"You go to kill and try not to get killed"

In Afghanistan, the only step that won't kill you is the one that you've already taken," says one Spanish soldier who has served in the country. The infantrymen make up the frontline of the Spanish army, the ones who often go out far beyond the protection of the main bases, such as Herat and Qala i Naw. "Peace mission? There's no peace to it. You go there to kill and try not to get killed." The blue eyes of Ángel (not his real name) tear up when he talks about his work: "I can tell you what that war is like. I've been at the outposts shooting my weapon." A few kilometers from these bases, in Ludina, in the province of Badghis, Staff Sergeant Joaquín Moya Espejo died this past November 6, the latest of 97 casualties that the Spanish army has sustained in Afghanistan.

The majority of Spanish casualties have been sustained at outposts

The Spanish military has lost 97 men, or 6.4 percent of the force in the country

Hostility toward Spanish troops has multiplied since detachments were deployed along the two routes that go through the province to Bala Murghab, a village in the northwest - and most dangerous - part of the region. Sang Atesh, Ludina, Moqur and Darra i Bum are the names of some of the Spanish bases in Taliban territory. They are the deadliest places to be stationed: after the Yak-42 and the Cougar plane crashes, which claimed a total of 79 lives, the majority of the Spanish casualties have been sustained at outpost detachments.

At these outposts, there are exchanges of fire on a regular basis. After days of living among sandbags, the soldiers grow accustomed to hearing shots go off 700 or 800 meters away. It's the sound of war. From his post, Ángel got used to identifying the target among the Kalashnikov fire: "We're on a slope so we don't know where the shots are coming from. All of a sudden you stop hearing them." And that's it. Are they dead? Have they left? Or are they just wounded? They don't go out looking for bodies, so they never know if there's been a casualty. Even so, Ángel admits that when the gunfire stops, only one thought runs through their heads: "I killed that son of a bitch. That's one less."

Joaquín Moya Espejo won't be able to think that thought ever again. A bullet struck him near his armpit, in an area not protected by his flak vest. The plates covering his chest failed to stop a projectile from leaving his son without a father. The bullet came from a light weapon, probably a Kalashnikov, a 1940s-designed assault rifle inherited from the Soviet occupation. It's archaic yet effective: Western armaments don't have much of an advantage on the ground.

The soldiers feel exposed, like marionettes in a puppet theater: "We've got to aim; all they have to do is point at the base." During one of those attacks, they managed to take two Taliban prisoners. Did they celebrate at the barracks? "Ask the guy who doesn't get to go home, or the one who does go home, but without his legs: we would have been happier if [the prisoners] had died."

He looks back on that day as a dangerous moment, yet he smiles at the memory. Adrenaline gives you a high and kills time. The worst part about Afghanistan is having time to think, to miss things. Family issues, marital troubles, the mortgage... combat drowns out all these problems. "The only thing you think about is where he is, so you can kill him." It's a drug, and a highly addictive one. "You forget to be afraid," says Ángel. "While you're shooting, your only thought is, 'I hope I get that bastard; tomorrow he could kill one of my buddies'."

This soldier is not even 25 years old, yet he has already participated in the Spanish missions in Lebanon, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Like the rest of his colleagues, he only agrees to talk to us on the condition that he will remain anonymous: no pictures, no specific locations, nor dates. On a bulletin board in the building where he works there is a sign with a warning: the penalty for speaking without authorization is dismissal. Many of them ask us not to reveal their nationality or exact age; nothing that might give away their identity. "The punishment isn't getting arrested - you get the boot. And this is how I make my living." For soldiers, this is the 11th commandment: thou shall not talk to reporters.

There is a lack of information when it comes to the Afghan mission, even though there are 1,552 men and women serving in the Spanish contingent of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF). With a population of half a million, Badghis, the region under the responsibility of the Spanish contingent, is one of the provinces with the fewest attacks from insurgents; their stronghold is in the south, along the Pakistani border. But it's also the poorest. "There are certain areas of the province where we're working where even Afghans don't want to go," says David Gervilla, the current leader of AECID, the Spanish aid and development agency that is carrying out reconstruction projects in the province.

During the four or five months it takes to rotate the troops, most of the Spanish soldiers are stationed at the Herat air base, which serves the western region, or in Qala i Naw, the capital of Badghis, a province in northwestern Afghanistan that is under the responsibility of the Spanish contingent. "Being there is almost like staying at a hotel," jokes Ángel, who says that his time at Qala i Naw was like a "vacation."

Extreme climate conditions make things even more complicated. In Afghanistan there are two cycles: the cycle of nature and the cycle of the insurgency, and one drives the other. In the winter, the cold makes it difficult to move, even for the Taliban. With the spring thaw come the attacks and the sandstorms, which "turn day into night" in a question of minutes. "You watch the cloud of sand engulf the houses, and you've got three minutes to pick everything up before it swallows your shelter too," says Luis, an Ecuadorian national stationed in Qala i Naw.

"We don't have an army that can maintain the number of deployed soldiers," says Jorge Bravo, president of the Unified Association of Spanish Military Personnel (AUME). Bravo is not afraid of his name being published: "That doesn't worry me any more." It's been a long time since this sergeant major was starting out in the army, and securing a permanent contract depended on the reports of his superiors. "The fact is, there are exchanges of fire. You kill and they wound you. They ambush you; there aren't any preventative attacks."

"The year 2014 is way too far away," says Bravo. By then, NATO has agreed to complete the gradual withdrawal of its troops, although Spain will start decreasing the number of soldiers deployed in Badghis next summer, according to an announcement made earlier this month by the outgoing defense minister, Carme Chacón.

Until that day comes, these soldiers will continue to risk their lives in Afghanistan. Kalashnikovs set the pace of the attacks, but the guerrilla fighter's true weapon is silence. The improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that they have left planted around the country make any movement potentially deadly.

The Spanish convoys consist of Linces and RG-31s: these are the two armored personnel carrier models purchased by the Defense Ministry in 2007 to replace the old BMRs. The improvement is considerable, but when it comes down to it, it's all a matter of luck: "If you come under small-arms fire you can defend yourself. But if there's an IED... You don't see that coming. One day, we got caught by one that was activated from a distance, but [the Taliban] had miscalculated. It was behind us when it exploded, and it sent the vehicle flying a few meters, but nobody got hurt."

"Let's be honest, we're not the Americans. They can practically choose the vehicle and the weapon they want to shoot every time," say two young men who returned from Afghanistan more than two years ago. Spain spends 0.50 percent of its GDP on defense; the United States spends 4.04 percent. "We can't compare ourselves to them, nor do we want to: considering what our country spends on defense, we can't complain."

The Americans are responsible for more dangerous areas, yet their mortality rate is proportionately less. If we do some simple math, without taking into account personnel rotation: with a current detachment of 100,000 soldiers, the American army has sustained 1,500 casualties since the combat mission began in 2001 in retaliation for the attacks on the Twin Towers; that is, 1.5 percent. The Spanish military, which has 1,500 troops participating in the ISAF's reconstruction mission has lost 97 men, or 6.4 percent.

Some Spanish soldiers envy the Americans' equipment, to the extent that they can even buy material on American websites should they choose to. Ángel says that this is a rather common practice among his colleagues, but that they have to hide their equipment during inspections, since it's not regulation. He's already bought a pair of boots and several cases for his magazines, and now he's thinking about getting a helmet. "You can't shoot with this one," he says. Again and again you hear the same dilemma, between security and mobility. The helmets supplied by the Spanish Defense Ministry cover the back of the neck, so "when you hit the ground and shoot, you lose all visibility." More than once, Ángel opted to take off his helmet when firing, despite the danger. "I'm going to Afghanistan to shoot; if I've got to choose between a helmet that covers the entire back of my neck and firing my weapon... I prefer to shoot."

On the mantelpiece in her living room, Vanesa has a 12.7-millimeter shell. It's one of the first rounds she fired in Afghanistan. When her superior wasn't watching, she would smoke. She knew it was dangerous and that she was disobeying an order, but lots of soldiers find a way to do it, hiding the glowing cigarette butts so they are not an easy target. Once, when she had climbed into the back of the vehicle for cover, she saw something glinting in the sun. That put her on her guard, and possibly saved her life. Seconds later, the firing began. Vanesa is an attractive woman; strong but petite. "I can never load a 12.7mm [machine gun] if I've not got adrenaline running through me. It's too heavy." That day, she loaded it on the first try.

Colombian by birth, she's nearly 30 years old. One of the things that made the biggest impact on her in Afghanistan was the situation of the women there. "I had to show them my ponytail so they'd see that I'm a woman, but that wouldn't even calm them. As soon as they saw you, they'd get down on their knees. If they were spotted talking to a soldier, the punishment was terrible," says Vanesa.

She joined the army as part of the nine-percent maximum of foreign soldiers who fight for Spain. Is it hypocritical to fight for a country that's not your own? "Just the opposite - Spain has given me much more than Colombia." But many people still think she did it just to get her papers. Alfredo, a Bolivian just over 20 years old, joined the army to get his Spanish citizenship, but he might have followed the same path if he had stayed in Bolivia. He is a model of rectitude throughout the interview, as if he didn't know how to do anything else besides be a soldier.

Now he's in Spain, but he'd like to go back to Afghanistan before the troops are withdrawn in 2014. He feels that when there was real danger, their superiors trusted them more. "During battle, they don't need to tell you what to do, a good soldier knows. Over there, the life of the guy in charge depends on you as much as your life depends on him."

The final objective of the peace mission is for the force to provide the security required to build schools and hospitals and to give farmers an alternative to growing poppies for opium. But in reality, corruption often keeps the money invested from reaching the people, and so the troops often feel rejected by the Afghans. Sometimes, they throw rocks at them or cover their nose when they pass by to avoid breathing the same air.

"People expect more from military personnel," says Salem Wahdat, second secretary at the Afghan embassy in Madrid. A lover of the Spanish language, he's convinced they will

eventually appreciate the effort: "They'll say gracias ," he says. "The Afghans will learn how to say that at least."

The soldiers are professionals. They fight for a salary, but they do so with the Spanish flag on their uniform. Do they feel patriotic thoughts on the front? "You think about your fellow soldier's life; it's you or them," says Ángel. In between are the bullets. They admit that when they pull the trigger, the only thing that goes through their heads is making it back home together. But in Spain, they don't think that people appreciate what they do: "I'm no fascist; I'm a soldier. I'd like to feel that I'm going to Afghanistan and risking my life because I'm serving my people."