Afganistan war Veteran Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Afganistan war Veteran - Essay Example I researched literature on the country’s culture and people, and this served to help me to avoid the common pitfall that most of my colleagues fell into of incorrectly stereotyping the country’s people. When we finally landed in the country, I discovered that most of the material I had read on the country had essentially been written during a period when peace prevailed and since then, a number of things had changed with the advent of war. The Afghani people were initially apprehensive and prejudiced about us and our mission. Years of living under the severely repressive Taliban regime had caused them to grow apprehensive of strangers. However, when we started winning against the dreaded Taliban insurgents, the people became quite welcoming towards us and would often greet us in the streets cheerfully and hail us as their hero’s (Kerry, 2010). In Afghanistan, the majority of the soldiers happen to serve in various support functions that include accounting, logistics or even laundry. For these officers, the war frontline is essentially the camp’s front gate. A typical day for me generally involved getting a briefing in the morning as to the current situation and what was expected to occur during the day. We would then embark on a patrol of the local town and its environs. It was not uncommon for newly deployed troops that were assigned to engage with the local leaders to quickly grow comfortable with these leaders in a case of assumed similarity. These troops would incorrectly assume that these leaders happened to share similar characteristics with themselves and it was thus important that the recruits be accompanied with experienced veterans (Kenny, 1994). These veterans would help the recruits engage with these leaders and locals in a professional manner as the recruits gradually adapted to the country’s cu stoms and culture. After the patrol, we would then report back