Soldiers taking ag skills to Afghanis

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October 23, 2009

• Uncommon valor combines with agribusiness

Monique Headley The Stillwater News Press Fri Oct 23, 2009, 03:03 PM CDT

The first agricultural mission from Oklahoma prepares to deploy on Sunday from Oklahoma State University en route to Afghanistan.

At 12:55 p.m., the ceremony will commence. About 64 Oklahoma State University students and Oklahoma Army National Guard soldiers of the 1-45th Agribusiness Development Team are slated to deploy from the Wes Watkins Center, corner of Hall of Fame and Washington Street.

The ace unit is stacked with specialists who plan to empower and help the Afghani people with cutting edge agricultural technologies and agribusiness information, said Major Lindy White, deputy state public information officer for the Oklahoma Military Department.

Colonel Mike Chase was chosen to lead the inaugural mission to Afghanistan’s Paktya province. With pre-training, deployment and return deployment, the mission is scheduled to last about a year and bring the soldiers home by October 2010, Chase said.

The agricultural team will simultaneously deploy with a security forces unit to handle safety concerns, Chase said.

According to its leader, the agricultural team is comprised of specialists in bee keeping, veterinary medicine, soil sampling, agronomy, engineering, animal husbandry, agricultural economics, banking and general service in support of the enhancement of Afghan trade. They are the replacement unit for a similar development team from Tennessee.

Remarkable to the humanitarian assignment, said White, is the partnership with OSU and an ability to pair the civilian and academic skills of the soldiers with a mission that will take them halfway around the world to make an impact.

“A lot of times, the mission is not related to what we do outside of work,” she said.

“Getting to apply my trade in an environment that is less than ideal,” said First Sergeant Garry Dorsey, is a source of excitement to the veterinarian who said he wants to educate others.

According to David M. Henneberry, director of international agricultural programs at OSU, the role of the university is to provide continued support for the overseas work of the troops. About 17 of the soldiers are enrolled in the international agricultural master’s program, Henneberry said.

Communication and fostering trust in the new American agri-business technologies will be difficult, Dorsey said.

To implant trust, it is important that positive short- and long-term results are shown to the Afghani people, said Chase.

“People in that part of world are very averse to risk,” said Chase. “If we suffer risk, it could be a financial problem. In Afghanistan, it could be the life or death of a family.”

Though surprisingly fertile with some deforestation, Chase said, the Paktya terrain ranges from 5,000 to 12,000 feet in altitude and, with rainfall, presents various challenges.

Critical to the mission, said Chase, is to establish a command and control area, build a security force that will give the agricultural specialists the freedom to move and accomplish mission essentials.

“As there was no real model to follow,” said Chase, “we built the team based not on an established document of what the team looks like but based on analysis of what we would be doing and where.”

Since May, he and crew have worked aggressively to build the team from scratch to devise training and secure the necessary resources and equipment. A process, Chase said, that has been alternately rewarding and frustrating.

Though the soldiers are trained to respond, the mission is not focused on combat nor to persuade Afghanistan residents to denounce production of poppies, White said.

In support

The Patriot Guard Riders plan to accompany National Guard deployment buses along their route from Oklahoma City to Stillwater Sunday.

Motorcycle riders plan to meet the buses on Highway 51 just east of Interstate 35 at about 11 a.m., en route to the Watkins center. The group anticipates arrival at the center by 11:30 a.m. They hope area residents will line the route in support of the soldiers.