New Hampshire soldiers train Afghan police
By Doug Grindle Community Reporter
Editor's note: Six weeks in Iraq and Afghanistan has turned into 10 for our Marlborough Community Reporter Doug Grindle. Embedded with U.S. troops, Doug sends us reports whenever he can so that we can provide our readers with a glimpse of what's going on in the region. Although he was unable to submit an article last week, Doug is still doing well and is back in communication with us.

DOUG GRINDLE American and German soldiers inspect a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

As always, we're grateful to Doug and other journalists like him who put themselves in harm's way so that those of us safe at home can be wellinformed.

The following is his latest contribution. Sar-e-Pol, northern Afghanistan - A line of American Humvees leads an Afghan police truck down a dusty track heading out of the town of Sar-e-Pol, a small city in northern Afghanistan. The convoy of vehicles nudges over a bank and bounces down into a dry, sandy streambed. A half mile along, the vehicles pull up next to a hillside and the men get out.

They are not the first vehicles here. A handful of German and Swedish vehicles also line the stream bed. The hulks of two rustedout Soviet armored cars sit under a nearby hillside next to rifle targets, each the size of a man. The head of the American patrol, Cpt. Blake Fowler from Nashua, N.H., walks over with the Afghans and greets the Swedes and Germans.

The Afghans are senior police officers in Sar-e-Pol, and are here to work the range today, firing grenade launchers and machine guns. Fowler is their senior mentor, an adviser provided by the United States Army to teach the Afghans how to develop the police force in this province.

Fowler hands the Afghans over to the Swedes and Germans, who begin the day's instruction.

The Americans are a team composed mainly of soldiers from the New Hampshire National Guard. Their goal is to make the police in Afghanistan more professional. That includes trying to stamp out decades of poor performance that has left corruption rampant, the locals ostracized from their own police force, and many basic tasks poorly done.

"We focus on things like accountability of people, accountability of ammunition, accountability of equipment, communications," Fowler said.

These are the systems that make a police force effective: the supply, logistics and planning that enable the police to raise the standard of service.

The Afghans, six officers mostly in their 40s, stand in a group as one of the Americans talks about the grenade launcher. These policemen have seen combat for years, say the soldiers. So they don't need training in how to fire weapons. Instead they are being trained how to train their subordinates, and how to run a firing range without anyone getting hurt by the weapons.

"They know how to use them," Fowler said. "They don't necessarily know how to teach a brand new Afghan policeman to use them safely."

One by one, the Afghans fire grenades at the hulks next to the hillside. Several hit, soaring across 100 open yards and exploding. Several rounds hit but do not explode. The grenades have been bought from Russia and are not particularly reliable.

But the Afghans and their German, American and Swedish trainers seem pleased. The Afghans move onto the machine guns. They fire singly and in bursts. They laugh as they hit the targets.

By the end of the day, all the Afghans have fired all the weapons. The advisers are pleased their day has gone so well. It is an unusual cooperation among the four nationalities.

The next day the Americans drop in on the Afghan police compound. The Americans are based in the large city of Mazar-i-Sharif, three hours away. When they are in the area, they stay overnight with the Swedes at their small patrol base in the center of Sar-e-Pol. The drive to Mazar and back is onerous. One small team of six Americans is responsible for this whole province, and many of the district police stations are even farther from Mazar than this place.

The Americans have plans to open several more U.S. bases within the province to cut down on the drive time. More time on the road means less time with the police, and diminishes the eff ectiveness of the American training.

The Americans only started training the police in June. Theirs is a new mission.

The police have been trained in basic police work by the Europeans for years. But this year was the first one that the coalition looked hard at the police force and decided it does not work; the problem lies in the quality and skills of the leading officers at provincial and district stations. Those are the same officers the Americans now mentor.

The American are blunt about the problems the police face, despite the previous years of training,

"There was a realization after the initial phases of that, that many of these police weren't getting paid, they weren't getting the training they need," said Ltc. Nathan Burnham, the head of police training in northern Afghanistan. "They didn't have uniforms. They didn't have an eff ective means of transportation. In many cases there was a great deal of corruption."

At the Sar-e-Pol station, the Americans make their good-byes and hit the road. They drive through the market, and turn north onto the two-lane highway that leads to Mazar through the northern province.

The reality is that Afghanistan is a poor country. The police are often paid $40 or $50 a month, in a place where $125 is more like a living wage for a family of four. The system has corruption built into it. But plans are afoot to raise police wages and, gradually, as standards rise in the police force, to make it more eff ective.

Soldiers say the expect things to improve, but they say those improvements will likely be a long time coming.