Kabul, Afghanistan (Army News Service Nov. 1, 2004) -- “You keep hitting the home runs.”

When U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Craig P. Weston made the remark in October, he was not complimenting either team in the World Series back home.

Instead, he was speaking to the team of the Office of Military Cooperation – Afghanistan about its achievements in the last couple of months.

Weston, chief of OMC-A, is in charge of military personnel from both the active and reserve components of the U.S. Armed Forces, military personnel from the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Romania, and civilian contractors, who along with the government of Afghanistan and the international community, is responsible for the reconstruction of the Afghan Security and Defense sectors in order to deliver a stable Afghanistan that deters and defeats terrorism within its borders.

OMC-A’s mission entails everything from recruiting soldiers to training the recruiters, from organizing the Ministry of Defense to mentoring its senior leaders and the general staff, from obtaining weapons, uniforms, and equipment to developing the policies and processes needed by a modern army to establish its own acquisition system, its own personnel system and all the other systems required to make a working military infrastructure.

During his visit, Weston praised OMC-A members on their recent accomplishments and informed them on the challenges that lie ahead.

Weston said that, for the most part, they cannot just do what needs to be done. They must help, assist, guide, and mentor but must “lead from the rear” the Afghans in doing the myriad of tasks that have to be accomplished to build an entire national defense structure.

OMC-A has completed numerous taskings in the past 60 days, including helping to stand up four Afghan National Army regional commands in September. The commands, each commanded by an ANA major general, were stood up in Kandahar Sept. 19, Gardez Sept. 22, Mazar-e-Sharif Sept. 26 and Heart Sept. 28.

“Standing up these commands was a major, major milestone,” Weston said. “This was a very large political milestone and very symbolic milestone. It stood up their army in all four corners of the country.”

Each of these commands has a permanent staff and a garrison, Weston explained. Although only activated for a short time, they are already getting traction. The commanders are sitting on local security councils in their regions and played important roles in providing local election security, he said.

As important as the regional command activations were, they were but a prelude for what Weston termed “the biggest milestone in our time and for the Afghans in 5,000 years,” -- Afghanistan’s first free presidential election held Oct. 9.

“You can take great pride in what you did to make this election possible,” Weston told the members of OMC-A. “You helped build the small army that was all over this country. Their presence made a big difference. There were no huge terrorist incidents, in large part because the Afghan National Army was out there, an army that you helped build and nurture,” he continued.

Weston said that there had been a turn-about in the media stories about the election, changing from reporting on the ink-coming-off-voter-thumbs problem to reporting on what a major achievement this had been for the Afghan people.

He related a couple of illustrations of how determined the Afghans were to vote, such as the elderly man who had his sons carry him from his sickbed to go vote or the women who made their final absolutions because they were sure they would be killed if they went to vote -- and yet they went and voted.

The election has been a huge victory for the Afghan people, Weston said. They have elected to take the high road that leads to a bright future for their country.

“This was a victory that you helped make possible,” the OMC-A chief said. “You made a difference in building this army. You can take that with you for the rest of your life, that you were here on Afghan’s Election Day and that you helped build the army that made it possible.”

Other taskings the 150 men and women of OMC-A have supported include:

o Assisting the Ministry of Defense in approving 90 percent of the billets needed to build the MoD.

o Guiding general officer selection boards. This is another new experience for the Afghans. The key is to mentor the Afghans to select leaders based not on family or tribal connections but on merit and who’s the right person for the job. “This has been a fairly arduous process,” Weston said, “but we have mentored the Afghans to do the right thing and they have been very pleased with the outcome.”

o Assisting with the largest ANA airlift to date where hundreds of Afghan National Army troops, along with their embedded U.S. trainers, conducted a rapid deployment to Shindand Airfield in western Afghanistan in August to put an end to a serious outbreak of factional fighting there.

o Holding the first ever human resources conference in order to implement a new civil service system.

o Reforming the military justice system. For example, a system for non-judicial punishment had to be created in order to properly discipline the minor infractions that routinely occur in any military organization.

o Graduating the first class of Inspectors General for the Ministry of Defense and Afghan National Army.

Weston said that all the pieces of the Afghan defense sector are now in motion and all the processes are in play and that much good work is being done all around.

For example, the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) program, which had been stalled, was now showing considerable progress. More than 2,800 heavy weapons have now been cantoned under government control. This is 66 percent of the operational heavy weapons believed to be in the country, Weston said. Also some 23,000 Afghan Militia Force fighters have been disarmed, which is about 40 percent of the AMF. Current plans call for all AMF fighters to be disarmed by June 2005 and all of them to be reintegrated into Afghan society into new occupations and livelihoods by June 2006, he added.

Weston discussed what lies ahead for OMC-A:

o Continuing to build and open the National Army Volunteer Centers across the country, which enable the ANA to continue to have the ethnic balance so important for the national army.

o Establishing the next three ANA brigade sites.

o Obligating the funding for ANA light and medium tactical vehicles.

o Going from training four battalions simultaneously at the Kabul Military Training Center to five battalions. By increasing the number of battalions training to five, the date for finishing the fielding of the ANA’s ground combat force advances from September 2009 to September 2007.

He said the good news for OMC-A was that the great work it was doing was being recognized in Washington, D.C., and the bad news was that its great work was recognized in Washington, D.C., which meant that more work would be coming.