[Vision2020] Lest We Forget . . .

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the Army Times at:

http://www.ArmyTimes.com

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U.S. soldier Mike Greenberger gives a plastic bag containing clothes to an
Afghan boy on Thanksgiving Day outside the U.S. base of Bagram north of
Kabul. Greenberger distributed some clothes, which were sent to him by his
family in the U.S. to be given to local children.

http://tinyurl.com/ThanksgivingDayAfghanistan

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Patrols and turkey in Afghan war zone
By Denis D. Gray - The Asssociated Press

BARAKI-BARAK, Afghanistan — Thanksgiving Day for soldiers in this valley
ringed by towering snowy peaks began with a six-mile slog to aid village
schools without desks and windows, and ended with five, once scrawny local
turkeys soldiers have been fattening up for the past month.

“Just another day, another mission,” several soldiers said as a 25-man
patrol from Able Troop, 3-71 Cavalry Squadron set out on a cold morning
under brilliantly blue skies.

Others let sentiment seep through their matter-of-fact, stoic shells.

“We’re with our family just like we would be at Thanksgiving back home,”
said Staff Sgt. Ben McKinnon, of New Haven, Conn., nodding toward the
soldiers around him that have daily shared hardship, suffering and some
elation over the past year.

Commander Capt. Paul Shepard said his unit, part of the 10th Mountain
Division, had a great deal to be thankful for: the squadron has suffered
two soldiers killed in action and a number of wounded but none have died
in Alpha Troop.

“Knock on wood we’ve had some really good luck in our district, We’ve had
a relatively good welcome from the locals and the severity of contact with
the insurgents has not been great,” Shepard, of Black River, N.Y., said.
“And we have tried to give out as much as we can.”

Troops in Baraki-Barak, located in Logar province, just south of Kabul,
have blitzed the area with humanitarian aid under an innovative “extreme
makeover” concept that has had Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S.
commander in Afghanistan, and civilian officials, helicoptering in to see
how the model could be applied elsewhere in the country.

Thursday’s patrol, which visited a boy’s elementary school high in the
hills and a girl’s high school near the base, was part of an effort to
equip the district’s ramshackle classrooms with the most basic
necessities.

Meanwhile, three cooks on the Joint Combat Operations Post scurried to
prepare a traditional meal. Putting a turkey on a soldier’s Thanksgiving
table isn’t always easy in Afghanistan.

To enjoy the fresh thing, soldiers a month ago bought six turkeys at $20
apiece from local farmers, built a special pen under one of the guard
towers, and fed them cornbread, crackers, and even chicken. One was
slaughtered earlier to see how the birds were coming along and declared to
be “awesome.”

The unit’s mechanics converted a 55-gallon drum into a smoker and Staff
Sgt. Charles Hough, of Dexter, N.Y., who is otherwise charged with the
unit’s mortars, volunteered to supervise deep frying three of the
celebratory birds, something he learned from his brother.

For several days, the troop’s nightly operations meetings devoted about as
much time to Thanksgiving preparations as targeting the Taliban.

“I think the Army goes out of its way to make the holiday as good as
possible,” Shepard said. “I would like to think that none of the soldiers
will miss two Thanksgivings or Christmases in a row, but unfortunately
that may happen in these days of frequent overseas deployments.”

Most soldiers here won’t be getting back to their home base of Fort Drum,
N.Y., until after Christmas.

Spc. Seth Breesawitz, of Springfield, Mo., who supervises two other Army
cooks on the outpost, said that to feed some 150 soldiers the local
turkeys were supplemented by prebaked and seasoned ones airlifted from the
U.S. to the massive American base in Bagram, and then trucked to
Baraki-Barak via the main military camp in Logar.

Thursday evening, just as the sun set and a bitter cold set in, the
soldiers sat down to the traditional turkey plus ham basted in brown sugar
and honey, sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows, five varieties of pies
and nonalcoholic beer. A much-scaled down version of the feast was
helicoptered to a handful of soldiers in an observation post perched on a
6,900-foot spur.

“It makes me feel good to give them a piece of home,” said Breesawitz as
cooks finished slaughtering the turkeys Wednesday evening, preparing to
pluck their feathers with the help of four, young and enthusiastic Afghan
boys who perform odd jobs around a base where the troops have lived for
almost a year.

All in all, it’s hardly a place most would want to call home.

The soldiers live in tents or crude wooden huts, ringed by a 12-foot
earthen defensive wall topped by barbed wire. The “dining hall” is a
square wooden structure with bare walls but for paper cutouts of two
turkey heads and a sprinkling of maple leaves. The kitchen, a tiny tent on
a trailer, would drive finicky chefs to suicide.

Around the outpost lie barren fields and stark, fortress-like village
compounds fashioned from mud brick. The landscape exudes a melancholy air:
autumn’s last leaves cling to apple trees, and the naked branches of
willows are etched into a cold sky. In the distance, mountain peaks soar
to 14,000 feet, capped by early winter snows.

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Pro patria,

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that
would suffice."

- Meister Eckhart