Made this in my spare time to flesh out the character and improve my writing skills.

[hider= Kirill's Wartime Tales I][center][b]Sgt. Kirill Gusakov[/b]
[i]Latvijas Nacionālie bruņotie spēki[/i] (Latvian National Armed Forces)
[i]Speciālo uzdevumu vienība[/i] (Special Tasks Unit)
International Security Assistance Force
Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team
[b]"Wolverine"[/b][/center]

[hr]

[b]Combat Outpost "Pirtle-King", Kunar Province, Afghanistan
July 2010[/b]

The Skype call had connected and Kirill saw his wife’s face pop up in the middle of the screen. [color=limegreen][b]"Hey."[/b][/color] He immediately greeted her. [b]"Hey, honey."[/b] The two lovers smiled at each other, separated by approximately 5000 kilometres. They hadn’t spoken in quite some time.

Kirill was speaking to his wife while outside in the base and she was talking to him while laying down on their bed in their house back in Kadaga. He had sat down on the ground and was resting against a Hesco wall. The only light source that lit Kirill's face was the light from his laptop's monitor. There were also some background noises of American troops who were also outside, chatting near Kirill. Kirill could only speak with his wife during the night, since that was the only time the Taliban wouldn't dare to attack.

[color=limegreen][b]"Where's Eduard?"[/b][/color] He asked, surprised that his four years old son wasn't there to greet him as usual. [b]"He was tired today, so he went to sleep. How are you feeling?"[/b] Having looked down for second, Kirill bit his lower lip and said: [color=limegreen][b]"Not that good."[/b][/color] Surprised, his wife asked: [b]"Why is that?"[/b] He usually wouldn't say that, even when he really felt bad. Kirill looked up and chuckled. [color=limegreen][b]"I don't  think that I understand what I am doing here anymore."[/b][/color]

[hr]

It had already been three months since Kirill first stepped on Afghan soil in April. In Afghanistan, the Latvian soldiers were stationed in four bases: Maymana and Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, Kabul and Bostick, which was located near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan, in the mountainous Kunar Province. Kunar hosted just short of around 40 Latvian soldiers, however, along with the neighbouring Nuristan and the southern Helmand and Kandahar provinces, Kunar had proven itself to be one of the most dangerous regions in all of Afghanistan. This was because of its border with Pakistan. The Taliban very easily used the mountainous paths that were practically uncontrollable to smuggle fighters and weapons from Pakistan into Afghanistan. On the other side of the coin, Pakistan's Khyber Pass was NATO's lifeline for supplying the coalition forces, the ISAF, in Afghanistan with around 80% of all supplies brought by road passing through it. Both sides needed control in this region to survive and they were willing to do anything to get it.

In Kunar, the Latvians, also known as the [b]Wolverines[/b], were divided amongst multiple outposts - from the northern OP Mice to the southern OP Bari Alai. All of these outposts were there to protect a major stretch of an unpaved road that led through the province. This road, in some plans it was very important; in others, not so much. Despite this, the road, in a sense, was the front line for the soldiers.

Kirill was stationed in COP Pirtle-King, nicknamed PK by its inhabitants. It was located down south, just before Bari Alai. The outpost was named after two of the three US soldiers that died during the infamous attack on Bari Alai in May of the previous year. A force of around a hundred Taliban fighters had attacked the Observation Post protected by 32 soldiers, mostly from the Afghan National Army. The fatalities were heavy with three US soldiers, alongside three ANA soldiers, with another 12 being taken hostage, and two Latvian soldiers. This attack shook the Latvian society and made many Latvian troops who went to Afghanistan to volunteer to be stationed in Kunar, this included Kirill.

These soldiers had severely underestimated the situation in Kunar and weren't fully prepared for the storm that they were throwing themselves into. Kirill's unit saw heavy action during all of the months before July, when the elections and Ramadan happened. Kirill's first week itself proved as his most intense one with him getting into combat just 3.5 hours after arriving into Pirtle-King and getting into constant firefights for the next seven consecutive days. This meant that the Latvian forces weren't able to do what they came here to do in the first place: mentor and train the Afghan troops. They had to concentrate their efforts on their survival during these months: both theirs and the Afghans. Yet, the Afghans never showed any incentive to seriously listen to their new trainers.

This is what led him up to this point, when Kirill began questioning if they would really be able to mentor the ANA forces.

[hr]

She began feeling worried about him. [b]“How so?”[/b]

[color=limegreen][b]"See, honey. Here in Afghanistan, there's this philosophy, these people, how they live here."[/b][/color] Kirill paused for a second, pondering which example to pick. [color=limegreen][b]"Just a few days ago, before leaving the base with the Afghan and American forces, I talked to an Afghan squad leader. I told him: "Come on, we're leaving at seven. I need you to prepare weapons, food and water, so that it's all in your vehicle when we go." So, a little bit later I go to see him, but he's just sitting there, calmly chatting, blabbering away. I ask him: "Hey, why aren't you getting ready?" "For what?" He asks. People like him believe that Allah will take care of everything for him. If he's got Allah, he doesn't need anything else. If Allah has decided, then it will be so. If he doesn't have water, well then he doesn't put in any water. He drives out and tells me: "Hey, I don't have any water." Even though, I had just told him to prepare. But then he drives out and says he doesn't have any water. Then, of course, my superior went out, took a water pack, and said: "Here's your water." "Oh, Allah took care of everything.""[/b][/color] She could see how angry Kirill was over the whole situation by looking at his annoyed face that avoided eye contact for a short bit. Kirill continued his ranting.

[color=limegreen][b]"They aren't interested in our efforts, they physically don't need them. One day, a reporter from our state TV came here to Kunar to interview us and asked me if there were any improvements... I couldn't say that there were any improvements, because what I understood as improvements was not what the Afghanis understood as improvements. All the paths, all the roads that I have seen in Afghanistan had existed here for thousands of years. I can even feel it. You walk across a rock and you can see that it's been polished by people's feet. How many years do you have to walk across a rock to do that? Hundreds, maybe even thousands. If even a rock is polished when they walk on that trail, then what kind of improvements can we be possibly talking about?”[/b][/color]

[b]“And what about the Taliban?”[/b] She curiously questioned Kirill about them. He didn’t usually talk about them much, but the news back in Latvia kept talking about how the Taliban were not going away and kept mentioning all the bombing that were happening in Kabul. [b]2010 would eventually become one of the bloodiest years in Afghanistan.[/b]

[color=limegreen][b]“The Taliban? They’re easy. They work really simply. We're the ones doing "Star Wars." They take aim at the PK, work it up, shoot it up. Then they go into cover, move away and retreat and no devil will get them. That's it, they're covered. Then they move back along the path, deep into the valley. They work according to the methods of their forefathers. And those methods work, and they're effective precisely because we live in Star Wars and in Star Wars you can't beat these guys.”[/b][/color]

[b]“You’re not afraid of them?”[/b]

[color=limegreen][b]“I was, in the beginning. But then I remembered that I was Special Forces and that wouldn’t fit the bill, so I quickly got used to it.”[/b][/color] Kirill sarcastically answered, before he made one of his signature smiling faces. [color=limegreen][b]“Enough talking about me or this damned place. How’s life back in Kadaga?”[/b][/color]

Kirill's confidence reassured his wife. [b]"They say the economy has recovered and has become stable, so when you return home in December you will be able to leave the SUV and join the Military or State Police like how you wanted back then."[/b] Kirill had actually kept thinking about doing that after returning from Afghanistan. [color=limegreen][b]"That would be nice. [i]But I was asking about you two.[/i]"[/b][/color]

[b]"Well, your mother has moved in and takes Eduard from the kindergarten and watches over him while I am working. I don’t know about your father, but she prays for your safety every night. Uh, I seem to have hit a snag on the project I am trying to push and I am trying everything I can to get it accepted. Also, Eduard’s caretaker tells me that he is rather smart for his age and has a very high potential when grows up. What else… Oh, your brother writes that he is proud that you went to Afghanistan on social media. He also seems to have gotten that job and moved to UK..." [/b]

Kirill was happy to hear that everything was going smoothly back home, unlike here. Smiling, he stated:

[color=limegreen][b][i]"You guys are my heroes."[/i][/b][/color][/hider]