(left): two soldiers reading OZONE in “The Mack Shack,” a tiny makeshift recording studio in the Mizan Valley of Afghanistan; (right): the exterior of the Mack Shack; (below left:) DJ Smallz leaves his mark in the studio; (below:) the restroom facilities at Mizan, a.k.a. “the piss tubes,” just outside the Mack Shack
exhaustion I was shocked to see Mo the Jeweler at the baggage claim back in Atlanta, on hand immediately after we landed to clean Smallz’ piece. No matter where we were - flying through the skies, visiting wounded soldiers at the hospital, dropping mortars in the valley - Smallz proudly displayed his chain everywhere we went. He even issued a challenge to Soulja Boy: “Where you at, baby? You’re supposed to be over here representin’ with your [Lamborghini] chain before me!” For Paul, who arrived in the Middle East for a 10 day trip with only a carry-on containing two pairs of Dickies and several t-shirts, the running joke became his resistance to showering. By his logic, walking a half-mile to the showers in Bagram was pointless when he would undoubtedly encounter some dust on the trek back. His black Jordans were soon grey (as well as his black Dickies). Truthfully, despite all the jokes, I never got close enough to smell him. But his overnight farting became legendary in the mens’ bunks. “I told my wife I won a fart contest last night, but I was the only contestant,” Paul bragged.
POLITICS & BULLSHIT As a Hip Hop magazine editor and photographer, I’m not a political analyst, a military guru, or even as well-read on current affairs as I should be. Up until my USO trip, my knowledge about the U.S. involvement in the war in the Middle East was pretty much limited to watching the election debates. “Why are we [the United States] even over there?” someone asked me after hearing of my planned Middle Eastern trip. I honestly didn’t know what to say. When it comes to Afghanistan’s lengthy history of conflicts over the years and the pros and cons of U.S. involvement in the region, I’ll leave that to the experts. Presumably, we are there to defend our country from the likes of the Taliban and AlQaeda, terrorist organizations that hate everything America represents. The assumption is that it’s better to bring the war to them and fight on their turf than to The crew: Cat, allow them to bring the war to us and risk me, Paul Wall, DJ more 9/11 incidents and sacrifice the peace Smallz, and Erick of mind of American citizens. “The goal here is local governance,” Reyes told me during our run. “We want to turn over the country to the Afghans so they can be self-reliant and establish their own economy. We want them to be self-sufficient without having to resort to letting the Taliban rule them to survive, and without using heroin
and opium as their main source of income. We need to get the bad guys out and let the good guys take over.” It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Republican or Democrat. Regardless of the reasons we’re there, and regardless whether you believe we should be there or not, the fact remains that the roughly 68,000 United States soldiers risking their lives in Afghanistan are our peers. They’ve all chosen the military lifestyle for different reasons: whether a sense of patriotism, a lack of job opportunities in the States due to the economic crisis, a way out of the hood, a way to earn money for college, or a need for discipline and structure in their lives. Some of them you might recognize from high school or college. They’ve left parents, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, friends, and loved ones behind and are traipsing around the dry, extremely hot desert in up to seven layers of gear. These are real people. We here in the States have everything we need and more. We are truly spoiled.
EXIT STRATEGY The building where Osama bin Laden was reported to have been hiding on 9/11, a.k.a. “Taliban’s Last Stand,” was bombed by the U.S. and later converted into the main terminal for Kandahar Air Base, the airport we flew out of when we departed Afghanistan. The section of the building that was destroyed by the bombs is barricaded off and no longer in use, but still there as a constant reminder that progress has been made. Waiting for a military flight is a long, drawn-out process, even moreso than a commercial flight. Schedules have a tendency to change frequently. All passengers and cargo are assigned a priority level on a scale of 1-25. Things like dead bodies, ammunition, food, and water rank high on the list. Military brass receive relatively high rankings, but lower-ranking Army servicemen may find themselves camping out at the airport for hours or even days. As for us, our departure was delayed 24 hours when our scheduled flight was diverted to disable an IED. Although we were impatient and ready to go back home, it put our needs into perspective. But even as spoiled as we are in America, the 40+ hours of travel time we spent getting back (including a lengthy layover in a country none of us knew how to pronounce, which we spent sleeping on metal chairs in a tent) made one thing clear: there’s no place like home. All in all, the trip was quite an experience. I’d highly recommend it to any artist open to new adventures; donate a little time to serve our land of freedom, optimism, and opportunity. //
OZONE MAG // 55