Hope for Afghanistan

Lessons from a hibiscus plant

We nearly missed our last chance to get out of Afghanistan. If we hadn’t climbed aboard when we did, there’s no telling when we might have reached the United States. No, it wasn’t August 2021. It was May 2009. And we weren’t boarding a plane leaving Kabul, but rather a Blackhawk helicopter leaving Asadabad, the capital of Kunar Province and location of Forward Operating Base (FOB) Fiaz.

We were finishing our tour serving as mentors to the Afghan National Police in Kunar. We wanted to stay until the last possible moment to make sure the new team was well-prepared. We wanted to give the Afghans with whom we worked the best possible chance to help move their country forward.

It may have been naïve and overly optimistic, but I had hope for Afghanistan. I found hope in those with whom we worked. I met elders who seemed to sincerely want a peaceful future rather than the tribal conflicts and long wars that littered the country’s past. I met young men (we had almost no interactions with Afghan women) who seemed committed to that peaceful future and might provide the foundation for effective self-government.

It was early May, and Costco had their first delivery of hibiscus plants. I knew nothing about hibiscuses (hibisci?), but my wife was pretty good with flowers, especially orchids. I even refer to her as the “Orchid Whisperer” because people give her dying orchids and she revives them, though they are a lot of work. How much harder could a hibiscus be? After consulting with the Orchid Whisper, I was ready to pick one out.

Many of the plants had beautiful blooms which tempted me, but I had an epiphany; choose one with a lot of buds but no flowers. That should mean more blossoms to enjoy at home.

Of course, there were risks with that approach. We wouldn’t know the color of the flowers (those with blooms had a range of colors); we wouldn’t even know for certain it would bloom. I decided the risks were worth the potential rewards.

We made it from Asadabad to Kabul in time for our flight home, but the US military was just beginning to increase (surge as it was being called) the number of troops in Afghanistan while pushing a more robust counterinsurgency (COIN) effort. The intent was to improve…

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