House District 6B August Meeting

Submitted by anne_farrell on Thu, 08/04/2011 - 12:10am
COLONEL PATRICK ALLEN, U.S. ARMY SPECIAL OPERATIONS OFFICER
DEMOCRAT, PRECINCT COMMITTEE PERSON in 6B, OBAMA VOLUNTEER
SPEAKING @ Windsor Gardens Democratic Club on AFGHANISTAN
TUESDAY AUGUST 23RD   6:00PM
 
 
597 S. Clinton Street off Alameda in Windsor Gardens’ Centerpoint Bldg.
,
THE MOST AMAZING YEAR of MY LIFE
Fulfilling A Dream Of Service; My Country And Afghan Girls’ Education
This summer I returned from an adventure of a lifetime; serving a one year military tour of duty in Afghanistan.  As I was nearing the end of bringing to closure a very fulfilling military reserve career something was missing.  I knew that I wanted to spend my last year in the Army Reserves in a more active role and to serve in Afghanistan with my Special Operations Force brothers.    It was the challenge of a lifetime and the fulfillment of a long held desire to do my best to help with the most urgent foreign policy challenge facing our country in a generation. 
The muddled war in Afghanistan is now in its tenth year, and has become the most urgent foreign policy challenge facing our country. Afghanistan faces enormous problems: a violent, spiraling insurgency that is hampering the rule of law and development efforts, the growth of record crops of poppies, extreme poverty, criminality, homelessness, joblessness, lack of access to clean water, continuing problems with the status of women, and a central government that has struggled to protect its people and provide basic services. I am convinced that books, education, school supplies, and the tools of socioeconomic well-being will be a major influence with stabilizing Afghanistan.

SAVE AFGHAN CHILDREN - Hazara Girls Orphanage
“Whenever I had free time I helped support one of my command’s humanitarian outreach programs, a girls’ orphanage in a poor Hazara neighborhood on the outer edge of Kabul.  The Hazaras are descendants of Genghis Khan, the great Mongol warrior of 13th Century and are considered an ethnic and religious minority.  The Taliban brutally repressed the Hazaras when they seized control of Kabul in 1996. The Taliban also invoked a cruel state of gender apartheid in which women and girls were stripped of their basic human rights.  Prior to the Taliban's arrival, women in Afghanistan were educated and employed: 50% of the students  and 60% of the teachers at Kabul University were women, and 70% of school teachers, 50% of civilian government workers, and 40% of doctors in Kabul were women.  “

TUESDAY AUGUST 23RD   6:00PM