# First AF-PAK Hands grads deploy overseas

/ Published April 25, 2010

Air Force Master Sgt. Irene Mason heads the line of AF-PAK Hands graduates preparing to leave Baltimore-Washington International Airport for posts overseas.
WASHINGTON (April 23, 2010) –  “It’s been my experience my whole career, that if you go into a country  and you make an effort to speak their language, it has an enormous  impact,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,  told the Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands Program inaugural class on Nov. 12,  2009.

Roughly five months  later, the first group of 32 soldiers and airmen from a cross section of  career specialties boarded their plane at Baltimore-Washington  International Thurgood Marshall Airport, near Baltimore, in the late  hours April 21 and departed for Kabul.

The servicemembers have  completed a rigorous 16-week training program consisting of culture and  intensive language training at the Defense Language Institute, in  Monterey, Calif., followed by service-specific deployment training.

In  short, the idea of the program is not to reinvent the wheel each time a  new servicemember replaces someone returning from a deployment, but to  have a cadre of military and civilian experts that will rotate into key  staff and leadership positions that are in-theater and the continental  United States to provide continued expertise in support of U.S.  objectives in the region.

Their training has prepared them to be a  cadre of AF-PAK experts, providing long-term continuity to foster  better relationships with Afghans, Pakistanis and allies across the  joint, interagency and multi-national spectrum. The program itself falls  under the direct oversight of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“The  training was intense,” said Army Sgt. 1st Class David Jorge, a father of  five. Jorge is the only Army enlisted member in the first deployment  cycle.

“We truly leaned on each other a lot during the training,”  he said. “Actually, I don’t think any of us could have made it on our  own.”

Jorge is one of the 12 graduates from the very first course  and he will focus on working with his Afghan counterparts on improving  their counter improvised explosive device capability and training during  his AF-PAK Hands tenure.

“Knowing the language and culture are  critical elements to the mission’s success,” said Jorge, who’d studied  the Dari language.

One of Jorge’s classmates, Air Force Maj.  Christy Barry, a civil litigation lawyer from Bolling Air Force Base,  Washington, D.C., also volunteered for the program to be deployed at the  same time as her Army captain husband, Seamus, who’s currently a lawyer  deployed to Bagram Air Base, Afghansitan. But, that’s not the only  reason she volunteered for the program.

“I see this as a way to be  directly involved, have my hands on and be a part of history,” said  Barry, whose previous deployment experience includes a year-long tour  working with an Iraqi review board on detainee operations. “I think this  is a great program and wish we, as a military, would have thought of it  sooner in this war.”

Soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and Coast  Guard members assigned to the program will serve a three-to-five-year  commitment with the overseas tours of duty in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Members can expect to pull two to three one-year tours overseas during  the duration of their assignment.

“My wife doesn’t love the idea  of me being gone. She is supportive and understands though, and sees me  breaking ground as a part of this program,” Jorge said.

There are  approximately 280 in-theater positions, predominantly officers, but  including several senior enlisted members as well, with a handful  designated for Pakistan. Currently, nearly 180 servicemembers are in  training and the goal is to have more than 800 in the program once it’s  fully manned. Upon arrival in Afghanistan, the group will receive  additional language and counterinsurgency training. From there, they  will spread out to various parts of the country for immersion with their  Afghan counterparts.

Jorge believes the program will make a  positive impact in the theater of operations.

“If we are used in  the theater the way we are intended, I honestly believe, we and this  program, can make or break the war,” he said. “Only time will tell.”