A U.S. Marine, a curious Afghan boy, an unfathomable moment

One day not long ago, I watched my soon-to-be 3-year-old son jump up and down to the sound of ‘œho’� and ‘œhey.’� It’s a song by The Lumineers, an American folk-rock band. The lyrics and stomp reverberate throughout the kitchen and into the house. My son jumps on each verse that ends with a shout. ‘œSo show me, family. Hey!’� He jumps. ‘œAll the blood that I will bleed. Ho!’� He jumps. ‘œI don’t know where I belong. Hey!’� He jumps. ‘œI don’t know where I went wrong. Ho!’� He jumps. And then, so do I. ___ This is a story about a curious boy with no name – at least, no name that I ever came to know. It was 2013, more than a decade after the 9/11 attacks. I was a Marine then, back in Afghanistan for a second time. At the time, I was working to stop a Taliban cell that specialized in making improvised explosive devices. In that effort, a video emerged. I watched it. I remember him. I cannot forget him. I remember watching a minute-long video showing a static video camera aimed down a narrow path between two mud hut walls, common in the small hamlets often surrounded by opium-poppy fields. On the screen, not much was moving. I remember the wind from the east kicking up the moon-like dust to the west. The tree and its shadow moved across the ground as the branches and leaves broke up the rays of sunlight to make abstract art patterns on the desert floor. I remember the boy, full of energy and life, running into the frame and then out of it. From left to right. With little boys like him – with little boys like mine – the curiosities of life can be palpable. And so the curious boy with no name wandered slowly back into the frame. From right to left. He is an Afghan and, given the province we’re in – Helmand, to be exact – he maybe speaks Pashtun. His small size places him somewhere between 3 and 5 years old. Maybe he’s 6, a feat in itself; it’s said one in 10 children in Afghanistan die before they turn 5. As his curiosity runs rampant, I know what he does not. When he ran into the frame and then out of it, he had stepped on a soft spot in the ground – a patch different from the rest of the hard-packed dirt. He wanted to know why. I did not. Slowly he walks back to mid-frame, studying the ground closely. Like a newly discovered toy, he starts to stomp on the soft spot in the dirt. Over and over again, he stomps. I wait, knowing what I know. ___ Victim-operated improvised explosive devices, known as VOIEDs, have various switches known as pressure plates. The idea is that the bomb is detonated by an unsuspecting individual by completing the circuit when pressure is applied or removed to the switch. A power source supplies electricity between the switch and the detonator and by completing the circuit, the main charge explodes. Gas heats up and expands rapidly under pressure sending shock waves and shrapnel outward. In short: Step on the IED and, if you weigh enough, the bomb goes off. None of this is known to the curious boy with no name who continues to stomp on the bomb that won’t go off – the bomb that he does not know is a bomb. The reason for this is perhaps even more insidious than the bomb itself: He is too malnourished and does not weigh enough to set off the bomb that will surely kill him. So he continues to stomp. I remember all of it. I remember wanting to yell at him through the computer screen to stop being a curious 5-year-old boy, to stop, to PLEASE STOP stomping on that soft spot in the ground. I remember wanting to scream. I remember standing silent and watching the screen. I remember being powerless. The curious boy with no name jumps one last time. He disappears into a dust cloud of fire and ripped flesh. The video ends with a simple question: ‘œReplay?’�