JUNCTION, Texas (Tribune News Service) — A group of Afghan commandos gathered in Texas earlier this month to prepare for a special mission: changing the hearts and minds of their own military and countrymen.
Commandos are highly respected in Afghanistan, considered national heroes by many.
But lose a limb, and the Afghan army has little use for them. Typically, the wounded soldiers are forced onto pensions or into the world to fend for themselves.
That's what Command Sgt. Maj. Faiz Mohammad Wafa, the top enlisted leader for Afghanistan's special operations forces, hopes to change. Wafa brought with him to Texas four commandos, each missing a leg, who will form the base of a new wounded warrior program.
The program, for Afghan special operators, will be the first of its kind for a nation that has a growing population of wounded warriors spanning generations.
With the cooperation of U.S. Special Operations Command and NATO Special Operations Component Command Afghanistan, Wafa led his commandos to the Hill Country of south Texas for the weeklong visit.
The men learned how to open up about their own injuries and were coached on public speaking, fundraising and how to best care for others like them.
Wafa considers the mission a matter of national security.
Without proof that the army takes care of its own and their families, he said, how can it expect new recruits to put their lives on the line?
Roever Foundation
Wafa and his commandos arrived in Texas on March 29, traveling with two U.S. soldiers from the Afghan National Army Special Operations Command Special Operations Advisory Group.
Their week stay came on a picturesque ranch spanning roughly 250 acres.
On a veranda overlooking a sweeping landscape filled with passing antelope, sheep and other animals, Wafa said a wounded warrior program was integral to the continued success of the Afghan army.
Leading the charge was the Roever Foundation, a Texas-based nonprofit that operates two ranches offering programs for wounded warriors.
At the foundation's Eagles Summit Ranch, roughly two hours outside of San Antonio, Dave Roever and his son, Matt, led the weeklong engagement with the Afghan commandos.
Dave Roever is a wounded warrior himself, having served in Vietnam in the Navy as a Brown Water Black Beret.
Eight months into his tour in 1969, Roever was burned beyond recognition when a phosphorous grenade exploded in his hand. He spent 14 months hospitalized and underwent numerous surgeries, but his sense of humor and purpose were unscathed.
In the decades following his injuries, Roever has spoken to an estimated 7million students in public schools across the country.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he refocused his mission, aiming to serve a new generation of wounded warriors.
It was through those efforts that Roever met the current commander of Fort Bragg and the 18th Airborne Corps, Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson.
Anderson became familiar with the foundation while stationed in Colorado, home of the first Eagles Summit Ranch.
In the years since, Roever has conducted several programs for Anderson's soldiers and has attended the general's changes of command and promotions.
Last year, Anderson invited him to participate in a Sept. 11 memorial in Kabul.
During that visit, Roever met Wafa.
The two now describe themselves — and Anderson — as brothers.
"If it had not been for Gen. Anderson, this would not have happened," Roever said.
He said his organization was more than willing to help the Afghans at no cost.
As he sat and listened to the commandos' stories, Roever said he became aware of the many similarities between the commandos and U.S. soldiers, despite the language barrier.
Heroes
The four men Wafa handpicked to start the wounded warrior program live up to the lofty expectations that come with the commando moniker.
Wafa used his position to ensure they were allowed to continue to serve, even as others pressured them to leave the military.
Nearing the end of the week in Texas, Wafa said he was proud of his men and said he had seen phenomenal things from them.
Wafa, a 31-year-old senior leader with 20 years of combat experience that began with the Northern Alliance, said he had spent three years working with some of the men to get them to tell their stories.
At Eagles Summit Ranch, the commandos opened up more in a single week than they had in those previous years, Wafa said.
From the beginning of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, Wafa has been center stage.
He was a young captain in the Northern Alliance in 2001 when he provided the first Special Forces teams horses, inadvertently contributing to their nickname of "Horse Soldiers."
Those were the first foreigners Wafa had ever met.
He also was there when Mike Spann, the first U.S. casualty of the war in Afghanistan, was killed. The pair had been living alongside each other, Wafa said, bowing his head in respect.
And in the years that have followed, Wafa has developed even tighter bonds with his U.S. counterparts.
He trained at Fort Bragg for two years — the most important years of his life, Wafa said — and continues to make frequent trips to meet with military leaders in what he calls his second home.
Afghanistan still has much to learn from its American partners, Wafa said, including how to care for its wounded warriors.
The concept is a new one for the country, he said.
"I think that without the wounded warrior program, we can't train more heroes," Wafa said. "Our army is volunteer. If they don't see support, they would leave."
Eagles Summit Ranch
Wafa said he eventually hopes to have soldiers stationed across Afghanistan to work with wounded warriors in their own communities.
The visit to Texas was the first step in that process, he said.
"I have to find the right people first, who can learn to help the others," Wafa said. "It's train the trainers."
Wafa believes he has the right foundation with the four commandos who accompanied him.
Each described going above and beyond the line of duty in the moments before their injuries and a will to again contribute to the Afghan army, even if it's in this new capacity.
"This is a long process," Wafa said. "But it's phenomenal. This will be a lot of work. We will need international donations. But I will do my best."
Roever said his organization will be there to help.
"We're here," he said, stressing the partnership won't end when the Afghans leave Texas.
The organization is committed to helping to build a headquarters for the wounded warrior program in Afghanistan, he said.
Roever's son, Matt, said the Afghans underwent a program known as Operation Warrior RECONnect, which was meant to build self-esteem among wounded warriors through mentoring, educational opportunities and tools for overcoming physical injury and post-traumatic stress.
They heard from various wounded warriors and participated in team-building and therapeutic activities. The program ended with a graduation ceremony that included public remarks to the congregation of nearby Calvary Temple Church, longtime supporters of the Roever Foundation.
Matt Roever said the stories he heard the Afghans tell were similar to those he's heard from Fort Bragg wounded warriors.
The Fort Bragg soldiers have a reputation for heroism and selfless acts being tied to their injures, he said.
"You never heard a sob story out of Bragg," he said. "The commandos have adapted to that culture. It's part of the process of them being able to talk about it."
CARE
Master Sgt. Troy Konvicka, a representative of the CARE Coalition based in nearby San Antonio, made a short presentation to the commandos on behalf of his organization, which supports wounded, ill or injured special operations forces and their families.
He stayed with the Afghans for two days, urging them on as they opened up about their injuries.
"Every one of you went above and beyond," Konvicka told them. "Y'all need to be the face of wounded warriors in Afghanistan."
But Konvicka said the soldiers cannot do it alone.
"You have a great plan," he said. "But you're going to have people with you."
In Afghanistan, amputees aren't seen as useful members of society, Konvicka said.
"They feel that you're not whole," he said, and the commandos will have a tough time changing that perception.
But, he said, similar perceptions were common in the U.S. military until recently.
"Everything starts small," he said.
The U.S. takes its support structure for granted, he said, but it has grown tremendously over the past decade. It was only recently that U.S. troops missing limbs were allowed to return to combat.
A wounded warrior program can help make similar advances in Afghanistan, Konvicka said.
"It's important that they establish a foundation and support channel, not just for their soldiers but for their soldiers' families," he said. "If a soldier knows, 'I'm going to be taken care of,' you will see better quality recruits."
They want to take care of their own, Konvicka said, and the American system can be a model for Afghanistan.
Charity
A day before graduation, Matt Roever had a surprise for the Afghan commandos.
After three days of sessions, the men asked foundation leaders why they had not heard from women.
Wafa said hearing a woman's perspective was important for the soldiers, given the number of Afghan women injured by insurgent attacks.
So on Thursday, Matt Roever proudly presented a friend of the foundation, Charity Freeland.
Freeland received second- and third-degree burns over 75 percent of her body in a fiery car accident at age 17.
She had heard Dave Roever speak to her class the year before, she said, and found comfort in his story as she lay burning in a car on a Texas highway.
"I remembered from Dave's story that this was something that I could live through," she said.
Charity was on her way to a school event when her car hydroplaned during a storm and collided with oncoming traffic.
Her sister and a friend escaped, but she was trapped in the burning car until a jammed seat belt snapped in the heat, freeing her but not before she had been covered in flames.
As Charity told her painful story and detailed her recovery, which included 30 surgeries, the commandos sat at rapt attention.
One, Mirwais, openly wept. Another told Charity she was stronger than all of the commandos.
"The scars can never go away," Charity said. "They couldn't make me what I was before."
"I had to make choices, even there in the hospital. I did not want to be an angry, bitter person. ... I didn't want people to pity me or feel sorry for me."
But, Charity said, she did have to learn how to educate others on how to treat her — a battle the commandos are all too familiar with.
"When I meet people, I don't expect them to treat me badly," Charity said. "If I see myself as broken and of no value, other people will see me as broken and of no value.
"The outside doesn't match inside."
Mirwais
After Freeland spoke, the Afghans took turns telling their own stories.
Mirwais, missing his left leg from above the knee, hopped to the chair in the center of the ranch veranda when it was time to tell his story.
After he was injured in Kandahar province, Mirwais had only one person on his mind — his love of four years.
In a hospital, he told his fiance to leave him.
"My life is already ruined and destroyed," he said.
She refused, Mirwais said with a smile. "She said 'No, I just need your two eyes and that's enough.' "
Mirwais' journey began as a young man in Afghanistan who eagerly read of the commandos in newspapers and listened to stories of their heroics on the radio.
He wanted to join the military at a young age. He wanted to be a commando, he said, and he achieved his goals.
But just three months into his assignment with the special operations kandak in Kandahar, Mirwais was injured while clearing buildings on a joint U.S.-Afghan patrol.
Mirwais said he was following behind engineers clearing a path into a building when he stepped on an improvised explosive device.
Wafa jokes that with his first words after the explosion, Mirwais cursed the engineers who had gone before him.
But Mirwais said he only remembers screaming for help while still aflame.
To his rescue came two American soldiers, who jumped on the commando, smothered the flames and carried him to a helicopter.
"I'm a patriot. I don't care that I lost my leg. ... My job was to fight for Afghan freedom," he said while thanking the people of the country that saved his life.
Looking around at his fellow commandos, Mirwais said he no longer feels like his life was ruined.
"I'm not alone," he said.
Military editor Drew Brookscan be reached at brooksd@fayobserver.com or 486-3567.
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