The city itself was dangerous because
there was no control over traffic.
I was more afraid of driving from
locations back and forth than I was of
driving through the city because I had a
sense of control when we were driving in
our vehicles because they were unmarked.
We weren’t driving in military patterned
vehicles. We were driving in SUV’s that
looked like every other SUV.
Some of them were armoured,
up armoured but for the most part
we were driving around in Pajaros and
Isuzu troopers and stuff that looked like
every other rich Afghani would drive
around in and there was dozens of them.
So you kind of blended in so I felt,
you feel like less of a target.
Where I would be concerned was in
military convoy.
I knew we were being targeted
because I was an intelligence operator
so I knew what the threats were and
in a way it made it worse because
that’s all I dealt with on a daily basis.
I dealt with potential threats to this,
potential threats to that,
IED’s being set up on this route,
you know, observation on
NATO members here.
It makes you paranoid so that’s all
you are thinking about so when you’re
driving out the front gate and
you’re driving to, you know,
place X or place B for a meeting with this
government official or that government official,
it makes you a little bit paranoid.
Then the fact that people drive
one hundred miles an hour without lights on,
total disregard for any traffic lights,
traffic circles, it gets a bit hairy.