COIN Training

A few weekends ago, I went to another base in the foothills of the mountains for Counter Insurgency Training. It was excellent training relating to how an insurgency is developed and further maintained. It emphasized actions that we take as foreigners in this country that can lead a local Afghan to decide to become an insurgent. It taught us a lot which is important since this is not the traditional battlespace that we experienced in previous wars. We are not fighting a clearly defined enemy as we did in WWII.

The course included a few short lessons on Dari. We learned how to say basic greeting phrases and our thank yous. It seemed simple, but the point was made that by interacting with the Afghans that worked on our base in Dari we show them respect. Additionally, each night as they go home they will talk about the Americans trying to speak Dari which helps make us appear more normal to all those that wonder what we do behind these tall concrete walls.

Another great aspect of COIN Training was the few days away from work and the sights I was able to see. We were higher up the mountains, so the views were much clearer. Below are a few pictures from that weekend.



Nearby the camp was the "Queen's Palace" which was built in the 1920s. It was eventually used by the Soviets as a Head Quarters during their war in Afghanistan and has experience a lot of damage.



An internal staircase in the Queen's Palace. You can see the razor wire left behind by the Soviets on the bottom right.



This is some graffiti from the Soviet from Christmas 1988.



My last morning there was cold but very clear.



We hiked to the top of a nearby peak to the old Soviet Officer's Club. It is broken down, but the views are wonderful.



As we came down from the Officer's Club, we saw groups of Afghan National Army recruits. They were in the middle of training just like our sailors go through at Great Lakes. As we walked by a few of them came to speak with us. As we spoke in very broken Dari and English, we each laughed more than communicated. All the Americans were taking pictures and the Afghans all wanted to be in them. Later they formed up and marched past us. We could see how proud they were to be serving in the Army.