By GI Korea on July 13th, 2011 at 12:58 pm

Picture of the Day: Taeguki In Afghanistan

• kangaji
  1:06 pm on July 13th, 2011 1

  Pashto? Dari? English?

• kangaji
  1:11 pm on July 13th, 2011 2

  Serious question: Did you get any language study in before you went in country and what helped out, or what would you have used, or what will you use for next deployment?

• kushibo
  3:37 pm on July 13th, 2011 3

  Taegŭk? I thought that was the Captain America symbol.

• Teadrinker
  5:54 pm on July 13th, 2011 4

  So, he got all those from a Korean NGO? I guess they weren’t distributing the flags like I would imagine they were supposed to if he was able to get his hands on a huge stash like that.

• Lemmy
  8:21 pm on July 13th, 2011 5

  Korean NGO a couple of years ago when translated equates to “container pilfered before arriving at BAF”

• GI Korea
  6:07 am on July 14th, 2011 6

  Kangaji, the merchant spoke pigeon English and when I asked him where he got the flags he told me from Koreans. I asked if it was Korean Army and he said no. When I said aid workers he said yes but I have no idea if he even understood what an aid worker was, but I know he understood Army. So at the very least he didn’t get the flags from the ROK Army. Stealing from containers is definitely a possibility. It is amazing how much stuff is stolen in Afghanistan. It was odd to see the flags in Kandahar though because the Korean troops are stationed up north.

  As far as language training I did not receive any and when Petraeus took over for McCrystal that was something he instituted. He had these language CD’s distributed that everyone had to view. However, that is not effective language training. If the Army wants people to learn language skills they need to devote time and resources to do it which still is not being done.

  Even the AFPAK Hands program is only offering 4 months of language training to those volunteers selected for the program. Not many people are going to be effective communicators with only 4 months of training in Dari and Pashtu. However, it is at least an attempt to increase language proficiency within the Army.

• Teadrinker
  6:25 am on July 14th, 2011 7

  #6,

  Maybe he got the flag from those missionaries, the ones who travel in dangerous places (and accomplish very little other than take pictures for their church’s website). I could see these people let the locals carry away Korean flags an armful at a time just so they can brag they distributed so many hundreds of them.

• kangaji
  8:18 am on July 14th, 2011 8

  #6: DLI made some modules on AKO, I hadn’t heard about AFPAK hands but that would be really good to get on orders to do the counter insurgency leader course.

• Conway Eastwood
  9:59 pm on July 14th, 2011 9

  I remember this photograph from a few years back, if I recall correctly.

RSS feed for comments on this post | TrackBack URI