FOB Joyce, in eastern Afghanistan. Pakistan is just a few miles away. (Nancy Montgomery / Stars and Stripes)

RELATED STORY:A tense night on patrol

KABUL — Spc. Patricia Stringfellow had been in Kandahar exactly one day when a pair of middle-aged Danes, her NATO allies, burst her bubble.

Cold drinks in hand, sitting on a bench on the base boardwalk, the tanned Danes told the newly arrived 24-year-old U.S. soldier with the 19th Engineer Battalion she was “crazy” if she thought more U.S. troops would rout the Taliban or that Afghanistan could be transformed.

They said they’d be doing her a favor if they amputated her leg so she could return home to Fort Knox, Ky.

“They got quite cheeky with me,” said Stringfellow, a friendly, sincere woman with a husband and 2-year-old son at home. Still, she said, she believed that the U.S. effort would be successful. “I have faith,” she said, putting her hand over her heart.

Stringfellow’s battalion is part of the United States’ 21,000 troop increase requested by Gen. David McKiernan, who was sacked earlier this month just as the troops began arriving.

The new troops, bringing the U.S. total to about 60,000, are scheduled to be in place before the Afghan presidential election in August.

It’s unclear what changes the new Afghanistan commander, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, will make, but it’s certain that the counter-insurgency techniques will remain central. That means combat troops on small bases, mobility, intelligence, special operations to kill insurgent leaders, and trying to woo regular Afghans away from insurgents by protecting them and providing for them — and working and waiting for good governance to kick in.

U.S. Forces Afghanistan Command Sgt. Maj. Iuniasolua Savusa, the top enlisted soldier in Afghanistan, said he believes U.S. goals are attainable, despite “challenges”: NATO partners which, for the most part, have not given up caveats that prevent many operations, and trying to encourage something like democracy in one of the most patriarchal, tribal, rural and illiterate cultures on Earth.

The Afghans are good people, Savusa said. Yet the harsh treatment of women there unsettles even such a seasoned warrior. “It tears me up inside to see it,” Savusa said.

Stringfellow will likely spend her year on Kandahar air base, one of the largest bases in the country and getting bigger by the day. But most troops will pass through Kandahar on the way to forward operating bases, temporary patrol bases and observation posts in the south and up high in the Hindu Kush, kilometers from the Pakistan border.

Amenities are not included.

“You’ve got force protection, you’ve got chow. What more do you need? You don’t need a Pizza Hut,” said Sgt. Maj. Brendan Durkan, while touring Forward Operating Base Joyce and other bases in eastern Afghanistan along with Savusa earlier this month.

“This is as real as it gets,” Durkan continued. “Feeling fresh air. Knowing somebody is watching us right now. God bless ‘em.”

FOB Joyce had once been home to a company; now a battalion from the 10th Mountain Division had moved in.

Savusa viewed an MRAP that had driven over a roadside bomb. No one inside was injured in the blast, he was told, but the vehicle was out of commission.

In fact, three MRAPs were down after hitting bombs.

“I could fix all three of them,” Chief Warrant Officer 2 Curtis Russell told Savusa. “But we can’t get parts.”

Savusa said he knew that getting parts and equipment was a problem — caused in part by Afghanistan’s minimal infrastructure, and in part by the fact that troops were wanted on the ground so quickly their equipment would have to catch up.

But unlike Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who’s been troubled by equipment shortfalls and lengthy procurement processes, Savusa seemed to see it more or less as a hiccup. “We knew we’d have to continue to build,” he said. “But we needed the troops there now. Today, right now with the plus-up, I don’t think there’s anything I’m displeased with,” he said. “I’m very optimistic.”

It’s Savusa’s third time in Afghanistan. On his previous tour, he said, he felt discouraged. “I was disappointed,” he said. “I did not see the progress people were hoping for.”

The reason, he said: “Iraq gets what it wants. Afghanistan learns to do without. It’s been like that for the last eight years.”

“We came here in 2001, and we pushed out the Taliban across the border, limping and everything else. But we changed focus in 2003.

“After the (Afghan) presidential election, things were very hopeful in 2004,” Savusa said. “You could see how much the people wanted it. Unfortunately that did not pan out. Those that got into government did not help the people…. It just turned the people away. It gave the Taliban an opportunity to grow from within,” Savusa said. “That’s what we’re facing today: it’s a local insurgency loosely tied to al-Qaida and heavily funded by poppy.”

At FOB Monti, 1st Sgt. Harold Hill had been up much of the night before as part of a quick reaction force. They had responded to a call from an observation post — staffed with 22 Afghans, four Latvians and three Americans — that had come under heavy fire from all directions by an estimated 200 insurgents.

Hill’s biggest problem on base, he said, was having four latrines for up to 180 men. A KBR contractor who’d visited the day before told Hill he’d get more toilets out as soon as he could, but all the bases that were now expanding needed things.

“As long as there are plans (to get the latrines) — it’s staying on track,” Savusa said. “Make sure you stay on their backs.”

Savusa asked whether Hill’s soldiers were meeting with local elders and whether they were ensuring that every operation included Afghan forces.

Hill said his soldiers spend five days at a time meeting with local men, then return to the base for two, then go out again.

“I know we don’t have a lot of troops up here for you to hold (territory),” Savusa said. “We’ll have to do it with ANA and ANP,” referring to the Afghan army and police.

The Afghan security forces, even more than those in Iraq, have been bedeviled by lack of equipment and by corruption and incompetence. U.S. officials emphasize that the Afghan army is “the most respected institution in the country,” but say little about the police.

However, an Army captain with the 1st Infantry Division who’s been training Afghan police near Jalalabad for the past six months didn’t hold back.

“They’re awful,” he said.

So awful, he said, that when the police chief learned that he was being removed for corruption, he vowed to kill the U.S. Army captain.

And when police clear poppy fields, “It’s all for show,” said the captain, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

“They’ll do one field where they haven’t been paid off. Or they go with a stick and they just whisk the top off the bulbs. It’s like cutting off the heads of tulips.”

“Corruption is all over the place.”

At FOB Fortress, a weekly bazaar was just shutting down. Sgt. Joseph Ferry had bought some trinkets for his girlfriend. He said he tries to buy something every week to help out the local economy.

But, as the FOB mayor, he had to ban the hookah sales.

“We didn’t want to tempt the soldiers,” he said.

Ferry was deployed to FOB Fortress once before and was returned there by design. “It’s nice because we already know the area,” Ferry said. “We interact with the locals very well.”

The soldiers had recently reinstalled windows in a girls’ school, he said, after a rocket attack.

Savusa gathered soldiers around the base’s 105 mm howitzer, which had been fired 2,348 times in the last few months. He emphasized the importance of showing the Afghans respect.

“We’re not stopping civilian vehicles from passing our convoys. Let the people go through,” he said. “Don’t (push) vehicles off the road. When that happens, we just send out a message: We are here to occupy your country.

“We’re not here to do that. We’re here to help. We’re not going to leave until their government tells us to do so.”

Then he offered a pep talk. “Down south, they fight and run,” he said of insurgents. “Here, they tend to stay and fight. And that’s OK. You were trained to do that as well.”

FOB Joyce, in eastern Afghanistan. Pakistan is just a few miles away. (Nancy Montgomery / Stars and Stripes)

ISAF and U.S. Forces - Afghanistan Command Sgt. Maj. Iuniasolua Savusa talks with soldiers at FOB Monti in eastern Afghanistan the day after they had air assaulted in to reinforce an observation post being fired on by some 200 Taliban fighters. (Nancy Montgomery / Stars and Stripes)

Sgt. Joseph Ferry, the mayor of FOB Fortress. (Nancy Montgomery / Stars and Stripes)

Spc. Patricia Stringfellow, one of the 21,000 new troops deploying to Afghanistan. (Nancy Montgomery / Stripes)

Home for the next year in newly constructed barracks at FOB Monti. (Nancy Montgomery / Stars and Stripes)