CHRISTMAS FOR OUR TROOPS UPDATE

Written by Town of Weathersfield

Thursday, 23 October 2008 12:14

The Weathersfield Veterans Memorial Committee, motivated by Lisa Sargent and with much help from the Weathersfield School, Weathersfield Proctor Library, The Ascutney Union Church, and other organizations, has been collecting "comfort items" (SPF cream, baggies, small electronic games, etc), and school supplies (paper, pens, markers, etc intended for a military unit to donate to a local school for their use.) The Committee wanted to do something special to support our troops, and to reach out to school children trying to learn in a combat zone. We have been successful in collecting some items, but we still need more. Right now we have a few medium sized boxes of items, but we would like to double what we have in the next few weeks. So, please help. You can email me if you would like to donate items. We have been looking for a soldier or organization to receive these gifts. Well, after many emails we have decided to support LTC Dan Molind and Team Stone deployed in Afghanistan. Below is a news article copied from the Jan 22, 2008 Barre Times Argus about this organization. BERLIN - Katie Molind, her blond hair tied back with a camouflage scarf, sang "America the Beautiful" in front of more than 80 people enjoying a potluck in the Central Vermont Academy gym Thursday night. But the person the 11-year-old was really singing for was her father, the guest of honor, Lt. Col. Daniel Molind. He and 15 other members of the Vermont Army National Guard will leave this week for 400 days of service in Afghanistan. He heads Task Force Stone, whose mission is to train Afghan security forces. The members of Task Force Stone, almost all of them volunteers, were selected from different units of the Vermont Guard for their particular skills. Many have backgrounds in law enforcement. Two are state troopers and two are game wardens. The group also includes an insurance investigator; an entomologist - a Ph.D. who works for the Vermont Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation; men with backgrounds in telecommunications and medicine; and a Home Depot employee, who is in charge of logistics for the group. Because the members will be working one-to-one with Afghan policemen and acting as their mentors, there are no women in this task force. Five of the group live in central Vermont, two are from the Rutland area and five more come from other towns around the state. One comes from each of four other states. A task force is always named, said Molind, Task Force Stone's commander. (Previous groups include Task Force Green Mountain and Task Force Catamount.) When Molind asked the men what they should call themselves, they suggested the name of Sgt. 1st Class Tom Stone of Tunbridge, who lost his life in 2006 during his third tour in Afghanistan with the Guard. Stone's friends say the man, who walked around the world in the 1990s, was motivated by a desire to know other people and cultures and to help. "Certainly he had qualities we would all aspire to," Molind said. "I put it to a vote over hamburgers and hot dogs one night. It was unanimous that's what we wanted to do. It sort of set the tone for the team and what we're trying to accomplish." Molind is a tall, blond man with an easy manner. He wears gold-rimmed glasses and polo shirts, and has the comfortable air of an elementary school principal. He entered the Guard's commissioning program at 20, after getting an associate's degree in criminal justice. He has a bachelor's degree in psychology from Lyndon State College and a master's in information operations and assurance from Norwich University. Last year he earned another master's degree in international studies and public diplomacy from the Navy War College. "We have a broad spectrum of specialities going with us - logistics, medical support, command and control," Molind said. "We'll be assisting (the Afghans) across the broad range of their duties." The goal is to help the Afghans to develop the capability of providing security for themselves. "This is one of those missions that contributes directly to the ability to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan," he noted. "Certainly, our mission in Afghanistan has the most direct links to terrorism and the attacks on 9/11," he added. The clarity of the mission has made it easier for spouses and employers to accept, he said, and the men themselves "believe it's the right thing to do." Among them is Maj. Greg Eckhardt, Molind's operations officer. "I'm an infantry guy, a combat arms officer," he says. He has spent more than 11 years on active duty, serving in various locations, including Bosnia and Peru, where he worked in a counterdrug operation. He got off active duty in 1997, came back to Vermont and took a job as a game warden. He lives in Poultney and is responsible for seven towns in Rutland County. "I kind of figured it was my duty to go," Eckhardt says. "A lot of guys, a lot of soldiers and service members have gone before me, and I haven't gone to either Iraq or Afghanistan, and I don't think it's right for people to be back here taking money and not doing their part, especially when it's an all-volunteer Army." Beyond that, Eckhardt, who has a master's degree in international relations, believes that the mission can bring about change in Afghanistan. "I think we - the U.S. - can still have a positive impact in Afghanistan," he says. "Nobody's expecting us to go over there and establish an American form of government immediately, but we'd like to give them the option of coming up with a decent way of governing themselves. I don't always feel that about different places that the U.S. has applied military force to politics, but I think in this case, we can make a positive impact." For Eckhardt, helping establish "an honest police force and honest military" that citizens can trust can contribute to creating a government that works. He sees Task Force Stone's mission as showing their Afghan counterparts, "Here's how you act as a professional force if you want to be taken seriously and not just feared by all your countrymen. "All they've know for the last 20 or 30 years is warfare, tribal fighting, power goes to the guy with the most guns," he observes. "That's not good for anybody - them or the rest of the world. Plus, maybe we'll be able to help them in their campaign against the guys who were responsible for 9/11." Task Force Stone is the only Vermont team that is deploying to Afghanistan, although about 1,500 members of the New York Army National Guard are going. Another small group of Vermonters will soon be coming home. "For the vast majority of the guys on my team, this is their first deployment," Molind observed. He is one of the exceptions. Two years ago, he went to Iraq on a mission for the Center for Army Lessons Learned, studying the Army's performance to learn "how to do the job better." Afterwards, he and his son went to Afghanistan on a medical mission with Dan's father, Dr. Samuel Molind. (The former Barre resident is now the mission director for Global Health Outreach.) "Once you get out there and see the need, it's very moving, and you want to try to help," he said. "You realize just how well we have it here in the United States." While Molind was in Afghanistan, he traveled to remote villages and "was really touched by that experience - not only the level of need, but I think also sort of a desire of the Afghan people to have a better life, to make things better than they are." He volunteered to lead Task Force Stone because, "I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to continue to contribute to safety and security there, and help (make) it to a better place for those people." In their free time, Molind and his team plan to do humanitarian relief work. "What I'd like to start is a grassroots effort of people sending us stuff to distribute while we're over there," Molind said. "We're going to start a drive or collection effort once we get established over there, so folks can send items needed. We've developed a list of the kinds of items we're looking for." The wives of several task force members are working on the project, he said. By March, Molind's wife, Cathy, will have an address where donations can be sent directly to Task Force Stone. < Prev   Next >