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

afghanistan. two suicide attacks on saturday. the insider attack that you referred to now, this awful helicopter crash last night. it happened in kandahar province about 280 miles southwestbul, raining heavily we were told by people in kandahar when that black hawk went down with a crew of five aboard. all five the pentagon confirm were u.s. service members. we were told by a coalition spokesman that there was no hint of enemy activity at the time of the incident. in fact that part of kandahar province has been one of the relatively safe parts of the country for some time now. and as you said, to the two deaths of those special forces troops and the insider attack. the total of seven deaths on monday made at this time worst single day of the year so far in terms of american losses. that attack as you said was a single gunman, a lone gunman, dressed in an official uniform who opened fire on afghan troops who had just come out of a meeting in wardak province. while all signs point to an accident last night as the cause of those deaths, the investigation is just underway. there won't be a final decision. that brings the final number to 12 so far this year as far as deaths.

afghanistan. we haven't yet resolved that of longest and most expensive of the two wars in southwest asia we havecy. there is a moral challenge to support our allies in europe and the region in recognizing that just as the collapse of gadhafi's libya and unsecured reps from libya led to all sorts of problems in the region not least of which was mali the weapons in syria are a level that far goes beyond anything in libya. this really will have terrible regional consequences. >> given what the senator has just said, dad, before we move to guns, what do you think the best next step forward is with syria? >> first of all, i'm a little baffled by our recent decision to give money to the rebels but refuse to give them arms on the grounds we don't know who they are, they are not reliable. because if we give them money but not arms, they will use the money to buy arms. so what are we accomplishing if, we, in fact, don't know who is, so to speak, on our side. beyond that, i think frankly. i think the problem of syria is susceptible to an international resolution, provided we are able to engage both russia