Old and new. Battered and shiny. An assortment of fuel transports and container trucks parked nose to tail along one side of the road. The vehicles’ drivers slept in their cabs or congregated in small groups around their vehicles or on the verges. Some resting beneath them. Smoking, cooking, drinking tea. This was the habitually congested Torkham checkpoint on the Afghanistan and Pakistan border. It was a mass of convoy transportation waiting to move through the narrow customs, police and army checkpoint into Afghanistan. A snake of supply vehicles several miles long patiently waited to gain entry to feed and fuel the country, as well as the massive NATO and US war machines that occupied it. Full transports going into Afghanistan, empty ones coming out. Vehicle and aviation fuel. Fresh fruits and vegetables. Ice cream and hot dogs. Spare parts for vehicles and machinery. Sacks of corn. A line of flatbeds carried a dozen brand-new US military Humvees. All the vehicles waited for their paperwork to be verified and, in some cases, the loads checked.
