in 2007 there were no girls in school in southwest afghanistan. the taliban ran the medrossas, those are gone now. currently if you walked into southwest afghanistan you would see many marines but you would also see 25,000 kids in school. you would see close to 3,000 girls. there is a teacher's college that has been renovated in the big city and there are aspiring teachers studying at that college. there are women's centers established in two of those districts and there are afghan parents and educators involved in their local schools. and to just pull a thread on what many of our senior leadership has said throughout the couple of days, indeed the u.s. military is a global force for good and we will always seek opportunities to leave every place better than when we arrived. and i appreciate your time, appreciate your attention. thank you. . (applause). >> thank you, nita, following along we're going to have colonel barry newland. >> thanks, lewis. i'd like to thank nina for doing a great job of setting the stage so i don't have to go through and

so the primary mission of marines in southwest afghanistan is security. but our secondary mission is to assist our interagency partners in kick starting institutions that contribute to a stable nation state. as an educator i joined the team to oversee the portfolio of education and was given the opportunity to implement the country's education strategic plan over the southwest provinces. additionally i was given the national action plan for women and control of two female engagement teams which were marines trained to interact with the population of women because of the pashi culture, the males were not allowed to interact with the women. in order obviously to ensure communities stay strong you have to not only address the men, but you absolutely need to address the women. so we created the female engagement team. with our interagency partners, the u.s. department of state, danish and british governments and of course the afghans, additionally we reached out to the private sector for partnerships, and not for profits to deliver things that we weren't capa

first marine decision, first marine expeditionary force forward entered southwest afghanistan during 2009. we arrived in 2010 so it was a bit more stable. and we went straight to helman and nimruz province. very complex dynamic environment that we were operating in but before i begin it talk to you about the operational picture, i just want to give you a snapshot of afghanistan. when we got there i want to set the frame here so you understand what we're dealing with. afghanistan ranged 180th out of 1 86 on the world bank list of developed countries. 20 percent of the babies won't reach their first year of life. there is a 44 year life span for your average citizen. it has a less than 20 percent literacy rate and girls in afghanistan will marry by the time they are 15 and will likely birth their second child by the time they are 20. so this is the long-term effects of violence and civil wars within a failed state by every measure. the marines who are currently still in southwest afghanistan, they are surrounded by very conservative culture. in 2010, this is not true now but narco traf

afghanistan. >> d.c.! whoo! >> i'm going to guess he's glad to be home. sounds like it. about 70 members of the national guard rurpd to the home in the d.c. armory in southwest washington. they completed a eight-month tour of duty. >> everything is okay now. >> i'm just happy to be home to see grass, trees, my family, d.c. you know, i love the united states. >> love it. >> the guard members operated out of bagram air base. they maintained, rather managed a dining facility, mail operations, and provided security details for american personnel. >> gosh, welcome home. thank you for your service. i just can't help myself. it's so awesome to see those reunions. >> every single time. it really is for sure. >> okay. well, fall is officially here, and there are a lot of great ways in the area to enjoy it. >> that's right. one favorite is to pick pumpkins. and one pumpkin patch claims to have a purpose. st. paul's pumpkin patch in kensington is open for business. you can pick from dozens of pumpkins there, and all the proceeds go toward the church's mission trips to nicaragua and to the hunger ministry to help feed families in montgomery county. the pumpkin patch is

southwest of baja, mexico. right now it's posing no threat to land. >>> today does mark the 11th anniversary of the war in afghanistanit has been the long -- it has become the longest war in u.s. history. all while that ongoing war has stirred up tensions between the u.s. and afghanistan, defense secretary leon panetta says afghan president should be grateful the u.s. continues to safeguard that country. >> coalition troops are expected to leave afghanistan by the end of 2014. afghanistan is threatening to request china for help if the u.s. cuts off supplies. more protestors plan to rally in oakland tonight. they will launch a protest called mission failure. the rally starts at 6:00 p.m.. >>> it's the fifth day in a row that fire has been exchanged over the border of turkey and syria and leon panetta says it's something to be concerned about. the clashes could escalate and spread to neighboring countries. the u.s. is relaying concerns about the continuing fire between the two countries. five turkish civilians were killed on wednesday. >>> tensions could escalate between north and south korea. south korea announced th

afghanistan, and people said it was because of iraq. >> first of all, as far as potassium chlorate and where we see at the number of ied's, in the southwest last year that is where the marines were moving, highest is thate number of marines and casualties. rc south and east is where we see the majority of ied's. as far as transfer of trent techniques and tactics from afghanistan, in afghanistan the testing ground for the world? we're seeing developments in different areas. i mentioned the explosively for projectile which we have seen in iraq, somalia, and we have seen one incident in afghanistan. improviseding in blasting caps. i cannot draw a line from what we saw and experienced in iraq as far as tactics, techniques, and procedures trade iraq was largely military munitions at the outset because that was most readily available, and then be explosively formed project will begin the weapon. in afghanistan is homemade explosive, improvised pressure plates. i cannot draw that thread between the to the elements in afghanistan and iraq. the materials you picked were too cheap and they use what ever is most readily available and works best, and

afghanistan, and people said it was because of iraq. >> first of all, as far as potassium chlorate and where we see at the number of ied's in the southwest last year -- that is where the marines were moving, and that is the highest number of marines and casualties. rc south and east is where we see the majority of ied's. as far as transfer of tactics, techniques, and procedures from afghanistan, is afghanistan the testing ground for the world? inre seeing developments different areas. i mentioned the explosively formed projectiles which we have seen in iraq, somalia, and we have seen one incident in afghanistan. we are seeing improvised blasting caps. i cannot draw a line from what we saw and experienced in iraq as far as tactics, techniques, and procedures. iraq was largely military munitions at the outset because that was most readily available, and then the explosively formed projectiles will begin the weapon. in afghanistan it is homemade explosive, improvised pressure plates. i cannot draw that thread between the two elements in afghanistan and iraq. the materials you picked were too cheap, and they use whatever is most readily avai

afghanistan and people said that it was basically because of iraq. >> uh-huh. >> just -- >> well, first of all, as far as where we see the number of ieds, last year, it was rc southwest where the marines were moving. that was the highest number of ieds and casualty. now it's rc south. rc east remained consistently high. rc south and east is where we see the majority of the ieds. as far as transfer of tactics, techniques, and procedures from iraq to afghanistan, someone asked me if afghanistan is the testing ground for the rest of the world in ieds. i say, no, the rest of the world is the testing ground because we're seeing developments in different areas. i mentioned the explosively performed projectile, a signature weapon in iraq is now in somalia. there's been one incident in afghanistan. there's improvised blasting caps and other improvised devices that migrate, and so i can't draw a line from what we saw and experienced in iraq as far as tactics, techniques, and procedures. iraq was largely ammunitions at the outset because that's what was available, cheap education, available, and then the projectile was the weapon. in afghanistan, it's home made explosives. it'