ABA Journal - Law News Now

When Alabama at­torney and Navy Reserve officer Sterling DeRamus got married, his wife felt reasonably sure he would be a full-time solo practitioner and weekend soldier.

After all, the Berlin Wall had fallen and the Soviet Union had shattered into several small nations. It was years before al-Qaida flew planes into the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon.

“The Cold War had ended and there did not look like any chance that I’d ever be called up from the Navy Reserves again,” DeRamus says.

But last autumn, nearly six years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, DeRamus got the call. He had expected to be deployed, so he decided to search out an op­portunity he thought would be an adventure: a stint in Afghanistan. He said goodbye to his wife and two small children and left behind the warm, humid, gently rolling hills of Bir­mingham, bound for Afghani­stan’s frozen, rugged, landmine-riddled mountain peaks.

There, DeRamus once again is reporting for duty, this time to a four-star general who oversees his coordi­nation of 26 Provisional Reconstruc­tion Teams, composed of soldiers from 14 nations. Their mission is to help Afghans build in areas so dangerous that even international development agencies fear to tread.

DeRamus, however, relishes the responsibility and the adventure, risking his life to bring the war-ravaged region wells, dams, clinics, schools, electricity and—especially—roads.

“Where the road ends, the Taliban begins,” says DeRamus. “Villages always want roads.”

With about $30,000 to $50,000, a PRT can build a micro-hydro power plant that electrifies several villages. But a road must exist or the equipment can’t get there.

That’s where DeRamus and the PRTs come in, however slowly.

Continue reading...