BARAKI BARAK, Afghanistan – Staff Sgt. Andrew Odland and the Afghan police officer were standing just inches apart, looking in the same direction. But what they were seeing was completely different.



David Axe spent six weeks in Afghanistan, on the war's dangerous and largely forgotten eastern front.

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A brief, contentious patrol in eastern Afghanistan's Baraki Barak district on March 27 highlighted an important technological gap between U.S. forces and their Afghan partners that will only grow more noticeable as the Americans hand off responsibility to Afghan troops.

The major difference between Odland's vision and the Afghan officer's that chilly night in Baraki Barak, a key agricultural district 50 miles south of Kabul, was a 13.5-ounce device mounted to the American sergeant's helmet and those of his platoon.

The PVS-14 night observation device – or "nods," as soldiers call it – translates invisible light waves from across the spectrum to a single, visible wavelength. In other words, it sees in the dark, casting even the inkiest night into a palette of greens.

With a barrage of 1,300 improvised explosive devices per month, Afghan insurgents have managed to impede coalition operations practically to the point of stalemate.

But insurgents prefer daylight, mostly leaving the night to tech-savvy U.S. forces. Afghans are "solar-powered," U.S. Army Capt. Paul Shepard explained, half-jokingly.

Nods and other sensors mean the Americans own the night. And as long as they patrol under the direction of U.S. troops, Afghan forces at least "rent" the advantage of darkness.

But as the low-tech Afghan soldiers and police begin the slow process of taking over responsibility for security starting this summer, they'll do so with serious limitations compared to the Americans and other foreign troops they'll lead during the transition period.

The fallout from this sort of mismatch was evident in Baraki Barak that night.

Traveling Light —————

The patrol got off on the wrong foot and never corrected its step. As planned, Odland's platoon showed up at the Afghan police station attached to the district's main U.S. Army outpost, just after nightfall. But the local Afghan cops slated to join the Americans were nowhere to be found.

It took some serious cajoling on Odland's part to roust a squad of policemen from the warmth and light of their shacks. They stumbled into the dark with little but their windbreakers and AK-47s. Some weren't even wearing body armor.

Though Afghan troops often travel light, on this night, the contrast with the decked-out Americans was particularly stark. Because they could see in the dark, Odland's soldiers didn't worry about being perfectly quiet. Even if the bad guys heard them coming, they'd never see them coming – and the Americans would see everything with perfect clarity.

So, the U.S. troops brought along a small but noisy John Deere six-wheeler to haul extra equipment.

Like his men, the leader of the Afghan cops – a wiry, bearded officer – had nothing but his natural night vision to help him navigate the streets of Baraki Barak, growing darker by the second as the glow from solar-powered street lamps faded to a dull crimson. To his limited senses, the growl of the John Deere's motor was like a beacon announcing the patrol's presence to the town's Taliban fighters. The officer was irritated from the get-go.

And then something happened that turned the officer's irritation to outright fury, directed at Odland. It was a misunderstanding that hinged on the difference between what the Americans could see with their gee-whiz night-observation devices, and what the Afghan cops couldn't see with their naked eyes.

You Can Run ... —————

The Americans' ability to see in the dark is a pretty profound advantage in its own right. Coupled with the U.S. military's unrivaled control of the air, night-vision is down-right revolutionary.

Odland's mission in Baraki Barak didn't, from the outset, include any air assets. But they were just a radio call away at Forward Operation Base Shank, a few miles to the east. Air power, like night-vision, is another one of those capabilities that the Afghans will miss once NATO withdraws.

Chief Warrant Officer Chris Donahue, an AH-64D Apache gunship pilot based at Shank, underscored the Afghan shortfall with an incredible story of American nighttime aerial prowess.

It was a night in early March, and two American platoons were searching an area in Logar province for suspected Taliban.

"There was no 'illum' at all," Donahue recalled, using Army slang for "illumination." So the three Taliban fighters hiding out in the vicinity had no idea the U.S. soldiers were closing in. The ground-pounders couldn't see the Taliban yet. But Donahue, flying overhead alongside another Apache crew, peering down with infrared sensors, saw everything.

"They could hear us," the veteran aviator said of the Taliban, "but they didn't know where we were – we could tell." The three insurgents tried to hide, but the Apaches' infrared eyes tracked them the whole time. Perhaps sensing they were being cornered, the Taliban ran – straight into the U.S. platoons.

There was a ground firefight "of a momentary nature," Donahue said, after which the panicked Talibs turned and ran a different direction – with American soldiers in hot pursuit. That's when the all-seeing Apaches flew into action.

"We were able to walk the friendly elements onto the targets." Another firefight, and one insurgent lay dead. Another was eventually captured. The third climbed into a tree.

This was the point in the story where Donahue began speaking elliptically, clearly meaning to mask the brutal nature of what happened next. Following his directions, Donahue's wingman opened fire on the tree-bound insurgent.

"They were able to engage the enemy," he said of the other Apache's two crew. What that meant, in reality, was wet pieces of Talib scattered across the landscape.

All thanks to the Americans' unrivaled ability to see in the dark.

'We Lost All Credibility' ————————-

But that advantage has a downside. When paired with troops who can't see in infrared, the Americans' omnividence can result in serious misunderstandings. As when the Afghan cops thought they heard something suspicious off in the distance – and ran toward it, AK-47s raised.

The U.S. soldiers, by contrast, had seen nothing sketchy in that direction, but had glimpsed two suspicious men down a perpendicular alley – which the Afghans couldn't see at all in the darkness.

In an instant, the patrol split in half: the Afghans charging one way, the Americans another way. Things moved too quickly for Odland and the Afghan leader to reconcile their conflicting aims.

Both leads turned out to be nothing. And when the patrol pieced itself back together, several minutes later, the Afghan officer was livid. "While I was running over there, you guys should back me up," he barked through an interpreter.

Odland tried to calm down the officer. "Tell him that there's no disrespect – we mean no disrespect – that it was a mis-communication," the sergeant said.

But the damage was done. From that point on, the Afghan cop insisted on taking charge of the patrol, even though he lacked the gear to work effectively at night. He ordered Odland to park the John Deere. He directed the American sergeant where to place guards whenever the patrol paused.

"Once they took off running and we didn't follow, we lost all credibility with these guys," Odland said.

The sergeant, determined to respect his Afghan partners, bent over backward to accommodate the fuming officer. The goal of the patrol shifted, from looking for bad guys in Baraki Barak to simply preserving the strained friendship between the Americans and Afghans.

"This did not go as planned," Odland admitted.

Ironically, the Americans' greatest advantage contributed to the patrol's failure. By being too advanced for their Afghan comrades, the Americans highlighted a fundamental incompatibility between the U.S. military and the native forces it is prepping to take over security in Afghanistan.

When the U.S. leads, this incompatibility is less severe. But with Afghans necessarily taking charge, the more advanced Americans must sometimes surrender their advantage.

It's worth it, because only by Afghans stepping up will the foreign coalition ever be able to leave Afghanistan. But that doesn't mean the pill goes down easy, when all-seeing American night-fighters must ignore their own incredible vision, to meet the Afghans at their half-blind level.

Video: David Axe

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