Deploying to Afghanistan

For John, BLUF:  We are still sending people to Afghanistan.

When I was young we used to refer to the Umpteenth Messkit Repair Battalion to characterize a unit with no obvious front line contribution.  The number of the unit was whatever you thought was sufficiently derisive.

Now we have deploying to Afghanistan the3-49th Agribusiness Development Team.  But wait, this isn't some minor litte effort:

"I'm proud of the accomplishments of our Agribusiness Development Teams and the outstanding precedence they've established in Afghanistan," said Maj. Gen. Robert E. Livingston, Jr., State Adjutant General and head of the 11,000-member Guard.

This kind of thing has been going on since 2008, and has included units from nine states.  The job of these Guardsmen is to work with Afghan farmers, helping them grow crops other than the poppie, which becomes drugs in the US and Europe and helps finance the Taliban. As Blogger and National Guard member Greg Page noted to me,

Those sorts of units don't sound STRAC but they often wind up doing tons of outside-the-wire missions.

The war we are fighting in Afghanistan isn't just about patrolling and firefights.  Often it is about engaging the local People, setting good examples, and sometimes fighting when ambushed. And, if you go to the link above you will see a typical National Guard family saying goodbye to a spouse—in this case Captain Michael Haley, and his wife Nikki, the Guard Adjudent General's boss, and the two Haley children. Regards  —  Cliff