flights. Afghan soldiers filled it. They wore a mix of green, khaki, and blue uniforms. None wore the camouflage pattern I’d seen on Taqbir. I had no uniform and they eyed me with suspicion.
    Evening turned to night. Tucking my legs to my chest, I dozed on the cold dirt. Each hour a thin, clean-shaven Afghan, and an American with enormous muscles and cheeks red as bee stings walked into the holding area. The Afghan read names and destinations from a list while the American supervised. The crowd thinned out around me. Soon a chubby Afghan in shalwar kameez was the only other who remained. He seemed to be no soldier at all and he sat atop white bags of rice that rested on a pallet. Each of the bags was solid as a large mud brick. On their fronts, printed neatly in red and blue, were the letters USAID.
    The Afghan and the American returned. Even though there were just two of us left, the Afghan called our names and destinations fromhis list. Aziz Iqtbal, Shkin! I stood and patted the dust from my clothes. Naseeb Ilyas, Shkin! The chubby man slid off his pallet.
    The Afghan waved a forklift toward Naseeb’s rice. Its hydraulic controls whined as the steel prongs came up then down, aligning to the open ends of the pallet. The prongs paused for a moment and then stabbed under the pallet, heaving it to such a height that in order to steer, the driver leaned out the side of the cab. The load bounced as it moved across the uneven ground, before settling along the cement taxiway of the airfield. Naseeb and I walked behind. The night around us was so dark that I couldn’t see the rows of helicopters and jet planes I knew lined our path. I only felt the smooth concrete under my feet and also disappointment. I’d never seen a jet plane up close and now probably never would. We walked quickly and the fat man, Naseeb, panted behind me.
    Are you a new soldier? he asked.
    I considered the roundness of his face. His skin looked like the uneven moon cheese that shone down at us. I am a friend of Taqbir’s, I said. He offered me a soldier’s job.
    Yes, yes, the place you’re going is full of Taqbir’s friends, said Naseeb. Every time we lose one, he sends us another.
    You