Bring NJ National Guard Home from Afghanistan

This opinion piece appeared in The Record of North Jersey on Aug. 23, 2012

'Green on blue': N.J. feels ominous turn in Afghan War

By Walt Nygard


Is it any wonder that our enemy wears the uniform of our friend?

IN THE DAYS before Memorial Day, I noticed the banner strung above Cedar Lane at Palisade Avenue in Teaneck. It welcomed home U.S. troops. Presumably from Iraq, since President Obama had recently declared that war over.

I didn't get it. Afghanistan is happening, at that point hitting 2,000 killed. And didn't Teaneck know that our own 508th Military Police Company was on orders to depart July 19?

Looped into a 45-day training cycle at Camp Shelby, Miss., the soldiers would fly out for nine months at Camp Phoenix, Afghanistan, about six miles from Kabul International Airport. They are assigned to train and mentor Afghan National Police.

The 508th is entering an Afghan cauldron where every man, woman and child has been at war their entire lives. We started out in Afghanistan fighting al-Qaida. Now, the 508th finds itself with a new enemy: our allies. "Green on blue" violence is the new front in the Afghan War. This year more than 30 American, British and French soldiers have been killed by members of the Afghan National Army or police. Many others have been wounded. Green on Blue casualty totals already surpass the number of such killings in all of 2011.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. General Martin E. Dempsey, speaking of Green on Blue, said, "I'll tell you definitively at this point that our national security interests are such that we have to take the additional risk that this brings."

Our "national security interests" have nothing to do with young Americans being killed by Afghans fed up with foreign invaders occupying their land. Our "national security interests" would have been better served if, at the time of the Soviet collapse, we had assumed the benevolent and diplomatic mantle of the sole world power. Instead, we have loosed barbaric invasions on country after country to feed the corporate greed that has corrupted our government and the star-studded luminaries of the U.S. military. We have made ourselves hated around the world and crippled our country in the process.

The "additional risk" now falls to an under-strength MP company from New Jersey. 146 soldiers: The two dozen female soldiers will have to be reassigned out of sight lest they offend the religious sensibilities of Afghan mentorees. In Mississippi, the 508th will shake off their part-time status and screw on their full-time courage. By month's end, they'll be bound for Afghanistan. There are those, however, who are paying attention. Introduced May 14, 2012, Assembly joint resolution 66 calls upon the president of the United States and the secretary of defense "to withdraw all New Jersey National Guard troops from Afghanistan."

AJR-66 notes the $1 trillion cost — so far — of the Afghan War. It does not mention an earlier trillion dollars squandered in Iraq or the ongoing deluge of funds for the shadow wars on Iran, Pakistan and Yemen. It doesn't mention the secret wars in Honduras or Colombia or the wars-in-the-works in Africa and Asia. The resolution further notes the potential vulnerability of New Jersey to "natural disaster or terrorist attack" and "the close proximity of the state to potential terrorist targets." New Jerseyans know we'll bear a lot of grief for anything that happens in New York City. The local disruption of lives, business and economy is noted as military families, children, employers and co-workers deal with the absence of their citizen soldiers.

The untried soldiers of the 508th are about to become veterans. As the World War II old-timers used to say, they have chosen to stand up and be counted. Unlike those soldiers of yesteryear, the 508th is off to fight a country that never attacked us and was once our ally, just like Iraq. Is it any wonder that our enemy wears the uniform of our friend?

I spoke to my son Joe. A veteran of 16 months in Afghanistan (10th Mountain Division) and a year in Iraq (256th Infantry Brigade), he is now a .50-caliber machine-gunner assigned to the 508th MP Company. He tells me training is good, but Mississippi's even hotter than Jersey. They have Middle Eastern people role playing on the maneuvers. They know all about "Green on Blue." Worried that the .50 caliber — a thunderous and effective weapon that I saw employed, ironically, by a Marine MP company south of the Danang airstrip a lifetime ago — might be too large to be brought to bear against an up-close target, I ask him if he has a pistol. He knows what I'm asking, and he answers in the affirmative. He tells me he's good to go. He's got a 9mm pistol and an M4 carbine.

I am a veteran for peace, and, although I know he knows, I tell him anyway: Keep that pistol with you at all times.

As I write this, three more American soldiers have been killed: "Green on Blue." AJR 66 should be passed in the Legislature by acclamation. Every state should pass an AJR 66. The silence of the American people throughout the prosecution of illegal and disastrous war over the last decade has been deafening. It is time to reclaim, not just our state and our country, but our very soul.

Walt Nygard, Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, lives in Teaneck. His son is a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Walt is a writer, artist and member of the Warrior Writers and Combat Paper projects.