Blog: Letters from Afghanistan

Leila Navidi

Maj. Eric Wishart

Published Thursday, Oct. 23, 2008 | 11:03 a.m.

Updated Monday, June 1, 2009 | 9:47 a.m.

Google Maps

Khost, Afghanistan is marked with the pin. Maj. Eric Wishart, of Las Vegas, is stationed there as a mentor to the Afghan Border Police

Editor's note: For the next seven months, Maj. Eric Wishart is living in rather austere conditions on an Afghan base near the Pakistan border. He's serving with the National Guard in Afghanistan's rugged Khost province as a mentor to the Afghan Border Police. Wishart, an active-duty guardsman from Las Vegas, and 12 other senior guardsman from around the state deployed in late October. They were split into small teams and each was assigned an Afghan unit with which they live and train.

Wishart's main job is to advise the Afghan battalion commanders on their mission of securing the borders. The Sun will post regular updates from Wishart about his experience in Afghanistan.

MAY 30, 2009

Greetings,

May has been a very productive month for the Afghan Border Police. We are starting to see some small, but measurable success in our partnered operations with American forces throughout Khowst. I work closely with an American battalion commander who is responsible for all coalition operations within the province. The battalion is the Field Artillery Battalion of the 4th Brigade 25th Infantry Division out of Alaska. Our goal, simply put, is to put me out of a job. We are working to get his companies paired up with Border Police companies and conduct joint operations together. Three of his company commanders have stated that the Afghan Border Police are the best Afghan security force units they have worked with. Eight months of deployment was just made worthwhile.

I am continuing to push to deploy all the ABP I can into these partnered operations. The goal is to get them co-located with American units either at their border posts or neighboring American outposts if they have no ABP facility built yet. Unfortunately, my biggest obstacles are the ABP Kandak commanders. Partnered, decentralized operations strips their “power” from them, as their palace guards melt away. The idea of decentralized operations is terrifying to a warlord. They have no concept of being responsible for someone you cannot directly control. I think the long term future of all Afghan forces lies with today’s Lieutenants and Captains; and this is where the main effort lies in partnered operations. Not to say I have wholly given up on my Kandak commanders. I am still working hard to make them understand their responsibilities, but it is slowly dawning on them that running a Border Police Kandak over 60-90 km of border with Pakistan is a lot more challenging that running a band of “mujahedeen” in the mountains.

I can’t continue this without giving my “Kuchai” update; and the good Colonel is doing well. He should be back in a week from Kabul after eye surgery. I believe he had a cataract removed. He is still very energetic, and we are doing good things together. One particular mission is to get a well constructed at a local girls’ school in Tani District. We went there so Kuchai could conduct a shura and show the people that the ABP relationship is symbiotic in that if they support the ABP with recruits, the ABP can support the people of Tani with security and humanitarian aid. After the shura Kuchai and I talked to the school’s headmaster, who is named Rasool Badshir. He is a retired Afghan Army General, and has taken on this school as a way to give back to his community. I asked him if he needed anything, and without missing a beat he said he needed a well. Actions always speak louder than words, so Kuchai and I figured what better way to demonstrate to the people of Tani that the ABP can support the community than by getting a well built at the Al Hajj Pho Pasha Girls’ School. We are currently working with a Provincial Reconstruction Team to make that a reality.

This month I also got up to one of my favorite districts again, which is Jaji Maidan. I call it the “Switzerland” of Khowst province. It is high, hilly terrain with scrub forest. The small villages are clean and friendly, and it even boasts its own castle that dates back about 90 years, which is currently a local militia outpost. My boss wanted to see the district and the ABP headquarters there, so it was time for a road trip. The great thing about Jaji Maidan is this is where the government “works”. The local sub-governor is competent, does not seem to be very corrupt and has weekly security meetings with all his local forces to ensure a coordinated effort. The people are supportive of the government; and have a fairly good relationship with the security forces. There are several districts in Khowst that are progressing, but by far, I think Jaji Maidan is the most secure. The irony is you must travel through the worst part of Khowst province to get there. Those of you who are Vietnam Vets, think “Highway One” and you will understand. Some of the unsung heroes over here are our Route Clearance Platoon (RCP) soldiers. These are Combat Engineers who move ahead of convoys to try and sweep for IEDs on the road. They have a lot of sophisticated detection equipment, but it is still grueling detailed work; and many times they find them by simply being the first to detonate a mine. They are a great bunch of professionals, who are helping to keep us safe every day. Sixty minutes should be doing a special on them, so look for it.

Finally, I must cite an act of selfless heroism by one of my interpreters Hamed. CPT Poag, my logistics mentor and I owe him our lives. We were in a transient billet on Salerno after the trip to Jaji Maidan, and I looked up on the wall. I thought to myself, those are funny looking wires coming out of the wall, and thank God, because if that was a spider, I would be freaking out right now. The “wires” then proceeded to move across the wall toward my bunk. I have been rocketed, mortared, and in fairly close proximity to IED’s, but NOTHING has freaked me out worse so far than this gargantuan arachnid. I attempted to keep my voice from cracking and calmly asked Hamed if he had seen such a creature before, and he said “yes”, and even thought it was probably not venomous, as if that would make things all better. I decided to call Phil over for a “consult” and quickly discovered he has an even greater fear of spiders than me. So we now have two American soldiers cowering behind our 130 pound interpreter, who says he cannot, in good conscience, kill the spider as it goes against Islam, so he would try to trap it and set it free. I told Hamed that if he lived through wrangling that spider, I would put him in for a Combat Action Badge. Hamed finally got the beast cornered and into an ammo can, and it was quickly ushered out the door. Phil and I stayed a healthy distance back and offered encouragement. I know, we make Brownie Scouts look like Rangers, but you weren’t there. So in closing, you never know when you might need a good Muslim to help you out of a tough scrape. Hope you are all keeping well, and look forward to talking to you soon.

Take Care,

Eric

JAN. 28, 2009

Greetings:

Another month has passed in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. We spent this month working primarily in our 3rd Kandak area of responsibility, which is Eastern Khowst province. We visited a new border checkpoint that is actually run by contract militia. This was a “stop-gap” measure to try to get some sort of security along the Pakistani Border after the Karzai government was formed. With the growth of the Afghan National Security Forces, these militias will be replaced by regular forces. Our visit to BSP 6 near a village called Landar was in preparation for this checkpoint’s eventual turnover to the Afghan Border Police, and it was an interesting experience. The men there were fairly ragged, and their uniforms were a mix of several different American “cast offs”. Their trucks were worn out Toyota pickups that had seen several years of hard use. But, their weapons were very clean and serviceable. These guys were seasoned, and in an environment of dwindling resources, they had their priorities straight. I advised my Kandak commander to be somewhat “non-committal” about our plans and especially their future, as I thought it best we not get them stirred up. This was basically disregarded and he started openly recruiting them to the Afghan Border Police; a proposition to which they were quite receptive. The irony is the American advisor to this militia group called me a week later and asked if we might be able to hook his men up with jobs. In this case: Afghan instincts – 1 American advisor – 0.

I was also introduced to what is referred to as FOO money. I was appointed as a Field Ordering Officer (FOO), which means I can recommend that we spend your tax dollars on special projects to assist the ABP in their development. This of course has to be approved by my pay agent, another member of the team that actually holds the money. This is one of many checks and balances in the system. To become a FOO one must first go to a class which goes through a litany of about 34 PowerPoint slides designed to help one understand the complexities of spending your tax dollars. Well it left this Land Grant university graduate mystified as to what I could actually do with this money. For instance, I think that hand held GPS receivers are definitely a device the ABP needs. The Army thinks otherwise: well, to be fair, at least not without a lot of justification as to why they cannot get it through their own ministry, even though this has been attempted and their ministry has turned down the request. However on the slide that says “Things a FOO can buy” (Yes, I printed the can do and absolutely SHOULD NOT do slides, in a feeble attempt to keep me out of Leavenworth) it lists, “Donkey, for transportation or logistics”. This reminded me of that MASH episode where Hawkeye and B.J. need an incubator and go round and round with the finance guy about why it can’t be requisitioned, but they can get a pizza oven, no problem. Anyone remember that one? Well, I am living it. In all deference to those who wear the finance brass out there, I think the program is solely designed to protect the taxpayer from fraud. I can tell you, it is very rigorous. The only thing I would ask in the future is that the Finance Corps develop a class with fewer slides and more pictures if they expect tankers like me to be Field Ordering Officers. On a final note, the team is dying for an excuse to buy a donkey.

From the mentoring standpoint, I can report cautious progress. We conducted some traffic control point inspections and local patrolling with recent graduates from the border training program. At the squad level, we are seeing some very competent individuals, and several officers have very good ideas and show ingenuity in the field. This culminated in an operational exercise at company level in the east in which the ABP was quite effective in controlling traffic flow along a key infiltration route and confiscated some weapons and equipment. I am confident the ABP will grow in its ability. What really encourages my men and me is when we see sergeants and young officers come out and take charge. We know this is the future of the program, and they are hungry to learn. I think the greatest challenge will be to get this new talent into positions of authority. Meritorious promotion is as foreign to Afghan culture as a burkha is to Americans. It has also been a challenge to get the battalion commanders to form their staffs and start thinking about operations on a regular basis. A tact we are attempting to use to get the new talent moved up and get the staffs formed has been to show the battalion commanders the merits of surrounding themselves with talent, and how it makes their jobs easier and makes them look good. We are still discussing this at length, and I determined that leverage is needed; so when I start demanding fuel expenditure reports, personnel status reports, training plans, etc, etc, on a regular basis, they might budge a little my way. I just sprung the idea of having regular staff meetings on them this week.

At the other end of the spectrum, sometimes there can be too much involvement from the senior leadership. Regrettably, I invited COL Kuchai’s input into some basic Kandak training at Bori Tanah. I figured his input would consist of some general guidance as to what he wanted us to focus on and how much ammo to allocate. How wrong I was. Kuchai, God love him, personally orchestrated our weapons familiarization exercise. MAJ Wishart’s Idea: confirm weapon zero on target, fire a magazine for familiarization, then a final magazine for competition as a check on learning from their border development course. Top scorer in each platoon gets a certificate. COL Kuchai’s Idea: four trucks full of ABP come rolling up to a screeching halt and soldiers pile out, going prone in the dirt. Riflemen get on line with machine gunners to the flanks, and an RPG gunner in the center for good measure. Advance at the rush and let all hell break loose; oh don’t forget to have the news cameraman on site to film it. American advisors were posted discreetly to the rear with medic bags handy. I had to admit when the RPG gunner took out a group target at about 600 meters on cue from….Yeah, you guessed it…..COL Kuchai, I was quite impressed. Instead of a certificate, the gunner got about 2000 Afghani. Soldiers loved the event; and if there was any training value to the whole thing, I would have to say that at least now we know about 20 ABP soldiers can get on line with loaded weapons and probably not shoot each other. The cameraman was a close run affair though. Afghan instincts – 2 American Advisor – 0.

On the interpreter front, Abdul was asking about getting back on to the team. I told him to name the time, and I will make room for him. I found out that he spoke too soon and his family doesn’t want him to move back down from Gardez. I openly called his manhood into question, but to no avail. Seriously, I am very happy for him, especially since he is also getting his visa paperwork in order. Our interpreters are eligible for immigration to the United States after about three years of service. That is a long time in a combat zone, and I can’t think of a more deserving individual. On the bright side, Fred finally told a good joke, on his own no less, while we were eating dinner. Mealtime usually sucks for the terp, since they are translating and not eating much. Recently during dinner with one of the Kandak commanders, Fred stated that during mealtimes he observed Hamed is a much better interpreter and more accurate at translation; and therefore should be relied upon exclusively by us.. Guess you had to be there, but I am confident I will have him as my “straight man” by June.

Well that about sums up this month; however I am very excited to announce that Karen will be writing a special installment giving her perspective on this deployment. Stay tuned. I hope you all are well, and would like to thank everyone for their support. Take care.

DEC. 25, 2008

Merry Christmas,

I will start off by saying “Thank You” to all of the wonderful support and love I have felt from friends and family this season. As far as your care packages….holy cow, it looks like the Christmas Bomb went off in my B-Hut. Thank you so much for all the wonderful food and gifts. I seriously think I will not have to eat an MRE for the rest of my deployment.

On the home front; my family is in Disneyland. It was Karen’s idea; and I think it was a great one. She did not want to be in Las Vegas alone; and decided that this was the year to do this sort of thing. It is Addy’s first visit; so I hope it is truly magical for her. We will formally adopt Addy on the 20th of February, almost 21 years to the day that I enlisted.

I will start by sharing a rather interesting story that has humor and compassion in it, which is one of my favorite types. It also has a bit of a Christmas theme. My team had just completed a mission to Jaji Maiden and were getting ready to leave FOB Salerno, the next morning when I received a call from Major General Mollakhail, our ABP Zone Commander. He informs me that he heard I was still at “SAL” and wondered if I would be so gracious to meet him to deliver a Christmas Tree to COL Johnson, who is “Currahee 6” or commander of 4th BCT, 101st Air Assault Division. I didn’t have the heart to inform MG Mollakhail that I wasn’t exactly on a first-name basis with COL Johnson, but what the heck, let’s make some Christmas magic happen. A few phone calls later; and we were on for the next morning. On my way to the gate, to meet the General and escort him onto the base, I get a frantic phone call from CPT Hakyar, the Executive Officer of my 3rd Kandak. His resupply team just got ambushed near a border checkpoint; and what could I do to help? I had just rolled up to the general outside the main gate and he and COL Kuchai were on their cellular phones getting news of the situation as well. So I jumped out of my truck still on the radio, and asked for support. I was passed on to a section of armed scout helicopters (OH58D) operating in the vicinity. I asked COL Kuchai, to get me a good location to send the Cavalry. Of course he comes up with some totally obscure village that is on no American map (ask a silly question…..) I finally get in narrowed down to an approximate distance from a common locaton, and our choppers go in spoiling for a fight. At this point, I only wish I had someone with a camera handy. You must picture our little tactical “command post” of my truck, a border police pickup and MG Mollakhail’s SUV with a Christmas Tree in plain view - all of this right smack dab in front of the main gate of the busiest FOB in Khowst. In short order the bad guys are chased off; and we get a plan to evacuate two wounded soldiers from the action back to Salerno. Without missing a beat, MG Mollakhail looks down at his watch and asks, “Aren’t we going to be late for the meeting with COL Johnson?” Silly me, the time just flies by! So off we go to Brigade HQ, where pleasantries are passed and the tree is put on display in the foyer. Once the exchange is over, we make our way out to the parking lot just in time to hear that the wounded ABP soldiers are arriving, so I send my truck with SFC Lynk in charge to escort them in, and we run over to the hospital. My truck comes rolling back in with a Toyota 4Runner in hot pursuit. We grab the stretcher out of the back of the 4Runner and Lynk helps carry in the other guy, who is ambulatory, out of the back of the HMMWV. I found out later that Lynk commandeered the 4Runner on the spot to avoid a delay at the front gate with the ABP pickups, which was great initiative on his part. We go barging into the ER and get the soldiers settled. After an exchange of phone numbers with the Doc, we march out and head back to Camp Clark; just another day as a Combat Advisor in Afghanistan. Both soldiers should make a full recovery.

Christmas Day went fairly well. I was trying to get my men an R&R day; but the mission that would not die had to be closed out. We had been working all week on getting 200 ABP soldiers flown to training from Salerno. A two day mission went to six because of flight cancellations. Any way; there must have been some more Christmas magic (and some prayer on my part), because we got them all off and made it back to Camp Clark in time for a very nice Christmas Dinner. In honor of the occasion, SSG Rasanen, our medic decorated my team sergeant’s HMMWV with Christmas lights powered through an AC convertor in the truck. We rolled through downtown like that; and I am not sure how it was received by the locals. I think the kids dug it – that and the candy. After “rolling jingle” I am mulling around the idea of painting large red Crusader crosses on a white background on the doors next.

There was also a bit of sadness this month. My favorite “terp”, Abdul was moved to Gardez with our higher HQ. He comes from there; and I am happy that he will be closer to family, but he will be sorely missed. He was my “Tonto”. Dude loved going out on missions, and used to piss off the old team sergeant because he always wanted to take his AK-47 with him (Dude, put that away, we are only going downtown – I’ll cover ya’).. Abdul is a great interpreter. He was very competent; and also gave you the situational background, or the “gouge”, which was of tremendous value. He is passionate about his work and hates corruption. I joked that after a month with the Zone staff in Gardez he will want to put a gun in his mouth! But seriously I wish him well; and hope to see him as much as possible. I really admire him. I am trying to adopt Fred as my replacement; and he is a good guy; but has a very heavy American accent, and positively sucks at translating jokes. I have already apologized to Kuchai for this, and we are working on it.

With that I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and I hope your New Year brings you some peace and maybe even a little prosperity in these very tough economic times. As we enter the new year, I am very much looking forward to our adoption in February and my mid-tour break at the end of March. Talk to you all in a month or so.

NOV. 17, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving from Afghanistan. We had a great meal today and the dining hall was converted into long rows of tables forcing everybody to eat communally, which I thought was a great idea. Happened to be sitting next to a British Soldier who is here to conduct some training with the Afghan National Police. It was a good time. LTC Kuhl, who is our higher headquarters executive officer attempted to be festive by pouring a glass of sparkling grape juice. I stuck with the non-alcoholic beer. I blame this sorry state of affairs on the United States Navy, and their puritanical secretary during the civil war who banned grog from the ships and substituted coffee (hence the term “cup of Joe” – the evildoer’s first name; and yes I forgot his last). Of course this trickled over to the Army as well; and here we are today. Dinner would have been perfect with a nice Cabernet or Zinfandel. C’est la vie…..oh yeah the French get wine in their mess halls.

I had an interesting mission this last week. We had to escort 115 commercial trucks from Gardez to Camp Clark through the infamous Khost-Gardez Pass. To perform this mission; I had four up-armored HMMWVs with 12 Americans, 19 Border Police pickups with 73 Soldiers; and our secret weapon, COL Kuchai. COL Kuchai is the glue that holds the Afghan Border Police together. He is an old Soviet-trained tanker like myself (well, okay I’m not Soviet trained; but the pedigree is still there), and a bundle of raw energy. I knew I did not have the resources to secure this convoy with just Americans, so I had to rely on my counterparts. COL Kuchai personally led the mission in true Afghan fashion delegated nothing. This is an area that we are working on; especially in the logistics arena. We met for some planning sessions, and then we set off. He does very well in the direct leadership role and is great at networking the community around him. He has personally recruited over 300 people into the ABP this year. On this trip he was racing amongst the convoy making sure his men were on task, then racing ahead to the next village to meet with the local police and facilitate our passage. I would not be surprised if he was not also recruiting behind their back. It was good to have him along.

These 115 trucks were full of new Ford Ranger patrol pickups and Polaris quad runners for the eight ABP companies that we are trying to field in Khost province. The goal is that after a company comes back from advanced training, they will draw this new equipment and deploy to their operational sector. The theory is good; but we need a lot more manpower here to cover down on these new companies with mentors. Fortunately we are told that help is on the way with additional troops deploying this spring.

I must comment on the actual convoy itself, since we have no mental health professionals at Camp Clark, and I can’t take the time to get to Kabul right now. However, I am told it is cathartic to write about these things to help one cope. So we have 115 trucks lined up on the side of the road in Gardez; however one rolled over getting there; but who’s counting? As a matter of fact the ABP initially counted only 102. Its only American tax dollars and we are burning daylight; so off we go no invoices, no bills of lading, inshallah. Before we even get out of town 3 trucks have broken down and we take another one and a half hours getting the convoy organized. I finally tell Kuchai that we have to get going and he looks down at his watch and says “twenty minutes”; true to his word, we role in eighteen. Just wish I mentioned that to him two hours sooner.

We proceeded through the pass with heavy security forward hoping to trigger any ambushes prematurely. The primary concern was to be ambushed mid convoy. The terrain was so restrictive that it would be virtually impossible to get our gun trucks in support of the vehicles under fire. The favorite tactic of the mujahedeen was to ambush the center and then chop the convoy up into pieces; and though we were up against the next generation; they were using the same playbook. The good news is we did not have even a rock thrown in our direction. The 203rd Afghan Army Corps Commander has saturated the KG pass with his soldiers and they were out in force. Every village we went through had police out as well; and COL Kuchai recruited them on the fly. So by the time we hit Khost, I think we had about a dozen National Police “augmentees” with us as well. Don’t question it, just go with it, it’s the Afghan way.

The enemy was not Haqqani or the Taliban that day it was an Afghan truck driver. The truck in front of me was a Chinese made flatbed “Hino”, crewed by two of the most incompetent drivers I have ever seen. The pickup on the back was secured with canvas ratchet straps and nylon rope. The straps continued to loosen to the point that finally my gunner and I got out and tightened them down. Of course after this they started snapping. The climax was when we were yet again stopped in the middle of the pass waiting for them to secure the load, and the driver attempted to cut a ratchet strap with two rocks. I walked over and used my knife….on the ratchet strap not the Afghan. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture. I do not want anyone to think this was typical. Most drivers were pretty competent. There was a remote village, probably somewhere east of Khost missing its idiot that day. Finally COL Kuchai comes up in a cloud of dust and begins to berate the two individuals for holding up the entire convoy with their incompetence. The drivers jumped back in and finally began to pick up speed. This is when the other ratchet straps began to break. At this point I was stoic. One can only yell so much in a 12 hour period. Once they hit a rut and the brand new pickup nearly bounced off the back of the truck; but then they hit another rut on the other side of the road; and the pickup centered back onto the truck perfectly. Inshallah. We eventually made it into Khost and for an hour and a half the stragglers came in. The 111 trucks that actually made it out of Gardez all arrived safely. And the last truck in was the 4th Kandak Executive Officer’s patrol vehicle making sure nobody was left behind. No it was not efficient, or even pretty sometimes; but they got the job done the Afghan way. I am beginning to learn to work in this framework. For the next day and a half we unloaded trucks the Afghan way, but that is another story.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. May you thoroughly enjoy your family and friends on this great American holiday.

NOV. 1, 2008

Hello from Khost, Afghanistan,

I just came in from my first mission, so sorry that I have been out of touch. I met with my counterparts, who are battalion, or “Kandak” commanders in the Afghan Border Police. We stayed in their compound the last two days in preparation for shipping two companies out to training. It was a great experience, and I really enjoyed Afghan food. We will see if my bowels agree with me in 24-48 hours, so far so good!! The plate is filling up. For the near future, I will be working with each battalion commander on selecting a new headquarters and some key border checkpoints. I am also going to try to get out to the existing checkpoints and make some assessments. The ABP is a new organization, and is still being stood up, so there will be some growing pains. The men seem motivated though, and they just received a major pay raise which should help recruitment. The Afghan officers are generally good folks. There are a couple of politicians, but I think I will get along quite well with them. The deputy zone commander for the area is this grizzled veteran, COL Kuchai, or just “Kuchai”. He is quite a character and has really turned recruiting around for the ABP. He is an old tanker, so we already have a connection there.

Driving through Khost is quite an experience. There is traffic everywhere from “jingle trucks” to cars and motorbikes, to horse drawn carts. The walled compounds or “kalats” as they are called are still made of mud brick just like they were several millennia ago. The people definitely look at us as we roll by; and several give us a wave. The kids think we are rock stars. I think this war would be over if they were in charge. My gunner has “non-lethal” ammunition at his disposal as well. Next the machine gun, he keeps a bag of candy and tosses them out to the youngsters as we roll by. This is a major hit. It was funny to see ABP soldiers also tossing some of their rations to kids as we convoyed them to another base. It is tough to judge just how to drive in the area. We have to be respectful of civilians on the road, but there is always the threat of vehicle borne suicide bombers trying to get in the convoy. It takes a lot of judgment and will boil down to a split second decision. I have a lot of respect for our ABP counterparts. As we are in armored vehicles and wearing additional body armor, they ride in Ford pickup trucks without even body armor. The Army is getting some armored vehicles; but the ABP is still a long way off. I was watching this soldier who was probably around sixteen at most in the back of the pickup in front of me, and I really had to admire his bravery.

Today after the mission was completed, we took our ABP counterparts over to the burger shack on the main base at Salerno. We basically raided the place and got all of them burgers and fries for lunch. It was funny seeing the look on the face of the Specialist in the place doing the headcount with a sign clearly stating that there will be no more than two meals per soldier at one time. This of course was being completely disregarded by us, as we got three and four meals each for our ABP buddies. She wasn’t about to say a thing to two Lieutenant Colonels two Majors and a Master Sergeant. Sometimes you just have to do things like this for the greater good. Least we could do for guys who are putting their lives on the line for their country for $160.00 a month. And that is after the pay raise.

Our original team was broken up. I am now in charge of a crew that is mostly from New York who will be here until late December, and then they all go home. I will then get replacements that I will have for the rest of my tour here. Of the current team, only two others will be with me after the first of the year. So that means I have two months to become the subject matter expert on the Afghan Border Police in Khost province. I have a really good team sergeant to work with for the next two months, SFC Purdham, so I am fortunate in that area. Another neat thing about the ABP mentor mission is I get a lot of autonomy. I am working for a LTC who will soon be moved to Gardez, and I am also under operational control of the 101st Airborne’s Artillery Battalion Task Force, since they are responsible for Khost Province. So I keep the masters in the loop; but in day to day operations, I am my own boss.

On the home front, we had some really good news. Karen told me that our adoption of Addy will be finalized in February. This brings the entire process into its fourth year; but it has been worth every minute. Also, I want to give a shout out to the American Foreign Legion. They came and fixed my door completely free of charge. It is nice to know that someone back home is out there looking after our loved ones.

Take care all,

Eric

OCT. 23, 2008

Greetings from Gardez, Afghanistan

We arrived on 23 October 2008. The reality that we are actually in a combat zone finally set in when we were choppered out of Kabul on a couple of CH-47 Chinooks, courtesy of the 101st Air Assault Division. All of the aircrew were in body armor and the waist and tail gunners test fired their weapons as soon as we were clear of the city. The terrain is very much like central and southern Nevada, very arid; and fueled by irrigation agriculture. Villages are still mainly mud brick construction, the same method they have used for thousands of years. As we approached the mountain passes, I could not help but think of the Soviets thirty years before flying through the same passes. Our gunners were alert and scanning.. Right now I am parked at FOB Lightning, the ARSIC-East Headquarters. We are in-processing, yet again and I am waiting to find out if I will get out straight to Khost or meet up with my counterpart in Jalalabad. Either way, I am anxious to get on my way.

There is a very interesting juxtaposition outside of my tent flap. Above the motorpool filled with up-armored HMMWVs and Cougar MRAPs, are two hilltops with mud brick fortresses on each. I am told by people from the HQ here that one dates back to the time of Genghis Khan and the other to Alexander. The Afghan army still uses them for observation posts occasionally. This boggles my mind. We measure our country’s history in centuries, here it is millennia. The tourist in me wants to take a day trip up there, but I was also told that the surrounding area is still filled with landmines from the Soviet-Afghan war. I try to remain objective about history, but the Soviets really destroyed this country. An example of this was aerial mining, which is a fancy term for kicking God only knows how many mines out the back of transport planes as well as emplacing minefields around any location of perceived strategic value. It’s unconscionable. This country is the most heavily mined in the world. Even after thirty years, there are millions of mines still emplaced.

One thing we have learned in our very short time on the ground here is patience. Lines of communication are very difficult. Convoys are not regular and air transport is a precious commodity. If you have an opportunity to get somewhere, you jump on it, because it maybe days or even a week before another opportunity presents itself.

The big debate amongst us is whether or not to purchase local mobile phones. I am waiting to seek advice from my counterpart on this issue. They are expensive and coverage is spotty. God bless Yahoo!. Completely free chat and webcam service has been terrific; and has allowed me to stay in touch with Karen anywhere I can get a wireless signal. A more humorous example of this was chatting with Karen from Manas at 0300 waiting for our flight. Don held his flashlight over me so Karen could actually see an image in the camera; while I asked Karen to call Natalie (Don’s wife) to let her know he was okay because he had an email issue. That’s what I love about this team; we always look after each other to include our wives.