"Captain K" Translates Afghan Culture

Tue., Aug 07

A recent Southern graduate is helping kids -- and soon, adults -- understand what it was like for him to be an American soldier on the ground in Afghanistan, and how Afghan culture is a world away from the American culture they know. 

Madison resident Michael Kuszpa graduated from Southern in May with his M.S. in science education after completing his student teaching -- 10 weeks of biology at Lyman Hall High School in Wallingford. He also just finished teaching biology classes for the year for Wallingford's Adult Education Credit Diploma Program. And he is the author of a book, Captain K's Afghanistan Adventure.

Prior to coming to Southern, Kuszpa spent a year in Afghanistan -- from 2004-2005 -- embedded with Afghan forces as a tactical trainer, a liaison between U.S. Special Forces and a company of Afghan infantrymen. "I was their adviser and did on-the-job training," Kuszpa says. "They looked to me as their commander." He says he had "total operational freedom" because he was with the Afghan army, so he was able to go to many places in the country other Americans would never see. He developed conversational fluency in the Dari and Pashto languages and gained an intimate view of Afghan life and cultural traditions.  

While in Afghanistan, he participated with Special Forces on cordon and search operations, helicopter air insertions into the Hindu Kush mountains, and kill-capture missions. As an embedded trainer, though, he says, "the biggest thing we did was help the Afghan people." He and his unit spent much of their time "driving around, making the presence of the Afghan army known to the locals." They talked to the elders in villages, who would tell them that schools and medical care were needed. The soldiers handed out backpacks and pens to the children, and U.S. Army doctors provided medical care. 

Many Americans had a hard time acclimating to Afghan culture, Kuszpa says. "Time is unimportant in their culture," he says. To communicate with Afghan elders, for example, he and his soldiers would have to take the time to "sit down with them, make small talk and drink lots of tea. I couldn't approach them as an American." He did have an interpreter traveling with the unit but had to get used to working with him. And he didn't have much preparation regarding Afghan culture before becoming immersed in it. Instead, he learned about it firsthand.

When Kuszpa returned to the United States after his mission, he rejoined his wife and his daughter, Nicole. Nicole was only two years old, hadn't seen him in a year, and did not recognize him. She was still too young to comprehend what had happened to her father while he was away.  But a couple of years later, when Nicole was in nursery school, she asked him to print out some photos of Afghanistan for her to show her classmates in her "show and share" at school. 

Kuszpa had returned from Afghanistan with over eight gigabytes of photos and videos. So he opened up his computer files and started selecting photos. He added some text under them so Nicole's teacher would be able to read about what was going on in each picture. After several hours, what started out as a couple of pictures ended up being a small book. The book was a short timeline of Kuszpa's Afghan experience, written in words that his daughter would comprehend. Her nursery school loved it. As Nicole grew, Kuszpa later read the book to her first-grade class at Jeffery Elementary School in Madison, and the teachers there were excited about it and persuaded him to publish it. Thus was born "Captain K's Afghanistan Adventure." 

After Kuszpa eventually read the book to his daughter's second-grade class, news spread to Daniel Hand High School about his story. He was invited to share his story with DHHS students and has since given numerous classes and presentations to DHHS students and has essentially become part of the curriculum for the school's senior health class as a recurrent guest speaker/expert in Afghan culture. 

His book is available for sale on Amazon.com, and he is now writing a book for adults about his experience in Afghanistan. DHHS's TV and Video Production Department videotaped his Afghanistan culture presentation so he will remain a part of the senior health curriculum when he becomes a full-time teacher and is unable to give his lectures. He has been working as a substitute teacher in Madison while looking for a full-time position teaching either middle school or high school biology and/or general science.

Kuszpa has chosen to become a teacher because he "still feels a strong sense of service" after nine years in the military. He loved working with the Afghan soldiers and gained "such satisfaction from seeing them do things the right way," he says.