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Soldiers Target Hearts, Minds
Wednesday, July 3, 2002
By Henry Cuningham
Military Editor for The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer

Sgt. First Class Larry Moore, center, with the 489th Civil Affairs battalion, talks with translator Haji Farid, left, about an irrigation well that is being dug in the village of Molla Kochi, near Kandahar.
Image Credit: Brian Thorpe -- The Fayetteville Observer.

Unlike most U.S. soldiers traveling outside the compound, 1st Lt. Mark Follmer and Staff Sgt. Eric Newport wear civilian clothes and ride in a civilian vehicle on their trips into the countryside. They don’t wear helmets and flak vests, but Newport’s hand eases toward his sidearm whenever anything looks suspicious.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan
Two U.S. soldiers with Tennessee accents rode in the front seat of a Toyota pickup, rock music blaring. An Afghan interpreter was in the back seat chattering in Pashtu over a handheld radio.

The truck churned a cloud of dust as it bounced down a bumpy road on Monday morning through a biblical landscape with camels and goats, boys riding donkeys and villages made of mud bricks. Children ran and waved as vehicles passed.

Soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division’s task force -- many of whom have arrived in Afghanistan in the past few days -- are just beginning to get outside the U.S. compound at Kandahar Airfield. About 700 paratroopers have arrived and are getting situated before they replace soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) from Fort Campbell, Ky.

But Army Reserve civil affairs soldiers have been making daily trips “outside the wire’’ to check on humanitarian aid projects in the dusty villages beyond the fortified air base. Their work is intended to build rapport with the Afghans, making it easier for infantrymen and Special Forces soldiers to interact with local people. The area around Kandahar in southern Afghanistan is considered the stronghold of the Taliban sympathizers.
(More: The Fayetteville Observer News Source)
2002 © The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer.

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