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The engine’s noise fell into the distance and Mr. Jack was gone.
    I was very still. I strained to hear. Steps came toward me. A set of boots planted themselves in front of my stall.
    Issaq kicked the door open, just missing my head.
    You flush! You wipe! Then you flush! Yes?
    My bare ass still squatted above the hole. I couldn’t shift my gaze from his scarred chest. Above it, his green eyes stared wildly at me. His face was like a worn-in hide pulled tight over high cheekbones. His pants were the same American uniform I’d seen on Taqbir, but the burning red henna painted onto his fingernails and dyed into his hair, in the traditional way, made it impossible for him to be mistaken for anything but the Pashto warrior he was.
    I said nothing, followed his instructions, and rushed back to the recruit barracks, where I would be cold but safe.
    A little while later, just before the sun rose, Issaq pulled the blanket from our door. In the dim light, he lifted four sandbags inside. I crouched in the far corner. He knifed open the top of each. A splash of dirt flew across the room as he tossed the contents on us. All the while he shouted: Up! Up! Spey zoy! Sons of swine! Get out of your own filth! Clenched in his teeth was a whistle. He blew it with all the muscles of his stomach. The other recruits jumped from their blankets. I stood frozen in the back corner, using the great defense of the powerless—anonymity.
    We dressed quickly. I stole glances at the other recruits, wondering what type of men they were. In truth, they were barely men. Like me, most were not past twenty. I felt a kinship, but also a distrust of them. A misfortune, like mine, had surely brought them here, but I remembered those first two winters in Orgun and what Ali had taught me about theboys we’d slept among in the hills. Just like before, I would be a fool to trust someone as poor as me.
    We jammed through the door and into a small, dusty courtyard. The firebase was little more than ten plywood huts surrounded by HESCO barriers. The dawn fell in shadow along the mountains and Issaq chased circles around us, his energy rising with the sun. Issaq’s voice awoke the feral dogs that slept between the huts. They stretched their limbs in the cold morning air, offering us curious looks. A tall and skinny recruit with sandy hair ran outside in bare feet. He clutched a pair of sandals to his chest. When he bent over to put them on, his trousers slid down his waist. This was Tawas. Issaq! he shouted, calling our tormentor by his first name only. I soon learned there was no rank in the Special Lashkar. Everyone’s position was known by an unspoken authority, the idea being that anyone who relied on rank to lead was unfit for the role.
    Issaq rushed over to Tawas and thrust his chest at him, his ribs pressing into what must have been, at best, Tawas’s stomach. What? Issaq said, spitting out the words.
    Tawas stood at attention. With one hand he grasped his waistband. I’ve forgotten my belt, he mumbled.
    Issaq reached up and struck him with an open palm across the face. Go back and get it! he shouted.
    Short commanders are the most difficult. They carry disappointment too openly. If they turn their disappointment on themselves they become timid. If they turn it on others they become tyrants.
    Issaq was a tyrant.
    Through the rest of winter, he taught us the foundation of all soldiering—repetition. That first day was like every other. After we awoke, we ran to the empty helicopter-landing zone. Soaked and gasping for air, we crawled through the wet mud and gravel while Issaq stood over us.We did push-ups and sit-ups on the loose rocks that scraped our palms and cut our backs. We wore only our thin shalwar kameez, uniforms being a privilege we’d yet to earn. Between exercises Issaq paused and pondered how to increase our agonies. He lacked imagination, so we often did more of the same. Had he been creative he could’ve designed no better torture than the