Dispatches from Taliban Country
August 23, 2010
This collection of blog entries that Captain Tupper wrote during his year-long deployment offers a scattershot view of the minutia of being deployed in Afghanistan rather than the munitions. In these short entries, Tupper covers such unexpected terrain as the importance of Pop-tarts (as a reward to local children for information), the value of a good haircut (which offers a rare female touch), and the differences between summer and winter warfare. He shares the many nicknames he's earned, such as Captain Prozac, Captain Care Bear, and Ring (short for ringworm), and jokes that importing Italian and Brazilian women to the country would cure sexually-frustrated Taliban soldiers, liberate repressed Afghani women, and ultimately end the war. Tupper hits a somewhat more resonant note when he ponders the careless but successful command mission that made him a hero, compared to his friend "Deg," who followed the rules and died anyway, leaving him with "a sense of remorse that maybe the wrong guy made it home." Once home, Tupper continues his blog, relaying the dissolution of his marriage with sobering tones and touches of the jargon ("We had to embrace the suck") that lends so much personality to this timely chronicle.