Marines aim to learn Afghan, Pakistani cultures - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Marines aim to learn Afghan, Pakistani cultures

As President Barack Obama and his advisers debate a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, the Defense Department is preparing to bring greater “unity and cohesion” to the fight.

The Afghan Pakistan Hands Program, outlined in Marine Administrative message 599/09, will build a cadre of mostly military officers from the four U.S. services to fill about 300 positions around both countries.

Those selected will serve at least three years in the program, allowing the same troops to remain focused on local issues for an extended period rather than constantly rotating new faces into these positions every few months.

Initially, the Marine Corps will supply the program with 22 field-grade officers, majors through colonels, from the Washington area, said Maj. Brad Ward, the graduate education programs monitor for the Corps’ officer assignment branch.

However, the requirement likely will grow over the next year, he said, meaning some senior enlisted Marines eventually could join the program and that the pool of eligible candidates may soon stretch servicewide.

“The idea is that these people will deploy to Afghanistan or Pakistan multiple times throughout their tour in the program — and always to the exact same place and job,” said Navy Capt. John Kirby, spokesman for Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who called for the creation of the Hands program.

Of the 22 Marine positions, five will include existing individual augmentee billets in Afghanistan that will be moved into the Hands program. The others will be new billets.

Although the first 22 Marines were to be selected Oct. 16 with training to begin Nov. 2 in the Washington area, Ward encouraged Marines interested in joining the program to contact their career monitors.

“When the monitors are looking to see who they want to fill the positions, they are looking at the backgrounds of those officers, especially those that have been to Afghanistan and already possess some of the training and knowledge necessary, but it is not limited only to those who have been to Afghanistan,” Ward said.

Every Marine selected for the Hands program will go through four months of specialized training before deploying. They will study Pashtu, Dari or Urdu, common languages spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan, depending on their assignment location. Cultural training also will be included.

It is not clear where these Marines will go once their initial tour in Afghanistan or Pakistan is complete, Ward said. “We are not sure if we are going to bring these officers back to the national capital region and put them into one unit, or spread them throughout the Marine Corps.”

That decision likely will determine how these Marine officers will continue to address issues and concerns raised on their tours.

For example, if Marines in the Hands program are transferred back to the Washington area, they likely would be working with scholars and members of academia when they return.

However, if they return to one of the three Marine expeditionary forces from which units may be deployed to Afghanistan, they most likely would act as subject matter experts for the expeditionary force commanders.

“It takes time to develop relationships,” Kirby said. “That’s why we really see the productivity of people rise over the course of their deployments, because they’re getting to know the area, the culture and most of all, the people.”