VALLEY MAN AIDS AFGHANS JOURNEY TO HELP BELEAGUERED VILLAGE INSPIRES CHARITY'S LEADER TO RETURN.

Byline: Jason Kandel Staff Writer

WEST HILLS - Ed Artis had a simple rule as he distributed wheat last month to 1,200 Afghanistan refugees: Those with guns would not be served.

Nearby, hardened Afghan soldiers wielded assault rifles while heavy bombs exploded, but Artis continued his mission of mercy at a refugee camp called Hoji Malla.

At home now in West Hills after his perilous monthlong journey, Artis is planning to go back Dec. 15 with more supplies.

``I never really feel like I've done enough,'' said Artis, 56, a former Vietnam War combat medic who has been conducting relief missions for nearly 30 years. ``This last mission gave me a clear understanding as to how important small efforts like these are.

``We didn't wait for the security to be in place. We went in and did it.''

As chairman of his home-based Knightsbridge International, a nonprofit aid organization recognized by the United Nations, Artis delivered tons of wheat, cooking oil, blankets, tents and medicine to Afghan refugees.

The group has made several missions, relying on personal funds and money raised by donors, including the Los Angeles-based Taiwan Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation and the Canoga Park-based Afghanistan Relief Organization.

This time his mission has been documented by Hollywood - ``Afghanistan: In the Line of Fire,'' is scheduled to be broadcast at 5 tonight on MSNBC's ``National Geographic Explorer.''

The show's producer, Gary Scurka, joined the expedition - and became part of the story.

It was on a beautiful Veterans Day, Nov. 11, when Scurka was hit by shrapnel as he stood near a Northern Alliance tank while filming from the front lines. He had taken a break from filming Artis' food delivery in Hoji Malla, about five miles away.

Artis, drawing on his medic training, cleaned Scurka's wounds and prepared him to be evacuated by helicopter from a nearby medical clinic.

``I'd known Artis had done a lot of good over the years,'' Scurka said in a phone interview from his National Geographic office in Washington, D.C., where he put the finishing touches to his film while recovering from his wounds.

``I thought this was a perfect opportunity to document an American helping Afghan refugees during the war,'' he said. ``It's often been said that one person can't make a difference. Well, that's not the case with Ed Artis. He does make a difference.''

With his group, Artis arrived in Afghanistan on Oct. 25, with $48,000 in increments of $100 stuffed into a backpack.

He traveled at night in a Russian-made jeep with broken headlights. The convoy traversed rough mountain roads, through territory home to ruthless bandits and warlords.

Also on the mission was Walt Ratterman, an electrician from rural Pennsylvania, and Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Adrian Belic, who has been following the mission for three years, filming its humanitarian efforts.

Armed with truckloads of wheat, blankets and tents, Artis, Ohio physician James Laws and Abul Khalili of the Afghanistan Relief Organization didn't have to search too hard to find refugees.

``You could throw a stone in Afghanistan and find them,'' Artis said.

Under guard from friendly Northern Alliance soldiers and housed at their compound in Khoja Bahauddin, the American humanitarians brought aid to desolate desert spots where thousands of refugees lived in holes covered with tarps and hay.

Like peaceful commandos, the American mission team visited medical clinics and small villages, haggling with shopkeepers for tents and blankets bought on the black market in crowded bazaars.

They delivered food to crowds of refugees as heavy bombs from B-52s exploded in the distance. Mushroom clouds of smoke rose from the desert floor.

``It sounded like rolling thunder,'' Artis said, ``the same rolling thunder that I remember from Vietnam. It brought home the reality that we were very close to this horrific thing called war.''

They met thousands of tired, weather-beaten and starving refugees - women and children who would scrape up every last grain of wheat that sometimes fell off the trucks.

Laws, a cardiologist from Dayton, Ohio, had been to Afghanistan several times before as part of the team, but he hadn't seen anything like what he experienced near the front lines of a bloody war.

He likened the mission to ``putting a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage, then getting in close to the artery and tying a ligature on it.''

He recalled part of last month's trip when the group delivered antibiotics to a medical clinic in Khoja Bahauddin.

On a bed sat a 17-year-old Northern Alliance soldier shot through an eye. Nearby, lay a 14-year-old civilian boy whose foot was mutilated by shrapnel. On another bed sat a 12-year-old boy who suffered shrapnel wounds to his stomach.

``The images will be stuck in my mind for the rest of my life,'' Laws said.

In Hoji Malla and Chah-e Ab, a community of 1,200, the team showed up like knights, in brown vests and with American flag patches emblazoned on their sleeves. They stood on the back of large trucks with stacks of wheat packs ready to be distributed.

Three hundred families, who had been promised food many times before, watched as the men began unloading the trucks. The refugees began crowding around, hungry Afghans pushing, shoving and bickering. Some of the villagers were armed.

``We were afraid they were going to start pointing guns at us and demanding wheat,'' Artis said. ``It could very well have ended in a bloodbath over wheat.''

Artis and Laws eventually developed three rules: Anyone with a gun doesn't get any wheat, a recipient has to be on our list, everybody gets one sack.

The rules worked. The soldiers began handing over their weapons to others waiting on the sidelines.

Twice, though, bags of wheat tore open, and the contents spilled to the ground. Groups of children and women quickly scooped up handfuls of the grain, inadvertently collecting dirt with it.

Still, the men witnessed moments of courtesy. The Americans said they never had trouble finding a volunteer to help lift the 110-pound sacks for the women. Some would help pitch tents for women and children.

``We never had to ask for someone to help,'' Laws said. ``It did surprise me.''

From his West Hills home, Artis reflected on the mission as he geared up to travel later this month with some members of the group, bearing 60 tons of wheat to Mazar-e-Sharif.

He misses a tranquil moment outside a village, standing alone atop a brown velvety hill, taking in the vast plains of the desert, with leaves blowing in the wind. No cars. No freeway noise.

``It was almost biblical,'' he said. ``This was a mission worth making.''

CAPTION(S):

6 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) Ed Artis, head of the Knightsbridge International humanitarian organization, is back at his West Hills home after a monthlong relief mission bringing food to northern Afghanistan refugee camps.

(2 -- 3 -- color) An Afghan man waits his turn for food, above. At left, Jim Laws and Ed Artis hand a 110-pound bag of grain to a Northern Alliance soldier, right, who volunteered to help distribute the supplies.

(4 -- color) Ed Artis charts his next relief mission to Afghanistan. Green arrows show locations he's already reached, while red arrows indicate destinations on the trip he intends to begin Dec. 15.

(5 -- color) Afghan women in burkas stand behind the village men and boys waiting for an American humanitarian group to distribute food and supplies to the needy.

(6 -- color) An Afghan man and his daughter wait for a donkey ride back to their dwelling after receiving a bag of wheat from a West Hills-based humanitarian relief group.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer

Afghanistan photos courtesy of Ed Artis

Box:

AFGHAN RELIEF