A letter from Kabul from the Chaplain
A letter home from the front.I ache too but more from playing the Canadians at ball hockey in the gymover the weekend - I am getting too old!! At the moment I am stuck in Kabul- non-RAF friendly snow. Apart from that I am fine on the whole though Ihave lowered my expectations of personal achievement here so thefrustrations of the senior chaplain role and herding cats [chaplains] weighsless heavily. I count as my main achievement so far as getting another 3chaplains for the army brigade that follows - we have been veryunderstaffed. Things are going reasonably well for us out here - our deaths have been 7which is lower than perhaps we expected - we have the repatriation of MaineHollands body this week - he was killed in a mine strike. IN spite of thesetragedies, the Royal Marines continue to enjoy the job too which isheartening and having spent some time with those returning from Iraqrecently I think that has to do with a sense of purpose. At least herethere continues to a sense of cooperation, international consensus anddirection. The job is very hard but achievable, though the Taliban "springoffensive" whatever that may be will be a key time to work through withoutbeing deflected from the reconstruction effort. The main effort in the helmand where we are is to set the conditions forrebuilding the Kajaki dam and hydro electric system which will power a largepart of the country and provide indirectly alternative forms of employmentthan poppy growing. We have an American man embedded with us ( a very niceand gently spoken person - not very American) he is known as the poppykiller and is to coordinate the eradication programme. We agree it is awaste of time at this stage since the eradication will probably affect thosewho support the government worst and the Taliban least. The alternatives topoppy are not great though saffron is being touted as a possible solution asit is low bulk high value and does not need brilliant transport links.Ultimately i always think controlling supply is a waste of time - its thedemand that needs dealing with. My successor has been out for a recce, which is something wish i had had.At least i have been able to arrange such things for the army and show themhospitality that was denied me. One needs to have a view of the country anda chance to catch up with the state of play at all the different locationsbefore embarking on this sort of job. I continue to have a steady flow of people coming forward for baptisms andconfirmations - though getting the bishop out here has proved frustrating somy plan is for a post tour expenses paid trip for everybody to Windsorcastle where the bishop to the forces is Dean and he can do a job lot thereand entertain us for the day. I think that will be a special occasion foreverybody. The International side of life can be amusing here. In Kandahar we havequite a mixture - US, Canadian, Dutch, Romanian, a few Jordanians. TheDutch general in charge of RC south has a hard time. The Canadian stancehas become understandably defensive and aggressive given the level of theircasualties compared to others. Some of them seem intent on outflanking theAmericans in the trigger stakes. Given some time things will settle and Ihave made some good friends with them - particularly with some of the frenchCanadians interestingly. The international chaplains meeting exposes somewonderful contrasts in US/Canadian humour and world understanding. TheAmericans want to "sanitise" the church ie remove all religious symbols incase somebody is offended - the Canadian psychiatrist suggested they comeand see him about religious phobia issues. The need for permanent religioussymbolism was defended most vehemently by the Dutch Humanist "its a churchfor God's sake what do people expect" and he irritates the Americans now bygoing round replacing crosses where he thinks they should be. I continue my cycle of movements between Kabul Kandahar and the Helmand butsadly the air miles card doesnt work here!! I hope you are well Vic andlook forward to seeing you when its over. I had better end now and go and do the padre's rounds with a free day ididnt expect to have - could go collect the entertainers for the CSE showmmm well see. D
Helen Fogarth ● 6651d1 Comments