Utah Reservists help Khost province succeed

KHOST PROVINCE, Afghanistan — A group of Utah Reservists deployed to southeastern Afghanistan have come to know the meaning of two sayings popular with village elders in Qalandar district: “Don’t write on ice,” and “We will wait for you another year, but you’re not a shrine for us to worship.”

“Basically, (they are) two ways of saying un-kept promises don’t mean anything,” said U.S. Army Sgt. Michael J. Hosmer, a civil affairs specialist with Utah-based, Bravo Company, 405th Civil Affairs Battalion, and a student at Utah Valley University. “If we say we’re going to do something than we’ve got to do it.”

Hosmer, U.S. Army Spc. Joshua J. Kitzmiller and Staff Sgt. Adam Peters are members of Civil Affairs Team A, part of the Khost Provincial Reconstruction Team. The troops of CAT A have been working as liaisons between the International Security Assistance Force and the governments of five districts in western Khost province since July. 

They hope their efforts will help establish trust between the people and the government, said Kitzmiller.

“It’s like a tug-a-war,” said Kitzmiller, a civil affairs specialist from Vernal, Utah, “Three steps forward, one step back, three steps forward, two steps back — but I think overall we are progressing.” 

One step forward took place March 4, when nearly 40 village elders met the Qalandar district governor, Abdul Hanan, and ISAF members at Camp Parsa, an Afghan National Army installation, to discuss Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and ISAF-funded infrastructure projects. It was here that the elders voiced concerns about keeping promises. 

Hosmer and Peters, who have both spent previous deployments as civil affairs specialists in Afghanistan, said the GIRoA and ISAF are tending to turn away from larger projects toward smaller ones, where promises are more easily kept. 

Unlike large-scale projects like building schools and district centers, small-scale projects, like building wells and installing solar- or gas-powered generators are cheap, can be completed relatively quickly, and tend to be protected by villagers, said Hosmer.

A big part of keeping promises involves ownership of the completed projects.

Previously, projects became the property of the district or provincial level government, who would then be responsible for maintenance costs. Not so with the small scale projects, said Peters.

“When we do a project now, the community has ownership 100 percent,” said Peters. 

However, one of the struggles the troops of CAT A face in Qalandar is getting local Afghans and GIRoA officials to oversee the entire project process, from conception through completion, instead of ISAF soldiers taking the lead.

“Really, we should be working ourselves out of a job,” Kitzmiller said. “Meaning the locals should not rely on ISAF to be here and take care of them. They need to stand up and take care of themselves.”

That goal still remains far off in Qalandar district, yet the emphasis on small-scale projects seems to be taking hold, Hosmer said.

Political leaders in the area are aware that these projects have the potential to put anti-GIRoA groups like the Taliban and Haqani Network in a dilemma, Hosmer explained. If the Taliban try to thwart the projects, they risk turning the population against them. If, on the other hand, the project is successful, it will be a “monument to their inevitable doom,” he said.

“They can’t really compete with us when it comes to development,” He said. “They can intimidate the snot out of people — and they do — but they can’t win the hearts and minds.”