Face of Defense: Family Sends 3 Soldiers to Afghanistan

By Army Sgt. Mike McLeod

1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division

GHAZNI PROVINCE, Afghanistan, April 9, 2012 – As Army Warrant Officer Weldon Malbrough Jr. goes about his business on this dust-choked, dirt-basket-rimmed base here, he is one of many -- a paratrooper among paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division’s “Devils in Baggy Pants” 1st Brigade Combat Team.

The 30-year-old force-protection staff officer also is one of three Malbroughs now deployed to Afghanistan. Jordan and Jessica, the family twins, followed Weldon into the Army, and with the pace of deployments in recent years, it was only a matter of time until their deployments overlapped.

It’s not the first time their mother, Windy, has worried about more than one child in a war zone. Army Staff Sgt. Jordan Malbrough enlisted in 2005 and joined Weldon in Baghdad as part of the surge in 2007. Jordan now serves as an artillery radar operator with the 25th Infantry Division’s 4th Brigade at Forward Operating Base Apache in Afghanistan’s Khost province.

In recent years, the idea of families sending multiple children to the front lines has become part of the national consciousness thanks in large part to the movie, "Saving Private Ryan," in which three brothers are killed during World War II, and the last surviving brother is caught up in the Normandy invasion.

Windy has seen the movie, but it’s one she has never internalized, with three of her four children deployed to Afghanistan.

“It’s something they chose to do,” she said. “To keep peace with my mind, I try to think happy thoughts.” She still lives in metropolitan New Orleans, where she raised her children. Another son, Philip, works on an offshore oil rig.

“There is no worry-free time for mom,” Windy said. “My kids are my heroes.”

“She is such a strong woman,” Jessica said.

Jordan enlisted at 17, and Jessica earned a college degree before enlisting. She was interested in an Army program to become a physician assistant or nurse, but that required three years of service. While her brothers pushed her hard to “drop a packet” and become an officer, she chose to enlist as a combat medic.

“I didn’t want to push papers for three years,” Jessica said.

Sgt. Jessica Malbrough deployed for the first time with the 4th Infantry Division’s 4th Brigade to Kandahar, Afghanistan, a year ago. She has worked in the orderly room, provided cultural support on missions to capture insurgent leaders, and called in medevac helicopters to evacuate wounded soldiers.

“In the Army, you meet people and gain experiences that you just can’t get anywhere else,” she said.

The Malbroughs are a tight-knit family. Both sets of grandparents live within a few blocks. Being away from home for so long is difficult, Jessica said. It helps, she added, that she can call the man she looks up to the most, Weldon, or her best friend, Jordan. They relate to her Army service, and they’re even in the same time zone -- a big deal when one is on the other side of the world from home, she said.

Back home, Windy uses her kids as a conversation piece with patrons of the accounting office that she manages. Most of the time, she feels like she is serving alongside her children, she said.

“People just say, ‘Wow.’ They don’t understand how three siblings can be there at the same time,” she said. “They all have great love for their country.”

Weldon said people sometimes note that as the eldest of the three, he probably feels responsible for his siblings’ well-being.

“We all enlisted during a time of war,” Weldon said. “We all knew we were going to deploy. It was only a matter of time until they overlapped. I appreciate people’s sentiments, but we all took an oath to do what we are doing.”

Zabul farmers harvest livelihood from National Guard ADT

By Air Force Senior Airman Jessica Lockoski

Air National Guard

FORWARD OPERATING BASE APACHE, Afghanistan (3/29/11) -- National Guard Soldiers from the Arkansas Agricultural Development Team 2, Forward Operating Base Apache are using their expertise to help boost the productivity and quality of Afghan farming industries.

A bee sting can hurt, but farmers in Zabul province, Afghanistan, where there are far more dangerous threats, are embracing the new livelihood of beekeeping.

“There are places in Afghanistan where there has been beekeeping for some time, but in Zabul, it is a new concept,” said Army Maj. Marden Hueter, operations officer for Arkansas ADT.

“We selected three farmers in the primary key districts: Shajoy, Qalat and Tarnak Wa Jaldak, with hopes they will be our beekeeping ambassadors, and their farms will act as demonstration orchards,” he said.

The ADT provided farmers with starter kits including eight hives each, additional empty hives for repopulation and beekeeping tools.

Hueter and fellow ADT member, Army Sgt. Savana Smith, helped the famers learn beekeeping at FOB Smart, Qalat City, Afghanistan.

Following the training, ADT members met with two newly trained farmers, March 24, to help present the beehives at a local nursery on behalf of the Qalat Directorate of Agriculture Irrigation and Livestock office and contracting beekeeper.

At 16-years-old and the youngest of the three farmers trained by ADT, Ahmed Mohammad graciously accepted his new honeybees with a smile on his face.

“We are very happy,” Mohammad said. “It’s the first time we will have received bees. Before we went to the training, we were afraid of the honey bees, but now, I’m not afraid of getting stung.”

As a new beekeeper, Mohammad will be tending to his hives by himself. He said he has been stung before, but with his newfound skills, the price of a bee sting offers much more than a brief period of inconvenience, it offers a new opportunity of living.

Hueter used his experience as an independent beekeeper to help teach the farmers about the benefits of apiary and bee maintenance.

While most people may think bees are primarily used for honey production, Hueter explained these famers learned a more valuable benefit.

“Here, beekeeping will be done for the cross pollination of orchards,” he said. “Pre-Soviet invasion, Afghanistan was considered the ‘Orchard of Central Asia.’ Cross pollination can maximize orchard production which will increase profits for the farmer.”

Cash crops in the Zabul region include almonds groves, pomegranates, figs, apricots and apple trees.

With the benefits of bee pollination, Hueter said there may be a 40 percent increase in fruit production.

As in the beginning of any agricultural project, seeing results will take time. The process of development will require the new farmers to demonstrate patience as their hives begin to grow.

“With a new hive, it usually takes a year to become fully established,” Heuter said. “It is the bees’ natural tendency to split the hive in half when they become crowded in their space. They will grow a new queen, find a new home, and that is one of the ways bees repopulate and reproduce.”

By this time next year, the farmers should see the development of swarming behavior. The bees will make new beehives and the keepers can sell them. The profit will not only give the farmer more motivation to see value in his bees, but the money-making proposition will spread bees to other potential beekeepers or other orchards he may own.

“I think this will be a successful project,” said Army Sgt. Savana Smith.

“They took in all the training, asked a lot of questions and are excited to get their honey bees,” she said. “We get to see how they interact with the bees, use the new tools and see how their confidence level has been built up from the training.”

ADT will soon offer training to members of the Qalat DAIL to ensure continuous observation of the hives and make sure the beekeeping project is a success.

“The hands-on demonstrations give us a chance to assess the overall effectiveness,” Heuter said. “As long as these farmers are working with their bees and there are positive results, it will be a project to continue in the future.”