An old friend of mine sacks up...

Fri, Oct. 05, 2007

‘Where I need to be’

Legislator, lawyer leaps into infantry, helps train Afghan police forces

By Chuck Crumbo- The State


Chuck Crumbo / ccrumbo@thestate.com
Capt. James Smith talks with a man about some of the issues that his village faces. Smith is a state legislator from Richland County who's serving with the S.C. National Guard in Afghanistan.

QALAT, Afghanistan — Four Humvees speed toward a site where the Taliban has attacked a civilian convoy.

“We’re going to go down and see if we can fix ’em and kill ’em,” one of the Humvee commanders, Capt. James Smith, tells his crew.

Smith’s gunner, Spc. Stoney Harper of Winnsboro, trains his weapon on a wooded area south of the road.

“That’s where they like to launch their attacks,” Smith says. “Then they go back into the trees and hide.”

When the Humvees reach the site, there is no sign of the attackers. Only the acrid smell of an exploded rocket-propelled grenade, fired by the Taliban, hangs in the air.

For the 40-year-old Smith, it was all in a day’s work as an S.C. National Guard soldier in Afghanistan with the Guard’s 1,800-member 218th Brigade Combat Team. But it is a marked contrast to the world Smith was a part of a few months ago.

Then, Smith worked in a downtown Columbia law office, and went home each night to his wife and four children.

A Democratic state representative from Columbia, Smith’s political supporters would like to see him in the Governor’s Mansion. At a sendoff party in the Vista before he left for Afghanistan, Smith played with his band of mostly 40-something Columbia professionals. As a song was being introduced, one band member told the crowd, “We’d like to play this in (2011) — at the inauguration.”

The crowd cheered.

Today, however, Smith is a member of Team Swamp Fox, charged with helping the Afghan police bring law and order to Zabul Province along the treacherous Pakistan border. The team operates out of Qalat, a town of about 10,000 that is the capital of Zabul.

‘I’M EXACTLY WHERE I NEED TO BE’

Being an adviser to the Afghan police may be the most dangerous and demanding job any U.S. soldier has in Afghanistan. The advisers offer a range of support to Afghan police — from teaching infantry skills to calling in helicopters to evacuate the wounded.

Because the Afghan police are in local villages and on the roads, that puts their U.S. advisers in areas where much of the fighting occurs.

The risk has increased sharply this year.

Task Force Phoenix, commanded by the S.C. brigade, has lost 11 advisers since June 16. By comparison, only six U.S. advisers were killed during the entire previous year.

Smith landed in this spot after changing jobs in the Guard.

Formerly a military lawyer, Smith switched to the infantry after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, saying he wanted to lead soldiers in combat.

The move required him to start over in the Guard. He resigned his commission as a military lawyer, enlisted, took basic training at Fort Jackson and then went to officer’s candidate school.

The switch has been worth it, said Smith, adding he couldn’t have planned or timed the move any better. “I’m exactly where I need to be,” said Smith, who arrived in Afghanistan about June 1.

The resumes of other U.S. advisers are varied.

Some are active-duty career soldiers with backgrounds in infantry and logistics; others are law-enforcement officers in civilian life. There also are lawyers and business owners. Smith is the only state legislator in the group.

“What’s most important is that the mentors are problem-solvers,” said Col. Tom McGrath, a regional commander of the effort to train the Afghan army and police.

HEARTS AND MINDS

Smith’s Humvee, with Sgt. Dennis Meyer of Myrtle Beach behind the steering wheel, rolled past the attack site and continued to a police checkpoint.

A couple of Afghan officers were outside. One stood in front of the checkpoint, an AK-47 rifle slung over his shoulder. The other crouched on top of a wall, overlooking the highway.

The job of the Afghan police is to keep the roads secure. However, Smith’s team, headed by Maj. Tom Mack of Charleston, determined the checkpoints were contributing to Afghanistan’s security problems.

“The checkpoints basically serve as confidence-builders for the Taliban,” Mack said. “The officers are poorly trained and lack resources. The Taliban comes in, kills a couple and then moves on.”

To counter the Taliban threat, U.S. commanders plan to put Afghan police officers through an eight-week training program during the fall and winter.

In addition, the Afghan government will close about two dozen checkpoints along Highway 1 in Zabul Province and move the officers to six fortified bases. The police then will patrol the highway instead of sitting in one spot.

Smith and the soldiers did a quick tour of the checkpoint, checked ammunition supplies, talked briefly to the officers and then headed to a village nearby.

Known as Kakaran, the village is large for a rural area. While about 1,000 people live there, few were outside the walls when the U.S. soldiers arrived. That people are afraid to come out usually is a sign the Taliban are in the immediate area.

‘MAKE THEM MORE LIKE BEAT COPS’

Smith spotted two men about 75 feet away. One was on a motorcycle; the other in a cart being towed by the motorcycle. The men hesitated and then started to pull away. Smith’s interpreter yelled for them to stop.

Although the village is only about 100 yards from the checkpoint, few Afghan or U.S. soldiers ever had stopped by just to talk.

As part of their training, the U.S. advisers are teaching the Afghans how to do community policing — working to find out a neighborhood’s problems as well as answer calls to incidents.

“The best thing we can do is to make them more like beat cops,” Smith said.

Smith asked the men for their names and the names of the village’s key leaders, or elders.

His aim, Smith said, is to contact the elders and set up a meeting, or shura. The meetings are used to see what the village needs, whether a school, clinic, water wells or roads.

As the men and Smith talked, more people came out from behind the village’s walls.

Smith noticed one elderly, bespectacled man with a bloodied cloth wrapped around his left ankle, limping and leaning on a stick.

The man said he had been struck by a car along the highway.

“You’re lucky if that’s all that happened,” Smith said.

Smith called for a Navy corpsman assigned to his team, who cleaned and bandaged the wound.

Doing little things — like helping the man — is part of the effort to win the hearts and minds of Afghans and build a wedge between them and the Taliban, McGrath said. It also shows U.S. troops are not here as occupiers but to help the local people.

Progress is slow, but Smith said his team’s efforts are making a difference.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am of the guys I work with, and the work we’re doing. It’s far exceeded my expectations.”

Assistant managing editor Eileen Waddell contributed to this story.