Afghan air force Lt. Sakina, prepares to strike a simulated attacker a during a woman's self-defense class at Kabul International Airport, Feb. 29, 2012.

Advisers from the 439th and 738th Air Expeditionary Advisory Squadrons recently taught a class to four Afghan air force female personnel about the importance of using self-defense to escape a violent situation.

The training prepared the female students physically and mentally for what they could experience if placed in a dangerous scenario. The students learned that true self defense is more than just personal protection and learning a set of techniques to escape from an attacker.
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U.S. Air Force medics, Staff Sgt. April Deluna -right-, from San Antonio, assigned to the Paktya Provincial Reconstruction Team, and Tech. Sgt. Rebecca Rose, from Coleridge, Neb., assigned to the Nebraska Agribusiness Development Team, demonstrate proper arm-bracing techniques at the provincial women’s development center, Nov. 1. The medics taught basic first-aid skills to 13 women from the province. U.S. Army photo by Maj. Katherine Williams

Thirteen Afghan women received life-saving first aid training at a provincial women’s development center shura held in Paktya province, Nov. 1.

U.S. servicemembers assigned to the Paktya Provincial Reconstruction Team and the Nebraska Agribusiness Development Team, both located on Forward Operating Base Goode, taught the women how to treat burns, lacerations and abrasions.

U.S. Air Force medics Tech Sgt. Rebecca Rose, with the ADT from Coleridge, Neb., and Staff Sgt. April DeLuna, with the PRT from San Antonio, conducted an interactive training program for the women.

During the one-hour course, the medics emphasized proper hygiene techniques such as hand washing and the use of gloves while treating wounds.

“The women learned the ‘cold, clean’ method,” DeLuna said. “They’d never heard to clean with cold, clean water and were using alternative methods to treat wounds.”

The women shared stories about their previous home-medical treatments during the shura.

“I’ve used cold potatoes on my children’s wounds to stop the burning,” one student said. “Potatoes and egg yolk both help to prevent the burn from spreading.”

Along with l training, the group also received first-aid medical kits, stocked with bandages, a gauze compress, gloves, antibiotic ointment and other supplies.

The shura was coordinated through Khalema Khazan, the Paktya Director of Women’s Affairs and the Team Paktya Women’s Advocacy Group.

The DOWA is an Afghan ministry-appointed position, with the authority and obligation to raise awareness of concerns and advocate for Afghan women.

“I want a common understanding for every woman to know their rights and freedoms under Islam,” Khazan said. “We have shuras in the women’s development center for Paktya women to teach them important skills.”

In the past, Khazan has organized town meetings, or ‘shuras,’ health workshops and media engagements for women in Paktya.

“Education is very important,” she added. “Our center is focused on teaching the more than 40,000 women in Paktya.”

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Spc. Christina Alvarado and Sgt. Shanequa Cardona, members of the Female Engagement Team with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, talk to some local women with the help of their interpreter Hayda Azizi, in Subdistrict 6, Aug. 4. “The women have a lot of concerns about their children’s education and medical needs,” Alvarado said.

The Female Engagement Team with 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, is enhancing the ability to gain intelligence from an untapped resource: Afghan women.

“Our mission is to go where the men can’t,” said Sgt. Shanequa Cardona, a team leader with the FET of 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment. “Because of their customs, it is seen as inappropriate for women to talk with men who live outside their home.”

“Without the FET we would have no way to engage the female populace,” said Capt. John Intile, the commander of Company C, 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment. “In some cases we get different perspectives and points of view on things.”

Spc. Christina Alvarado, a Female Engagement Team member with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, passes out pencils to local children in Diwatiano, Aug. 5.

“The women have a lot of concerns about their children’s education and medical needs,” said Spc. Christina Alvarado, a FET member with 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment

Not only do the Afghan women have different points of view on things but sometimes they are more willing to talk.

“The men are targets of intimidation tactics; the women might talk because they don’t have those pressures,” Intile said.

The job isn’t as easy as just going in to talk to the women. An Afghan Uniformed Police officer will go in and secure the premises, then tell the women to all go into one room and if there are men in the home the AUP will question them.

“The men don’t want the females to talk to us,” Alvarado said, “sometimes they will hover around and try to take over the conversation and that can be frustrating.”

Sallamjn, an officer with Police Sub Station 15, Hayda Azizi, an interpreter and Sgt. Shanequa Cardona, a Female Engagement Team member with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, wait at the door of a family in Subdistrict 6, Aug 4. The Afghan Uniformed Police always go into the homes first to secure a location so that the FET may be able to enter and talk with the women of the house.

“It’s challenging to try to get the women to feel comfortable with us and trust us enough to give us good information,” Cardona said.

It’s important to gain a good rapport with the women because they are more likely to confide real information instead of the bland answer that everything is fine within the community, said Hayda Azizi, an interpreter who works with the FET.

“I try and show them that I’m a wife and mother, just like them,” Cardona said. “I carry a family photo that I pass around for them to see.”

“Our interpreter plays a huge role; we would be useless without her,” Alvarado said. “She really knows how to get in and talk to the women and make them feel more comfortable.”

Even with some difficulties, the FETs have proven their effectiveness.

“We have seen great success when we use FETs; they are like any other enabler, you just have to realize how to utilize them properly,” Intile said.

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Photos and Story by Sgt. Ruth Pagan

Air Force lieutenants graduate from their first professional military course at Pohantoon-e-Hawayee present their graduation certificates from the Air Orientation Course. Graduation from this course is the females first step to service in the AAF. Photo by: Petty Officer 3rd Class Jared Walker

Another milestone was made in the modernization of the Afghan Air Force with the graduation of the first five female officers from their first professional military education course at Pohantoon-e-Hawayee, the Afghan Air Force’s “Big Air School,” in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Nov. 11.

The Air Orientation Course is designed as the first step to service in the AAF. The course consists of over 100 hours of classroom education in a multitude of topics.

Topics include subjects such as AAF values, missions, history, ethics, leadership and introduction to aircraft. This Professional Military Education course is one piece of the puzzle aimed towards the professionalization and modernization of the AAF.

“Their progression has been outstanding to this point. Their attitudes and eagerness to learn should be assets as they embark on their military careers. They’ll face many challenges but are well on their way to developing the tools to handle those challenges,” said Lt. Col. Ryan Nichols, Commander of the 738th Air Expeditionary Advisory Squadron.

The next step for the five graduates is English Language Training at the Kabul English and Language Training Center in conjunction with the on-going immersion training they are receiving at Thunder Lab, the English immersion training center at Kabul’s Air Force Base.

With any PME course, a primary challenge is to internalize the subject matter and try to use it to better oneself as an officer, no matter the topic. These five graduates did this with a brighter than normal media spotlight as they enter the AAF as its newest female lieutenants.

“This is not the first time in the history of Afghanistan that we have females in the military, but this is the first time that we are having a graduation for our females,” said Col. Mohammed Marif, Commander of PeH. “I can only imagine how much of a personal honor it is for these five females to inspire the females who will come up through the ranks after them.”

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Story by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jared Walker

Lt. Amy Zaycek, the severe trauma platoon nurse with the Female Corpsman Team, poses for a photo with Afghan children during a recent patrol in the area of Now Zad, Afghanistan. The FCT recently returned to Now Zad, Jan. 3, to assist members of the Female Engagement Team, Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan, with their effort to further the process of treating, educating and engaging the women of Now Zad. Zaycek is a native of Wall, N.J. Photo by Cpl. Zachary Nola

Recently during Operation Cobra’s Anger, a multi-day operation led by Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, to rid the Now Zad area of Taliban control, members of the company’s severe trauma platoon extended an invitation to members of the battalion’s civil affairs group to take cover from the rain in their mobile severe trauma bay.

Within the security and warmth of the STB the members of the two parties began talking about the day’s events.

“We started talking about stuff on the battle front,” said Cmdr. Tom Craig, the officer-in-charge of the emergency medical facility, Severe Trauma Platoon 3. “What CAG said was that there were a lot of females that needed to voice complaints and that if we could get a female in the battle zone to talk to these people, we could probably help a lot of folks.”

CAG’s observation about the female population was correct. In the Now Zad area medical treatment is scarce, often out of reach and varies in level from town to town.

Memories of Taliban repression still cause women to second guess leaving their home in search of help. For any type of surgical treatment, women must travel many miles to Lashkar Gah, where they receive no post-operational care and due to cultural practices women in the area are often uncomfortable seeking treatment from men.

“There is no doctor in the villages of [Khwaja Jamal], Changwalak, and Dehanna that the women feel comfortable going to,” said Lt. Amy Zaycek, the severe trauma platoon nurse with the FCT.

The end result of this scarcity, fear, long distance and potential embarrassment is the women of the Now Zad suffering unnecessarily.

It is because of this reason, upon returning to his forward operating base, Craig relayed this message to his command at Combat Logistics Regiment 2 and requested female support at his position.

The response to this request was the Female Corpsman Team an all female medical team consisting of a nurse and three corpsmen.

Lt. Amy Zaycek, the severe trauma platoon nurse with the Female Corpsman Team inspects the hand of an Afghan girl during a recent patrol in the area of Now Zad, Afghanistan. Photo by Cpl. Zachary Nola

“I was on a twelve-hour notice,” said Zaycek. “Cobra’s Anger had ended, people were coming to the villages, and from what Dr. Craig had gauged, female medical care was needed.”

In the wake of Cobra’s Anger the team visited surrounding areas, including the village of Changwalak, which reflected how valuable it was to have female medical personnel on hand.

“We saw approximately 40 patients there; 27 women and 13 children,” said Zaycek a native of Wall, N.J. “Something to gain from that, was that I was told we were seeing women, but the women brought their children. So, that was an unusual circumstance. In addition, it’s something that’s never gone on before.”

The FCT eventually had to move on to different operations but recently returned to Now Zad on Jan.3 to assist members of the Female Engagement Team, Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan to further the process of treating, educating and engaging the women of Now Zad.

“The FET is really riding shotgun on this but they only have one female corpsman with them so that is why we requested more help,” said Craig from Chesapeake, Va. “Of course seeing how Zaycek and her team were tried and true in the past, the command element picked them.”

Based on the teams last visit to the area the FCT will be confronted with numerous medical conditions ranging from dehydration, to joint and dysentery problems.

Another area the FCT is tackling is creating instructions for FET members on how to educate Afghan women about basic hygiene principles.

Ideas include creating a flip book for FET members which will include instructions on how to teach dental hygiene, hand washing, the importance of three meals a day and practices that will prevent clean water from becoming contaminated.

FCT members are also helping with the effort to re-establish those medical teaching aids which were once in place in Now Zad.

“Right outside the wire there is a public health area and we were able to find scrolls that had been used four or five years ago as teaching aids,” said Zaycek. “The [medical] education was here in this country. It needs to just come back.”

An informational scroll educating Afghan women about child care hangs in a building in the area of Now Zad, Afghanistan. The Female Corpsman Team recently arrived in Now Zad, to work with Female Engagement Team members, to reestablish those medical teaching aids which once existed in the area in addition to treating, educating and engaging the women of Now Zad. Photo by Cpl. Zachary Nola

Basic medical assistance is not the only the service the FCT provides. While Now Zad’s male population is forthcoming about their physical medical concerns, the area’s female population has shown an anxiety about emotional concerns. FET and FCT members have shown the ability to provide the female population an emotional outlet where they can voice mental issues and concerns.

“What [the FCT] has been able to provide is really, truly an open door. When we’ve gone out into the villages to see people, [the female population] tend to open up to the female providers,” said Craig. “When I looked at the list of complaints that the females were providing to the [FCT] it was fear of Taliban, fear that my son is going to be brought into the Taliban, fear for my family, fear for my home. A lot of fear components which the guys don’t say at all.”

Another secondary effect of the FCT is giving female medical personnel valuable field experience and knowledge, through working with the FET, which can be passed to others.

“It’s a good opportunity. A lot of corpsman will never get to come here and will never get to experience this,” said Petty Officer 2nd Class Latese Smith, a hospital corpsman with FCT from Chicago, Ill. “I’m looking forward to teaching [the women] to better take care of themselves and their families.”

“We’ll take all our lessons learned, our knowledge gained, and give it to [other corpsman].” said Zaycek. “The plan is to train up other corpsman and nurses so they feel comfortable doing these missions in different locations”

While smaller than most units operating in the Now Zad area, the FCT is showing size doesn’t matter. It’s not just the impact they are having on the insurgency but the means they are using to make that impact. They are fighting the insurgency with knowledge and band-aids. Not bullets.

In recent weeks the mood in Now Zad has changed from one of constant tension to one of reconstruction. The area still presents challenges and dangers to both civilians and military forces but the positive results that Afghan national security forces, Lima Co., the FET and FCT have made are undeniable.

“It touched my heart while we were out in Dehanna seeing the kids come up us.” said the 51-year-old Craig. “Knowing that they’re actually coming to us, trusting us without fear of retribution from the Taliban, lets me know that’s a blow for freedom,”

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Story by Cpl. Zachary Nola