Former Oklahoma women's basketball star Captain Caton Hill says that while "there is some anxiety" about heading to Afghanistan for combat duty with the U.S. Army, she's confident she's prepared.
She spoke with bloggers and reporters on a conference call on Today, two days before she's scheduled to depart.
Captain Hill has spent the past year in Georgia training for the assignment.
After finishing her basketball career in 2004, Captain Hill went to OU Med School and decided to enlist in the Army's Medical Corps. It would pay her medical school bills in exchange for her military service.
She started her residency in family medicine last year, but after a year, she decided that she wanted to do something different.
Captain Hill, an Army flight surgeon, will be the primary care physician for the 4th Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment, the 3rd Infantry Division Combat Aviation Brigade. She says she'll primarily be working with pilots during her one-year tour of duty.
Captain Hill knew becoming a flight surgeon could land her on the front line. "Taking care of the people that are fighting for you is one of the most honorable things you can do," she said.
Captain Hill played for the Sooners from 1999 to 2004 and is sixth on Oklahoma's career scoring list with 1,653 points. She started for Oklahoma's 2002 national runner-up squad.
A Hoo-ah to Kid Rock for performing
for the troops in Afghanistan during the
2008 USO Holiday Tour !
Grammy award-winning musician Kid Rock, American Idol contestant and country musician Kellie Pickler, and musician Zack Brown entertain troops stationed at Kandahar, Afghanistan, Dec. 17, during the 2008 USO Holiday Tour.Kid Rock worked his appreciation for the servicemembers into a blues song. He told them, "As long as you are out here, you can count on me to keep coming back."
The tour's stars -- Kid Rock, Kellie Pickler, Lewis Black, Tichina Arnold, Zac Brown, Kathleen Madigan and John Bowman -- have played far more prestigious venues, but probably none as appreciative. And their usual audiences generally don't get this warning:
"In case of a rocket attack, let's do what we always do hit the ground and count to 100," Army Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, deputy commanding general for stability at Regional Command South, told the audience here. "If it continues, the performers will leave, and you will leave to take shelter. But when the all-clear sounds, they will come back and you will come back, and they'll pick up where they left off."
The performers rocked at every show. U.S. troops and their allies got world-class entertainment under challenging conditions. Joint Chiefs Chairman Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said the performers are national treasures who came for the purpose of saying thanks to the servicemembers, and giving them a little touch of America.
The Joint Forces Command, which has the responsibility of providing the forces the combat commanders need, has identified units and capabilities that could meet the demand for additional troops in Afghanistan and has provided the Joint Chiefs of Staff with options to meet those requirements, the deputy commander said on Tuesday.
"When it comes to requirements for the combatant commanders ... we are able to drill down and know the readiness of each unit" and know which are available to deploy, Navy Vice Adm. Robert Harward said. "We're able to identify with great specificity what units are available" and are "in a better position to allocate those resources," Harward said at a breakfast with defense writers.
Harward said he believed the command could meet Army Gen. David McKiernan's request for 20,000 additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan next year. He would not identify which units could go, because that decision will be made by the Joint Chiefs and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. But he said the command has identified both "enablers" -- such as engineers, Navy Seabees, explosive ordnance disposal teams and communications personnel -- and combat units.
The admiral also would not comment on whether it would require a faster drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq to provide more troops for Afghanistan, noting that was for his superiors to decide. "We're able to frame the options," and describe the risks involved in the different choices, said Harward, a veteran Navy SEAL who has served several combat tours in Afghanistan.
His command has recently enhanced authority to make recommendations on requirements for new weapons and Harward emphasized the need for additional unmanned aerial vehicles and other intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets. "UAVs and ISR are growth industries" and capabilities "we all need," he said. "I don't see future military operations without them."
Harward said they had doubled the number of UAV flights in the two combat theaters in the last year, but "we don't meet the requirements." Another procurement priority he cited was simulation systems to help train ground forces. Although large sums have been spent on simulators to train pilots, he said the technology would greatly improve training for ground units and reduce the need for costly maneuvers by large forces.
Harward discussed the command's recently released publication that explores the world conditions, threats and challenges that U.S. joint forces would face and the implications for the future force. The Joint Operating Environment 2008 document predicts U.S. forces will be engaged frequently in combat, most of which will be irregular conflicts against "non-state actors" such as terrorists. In those engagements, human factors such as flexible, well-trained leaders will be more important than technology, the report said.
But the report also warns that to reduce the threat of war, the United States must be prepared to wage a major war against a strong nation or coalition of states. It identifies China as perhaps the biggest potential threat and notes the re-emergence of Russia. That call for the capabilities to fight a major conventional war could clash with Gates' focus on the irregular conflicts and his protest of the services' requests for expensive new weapons, which he calls "next-waritis."
The report argues for retaining a strong nuclear deterrent force because of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. President-elect Barack Obama has urged reduction in U.S. nuclear weapons to promote a "nuclear-free world."
One thing that really irritates U.S. and NATO commanders in Afghanistan is the ability of the Taliban to constantly make false claims about foreign troops killing civilians, and getting away with it.
The problem is that the Taliban can make claims of civilian casualties in some remote part of the country, and many Moslem media outlets will immediately accept it without question.
Then many Western mass media outlets will also pick it up, often citing the media in Moslem countries as a source. Many of the Moslem, and non-Moslem editors know they are being played, because nearly all these claims eventually turn out to be false. But bad news is news and retractions are buried in the back of the paper (and rarely make it onto radio or TV news at all).
The Taliban deliberately try to spend the night among civilians, and store weapons and supplies in residential areas. And when the civilians try to flee, the Taliban will keep them around by force (well, just by pointing their guns in the right direction).
This doesn't get much publicity, and the Taliban get away with claiming their dead were actually innocent civilians.
All this is particularly troublesome for the Afghan government, which is constantly forced to go along with the false claims, because most Afghans are illiterate, and all they hear are the initial false claims.
So the government is forced to go along with the false claims, even when they know that, in most cases, they are simply being played by the Islamic terrorists.
The Taliban have embarked on what amounts to a large scale suicide strategy. In addition to dozens of individual suicide bombers, they have dozens of field units, each of about a hundred gunmen, looking to score spectacular (from a media, not a military, standpoint) victories.
Such attacks are being deliberately made against foreign troops from specific countries. France and Canada are particular targets. Month by month, the Taliban lose far more troops than they kill, in going after specific national contingents, but they are heartened by news reports of political unrest back in these countries, and calls for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
The Taliban don't really understand how democracy works (since they consider democracy un-Islamic and sinful), and make more of the media and political ruckus these attacks generate, than is justified by the actual results. But the Taliban have found that their followers get a boost out of the foreign angst over the casualties.
The Taliban are depending more and more on terrorizing the population into compliance and cooperation. Battles between Taliban and villagers are more common, as are Taliban executions of those considered un-Islamic. This can include foreign aid workers, Afghans who work for the foreigners, teachers in girls schools plus religious and tribal leaders who don't agree with the Taliban.
But the new suicide tactics also incorporates the increasing use of human shields. Taliban are now stopping civilians from leaving combat zones, and forcing civilians to remain in villages and compounds the Taliban are using. The Taliban know that this discourages the use of smart bombs or artillery against them. And if these weapons are used, the Taliban denounce the deliberate slaughter of civilians by the foreign troops. No death goes unexploited.
But the widespread use of suicide bombers is very alien to Afghan culture (which very much believes in "he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.") It's telling that the Taliban have become the bogeyman that mothers now use to frighten small children. Scary monsters, indeed.
What the Taliban are overlooking is that they grabbed power fifteen years ago because five years of civil war had made the people eager for anyone who could stop the fighting and general lawlessness. But this time, the Taliban are the main source of unrest and destruction. The Taliban demand "taxes" to fight their holy war and freely kill civilians. The main pro-Taliban tribal chief in Pakistan boasts of collecting over $6 million a month in such taxes.
The cell phone has become the most powerful weapon used against the Taliban. The government has a nationwide media program promoting the quick use of the phone to report suicide bomber attacks. Tips are provided on how to spot a suicide bomber, and the number to call. So far this year, the Taliban and al Qaeda have set off nearly a thousand bombs, killing mostly civilians.
This, despite the fact that the target for most of the bombs are foreign troops. The Taliban make a big deal about infidel (non-Moslem) soldiers defiling a Moslem country, ignoring the fact that the Taliban are more feared and hated than the foreign troops. But the Taliban cannot cope with the foreign troops in head-to-head combat. Some 80 percent of foreign troops casualties are caused by suicide and roadside bombs.
The main problems in Afghanistan; corruption and the drug trade, are taking a back seat to counter-terrorism work. But the drug gangs are running their own terror ops. In particular, the drug lords are getting their leased politicians to go after crusading journalists. Media stories about corrupt politicians are popular, but they bring unwelcome heat on the drug kingpins, who like to fancy themselves latter day Robin Hoods, not warlords with a good cash flow. So more and more investigative reporters are being harassed by the police.
President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed Tuesday that France will not abandon the international mission in Afghanistan despite 10 French troops being killed and 21 wounded in a Taliban ambush.
Sarkozy left for Afghanistan late Tuesday after the deadliest ground attack on foreign troops in Afghanistan since the US-led war in 2001 that ousted the Taliban.
"In its struggle against terrorism, France has just been hard hit," said Sarkozy in a statement before flying out on a trip accompanied by Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Defence Minister Herve Morin.
The president said he was travelling to Kabul to reassure the 3,000 French troops serving in the NATO force of more than 40,000 that "France is at their side."
Offering condolences to the soldiers' families, Sarkozy said France would not be deterred from its Afghan mission.
"My determination is intact. France is committed to pursuing the struggle against terrorism, for democracy and for freedom.
"This is a just cause, it is an honour for France and for its army to defend it," he said.
The 10 soldiers were killed during fighting on Monday and Tuesday following the ambush on a joint NATO reconnaissance mission with the Afghan national army in Sarobi district, 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Kabul.
Twenty four French troops have now been killed in action or in accidents in Afghanistan since they first arrived in 2002.
It was the deadliest attack on French troops since a 1983 assault in Beirut in which 58 French paratroopers serving in a UN force were killed.
"Serious measures, notably in the air, were taken to support and extricate our men caught in an extremely violent ambush," Sarkozy said.
A key Taliban leader was wounded in the fighting, army chief of staff Jean-Louis Georgelin said, while Morin estimated casualties on the Taliban side at some 30 dead and 30 injured.
Morin said the 21 wounded French soldiers were in stable condition and that some would be flown back to Paris soon.
"There were very violent battles that lasted several hours and an operation is still ongoing in the zone," said Morin.
Sarkozy announced French reinforcements to Afghanistan at a NATO summit in April, drawing fierce criticism at home from left-wing opponents who see the broadened involvement as a sign of French alignment with US policy.
The opposition Socialists on Tuesday called for an emergency debate in parliament, with party leader Francois Hollande saying the military losses raised questions that "deserve a quick answer."
Hollande said parliament needs to consider: "What are the goals of this war? How many troops will be needed to achieve its stated objectives? What has been achieved by the military action and the reconstruction effort waged since 2001?".
Buoyed by opinion polls showing a majority of the French opposed to the beefed-up French mission in Afghanistan, the Socialists tabled a no-confidence vote against Sarkozy in April that was defeated by the right-wing majority.
The far-right also weighed in with criticism on Tuesday.
"These soldiers were doing their duty, but they did not die for France. They died in an unending war that the United States is waging in that country for its own interests," said far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.
"Our soldiers should not be killed for Uncle Sam," he said in a statement.
Pollster Bruno Jeanbart said French politicians "will have to explain better to the French what is the role of their soldiers there, what they do there."
Kouchner told a NATO meeting in Brussels that the French troops died while "fighting for a part of world peace."
NATO is supporting the weak government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai against the Taliban.
The trip will be Sarkozy's second to Afghanistan following a visit on December 22.
France's contingent in Afghanistan has been mostly deployed in the Kabul area and the province of Kapisa, northeast of the capital.
As the U.S. armed forces have done so many times before, they entered the uncertainty of a new war in 2001, and are now trying to figure out what they gained from it. Most of what went on during this war was unreported or misreported. This is nothing new. The important details, and lessons, of all past American wars were poorly reported, and what the military is trying to avoid is taking away the wrong lessons.
Throughout the current conflict, the military made no secret of what they were doing, and just kept focused on winning. They knew they would be dealing with an unusual enemy, a stateless force based on ideology and religion based hatred. This foe was weak, in the conventional military sense, but was armed with two powerful weapons. First, there was the suicide bomber, and terrorism in general. Against civilian populations, this was a very effective weapon. Against a professional and resourceful military foe, it was much less so. But the enemy had another weapon; the media and political opposition in their opponents homeland. The media is eager to report real or imagined disasters and mistakes. This is how the news business has stayed solvent since the mass media first appeared in the mid 19th century. Al Qaeda was run by people who were aware of this, and knew how to exploit it, both among friendly (Moslem) populations, and in nations they had declared their enemy. This they did by exploiting the proclivities of the political oppositions in the West.
Many in the West considered terrorism a police matter. But al Qaeda believed that if they could turn it into a military campaign, by getting Western nations to use military force, they would trigger an angry reaction among Moslems. Al Qaeda had long preached that the West was the enemy of Islam, and a Western invasion of Moslem nations would prove this. They also knew that many in the West would not approve of military action. These politicians, and their followers, would continue to insist on treating Islamic terrorism as a police matter. This would cause political turmoil in the West, and weaken counter-terror operations.
The invasion of Afghanistan, after September 11, 2001, did indeed enrage many Moslems, even though many of them admitted that the Taliban government there had provided bases for al Qaeda. But the Islamic terrorists also took advantage of the fact that Moslems did not use the same logic as Westerners. Even after the Taliban government quickly fell in late 2001, to an "invasion force" of only 300 NATO troops (U.S. Army special forces and CIA agents), many Moslems insisted this was an unwarranted attack on a Moslem nation. This despite the fact that most Afghans wanted to be rid of the Taliban. And then it got worse, as many Moslems insisted that al Qaeda did not carry out the September 11, 2001 attacks. Many Moslems(and some in the West) still believe that the Israelis were behind it, or that the Americans staged an attack on themselves to provide an excuse to make war on Islamic nations. Al Qaeda knew how to exploit fantasies and cultural biases, even while al Qaeda leaders were taking credit for the 911 attacks.
The invasion of Iraq was even more contentious. In hindsight, the Iraq operation was essential to the defeat of al Qaeda, and the shattering of their popular support in the Moslem world. Al Qaeda, true to its own beliefs and tactics, tried to use terror attacks against the Shia Arab majority in Iraq, after 2003, as a way to put the Sunni Arab minority back in control. All this did was kill thousands of Moslem civilians and deflate popular support for al Qaeda. This could be seen, year by year, as opinion polls in Moslem countries revealed declining al Qaeda popularity.
But al Qaeda still had a lot of Support in the West. The political opposition in the United States, true to form (as in all past American wars) found ways to criticize the Iraq operation without actually joining the enemy. The media in the West backed the opposition, as that's where the headlines, and the profits, were.
Out of all this, the American military found other lessons. Their professional and resourceful troops found ways to neutralize enemy weapons (suicide and roadside bombs) while keeping their casualty rate at less than half what it was in Vietnam and pervious wars. The generals got no credit, in the media, for that, but the troops sure appreciated it. This resulted in the volunteer military to maintain its strength in wartime, the first time the U.S. had accomplished that since the American Revolution.
The troops developed a wide array of new techniques for fighting "irregular wars" (where the opponent is not a regular army.) The military adapted many new technologies to this new kind of war (smart bombs, data mining, forensics, persistent surveillance and lots of modern police techniques). The new problem is transferring as much of this new knowledge to future conventional wars. And there will be a transference. Most other major military powers are also trying to figure that out, so they can also profit from the American success.
Finally, the continued hammering the military is taking, for "failing" in this new kind of war, at least makes it less likely that there will be a problem with the victory disease (where winning brings with it complacency and all the ills that follow believing your own press releases.)
The latest from Operation Enduring Freedom showing the activities of American troops in country. Produced by AFN-Afghanistan.
Former Oklahoma women's basketball star Captain Caton Hill says that while "there is some anxiety" about heading to Afghanistan for combat duty with the U.S. Army, she's confident she's prepared. 
