KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Army Col. Jeffrey Martindale, U.S. commander in the area known as the birthplace of the Taliban, has seen the meaning of “fragile and reversible,” the military’s description for Afghanistan’s status today.
From Forward Operating Base Walton, his troops have driven militants from southern Kandahar Province and forged ties with local Afghan leaders. Insurgent attacks there are one-tenth the level of a year ago. Troops swim in a river once Taliban held.
Sixteen of Martindale’s soldier have died and more than 200 were wounded to get that done. Still, the Taliban recently killed his close partner, Kandahar’s provincial police chief.
Now Martindale and his 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division will soon leave. Although replacements are trained and on site for a smooth transition, it’s hard to hand off the bonds created fighting side-by-side with the Afghans, Martindale said. Those Afghan soldiers and police “will fight for us because of the relationships we have personally with them.”
Martindale’s concerns are part of the calculus as the Obama administration sets a course for future U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, including the pace of withdrawal.
President Barack Obama in December 2009 pledged to begin reducing U.S. forces next month, to wind down a “surge” that increased American troops in the war zone by 30,000, to about 100,000. Obama said Monday, in an interview with Hearst- Argyle Television Inc., that the U.S. has accomplished much of what it set out to do in Afghanistan with the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and advances against the Taliban in a war now costing more than $100 billion a year.
Outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who Tuesday departed Afghanistan for his final time in office, has urged patience to solidify the gains.
“I leave Afghanistan today with the belief that if we can keep this momentum up, we will deliver a decisive blow to the enemy and turn the corner in this conflict,” Gates told officers and civilians at the U.S.-led coalition’s joint operations center that he ordered set up two years ago to better coordinate the military campaign.
Troops had asked Gates what effect bin Laden’s death would have on the war effort at each of the five bases he visited over two days. Gates and the local commanders alike said it was too soon to tell. Officers said they hadn’t seen Afghanistan changed by bin Laden’s demise.
“It was almost a non-event,” said Lt. Col. Clay Padgett of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment at the Walton base in Kandahar City. “It was just noted.”
The focus now is working with the new police chief. While Martindale said the chief been been implicated in border corruption, he’s also a strong leader and a folk hero to local youth, said Colonel John Voorhees of the 504th Military Police Battalion.
“He’s going to change the ANP, if we can keep him alive,” Voorhees said, referring to the Afghan National Police.
In neighboring Helmand Province, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. John Toolan just took over a regional command at a sprawling, desolate compound called Camp Dwyer.
About 5,000 military personnel, contractors and civilians make Dwyer their temporary home. The 110-degree Fahrenheit heat overwhelmed the generator-driven cooling in the makeshift auditorium where Gates gave his remarks and answered questions.
The camp is about 35 miles southwest of Lashkar Gah, one of a handful of areas that President Hamid Karzai recently announced would come under Afghan security control in July. Camp Dwyer also is 20 miles from Marjah, where the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led coalition mounted one of its biggest offenses in early 2010.
“We have succeeded in stopping the Taliban’s momentum,” Gates said, his face and arms glistening with sweat, his face red. “In a lot of places like here, particularly here in the south and southwest, we’ve reversed that momentum.”
Toolan said the northern Helmand River valley is his next “challenge.” And he’s working on a plan to ensure the Afghan National Army and police forces get needed training and equipment to prepare them to take the lead nationwide in 2014.
In eastern Afghanistan, Gates met with commanders trying to monitor the porous border with Pakistan, where fighters and couriers ferry weapons and money to militants fighting the U.S.- led coalition.
After landing on a wind-swept plateau overlooking broad valleys with touches of green, Gates’s convoy rode to the troop area.
“Your speed 34,” read an electronic monitor on roadside, as if it were possible to drive much faster on the rugged terrain. The entire Paktika Province, its lowest elevation 7,200 feet, has only one paved road and that wasn’t it.
Forward Operating Base Sharana houses 3,500 soldiers of the Army’s 506th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 101st Airborne Division and Task Force Currahee, a word derived from Cherokee. Gates noted the June 6 anniversary of D-Day in World War II and the role played by the 101st Airborne.
He pinned Bronze Star medals for bravery on three members of the unit, which has lost 17 soldiers in Afghanistan.
The commander, Colonel Sean Jenkins, has given away 22,000 radios to a population that’s 95 percent illiterate. He stepped up the program after discovering that most Taliban soldiers who had entered a program to give up the fight in exchange for legitimate work had learned about the offer on the radio.
To counter the intimidating “night letters,” issued by the Taliban after dark to threaten civilians, Jenkins’ troops developed “confidence letters,” stapled up in public places to remind villagers how their own police are helping.
At Combat Operating Post Andar in Ghazni Province, Lt. Col. Alan Streeter introduced Gates as the official “responsible for the rapid procurement of these big, beautiful vehicles back here.”
Streeter was pointing at two tan-colored metal beasts equal to the mouthful that is their name, Mine-Resistant Ambush- Protected All-Terrain Vehicles. The armored transports protect soldiers from roadside bombs. They formed the backdrop as Gates pinned on Streeter a Purple Heart, the medal known as the one nobody wants because it denotes wounded in combat.
In a voice choked with emotion, Gates told the troops that they’ve been his priority throughout his 4 1/2-year term and would be in his prayers “every day for the rest of my life.”
“The thing that I’d like to be remembered for are the things that I tried to do to help you all accomplish the mission, come home safely and, if you’re hurt, be taken care of, be rescued quickly,” he told members of the 4th Brigade, 10th Mountain Division at Forward Operating Base Shank in Logar Province. “These are the things that mean the most to me, because I think they have the mo st impact on you.”