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Elite Guardsmen to train Afghan troops

DAVID HENCH

— Much of the unit's success will depend on earning the respect of the Afghan hosts, and that will mean joining the battle with them.By

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Embedded Training Team (ETT) members pose for a photo after completing the Foreign Weapons Course held in North Anson, Maine. The team is made up of 16 Maine Army National Guard soldiers who will be assisting and training Afghan National Army soldiers.

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Sfc. Harold Maker fires a Dragunov Sniper Rifle SVD while Andy Williams provides marksmanship instruction at William's North Anson Range. Maker is part of the Maine Army National Guard's Embedded Training Team which will assist and train Afghan National Army soldiers later in the year.

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Staff Writer

Maj. Joshua Doscinski has been learning how to break down, clean and shoot Russian-made machine guns as part of the training for his upcoming mission.

The Farmington man, a father of two, also has studied the 90-year-old writings of T.E. Lawrence, the legendary British soldier known as Lawrence of Arabia who helped guide Arab tribesmen to victory over the Turks during World War I.

Doscinski is leading a 16-man elite group of Maine Army National Guard officers and non-commissioned officers who will live and fight alongside Afghan soldiers, advising them on U.S. warfare techniques as they battle the Taliban, insurgents and brutal criminal gangs in their homeland.

The Afghans tend to be impulsive fighters, he said, whereas U.S. forces are more likely to put together a detailed plan and rehearse it, even using a replica of a village to practice house-to-house fighting.

''We're trying to impart some of the aspects of a more professional and structured army to them, sort of like T.E. Lawrence did,'' said Doscinski, who has already served one tour in Iraq.

''In many ways, they fight the way they fight because it works for them in that part of the world,'' he said. ''We'll never turn them into the U.S. Army, but when we see they can do something a little better strategically or tactically, we'll suggest it.''

Members of the Embedded Training Team are scheduled to ship out next month to Kansas for more training, and then go to Afghanistan. They say they are excited about the mission, its significance for U.S. policy and its opportunity for personal growth.

Once in Afghanistan, the soldiers will split into two-man teams, each assigned to roughly 100 Afghan soldiers or police.

Among those headed to Afghanistan are Sgt. 1st Class Michael Wall of Cushing. Wall is a combat engineer trained to respond to weapons of mass destruction. He recently returned from an Army school where he learned to use explosives to breach walls. He placed first in the class.

His team partner, Capt. Dan Curtis of Norway, was a planner in Iraq with the Maine Army National Guard's 133rd Engineer Battalion. He will try to teach Afghan soldiers the importance of debriefing after an engagement so they can learn from it.

He took the mission because of the opportunity for personal growth.

''The ability to learn more about their culture, more about their people and have that interaction with them will give me a better sense of accomplishment than some of our more common missions,'' he said.

The pair are representative of the kind of soldier tapped for this mission, Doscinski said. They are seasoned soldiers with the ability and motivation to function well with little oversight. Of the non-commisioned officers, the lowest rank is sergeant first class. The officers include one lieutenant and four majors, and the rest are captains.

The team also will help educate the Afghan National Army's regional commander and staff on U.S. techniques in intelligence, logistics and engineering.

Team members have to be willing to accept another culture and work with it.

''We have no command authority,'' Doscinski said. ''I can't tell an Afghan commander what to do. I can only listen and try to guide them.''

That's where the teachings of T.E. Lawrence come in.

Lawrence's guide offers a lesson in how to earn respect while never challenging the authority of the local commander. It's an example of how to function in a culture where family relationships, tribal affiliations and deeply held religious convictions are all powerful forces that need to be understood. Another lesson is to coax good decisions without being critical.

''It's very timeless,'' Wall said. ''All of those tenets to some degree still apply today to this type of mission.''

Much of the unit's success will depend on earning the respect of the Afghan hosts, and that will mean joining the battle with them.

''If we said, 'We'll train you, but when you go outside the wire to fight, we're staying here,' they wouldn't listen to us,'' Doscinski said. ''In order for us to gain credibility with them, whenever their units go out to fight, the advisers will be there with them.''

Earning credibility is also one of the reasons behind training with the Russian-made AK-47, PKM machine gun and Dragunov sniper rifle, mainstays of the Afghan arsenal since the Soviet Union invaded in 1979.

To train the Afghan soldiers effectively, the guardsmen need to understand how to maintain and use the Afghan weapons. So the team recently worked on firing the foreign weapons at a range in North Anson.

''The AK-47 is the most mass-produced weapon in the world. There's a reason for that,'' Wall said. ''You can drop it in a mud puddle, shovel an acre of dirt on it if you will, take it out and it will still fire.''

A year away from home may seem long, but it's the mission's brevity that could be the biggest challenge to the unit's success.

''In nine months we're going to have to be on the ground, understanding their culture and building personal relationships, while always being in the fight,'' Doscinski said.

Members have been studying language as well as culture, but with a multitude of dialects and no precise idea of where they will be assigned, they will have to rely on interpreters.

''It's a pretty phenomenal challenge,'' Doscinski said. ''The Army doesn't always give you opportunities this fascinating.''

Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at:

dhench@pressherald.com