HEROES OR TERRORISTS?

I spent much of my childhood in the Scottish Borders. I remember reading Buchan and Kipling and imagining myself a British officer disguised as a Pathan tribesman, the Cheviot Hills as the Hindu Kush. My elder brother and I rode most day - my brother, a turbaned Chieftain. Tsarist Russia was the enemy. So much for fantasy...
Forty years later I followed moujahidin into Afghanistan. I wore a khaki turban and khaki pyjamas and carried a World War One rifle (all Afghans carry weapons). Soviet Russia was the enemy.
A narrow footpath climbed barren mountains parallel to the Khyber Pass. The path petered out and we scrambled up slides of granite scree and clawed our way across rock. We reached the head of the pass at nearly 3,000 meters, descended into a valley and walked until evening when we dined on chapatis that were 80% sand. Full moon and we stumbled all night up a dry river bed. Dawn and we slept an hour in a ruined farm house - no chapatis. Then we walked all day and were finally through the Russians' exclusion zone. For those two days the leader of our troop encouraged me with threats of Russian helicopter gunships. I prayed for a Russian gunship. One bomb. Peace...
A different peace came three days later.
We had shivered through the night on an open mountain side. The sun rose. The clarity of vision in the mountain air verged on the hallucinatory. We followed a stream up a narrow valley. Grass grew emerald on the banks and I recall wild flowers and a pair of blue kingfishers and an abundance of pale yellow butterflies. An old man had presented me with a horse the previous day and I rode to the rear of our troop. One by one, the moujahidin passed me their weapons until I resembled a mobile game of pick-up-sticks. I had no idea of our destination nor of our troop's intention. For the first time in years I was freed from any possibility of taking a decision and rode in an almost trance-like state of peace. Yet this was war. Two thirds of the population had fled their country, every village lay in ruins, livestock had been stolen or killed by bullet or landmine, food was famine short. So, though happy, I was also shamed by my happiness.
Two mulberry trees in fruit shaded the stream at the head of the valley. We rolled rocks to form a dam and one of the younger moujahidin climbed the trees and shook berries down into the chill water. We sat with our feet in the water below the pool, cooling them from the march and eating the mulberries and I recall the faces of the moujahidin - fierceness melted by the moment's content. I recall jokes and laughter and an intense companionship and trust one in the other and of trust in these harsh mountains that rose purple from the valley and barred Russians in their tanks and APCs. Now the tanks and APCs and gunships are American and British – and the heroes I traveled with are terrorists.