{"id":2039,"date":"2013-09-11T17:26:23","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T16:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/?p=2039"},"modified":"2014-04-14T06:49:04","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T05:49:04","slug":"reflecting-on-afghanistan-2006","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/?p=2039","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting on Afghanistan, 2006"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, September 11, was a day of service to the local community. \u00a0A group of Americans and Indians did some cleanup, painting, and entertaining of children at a local school for the mentally handicapped. \u00a0The idea was to get out and do something for the needy, either in honor of those who lost their lives on 9\/11 or for other personal reasons. \u00a0Returning home exhausted, I was looking for a photo I had taken on September 11, 2006, holding a flag on the runway at Kandahar Air Base. \u00a0I never found it, but I did stumble across a video I made reflecting back on the 6-month Army deployment I did there from April to October, 2006.<\/p>\n

Things were different in 2006. \u00a0Although nearly five years had passed since the attacks on 9\/11, everyone was optimistic. \u00a0We still lived off the compound, in a lightly secured area behind the Embassy, and were shuttled daily to Camp Eggers in soft-skinned minivans. \u00a0We got permission to walk to the camp if we wanted, as long as we were in pairs and wore our helmets and flak vests, and I would laugh at the daily procession of U.S. Air Force personnel wearing their physical fitness shorts\/shirts, with a helmet, flak vest and rifle. \u00a0We could walk off the camp and talk to the people in town. \u00a0 You didn’t have to worry about Afghan military personnel gunning you down.<\/p>\n

You could take a thin-skinned SUV and go pretty much anywhere in Kabul. \u00a0Or you could drive it out to the middle of nowhere and deliver donations to a village, and the elders would roast a sheep for you in thanks.<\/p>\n

\"AFG2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

NATO had not yet assumed control of the mission when I arrived in April 2006. \u00a0General Eikenberry was still in the Army. \u00a0General McChrystal had not been fired, and hordes of Colonels had not been brought in to apply the lessons of Iraq. \u00a0There were around 35,000 troops in total in Afghanistan. \u00a0A team of my soldiers had preceded my deployment by a week, and a lone mortar \u00a0landed behind the Embassy shortly after they arrived in Kabul. \u00a0This was something that still made the news back then, and my boss instructed me to call all the next of kin and assure them that their kids or spouses were OK.<\/p>\n

Suicide bombing was new and foreign to Afghanistan, and the Afghans were notoriously – as if on purpose – inept at it. \u00a0Less than 100 Americans had died in Afghanistan when I arrived – now the figure stands at 2,271, or 3,372 of all troop contributing nations. \u00a0There were 41 IED deaths in 2006, contrasted with a high of 368 in 2010. \u00a0Those deaths were still reported on the news back then. \u00a0 Back then, we all knew why our troops were in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\"AFG1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Shortly after I arrived, someone told me, “You go through three stages in Afghanistan: \u00a0optimism, realism, and then racism. \u00a0You want to try and be out of here before the third stage hits.” \u00a0I would return nine more times to Afghanistan in the next five years, and work for every theatre commander up to, and including, General Petraeus. \u00a0They all came in bristling with confidence and optimism, and knew what needed to be done, where there predecessors had gone wrong. \u00a0Although I often got frustrated or discouraged at the cyclical nature of it all, I never really reached the third “stage” of Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

During that first tour, I would often shoot video to send back to my family – I wanted my kids, especially, to have an idea that what I was doing was important, was helping people, and was leading to a positive outcome. \u00a0In later years I would explain to them how the war in Afghanistan had come to be, as they grew older and could appreciate why it was necessary to ensure that Afghanistan could never again be a haven for people who would harm us. \u00a0Two days ago, my eldest daughter posted a picture on Facebook, where she is proudly wearing her Army ROTC uniform for the first time.<\/p>\n

After I returned home in 2006, I cut those longer videos down to a 10-minute retrospective, which is what I watched today. \u00a0I noticed there were a lot of kids on the videos I took, and they all seemed full of hope, and they looked to us to help improve life in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Here’s the final portion of that video. \u00a0I wonder where these kids ended up. \u00a0I know we’ve done our best, but I hope it was good enough.<\/p>\n

74301325<\/p>\n

Reflections of Afghanistan, 2006<\/a> from Tom<\/a> on Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, September 11, was a day of service to the local community. \u00a0A group of Americans and Indians did some cleanup, painting, and entertaining of children at a local school for the mentally handicapped. \u00a0The idea was to get out and do something for the needy, either in honor of those who lost their lives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[136,70],"tags":[1010,1011,1790],"class_list":["post-2039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-random-musings","tag-1010","tag-1011","tag-afghanistan"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2039"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2043,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2039\/revisions\/2043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tazmpictures.com\/site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}