The Foreign Service Journal, March 2007

40 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 7 y first few months as the sole State Department representative on the Provincial Reconstruction Team here in Jalalabad were pretty rough. I felt like I never really knew what was going on, where I was supposed to be, what my role was, or if I even had one. In particular, I didn’t speak either language that I needed: Pashtu or military. For instance, soon after I arrived last August, a really nice soldier came to my office to tell me that “There will be an OpOrd at 1300 in the Force Pro B Hut.” I got the gist of the message — in much the way that beginning language students at FSI do — but nothing more. Now, just a few months later, I am busy and active, and feel like a valued part of the Jalalabad PRT. I understand milspeak reasonably well, and can easily decode messages like the one that visitor brought me. I also know that he was an airman, not a soldier. I am the sole State Department official here, but have lots of company. There are 83 military personnel — 32 from the Air Force and 51 with the Army. The civilian contingent is much smaller: John Minnick, our very active agricultural representative, is a civil servant from USDA, and Brian Bacon, our energetic USAID Alternative Livelihood Program coordinator, is a con- tractor who covers several provinces and a multitude of projects. (Another USAID officer position is currently vacant.) We also have two civilian engineers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and several full-time interpreters, contracted out of Bagram Air Base. In addition, there are a number of Afghan laborers and craftsmen who work on the base, as well as locally hired interpreters who attend our meetings and go out on missions with us. This is basically the model for all 12 American PRTs throughout Afghanistan, no matter how big the province: approximately 80 military personnel, one State representative and three or four other civilians. Virtually everyone is on a one-year tour of duty and extensions are rare. The military personnel I work with all trained together in the U.S., arrived last April, and will depart F O C U S O N W A R Z O N E D I P L O M A C Y T HE V ERY M ODEL OF A M ODERN … A N FSO SERVING IN J ALALABAD EXPLAINS HOW THE 12 U.S.- LED A FGHANISTAN P ROVINCIAL R ECONSTRUCTION T EAMS FUNCTION . B Y D ANNY H ALL M Danny Hall joined the Foreign Service in 1989. A man- agement officer currently with the Provincial Recon- struction Team in Jalalabad, he has previously served in Santo Domingo, Paris, Ljubljana and Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Hall was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines for four years; he is also a registered architect.