thedrifter
11-26-06, 07:10 AM
Afghanistan vets say their war all but forgotten
Sunday, November 26, 2006
By Ted Roelofs
The Grand Rapids Press
Troy Blackall was with that gung-ho first wave of U.S. Marines into Afghanistan, eager to get the job done for a grateful nation.
Landing on Thanksgiving Day in 2001, the 1998 Sparta High School graduate helped secure Camp Rhino south of Kandahar. It was the foothold for the original war on terror.
Five years later, Blackall can't help but wonder if we took our eye off the ball.
"I think the war in Iraq has taken a lot of the focus away from Afghanistan," said Blackall, 27, now out of the Marines, married and living in Walker.
"I don't think we did enough. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose."
As the rising violence in Iraq continues to command headlines, it is a common sentiment for those who served in Afghanistan. To local troops such as Blackall, Marine Cpl. Derrick Jackson and Army Maj. Steve Hillebrand, Afghanistan is the forgotten war.
It is easy to forget, too, how much the political landscape shifted since that invasion. This was weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as thousands of U.S. troops stood poised to topple the Taliban and hunt down bin Laden.
Most of the nation, shaking off its collective shock, backed the war as the right response to the al-Qaida terrorist network that orchestrated those attacks and the Taliban regime that harbored it. The early military results were encouraging.
By the end of November, the Taliban had surrendered most of the country, and al-Qaida leader bin Laden was on the run.
But the fate of Afghanistan would gradually retreat in the national consciousness as leaders in Washington launched another war, with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As that war bogged down in sectarian violence and insurgent attacks, the military was stretched thin to maintain an ongoing presence of some 140,000 U.S. troops.
Iraq became priority No. 1.
Ready to return
Derrick Jackson also was among the Marines who entered Afghanistan in November 2001, helping set up Camp Rhino and doing patrols around Kandahar.
Now 26, married and a father of two living in suburban Chicago, the 1999 Godwin Heights High School graduate is disappointed over how things turned out.
"I am very frustrated," he said. "After being out for some time now, I feel like, 'What did we go over there for?' I feel like we went in and half got things done, and then we committed to Iraq."
Jackson left Afghanistan at the end of 2001 and went on to duty in Iraq. He left the Marines in 2005. He and his wife, Lydia, are raising two children, Analicia, 4, and Deondre, 1, and building a home construction business.
He remains on the military's inactive ready reserve list, which means he could be called any time in the next two years.
Jackson said he would not mind if he is called up, especially if the mission takes him to Afghanistan.
"I am ready and willing to go," he said.
"I have to live with this feeling of not completing the mission. I feel very strongly in finishing what we started."
Taliban re-emerges
That remains a distant dream. There are approximately 32,000 troops in Afghanistan, 20,000 from the United States and the remainder from countries under the flag of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In recent months, parts of the country have slid back under Taliban control as rising violence has driven out nonprofit aid groups critical to rebuilding. Insurgent attacks have quadrupled in the past year.
Afghanistan is again the world's largest exporter of heroin, fueling the clout of drug warlords and weakening the government. Calls for greater troop commitments from NATO -- likely to be renewed this week at the NATO summit in Latvia -- have met with a tepid response. And bin Laden is still out there, believed to be hiding somewhere along the eastern border with Pakistan.
"We lost our focus," says former Army Maj. Steve Hillebrand, 45, who served in Afghanistan for much of 2003 and part of January 2004.
A 1979 graduate of Comstock Park High School, the former Benzie County sheriff's deputy oversaw interrogation of suspected terrorists in Bagram Air Base. Out of the Army, he works as a manager for FedEx in suburban Detroit.
His missions took him through much of the country, including the eastern frontier he describes as "the most rugged place that I have ever seen on earth."
Signs of hope
Hillebrand sees progress in parts of the country such as Kabul, where Afghan President Hamid Karzai retains considerable authority. Girls have returned to school, and women have regained rights they lost under the Taliban. But he also sees deterioration in tribal areas to the south and east, where the Taliban has reasserted itself.
He acknowledges the challenges to restoring order and even a modest version of democracy are daunting.
"There is no industry, no infrastructure, nothing these people can do," he said. "They can't make anything. They have no raw materials. They are poor and illiterate."
But he is convinced it is a mission that could have been -- and perhaps still can be -- won. Since he left the Army, Hillebrand has become increasingly convinced the nation should have stuck to the original mission.
"The war in Iraq is not the war on terror," he said. "It took away from what we should have been committing ourselves to.
"The mission in Afghanistan is very clear. We knew we were there for 9/11. We knew we were there to fight terror.
"It is going to take a lot of years, but we have to be committed to that."
Send e-mail to the author: troelofs@grpress.com
Ellie
Sunday, November 26, 2006
By Ted Roelofs
The Grand Rapids Press
Troy Blackall was with that gung-ho first wave of U.S. Marines into Afghanistan, eager to get the job done for a grateful nation.
Landing on Thanksgiving Day in 2001, the 1998 Sparta High School graduate helped secure Camp Rhino south of Kandahar. It was the foothold for the original war on terror.
Five years later, Blackall can't help but wonder if we took our eye off the ball.
"I think the war in Iraq has taken a lot of the focus away from Afghanistan," said Blackall, 27, now out of the Marines, married and living in Walker.
"I don't think we did enough. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose."
As the rising violence in Iraq continues to command headlines, it is a common sentiment for those who served in Afghanistan. To local troops such as Blackall, Marine Cpl. Derrick Jackson and Army Maj. Steve Hillebrand, Afghanistan is the forgotten war.
It is easy to forget, too, how much the political landscape shifted since that invasion. This was weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as thousands of U.S. troops stood poised to topple the Taliban and hunt down bin Laden.
Most of the nation, shaking off its collective shock, backed the war as the right response to the al-Qaida terrorist network that orchestrated those attacks and the Taliban regime that harbored it. The early military results were encouraging.
By the end of November, the Taliban had surrendered most of the country, and al-Qaida leader bin Laden was on the run.
But the fate of Afghanistan would gradually retreat in the national consciousness as leaders in Washington launched another war, with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As that war bogged down in sectarian violence and insurgent attacks, the military was stretched thin to maintain an ongoing presence of some 140,000 U.S. troops.
Iraq became priority No. 1.
Ready to return
Derrick Jackson also was among the Marines who entered Afghanistan in November 2001, helping set up Camp Rhino and doing patrols around Kandahar.
Now 26, married and a father of two living in suburban Chicago, the 1999 Godwin Heights High School graduate is disappointed over how things turned out.
"I am very frustrated," he said. "After being out for some time now, I feel like, 'What did we go over there for?' I feel like we went in and half got things done, and then we committed to Iraq."
Jackson left Afghanistan at the end of 2001 and went on to duty in Iraq. He left the Marines in 2005. He and his wife, Lydia, are raising two children, Analicia, 4, and Deondre, 1, and building a home construction business.
He remains on the military's inactive ready reserve list, which means he could be called any time in the next two years.
Jackson said he would not mind if he is called up, especially if the mission takes him to Afghanistan.
"I am ready and willing to go," he said.
"I have to live with this feeling of not completing the mission. I feel very strongly in finishing what we started."
Taliban re-emerges
That remains a distant dream. There are approximately 32,000 troops in Afghanistan, 20,000 from the United States and the remainder from countries under the flag of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In recent months, parts of the country have slid back under Taliban control as rising violence has driven out nonprofit aid groups critical to rebuilding. Insurgent attacks have quadrupled in the past year.
Afghanistan is again the world's largest exporter of heroin, fueling the clout of drug warlords and weakening the government. Calls for greater troop commitments from NATO -- likely to be renewed this week at the NATO summit in Latvia -- have met with a tepid response. And bin Laden is still out there, believed to be hiding somewhere along the eastern border with Pakistan.
"We lost our focus," says former Army Maj. Steve Hillebrand, 45, who served in Afghanistan for much of 2003 and part of January 2004.
A 1979 graduate of Comstock Park High School, the former Benzie County sheriff's deputy oversaw interrogation of suspected terrorists in Bagram Air Base. Out of the Army, he works as a manager for FedEx in suburban Detroit.
His missions took him through much of the country, including the eastern frontier he describes as "the most rugged place that I have ever seen on earth."
Signs of hope
Hillebrand sees progress in parts of the country such as Kabul, where Afghan President Hamid Karzai retains considerable authority. Girls have returned to school, and women have regained rights they lost under the Taliban. But he also sees deterioration in tribal areas to the south and east, where the Taliban has reasserted itself.
He acknowledges the challenges to restoring order and even a modest version of democracy are daunting.
"There is no industry, no infrastructure, nothing these people can do," he said. "They can't make anything. They have no raw materials. They are poor and illiterate."
But he is convinced it is a mission that could have been -- and perhaps still can be -- won. Since he left the Army, Hillebrand has become increasingly convinced the nation should have stuck to the original mission.
"The war in Iraq is not the war on terror," he said. "It took away from what we should have been committing ourselves to.
"The mission in Afghanistan is very clear. We knew we were there for 9/11. We knew we were there to fight terror.
"It is going to take a lot of years, but we have to be committed to that."
Send e-mail to the author: troelofs@grpress.com
Ellie