Commander John Wade was at work for the Vice Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon when his future assignment as a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) commander in Afghanistan came about. In 2006, as one of a group of hand-picked, command-qualified officers, Wade became part of an interagency, joint effort to institutionalize the PRTs. These PRTs - commanded by US Navy and US Air Force officers - were purpose-built and received extensive training as teams at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. For three and a half months, these teams absorbed tactics, techniques and procedures from individual- to team-level and learned from one another the differences and similarities between "aye-aye, sir," and "hooah." The 4th Brigade, 78th Training Division provided the training support for these PRTs at Fort Bragg. Reserve Component soldiers were also a part of these teams, integrated from both the US Army National Guard and Reserves. These soldiers brought a broad range of civilian skills in addition to their military occupational specialties, critical for adding weight to the non-kinetic mass of the PRTs. Some friction arose from vested military civil affairs interests, ultimately rationalized as the teams deployed to Afghanistan. Wade's team experienced sufficient challenges shaking out their respective battle rosters, matching their soldiers and sailors to their tasks. Wade's PRT flowed in to Bagram and shoehorned into their facilities. His relationship with his maneuver commander matured and they could mutually assist one another, helping influence the Afghan leadership, both military and civilian. Pushing out into more contact with the Afghans, Wade instituted shuras (meetings) with provincial and district leaders and centers of influence to raise and begin vetting development and reconstruction initiatives. He and his maneuver commander discovered a critical metric of success by tour's end, namely the number of IEDs turned in by the Afghans. This measure of effectiveness reflected a level of acceptance and support of the Afghans. An additional metric was the issuance of fatwas by Afghan religious leaders condemning suicide bombings as un-Islamic.

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