SS Advisor

[Anthony Hoh]

Dusty,
Thanks for chimming in. Unfortunatley this seems to be more the norm than the exception.

To anyone browsing the thread. Had a cultural emmersion class today that ended in four hours with Les Grau.

For those of you not familiar with Les he wrote The bear went over the mountain. A must read for any SGT through BDE CDR going to Afghhanstan. We even got a free bonus copy of The other side of the Mountain. ( Yes Tom I snagged you an extra copy incase you didnt already have one. ) He gave some great first hand perspective on motivations behind the Mujahideen, and a detailed account of operation Anaconda. Not to mention a few personal insights about how the rebuilding effort is going so far. I wish a few more folks would listen to that guy.

One great take away to share... In his opinion and I agree we are rebuilding Afghanistan in the wrong manner. We have this large unemployed population. And we are contracting the building of road networks out to private contractors with buldozers. He proposes we use LEP's with pick axes and shovels to do the work. I think it is a sound idea and would welcome anyones insight before I put it in the "possible CERP project box." It will have its own chalanges wth fraud, waste, delay... ButI would rather you feed your family by building a road than growing poppy or shooting a rocket at me. If anyone else could show me adown side let me know.

In Service

arh