Pakistan A Very Difficult Mission

Pakistan was difficult in a number of ways. First of all it was a difficult mission. And it took us a little while to really understand where we truly fit in to the UN perspective of the mission, but it was difficult as well because everybody there, all of the UN nations were unarmed. And I say that tongue and cheek. The Americans were clearly not unarmed. There were two contingents of Americans, America 1 and America 2, that’s what we call our houses, Canada House, America 1, America 2, Kiwi House, Aussie House and Norway House. The Americans were armed and they were armed to the teeth. They were all special forces guys out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, very well trained, very competent soldiers and that’s travelling around the world, winning the hearts and minds theory of the day was their forte. Their particular skills in soldiering, I don’t think, other than certainly their knowledge of mines and explosives and all that was no where by any stretch better than ours. I think from that part we were better. They were higher trained in covert operations because that’s what they specialized in and they did participate in covert operations, sending teams into Afghanistan the whole time we were on a mission. None of them got caught. A French contingent a year before got caught and they were fired out of the country for military espionage within 24 hours. Once we understood what all the other missions were capable of doing and not doing, and how professional each of us were then that made a difference, yeah, so we understood where we fit with the others.