Soldier and Chaplain Jim Krische in Afghanistan

Greetings once again from Afghanistan. Lining the interior hallway walls of one of our major headquarters’ buildings are various placards so placed as to educate passersby. Some placards show regional maps or how to say common English phrases in the Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu. Others have pictures of beautiful local scenery or various ethnic people with descriptions of their tribes and particular customs.

A different but related placard on display in the hallways, gym, dining room and other parts of the building reminds all of us of our commander’s philosophy, which is: “Be a leader…Know your job…. Do your best…. We Can. We Will.”  Such a philosophy gives guidance, motivates the personnel and instills confidence.

In the commander’s philosophy, the pronoun “we” represents a vast array of over 200,000 people here in country plus a multitude stateside as well as the Afghan people themselves who are committed to freedom and peace. More than 45 nations are contributing military personnel to this NATO International Security Assistance Force operation. The United States military personnel here, from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines serve in units that belong to one of three categories. They are: 1) combat units that engage the enemy and patrol areas to keep them safe 2) combat support units that provide intelligence, communications, disposal of explosives and engineering assistance and 3) combat service support units that make sure the first two groups are manned, fed, supplied and transported as needed.

The combat units and some combat support units live in small outposts on the edge of a village or town. The combat units patrol their sector or battle space by foot or by armored vehicles looking for explosives, weapons, drugs and the bad guys. Although rewards are given to locals for turning in explosives and weapons, quite often they are discovered when they are used against our troops. Another challenge is that the bad guys are not often identifiable until they are caught burying explosives in the road or shooting at our troops.

Many combat units, in addition to providing security, are also involved in training the Afghan soldiers and police to do the job as well as backing them up when they go out on patrol or get in a tough firefight with the bad guys. In my opinion, the true accolades for getting the toughest jobs done here in Afghanistan should go to the troops in those combat units who live out there on the battlefield, endure the most difficult conditions and encounter danger most often.

The major NATO base in the south known as Kandahar Airfield, where I am now based, is like a small city hosting close to 20,000 service members from more than 18 nations plus 11,000 civilians. Since the mission at this location is to support those combat units working out in the battle space, most military personnel here are part of the third group mentioned above, combat service support units. They have jobs such as: lawyers, doctors, dentists, nurses, pilots, intelligence analysts, military strategists, finance representatives, police, postal workers, veterinarians, chemical experts, truck and aircraft mechanics, construction engineers, cargo handlers, cooks, supply sergeants, Equal Opportunity advocates, administration office staff, fuel handlers, budget gurus, psychologists, provincial reconstruction teams, historians, liaison officers to Afghanistan and coalition partner military forces, civil affairs teams, military working dog handlers, public affairs reps, and of course chaplains.

The thousands of civilians who are also part of the “we who can and will” aid in the accomplishing of the mission either by bringing a certain expertise to the operation or by doing a job that frees up a soldier to do a more military one. Some of those civilians serve as: Department of Defense and State Department advisors, technology specialists, interpreters, teachers, auto and aircraft mechanics, cooks, store attendants, laundry workers, building custodians, construction workers, truck drivers, firemen, pilots, cultural advisors, security guards, barbers, supply warehouse workers, porta-john maintainers, provincial reconstruction teams, DHL shipping clerks, incinerator operators, electrical engineers, recreation center personnel, trash collectors, American Red Cross staff, water suppliers and USO center personnel.

Even though most of the thousands of civilians come from the States and other countries, the NATO coalition does try to hire local Afghans for the interpreter jobs and other positions that they are capable of doing in order to raise their standard of living. Each Afghan though must pass a background check and some need their tribal leader’s recommendation. Having personal contact with the good local Afghans gives the military personnel a real human perspective on things and develops better relations between the nations. Even if you are not an Afghan citizen, should any of the above positions sound enticing and you are looking for some adventure, then check out the job openings for Afghanistan listed on the internet. I would be happy to buy you a coffee if our paths should cross here and I’d expect to see you at religious services.

As the “we” of the commander’s philosophy refers to the many different people, the “can” and “will” parts speak to a multitude of missions whose purposes include not only establishing peace and security in this troubled land but also to improve the way of life for a people who have suffered for decades. Military teams and civilian experts are working to make improvements in such areas as: health, government, education, roads, agriculture, medicine, law, military and police force capabilities, communications, construction, utilities and services, business practices, opportunities for women, commerce, sports, natural resource development and aviation. The whole operation has the makings for a series of the “Extreme Makeover” show, “Nation Edition” which could include an interesting episode on the destruction of the growing of opium here.

As for my current part in all of this, I have established my combat service support operational battle rhythm, also known as a daily schedule. I head out on a Friday for 11 days of battlefield circulation by helicopter and armored vehicle convoys, eventually returning on a Monday. After 3 days of reset, which includes laundry, rest, resupply and reports, I head back out again. Getting to at least one military base each day is not always possible with transportation limitations, bad weather or roads being closed due to a heightened threat level of either explosives buried in the road or bad guys planning attacks.

At each location I offer Catholic Mass once or twice if work shifts prevent people from attending and make myself available for the sacrament of Reconciliation or counseling. I also try to visit with soldiers especially in guard towers and occasionally, as a way to see everyone on the base, dish out the food on the serving line at meal times. If there is a Protestant chaplain stationed at any of the locations, I spend some time with him or her as a way to offer fellowship, encouragement and some mentoring. For the recent feast of St. Blasé, February 3rd, we had a special Mass that included the Blessing of Throats. I believe in the commander’s philosophy especially concerning my mission and ministry, reminding myself that I can and I will because the soldiers and civilians deserve religious support as they strive to complete their part of the mission.

You may have heard in the news that the fighting season here in Afghanistan ‘ends’ with the arrival of winter. That may have been true in the past but this year I think the word ‘decreases’ is more applicable. Snow falls across the northern half of this country with night time temperatures dropping to the teens or single digits while daytime temperatures climb to the mid 30s if they are lucky. Fortunately such conditions make moving about difficult for the bad guys and the ground too hard to bury explosives in. In the southern region where I am located, temperatures move between 28 and 50 most days so the bad guys are a bit more active. Some perhaps come south for the cold months. The winter season does also bring a lot of rain to the south and as much as all the mud is a nuisance, the rain sometimes helps us by shorting out or exposing the explosives that are buried daily in roads somewhere about the region. Around my large base camp, the cold wet weather also limits our free time outside sport and social activities so the athletic fields, patios and streets have been rather quiet, especially at night.

Although the military personnel and civilians here are quite focused on their missions, Superbowl fever has spread across Afghanistan with sports shows on the televisions in the dining facilities, chatter about which team is better, and logos of the New York Giants and New England Patriots appearing about the bases. For this fever the docs advise avoiding stress, getting some rest and letting the fever run its course. I understand that to aid the festivities, the morale folks have prepared some special party kits with snacks and non-alcoholic beverages that on Sunday are being air-dropped by parachute to some of the combat bases. Given the time zone difference, the parties here are beginning at 3am, so for us it is technically Superbowl Monday. I imagine both teams also share our commander’s philosophy of “We can. We will” but time will tell.

To close out this update, I would suggest that if you are more curious about what is going on here in Afghanistan, that you to check out the NATO website http://www.isaf.nato.int/ or the American military newspaper Stars & Stripes website http://epaper.stripes.com/. It is our hope that the Afghan National Army and Police as well as the people of Afghanistan who desire peace and freedom will also not only adopt our commander’s philosophy of “We can. We will.” but will rededicate themselves to make it a reality now. I pray that each of those groups as well be successful. Thanks for following along and please remember our troops in a prayer, especially the injured and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

–CH Jim Krische

Greetings family, friends and interested readers,

For thousands of years, people of various cultures have opted to take a break from their daily toil of surviving or earning a living in order to celebrate a holiday or feast. Whether it was a good harvest, a significant birth or death, a peace treaty or a religious event, the participants could usually count on the celebrations and traditions to lift their spirits, strengthen family or national bonds, properly acknowledge the original event and help them to forget about their troubles if only for a few hours. Those same end results can also be achieved by soldiers. Having had firsthand experience with 2 tours in Iraq and having visited now more than 15 operating bases in Afghanistan, I can attest that holidays are good for personnel in war zones as well.

When I arrived at my first duty station here on October 31st, pumpkins and other Halloween decorations were on display in the dining room, recreation areas and some offices. Several personnel added costume accessories to their uniforms and scary films were being shown in the movie room. The little kid in most of us raided the candy dishes at many workstations and I can report that I acquired a sufficient quantity of candy corn.

Our Veteran’s Day observance was simple and dignified with many military personnel thanking each other for their service. Thanksgiving here could be described as one part work, one part late-night football due to the 9.5 hour time difference, one part communicating with family and two parts eating. The banquet with all the trimmings was served by the high ranking officers both at midday and again in the evening for the night shift group with most of us going to both sittings and eating too much. The Catholic community asked me to celebrate Mass in the afternoon which was good for spiritual exercise and burning a few of those extra calories.

Before the big meal was fully digested, sights and sounds of the approaching Christmas season were popping up across the landscape. At some of the bases there were artificial and real Christmas trees sent from the States, inflatable snowmen and Santas with reindeer and a sleigh, twinkling lights, holiday sales in the market stores, wreathes, garland, baked goods and candy sent from home, Santa caps and Christmas stockings galore. My favorite sight has been the fake fireplace in a morale break area containing a large flat screen television playing a video of the burning Yule log accompanied by Christmas carols. Soldiers could grab a cup of hot chocolate and stare at the fire recalling Christmas celebrations of years past while forgetting for a few minutes that they were in a war zone.

Other holiday options at various bases for the troops in their off-duty hours included: a couple of 5 kilometer jingle bell group runs around the base, caroling, a decorated vehicle parade, a basketball tournament, shopping for gifts on-line, Christmas bingo, phone calls and live video chats with loved ones, gift opening (most soldiers didn’t wait till the big day), office parties, the holiday banquet, a Christmas Eve candlelight service and other worship services.

Army regulations state that chapels must remain religion-neutral when not in use by a particular faith group so, although the chapels look quite plain and are places for solitude most hours of the week, on December 24 & 25, they became vibrantly alive with worshipers praying and singing about the real reason for the holiday season. Here in the south, while one priest covered the 4 Masses around the main base, another priest and I each traveled to 6 combat outposts on our own helicopters to celebrate Christmas Mass with the troops.

On my helicopter, the forward gunner had a bright blinking red nose while the tail gunner wore a red suit and had a white beard. It must have been quite a sight to the local villages that we flew over. I regret that there were several dozen other operating bases that we could not get to for Mass on December 24th or 25th but weather and security concerns permitting, we hope to reach some of them during the 12 days of Christmas.

The presence of troops from many NATO countries at the large base where I recently moved to in Kandahar, has added an international flair to this holiday with people also having the option of attending the Slovak or Romanian chapel services. And while all of that was going on, our Jewish personnel were celebrating Hanukkah with the Rabbi. It has been an uplifting, mostly traditional, memorable holiday with special thanks going out to the USO, the care-package sending folks back home and the Postal units who worked as hard as Santa even on Christmas Day. I am not sure what the Afghans think about all this since Afghanistan is predominantly a Muslim country but they must be getting use to it after 10 years of coalition troops being here and the country interacting more with the outside world. The poor people who scavenge at the local dump certainly like it for they find all sorts of treasure and useful items among the things the troops discard.

In addition to offering Mass at the forward operating bases and combat outposts I go out to visit each week, there is usually some time to mingle with the soldiers. Once a helicopter or an armored vehicle convoy drops me off at a base, I usually check in at the operations center to get a threat update, set a time for services, and finalize my travel arrangements to get to the next base later that day or the next. If the base is one of the larger ones, there may be a Protestant chaplain there to meet with and a designated chapel tent or building to use for services. At the smaller outposts, I use the dining tent or conference tent for services and try to be more available to the soldiers whose regular chaplain may only get to visit them once every 2 or 3 weeks. In order to greet the soldiers and let them know I am around, I walk through the common areas of the base and volunteer to be a server on the chow line.

Recently 2 hours after offering Mass on a combat outpost at 8pm, a platoon of soldiers returned from a 24 hour patrolling tour in armored vehicles. Several of them wanted to attend Mass so I set up to celebrate another one for them. Since they looked exhausted, I offered to shorten the celebration by not singing hymns and giving just a summary of my sermon but they insisted on the full Mass, explaining that I was the first priest they met here since arriving 8 months ago.

Since quite a few of our troops now back up the Afghan National Army in patrolling areas to provide security, many of our bases have a separate section where the Afghan soldiers are housed. There is even an Afghan private security force that staffs some of our guard towers, thus freeing up our more skilled and better equipped American soldiers to deal with the bad guys and assist the locals with development projects.

One day I stopped up in a guard tower for a visit and was surprised to find an Afghan guard paging through a Playboy magazine. I noticed it was this month’s edition and concluded that since he could not read English, he did not have the magazine open to check out the articles.

In another guard tower, the Afghans invited me to share some of their lunch. To show how much I enjoyed the goat and rice, I cleaned my plate of every morsel only to learn later of my cultural blunder. If you finish everything on your plate, it means your host did not provide enough food for you and he must go get you more. It is thus proper then to leave some food on your plate as a sign that the host provided more than enough for you. Being able to leave food on my plate would have been a great custom to have in my house when I was growing up.

As the sun continues to set on this Christmas day around the globe, I am reminded of another Christmas time in a war zone back in 1914 described by Victor Parachin. British troops on the Western Front in Europe were living and dying in trenches while shooting at German troops who were also shooting back and living and dying in trenches a short distance away. On the night of December 24th, the darkness and cold weather had slowed the fighting. The German troops began to sing softly and hold up candles and Christmas trees. Even though this revealed their position, the British troops were too amazed at the sight and the sound to fire upon them. Soon the British forces, not understanding the German words, recognized the tune as that of “Silent Night” and began to also sing the song in English. Before long, soldiers from each side put down their weapons, climbed out of their muddy trenches and moved toward each other through the barbed-wire no-man’s land separating them. They shared greetings, some gifts, and photos of their families in an event that became known as a Christmas truce. It is my hope that Christmas truces may become more popular all around the world and last much longer than a day.

As my second month is this country comes to an end, I continue to be moved by the dedication, professionalism and courage of our military personnel. Recognizing that, for soldiers, long hours, limited freedom to do what one wants, distance from loved ones and friends, a lack of privacy, discomfort, cold dusty weather, loneliness and the possibility of a rocket attack at any time could easily cause a person to lose heart, become disillusioned or depressed, it is beneficial in many ways to observe joy-filled events and traditions here. Thus I again declare that holidays are good for war zones and I need to make sure we have some chocolate hearts, green shamrocks and Easter egg coloring kits for the months ahead.

Please remember our troops, especially the injured, in a prayer. I wish you and those special to you a blessed holiday season and the best of everything in the New Year!

CH Jim Krische

Sadness tinged with relief for that old sailor. Rest in peace, Lars, and rise in glory. A comfort to know friends were with him at the end; I’ll bet that twinkle in the eyes were with him to the last.

I know Lars asked specifically for no fuss at his leaving of us, but as his shipmate of many, many years, I know he’d love a party. It’s not my place to say when or where, but I think it would be a worthy way to celebrate his time with us. Anybody got an idea? I’m good for a bucket of chili and as much beer as I can carry.

jack

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Sea Fever
By John Masefield (1878-1967)

And from Joseph Greeley:
Amen. Fare ye well Lars and may Fiddler’s Green be all it’s cracked up to be.

http://www.oldsaltblog.com/2009/10/03/lars-henning-hansen/

http://marenostrum-beartracks.blogspot.com/2009/06/lars-henning-hanson-at-mizzen-truck.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/nyregion/thecity/08sail.html

It was a tougher, edgier place then. But the great variety of opportunities, entertainments, or intellectual and cultural events available then are much the same today.

I think that any New Yorker will agree that one of the things most prized by those who live here is the ability to occasionally get away from the City and it’s constant, grinding churn.

A group of people found this prize in an unlikely place: a precarious, tumble-down pier in the literal shadow of Wall Street, at the bottom of the island. Pier 15 of the South Street Seaport Museum was home to a collection of old sailing ships from the great days of commercial sail, harbor tugs and lighters, cargo and fishing schooners, small rowing and sailing boats, and a small but proud square-rigger named Black Pearl. I was her Captain, in the late 80s and early 90s

Black Pearl was both an incentive and a diversion. Acquired by the ship Wavertree project’s leader, Jakob Isbrandtsen, she was to provide the volunteers working on Wavertree with an enjoyable break from the interesting but largely static work restoring the ship. She was to take those volunteers to sailing events, spread the word about what we were doing at South Street, and perhaps make some money for the larger project along the way.

Lisa found Black Pearl one evening in 1988. She quickly fell in love with the release one feels on the water as we traveled from Manhattan to various events, meetings, or just out for a weekend.  She worked with Robin McNeill of the PBS news program to try to make a documentary of this small but important wooden ship. She reveled in the fresh breezes of the Caribbean, the chill winds of Newfoundland, and the warm spray of Cape Hatteras, where the Gulf Stream kisses the sands of the Carolinas. And she looked with wonder, as we all did, when the City’s great skyline slowly slid up out of  the far horizon as we sailed for home.

But neither wooden ships nor people go on forever. Pier 15 finally tumbled into the East River and was removed. Black Pearl is laid up and drying out on the Connecticut River. The museum at South Street still lurches from one difficulty to the next; perhaps the biggest blow came from the events of September 11^th. And that crazy, iconoclastic bunch of folks who gave that corner of the city its sparkle have moved on.

But Lisa’s bright smile is still there, dancing in our wake, at the horizon, now. She’s waving – and calling us to remember the times that were…

Under threat

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/08/americas_brazil0s_fishermen/html/1.stm

Camocim is a traditional fishing village in Ceara state, north-east Brazil.

Like many such places, modern developments including mass tourism put pressure on traditional ways.

But a plan called “Barcos do Brasil” (Boats of Brazil), proposed by Brazil’s history and culture institute (IPHAN), aims to include the fishermen’s way of life as part of the region’s protected cultural heritage.

Just to let everyone know that Lars has arrived safely and I spoke to him today. He was sitting under the palm tree w/coconuts with Line.

I will let everyone know the phone no. once it’s installed, it’s the Finnish home in Palm Beach county, but you can send him mail to

Lars Hansen
c/o care of Line Hogard
612 Cypress Key
Atlantis, FLA 33462.

I think he’ll be better of there!

Happy Holidays,
Sophia Reznikas