Finally, Afghanistan; (Third) First Impressions

Years from now, when kids not yet born will be learning about the Global War On Terror, there are some writers whose insights must be included in their school curriculum. Old Blue is one such warrior/writer. He is back in Afghanistan:

Old Blue | Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

I’ve arrived at Marmal, a German Air Base near Mazar-e Sharif. Now that the movement is over, I can say that the brigade trickled into theater over the course of about a month. Some of the brigade has been on the ground here for just over a month. Others have just arrived. Most of my team has been in place for several weeks at least. I was on the third to last (out of a bunch) movement to country, which was passed by the second to last and finally entered country at the same time as the final movement arrived. Throughout the long, painful movement into Afghanistan, I kept in touch via email with the Lieutenant Colonel, LTC Grass* who is the deputy team chief for the Security Force Assistance Team (SFAT) that I am a part of.

A couple of years ago, SFAT’s were called ETT’s or PMT’s. Embedded advisors. I’ve done this before, but this time I’m doing it with the Afghan Border Police. Most of the team have been working with them for a little while now....

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