KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, Afghanistan — More than 100 soldiers in the brigade studied Arabic for 10 months. Their officers boned up on Iraq by reading dozens of books.
Then, five months ago, the 5,000 troops of the U.S. Army’s 5th Stryker Brigade were told they were headed to Afghanistan instead.
The Obama administration’s decision to switch America’s main battlefront from Iraq to Afghanistan is more than a geographic shift. While there are similarities between the two Muslim nations, there are also major differences in language, culture and topography.
The Fort Lewis, Wash.-based Stryker brigade, which arrived in southern Afghanistan last month, is among those scrambling to adapt.
There was only time to give about 50 soldiers a nine-week crash course in Pashto, the main language of southern Afghanistan.
“It was a whole 180-degree turn. It’s like English and French: some words are the same, but that’s it. The grammar is different, the sentences are different,” said Spec. John Dazey, a 21-year-old from Vacaville, Calif., who had to fit his training on driving combat vehicles around eight-hour-a-day language classes.
The soldiers will also encounter a society that is more conservative and traditional than Iraq’s.
While two-thirds of Iraq’s 28 million people live in major cities, three-fourths of the 34 million Afghans live in rural areas, where conservative values remain strong. Nearly three-quarters of Iraqis can read and write. In Afghanistan, only 28 percent are literate — with rates for women about half that.
All that is especially true among the Pashtuns, the biggest ethnic group and the vast majority of the Taliban.
Dazey has told the men in his squadron to avoid talking to women, or even looking at them — a glance at a burka-covered woman can be seen by her husband as a lewd come-on.
“The Pashtuns, we’ve been told the culture is a lot like the Arabic culture except it’s on steroids,” he said.
Perhaps most importantly, engaging Afghans — and the Pashtuns in particular — requires a different approach.
“Afghanistan is more of a tribal-based society,” said Lt. Col. William Clark, commander of the Stryker brigade’s 8th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment. “There are more informal leaders you have to recognize.”
