Military Officer - February 2007 - (Page 53)

chance the project will be destroyed, how effective is that?” he asks. But if you build one school in a secure area, staff it, and make sure there is an area to educate female students, that just seems more effective and more in keeping with the long-term goals of Afghanistan, he concludes. Routinely, the PRT would look at repairing or building a school and ask where the elders wanted the women’s classrooms. If there was no response, members of the civil affairs element would ask, “So, where do you want the women’s school built?” If it remained clear the village did not want to educate its women, then Morgan would explain politely that he could not help the village with the project. He says this approach was effective. Morgan calls the women in his unit the “biggest force multiplier with the civilian population, without a doubt.” Afghan men and women alike were comfortable with them, and everyone wanted to talk to them. They opened more doors than the American men ever could, he recounts. Measuring success is important to both McNerney and Morgan. McNerney knows the answer lies not in the number of schools built or wells dug, nor in the number of smiling Afghans, a mistake he thinks some might make. From his tactical vantage point, Morgan agrees: This is not just a “hearts and minds” campaign. As a PRT commander he constantly was working to gauge effectiveness. His metric: How many children were out playing? How many people were out? If people felt safe to go out in secure villages, if areas had improved security, then they were making progress. He notes that some of the most secure villages were Taliban-controlled. “There are good Taliban and bad Taliban, just as there are good and bad Republicans and Democrats in this country,” he says. “You work with the good guys, regardless of party afﬁliation.” PHOTOS: CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT, SAURABH DAS/AP; U.S. ARMY/REUTERS; ZAINAL ABD HALIM/REUTERS; CAPT. JOE CAMPBELL, USAF, PANJSHIR PRT PRTs help Afghanistan meet its peoples’ basic needs, such as medical care (Air Force Maj. Kurt Workmaster of the Panjshir PRT tests an elder’s blood pressure) and clean water (top, Zabul PRT soldiers check a well in Qalat). Warlords, sheiks, Taliban Afghanistan reportedly is the ﬁfthpoorest nation in the world, and roughly 75 percent of its rugged terrain is controlled by factionalized warlords. As PRT members made their way around the province, they found some villages did not hide their disdain for Americans. Others were friendly. Omna was friendly, though Morgan describes the town’s gover- nance as “management by chaos.” In Barmal, on the Pakistan border, he scribbled in his notes, “VC [Viet Cong] sympathizers,” his own shorthand for an unfriendly town. There, the governor had ﬁred the police chief, removed Pakistani textbooks from the schools, and taken three teachers into custody. Then there was Jahnikhel, where the Taliban would wave and smile like [CONTINUES ON PAGE 74] FEBRUARY 2007 MILITARY OFFICER 53

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Military Officer - February 2007

Military Officer - February 2007 Contents From the Editor From the President Your Views MOAA Directory Rapid Fire Washington Scene Financial Forum Ask the Doctor Chapter Activities Cover Story: Building Stability Reaching Out, Reaching Up 5 Tax-Season Strategies A Capital Event MOAA Member Services Pages of History Information Exchange Advertising Index Member Books Sounding Taps MOAA Calendar Encore

Military Officer - February 2007

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