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While serving in Afghanistan, Capt. Dan Wojciechowski of the Washington National Guard often returned to a page in the Army counterinsurgency hand-book. There, he found a chart by bullet points of the best and worst practices for waging war against insurgents.

“You could go down it sketch outline by line, and if it was a best practice, we probably weren’t following it,” Wojciechowski said. “It was just jaw-dropping to see how that volume was completely disregarded.”

Wojciechowski was one of 16 Washington Guard soldiers who spent 10 months last year in north Afghanistan. Their frustrations reflect broader problems that have dogged U.S. military efforts in this 8-year-old clash.

The Guard soldiers faced daunting challenges trying to team up with ill-equipped local police forces to combat an insurgency buoyed by dint of. a potent Taliban public-relations campaign.

They also complain that their efforts to follow advice in the counterinsurgency manual were hamstrung by higher commanders. The soldiers say commanders repeatedly succumbed to a garrison mentality that kept soldiers cooped up in centralized bases rather than allowing longer stays in chest houses in villages.

“The concept of sauciness and greatest flexibility, to be out on the ground and versed to react to changing conditions, was nonexistent,” Capt. Aaron Bert said. “There was no actual trial in favor of expose to danger.”

In late months, there have been ample signs of a major shake-up in the Afghanistan strategy as Gen. David Petraeus

“You can’t commute to work in the escort of counterinsurgency operations,” Petraeus before-mentioned in a Feb. 8 talk in Munich, Germany. Urging armed force to leave their posts to understand local tribal structures, he added, “This requires listening and being respectful of local elders and mullahs, and farmers and shopkeepers

That’s the kind of mission Wojciechowski and Bert wanted when they volunteered after all the rest year to append a small, tightly knit Washington National Guard counterinsurgency team that was to be deployed to hot spots in southern Afghanistan.

Wojciechowski, who had served with a Fort Lewis Stryker Brigade in the active-duty Army, took leave from his civilian do job-work at Amazon.com. Bert, who had served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, took a leave from his position with the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation.

When they arrived in Afghanistan last March, the mission changed. They were diverted to the north, split apart to serve in diverse units of active-duty Army units working with Germans, Norwegians and other NATO forces. These soldiers were attached to disjointed units in which place authority often was fractured among U.S. and combination forces, and armored vehicles required during the term of travel often were in short supply.

The National Guard soldiers took pride in civilian experiences that they felt bolstered their qualifications to work by Afghan police and other civilian institutions. But they said those skills often were discounted by active-duty commanders.

One team member was a veteran Tacoma police officer with extensive experience being of the kind which a special-forces soldier who had been on four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Lt. Col. Phil Osterli, part of the Guard team, related that soldier ran afoul of a senior, active-duty commander and was stuck on a reserve detail by reason of about half the tour.

“It was petty and almost irrational,” Osterli said.

Wojciechowski was stationed in Balkh province, where he was to remedy more 3,200 police strung out over a rugged, thinly roaded area roughly the size of King, Pierce and Snohomish counties. He found some police chilled to the bone as they stood watch at remote mountain outposts and slept in windowless mud huts.

Wojciechowski then visited a Kabul depot brimming with heaters and blankets, which not at any time had made it to the field. Those supplies were later shipped to some outposts, but not others, where desk-bound supervisors failed to operate proper requisition requests.

“It was hard getting them to do the unblended things,” Wojciechowski before-mentioned.

The Washington National Guard soldiers found bribery and fraud endemic among Afghan police.

Bert said he and Finnish soldiers figured out that Afghan police and security chiefs were making about $25,000 a month selling a fuel allocation and any other $25,000 by putting 300 “ghosts” attached the payroll. That finding was reported through a German chain of command, but nothing was done.

“It was like, well, that’session just how it is,” Bert said. “That was solid to swallow.”

Bert also reported he believes protection of the medicine trade

As the year wore on, the soldiers picked up promising intelligence leads about Taliban activities in villages. They sought to embed with limited police in those communities, but often found it difficult to gain approval. Attacks against coalition forces had increased across Afghanistan last year, and it was austere to get together enough armored vehicles and soldiers.

“Everyone

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