"Heck, if I lose my sleeping bag, I'll have a backup," said Army Maj. Martin
Rose, who's stationed in Mazar-i-Sharif.
U.S. commanders insist that most airdrops reached their targets.
"There's no way to quantify it, but we're confident the majority of shipments
got to our guys," said the U.S. Central Command's Col. Rick Thomas.
Some shipments were intended for small contingents of Special Forces soldiers
who were traveling light in the war's early days and needed to be resupplied by
air. The deliveries stopped in mid-December, when the Taliban fell.
U.S. military officials say they're unable to measure how many military-related
supplies were unloaded, though figures are available for humanitarian aid: 3.4
million pounds of wheat, 2.5 million daily rations and 328,000 blankets.
A lot of that went to the market too, with blankets and daily rations big
sellers this fall.
Most Northern Alliance soldiers in Mazar-i-Sharif still stroll around in faded
camouflage and old Soviet belt buckles with the hammer and sickle scratched off.
It's the higher-ranking commanders who are outfitted in smart American-made
fatigues.
"Now I'm just like Green Beret," said ethnic Uzbek Gen. Abdul Hak Sakra, tugging
the lapels of his crisp new Gore-Tex field jacket.
Ata Mohammed, an ethnic Tajik commander and former protege of Masoud, the
anti-Taliban leader assassinated in September, even secured a set of fatigues
for his 7-year-old son, Khalid.
"A gift for my little commander," he said, rubbing the boy's head during a
recent interview.
These days, the best place to find new gear is at the southwestern corner of the
blue mosque, a stunning, intricately decorated bright blue dome in the center of
town.
On Saturday, sleeping bag seller Mohammed Dullah paced the sidewalk, shouting
"Bista sefari! Bista sefari!" which literally means "traveling bed."
A woman beneath a diaphanous white burka approached him, inspected the quilted
bag, asked the price and then hurried away.
Even at below cost, the surplus gear is still too expensive for most Afghans,
and vendors are often left waiting for aid workers, journalists or foreign
soldiers to buy their wares.
"It's like hunting," Dullah said. "Some days you get so many. Other days you get
none."
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