Unique training for Afghan-bound guardsmen - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Unique training for Afghan-bound guardsmen

ESPANOLA, N.M. — Fourteen members of an Army National Guard unit training in northern New Mexico have met stringent fitness requirements and are learning rifle marksmanship and land navigation — but they’re also learning about beekeeping, basket weaving and slaughtering goats.

It’s all to prepare for the 45th Agri-Business Development Team unit of the Oklahoma Army National Guard’s upcoming deployment to Afghanistan. The troops’ mission is to help communities become self-sustaining, in this case the eastern Afghan province of Paktia.

On Wednesday, that meant a visit to the Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center.

Dressed in fatigues and tan combat boots, the guardsmen stood out at the center as they got a crash course in natural yarn dying and hands-on lessons on the loom.

Team member Billy Payne of Aubrey, Texas, said rugs are very important to the Afghan people, “so maybe it’s something we can help them out with.”

While in New Mexico, guardsmen also have learned about area plants, gone to farmers markets in Santa Fe and Pojoaque and practiced shearing sheep, plowing with mules, slaughtering chickens, milking goats, making cheese, and beekeeping.

The idea is to teach guardsmen to rely less on modern technology and more on basic techniques that are likely still used in Afghan villages. Beekeeping, for instance, can be done with a pocket knife, bucket and cookie sheet, said Arina Pittman, director and co-founder of the Permaculture Institute.

The military contracted with the institute, based in Pojoaque, to coordinate this leg of the guardsmen’s training. The institute teaches sustainable living skills and designed the two-week training plan.

A few of the unit’s members have been in Iraq, but this will be the first deployment for most.

In August, the team will replace another Oklahoma unit that has been in Afghanistan since October.

Lt. Col. Bruce Arnold, a civil engineer with the unit, said that group has been well-received.

“They recognize it as a team that’s there to help, so they’ve been very open,” he said. “But of course it’s still a combat zone, and we have to take those precautions. We go out in armored vehicles, we’re wearing the body armor, the helmets and carrying weapons.”

Payne, a field artillery instructor, said he never imagined undertaking this type of mission. Outside of the military, he’s a maintenance manager at a food distribution warehouse and is eager to apply his cold storage and pest management knowledge to help Afghans.

“I feel like in 15, 20 years from now when we look back and they’re doing good, [I’ll say], ‘I had a part in that,’ ” he said.