Human Terrain program takes first KIA in Afghanistan

The US Army's innovative Human Terrain Systems program in Afghanistan offered up its first fatality last week, with 31 year-old civilian contractor Michael Bhatia losing his life along with two soldiers near Khost.

Bhatia (pictured), a doctoral candidate at Oxford University who grew up in Massachusetts, was a civilian contractor for BAE Systems assigned to the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the Army 101st Infantry (Air Assault) division in hot al Qaeda/Taliban territory alog Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan. He died in an IED blast on his humvee, along with two soldiers.

Bhatia was a civilian social scientist. The experimental and extremely important Human Terrain System (HTS) program is operated by the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) to coordinate cultural anthropologists and social scientists and improve the troops' knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the local populations in parts of Iraq and Afghanistan.

HTS in general, and Bhatia in particular, are credited with saving hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American, Afghan and Iraqi lives. Steve Fundacaro, HTS project manager, told reporters that Bhatia was "a hero in every sense of the word."

"I can't think of a better example of what being an American was all about," said Fundacaro in a WCVB-TV report from Boston. "Here was a civilian, a civilian scholar who was very comfortable in his personal situation -- he gave up all of that to volunteer his services to be a participant in what we were involved in, and assumed all the risks every one of those soldiers assumed. He gave his life for exactly what he believed in."

"Michael is a hero. The Army didn't go looking for him to ask him for his service -- he came looking for us because he was committed to make things better. Our nation is better, as are the people of Afghanistan, because of his devotion and brilliance. He will not be forgotten," said Gen. William S. Wallace, TRADOC commander.

Khost, south of Tora Bora and one of Afghanistan's furthest points into Pakistan, is a hot area. I was down there in December with Blackwater and the 82nd Airborne, aboard low-altitude ammunition supply flights to drop shipments of mortar rounds to our troops in small forward operating bases on the PakThe border. The remote, mountainous area, along a broad plain, is the site of heated Taliban activity, along with smuggling people, weapons and narcotics.