Related article:
U.S. civilian cops offer expertise to Iraqi police
By Edward Colimore
The Philadelphia Inquirer
URUZGAN, Afghanistan — Whenever Gary Cundiff thought about retiring from the Cherry Hill Police Department, he imagined himself “sitting on a beach, drinking a cold beer.”
He never saw himself in the dusty central highlands of Afghanistan, teaching police work and light infantry tactics to Afghans in more than 100-degree heat.
“Not in my wildest dreams,” said Cundiff, 62, in Cherry Hill recently on a two-week break from his duties 8,500 miles away in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province.
“But there’s nothing more attractive than working with great young Americans, keeping terrorists busy and putting them out of business. It’s way more important than sitting on a beach,” he said.
The longtime township resident joined DynCorp International, a military contractor, within weeks of his retirement from the Cherry Hill police in April 2007. Cundiff departed for Afghanistan the same month, and is instructing police trainees at the Army Special Forces’ remote Firebase Ripley.
His work also takes him on patrols to police checkpoints and nearby military outposts.
On the day he came home last month, the Marine veteran “lost a buddy at a satellite base.” Many Americans and Afghans have been killed or wounded through direct attacks, suicide bombers, and improvised explosive devices, he said.
“There are Taliban all over the area,” Cundiff said. In August, “we had a close encounter with a suicide bomber. Our intelligence told us he was on his way to attack our base, and we gave him a warm welcome.”
The man was dropped off by a motorcyclist and was walking toward the base armed with explosives laden with nuts, bolts and ball bearings intended to inflict maximum casualties.
“Special Forces and Afghan police lit him up,” Cundiff said. “He went up in a blinding flash of light and a mushroom cloud.”
Cundiff has had a long history of public service as a soldier, volunteer firefighter and police officer.
After nearly 36 years in the township police department, he thought he’d seen it all. He worked at the Garden State Race Track fire in 1977 and at the fatal shooting of six people at a North Kings Highway office building in 1971.
But nothing affected him more than the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, where Cundiff lost three friends in the Port Authority Police.
“I was working that day” and headed to New York City before authorities “froze everybody’s movement,” he recalled. “I left for ground zero, and was involved in bringing out the injured and bodies of those who died.”
For more than four months, Cundiff volunteered all his spare time to work at the World Trade Center site.
“I thought, with my police and military training, I had something to offer,” said Cundiff, whose work in Afghanistan was honored by Cherry Hill Mayor Bernie Platt at a Sept. 22 ceremony.
“Gary has gone beyond the call of duty more than any public servant I have ever known,” said former Cherry Hill Police Capt. Robert Schuenemann, now the township’s public records coordinator. “He’s always the first one to volunteer. He’s unbelievable.”
It was while volunteering on the security task force at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah that a friend suggested to Cundiff the possibility of working in Iraq as a police adviser and instructor for a military contractor.
“I applied for the job but that closed, so I applied for Afghanistan,” Cundiff said. “I was first stationed at Kandahar in the southern central highlands.” He later moved to Firebase Ripley about 100 miles north.
“My assignment was working with a team providing rudimentary police training, but a lot of it was light infantry tactics and firearms training.”
Uruzgan is a far cry from the Garden State.
“Boy, is it ever,” he said. “It’s very hot, dry and dusty. The temperature gets up to 150 degrees in the summer. Sometimes, we have dust storms.
“The temperature becomes more moderate in November, and we have freezing temperatures beginning in December and January, with a fair amount of snow.”
“The accommodations aren’t that bad,” said Cundiff, who has been living in a mud-block building equipped with a small air conditioner.
“But they’re not so good in the field. We’re not talking about a five-star hotel by any stretch. It’s always dusty and dirty.”
Some days are “harder than others, but it’s all good work,” he said. “We can’t just go over to shoot everything up, bang-bang, and think the Taliban and al-Qaeda are going to fall down or leave.
“During our Civil War, the Union forces had to stay in the South to keep order,” Cundiff said. “We have to give these people a chance to work into this century. They have 98 percent illiteracy.”
The lack of education “makes it easy for fanatic mullahs to tell the people that the Holy Koran says to go out and kill, when it doesn’t. The people of Afghanistan are wonderful and hospitable.”
Cundiff said 14 Afghans he trained as officers and considered friends have been killed. “The Taliban have been killing an enormous number of police, Afghan soldiers, civilians and children,” he said.
“Not a week goes by when we don’t have casualties. We’re always unloading [bodies from] the helicopters. I have medical training, so I help at the surgical center, offering another set of hands.”
While home, Cundiff - who plays the bagpipe - participated in the funeral for Philadelphia Police Sgt. Patrick McDonald, 30, who was gunned down last month in North Philadelphia.
He has played at services for Americans, Australians and Dutch service members in Afghanistan. And he helped create a memorial, with stainless-steel name plates, for those killed while assigned to the firebase, Schuenemann said.
“I’m not there for just the money,” said Cundiff, who returned to duty on Oct. 1. “We can’t leave Afghanistan. We have to win the fight there and give these people a chance to control their own destiny.”
Cundiff isn’t sure what awaits when his tour ends in April. He has a girlfriend in Marlton who will be glad to have him home for good.
“But if there’s something I need to complete,” he said, “I could stay longer.”
Copyright 2008 Philadelphia Inquirer