Posted on 04/13/2004 1:36:22 PM PDT by 2Jedismom
Al-Qaida puts price on Sooner soldier
But Maj. Wes Parker's main concern is getting a water well drilled in an impoverished Afghan village.
HAJI TUTI, Afghanistan -- U.S. Army Maj. Wes Parker is a man with a bounty on his head.
The al-Qaida is supposedly offering $50,000 for the capture of the Oklahoman alive; $25,000, if he is killed.
But, right now, Parker isn't too worried about that. He's trying to figure out how to get a well dug to the proper depth for the struggling village of Haji Tuti.
"Well, if the reward stories are true, it's just another measure of our effectiveness," said Parker. "It's sort of flattering to think we're causing the enemy enough prob lems they would single us out."
Sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor of the mud-brick compound, across from the elders of the Haji Tuti, Parker has his M-16 within easy reach.
Sultan Shah Agha, one of the village's elders, explains that the village's wells are going bad. There is salt in the water.
"Have the people I hired started digging the new well?" Parker asks.
No, the Sultan replies through an interpreter: "The wells are only five meters down, very salty. They need to be 50 meters down. Good water."
No problem, Parker says.
"The people I have hired are authorized to dig down to 100 meters if that's what it takes to get to good water."
Bettering the lives of the people of Haji Tuti is more than a charitable mission for Parker and the Army. The village is in the crucial Pakistan border region of Afghanistan, the area where U.S. and Pakistani forces are searching for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders.
Winning the hearts and minds of the people of this region could be a key to winning the war against terrorism.
So people such as Parker are digging wells, providing medical treatments to villagers and using Army veterinarians to treat their sheep, goats, donkeys and camels.
Parker is the executive officer of the Sand Springs-based 486th Civil Affairs Battalion. The Army Civil Affairs units are, in Army parlance, "unconventional operations" details in charge of smoothing relations between the military and civilians, whether those civilians are government officials, impoverished villagers or nomads.
Much of Parker's work is humanitarian assistance: digging new wells, building schools, treating the sick, or getting voters registered for September's first Afghan election since U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban regime.
Units such as Parker's are fanned out across Afghanistan, usually working in places where the coalition is battling the remnants of the former Taliban regime or al-Qaida units.
Most of the enemy forces are transient, moving in and out of the province to smuggle, intimidate locals or to harry coalition forces and their supporters before melting melt back across the border.
It is a difficult and often frustrating mission, complicated by the delicate negotiations Parker must conduct with locals. He patrols more than 100 villages, keeping track of comings and goings of families in each village, the general welfare of those living there, how well their herds are doing -- and enemy activity.
Assisting Parker and the other civil affairs units throughout the country is another Oklahoma outfit, the 45th Infantry Brigade, which has trained Afghan National Army soldiers who provide a security perimeter on these missions.
Those Afghan soldiers are often the first sign of the new government ruling the land that the locals see, and usually this is when the locals start cooperating in the war.
"People see the humanitarian and reconstruction projects, but our security mission . . . looking for leads on bad guys, finding mines, weapons caches . . . with the help of the locals is just as important if not more so," Parker said.
One of the locals is Parker's guide, a tall, imposing man who is a veteran of battles dating back to his youth.
This man is well-known locally, but his name must be kept secret.
He is fiercely loyal to Parker, a notion that leaves Parker a little uncomfortable with the responsibility.
Parker notes that the guide once killed an al-Qaida terrorist in a very graphic and unpleasant way a little more than a year ago, before he was assigned to Parker.
"He's like a loaded gun. You've got to be careful where you point him," Parker said.
Indeed, as the interview with the elders of Haji Tuti ends, the bearded men of the village offer to buy a female specialist who is part of Parker's team that day.
They laughingly offer 20 camels for her.
The guide enters the hut and declares that he will kill any man who touches the female soldier. The laughter fades, and business is concluded.
The squad mounts up on the Humvees and is off to the next village. There, the squad dismounts as locals pour out of a walled compound that is several acres in size, lush and green, with many colorful flowers within.
Parker quietly nods to one of the soldiers who points out the flowers -- opium poppies.
Afghanistan is the largest grower of opium in the world.
"It's not our job to eradicate," Parker says quietly. "That belongs to the DEA or other coalition forces. We don't want these people to think we are turning them in."
Parker and the squad are not invited inside by the elders here -- perhaps they don't want him to see the poppies, or perhaps they are ashamed they are too poor to offer him traditional hospitality, tea and dried fruit.
He is sympathetic to the elders, whose gnarled hands have bleeding, cracked skin.
"This country is poverty-stricken," Parker said "Yet, even with these stories floating around about rewards for us, they are willing to warn us when they hear of threats or see strangers snooping around."
On one such tip from the locals the previous night, Parker sent his trusted Afghan guide out along the Kandahar Base perimeter.
There, he found six explosive rockets with timers attached. The rockers were aimed at the coalition base. They were destroyed before they could fire.
Parker, who originally hails from Durant, notes that his job is a little like the Army cavalry scouts in the Wild West days.
He meets with tribal chiefs to negotiate everything from water to land rights. He is charged with keeping the peace on the frontier of the war on terrorism and he's always got his ear cocked to the wind, listening for the drumbeats of trouble.
"It's not really like home at all," he said.
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Ben Fenwick is a freelance journalist from Oklahoma embedded with Oklahoma Army National Guard troops in Afghanistan.
Related Photos & Graphics
U.S. Army Maj. Wes Parker (center left) discusses enemy activity with a village elder near Kandahar, Afghanistan. Parker’s success interacting with local villagers in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region has resulted in a reputed bounty being put on his head by al-Qaida. Courtesy Oklahoma National Guard
Helpful phrases in Dari: [predominent Afghani language]
Lotfan ban payen salah khotra. Agahi qar mishom.
May St. Michael be with these Troops and their Afghani protector.
Amen.
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