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CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan – Paul Amato probably never thought through where his decision to become a Marine would take him. Finishing his education in the red-bricked buildings of Franklin and Marshall College of Lancaster, Pa., Amato started with one dream at a time – trading a graduation cap gown for a set of Marine officer dress blues.
More than a quarter of a century later, he’s leading the U.S. effort to build a better future for Afghans in Helmand province. It’s a long road from Hartman Green to the desert expanses of southern Afghanistan, a career Amato explained, that’s as nearly twisted and turned as the path from North Museum to Weis Hall.
Amato, originally from Franklin Lakes, N.J., said it was right after he interviewed with admissions that he knew he wanted to attended F&M. He traveled from the busy streets of northern New Jersey to “a relatively small town, Lancaster, Pa., which is farm country, an area known for the Amish,” he explained. There, he studied at the “liberal arts college” which in a round-about way, set him not on one career path, but as he tells it, on four successful paths as a career Marine, a practicing lawyer, a policy analyst for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and now, the U.S. Senior Civilian Representative to the Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team.
Amato graduated Franklin and Marshall in 1984, majoring in government, and earned a commission as a Marine officer, a second lieutenant. He described his undergraduate studies as “very rigorous, academically” but a school he recalls fondly as “a little bit smaller and more personal.”
It might have seemed an unlikely start. The military life wasn’t completely unfamiliar to the Amato family, but it wasn’t exactly a family tradition, either.
“I was actually the first one from my family, immediate family, to join the service,” he said. “I had some uncles who served in World War II, that type of thing, but not any extended number of people in my family who had previously served.”
But, he didn’t need anyone to pave the road for him. Amato said he joined the Marines for much the same reason many decide to serve their nation.
“I guess there were three things that made me want to join the Marine Corps,” Amato said. “First is the desire to serve my country. Secondly, a sense of patriotism and third really a desire to challenge myself and experience something that I would carry with me for the rest of my life.”
His baptism into the world of dress blue uniforms and the grit and grime of the life of a Marine infantry officer would carry Amato through his journeys, even to his present life. Still, there were other dreams. And opportunities.
Amato served six years on active duty before transferring into the Marine Reserves. He said he realized the dream of serving as an active-duty Marine and, thus, turned his attention to higher education. He attended the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, after which he practiced employment law and litigation in Pittsburgh for 13 years. All the while, Amato kept up with his Marine Corps Reserve career. Further challenges were calling him, though. And still more dreams.
In 2007, he put in his uniform as the senior advisor to an Iraqi Army Division commander in Habbaniyah, a small town in Iraq’s Anbar province between two cities that had seen some of the Marine Corps’ fiercest fighting – Fallujah and Ramadi. The tour found him living and working at a former British RAF base, long since converted for use by Saddam Hussein’s army and then taken over by U.S. forces. It was also where he first crossed paths with another Franklin and Marshall alum, then-Brig. Gen. Richard P. Mills. The British-Mills connections were a precursor of things to come.
It wasn’t long after returning to civilian life after his 2007 Iraq tour, that Amato found himself back in government service, this time as a national security policy analyst for the Defense Department. Working in the Pentagon, Amato focused primarily on the U.S.-Pakistan bilateral security relationship. That didn’t mean, though, Amato’s days in a war zone were over.
In 2010, he volunteered for the Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands Program, a Joint Staff concept designed to train a cadre of military officers and civilians who develop skills in counterinsurgency, regional languages and culture specific to Afghanistan and Pakistan. It involved a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
Two years after serving on a former British base and alongside Mills, the Franklin and Marshall graduates found themselves working together in Afghanistan’s Helmand province; Amato as the deputy of the British-led Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team which is partnered with NATO’s Regional Command Southwest, itself led by now-Maj. Gen. Mills.
For Amato’s part, it’s an exciting time to be in Afghanistan. Afghans are emerging from the yoke of Taliban repression. They’re beginning to decide their own future and rebuilding a society that has been tattered by decades of war and internal strife. And here in Helmand province, Amato’s at the leading edge of it all, working with a team of U.S. and international civilian agencies dedicated to seeing that through.
Amato explained that along with the troop surge into Afghanistan, there was also a surge of civilian experts to work with Afghan government leaders. His team, comprised of more than a hundred civilian and military personnel, includes Brits, Americans, Danes, Estonians, Poles and Swedes. They’re all in the coalition together. For Amato’s part, aside from being the “Number Two” man in Helmand’s PRT, he’s also leading the U.S. contingent to the PRT, including civilians from the U.S. State Department, U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Agency for International Development.
He’s in a unique position to see the change that has already come to Afghans along the Helmand River valley. The economy here is largely agrarian, and the conveniences of Western culture are largely unknown to the Afghans.
But with Amato’s leadership, that’s changing. He cited the progress in Marjah, the southern Helmand city that was the site of running gun-battles between Marines and Taliban. Afghans largely abandoned the town, shuttering their mud-homes. At the time, Marines couldn’t move more than 100 yards without encountering some sort of Taliban attack. There was no Afghan government. There were no police. There was only Taliban who vowed to make the desert run red with Marine blood. And Marines… who vowed to return the city to the citizens of Marjah.
Today, it’s a much different story. While there’s still fighting going in outlying areas, attacks are much more sporadic. The Taliban no longer stand and fight, but shoot and run. Or places an improvised explosive device and hides. But more telling is that the center of the city – the bazaar, or marketplace – the very heart of Afghan social life, is buzzing. Shops have reopened. Schools have been built. Children are attending school in ever increasing numbers. The district governor’s office is open and administering to the needs of the citizens. Police roam the streets. Where a year ago, there were none, now there are more than 300. Wherever they go, they’re surrounded by children.
“When you think about Marjah at the beginning of 2010 versus Marjah today, it’s evident that a lot of progress has been made,” Amato explained. “Children are going to school, construction is occurring, the Afghanistan political system, as it were, is moving in the right direction.”
Work projects abound. Agriculture experts are teaching Afghan farmers to grow crops more efficiently. Construction has ticked up, with new governance centers and schools popping up. Road construction is underway, replacing rutted muddy streets.
It’s happening in other Helmand River valley communities too. Nawa, Now Zad, Nad Ali and Lashkar Gah… names of Afghan towns mostly unknown to Americans, but to Amato, they are shining examples of what is happening across Afghanistan when security meets hope and hope turns into progress.
“So we’re seeing that in a number of different places, not just Marjah,” Amato explained. “Garmser district, for example, is a place where we’ve seen a lot of progress. More people are coming forth and we’re actually seeing the democratic process played out where there’s struggle for power, you know, at local communities. Those are things you might not have seen six or eight months ago, and reflect the democratic process at work.”
For the graduate of a small Pennsylvania college, it’s been a long haul from the school surrounded by the Amish countryside. Amato, when he’s not serving in his civilian capacity, wears the silver eagles of a Marine colonel now. He’s got 27 years in uniform, a career Marine officer who takes great pride in his service, both in and out of uniform.
Amato’s career paths haven’t been all that surprising, he said. It’s a matter of hard work and pursuing dreams. They’re simple but lofty goals many colleges and universities espouse, but goals that he said fit naturally with his experience at Franklin and Marshall. The students there worked hard, achieved much, never took it for granted, and knew what it meant to dream.
“The decisions that I’ve made have been life decisions for me,” Amato said. “The cards that life dealt me allowed me to pursue my dreams and those things that I found interesting. At Franklin and Marshall, I felt like I could always do what I wanted.”
| Date Taken: | 12.21.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 12.26.2010 09:52 |
| Story ID: | 62625 |
| Location: | CAMP LEATHERNECK, AF |
| Web Views: | 304 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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