While adapting to Afghanistan’s climate will certainly be an adjustment for OU professor Shad Sattherthwaite, he said the biggest change he would have to make when shipping out in the fall will be missing Sooner football games. “You see how many OU fans are out there in the Army. All of us from Oklahoma would be cheering for OU … I guess unless they’re OSU fans,” Sattherthwaite said. Sattherthwaite, a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army National Guard in Oklahoma, wears a standard camouflage uniform while strolling down a long hallway in the Norman Armed Forces Reserves Center on Tecumseh Road, where his 48-man troop’s training is taking place.

The center is the second largest in the state — one could go around the entire facility twice and it would be about a mile, Sattherthwaite said. Sattherthwaite will leave Oklahoma next month to train in Mississippi before deploying to Afghanistan, where he will help the country continue to improve since its government overhaul after the U.S. invasion in 2001. His Oklahoma Special Transition Team, which is broken into three, 16-man groups, will accompany the 45th Infantry Combat Brigade.

It will be the political science professor’s second deployment to Afghanistan. His first took place from 2003 to 2004.

Sattherthwaite joined the National Guard during college in the 1980s because he spoke French, and the program paid for his tuition. After graduation, he completed a church mission in France.

In addition to teaching the troop about Middle Eastern politics and government every Friday, Satterthwaite will work as an intelligence officer gathering and analyzing information in Persian languages Dari and Pashto, the latter of which is the official government language in Afganistan.

Part of Satterthwaite’s training involves learning more about Dari basic vocabulary and grammar, which he takes classes for in the mornings at the center.

Team administrator Shane Iverson said everything at the center is preparation. Iverson manages the paperwork that ensures troops can make it overseas on schedule.

Passing the baton

Much has changed for the U.S. and Afghanistan since his last deployment, Satterthwaite said.

“The Afghan National Army, first of all, is very highly thought of; they’re highly regarded, and there’s a lot of trust there,” Satterthwaite said. “They’re disciplined, they’re well trained and there’s a lot of unity there.”

Colonel Joel Potts, the operations officer for the transition team, said his troop is trying to transition its military influence over to the Afghan army.

Potts said the military has developed a much stronger relationship with the Afghan army in the last several years. He likens the current dynamic to a baton-passing of sorts.

“The bottom line is, we’re not going to be able to come home until they can step forward and manage their country, and they’re moving in that direction,” Potts said. “It’s their country, and it’s their responsibility to step up and lead their country.”

Previous Afghan forces trained under the former Soviet model were taught to obey their orders and their commanding officers, Sattherthwaite said.

He said an Afghan soldier who wouldn’t follow this system would be severely punished. As a result, Afghan soldiers are eager to understand the military system the Americans hope to provide.

“With our model, we say, ‘Look, if a soldier has a problem with his or her commander, they can come and see us, and we can help them,’” Sattherthwaite said. “They say, ‘What?’ In their model, if a soldier complains about a commander it just wouldn’t happen. The soldier could be shot for saying something negative about a commanding officer.”

As the Afghan National Army continues to increase its numbers and professionalism, the Afghan people have nothing but respect for those in the nation’s armed forces, Satterthwaite said.

“[Soldiers] want to do something for their country, their parents are proud of them … and the civilian population has a high opinion of them,” he said. “But what we need ... is to get enough of them trained, get them well equipped, and we can hand over things.”

The life of luxury

When deployment ends, coming home is a different story, Sattherthwaite said.

“When you get back, it’s like you’re living in the life of luxury. You come home and you think, ‘Wow this is a nice bed to sleep in,’ and you have sinks with running water and toilets with running water,” Sattherthwaite said.

Sattherthwaite said he will be gone as long as it takes to train the Afghan army. He said tours typically last a year, so his deployment would only keep him out of the U.S. until the troops’ work is considered satisfactory.

“The most difficult thing about anything is being away from family — that’s always the hardest part,” he said.

Sattherthwaite has been a political science professor at OU since 1998 and lived in Walker Center’s Faculty-in-Residence apartment as his three children grew up in the midst of Sooner culture.

Sattherwaite said that being overseas is just a different kind of teaching.

“In a different way, it was a contribution that dealt more with national security, helping another country, you felt that what you were doing really had long term ramifications,” he said. “It’s from the same perspective that why I went into teaching — I feel that you can have a positive impact on the lives of people … and that’s what this mission is.”