As the United States continues to move out of bases in Afghanistan, about 1,000 vehicles and more than 2,000 cargo containers are streaming out of the country every month.
More than 60,000 U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan, but that figure is supposed to drop to 34,000 by February. These statistics point to how 12 years of war are winding down toward an announced end-of-2014 U.S. withdrawal.
Hawaii Army National Guard soldier Ryan Taniguchi has seen the drawdown firsthand. The 35-year-old sergeant first class was there for the closure of forward operating bases Lagman and Smart in southeastern Zabul province.
“It’s another step for them (the Afghan people),” Taniguchi said. “The overall intent is, this is their country, it’s their responsibility, they are going to make the decisions, and they took over these bases that were closing down.”
Taniguchi is among about 140 Hawaii National Guard soldiers who are returning home after spending the past eight months training Afghan security forces as part of 12 security force assistance teams.
While not the final deployment of Hawaii-based troops to Afghanistan, it is among the last.
Deployments in the thousands from Hawaii have dwindled to a few departures in the hundreds.
The Hawaii Guard soldiers have started returning in groups; three of them, waiting for airlift out of Kandahar Airfield, spoke to the Star-Advertiser by phone this week and said they are generally optimistic about the country’s future.
“From what I’ve seen on my end, speaking for one province and the (Afghan police) provincial headquarters, my outlook is that they’ll be able to sustain that security in Afghanistan,” said 1st Lt. Marco Hartanto.
As of March 31, Congress had appropriated more than $54 billion to support the Afghan National Security Forces, including the police, according to the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.
Last summer Vanda Felbab-Brown, who specializes in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, told a U.S. House armed services subcommittee that some real progress had been made in Afghanistan’s Helmand and Kandahar provinces but that widespread corruption remained a problem and few Afghans believed that a better future was on the horizon after 2014.
The Hawaii National Guard soldiers saw only a slice of Afghanistan in Zabul and Kandahar provinces.
Hartanto, 34, and Capt. Reuben Kim, 30, were at a provincial police headquarters in Zabul province with 50 to 60 Americans and 600 to 800 Afghans, while Taniguchi spent time at three forward operating bases. Each security force assistance team had between nine and 12 soldiers.
“I’m very optimistic on their way and the way they operate,” Taniguchi said of the district police and reserve police his 12-man team advised.
“There’s a thing called the ‘Afghan way’ — their way may not be U.S.-structured, the way we do our tactics or operations or planning, but they do have a way and they do get results,” he said.
As of February there were about 151,000 national police in Afghanistan among the 333,000-strong force that includes the national army and air force.
Taniguchi said his Hawaii Guard team met five to seven days a week with police. With the deployment ending, none of the 140 Hawaii soldiers have been wounded, officials said.
Taniguchi said he was up to several football fields away from a suicide vehicle bomber who killed a U.S. foreign service officer, three American soldiers, a government contractor and three Afghans on April 6 in Zabul province. Some of the Hawaii soldiers, including a medic, helped with the wounded, he said.
Kim said the Afghan security forces that he worked with “are good guys and they try hard, and we just hope for the best for Afghanistan in the future.”
Both he and Taniguchi said if it were somehow possible, they would like to return to Afghanistan someday and see how the police they worked with are doing.
Right now, however, they want to return home. With out-processing at Camp Shelby, Miss., they should be back in Hawaii later this month.
Kim is returning to two young children, 2 and 1, and Taniguchi to a daughter born April 17 whom he hasn’t met.
“I just want to get back to my family,” Taniguchi said.
