KABUL, January 12 (Online): Utah Guardsmen have adopted an orphanage southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan, donating clothing, blankets and personal hygiene items to the children. (211th Aviation Battalion).
Humanitarian work keeps piling up for Utah National Guard soldiers in Afghanistan. The soldiers have adopted an orphanage of 500 boys and 150 girls southwest of Kabul.
They already have donated personal hygiene items and Christmas presents to the children, but the orphanage now needs thousands of yards of material to make blankets. "It gets pretty dusty and dirty here," said Chief Warrant Officer Layne Pace of Orem in a telephone interview from Bagram, Afghanistan.
"Blankets last much longer if they aren't washed so often." Many of the children have lost their parents to continuous warfare. Several are handicapped from land-mine explosions. "Afghanistan is the most heavily mined nation on Earth," said Maj. Thomas Greene of Orem.
"When someone steps on a land mine, it's pretty likely they'll lose a leg and an arm," he said. The orphanage also needs plumbing work.
A German team has been working on repairs to the two-story concrete buildings, but money is limited. The Utah soldiers have been sending clothing, blankets and other supplies to both the orphanage and the remote village of Jagdalek. Their spouses in Utah began a nonprofit organization to collect needed items and to raise money to pay shipping costs.
Germany mulls extra forces for Afghan mission
The German government is considering increasing the number of its peacekeepers in Afghanistan after a warning by the German Intelligence Service of an increased threat to the German forces, Der Spiegel magazine reported, without saying where it obtained the information.
The warning came after an announcement by the U.S. and U.K. governments that they are stepping up a clampdown on local drug trafficking, the magazine said. Germany doesn't take part in the campaign against drug cultivation and trafficking, though it helps with surveillance and occasionally allows U.S. and British forces to use German camps, Der Spiegel said.
Defense Minister Peter Struck is considering options that may include increasing the number of German soldiers from 2,250 and sending special forces to secure the camps in northern Afghanistan, according to the magazine.
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