Foot and Paw Patrols

Today we continued the rotation training for the new arrivals. I had two briefs for everyone: The first one was basic information about Samangan province and the Provincial Office. The second one was about the duty officer's tasks and responsibilities. MOT D went out on foot patrol in Aybak city three times today. I joined two of them, the afternoon and the night patrol. One the first one, Isaf joined the patrol. I was told that she walked all the way in formation, except for when she was getting into trouble with other dogs in the street. She is now in the age where she is exploring and expanding her turf every day.

On the patrols that I joined, we just walked around the city and talked with people we met. With ANSF (Afghan national security forces) representatives we talked a little longer and used different talking points. The purpose of these patrols was to show presence and to protect the people. The opponent uses fear, intimidation and violence to contol the population, whereas in our approach to reaching our goals we use quite the opposite methods. This is not propaganda, it's fact. Foot patrols are, like all operations, fundamentally information operations. Paw patrols are, I suppose, just pure fun.