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I don't think I'd say he didn't accomplish anything in life
Here, for instance is something he wrote last year:
Realising that cultural understanding was his ticket to staying alive, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Worsley looks back to his precarious time leading 15 soldiers through Helmand in the lead up to the war.
When, on 26th January 2006, John Reid announced to a packed House of Commons that the UK government would be deploying their armed forces to join the expanding NATO mission to southern Afghanistan – I was already there.
In fact, I had been in Lashkar Gah, the capital city of Helmand Province, for the previous two months working alongside a small US army civil affairs team as a set of ‘eyes and ears’ forward – carrying out an ‘information campaign’ prior to the UK troop arrival. What soon became evident was that we knew next to nothing about the fundamentals facing that deployment: the terrain of Helmand, the Pashtun culture and Pashtunwali code, the tribal system, the power brokers, who we should do business with, the strength and threat from the Taliban, how we should equip ourselves and the political messaging. The list of ‘unknowns’ seemed endless.
The task ahead of me seemed clear. Over four months I had to travel to every corner of the 13 districts that make up the province of Helmand and deliver a message. I had to gather together those who held power: the district chiefs, the tribal elders, the mullahs, the chief of police and explain to them why the UK were coming, what they were arriving with, how they were planning to use it and why this would make a difference to their livelihood. And in doing that, maybe, I could also gather some answers to address the significant gaps in our own knowledge.
To do this I had to travel in Land Rovers over hundreds of miles of desert and gravel plains, stay overnight in wadis under the stars, reach all the district centres, deliver my message, listen, debate and then live to tell the tale and report back my findings. The prospect of surviving that was both exhilarating and perturbing.
https://avauntmagazine.com/surviving-afghanistan
When, on 26th January 2006, John Reid announced to a packed House of Commons that the UK government would be deploying their armed forces to join the expanding NATO mission to southern Afghanistan – I was already there.
In fact, I had been in Lashkar Gah, the capital city of Helmand Province, for the previous two months working alongside a small US army civil affairs team as a set of ‘eyes and ears’ forward – carrying out an ‘information campaign’ prior to the UK troop arrival. What soon became evident was that we knew next to nothing about the fundamentals facing that deployment: the terrain of Helmand, the Pashtun culture and Pashtunwali code, the tribal system, the power brokers, who we should do business with, the strength and threat from the Taliban, how we should equip ourselves and the political messaging. The list of ‘unknowns’ seemed endless.
The task ahead of me seemed clear. Over four months I had to travel to every corner of the 13 districts that make up the province of Helmand and deliver a message. I had to gather together those who held power: the district chiefs, the tribal elders, the mullahs, the chief of police and explain to them why the UK were coming, what they were arriving with, how they were planning to use it and why this would make a difference to their livelihood. And in doing that, maybe, I could also gather some answers to address the significant gaps in our own knowledge.
To do this I had to travel in Land Rovers over hundreds of miles of desert and gravel plains, stay overnight in wadis under the stars, reach all the district centres, deliver my message, listen, debate and then live to tell the tale and report back my findings. The prospect of surviving that was both exhilarating and perturbing.
https://avauntmagazine.com/surviving-afghanistan