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                         May 3, 2002

Academy professors part of Afghan operations

By Jim Fox
Staff Writer

Bumping along inside a blacked out C-17 transport plane as it descended into Bagram, Afghanistan nine weeks ago removed any remaining doubt as to how four academy professors would be spending Founders Day.

Gone were their plans to attend the coin and stamp unveilings at West Point. A call had been put out for volunteers to go to Afghanistan and with academy approval they answered it.

Geography and Environmental Engineering professor Col. Gene Palka, Physics professor Lt. Col. Ed Naessens, Philosophy professor Lt. Col. Dan Zupan and History professor Lt. Col. Tim Rainey recently completed a month-long deployment as assigned members of the 10th Mountain Division, where they served as future planning cell staff officers for the Coalition Joint Task Force during "Operation Anaconda." It was an assignment they will not soon forget.

Upon official notification of their overseas assignment Feb. 19, the four left West Point for the bulk of their pre-deployment soldier readiness checks two days later with a destination of Fort Drum, N.Y.

There they received their immunizations and medical evaluations, drew their equipment, received Nuclear, Biological and Chemical training and qualified with their 9 mm pistols. But it wasn’t until they were actually in the air over Afghanistan that they realized the enormity of this assignment.

"When the pilots and crew donned their night vision goggles and their body armor, the reality of what we were about to do set in," Palka said about the quartet’s arrival in Afghanistan Feb. 27.

"We flew in completely blacked out," Naessens said. "When we landed, we did an engine running off-load. We had guides lead us off the plane because the entire airstrip was surrounded by land mines."

The foursome, who refer to themselves as "Professors Without Borders," soon realized they were not along the banks of the Hudson anymore. They spent their first night in Afghanistan hunkered down amid the rubble of an old, destroyed Soviet airbase as helicopters, C-130 and C-17 transport planes droned overhead.

"When the sun rose that first morning," Rainey said, "we were surrounded by bombed out buildings, trash, mines and remnants of Soviet tanks, helicopters, fighter jets and armored personnel carriers." The leftover refuse of the former Soviet Union’s attempt to subjugate the Afghan people.

This was no summer assignment to Camp Buckner. This was war. Initially, the only bathrooms available at the command post consisted of plastic pipes sticking out of the ground and 50-gallon drums cut in half, they said.

Running water, plumbing and a sewage system were unheard of. As time passed during their month-long stay, conditions began to improve.

"It got much better after we were there awhile," Palka said. "Especially after the portable bathrooms arrived."

Of course, sanitation wasn’t their primary concern as three days after they arrived the ground war began.

Within hours of their arrival the four were quickly brought up to speed on the situation and why they were rushed in country -- command wanted them in place before the start of the new ground operation.

"The first mission given to us was to plan the transition from Phase III operations in Afghanistan (combat operations) to Phase IV (assessment and transition)," Palka said. "This entailed figuring out a timeline to send the 10th Mountain back to Fort Drum. It also entailed recommending the appropriate force structure and locations of units in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan for follow-up operations."

Initially the future plans cell only looked 48 to 72 hours ahead.

"When Anaconda kicked off March 2, the focus changed," he explained as they became involved with current operations.

"After Anaconda," Palka said, "we refined and continued to work the transition plan and compiled the after action review for Operation Anaconda."

Slowly, as the ground war moved successfully forward, the four-man future plans cell began looking further out than three days into the future. Now they’re looking back at what this opportunity meant to them. And all four agree it was a "life-shaping experience."

"We will always be personally and professionally grateful for the opportunity to go," Palka said.

All four said they have many positive memories of the experience including seeing groups of Afghani children asking for pens to write with so they could go back to school.

"It makes you feel like you are making a contribution. That you are making a difference. You can’t help but feel good about that," Zupan said.

The "Professors Without Borders" have now reversed their path and are back into the routine of West Point, a little wiser, they said, in the ways of waging modern war and looking forward to imparting their new-found wisdom to anyone who would listen.

One lesson Naessens wanted to share upfront was the need for all his brothers and sisters in arms to stay up to date with current doctrine.

"You have to stay current with what is going on in the Army even while here at West Point," he said. "You never know."