Word: battalion
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...population of 27 million--believed to be armed, new recruits have plenty of experience at target practice. Getting guns for practice, however, is another matter. "Believe it or not, we have difficulty getting weapons here," says Lieut. Colonel Kevin McDonnel, commander of the American special-forces battalion tasked with training the nucleus of the army. The privates often have to settle for weapons simulation. During practice, they yell "Bang!" instead of firing blanks. As TIME has reported, U.S. troops have raided Afghan villages hoarding Taliban weapons to get guns for training the new army. Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense...
Raising the new force is proving as tricky as arming it. More than 500 men signed up for the first battalion. Most were flown to Kabul from provincial recruitment centers; others arrived on horseback or on foot. One 14-year-old boy, an orphan, tried to sign up; the Americans turned him away. But by graduation, more than one-third of the trainees had dropped out. Many had arrived with the idea that they would be training in the U.S. or Turkey, then quit when they realized that they were destined only for the battle-scarred Afghan Military Academy outside...
...other two alleged killers were not fresh from combat. Master Sergeant William Wright led investigators to his wife's strangled corpse on July 19. He had gone to Afghanistan in March with the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, a unique unit that helps countries rebuild after war. Civil Affairs folks usually spend more time talking than shooting. The fourth alleged killer, Sergeant Cedric Griffin, who is accused of stabbing his wife nearly 50 times, had never been deployed to Afghanistan or anywhere else. He is an Army cook...
...gunfire and shelling broke out between the forces of Muse Sudi Yalahow, one of the former capital's most powerful militia leaders, and his former ally Omar Mohammed Filish. Somalia has had no effective administration since 1991. Afghanistan New Army Afghanistan began building a national army as its first battalion of soldiers graduated from a U.S. special-forces training program. The 350 men and 37 officers who completed training will, Afghan officials hope, begin replacing the country's war-lord armies. The graduates, mainly Pashtuns, Hazaras and Tajiks, had to come with references stating they had not served with...
Lieutenant Colonel Brian Baker, who is a professor of military science at MIT and commander of the Army battalion in which Harvard cadets participate, praised Summers as he introduced him to the audience...