Report from Afghanistan
Last Saturday my wife and I attended the monthly meeting of the Tennessee Marine Families. The speaker was a Tennessee Army Guard member of the group, Maj. John Krenson. Maj. Krenson, a military intelligence officer, returned from Afghanistan last May. He graciously sent me the text of his presentation. I have edited it some to adapt it to this medium, but all the words are his.

I am a citizen-soldier and prouder of that than probably most anything else in my life besides my family. I am an officer in the Tennessee Army National Guard and returned just a few months ago from Afghanistan where I had the opportunity to look the Taliban right in the eyes – and I did - and where I visited orphanages and heard the hopes and dreams of little Afghan children. Hopes and dreams they have the opportunity to have for the first time in a generation. I saw the gleam in their eyes. Imagine your children not having the hopes and dreams that they have and that you encourage them to have. Until three years ago those Afghan children didn’t dare dream dreams because they had no chance. Today they do.

I was yanked from my job, my family, and my neighborhood well over a year ago to go half way across the world to a war torn country that is also one of the poorest countries and dirtiest countries in the world. We were attacked and our country called. I thought before I went it was the right thing to do. I am here today to look you right in the eye and tell you that now that I have been there I know it was the right thing to do. And it still is.

While I was in Afghanistan I had the opportunity to work alongside some great young soldiers and Marines. The Marine Anti-Terror Intelligence Cell, or ATIC, that worked Kabul from the US Embassy was outstanding. The European forces were not, shall we say, terribly aggressive about going after terrorist leaders in Kabul until NATO arrived. If it hadn’t been for the Marine ATIC, terror leaders would have had much more freedom to sabotage security in Kabul. Once NATO arrived they worked with the ATIC and conducted raid after raid with intelligence provided by the Marines decimating the enemy leadership in Kabul paving the way for the successful passage of their first ever Constitution in December of last year and paving the way for historic presidential elections just this past October. I was proud to work with those Marines.

I also worked much later with a young Marine first lieutenant. This young man led his Marines into Iraq in the initial liberating assault. He was raked with AK-47 fire and RPG shrapnel. He received one Purple Heart. They had to drag him out of the theater in tears because he did not want to leave his men behind. He was in recovery for months and spent every minute trying to get back to the war zones. He made it to Afghanistan where I had the privilege to work with him and I’m sure he’s still trying to find an angle to get back to Iraq. At least he was when I last saw him.

You know many more heroic stories than these. Some of you know stories about your own sons and daughters and the real miracles they are working over in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

And I don’t use the term miracle loosely either. I say miracle because that is how a local Afghan described our presence there to me. He said there had been more progress in the first two years of the US presence than Afghanistan had ever known in such a short period of time in their history. At the same time he told me this, American and European headlines were telling us that change and progress were coming at too slow a pace there. That’s not what the Afghans told me. They called it a miracle. They know their country’s history. Sure it was tough a couple of years ago and still tough today. Of course we want progress faster. But when compared to just three years ago and especially 20 years ago it is indeed a miracle.

Let me paint you a picture of life there during the Taliban before we freed that country. Imagine being a girl or woman in Afghanistan and having to cover your entire body from head to toe whenever you went outside. Imagine that you could only go outside with a male relative. Then imagine that you showed your face by accident, maybe the wind blew your veil. If that happened the Taliban threw acid in your face to burn and scar it so you would never want to show it again. If you so much as showed your ankle or wrist in public you would be beaten for indecent exposure. Thousands of women had nearly lost the use of their legs because they had been confined indoors for over six years. Imagine that ladies. Imagine being a young man caught listening to your radio. You would be taken to jail and beaten. Imagine watching your mother or wife beaten because she tried to teach your sister or daughter to read because she wasn’t allowed to go to school. Imagine being beaten for shaving your beard or flying a kite. Imagine terrorists planning with free abandon a horrific attack against innocent Americans.

That was three years ago. Before I left Afghanistan I saw little girls going to school and I heard music coming out of shops and on car radios. The economy is growing 20-30 percent a year, school enrollment is up 300 percent, those young girls included. An election has taken place in which a woman candidate finished in sixth place - ahead of twelve male candidates. Women are doctors, government officials, radio announcers. Al-Qaeda is largely in hiding, 75 percent of their leadership decimated. The first thing Afghan men did when we liberated Kabul was to shave their beards, fly their kites, and play their radios. How simple and yet how profound.

Millions of people have come home to Afghanistan in the last three years - Afghans who stayed away during the Taliban. Kabul had been reduced to a city of less than a million people by the time of 9/11. The refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran remained full during the glory years of the Islamic regime under the Taliban. Funny that. Today with American support Kabul is up to 3 million citizens with more on the way home across Afghanistan. The refugee camps are emptying. People go where hope is. Today – thanks to our veterans and soldiers still on the ground there Afghans have a hope they haven’t had for a generation.

I saw that hope one time up close and personal. I visited an orphanage during my tour and while we were there we visited several classrooms. We came to a class of older girls and our executive officer asked the young girls through an interpreter what they wanted to be when they grew up. They said teachers, lawyers, engineers, doctors, and one said she wanted to be president of Afghanistan. President of Afghanistan! Three years ago she wasn’t even able to dream of being a student, much less a voter much less president. Today those Afghan children have the same hopes and dreams that American children have today right here. I looked hope right in the eyes that day, right in the eyes of those Afghan children.

Some day she just might be president of Afghanistan. Just last October they had their very first presidential election in their history. And it didn’t come easy. Imagine being part of an Afghan family in a remote village. A voter registration team had just been in your village earlier that day. That night the Taliban bust into your house with their masks on and their AK-47s. They drag you out of the house and search for voter cards. They find those cards and they make you kneel on the ground and they blow your brains out right in front of your children. All because you wanted to vote so your children can have a better future. Let me tell you that 10 million Afghans defied the Taliban and registered to vote. And they voted even though the Taliban and al-Qaeda tried to stop them. Many Afghans died this year for that right to vote. But Afghans voted. The first person in the entire history of Afghanistan to ever vote was a 19 year old girl. Americans gave them the opportunity and security to make that happen. And we are doing the same thing right now in Iraq.

Before I left Afghanistan I asked one of our Public Affairs Officers there why we weren’t getting the good news stories out. Every day I saw the progress we were making. She gave me this example. Last spring the US and Afghan governments were celebrating the opening of a reconstructed university in Bamian province in the Central Highlands of Afghanistan. It is one of the most remote regions in the entire world. It has a Shiite Muslim population, a minority in Afghanistan. Several years ago in addition to blowing up the famous Buddha statues in that province the Taliban massacred tens of thousands of their fellow Muslims because they were Shiites. Today with our help there is a university there in one of the most remote regions of the earth, serving a persecuted Muslim minority – previously persecuted by their brother Muslims, and also serving women students. Now if that is not a success story I don’t know what one is. That is big picture stuff. That’s the long term solution that happens with American help. We flew the entire foreign press pool in Afghanistan to that opening ceremony. But somehow that story didn’t make it out very far.

It’s still tough in Afghanistan. Parliamentary elections are coming up and they a re a target for disruption. But where there were thousands dying each month in the 1980s under the Soviets, and hundred dying each month of the 1990s during the Afghan civil war and under the Taliban, there is far less than that number dying today even during the worst months there. In Iraq today there is a tough fight going on, no doubt about it. But today their former leaders are unable to gas their own people again with WMD we know was there. The mass graves are being uncovered, not filled with fresh bodies. No hands are being cut off or tongues cut out at Abu Ghraib. Iraqis now speak freely against Saddam and yes even against the current leadership but without fear of retribution. That too is a miracle.

I am now assigned to an military police battalion that just brought home 500 Tennessee Guardsmen from service in Iraq. They will tell you the same stories about Iraq that I am standing here and telling you about Afghanistan. Iraqis told them the same thing Afghans told me. Iraqis go where hope is too, and I don’t see too many refugee camps springing up outside Iraqi borders. And just like Afghans, the greatest fear of the common Iraqi is that we Americans will leave them. That is why they often hesitate to stick their necks out with us. We are still earning their trust and they are still earning ours. That’s tough for both sides. That’s reality. But it is necessary.

Afghanistan’s not the right war or Iraq the wrong war. They are the same war. Things have gone well in Afghanistan largely because we are fighting in Iraq. That is where many of the al-Qaeda leaders and foot terrorists fled. And we are denying them another sanctuary in Iraq such as they had in Afghanistan when we were blind to them. That is largely why we haven’t had a terrorist attack on our homeland in three years. We are fighting them on their turf. That is where we want to fight them. Whatever miscalculations there have been, the big picture is that we are fighting the enemy where they are, Afghanistan and Iraq are free today, elections have been held in Afghanistan and will be held in Iraq, and we are more secure. And the leaders of Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and many other regimes are quaking in their boots because of it. Al-Qaeda has received the biggest shock of their existence. None of them want freedom to take root in Afghanistan or especially Iraq. We’ve taken the fight to them and we are winning and we are winning in the streets. I have seen it. Your sons and daughters see it. Afghans told me so. Iraqis are telling us that. Just watch the DVD "Voices of Iraq" and you'll hear them yourselves.

Freedom and liberty are on the move in the Middle East and Central Asia and it’s about time. It will get tougher but it is already better. And it will get better yet, if we just persevere. The enemy is desperate and their tenacious fighting reflects that. But we are more tenacious. Because our way of life is at stake. Freedom in the world is at stake. I am proud of what we have done and of what we are doing.

It has been a privilege to serve with America’s finest in what may very well prove to be our finest hour as a nation. Keep supporting your Marines and all our military as you have been. Keep spreading the word to your neighbors. Be relentless in getting the whole story out. It’s not rosy but it’s much better than what most realize. I know it is. And listen to your Marines when they come home. Give them the ear they need. And when they don’t want to talk just give them your love and your presence. They are the toughest in the world but they have the biggest hearts in the world as well. That’s why they do what they do. That’s why they put their lives on the line when others won’t. But you already know that. Because you are Marines too.

My respect for you the families knows no bounds. I came home in May. The day I arrived to see my family again was the day before [TMF member] Eva Savage received the news of her son making the ultimate sacrifice for his family and nation. While my family was experiencing the deepest of joy and reunion, Eva and her family were experiencing the deepest of sorrow and loss. While my family no longer worries about my safety on a daily basis, most of you all still do for your children, your husbands and wives, your brothers and sisters, your Moms and Dads, your friends, my friends. My family and I know what that feels like. But we also all experience the deepest of pride. We should. We are all Americans. We are sacrificing to meet one of the greatest challenges our nation has faced. And Eva you and all the Gold Star families will experience that reunion one day in the most beautiful way. Your sons are still on duty.

Always remain always faithful. Semper Fi! God bless America, God bless you and thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you do and for your sacrifice.