By Jonann Brady
"It was a double good thing," said the New York City firefighter and Baldwin resident. "We got to see the troops and do good for the local people."
Hayde left from Newark airport on Dec. 18 with a contingent of five other men -- two policemen, two firefighters and the Fire Department chaplain. The men arrived at an air force base near Kabul 48 hours later in a Russain cargo plane loaded with provisions for Afghan orphans in an aid mission sponsored by UDV Guinness company.
Surrounded by snow-capped mountains, barren terrain and war-ravaged homes, the men traveled to a Kubul orphanage and met with about 800 children who lined up to greet them.
"The orphanage was tough," said the father of three. "In any war the children suffer."
Hayde said that many of the children seemed to have slight deformities and skin disorders, and the conditions in the orphange were spartan by American standards. The children held out iodine-stained hands to accept candy from the men and said, "Hello. How are you?" in English, but beyond that, there was little communication, said Hayde.
Hayde also said that other civilians they met along the way seemed happy to see the Americans, except for groups of Afghan soldiers with AK-47s patrolling the areas.
"We did a lot of staring at each other," said Hayde, who assumed the soldiers were with the Northern Alliance since "they weren't shooting at us."
But for Hayde and the five others, all of whom had served in the military, the highlight was mingling with American soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division stationed there. Though the visitors were warned not to stray from the paved air field -- the surrounding area is littered with land mines -- the meeting was relaxed and informal.
"We sat on the runway, smoking cigarettes asking where each other was from," said Hayde.
The contingent brought the troops fire department paraphenalia for the holidays, and both the visitors and soldiers praised each other for being on the front lines.
While the soldiers thanked the firefighters for "taking the brunt of the attacks," Hayde said the firefighters felt the opposite.
"They're there fighting, away from their families," he said. "We were calling each other heroes."
A former Marine from 1972-75, Hayde said that today's caliber of soldier is extremely high and called the young men he met "very focused" with a clear sense of their mission.
Beyond sharing some laughs and stories from home, the current and former soldiers also shared a somber moment. Joe Higgins, a firefighter from Freeport who lost his brother in the World Trade Center attack, brought a small amount of debris from the site and the group buried it at a ceremony at the air field.
After returning to the States on Dec. 22 to spend Christmas with his family, Hayde, who spent two months after the attack working at Ground Zero, said that it's been difficult to have a clear perspective on all that he and other rescue personnel have been through.
"It's strange," said Hayde. "This is really the only historical thing I've lived through."
