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dshipley

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Story is likely behind our subscripton wall, but I'd like the military community to see the fine work our man in Afghanistan is doing. Link is below.

Building trust to rebuild a nation

MARTY KLINKENBERG
Telegraph-Journal
Published Tuesday April 17th, 2007
Appeared on page A1
A few weeks ago, a group of school children came for a picnic to Camp Nathan Smith, a military base in a gritty residential neighbourhood in Kandahar City.

The kids were guests of the Provincial Reconstruction Team, a group of soldiers and civilians who are working to forge relationships with Afghanis and help them rebuild a country in tatters after decades of war, drought and Taliban rule.

The children, all blind or hearing-impaired, reveled in the attention cast their way by strangers from Canada.

"They ate ice cream for the first time," Maj. Shawn Courty said Monday, seated at a table outside his office beneath the broiling sun.

"They ate so much they had brain freeze."

Born in Moncton, raised in Campbellton and for 10 years a resident of Saint John, Courty helps oversee the reconstruction team working in and around Kandahar, a sprawling city that is dangerous if not entirely unfriendly, and critical to the success of the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan.

At Camp Nathan Smith, named after a friendly fire victim, Courty has at his disposal more than 300 troops to earn the trust and respect of Afghanis and to repel insurgents opposed to the efforts.

A reservist who joined the forces out of high school, Courty has been in Kandahar since February.

He gave up an excellent job and left his wife, Danika, and two young children behind to support a war campaign whose viability is being questioned in some quarters.

"I guess the best way I can explain why I am doing this is this way," Courty said.

"Canadians always like to harp about their rights and freedoms.

"Well, I believe there is a sense of duty and obligation that goes along with it."

Request denied

Shawn Courty worked as a security supervisor at NB Power for three years, and nominated his employer for a national award after it gave him a six-month leave in 2004 to serve in Haiti.

So he had no reason to expect that a similar request to come to Afghanistan would be rejected. It wasn't until a few months before he was about to be deployed, and after months and months of training, that NB Power told him he did not have permission to go.

"It was a surprise," Courty said. "I had been meeting every three weeks with a supervisor to discuss succession planning, and never did I have a hint that there was a problem.

"I had already picked a team of soldiers to work under me and felt I would be letting them down if I didn't go, that really wasn't an option for me.

"So right now I'm no longer employed by NB Power. I was fired for failing to report to work, for abandoning my position."

Courty made a last-minute appeal to NB Power last fall, to no avail. The provincial government has contacted him since then and promised to find him a full-time job when he gets home, and several private and corporate employers have come to him with job offers as well.

"What's been touching is that complete strangers have called offering support," Courty said. "One guy called and told my wife that he realized (I was) over here and invited her to call him anytime the driveway needs to be plowed.

"When I was back in New Brunswick, people I didn't know were buying me coffee, others were going out of their way to let me know I had their support. And I'm not just talking about older vets. In some cases, it was university students.

"That's the Canadian spirit, and it's very nice to see."

For its part, Courty said, NB Power has never tried to contact him since it let him go in what turned out to be a public relations disaster.

City full of heartache

Camp Nathan Smith is a happy place in a city full of heartache. At times, gunshots can be heard just beyond the tall concrete walls and razor wire that encircle the property, once the site of a Russian fruit cannery.

There are pomegranate trees and blooming gardens tended by the handful of Afghanis that live and work on the base, and there is surprising wildlife for a climate so harsh; on Monday the thermometer registered 50 C.

House sparrows, mynah birds and parrots abound, and delicate paper-white butterflies flit around. There is a groundhog that has been befriended by troops, and there are a handful of house cats, just as indifferent here as they are in Canada.

The base itself has amazing amenities: a terrific kitchen that is open 24 hours a day, a gym and a cardio room, a games room where soldiers play poker, foosball and ping pong during their idle hours and a swimming pool which is welcome on scorching days like Monday that are almost too hot to believe.

On Sunday night, soldiers sat outside their tents chatting beneath the stars, including one group that has spruced up the exterior of its living space with a white picket fence and chairs, making it look like a cottage in the middle of the desert.

Others were huddled in a darkened room reserved for video games; the whole roomful, it seemed, was playing Call of Duty. In the former, a pre-teen, the son of one of the resident Afghanis, was accepting any and all comers. He has no fear because, as far as anyone can remember, nobody has ever beaten him.

During breakfast Monday, troops sat quietly in one of two dining rooms watching the Dallas Stars play the Vancouver Canucks 12 time zones away.

It's all so warm and friendly, so Canadian, that is almost easy to forget where you are.

There are a few reminders, though. Instead of reveille, soldiers are awakened at dawn by the prayers of a Mullah blaring from a mosque 100 metres away.

And then there is the drive here from the Kandahar Air Field, about 40 tense minutes on crowded streets through the city of Kandahar itself, where suicide bombers lay in wait.

A convoy of vehicles makes the run from the huge NATO base on the outskirts of Kandahar to Camp Nathan Smith a few times a week.

On Sunday night, as he exited the gates of the airfield and headed into Kandahar, the driver of one light armoured vehicle, a Quebecer, began singing the AC/DC hit, Highway to Hell.

Work beyond war effort

Blackhawk helicopters landed at Camp Nathan Smith on Monday, a few minutes apart. The pilots, who are shuttling members of the Provincial Reconstruction team to forward operating bases in the region, fly low upon takeoff, blowing sand and rocks ands dirt everywhere, at times even toppling office equipment inside trailers.

There is much going on here beyond the military end. RCMP officers help tutor Afghanis in community policing. Corrections officials from Canada are upgrading prisons and offering suggestions. Federal officials are helping streamline the government. Community development projects are underway and development councils are being created. UNICEF is inoculating children against polio.

"We try to intertwine all of the programs so we have a synchronized, co-ordinated effort," Courty said. "What I find remarkable is the pioneering.

"It feels like we are almost explorers. We are almost charting new ground here with people who don't know. We're dealing with everyone from the districts to the villages to the small schools, giving them hope, encouraging them to be leaders of their own development.

"But we are not doing the work for them. We are supporting the initiatives, but they are taking the lead. That's the only way that sustainability will flourish.

"We're teaching the guy to fish, not giving him the fish. We're showing them how to achieve things so they can do it when we are no longer here."

The Provincial Reconstruction Team guides Afghanis through a variety of projects, teaching them how to create a business plan, do a cost estimate, prepare a budget. They work with them on documentation and teach them how to apply for assistance from their own government.

It's tedious, but important when it comes to rebuilding and revitalizing a nation that has been under siege for so long.

"Everything has to be synchronized for all of the parts to move together in the right direction," Courty said. "And that takes time."

Laying the groundwork

Courty and his team lay the groundwork for success through their military presence. At times, it takes months to create an environment that is secure enough to begin putting a recovery platform in place.

Many hours are spent out in the field, travelling through a volatile region and to villages far out in the countryside in light armoured vehicles.

"When we leave the camp here, survivability and protection is our No. 1 priority," Courty said. "But once we get to a location, we go from being soldiers to diplomats, ambassadors of goodwill.

"We are often the first faces people see. We are the ones that build relationships. Many villages we go into, the people have had no contact with NATO forces and have never seen a westerner in their lives.

"We're totally alien to them. We show up in our body armour and helmets and they look at us like we just stepped out of Planet of the Apes.

"People trying to get their PhD in sociology, this is the place to come. You are breaking ground here. You're in the Stone Age."

The reconstruction team recently used local unskilled labourers to build a headquarters building at Camp Nathan Smith.

The project took nearly four months, when the troops could have finished it in half the time. But there would be no lesson for the Afghanis in that.

"We took the time to let local people develop the skills necessary to be an iron worker, a mason or a carpenter, almost like it was a vocational school or on-the-job training. But now those skills are inherent in Kandahar City, and it has stimulated entrepreneurship.

"Two or three of the guys who worked for us have gotten together and started their own little contracting business. So you have entrepreneurial spirit occurring."

It is also showing locals that there is an alternative to fighting against change with the Taliban.

"On the security side, now that those guys are skilled labourers, they will be less likely to be hired as insurgents," Courty said.

"We have shown them another way to put food on the table, and at the end of the day that's what Afghan men want.

"It's really something universal. They're compassionate and want a better life for themselves and their family, and we are giving them an alternative.

"If at this point, they still choose to become insurgents, well, we've made it perfectly clear that we will meet them head on."

Marty Klinkenberg is contributing editor of The Telegraph-Journal. He is currently embedded with New Brunswick troops taking part in the NATO-directed mission in Afghanistan. He can be reached at mklinkenberg@rogers.com.

http://www.canadaeast.com/ce2/docroot/article.php?articleID=128617
 
Pass on the Mr Klinkenberg that the CF needs more article like that in the main stream media. Thank him for helping highlight other parts of the mission that does not deal in blood or "exit strategy".

 
+1. This article is a refreshing change. I really enjoyed reading about some of the development side of the mission. Canadians need more exposure to this part of the mission. It was also good to read about how folks at home are responding to Major Courty's dismissal from NB Power.
 
Many thanks for the link!

The part about him getting fired from his job and then it turning into a PR nightmare for the company is pure gold for people like myself that may run into issues trying to get leave for courses and to serve overseas.
 
Offering alternatives to part-time Taliban
Marty Klinkenberg
Telegraph-Journal
Published Wednesday April 18th, 2007
Appeared on page A1
The village of Ghazai rests at the bottom of a steep mountain west of Kandahar, frozen in time. A shepherd holding a staff leads a flock of sheep and goats across a narrow, dusty road. A withered man with a long white beard sits on the ground beneath a tarp, prayer beads in hand. Children peek at visitors from behind mud walls.

"Sometimes I think that if I went to sleep one night and woke up back in Jesus' time, this is what I'd see," Capt. Bob Wheeler, a soldier based at CFB Gagetown, said. A native of Corner Brook, N.L., Wheeler spends countless hours meeting with Afghans and assessing their needs. He is a member of the Provincial Recovery Team, the group of soldiers and civilians who co-ordinate efforts aimed at helping locals get back on their feet.

On Tuesday, his work took him to Ghazai and Kobay, the first visits the villages have received as part of the NATO-directed campaign against the Taliban.

Wheeler arrived in a convoy of light-armoured vehicles, with Vandoos, the famous soldiers from Quebec, providing protection.

The journey took him from Camp Nathan Smith through the bustling streets of Kandahar, past market stalls where meat hung on ropes out front and barber shops where customers watched the military caravan from their chairs. They skirted some of the many construction sites popping up in the city of more than one million people, and passed one of the prisons Canadian corrections officials are helping to upgrade as part of another project sponsored by the recovery team.

In Ghazai, just beyond the outskirts of Kandahar, Wheeler chatted through an interpreter with one resident, jotting notes about wells needed to assure clean drinking water, the lack of power supply, the state of local health care and education.



MARTY KLINKENBERG/TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL
He repeated that a few kilometres down the road at Kobay, a cluster of about 250 families who live along a chalky stream that nourishes the ground and, for at least a short distance, turns the stark landscape green.

There, Wheeler met with two earnest young men, one a Grade 9 student who is teaching local children part time, the other an auxiliary member of the Afghan National Police.

A number of issues were discussed, including an effort to clean the irrigation canals local farmers use to water their fields.

"A project like that seems simple, but there is more to it than meets the eye," he said. "It not only helps farmers, but it allows us to hire 100 local people or more, most of whom have no money at all, and it keeps them occupied and away from the Taliban.

"Some of these people who lack cash in hand are farmers by day and Taliban by night."

On visits like these, Wheeler also tries to learn how safe the environment is, and asks questions about the local mosque.

"In North America, the one thing you try to stay away from when talking to people is religion. But here, if you go into a village and fix the mosque for them, that scores a lot of brownie points."

An auto salesman in Newfoundland, Wheeler has been a reservist for 26 years. He spent a large portion of last year at Gagetown training for this mission, and has been in Afghanistan since February.

The days are long, the risks are many and the heat is becoming less and less bearable. But Wheeler enjoys his work with the Provincial Reconstruction Team and the satisfaction that goes with it.

"A commanding officer here told us that at the end of each day, we should ask ourselves what we had done that day for Afghanistan," Wheeler said. "And every day I can say that I've done something for Afghanistan.

"This is a wonderful experience. The Afghans are excellent, honourable people. You couldn't ask for a better bunch to work with."

Marty Klinkenberg is contributing editor of the Telegraph-Journal. He is currently embedded with Canadian troops in Afghanistan helping in the NATO-directed campaign against the Taliban. He can be reached at mklinkenberg@rogers.com

http://www.canadaeast.com/ce2/docroot/article.php?articleID=129124
 
Quote,
"And every day I can say that I've done something for Afghanistan."


Perfect...................
 
Good stuff - let's see how much material Canadian Press picks up and, more imporantly, how many subscriber papers pick up whatever CP shares of MK's fine work to date.

 
These are great write-ups... I can only hope that any persons connected to the Canadian Media take a moment and read and understand what is being accomplished.... I encourage MEDIA to spread this type of positive reporting... I am impressed and thank the authors for sharing
 
Kids make mission worth it

MARTY KLINKENBERG
tELEGRAPH-JOURNAL
Published Thursday April 19th, 2007
Appeared on page A1
It's not the apprehension or the blooming poppies in a rainbow of colours that J.C. LeBlanc will most remember when he returns to New Brunswick this summer.

No, when the military police officer from St. Antoine completes his six-month tour of Afghanistan, it will be the children here, running barefoot over rocks and broken glass, playing in garbage, that he will think about.

"I've been sending pictures of kids home from here like there's no tomorrow," LeBlanc, who has four children between the ages of nine and 15, said Wednesday as he sat outside police headquarters at Camp Nathan Smith. "Seeing the kids, seeing the children here who have been left behind, makes this mission worth it to me.

"They're just kids, defenseless kids."

A member of the Canadian Forces for nearly two decades, LeBlanc has been a military policeman at CFB Gagetown since 2005.

It is his second posting at the base in Oromocto, after serving there as an infantry soldier in the 1990s for eight years.

He is working out of the military base in Kandahar City as part of Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team, a group of soldiers and civilians helping Afghans get back on their feet after decades of war, drought and Taliban rule.

"The primary thing I'll think about when I get back home is to see how lucky we are, not only in Canada but at home, in a surrounding you are comfortable with.

"As much as you love it when you are there, you miss it even more when you're not.

"The support we've received from within Canada has been phenomenal. Groups of people have been sending us things - toothpaste, shampoo, letters, pictures drawn by children - just to boost morale.

"Children are defenseless. When you see a kid who looks like he's 12 carrying a machine gun, you know something's not right.

"You look around and all you see are children," he said.

"You wonder where are the parents. It's nothing to drive by a field here and see a six-, seven-, or eight-year-old out by himself picking vegetables because he's been left behind to fend for themselves.

"I'll think about the massive number of graves I've seen, just small little rock piles, that are either body parts or kids.

"They are the ones that suffer the most.

"You see them here, running around with no shoes on, playing in garbage."

Marty Klinkenberg is contributing editor of The Telegraph-Journal. He is currently in Afghanistan embedded with New Brunswickers who are participating in the NATO-led campaign against the Taliban. He can be reached at mklinkenberg@rogers.com.

From: http://www.canadaeast.com/ce2/docroot/article.php?articleID=129673
 
Well done LFAA CIMIC. Nice to see the good stories getting out...
 
And well done to Mr. Shipley and the Telegraph-Journal for publishing them.  Thank You.
 
Hey, thanks for the kudos but it all goes to Mr. Klinkenberg, our boss David Stonehouse, the senior editor for news and biz, and our publisher Jamie Irving for deciding to put our "boots on the ground" as it were.

If you're pleased with the kind of coverage Marty's doing, please send him an e-mail. Also, if you go to www.canadaeast.com, there are links to send a letter to the editor. I'm sure feedback from the military community about the coverage of the PRT and other issues would be welcomed.
 
I'd also like to offer my congratulations to the staff of the Telegraph-Journal on these articles.  I spend a great deal of my time using journalists as chew-toys, but you guys have done a standout job here.

For those looking for another feel-good story from Kandahar, I've got one up at The Torch that hasn't yet made it into the mainstream press:

http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2007/04/one-foot-in-front-of-other.html

Keep getting the good news out - we have a hearts and minds campaign to win here at home, too.
 
Soldiers 'undoing devil's work'

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MARTY KLINKENBERG
tELEGRAPH-JOURNAL
Published Friday April 20th, 2007
Appeared on page A1
They stood in the back of a metal cargo container baking like potatoes in the mid-morning sun. The temperature had already climbed to 50 C and the air was still, yet Sebastian Allain, Jeremy Armstrong and Greg Smith all had noticeable bounce in their steps.

On some days, the three New Brunswickers don body armour and helmets, brandish rifles and head out into the unknown through the gates of Camp Nathan Smith.

But on Wednesday, a combat vehicle so ill-tempered that soldiers have named it Christine after a Stephen King character, confined the reservists to the military base in Kandahar City that serves as the home of Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team.

"It's actually a treat for us to be in here today," Cpl. Smith, a Moncton resident with an eight-year-old son, said as he rummaged through donated materials headed for grade school students in Kandahar City. "School supplies are something we take for granted in New Brunswick, but it's something special for children here.

"So doing this is very nice. Perhaps it will give kids an opportunity to go a step farther than working in the fields."

Smith, Armstrong and Allain spent the morning stuffing 41 new backpacks with chalk, crayons, erasers, exercise books, glue sticks, markers, pencils, rulers and sharpeners sent to Afghanistan by good-hearted Canadians. Feel-good projects like this are as much a part of their job with the Civilian Military Co-operation unit as is keeping an eye out for the Taliban.

A gunner on an RG-31, a nearly impenetrable armoured vehicle with thick, glass windows, Smith drove to the scene of an explosion in Kandahar City on Tuesday that claimed the lives of five UN security officials. On Wednesday, there he was, battling to help deprived Afghan children learn readin', writin' and 'rithmetic.

"Some days we are doing God's work, other days we are undoing the devil's," said Allain, a 23-year-old corporal from Bouctouche. "It's a strange world."

When they are not within the safety of Camp Nathan Smith, the three New Brunswickers are usually out meeting with leaders in surrounding villages and towns and discussing projects that may be beneficial to them.

It is rewarding humanitarian work, but risky.

Not everyone here supports the NATO-led mission to drive out the Taliban, and many are on the fence because they fear retribution when coalition forces pull out.

"We do kind of a dangerous job," Armstrong, a 25-year-old master corporal from Saint John, said matter-of-factly. "When we are arranging meetings, we tell people where we are going and when, knowing the information could be passed on to the Taliban and that could endanger us.

"It's a gamble, really. But you have to build a rapport with people."

A graduate of Harbour View High School, Armstrong joined the 31 Service Battalion, a reserve unit, when he was in Grade 11.

"I was unemployed and bored," he said, laughing. "Then somebody told me if I joined the army I'd get to shoot rifles, blow stuff up and go off-roading, and I just couldn't resist that combination.

"But I never imagined myself going on a tour like this."

Armstrong thrives on adventure and has had several close calls. In February, he witnessed a driver run through a checkpoint and last week he was on foot patrol just south of where an explosive device killed two soldiers from New Brunswick.

He said, in fact, that a resident of that region kept suggesting for him and other soldiers to take the same road where (Master Cpl. Allan) Stewart and (Trooper Patrick James) Pentland were killed a short time later.

"Just my opinion, but it was almost like the guy was trying to walk us into an ambush," Armstrong said. "I just had a bad feeling and we ended up getting out of there."

Such experiences haven't shaken Armstrong's resolve in helping the Afghans, however.

"Their lifestyle is hard, but they are actually pretty determined people, and very selfless," he said. "If they have a meal and notice you don't have anything, they'll offer their food to you first.

"Their hospitality is amazing."

Allain, who along with Smith is a member of a Moncton-based reserve unit, said he feels fortunate to work with the Provincial Reconstruction Team.

"We're lucky, the three of us," he said. "We have one of the best jobs in the army. We're not simply Joe Grunts running with rifles."

Smith thought about his eight-year-old back home, and then considered the backpacks he and his buddies were stuffing. "The kids we're helping today, they are just the tip of the iceberg," he said. "But we know we are doing the proper thing, giving them a chance they otherwise wouldn't have.

"We'll never know how many people we help. But we know right now that we are going to make 41 kids happy."

Marty Klinkenberg is contributing editor of the Telegraph-Journal. He is currently embedded with Canadian troops participating in the NATO-directed war effort against the Taliban. He can be reached at mklinkenberg@rogers.com.
 
Fantastic material. I visited this site often, usually read but rarely comment. Notwithstanding the 'tude in the MSM my theory is that when I see the military ranking and file kavetching about the mission then it will be a wash until then our country and most importantly, any politician with brains (I know extremely rare bird, likely extinct) needs to do what is needed instead of playing silly bugger politics.

I arrived here today looking for a thread with some material talking about progress made instead of the gloom and doom of the media. I'm also very ticked at the Liberals for their stupidity towards the mission. They need to wake up to the fact that it is more than Conservatives who support the mission and some of those who vote Liberal will feel strongly enough about the wishy washiness of the Liberals to look elsewhere to place their votes. I may well be one of them if they don't find some backbone.

Anyways, without further rambling, great material here and let's see more of it. There are enough bloggers who visit this site that we should be able to get the word out when stories of the real work in Afghanistan is being ignored by the MSM.

 
Just dropping a note in here to thank those who provided links in their posts here. I found what I wanted and have posted a good news piece about Afghanistan on my site titled "Afghanistan Stories We Don't See on the News":

http://outoftheshadows.ca/2007/04/20/afghanistan-stories-we-dont-see-on-the-news/

I urge other bloggers to regularly make similar posts.


 
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