Friday, January 13, 2006
Army Reserve Capt. Allan Dollison, right, walks with his interpreter, Daud Mohammed, on the National Directorate for Security compound. The NDS is similar to an FBI-type of organization. Dollison has been in Afghanistan for the past seven months.
Photo by: Courtesy to the Ledger Dispatch
In this picture taken on Aug. 31, 2005, Dollison speaks with the mayor of Gereshk, Said Ali Shah, through an interpreter. The group was at an event where U.S. troops were donating a trash truck.
Photo by: Courtesy to the Ledger Dispatch
The ongoing war in Afghanistan, the struggle against Taliban forces and the United States' steady attempts to repair the country are only some of the foreign affairs of high priority in the media, as they share the spotlight with wars in Iraq and on terror in general. However, continuing efforts to rebuild and stabilize Afghanistan remain the purpose of many American soldiers' overseas lives, including former Jackson resident Allan L. Dollison.
Dollison, once a public defender who worked on various high profile cases in Amador County, has been in Afghanistan since June serving his role as an Army Reserve captain, helping to build the capacity of the country's government, increase security and provide resources to target reconstruction projects that will help the country move forward.
"How has (my time and work in Afghanistan) affected me? I think it has opened my eyes to the considerable poverty that exists in the world," Dollison wrote via e-mail from Afghanistan. "It has reinforced my commitment to the Army, my country, and this most important larger mission which we call the Global War on Terror."
Dollison is assigned to what is called a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in the southern part of the country, which he says is plagued with some of the "heaviest concentration of enemy activity" of all the regions. In the PRT, Dollison works as a civil affairs officer in charge of a four-person team whose purpose is to visit different villages and speak with elders and district level governments to find out what their needs are and, subsequently, come up with projects and supply assistance to address those needs.
"I would say that 50 percent of my time is managing reconstruction to rebuild the province and the other 50 percent is in building the capacity of the Afghan government," he said. While he and other PRT members don't do the actual rebuilding themselves, they do hire contractors with the goal of empowering and employing Afghans, thus expanding their economy.
Because of drawn-out wars and years of struggle and poverty, Afghanistan was in severely poor shape when troops like Dollison's arrived and began efforts to rebuild it. "This is, without a doubt, one of the poorest countries in the world," Dollison said. "The 25 years of war first by the Russians, and even during the Taliban times, now since 2001, have really wreaked havoc on Afghanistan - it really had no built up infrastructure when we arrived."
When Dollison meets with village elders and government officials, the building request he gets most often is for schools, followed by an improvement of agricultural irrigation and "bazaar roads" - a main road through a village where all commercial activity takes place. The team has used funding to buy heavy machinery and road equipment to enable and encourage the Afghan government to take over the building of its roads.
Civil affairs teams are made up of mainly Army Reserve soldiers who have "civilian skills that help them interact with governments and even ordinary people," Dollison said. A licensed lawyer in California, Dollison is able to assist with Afghanistan's legal reform.
"I would say that the prosecutor and some in the police department have been receptive (to my help)," Dollison said. "They want to learn. They want to improve their system. They want to re-establish security for their own country. They know that an effective legal system is the key to that. The prosecutor and the police and criminal investigators are constantly asking me questions, wanting my help and wanting to learn. Probably the most positive aspect is their receptiveness to make the system work."
Dollison said that while large media outlets don't focus on the work in Afghanistan as much as they do with Iraq, he doesn't feel that the troops in his area have been overlooked or forgotten.
"I have more than enough resources, troops and equipment to effectively do my job," he said. "We have newer weapons, better radios and more computers to effectively do our jobs."
Though the region he's stationed in is more enemy-ridden than others, Dollison feels that many Afghans support the United States' presence and work in the country.
The Afghan people "support us. I receive mostly thumbs-up and smiles - (but) that doesn't mean that there is no enemy."
While Dollison was unable to go into details of terrorist or Taliban presence in his area and resistance to U.S. forces, he did refer to icasualties.org, a Web site that lists military fatalities. According to the site, there have been a total of 259 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan as a part of "Operation Enduring Freedom" since 2001, with each year seeing more deaths. For example, while 52 U.S. casualties were recorded in 2004, 99 were recorded for 2005.
Dollison has even had his own run-ins with resistance and was nominated for the Combat Action Badge for a counter-attack he led against enemies who fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades at his convoy. In this encounter no U.S. soldiers were injured but, two enemies were killed.
"We have been lucky and have not lost a life, yet," Dollison said. "Some have been injured, though. That is the sobering fact that there is still very much a war going on here."
Dollison is set to return to the United States in June. Because of Army Reserve policy that says reservists can only be activated two out of every five years, were he to be deployed again, it could be no sooner than two years from his return date.
Dollison has an extensive military career that began in 1989 and has remained strong ever since. He said that while he is mainly a career reservist, his services have been in greater demand since 2001 and that he has "gladly answered that call." When he comes home, he will return to a unit in Santa Barbara. He said he has two daughters, 5 and 6, who are eagerly awaiting his return from the one-year tour of Afghanistan.
"The greatest reward is helping people," he said. "Bringing them smiles, seeing them grateful for what you are doing, giving little kids hope, modernizing the country and showing them that America, a predominantly Christian nation, can be friends and partners with Afghanistan, an exclusively Muslim nation."
More on Dollison:
State Bar Association Allan Lee Dollison
Like Gallegos, he did not go to an accredited Law School - Western State Univ was not an accredited Law School at the time Dollison attended. It has recently become accredited.
Like Stoen and Schwartz, this guy likes to run for office:
Senatorial candidate suspended in 2000
Smart Voter - Philosophy
Smart Voter, March 2, 2004 Election - Our Environment
He also ran for the California Assembly in 1994.
Discussion at watchpaul:
Tim Stoen, Jeffrey "yougofree.com" Schwartz, and now this...
What're we talkin' about here? Moral Turpitude
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