Commanding Officer

At 29, Army Capt. Chris Nunn commands hundreds of men, millions in equipment - and a piece of America's foreign policy objective in Afghanistan.

PAKTIKA PROVINCE, Eastern

Yet instead of washing out, he sucked it up, and was back within 48 hours, limping through the perilous "mountains" phase of the training. He eventually passed the course to earn the coveted Ranger tab.

Adopted as an infant, Nunn grew up on a cattle ranch in Panhandle, Texas, located, of course, in the Texas panhandle. He graduated from the University of Mississippi with a degree in history and entered the army as an officer through the university's ROTC program. He served in Korea as a member of the 2nd Infantry Division and during the invasion of

He is a self-described "quintessential overachiever," a man who doesn't like to fail. His men even nicknamed him "the Hurricane," for those flashes of anger when people aren't measuring up to his standards.

Capt. Chris Nunn leads a reconnaissance mission in eastern Afghanistan

Now he faces what could be one of the greatest challenges of his life: command of Alpha Company, for the 10th Mountain Division's 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry. Alpha Company currently is posted in the U.S. military's easternmost outpost in Afghanistan, Forward Operating Base Tillman.

I sat down with him in the company's TOC (Tactical Operations Center) to discuss the challenges of commanding hundreds of men, millions of dollars of equipment and a piece of America's foreign policy objective in Central Asia — all at the age of 29.

KEVIN SITES: 10th Mountain trained very hard before coming here. In fact some people say it was difficult because there was so much time away from home before this deployment. What kind of training were you doing and did it pay off?

CAPT. CHRIS NUNN: We did a lot of shooting. The battalion as a whole shot at least two million rounds. My company did a lot of movement-to-contact training, where you're out actually looking for the enemy. We did a lot of live fire, squad, platoon, company exercises.

We did engagement training, civil affairs stuff, training to meet with tribal elders. [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai's cousin even came over and talked to us. We deployed to Camp Blanding, Florida to do more exercises: situation exercises in reacting to IEDs [improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs], giving out humanitarian assistance. I think you learn from the successes and failures of previous units that were here and we tailored our training to that.

There's still people that all they want to do is hunt down and kill people and others who understand the insurgent battlefield better. I think for the next 20 years it's going to be a counterinsurgency battlefield.

SITES: Now that you're here, how is the real life mission different from the one you trained for?

NUNN: It's really not all that different. When we showed up here we really knew where we wanted to go. Six months before I came to Afghanistan I was already e-mailing the company commander that was here [from the 82nd Airborne]. I knew when they had contact [hostile action], I knew when they hit an IED, I knew when they got new hot water heaters. We would talk once a week and e-mail several times a week. He sent me a lot of after-action reports, situation reports, etc. It went very smoothly.

SITES: What surprised you most when you first arrived here?

NUNN: Seeing a Dairy Queen at Bag [Bagram Air Force Base-north of Kabul] (laughs). I guess I was really surprised at the amount of improvement made in four years. I haven't been here before, but when I drove through Kabul, there was a used car lot, cell phones everywhere — all the improvements that have been made that the Afghans took on themselves. Of course as you go further and further out, there's less of that.

"The first four days we were here we had a significant event every day: the IED, the contact, a rocket attack, and then two more IEDs. At that point I was thinking it was going to be a long deployment."— Capt. Chris Nunn

It wasn't really anything militarily that surprised me. I think the things that are happening here is because the Afghans are tired of war. They got kicked around for 30 years. They want something different. All we're just doing is keeping the bad guys at bay. Let them build their country.

SITES: You were in Iraq with the 101st Airborne, and now you're here in Afghanistan. Can you compare the conflicts both in terms of what's at stake and how they're being played out?

NUNN: From my perspective, in the initial push into Iraq, we were really awed by the gratefulness of the Shiites in the south. That's what I remember from the initial push to topple Saddam. But once that initial push was over, it became just like Afghanistan. Whatever people believe the reasons were for the war — the search for weapons of mass destruction, or those who thought

Coming into Afghanistan, it seems to me, from everyone I talk to, they want us here. They want to be recognized as an international country. They don't want to be seen as a safe haven for terrorists. The people that I talk to feel that these guys causing the problems are defaming Islam as well.

There are a lot of similarities but the cultures are different. The Afghans seem more willing to work with us. The impression I had is that the Iraqis looked down their nose at us; they wanted everything right now. Maybe that's just a product of having more infrastructure; they could see more of the world.

I think I prefer this deployment more than Iraq. Maybe because I'm a commander. I just like it better, I like the country better, I like the people better, I'm here with a great unit.

SITES: You're 29 years old and in charge of hundreds of men, millions of dollars of equipment and carrying out a U.S. foreign policy objective. Are there days you feel overwhelmed? How do you keep yourself mentally and physically where you need to be to do this job?

Nunn liaises with Afghan counterparts

NUNN: This is what I wanted to do my whole life. I love it. I'm Southern Baptist — preachers from that faith feel like they're called to their profession. I feel like I'm called to do this job. There are days you're frustrated you want to pull out your hair, or scared for your boys because they're in contact [hostile action]. But for me it's the best job I can imagine.

The first contact we had was when one of my platoons encountered an IED. Whoever planted it planted it in a sweet spot, we couldn't get eyes on it, we had to get pretty close to see it. I'm in the TOC [Tactical Operations Center] and we heard over the radio — the IED just detonated.

I thought, "Oh no, it's day one and I just lost some of my soldiers and one of my platoon sergeants." But 15 to 20 seconds later I heard, "We're all OK, we're all OK."

Then the next day we had an attack on Observation Post 4: small arms fire, RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades], and 107mm rockets. In fact, the first four days we were here we had a significant event every day: the IED, the contact, a rocket attack, and then two more IEDs. At that point I was thinking it was going to be a long deployment.

There was something else. We had an incident where two children were playing with unexploded ordinance. A girl and her brother were tossing back and forth a 40mm grenade, when it exploded. They brought her here and our medics worked on her nonstop, but she died here on the base. She had an abdominal wound and she was bleeding out — we couldn't get an aircraft here in time. The boy was taken to Bagram and survived.

We've all seen dead people, but seeing that little girl that was tough — that was a rough one. There was a lot of frustration and a lot of us felt like failures because — well, we're the U.S. Army and we couldn't do anything. It had a big impact on all of us.

SITES: A big part of your mission is helping to train and stand up Afghan forces. How is that going?

NUNN: They're better than I expected. I didn't think they'd be that far along. They're doing independent patrols — they've got a lot of heart. They want to be as good as we are and they're grateful for what we can teach them. They want the respect of being professionals. For example, their mortar team had never even fired a mortar, but we trained them up and now they're integrated into the fire plan.

The biggest challenge is the lack of a professional base. They spent the last 20 years fighting as warriors, not as an organized army. They don't have the institutional base that professional armies have. The NCOs [non-commissioned officers] really want that. They get fired up about learning to use a map to navigate. Whenever someone wants to learn and you give them some knowledge, they just want more. That's the case with these guys.

For complex operations I keep them under my control, but they can do independent patrols, they can do cordon searches. I've seen them doing cache [weapons] recovery. When we got into contact a while ago, one of the commanders took his guys into the field and tried to hunt the attackers down, but he didn't tell me what he was doing — he just went. I applaud his initiative but I couldn't clear the fields of fire, and those are the kinds of mixed successes we're looking at.

SITES: Another part of the mission is to bring in lawless villages like Guyan, where you were the other day meeting with elders and military and police officials as well as handing out humanitarian aid. But when you left, one of your vehicles struck an IED. What does that say about the challenges here?

NUNN: Honestly, I didn't feel it was a slap in the face. I didn't take it personally. With any size population there will always be people for you and people against you, and some people that are just bad. You just have to expect that when you go into these places.

Harsh terrain in Afghanistan

SITES: You are in command of the most eastern outpost of the U.S. military in Afghanistan. It's an isolated place, in a war in which many people, including soldiers here, feel is forgotten or at least off the radar for most Americans. How do you operate in an environment like that?

NUNN: I look at my job like a doctor looks at his job. It's what I am; it's who I am. I was in the army before 9/11, and it was those heady days of peace when everyone loved everyone and there was no need for an army. We kind of felt forgotten then. But then 9/11 happened and we were needed again.

There's frustration and I guess there's disappointment, because for some reason Afghanistan doesn't seem as important to some as the conflict in Iraq — and you want the recognition for your soldiers.

I wish that people could see what we're doing — not just the shooting at bad guys, but also the distribution of humanitarian aid, having tea at endless meetings with elders, or trying to save a six-year-old girl.

If we were in this for the money we'd all quit. And we're not in it for the recognition either, but I wish people could look through my eyes and see my soldiers the same way, and have the pride in them that I do.

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