Lament of an AfPak Hand: I’ve been abandoned and misused in Kandahar

For a program stamped expressly as the top personnel priority of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the AfPak Hands initiative sure seems to have a lot of participants who feel abused and misused by the process. Just listen to this poor guy working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ("USACE") in the south:

By "A.P. Hand"
Best Defense guest columnist

Four months of language training in one of the most difficult languages in the world, Pashto — where I worked hard enough to come out with a 1/1 language proficiency in four months. And off to a two week COIN Academy at Camp Julien, Kabul. Afterwards I was dropped in Kandahar and forgotten about.

I was supposed to have a 1 month immersion in order to help solidify my language and cultural training. It didn’t happen. This is when I had a feeling that all the scuttlebutt during language training was probably truth. Four and one half months later, I’m still trying to force a rectangle into a round hole to work out my AfPak intent into my assignment here in Kandahar with the USACE and I find a memo that was dated the month that I arrived in theatre — the month I attended the COIN in Kabul.

This memo is attached and it tells you just how much of a priority this personnel request was given to the CJCS’s request. It seems that the USACE officer shortfall trumps the CJCS’s personnel shortfall. See the attached memo for my meaning.

I am not offering my opinion as a disgruntled employee-type communiqué. I just want someone to help me get the word out that maybe the CJCS is not aware of how his top priority is being run in the war zone. I spoke to Captain Muir as well as his predecessor Captain McLachlan a more than a few occasions and they continue to tell me that the intent was there but it changed.

If you see the memo, it’s from the USACE Trans Atlantic Division CG to our in-country AfPak Hands "handler" Captain McLachlan. The USACE mission was so critical it requested a fill with AfPak Hands in "billets that no longer justify the AFGHAN Hands designation."  I am in one of those billets that is no longer an AfPak Hands intent billet and I am outside the AfPak hands use for the entire year that I’m here. So if we can give up 4 critical AfPak Hands, Para 6, to fill USACE positions no longer intended as AfPak , what does this say about the personnel priority? Six more USACE positions are listed in Para 5 for continued sourcing. I spoke to some of them and they tell me they are doing the same thing that I’m doing as a USACE OIC, which is engineering management, not AfPak missions. Not outside the wire, not off the FOB.

As I said before, the AfPak Hands lost a minimum of four hands for one year each as it shows in Para 6. The others are also other career fields that I am not privy to contact with. This is just from the engineering career field that I am speaking. I can say that I am very disappointed to be traded to USACE for my first year and not given the top priority chance that I was made to believe was the reason behind AFPAK.

At this point, 8 months into the year, I’ve lost more than 75 percent of my language skills and I lose more every month that I continue to work as an Office OIC for the Corps of Engineers. The USACE is a good deployed opportunity for an engineer, but it’s not an AfPak intended job and the CJCS top priority has been trumped.

This email could end my AfPak career if they see it as a whistle blowing attempt. I am committed to my effort in this war. This is why I joined-volunteered-for AfPak duty. I wanted to make a difference.

"A.P. Hand" is based in Kandahar, Afghanistan, at least until his boss reads this.