Word: pir
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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...tour. When we arrived, the place was a disaster. We cleaned it up. After a year, we could leave with a real sense of accomplishment." But this tour was different. They had two months left, and the tide seemed to be running against them. Robison thought that opening the Pir Mohammed School might mitigate the sense of failure, but he also had to admit that a fair number of his men didn't want to take any more risks. They just wanted to go home. (See pictures of U.S. troops in Iraq...
...School Ellis began his efforts to open Pir Mohammed in late January. To get permission to reopen the school, he needed the approval of three separate command structures - his battalion superiors, the Canadians who ran Task Force Kandahar and their NATO superiors at Regional Command-South, the NATO regional command for southern Afghanistan. He also needed the approval of the local, district and regional Afghan government authorities. That part wasn't too bad. Ellis was a gung-ho briefer. On Saturday, April 3, I watched him describe the school operation to a group of Canadian generals. "That...
...Conversation It was unimaginable that the higher-ups - those in "echelons above reality," as Ellis liked to say - would actually stop the Pir Mohammed project. He figured it would be delayed a day or two and decided to move ahead with his plan. He needed to have some troops in place, in an observation and listening post near the school, on the night before the operation took place. On Sunday, April 4, Ellis joined the 2nd platoon on a patrol to scout locations...
That night, Ellis learned that his superiors had, once again, briefed their superiors at RC-South about the Pir Mohammed School operation. "They want to sleep on it at RC-South," Ellis said, rolling his eyes. "And battalion said they don't want me calling up, trying to convince them." (See TIME's audio slide show "The War in Afghanistan Up Close...
Ellis said he thought he had gotten through to the elders. Two days later, he received word that the Pir Mohammed School project was finally approved...