America's North Shore Journal

Three young girls from the vil­lage of Sheenza Wer fill a plas­tic con­tainer from the local water pump March 18. The vil­lage received med­ical aid from mem­bers of the Camp Alamo Men­tor Group, Afghan national army and local civil­ian doc­tors dur­ing a med­ical aid mis­sion. Photo by Guy Volb

Seven miles north­east of Camp Alamo fam­i­lies of Sheenza Wer vil­lage wel­comed a team of medics March 18.

Com­prised of a multi-nation, multi-service con­tin­gent of med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, the group eval­u­ated and treated many of the vil­lagers under over­cast, some­times rainy skies. It was the first civil­ian med­ical assis­tance mis­sion ever con­ducted by a train­ing assis­tance group here, and more than 100 coali­tion mem­bers, Afghan national army troops and med­ical staff com­bined to make the mis­sion a suc­cess. The ANA took the lead in eval­u­at­ing patients and dis­pend­ing treatment.

Their pri­mary ail­ments — mal­nu­tri­tion, mus­cu­lar pain and dis­ease – were all major con­cerns, accord­ing to the 17-member med­ical team, and were safely treated.

“It [the visit] is good for us,” said 30-year-old Lal Udin, who described him­self as one of three vil­lage maliks or elders. “Since we don’t have a clinic here, it helps solve some of our med­ical problems.”

And there were many accord­ing to the medics.

“We saw a preva­lence of bac­te­r­ial infec­tions – eye, ear, sinus chest and skin – plus aller­gies, mus­cle pain and stom­ach prob­lems,” said 28-year-old Sgt. 1^st Class Aaron Chris­tian­son, from Eff­in­g­ham, Ill. “Based on a med­ical assess­ment per­formed in the vil­lage two months ago, we were ready with the right med­ica­tion to dis­pense to the population.”

The medics saw approx­i­mately 250 vil­lagers, accord­ing to the med­ical Embed­ded Train­ing Team non-commissioned offi­cer in charge.

“I think it was suc­cess­ful because we were able to treat many of them and the vil­lage malik seemed happy.”

Army Maj. Monty Hodge, with Camp Alamo’s Men­tor Group Advanced Com­bat Train­ing branch, agreed with Christianson.

“Secu­rity was very good. And the vil­lagers received the treat­ment required within our capabilities.”

“Every­one I inter­acted with and observed were very happy we were there and to receive med­ical assis­tance,” con­tin­ued Hodge, orig­i­nally from West Frank­fort, Ill.

Vil­lagers from Sheenza Wer line up for med­ical treat­ment, March 18, dur­ing a med­ical aid mis­sion by mem­bers of the Camp Alamo Men­tor Group. The vil­lage received med­ical aid from coali­tion, Afghan national army and local civil­ian doc­tors dur­ing the visit. Photo by Guy Volb

Yet Lal Udin eagerly pointed out other areas of con­cern within the village.

“We need more wells,” he said, sport­ing a green scarf and dirt-brown pacol – an Afghan hat, “espe­cially in the north and east parts of the village.”

He said the 120-plus fam­i­lies that now live in Sheenza Wer also need a med­ical clinic, schools, roads and food.

“Another 450 peo­ple are plan­ning to move here from Pak­istan,” he stressed. “They’re return­ing after hav­ing left dur­ing the Russ­ian occu­pa­tion. Now, the aver­age man here only makes $4 a day break­ing rock and sell­ing it to con­struc­tion com­pa­nies; so it’s hard to pro­vide for their families.”

Lal Udin said he’d like to see more involve­ment from the coali­tion, pre­fer­ring a visit at least once a month.

“The secu­rity here is good,” he said. “It’s not like Hel­mond or Kan­da­har. So we’d like to see such vis­its on a reg­u­lar basis.”

DVIDS
Story by Guy Volb