U.S. soldiers trying to win hearts, minds of Afghans

February 14, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

BADULA QULP, Afghanistan (AP) — As U.S. Marines fought Taliban insurgents down the road, Army 1st Lt. Daniel Hickok hunted Afghan men willing to repair an irrigation canal for cash.

It’s a tall order in a Taliban- controlled area where some villagers are scared to take money from the Americans.

Yet in the revised U.S. war strategy, the fight against the insurgents is as important as winning the allegiance and confidence of Afghan citizens. For American soldiers here, their days are often a mix of winning hearts and minds and fighting a determined enemy.

A rumble of explosions could be heard shortly before Hickok, of Puyallup, Wash., and his soldiers from the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry, left their Stryker armored vehicles Saturday and walked into farm fields in search of laborers.

Repairing the irrigation canals is an important step toward reviving agriculture in the area. And the Americans were offering hard cash for anyone willing to work.

The area is about six miles from Marjah in Helmand province where thousands of Marines and Afghan soldiers launched a massive offensive Saturday to break the insurgents’ grip over a wide swath of southern Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt. Christopher Wootton of Richmond, Va., serving with the 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion, asked a farmer if he could fix a stretch of canal road — a dirt, uneven, narrow track that became unstable in recent rains and restricted movement of the heavy Stryker infantry vehicles.

The farmer, whose construction skills seemed a big question mark, agreed to travel to the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah about 15 miles away to buy pipes and other building materials for the road. Wootton gave him 7,500 Afghanis in banknotes, or about $160, filled out a receipt and photographed the man as he took it.