His mission: Helping Afghans be all they can be

By FELICIA KITZMILLER/Index-Journal staff writer

On May 8, Capt. Brian Pinson, of the South Carolina 218th Infantry Unit, arrived home in Greenwood after a yearlong deployment in Afghanistan.

“It’s exciting to have him home. It’s almost like he never left, it feels so natural now,” said his mother, Carol Pinson.

“It’s still weird,” Brian Pinson said of being back in South Carolina.

Even after a month of being home, simple things still seem foreign to him.
Trees and grass are strange to see after a year of nothing but sand, rocks and mountains, he said.

A lot of things people do automatically have taken some adjusting for Pinson as well. He remembered feeling strange “the first time I got in a car, and I didn’t have to worry about an IED or suicide bomber.”

But there are traffic laws here to worry about, something else that is very different from traveling in Afghanistan.

“I think while I was there I saw one stop sign,” Pinson said.

Pinson joined the National Guard after high school because he knew he wanted to go to college, but not yet, he said. He did his basic training at Fort Benning, Ga., and since then has been to officer school, became Airborne Ranger certified, attended The Citadel and served in Bosnia for seven months in 2003.

While he was in Afghanistan, Pinson was an embedded tactical trainer on the border with Pakistan. He spent most of his time training the Afghan border patrol in marksmanship and logistics.

“We are trying to get them like us,” Pinson said.

The Afghan army is extremely unorganized and inefficient, he said. His unit worked to put in place a system by which the army could operate effectively.

Often their men lack simple supplies such as uniforms, trucks and machine guns. But it isn’t because the materials aren’t out there; it’s because the supply line gets clogged, Pinson said. His unit tried to teach the Afghans record keeping so they would know what they asked for, what they received and what they still needed.

To Pinson, the teaching function of his mission was perhaps the most important.

“If we’re over there and we’re just worried about killing Taliban, we’ve done nothing for the longevity of the province,” he said. “The more resources they have, the more confident they’re going to be. � We want to leave there one day.”

The U.S. Army also helped the Afghan economy by paying local contractors to reinforce lookout posts along the border with updated materials. It helped relations between the Afghan army and the people to have money coming into the local economy, Pinson said.

The 218th went on missions with the border patrol, mostly medical-related, and did some aid drops as well, said Pinson. Soldiers would go into a town and set up security, and the whole day U.S. Army doctors would take care of the people of that town because they don’t have any doctors.

“I saw our taxpayer dollars go to some really good things,” he said. “They loved having us around.”

Of course, not every moment was touching and heartfelt. While Pinson was in Afghanistan, three members of his unit were killed.

His mother said she was always anxious when she saw Afghanistan in the news.

“Whenever I saw Afghanistan on the TV, I got that knot in my stomach,” she said.

“It’s hard. You try not to think about it. Soldiers are still over there fighting for their country,” Pinson said.

Pinson was the only National Guard member of his unit, and though he is home, the rest of the 218th remains in Afghanistan until December.

“I worry about them from time to time,” he said.

Since coming home, Pinson has been spending time with family and friends, and enjoying simple pleasures such as going to the beach and junk food. He’s back working at Farm Bureau as an insurance agent and will continue with the Guard one weekend a month.