As a Captain with the South Carolina Army National Guard, deployed to Afghanistan, I witnessed the great strength of America from remote and impoverished areas. I was deployed to serve as a mentor for the Afghan National Police (ANP). My team’s mission was to establish security through embedded operations with the ANP and to build stronger relationships with area villagers. Despite significant religious, language, and cultural differences, the ANP and I found a common bond. Not as soldiers, but as husbands and fathers, both seeking security for our children and our countries.
Working to instill the pillars of our national security strategy—defense, diplomacy, and development—we also worked to assist the local population in meeting their needs for water, food, shelter and education. Through these efforts, I experienced the positive, long-lasting consequences that come with helping people obtain their most basic human needs. Respecting human rights, providing security, fostering stability, and creating goodwill results in a most unbreakable bond.
Extreme poverty, lack of opportunity, and hopelessness can create conditions in which extremist ideologies take root. As I witnessed in Afghanistan, a solid, unbiased development assistance plan not only improved the perception of the United States, it also helped create an environment that was less vulnerable to terrorists.
Our development assistance played a strong role in saving lives by promoting regional stability and strengthening our diplomatic power through good will. It was one of our most important initiatives; by helping others we served U.S. national security interests as well.
In August 2004 I was deployed to Iraq. Working as a combat medic with a FRSS attached to 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, I witnessed a little bit of everything. Most of the time our battalion was hit with indirect fire, mortar rounds and if someone was hurt during night ambushes, including civilians, we were the first call.
Although providing medical care to numerous Iraqis was part of our mission, it was the compassion and care we exchanged that I believe had a lasting impact. In one situation, my medical team performed life saving surgery on a young Iraqi woman, who was hit by shrapnel. Along with treating several more wounded. Sleep was never an option, nor was leaving her side. In those dark moments, when your main focus is caring for another human being, camaraderie is established.
That same camaraderie carried through as members of our battalion worked to rebuild schools and construct water filtration systems, which provided clean water for drinking and cooking. The things we easily take for granted were often life changing for the Iraqi people.
Our human acts and good deeds significantly supported our progress in Iraq. By helping these impoverished people with such basic needs, we were able to foster stability and create trust. It was a language we all spoke, an action we all responded to.
Today we have the distinct honor of bringing to you a very special series from men and women who have served in our Armed Services. This piece comes from Jake Harriman, founder and CEO of Nuru International. Jake served over 7 years in the Marine Corps as an Infantry Platoon Commander and a Special Operations Platoon Commander for an elite unit called Force Recon:
On this Veteran’s Day 2009, the United States once again finds itself engaged in conflict. As you read these words, the brave men and women of our armed forces are battling Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and splinter terrorist organizations in half a dozen other countries around the world.
But on this Veteran’s Day I want to speak to you from the frontlines of a different war – a war against a senseless, unnecessary evil that daily takes thousands more lives than are lost in Baghdad, Gaza, Kandahar, Mogadishu, and Jaffna combined. It is the war against extreme poverty.
I have had the unique experience of fighting in both of these battles.
I spent 7-and-a-half years as a Marine Corps Infantry and Special Operations Platoon Commander – serving four operational tours in Iraq, the Horn of Africa, and other areas of southwest Asia. During combat operations in Iraq, I had several very profound experiences that awakened me to the fact that the only way to see the end of terrorism is to end extreme poverty.
My men and I saw the desperation in the eyes of poor farmers who were coerced by Jihadists into fighting the Americans. Why? Is it out of some misplaced/ignorant sense of hatred for the West and all it stands for? No. It is because the farmers’ children were starving and the Jihadists promised food, education and money if they fought the Americans.
Extreme poverty strips a person of real choices. A life without choices leads to desperation, and desperate people do desperate things.
When my commitment was up, I left my career in the Marines and set out to create an organization to fight extreme poverty. Nuru International partners with the rural poor in the developing world and other nonprofit and for profit organizations to end extreme poverty one community at a time. We don’t give handouts, but instead through training and empowerment we actually equip the poor to become the answers to their own problems.
There is hope for those without choices. We can end extreme poverty in our lifetimes, and in so doing, answer the cry of the desperate, give a voice to the voiceless, and provide choices to impoverished men and women who have been struggling for so long.
A revolution has begun…a revolution to wake up and mobilize a generation to end this fight once and for all. There is no room in this fight for egos, partisan politics, or ideological differences. One sixth of humanity cries out to us today – asking you and me to simply put our differences aside and use our talent, skills and resources to empower them with choices. This Veteran’s Day, I ask you to step forward and get in the fight with us. In so doing, you will ensure that thousands of brave veterans and countless global citizens have not sacrificed their lives in this war in vain. Join the revolution. Be hope. Be light. Be Nuru.
As you probably know, tomorrow November 11th is Veterans Day. The ONE Blog will have the unique honor of running a very special series from men and women who have served in our Armed Services. While serving overseas, our veterans have an opportunity to see firsthand the connection between helping some of the world’s poorest people and our national security.
So be sure to check the ONE Blog throughout the day for some of these really great stories.
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