Afghan Actors, French Photographers

No, you're not witnessing a battle. You've heard me talk before about the difficulties with literacy in Afghanistan. Most people can't read, and that includes the soldiers.

We're working hard to change that with literacy programs. We have full time army soldiers and DOD civilians running many different programs.

In the meantime, we use visual aids to teach the soldiers. We obviously want them to obey the laws of war and to treat civilians and prisoners humanely.

We have started a project that will result in a comic book of sorts being presented to the new soldiers showing them what is right and wrong on the battlefield. Some French photographers were commissioned to do the job, and I was tasked to help them find scenery, soldiers and equipment to do the photo shoot. Above you see a mock battle scene, with the photographers on the right.


Note the harsh mountainous Afghan landscape. No trees. No vegetation.

Many people ask me about sand. I haven't seen any. This isn't the desert. It's mountainous, with dirt and rock. When the snow melts, there's lots of mud. Lots.

Below we see the actors surrendering to real Afghan soldiers. The idea here is that you don't kill prisoners. At least we still abide by the rules.


Note the mud.

I enjoyed working with the French photographers. Nice guys. When we were first introduced, they seemed to pity me for being stuck in Afghanistan. They were very surprised to learn that I actually volunteered. They couldn't believe that an American lawyer would ask for this duty.

Maybe it sounds strange, but this made me very proud to be an American.