Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Columbia (SC) State
April 14, 2008
Pg. 1
S.C. Guardsmen in Afghanistan
S.C. troops help build 16 schools in Kabul area
By Chuck Crumbo
DEH-YEHYA, Afghanistan — As the two white SUVs bounced, swayed and grunted up the deeply rutted road, Afghan children pressed against the windows of their classrooms for a closer look.
The kids watched a half-dozen soldiers get out of the vehicles, greet school officials and, then, unload notebooks and pencils.
While the students were ecstatic about getting the notebooks, something much bigger was planned.
Higher up the hill, a one-story, bright yellow building that would be their new high school was about to be dedicated.
The school is one of 16 that the S.C. National Guard has under construction or has opened during the past year in the Kabul area.
The S.C. Guard’s 218th Brigade Combat Team has been here to train Afghan security forces so that they can defeat the Taliban. But, at the same time, the S.C. soldiers also were battling one of Afghanistan’s other worst enemies — illiteracy.
“It is the belief of the coalition forces, the people of the United States and the people standing here that education is the future of Afghanistan,” said S.C. National Guard Col. Chuck Murff of Spartanburg.
Murff then cut the sky-blue ribbon stretched across the high school’s main building.
Afghanistan’s education needs are huge.
Almost three of five Afghan men and nine of 10 women are illiterate. Having a poorly educated, unskilled population poses a major roadblock to developing Afghanistan, the world’s fourth-poorest country.
The combination of illiteracy and poverty helps the Taliban. U.S. military commanders say the Taliban recruits and brainwashes uneducated teens and young adults to be its foot soldiers and suicide bombers.
Education has become a booming business since the Taliban was driven from power in 2001.
According to government reports, more than 7 million Afghan children — including 2 million girls — now are in school. That’s up from 1.2 million in 2001.
The S.C. troops say that building schools is another way to fight back against insurgent forces and win friends among the Afghans.
Capt. David Brooks, a civil affairs officer with the 218th, made that point when visiting Aziz Afghan School, where 4,500 students attend grades 1-9.
The school is near the main route to Kabul International Airport. Military convoys frequently travel the route and occasionally are targeted by suicide bombers or struck by bombs planted along the road.
“Hopefully, education will replace the ignorance that makes people do these violent acts,” said Brooks of Cheraw.
The schools that the S.C. troops build offer students and teachers the basics: a roof, electrical outlets and indoor bathrooms.
The structures are one-story, concrete block buildings with 10 to 16 classrooms. The walls are cream-colored, and the floors are bare concrete.
Chalkboards simply are a large, black rectangle painted on the classroom’s front wall. However, some buildings have a small library and computer lab.
A school costs between $185,000 and $200,000 to build. The troops keep the figure under $200,000 so that the school can be paid for from a special fund — the Commander’s Emergency Response Program.
Designed to cut red tape and get special projects, including schools and medical clinics, built quickly, projects paid for from that fund need only the approval of Brig. Gen. Bob Livingston, commander of the 218th and Task Force Phoenix.
Under an agreement with the Afghan government, the United States pays for the buildings. The Afghan Ministry of Education provides the teachers, books and equipment, Murff said.
Even though it’s bare bones, the new high school is a boon for the rapidly growing area around Deh-yehya, said principal Sayed Zaywarudin.
More than 2,000 children, in grades 1-12, attend the school, going in three shifts. For the school’s 36 teachers, the workday runs from 7 a.m. to 5:45 p.m., six days a week.
The school has come a long way since principal Zaywarudin was a student 20 years ago.
“When I was first a student at this school, we had to study on a cloth on the ground,” he said. “We had only one building. Now, we have four.”
Still, many Afghan schools continue to hold classes in a tent or outside in the courtyard. The lack of classroom space is more acute for girls, who are taught separately from boys. Afghan education officials say about 60 percent of girls attend classes outdoors or in tents.
Because girls’ schools often are targets of the Taliban, who believe women should not be educated, many parents keep their daughters out of the classroom.
Most attacks on girls’ schools have been in rural, southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban has its roots. But school officials in Kabul also worry about security.
During a recent visit to a construction site at a girls’ school in north Kabul, Murff was pressed by the principal to increase the height of the campus’ perimeter wall.
“The wall is not high enough,” girls’ school principal Rabia Abdullah complained. “Anyone can climb over it.”
Murff said the wall would have to be taken care of in a separate project. His priority was seeing the completion of a 16-classroom building and four-room addition.
An educator for some 30 years, Abdullah said her school, in the heart of a bustling commercial and residential section of Kabul, has 7,000 students in grades 1-12 who attend in three shifts.
Girls’ schools have been growing since the ouster of the Taliban, said Abdullah, watching students wearing white scarves and black smocks race across the courtyard during recess.
“When the Taliban was here, we could not have school,” she said. “Girls were educated at home.”
At Deh-yehya, the boys look forward to studying in their new high school.
“I’m very happy about it,” said 15-year-old Safi Ullah. “I like to be educated.”
The boy, who comes from a family in which no one has gone past the seventh grade, plans to become a teacher or government worker.
“Getting an education is very important if I want a good future and good-paying job,” Ullah said.
A fifth-grader, Mohammad Wasim hopes to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and become a poet and writer.
Both of his parents are educated — in Afghanistan, that means they are high school graduates — and his father is a colonel in the Afghan police, Wasim said.
An avid reader, Wasim, 11, enjoys watching “Tom & Jerry” cartoons on Kabul television. “But I like writing poetry the best,” he added.
Another fifth-grader, 11-year-old Mohammand Ayub, dreams of being a doctor.
Ayub, who proudly boasts he is ranked first in his class academically, said his father and older brother both are college graduates.
Being a doctor is an “honorable skill to have,” Ayub said. “I want to serve my people and my country.”
April 14, 2008
Pg. 1
S.C. Guardsmen in Afghanistan
S.C. troops help build 16 schools in Kabul area
By Chuck Crumbo
DEH-YEHYA, Afghanistan — As the two white SUVs bounced, swayed and grunted up the deeply rutted road, Afghan children pressed against the windows of their classrooms for a closer look.
The kids watched a half-dozen soldiers get out of the vehicles, greet school officials and, then, unload notebooks and pencils.
While the students were ecstatic about getting the notebooks, something much bigger was planned.
Higher up the hill, a one-story, bright yellow building that would be their new high school was about to be dedicated.
The school is one of 16 that the S.C. National Guard has under construction or has opened during the past year in the Kabul area.
The S.C. Guard’s 218th Brigade Combat Team has been here to train Afghan security forces so that they can defeat the Taliban. But, at the same time, the S.C. soldiers also were battling one of Afghanistan’s other worst enemies — illiteracy.
“It is the belief of the coalition forces, the people of the United States and the people standing here that education is the future of Afghanistan,” said S.C. National Guard Col. Chuck Murff of Spartanburg.
Murff then cut the sky-blue ribbon stretched across the high school’s main building.
Afghanistan’s education needs are huge.
Almost three of five Afghan men and nine of 10 women are illiterate. Having a poorly educated, unskilled population poses a major roadblock to developing Afghanistan, the world’s fourth-poorest country.
The combination of illiteracy and poverty helps the Taliban. U.S. military commanders say the Taliban recruits and brainwashes uneducated teens and young adults to be its foot soldiers and suicide bombers.
Education has become a booming business since the Taliban was driven from power in 2001.
According to government reports, more than 7 million Afghan children — including 2 million girls — now are in school. That’s up from 1.2 million in 2001.
The S.C. troops say that building schools is another way to fight back against insurgent forces and win friends among the Afghans.
Capt. David Brooks, a civil affairs officer with the 218th, made that point when visiting Aziz Afghan School, where 4,500 students attend grades 1-9.
The school is near the main route to Kabul International Airport. Military convoys frequently travel the route and occasionally are targeted by suicide bombers or struck by bombs planted along the road.
“Hopefully, education will replace the ignorance that makes people do these violent acts,” said Brooks of Cheraw.
The schools that the S.C. troops build offer students and teachers the basics: a roof, electrical outlets and indoor bathrooms.
The structures are one-story, concrete block buildings with 10 to 16 classrooms. The walls are cream-colored, and the floors are bare concrete.
Chalkboards simply are a large, black rectangle painted on the classroom’s front wall. However, some buildings have a small library and computer lab.
A school costs between $185,000 and $200,000 to build. The troops keep the figure under $200,000 so that the school can be paid for from a special fund — the Commander’s Emergency Response Program.
Designed to cut red tape and get special projects, including schools and medical clinics, built quickly, projects paid for from that fund need only the approval of Brig. Gen. Bob Livingston, commander of the 218th and Task Force Phoenix.
Under an agreement with the Afghan government, the United States pays for the buildings. The Afghan Ministry of Education provides the teachers, books and equipment, Murff said.
Even though it’s bare bones, the new high school is a boon for the rapidly growing area around Deh-yehya, said principal Sayed Zaywarudin.
More than 2,000 children, in grades 1-12, attend the school, going in three shifts. For the school’s 36 teachers, the workday runs from 7 a.m. to 5:45 p.m., six days a week.
The school has come a long way since principal Zaywarudin was a student 20 years ago.
“When I was first a student at this school, we had to study on a cloth on the ground,” he said. “We had only one building. Now, we have four.”
Still, many Afghan schools continue to hold classes in a tent or outside in the courtyard. The lack of classroom space is more acute for girls, who are taught separately from boys. Afghan education officials say about 60 percent of girls attend classes outdoors or in tents.
Because girls’ schools often are targets of the Taliban, who believe women should not be educated, many parents keep their daughters out of the classroom.
Most attacks on girls’ schools have been in rural, southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban has its roots. But school officials in Kabul also worry about security.
During a recent visit to a construction site at a girls’ school in north Kabul, Murff was pressed by the principal to increase the height of the campus’ perimeter wall.
“The wall is not high enough,” girls’ school principal Rabia Abdullah complained. “Anyone can climb over it.”
Murff said the wall would have to be taken care of in a separate project. His priority was seeing the completion of a 16-classroom building and four-room addition.
An educator for some 30 years, Abdullah said her school, in the heart of a bustling commercial and residential section of Kabul, has 7,000 students in grades 1-12 who attend in three shifts.
Girls’ schools have been growing since the ouster of the Taliban, said Abdullah, watching students wearing white scarves and black smocks race across the courtyard during recess.
“When the Taliban was here, we could not have school,” she said. “Girls were educated at home.”
At Deh-yehya, the boys look forward to studying in their new high school.
“I’m very happy about it,” said 15-year-old Safi Ullah. “I like to be educated.”
The boy, who comes from a family in which no one has gone past the seventh grade, plans to become a teacher or government worker.
“Getting an education is very important if I want a good future and good-paying job,” Ullah said.
A fifth-grader, Mohammad Wasim hopes to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and become a poet and writer.
Both of his parents are educated — in Afghanistan, that means they are high school graduates — and his father is a colonel in the Afghan police, Wasim said.
An avid reader, Wasim, 11, enjoys watching “Tom & Jerry” cartoons on Kabul television. “But I like writing poetry the best,” he added.
Another fifth-grader, 11-year-old Mohammand Ayub, dreams of being a doctor.
Ayub, who proudly boasts he is ranked first in his class academically, said his father and older brother both are college graduates.
Being a doctor is an “honorable skill to have,” Ayub said. “I want to serve my people and my country.”