A newly promoted lieutenant colonel when his Army Reserve unit - the 489th Civil Affairs (CA) Battalion, based in Knoxville, Tennessee - was tapped for service in Afghanistan, Colonel Don Amburn deployed in early 2002 and, once in country, proceeded to conduct a month-long transfer of authority process with the active duty 96th CA Battalion. During the 489th's nearly 10 months in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, six to 12-person battalion teams called coalition humanitarian liaison cells (CHLCs) undertook a wide variety of reconstruction projects throughout the country and, in so doing, worked closely with US and coalition governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as with conventional and other special operations forces. For his part, Amburn ran the civil-military operations center (CMOC), based in Kabul, and thus commanded and controlled the activities of the dispersed CHLCs. In this interview, Amburn discusses at length his working relationships with units from a number of conventional US divisions, including the 10th Mountain Division and the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions; and while his dealings with the first two he describes as "excellent," he discloses a considerable amount of friction between the 82nd and his CA teams. According to Amburn, "I think they looked at us as force multipliers, but only if we reported to them and they knew what we were doing. Otherwise we were just an obstacle, in their mind." While primarily occupied with reconstruction and humanitarian assistance tasks, Amburn's CHLCs were hardly immune to hostilities, nor to the traumas of a combat environment. Indeed, he relates one "pretty gruesome scene" where one of his teams was first on the scene after a booby trap took the lives of several US soldiers. In the context of this Afghan deployment - but also looking back on elements of the 489th's subsequent 2004 deployment to Iraq (during which he was the battalion commander but did not actually deploy) - Amburn discusses issues such as sufficiency of rank and his thoughts on the future of CA, namely the implications of it no longer falling under Special Operations Command. Summing up the 489th's Afghanistan experience, Amburn points with pride to its receipt of a Meritorious Unit Citation, "the first given to a Reserve unit," he said. In fact, according to the actual award citation, "The unit was given perhaps the most challenging mission ever entrusted to a US Army Reserve battalion, requiring it to operate in small CHLCs across a combat zone the size of Texas, while tackling tasks directly impacting on the success of US national interests in Afghanistan."

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