sgtdub

10 April 2007, You think you're confused? You should wear my boots for a day. I must admit that my mind hit on several topics at once, but I told you that in the first place. I just continued with it.

I spent part of today working on gathering paperwork for soldiers who we have scheduled for schools upon our return. It's amazing, I had no problems pulling mine up and getting them printed off. But I haven't had another soldier I'm trying to get done work out the same. I will attempt again tomorrow to tackle this problem.

I mentioned the other day that I was glad that a shopkeeper called the police when he thought another person was suspicious. I told you this was a good sign as it meant the people were giving a little trust to the police, who have been corrupt for too long. We had another small humanitarian drop for a very select and limited group of Afghans just down the street a couple of days ago. One of our mission statements is to "put an Afghan face" on every mission we do. The people need to see Afghans helping Ahghans. Well, we brought along the ANP (Afghanistan National Police) to assist with the drop. What I found out later was that the police were stopping each taxi that the families came in after we gave them food and clothing and were taking a portion of it for themselves. This is unacceptable and hopefully we will get it addressed with the PD commander in the near future. This is, however, almost a way of life for the people of this country. As I mentioned yesterday, there is no easy fix to a problem of this magnitude, but I believe it can be fixed and should be.

The Taliban ruled over Afghanistan through fear and intimidation. One weapon in their arsenal is education, or should we say lack of. A simple way to rule a people is to not let them be educated. If they are only taught what you need them to know, they will never know any better. Freedom to learn was not a right under Taliban rule. Women were forbidden to learn. Women could be executed for things like this. Since 2002, this has been lifted and all children are back in school. I have seen a report that over 300 schools have been burned since 2002. Most are in the outlining communities were the government and coalition forces have not been able to secure yet.

We did a school supplies drop last week here in Kabul.

We brought supplies for the school and each student got a packet that contained notebooks, pens, pencils, markers and a few other items.

Grace at Echos of Grace pulled a nice surprise on me. In case you haven't seen it, I have a link on the side bar called Sgt Dub's Store. I designed one item and never got around to doing anything else with it. Well, she apparently bought a shirt and sported it on her site today. Thank you Grace.

Be safe and have a great day.