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<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff><A
href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6865359.ece">http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6865359.ece</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV class="float-left position-relative margin-top-minus-22"><SPAN
class=small>From </SPAN><SPAN class=byline>The Times</SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV class="small color-666">October 8, 2009<BR></DIV>
<DIV class=clear-simple></DIV>
<H1 class=heading>American troops in Afghanistan losing heart, say army
chaplains</H1>
<DIV class=padding-bottom-15><FONT size=3>American soldiers serving in
Afghanistan are depressed and deeply disillusioned, according to the chaplains
of two US battalions that have spent nine months on the front line in the war
against the Taleban.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=padding-bottom-15><FONT face=Arial><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT
face=Arial color=#0000ff size=3></FONT></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV class=padding-bottom-15>Many feel that they are risking their lives — and
that colleagues have died — for a futile mission and an Afghan population that
does nothing to help them, the chaplains told <I>The Times</I> in their
makeshift chapel on this fortress-like base in a dusty, brown valley southwest
of Kabul.</DIV>
<DIV id=related-article-links>
<P>“The many soldiers who come to see us have a sense of futility and anger
about being here. They are really in a state of depression and despair and just
want to get back to their families,” said Captain Jeff Masengale, of the 10th
Mountain Division’s 2-87 Infantry Battalion.</P>
<P>“They feel they are risking their lives for progress that’s hard to discern,”
said Captain Sam Rico, of the Division’s 4-25 Field Artillery Battalion. “They
are tired, strained, confused and just want to get through.” The chaplains said
that they were speaking out because the men could not.</P>
<P>The base is not, it has to be said, obviously downcast, and many troops do
not share the chaplains’ assessment. The soldiers are, by nature and training,
upbeat, driven by a strong sense of duty, and they do their jobs as best they
can. Re-enlistment rates are surprisingly good for the 2-87, though poor for the
4-25. Several men approached by <I>The Times</I>, however, readily admitted that
their morale had slumped.</P>
<P>“We’re lost — that’s how I feel. I’m not exactly sure why we’re here,” said
Specialist Raquime Mercer, 20, whose closest friend was shot dead by a renegade
Afghan policeman last Friday. “I need a clear-cut purpose if I’m going to get
hurt out here or if I’m going to die.”</P>
<P>Sergeant Christopher Hughes, 37, from Detroit, has lost six colleagues and
survived two roadside bombs. Asked if the mission was worthwhile, he replied:
“If I knew exactly what the mission was, probably so, but I don’t.”</P>
<P>The only soldiers who thought it was going well “work in an office, not on
the ground”. In his opinion “the whole country is going to s***”.</P>
<P>The battalion’s 1,500 soldiers are nine months in to a year-long deployment
that has proved extraordinarily tough. Their goal was to secure the mountainous
Wardak province and then to win the people’s allegiance through development and
good governance. They have, instead, found themselves locked in an increasingly
vicious battle with the Taleban.</P>
<P>They have been targeted by at least 300 roadside bombs, about 180 of which
have exploded. Nineteen men have been killed in action, with another committing
suicide. About a hundred have been flown home with amputations, severe burns and
other injuries likely to cause permanent disability, and many of those have not
been replaced. More than two dozen mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles
(MRAPs) have been knocked out of action.</P>
<P>Living conditions are good — abundant food, air-conditioned tents, hot water,
free internet — but most of the men are on their second, third or fourth tours
of Afghanistan and Iraq, with barely a year between each. Staff Sergeant Erika
Cheney, Airborne’s mental health specialist, expressed concern about their
mental state — especially those in scattered outposts — and believes that many
have mild post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). “They’re tired, frustrated,
scared. A lot of them are afraid to go out but will still go,” she said.</P>
<P>Lieutenant Peter Hjelmstad, 2-87’s Medical Platoon Leader, said sleeplessness
and anger attacks were common.</P>
<P>A dozen men have been confined to desk jobs because they can no longer handle
missions outside the base. One long-serving officer who has lost three friends
this tour said he sometimes returned to his room at night and cried, or played
war games on his laptop. “It’s a release. It’s a method of coping.” He has
nightmares and sleeps little, and it does not help that the base is frequently
shaken by outgoing artillery fire. He was briefly overcome as he recalled how,
when a lorry backfired during his most recent home leave, he grabbed his young
son and dived between two parked cars.</P>
<P>The chaplains said soldiers were seeking their help in unprecedented numbers.
“Everyone you meet is just down, and you meet them everywhere — in the weight
room, dining facility, getting mail,” said Captain Rico. Even “hard men” were
coming to their tent chapel and breaking down.</P>
<P>The men are frustrated by the lack of obvious purpose or progress. “The
soldiers’ biggest question is: what can we do to make this war stop. Catch one
person? Assault one objective? Soldiers want definite answers, other than to
stop the Taleban, because that almost seems impossible. It’s hard to catch
someone you can’t see,” said Specialist Mercer.</P>
<P>“It’s a very frustrating mission,” said Lieutenant Hjelmstad. “The average
soldier sees a friend blown up and his instinct is to retaliate or believe it’s
for something [worthwhile], but it’s not like other wars where your buddy died
but they took the hill. There’s no tangible reward for the sacrifice. It’s hard
to say Wardak is better than when we got here.”</P>
<P>Captain Masengale, a soldier for 12 years before he became a chaplain, said:
“We want to believe in a cause but we don’t know what that cause is.”</P>
<P>The soldiers are angry that colleagues are losing their lives while trying to
help a population that will not help them. “You give them all the humanitarian
assistance that they want and they’re still going to lie to you. They’ll tell
you there’s no Taleban anywhere in the area and as soon as you roll away, ten
feet from their house, you get shot at again,” said Specialist Eric Petty, from
Georgia.</P>
<P>Captain Rico told of the disgust of a medic who was asked to treat an
insurgent shortly after pulling a colleague’s charred corpse from a bombed
vehicle.</P>
<P>The soldiers complain that rules of engagement designed to minimise civilian
casualties mean that they fight with one arm tied behind their backs. “They’re a
joke,” said one. “You get shot at but can do nothing about it. You have to see
the person with the weapon. It’s not enough to know which house the shooting’s
coming from.”</P>
<P>The soldiers joke that their Isaf arm badges stand not for International
Security Assistance Force but “I Suck At Fighting” or “I Support Afghan
Farmers”.</P>
<P>To compound matters, soldiers are mainly being killed not in combat but on
routine journeys, by roadside bombs planted by an invisible enemy. “That’s very
demoralising,” said Captain Masengale.</P>
<P>The constant deployments are, meanwhile, playing havoc with the soldiers’
private lives. “They’re killing families,” he said. “Divorces are skyrocketing.
PTSD is off the scale. There have been hundreds of injuries that send soldiers
home and affect families for the rest of their lives.”</P>
<P>The chaplains said that many soldiers had lost their desire to help
Afghanistan. “All they want to do is make it home alive and go back to their
wives and children and visit the families who have lost husbands and fathers
over here. It comes down to just surviving,” said Captain Masengale.</P>
<P>“If we make it back with ten toes and ten fingers the mission is successful,”
Sergeant Hughes said.</P>
<P>“You carry on for the guys to your left or right,” added Specialist
Mercer.</P>
<P>The chaplains have themselves struggled to cope with so much distress. “We
have to encourage them, strengthen them and send them out again. No one comes in
and says, ‘I’ve had a great day on a mission’. It’s all pain,” said Captain
Masengale. “The only way we’ve been able to make it is having each other.”</P>
<P>Lieutenant-Colonel Kimo Gallahue, 2-87’s commanding officer, denied that his
men were demoralised, and insisted they had achieved a great deal over the past
nine months. A triathlete and former rugby player, he admitted pushing his men
hard, but argued that taking the fight to the enemy was the best form of
defence.</P>
<P>He said the security situation had worsened because the insurgents had chosen
to fight in Wardak province, not abandon it. He said, however, that the
situation would have been catastrophic without his men. They had managed to keep
open the key Kabul-to-Kandahar highway which dissects Wardak, and prevent the
province becoming a launch pad for attacks on the capital, which is barely 20
miles from its border. Above all, Colonel Gallahue argued that
counter-insurgency — winning the allegiance of the indigenous population through
security, development and good governance — was a long and laborious process
that could not be completed in a year. “These 12 months have been, for me,
laying the groundwork for future success,” he said.</P>
<P>At morning service on Sunday, the two chaplains sought to boost the spirits
of their flock with uplifting hymns, accompanied by video footage of beautiful
lakes, oceans and rivers.</P>
<P>Captain Rico offered a particularly apposite reading from Corinthians: “We
are afflicted in every way but not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair;
persecuted but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”</P><BR></DIV><!-- End of pagination --></BODY>
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