In Marja...how we doing in Afghanistan?

A few days before my 49th birthday, waiting for the helicopter, teeth chattering at 3:30 a.m., about 25 degrees, my arms- gloved hands wrapped round for warmth, lying horizontal on a dusty bench near the flight line, looking silently up at stars that blanketed a beautiful night sky, no artificial lights near, every piece of clothing in my backpack and body armor on, fleece vest under a winter shell coat zipped to my mouth, a thick silk black bandana to my nose, clear protective eyeglasses, hood pulled up and over my kevlar helmet covering the wool cap on my head, ear plugs muffling most sound, and I thought, shivering, eyes straight vertical, "God, this is cool! Orion's belt is particularly stellar here and now."

I had spent that week in Marja, an important District Center in the Central Helmand Valley. Marja was carved with Helmand River irrigation from a dusty desert in the 1950s by USAID as a farming village with blocks, canals, and drainage ditches designed to optimize agricultural production. This particular area has been widely covered by the media this past year; the Marines went in last February and the fight has killed many. Held up by the U. S. and Afghanistan as an example of how we are going about this struggle, detractors have shown their light on Marja to demonstrate our effort in Afghanistan is doomed. Indeed, Marja presents somewhat in microcosm what we are trying to achieve here. I went there to find out for myself, something I learned on my trip to war-torn Nicaragua with Phil Neff in 1984: truth on the ground usually differs from how it is portrayed. Everyone has an agenda, me not excluded. Please let me share this openly with you, not as a representative of the United States. This is only my opinion and I request you treat it with the trust and confidence our friendship engenders.

No one would have guessed three months ago what I saw in Marja: a school opening in Balakino neighborhood where 200 kids, eager to learn, lined up to watch the district governor cut the tape to formally open the building. Fathers of the kids, with AK-47s, formed a neighborhood watch atop the school to protect it from those who would use violence and destruction. Yes, it has been a real threat. Insurgents have firebombed schools, threatened children who attend, thrown acid on girls, and done all they could to stop formal education of kids. Further north in Koru Chereh, another school, this one still a series of tents, where now 350 kids in 2 shifts per day attend. These kids beamed to be able to read, proudly standing at the front to recite their lesson in the mid day, comfortable sun. A resolute principal, who has faced, faces, and will continue to face death threats and murder attempts, stood strongly by, equanimous, neither smiling nor gloomy, present for the students, there to make sure they continue to learn. People in markets, teeming to buy and sell and walk in the streets. Most remarkably, there were women walking outside, in the markets. Of course, they wore burkas but they were out, which indicated an environment where women could walk. Conversations with locals, with authorities, with U. S. and British personnel revealed a remarkable change of tone over the past three months. 

When the Marines arrived last February, it took them eighteen hours to fight their way approximately 50 meters. And elders as late as October would not attend a shura (meeting) for fear they would be targeted by insurgents. I attended a shura with 70 elders where they began considering an agricultural processing facility. An older, white haired and long bearded man, pleasantly plump, entered the tent and all stood. He beamed with grandfatherly love, walked with a limp from Soviet bullets in his leg, his eyes went every whichaway, and, in the shura, honestly confronted the governor with the support of those in attendance. The governor will have to account for his actions with regard to this processing facility; this is how these people forge their future, the only true source of security. 

 

(Look closely for missing toofer! All I wanted for Christmas was one front tooth.Thanks, Heller!)

That is not to say we are done in Marja. While I was there, we lost a Marine, five blocks away from where I was at the time. And the loss affected me more than when I was on the carrier when we lost two fellow aviators, friends. Perhaps it is age but it seems to me that ground warriors have a much more intense experience of loss when one of theirs is killed. His name is Lucus Scott; I'll never forget it. I suggested to the authorities above me that we must wait until June before we characterize Marja for the fighting season returns after the poppy harvest in April. What will happen in Marja? An open ended question.

In Helmand, we have created time and space for six district centers to determine how they are going to live and they have reached out for a new way of life beyond threats, murder, intimidation, and destruction. However, these district centers are islands of opportunity in a swamp where insurgents continue to lurk and try to stay alive. If they survive, and the people do not reject them, then they will likely return to power. So the next step is to link the islands, the district centers, for people to move freely, for commerce, for ideas, for discussion to determine how these people want to live as a nation.

So down south, which is a different Afghanistan from the north, we are achieving measures of success. Up north, my friend James tells me we are seen as supporting a government in which the Afghans have lost hope. But if we are going to stay until 2014, the next election cycle, then we have a commitment to a new government beyond the current administration here. That tells me something, what exactly am still not sure. 

Am going to sign off now. Please feel free to ask questions. I will answer them as honestly as I can. It will help all of us if you come to your own conclusions about this place called Afghanistan, what and how we're doing here. You are why we are here in this cold, hot, flat, globular, crowded, lonely world, where all we really have is each other and The One. Love, Tim