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CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan – Capt. Dina Poma-Barnes, agriculture officer for Regional Command Southwest, lives life a little bit unpredictable.
Poma-Barnes, who is from Sterling Heights, Mich., works with the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Lashkar Gah, gathering information for different agricultural programs for Afghan farmers.
Just weeks before assuming her duties in Afghanistan, Poma-Barnes, a reservist, was married in a unique fashion.
“We got married Feb. 13, 2010, and I think it was the only weekend we were both in town at the same time,” said Poma-Barnes, who graduated from Jacksonville University with a degree in Psychology. “We asked this Chaplin to marry us and we got married in a hotel restaurant right down the road from where I was staying.
Poma-Barnes and her husband, an active duty Marine, have never lived in close proximity to each other due to military and school obligations.
“We have kind of lived life on the fly ever since [we met]. We have many of times met in a city he was living in or a city I was living in at the time,” said Poma-Barnes. “We decided to do a destination wedding which I think is very suiting to the theme of our relationship.”
Poma-Barnes comes from a strong family background, and says she enjoys the marriage traditions of her family, but for her and her husband they wanted to do it their way.
“I come from an Italian background where it’s very traditional to have a big party with all of the relatives invited and a very long engagement,” she said. “I very much enjoy going to those weddings because I get to see my family, but as far as myself and my husband, Sean, it doesn’t really suite us.”
She left the U.S. the first week of April, 2010, for a year-long deployment, and two weeks later her new husband followed suite deploying as well for a seven-month deployment.
Both Poma-Barnes and her husband discussed and were looking forward to spending their first year of marriage deployed to Afghanistan.
“Spending the first year of marriage deployed to a foreign country I can’t say that I wouldn’t have guessed it, but it has been very exciting,” said Poma-Barnes. “I do want to lead a life, both of us do, a life of living internationally and very much up to speed with what’s going on internationally.”
Although married quickly and deployed to Afghanistan, Poma-Barnes is planning a more traditional wedding for her friends and family to attend when she returns home.
“It’s important to me that close friends who I really hope that will be able to make it to the real wedding,” she said. “It wouldn’t be complete if they weren’t there.”
While dating her future husband, Poma-Barnes attended Georgetown University and received her Masters of Science in Foreign Service in 2009.
As part of her masters degree, she studied and read about civilian, military and government approaches in foreign policy and international securities, but now she is living what she learned and applying that knowledge in her daily work in Lashkar Gah. She explained how at the PRT, everything comes together because there is a mixture of military, civilian, non-government organizations as well as the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan present there.
“I studied that and read about that while I was in graduate school, but this experience here really allows me to live it on a day-to-day basis.”
Working with the PRT, Poma-Barnes is implementing what she has learned from Georgetown University to advance agriculture programs benefiting the Afghan farmers.
“My main focus for the past six months is the Helmand [province] Food Zone Project. It’s a counter narcotics program,” said Poma-Barnes. “The part that I’m focusing and working on a day-to-day basis is the distribution portion which is an alternative livelihoods option for the Helmandi farmers to grow wheat as opposed to poppy.”
Poma-Barnes along with her PRT partners built strong relationships during their deployment here, while improving the lives of Afghans.
“I’ve made many friends, very interesting friends, especially at the PRT. There are people from all over the world, and I very much enjoy working with our international partners,” said Poma-Barnes. “They definitely bring a lot of life and learning into our day-to-day experiences.”
After the deployment she is looking forward to a little normality with her husband in the United States.
“We want to get a couple of dogs and just enjoy each other and just live normal lives for at least a year if not a couple of years.”
| Date Taken: | 11.08.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 11.09.2010 13:08 |
| Story ID: | 59755 |
| Location: | CAMP LEATHERNECK, AF |
| Web Views: | 95 |
| Downloads: | 6 |
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