Heroes Old and New

Francis Younghusband was born into a military family at Murree, on the
British Northwest frontier of India. The year: 1863. At age 19 he was
commissioned into his regiment, the 1st King's Dragoon guards, then serving
in India. Because of a daring and lonely journey from Peking back to India,
he was elected the youngest member of the Royal Geographical Society.

He was then 24.

In 1889, Younghusband was in his prime and the darling of the
English "Great Game" set. This was the period when a gap on the map proved
the greatest threat. The place where Russia, China and British India met had
no border and no cartography. It was to this no-man's-land that Younghusband
was called. Afghan territory lingered on this frontier, which was at last
mapped in no little part due to the exertions of Francis Younghusband.
Captain Jason Amerine, U.S. 5th Army Special Forces Group, is from Hawaii.

In October, his group landed at night well behind Taliban lines. Designated
mission: assist the tribal leader Hamid Karzai. U.S. military equipment was
loaded onto mules and carted into the darkness. Destination: a village of
mud huts. This primitive theater provided the backdrop to the creation of a
force to engage the Taliban. Three weeks passed. Capt. Amerine and a ragtag
force of Afghans emerged and moved on to Tarin Kot, 70 miles north of
Kandahar. Their timing was perfect. As they moved into the town the Taliban
fighters fled. Later, captured Taliban soldiers revealed that the town was
to be made an example. The Taliban liked to make a lot of examples. Had
Capt. Amerine and his ragtag troupe not entered the town when they did, men,
women and children would have been slaughtered. Unconsidered timing wrought
a miracle.

Yet, a few days later, an American bomb landed in their midst. Many of the
men were killed. Capt. Amerine now has shrapnel in his leg and his hearing
is severely impaired. He wants his fallen comrades remembered for their
victory, not their deaths. Hamid Karzai is the current prime minister of
Afghanistan. Despite better maps, bombs still go astray.

James Clark

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(c) 2001 Millennium Relief & Development Services, vol. 1 no. 12
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