Saturday, April 04, 2009

At approximately 8 AM on Saturday, April 4th, a powerful explosion rocked my house.  The walls shook and the windows rattled.  The blast was at a Frontier Corps camp here in Islamabad about 500 yards from my house.  A ten minute gun battle followed the blast.  Automatic weapons, rifle and pistol fire was very close as I stood on my upper deck.  At least 8 Frontier Corps and Ranger personnel and several civilian were killed.  Scores were seriously injured.  The Taliban terrorist from the North West Frontier Province, Baituallah Mehsud, is really playing hardball.  The Manawaan police school attack on Monday, and now this.

All our personnel are safe and well, and sheltered in secure locations.

We had graduations from two of our training courses this morning (Saturday).  To get to the National Police Academy where the courses were held I drove by the FC camp that was just attacked by the suicide bomber tonight.

At the first graduation of senior police officials who were involved in a course on proactive police operations, the class spokesman spoke to me, say, “We are fighting for the survival of our country.  We need you to continue to help us in this fight.  Do not abandon us!”

This plea was so fervent that it choked me up for a moment.  I told him, “We will stand by you.  We will not run, we will not abandon you!”  And I mean that sincerely.

The other graduation, an hour later, was our levy class from the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) which borders Afghanistan.  These security officers have never had any formal training until we began the program last year.  We have now trained almost two hundred levies from the seven FATA agencies.

During this graduation, the class spokesmen, who only spoke Pashtoon and required a translator, said,
“I know that the American instructors have given us the skills to stay alive and protect our people.  We can see and feel their love for us, like our parents love us.  If only our leaders loved us like they do!”

Events like this steel our resolve to remain and to redouble our efforts to help these brave officers fight the scourge of terrorism that threatens the safety of all in Pakistan and, in truth, all in the world.  The danger is real, but so is our commitment.  Commitment will always overcome danger.

I never thought I would end up with Pakistani police and security forces at “the point of the spear.”

But here I am, and here I will remain while there is important work to do.

Chuck Bennett

Mein Freund Chuck bildet pakistanische Polizei aus. Vor seiner Pensionierung war er Chief des Lynchburg Police Department. Jetzt sieht er seine Berufung jedoch darin, diese gefährliche Tätigkeit als Polizei- Ausbilder zum Wohle des pakistanischen Volkes und im Kampf gegen den internationalen Terrorismus auszuüben.
Ich bat ihn darum, seine oben zitierte E-Mail auf dem blog veröffentlichen zu dürfen. Daraufhin antwortete Chuck:

Tom,

Yes, please feel free to use it as you see fit.

Things are somewhat quieter today.  Let’s hope it lasts for a while.

Chuck