While I am sure that all of you know about the current situation here in Afghanistan, I have received multiple request as to my safety and thus am writing to let you all know that I am O.K. and steps have been taken to reduce our risk in the uncertain environment.
First, let me be frank. I work with an advisory group that consist of approximately 40 coalition forces on an Afghan installation that has close to 500 ANA all of which practice the Islamic religion. While I am in this country, I will never be totally safe. This is not meant to overly scare anyone, I just want to make sure each of you know my situation.
The ANA on my camp are suppose to stay solely on their part of the base, however, there is no locked gate between them and the Marines. We do however sleep in locked, hard, structures which severely limits their ability to get near us at night. Due to the recent events, we have postponed working in our usual office as it is a tent situated in the middle of their part of the base. We have also postponed a major mission that we were suppose to do with the ANA and currently are not going into their camp until tensions lessen. No one knows how long this will be, but there will be a point that I will have to resume my interactions with my ANA counterparts. In the rare case that I have to go to the ANA camp, I have another Marine with me, and we both are carrying loaded weapons with a round in the chamber. At night while sleeping, I normally don't have my weapon within arms reach, but for the time being we have instructed all of our Marines to do so, so that we can react swiftly to developing situations. We have also made it mandatory that all Marines carry a two way radio with them 24/7 to both alert others of a threat, and to easily obtain accountability should something happen. These are all precautionary measures, and there is no known threat on the base that I am on, however, we are taking no chances.
Again, relative to my situation, my Marines and I are safe. We will continue to carry ourselves as professionals and when the times comes will resume our work as advisors.
