FEATURES
Speaking PASHTO S
Flight Lieutenant Dave Collins is a communications electronics specialist. Last year, the 28-year-old from Bolton decided he wanted to do something a bit different. Fifteen months later he found himself in conversation with an Afghan elder during a shura*.
ince joining the RAF I have mostly been based in Cyprus, working with the Joint Service Signals Unit. I have always been
interested in languages and liked the idea of doing something a bit different.
I applied to the Defence Operational Languages Support Unit to see if I could do an operational language course and within a few short months found myself starting a 15-month Pashto course at the Defence School of Languages at Beaconsfield.
Halfway through the course I was told that, on completion, I would be deploying to Afghanistan to work as an interpreter for the Military Stabilisation Support Group MSSG on Op HERRICK 14. This meant that, during the final stages of the language course I also
had to take part in intensive pre-deployment training with elements of 3 Commando Brigade ahead of the start of their tour.
Assigned to the Military Stabilisation Support Team in the Nad ‘Ali (South) district of Helmand province and attached to 45 Commando Royal Marines, I was in at the deep end. Almost immediately, I found myself being given the challenging but important job of deploying to an area in the Bolan Dashte (desert). This area has a history of insurgent activity and very little ISAF or, more importantly, Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) influence.
Knowing the enemy was potentially just around the next corner, I found the prospect of the task daunting. Our mission was to try
and convince a sceptical farming community that GIRoA, of which they had seen little or no evidence, and not the insurgents, was capable of offering a better future for them and for Afghanistan. These people were scraping a living from an unforgiving desert, as they had done for decades, and were not easily convinced.
Certainly my acquired language skills have helped to make the work of troops operating in the area easier and I have found my ability to speak Pashto has been a huge advantage. I can directly engage with the people. This might be talking to farmers whilst out on patrol, a shura with local elders and waqils [elected leaders from amongst the elders who represent a region at district council level] or partnering with members of the Afghan National Security Forces.
Flight Lieutenant Dave Collins with a member of the Afghan National Civil Order Police 18 Envoy Winter 2011
www.raf-ff.org.uk
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