Just two days into his ten month tour in Afghanistan, Dr. Mike Gangwer is crying. Not just crying, but bawling. It is only his first full day at Bagram Airbase, but on this particular day the base is unusually tranquil; there is a Fallen Warrior ceremony for ten American soldiers. The previous week a helicopter was shot down, killing everybody onboard. Servicemen line the two kilometer road shoulder to shoulder, end to end. American flags drape coffins that are driven, one-by-one, in spotless humvees to the back of a C-130 cargo plane, where they fly home. The scene is one that occurs all too often at the base, but for Gangwer it is a first. As he goes into his quarters and the tears begin to flow, he wonders just what he has gotten himself into. He is an agricultural advisor, a civilian, and he has volunteered to spend the next ten months in a war zone. Dr. Gangwer holds a Ph.D. in agricultural systems, with specialties including soil physics, dairy cattle and soil nutrition. He is 55 years old and works in the National Resources Conservation Service in the Department of Agriculture. But in March of 2006, he took a ten-month sojourn from his life in the U.S. and volunteered to go to Afghanistan to help rebuild the country. Gangwer is one of many civilian agricultural specialists who have worked in the war-torn nations of Iraq and Afghanistan as part of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) -- joint civilian-military operations ...
Anytime
Just two days into his ten month tour in Afghanistan, Dr. Mike Gangwer is crying. Not just crying, but bawling. It is only his first full day at Bagram Airbase, but on this particular day the base is unusually tranquil; there is a Fallen Warrior ceremony for ten American soldiers. The previous week a helicopter was shot down, killing everybody onboard. Servicemen line the two kilometer road shoulder to shoulder, end to end. American flags drape coffins that are driven, one-by-one, in spotless humvees to the back of a C-130 cargo plane, where they fly home. The scene is one that occurs all too often at the base, but for Gangwer it is a first. As he goes into his quarters and the tears begin to flow, he wonders just what he has gotten himself into. He is an agricultural advisor, a civilian, and he has volunteered to spend the next ten months in a war zone. Dr. Gangwer holds a Ph.D. in agricultural systems, with specialties including soil physics, dairy cattle and soil nutrition. He is 55 years old and works in the National Resources Conservation Service in the Department of Agriculture. But in March of 2006, he took a ten-month sojourn from his life in the U.S. and volunteered to go to Afghanistan to help rebuild the country. Gangwer is one of many civilian agricultural specialists who have worked in the war-torn nations of Iraq and Afghanistan as part of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) -- joint civilian-military operations ...