Commander Mike Varney, US Navy, received word that he would command a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) while assigned to the Chief of Naval Operations staff at the Pentagon. Notified in December 2005, Varney and several other officers would provide critical, joint leadership and were hand-selected by the then Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Mike Mullen, who is now at this writing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Varney had been on the command list for a submarine but ended up spending more than a year preparing for and then commanding PRT Sharana in Afghanistan. PRTs had emerged as important elements in Afghanistan - and later Iraq - providing non-kinetic development to support the extension of national authority and legitimacy. Reporting to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in January 2006, Varney began assembling and training with the soldiers and sailors he would command over the next year. Training PRTs at Fort Bragg was the mission of the 4th Brigade, 78th Division (Training Support). Twelve PRTs of 100 service members each, all joint, trained nearly simultaneously as they rationalized interservice differences and found common ground in the not-quite homogenous military culture. Varney and his team trained and prepared on subjects from basic marksmanship to interagency project development, all the while gathering intelligence and reaching out to the PRT in-country via the classified email network. After a complicated deployment to Afghanistan in which different service elements tried to deploy their respective elements of the PRT, the team arrived in Kabul to begin the piecemeal push, ultimately lasting three weeks, via helicopter to Paktika Province and Sharana. The relief in place/transfer of authority took place quickly. Varney put his skills as a Cold War submariner to work pushing elements out throughout the province and avoiding the enemy to reach the Afghan people in their villages. Interagency integration with Department of State, US Agency for International Development and other personnel did not occur until the PRT arrived in the province. Soliciting and assessing the requirements from tribal and other Afghan leaders and representatives was more than putting an Afghan face on reconstruction and development. Part of this process involved convincing the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan that the province was safe enough for non-governmental and private volunteer organizations to operate. During Varney's team's tenure, their efforts fully supported the strategic shift in counterinsurgency, helping build Afghan national capacity and legitimacy to defeat their enemies.

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