Coastal Carolina University Magazine - Embedded - Fall 2006

While tailing Major Case, we learned that he was also responsible for KAF's mortuary affairs, a staff and facility that understandably sits tucked away from the view of most soldiers. There Paul and I met Sergeant First Class Edwin Agront, in civilian life a police officer in Puerto Rico. The Pentagon ordered Agront's unit to Washington following the 9/11 attack to help recover human remains. There, for six months, he and his comrades sifted through rubble collecting body parts. Solemn reflection and evident pain etched his face. He made it his purpose to treat each [body part] as an individual person with the same respect normally given to the whole body, he said.

Now in Afghanistan, Agront receives the bodies of fallen servicemen and prepares them for shipment home. "You don't work for the soldier or [for] the military," said Agront; "you work for their families. When you're here [in the morgue], your family suffers a lot." He and his staff clean the body, carefully place it in an aluminum container for transport, and fix the American flag over it with meticulous attention to every fold and tuck. "We treat him like he's one of our own family, the way we'd want our loved ones cared for. We do our work with honor, dignity and respect" for the parents, spouse or children of the deceased soldier. Again, Agront's eyes and facial expression revealed clearly his sincerity and his deep compassion.

Agront guided us through Mortuary Affairs, showing us the tables where bodies are cleaned when they first arrive, the coolers where remains are temporarily stored, the aluminum containers used to transport fallen soldiers to their final destination, and the stacks of pine boxes set aside for Afghan National Army troops. To be sure, listening to Agront detail his work and touring the facility left an indelible mark on Paul and me; however, nothing he said or showed us made the reality of war more visible than the three "ramp ceremonies" we witnessed in our one week stay at KAF.

At 08:30 on our first morning in Kandahar, a lone C-17 aircraft stood ready to receive the body of an American Special Forces soldier killed in combat two days earlier. The plane's tailgate lowered. Trailing from the ramp on the plane's starboard side were rows of American soldiers solemnly standing in formation. A contingent of Canadian troops formed opposite them, creating an avenue into the aircraft for the fallen soldier. As bagpipes mournfully sounded Amazing Grace, eight Special Forces soldiers, buddies of the dead, carried the flag-draped container onto the plane for their friend's final journey home. Agront's work was done; thousands of miles away were family and friends, already in mourning, waiting for this young man's return.

A C-17 stands ready for "ramp ceremony" to receive the body of an American Special Forces soldier.

Situated between KAF and Camp Shir-Zai stands an Afghan school and housing complex, a collection of six multifloored buildings called the "Russian Barracks," a reference to their original occupants. Taliban forces moved into the buildings in the mid 1990s and, consequently, they and the structures were targeted by United States warplanes in autumn 2001. Now, the Russian Barracks is home to hundreds of children and their parents along with Afghan Army officers, among them 205th Corps Commander Maj. General Raufi.

Strikingly visible are the scars of aerial bombardment. Collapsed walls and rooftops still drape across several buildings, and debris still clutters the surrounding landscape. Individual classrooms are separated by a single blanket or drape. Flies are a constant irritant, and the sweltering temperature of the Kandahar summer makes sitting inside the building nearly unbearable. The school's playground consists of one teeter-totter and a tetherball pole to accommodate 525 youngsters, and this area itself is enveloped by the rubble of war and the vastness of the southern Afghanistan desert.

Early in his second tour, Major Case described for us and his department colleagues at Coastal Carolina University the school's pathetic condition and the students' unmet needs. In response, CCU students in the Spadoni College of Education raised $1,000 for the purchase of school supplies, and, not long before Paul and I left for Afghanistan, education professor Jessie Brown and two student representatives officially transferred the money to us for personal delivery to Alan. In Kandahar, Case used the donation to purchase pencils, note pads, student backpacks, soccer balls and other items desperately needed by the children and the school. Paul, Alan nor I will ever forget the children's excitement when we delivered the supplies to the school. Faces gleamed with anticipation as we arrived and unloaded the bags. Giggles and laughter echoed through the building in which the items were distributed to the youngsters. Shining eyes and broad grins, arms clutched around the notepaper and pencils, altogether said more than any set of words possibly could.

As with most everything in Afghanistan, this school needs so much more. Fourteen classes, in two separate shifts, instruct 525 students of all age and academic levels. Space is precious. Moreover, these overworked teachers receive wages of approximately $50 monthly, grossly inadequate but nonetheless money that helps families sustain themselves. The school provides a curriculum that, theoretically, prepares youngsters for the demands of a modernizing nation with children beginning their study of English in the fourth grade and Arabic in the seventh grade-two languages considered essential for the Pashtun and Dari speaking local population.

ANA Major General Raufi (right) and Colonel Bashir (center) with local child receiving school supplies from CCU.	It is difficult to surmise the school's success or its potential for success. Few job opportunities await these children once they leave this academic setting. The Afghan economy teeters precariously on some international trade of natural resources and on agriculture constrained by the harsh environment, limited access to modern farm implements and an inadequate transportation network.
Compromising the production of food crops viable in a national or international marketplace is the recent push by Taliban interests to promote extensive cultivation of the opium plant, a crop that generates more profits for farmers in a single season than foodstuffs provide in many years.

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