Afghanistan My Last Tour

ETT Team leader meets with ANA colonel.

This morning after our daily ETT meeting, we met with our interpreters and walked about ½ mile to ANA land.  The plan was to meet the ANA colonel and then be introduced to his staff of officers.    Before we had a chance to meet and greet, the colonel whisked away our team leader to attend a Brigade staff meeting.  The rest of the ETT team

ETT Team has question-answer session.

accompanied the Support Operations Officer (SPO) to a large setting room.  For the next hour my team peppered him with questions about Afghanistan, election runoff, culture, and our ANA Kandak.  The officer was very informative and seemed very relaxed talking to my group.

After our question and answer session, we met

Omid and Religious Education officer.

in a large conference room.  The furniture was very crude and older than me.  This was the first meeting the new colonel had with his officers and it gave us an insight to some of the challenges faced by our ANA Kandak.  It was obvious this colonel was rather seasoned and in due time will shape up this organization.  Each member on my team was asked to stand and introduce themselves to the colonel’s staff of officers.  These officers are the same ones we will mentor for the next 6 months.  I will be dual-hatted and have the privilege of mentoring the Sergeant Major (SGM) and the Religious Officer.

My SGM was absent today and attending a funeral.  The Religious Education Officer was eager to take me to his office and explain his responsibilities.  Captain Latif is not only in charge of ensuring religious education for the soldiers, but he runs the literacy program too.  He has different programs set up to educate the ANA soldiers.  The curriculum includes politics, religion, math, science, English and infidel misperceptions.  Next week a new semester will start and I have been invited to sit in the classes.  I’m particularly interested in the infidel misperception.  Earlier in the day, I read New York Times reporter David Rohde’s saga of being kidnapped by the Taliban and he relayed how his captor viewed him as unclean and demanded he use a separate drinking glass to protect them from the diseases they believed festered inside nonbelievers.  So this might be an opportunity to break down these misperceptions and give the class a chance to ask me questions.

My host also gave me a hint of his background history too.  Captain Latif has been serving in the army for 20 years.  He studied in the Soviet Union and received a Master’s degree in military operations.  He boasted about being frequently selected to command the troops during maneuvers.  He had 2 wives until one passed away, but is still the proud father of eight children.  Another one of his responsibilities is coordinating the Humanitarian Assistance (HA) drops to the villages.  I was rather excited about this aspect and informed him about my school supply project.  So now him and I are going to actively work together to select a village or school for distribution.  The government HA program is being audited and all of the resources frozen until their investigation is completed.  Hopefully soon we will be able to get additional resources to include blankets, firewood, flour, beans, etc for the poor people in the mountainous villages I flew over.  In conjunction I plan to distribute the school supplies I have collected to date.

Boxes of school supplies in connex.

Today I also had 2 surprises. The first surprise was the receipt of several death threats from a disgruntled and warped reader through my blog.  I have elected not to post his comments.  But the big surprise was this afternoon when I retrieved 8 more boxes of school supplies from the Post Office and added them to the collection of 24 boxes in the connex.  My wife has informed me to expect several more dozen boxes.  I am truly amazed at the outpouring of generosity by the folks in Florida, Ohio, Georgia, and Pennsylvania who have conducted school supply drives for this worthy cause.  I also owe special thanks to WUSF Radio, the NPR affiliate that has graciously aired my request for school supplies and my deployment journey on the radio station. And I am extremely grateful to SS American Victory, the museum ship at Channelside in downtown Tampa, for working with my wife to give us a wonderful storage and packing facility for free.

Autographed book by Greg Mortenson sent by Zack Bonner.

But the package that caught my eye today is from an 11-year old local boy from Valrico, Florida.  Zach Bonner and his Little Red Wagon Foundation, Inc. (whose focus is on homeless kids and education) sent me a box of school supplies along with an unexpected gift.  He sent me an autographed copy of Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea book.  Apparently while he was at an event in Denver with Mr. Mortenson, Zack told told him about my project and had him autographed a copy of his book for me.  What really caught my attention was the personal letter that accompanied the package.  Zach wrote: “It takes a brave man to do what you are doing.  I hope if my country needed me I would be of strong enough character to defend it.”  Zach, the military is not for everyone and you don’t have to join it to defend the principles of our homeland.  What you are doing is having a long lasting effect and helping to make our country a better place to live.  You are answering the nation’s calling in a different way.  Thanks Zach, you made my day!

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | Afghan National Army, Afghanistan, ANA, Deployment, ETT, Greg Mortenson, photography, Three Cups of Tea, U.S. Air Force, war, WUSF