POSTED: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 Horn of Africa Troops Working to Stem Terror Before It Takes RootStory by Donna Miles |
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CAMP LEMONIER, Djibouti -- Sixty-two U.S. civic leaders visited Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa on their last stop of a week-long trip around U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility. The Joint Civilian Orientation Conference, made up of business, academic and community leaders, visited the camp for an orientation of the CJTF-HOA mission, including a visit to a school and medical clinic in Tadjoura. The visit also revealed the faces of the other, less traditional warriors in the fight against terrorism. They’re doctors like Air Force Lt. Col. Dan Shoor, who goes out with his team into local villages to treat patients and share medical expertise with local care providers. They’re civil affairs specialists like Army Spc. Eric Hayes, an Army Reservist from Florida who coordinates with local officials to identify community needs and help come up with a plan to address them. They’re Seabees like Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Dennis Ryan, who’s building a dormitory at a local school, so young girls from distant villages can get an education.Through these efforts, service members assigned to CJTF-HOA say they’re establishing trust and building relationships that not only improve people’s lives, but also discourage terrorist ambitions. “We’re about rebuilding countries that need help and building a partnership with the U.S.,” said Hayes. “We’re winning hearts and minds, hands down. So if al Qaeda were to move into this area, the people here would choose to side with us.” “You don’t want another Afghanistan, with (terrorists) coming in here,” said Navy Petty Officer Tensely Worthy, who supports law enforcement and security operations here. “We’re here showing the people here a better life, helping them become self-sufficient and helping them realize that you don’t have to succumb to terrorism,” he said. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Cherri Crockett, a storekeeper for CJTF-HOA’s logistics office, said CJTF-HOA’s work is helping the local people realize that they have the power to improve their circumstances. “We’re teaching them that you don’t have to let terrorism come in and pay for things,” she said. “They can do it on their own.” Shoor emphasized that the efforts aren’t designed to make the host countries dependent on the United States, but rather, to give them the leg up they need to begin taking control of their own futures. “You don’t want to give them a fish,” he said. “You want to teach them to fish.” “Our focus is on showing them how it could be,” said Ryan, who with his fellow Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 5 is improving the district’s only secondary school. “We’re providing a U.S. presence here, building these facilities for them and helping them see what’s possible.” Although he lives in a dusty tent outside the village with few amenities and even fewer creature comforts, Ryan said he wouldn’t trade his position for anything. “Everybody who’s here loves being here,” he said. Other members of the task force share Ryan’s sentiment. “When we get to go out on missions, that’s what we live for,” agreed Navy Petty Officer Michelle Bates, an intelligence specialist with CJTF-HOA. “I’m gratified because I get to go out and work with the local people in the communities,” added Hayes, a member of the 478th Civil Affairs Battalion. “It fulfills me.” “The people here want us here, and they enjoy us being here,” said Worthy. But the greatest satisfaction he and his fellow task force members get comes from the reception they receive from the local children whenever they encounter them. “The biggest thing that tugs at your heart is the kids,” he said. Crockett said she’s hopeful the work CJTF-HOA is doing will leave a lasting impression on these children for years to come. “We really, really want these people to know that we were here,” she said. Members of the JCOC group visited Tadjoura to see projects underway at the school and medical clinic, and got a taste of the satisfaction the troops here say they experience every day as they distributed school supplies and soccer balls to the local children. “I had tears in my eyes,” Frank Naglieri, battalion chief for the New York Fire Department’s hazardous materials operations, said of the emotional exchange. Like many of his fellow JCOC participants, Naglieri said he had “no idea” of the scope of the humanitarian assistance mission underway here, but said he’s convinced that it’s astep toward deterring terrorism in the region. “The mission they’re tasked to do here is the only thing that’s really (going) to work,” he said. “They have to stop it here before the cancer is allowed to grow.” The JCOC program was created in 1948 to introduce civilian "movers and shakers" with little or no military exposure to the armed forces. Nearly six decades later, it remains the Defense Department’s premier civic leader program. |
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