BY ANN MARLOWE
Kabul, Afghanistan
The half dozen cadets at the National Military Academy of Afghanistan stood straight and tall in the cramped room they share with six others. I asked, “Are you worried about graduating and going to fight the Taliban?” They smiled. “If you are afraid, you are not here,” one said in English.
Seeing these self-assured young men, each of whom has beat out five others for one of the 300 places in the freshman class, it’s not hard to understand why the Afghan National Army is one of the unqualified success stories of coalition nation-building efforts. “Since April, the ANA has not lost an engagement with the insurgency,” says Col. Martin Schweitzer, commander of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, in six eastern Afghan provinces. A 2006 survey showed that 91% of Afghans in the volatile eastern provinces had “a lot” or “some” confidence in the ANA.
Beginning in 2002 with a few dozen officers, the ANA is now 50,000 strong. Most have come through the Kabul Military Training Center (KMTC), which currently puts 5,000 men at a time through a 10-week Basic Warrior Training course modeled on the program at Fort Benning, Ga. A kandak, or battalion, of 1,000 soldiers leaves to fight every two weeks, each one deploying as a unit in a province where security is iffy. Just two corps of the army are in the stable northern and western provinces; three are in the south and east. (more…)