Soldiers Return after Efforts to Build an Afghan Agricultural Extension

Adjutant General Stephen Danner shares a private word with Lt. Col. Chris Jackson prior to giving him the order to dismiss the team.

By REBECCA TOWNSEND

Missouri News Horizon

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – With three missions now complete, the Missouri National Guard’s Agribusiness Development Teams may literally be turning Afghan swords into plowshares.

Deployed on its mission to Afghanistan since last September, 47 members of the guard’s third successive Agribusiness Development Team returned to central Missouri Sunday where Adjutant General Stephen Danner released them from duty.

The team worked with natives of the Nangarhar Province to strengthen the region’s agricultural capacity by building and networking both physical and intellectual infrastructure.

Lt. Col. Chris Jackson led the Missouri National Guard's third Agribusiness Development Team.

Lt. Col. Chris Jackson, a leader of the ADT III team, said he felt the greatest personal connection with an agricultural outreach network his group helped to build in Nangarhar Province.

Based on Missouri’s agricultural extension service, the Afghan project involved local academics and now has five extension centers in construction and another seven going through the budgeting process.

“I’m not sure about the national strategy, but for us we consider victory when we take military-age males and give them something to do and a way to earn a living, a way to feed and support their families and take them off the battlefield,” said Jackson, a 23 veteran of the Missouri National Guard.

“We’re over there doing our jobs, doing what we can to further the Afghan people, get done and get out.”

The Missouri National Guard was the first National Guard outfit in the nation to deploy an Agribusiness Development Team. Twelve states including Texas, California and Indiana now support similar teams in other provinces across Afghanistan.

Prior to giving orders for release, Danner said Missouri’s team had also inspired the Mississippi National Guard to start an agricultural unit, and he said he will likely send some Missouri team members to that state to help in its startup efforts.

Gov. Jay Nixon, State Senator Carl Vogel, R-Jefferson City, and representatives of U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Congressman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., joined the team’s families in Sunday’s welcome home ceremony.

Gov. Jay Nixon speaks at the welcoming ceremony as Adjutant General Stephen Danner looks on.

“Your mission – and that of all our agribusiness development teams— has been groundbreaking in its outreach to help the people of Afghanistan become self sufficient,” Nixon said. “It gives all of Missouri great pride that citizen soldiers and airmen from our state have pioneered and led the way in these efforts.”

The governor also noted that more than 800 employers are participating in Show-Me Heroes, an effort to provide priority consideration to veterans of foreign service.

Transitional support for the team members as they reintegrate back into civilian life was also offered by Danner and U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill.

The fourth iteration of Missouri’s team is now preparing to pick up where ADT III left off. And the members of ADT V have been selected.

Thirteen members, who stayed longer in Afghanistan and then traveled to Indiana to help insure a seamless transition for ADT IV, will be welcomed home Wednesday.

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Posted by Rebecca Townsend on August 23, 2010. Filed under Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry