Pohantoon-e-Hawayee (PEH) is the officer candidate school for the Afghan Air Force. It is a one-year program and upon graduation the candidates are commissioned as officers and then go on to specialty schools such as pilot training or maintenance engineering school.
The school is on the Afghan Air Force base, which is co-located with the Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), the HKIA coalition base and airfield and the TAAC-Air FOB. Though each base is located surrounding the civilian airport, all are far enough apart that a vehicle is required to get from one base to the other. And for coalition forces, with a vehicle movement also comes the requirements for a certain number of people, certain number of weapons, and PPE for all passengers (vest and kevlar).
I arrived at HKIA on a Monday night to attend a PA/IO conference Tuesday and Wednesday. After the conference, and after all my colleagues had flown back to their respective “homes”, I remained in a an open bay room full of unstable bunk beds with sagging mattresses to meet 4 members of the media who were flying in to see the PEH school. Thursday evening, I greeted two reporters and a photographer at the PAX terminal – the BBC reporter decided to stop answering his phone and not show up for his flight.
The PEH tour was only a half day event, for which we would usually fly media in and out the same day. However, the tour was scheduled to take place early in the morning and the helo flights are very inconsistent and times are not posted until after 8 pm the night before, so we opted to fly the media the night before and have a sleepover.
Great intent except we had no idea how bleak the temporary lodging was and didn’t know that bedding would not be provided. Two of the reporters brought little more than their cameras and a toothbrush. So we had to make a stop at the PX for them to buy sheets and a blanket to survive the night. The third reporter was going from HKIA down south to embed in Kandahar and Helmand for a week, so he had packed appropriately.
It’s probably worth noting at this point that HKIA is literally a 5 minute helo ride from RS HQ, both bases are in the city of Kabul. But because the gate security at HKIA is so cumbersome, especially for an Afghan citizen, and so far away from the rest of the base that a vehicle is required to get to the gate to pick someone up (see above for associated requirements for vehicles), we don’t allow the media that live in Kabul to take a quick taxi over. Instead we have them take a taxi to RS so we can bring them through the slightly less cumbersome security gate here, then escort them to the landing zone, check them in for their scheduled flight an hour early and then wait around with them until they get on a helicopter that will take them about 5 miles down the road, wasting nearly 3 hours of their time, and ours, and god-knows how much money in fuel, manpower and equipment for flight operations.
The next morning we got up early and had breakfast. I went by the terminal to make sure the two ill-prepared reporters had a flight back in the afternoon. We then dawned all our protective gear and loaded into gators (utility golf carts) and rode over the TAAC-Air FOB where we met some of the advisors. Then we loaded into two MRAPs to drive around to the other side of the airport where the Afghan Air Force base and the PEH school is located.
We sat down with the Afghan Colonel who runs the school, then he and his staff took us around the school to see some of the classes in session, meet some of the students and even watch some of the newest candidates (3 days) start learning drill and formation. I was really impressed. This is by far the most well organized and legitimate training facility I have been privy to yet, that is all Afghan led and Afghan taught. The students were very well spoken, their english was exceptional (in the office call, the commander said that a large part of the curriculum is english because all the technical documentation for the aircraft is written in English, and several of the advanced and flight schools are conducted in the US).
After the tour, we loaded back up and went out to the flight line to see up close some of the aircraft the Afghans fly.
Sometimes I wish I was more of a nerd with military equipment, it would often come in handy as a PAO, but when someone starts talking about model numbers and names of various aircraft, my eyes glaze over and I nod my head and smile. So rather than google the platforms to list them here as though I would ever remember them otherwise, I’ll just finish with some pictures I took of them.
