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
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
