Deployment Journal: Thankful for today, hopeful for tomorrow

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Kevin Wallace
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
HERAT, Afghanistan --  Today is Thanksgiving Day, a day Americans typically put aside to remember those less fortunate. Perhaps others may reflect on our British origins and their first winter with the natives of America, while others may enjoy a meal with family or friends. Thanksgiving is certainly a day to watch parades in New York City and, of course, football.

In effort to capture the feeling of Thanksgiving, a group of us convoyed out to a mostly-American staffed base elsewhere in Herat province, and returned to our camp with containers of turkey, mashed potatoes and all the other traditional Thanksgiving luxuries.

Being one of only a few U.S. servicemembers at Camp Arena, American amenities are in rare supply.

We're embedded among 1,600 Italian soldiers and airmen, and a few hundred Spanish soldiers, so trust me when I say that having an American meal is an extremely extraordinary treat ... and, to have it hot, we'll I'll certainly holler 'boun appetito' to that!

In addition to enjoying a meal with my American brothers and sisters, and a few Italian cousins who were invited to attend, I spent much of the occasion photographing fellow servicemembers. Many wanted the memento and I also plan to send group photos to each member's home unit public affairs office, and to their hometown newspapers.

We were honored in that a chaplain, actually the chief of all chaplains in Afghanistan, Army Chaplain (Col.) Brent Causey, and his chaplain assistant, Army Sgt. Maj. Chris Patterson, flew in specifically for our little dinner.

Though his presence was humbling, I admit that my mind strayed as Chaplain Causey said grace. My mind wandered to memories of a shura I attended yesterday, where Herat's governor and other local officials met with central Kabul government officials to address education concerns in the region.

You see, despite vast improvements to this land, Mohammad Youris Rosouli, Farah province's deputy governor, explained that hundreds of schools here do not have electricity and access to drinkable water.

When I was a child, my classrooms were almost always hardened structures with chalkboards, desks, chairs, and certainly powered with electricity and with potable water fountains throughout the school. These are things I never even thought about during childhood - just expected parts of school life.

In hindsight it's clear that I should be thankful for the seemingly insignificant blessings I had during childhood, and continue to have today.

In fact, when I visit my children's schools in England and my in-law's schools in Japan, I see a majority of middle school students and high schoolers listening to iPods and texting on their mobile phones. When I lived in Delaware it was the same way.

My point is that in fortunate societies around the world, we have much to be thankful for - on America's day of Thanksgiving and the other 364 days a year. Being opportune in life shouldn't be synonymous with being spoiled. It should make us grateful for what we have.

Even though it is not evident in all areas of Afghanistan, I learned at that shura that education across Afghan as a whole is improving vastly.

According to Omar Azize, representative for the Afghan Minister of Education, nine years ago fewer than 1 million boys were enrolled in a total of 3,400 general (or public) schools, and there were only 20,700 teachers nation-wide.

Currently there are more than 7 million children enrolled in 12,000 general schools. Of those, 2.5 million are girls - a sight that was very rare a decade ago.

In addition to a seven-fold increase in enrollment, the number of teachers expanded eight fold, bringing the number of educators into the public school system to about 170,000. Thirty percent of those teachers are female.

Nearly 65,000 students are also studying in 24 higher-education institutions, also a rare sight in years gone by.

These numbers astonish me. This is not my first deployment to Afghanistan and, to be frank, even when I'm back home in Jolly Old England, this nation never fades from my daily thoughts.

With continuing cooperation between local governments and Kabul, backed by unwavering dedication from people like those who gathered today at Camp Arena to celebrate Thanksgiving, the situation in western Afghanistan will continue to improve for the families of today, and generations of tomorrow.