Bill Wenger , CPM® 2007 Past President Greater Los Angeles Chapter No. 6

COL William V. Wenger
Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan
Late April 2007

There is an old Special Forces adage that what I am doing is so highly classified and if I tell you what I am doing, I will have to kill you.    Well, much of what I am doing is, indeed, highly classified, but I can share some of what I am experiencing and doing.

I have been in country now just over a month.   The process of mobilizing, drawing equipment, medical services, qualifying with weapons (9 MM pistol and M-4 carbine), and various training requirements, first aid, Improvised Explosive Devices, cultural awareness, Law of Land Warfare, Enemy Detainee Care, etc. took nearly 3 weeks, ugh!   Then the flight over from Columbus to Atlanta, Georgia; from Atlanta to Frankfurt; several bus rides to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, then a C-5 flight to Manas, Kyrgyzstan, and on to Bagram AFB north of Kabul, Afghanistan on a C-17 took another week.   I am now half-way around the world from Los Angeles.

Afghanistan never changes, yet is quite different than it appeared to me 35 years ago as a tourist traveling from one end of this amazing country to the other.   More people, seems dirtier, smellier, and is certainly much more dangerous with 8 million old Russian mines (I live in a mine field), and of course the ever-present Taliban and Al Queda.

I spent 2 days in Bagram and a week in Kabul at the Headquarters of the International Security Advisory Force (NATO) meeting co-workers, staff and getting oriented.   The ISAF is a coalition of 37 nations, with others assisting to quell the violence, support the fledgling Afghan government, and build some infrastructure for the future of the Afghan people.

I then departed for my actual assignment in Kandahar.   I flew down in a French C-130 and took command of Combined Joint Task Force Paladin (US), and the sister organization:   Counter Improvised Explosive Device Branch, Regional Command, South.   I am what is known as "duel hatted," or having two chains of command: one US and one NATO to which I and my people must respond.   Regional Command, South is currently commanded by a Dutch Major General.   On May 1 st , the command will change to a United Kingdom two star.   The regional task forces are Canadian, United Kingdom, Romanian and Dutch.   We also currently have the theater reserve, a brigade of the 82 nd Airborne Division of which my section is also a small part of another brigade of the 82 nd .

Kandahar Air Field is several kilometers south and east of Kandahar City.   Kandahar City is the second largest city in Afghanistan with a population of 500,000+.   Kabul, the capital, has approximately 3.5 million inhabitants.   Kandahar is the historic center and capital of Afghanistan.   The British moved the capital to Kandahar approximately 200 years ago.   However, because the Taliban still consider Kandahar the cultural and religious center of the country, the significant fight is for control of this area. The second reason the Taliban wants control here is the proximity to the Pakistan border, but arguably most important reason of all is the significant opium poppy crop grown in the well-watered valleys here.   Poppy cultivation and drug trafficking are the primary income source for the people here and the primary source of funding for the Taliban fighters.

The Base here at "KAF," as it is known, is the "International" airport for Kandahar, and the operational base for the NATO forces in Regional Command - South which includes the six provinces of Afghanistan in the southeast corner of the country bordered by Pakistan and Iran on the east and south respectively and by the provinces of Ghanzi and Heart on the north.   The base has 11,000 troops of many nations including those mentioned, but also Egypt, Jordan, Estonia, Denmark, Germany, Greece and others plus hundreds of Kellogg, Brown and Roote (KBR, Halliburton) contractors providing meals, construction, water and power, cleaning, waste removal, etc.   We have really nice amenities for a war zone:   4 coffee shops including a Tim Horton's (Canadian chain owned by Wendy's now), a British coffee shop, and a Coffee Bean, but no Starbucks.   The Tim Horton's is the most profitable shop in their extensive chain, and serves really good coffee.   We have a Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subway, a Sushi and Chinese Food place run by Koreans, rug and souvenir shops, sports clothes outlet...these are all small but adequate operations.   We have several PX with a variety of stock of uneven availability, and a great gym that is very heavily used by the thousands on the base.   We, of course, have a number of dining halls that serve almost 24/7, so we have plenty to eat even if it begins quickly to all taste the same.

The downside of this base is the talcum powder fine dust that gets into everything including our lungs. It is always dusty and hazy.   We apparently have an inversion layer over Kandahar as does LA?   They say this area has always been hazy and smoky.   Our burning trash dump nightly and the sewage plant next to the gym that is more than 50% undersized for our population on base contributes to a constant certain ambiance that is not to be described and is certainly not appreciated by the denizens of this localized hell hole.

We do get rocketed and mortared occasionally (about once or twice per week), but the Taliban are thankfully not too proficient or accurate.   There is an alarm system and a "Big Voice" public address system as well as bunkers sprinkled liberally all over the base, but most of us just ignore the attacks and figure if it is our time to be hit, so be it.   It was the same in Iraq after a few days, but much more frequent and intense in Baghdad and other FOBs.

Contrary to what you may be hearing in the media at home, this is definitely a shooting war.   We have lost more than 20 soldiers since I arrived just in this area of operations.   We have all too frequent "ramp ceremonies" to formally say our farewells to our comrades.   Thousands of us form up by nation and unit in a formal parade to line the corridor for the beginning of the final journey for our departed brethren in arms.   I have attended half-a-dozen such ceremonies since arriving in KAF to see off British, Dutch, Canadian and US soldiers as they are carried in their coffins onto waiting cargo planes for the final flight home.   We stand silently at attention and present arms as the bagpipes play, the clergy intone prayers, the flags wave in the hot, constant breeze and the coffins are carried past us and into the cargo decks of the transports.   Sad...the price of freedom is such sacrifice.

What do my people and I do?   This is the difficult part of this note because of classifications.   However, I can tell you that we are responsible for investigating all possible incidents of use of Improvised Explosive Devices of all types, mine attacks, and other explosive device attacks.   We are sort of a "CSI Kandahar."    We deploy, investigate, report, and train our troops how to better protect themselves.   We also provide information to target the bad guys for capture or "other alternatives."   More than that I cannot write.

We have considerable computer and electronic support which is both a blessing and a curse.   We have 6 to 7 different systems, some proprietary to countries, some available to NATO countries, and some available to all.   We have classified and unclassified systems, but few of the latter.   You can imagine that with so many systems that do not talk to each other easily we have communication challenges daily.   Similar challenges exist with phone systems, but not quite as complicated or crucial.

There are many challenges and complications to be met, and political agendas and differences to be negotiated.   We are here to keep soldiers alive, capture or eliminate the enemy, and help the Afghan government and their people establish security and a positive future for their nation.

More to follow as it develops.

COL William V. Wenger at Kandahar Air Field.   He is standing next to a Canadian Light Armored Vehicle (LAV) used for reconnaissance.