Working out of Forward Operating Base Shank in Afghanistan, just south of the capital Kabul, a soldier from Tucson, with allies from the Jordanian military, seeks to break cultural barriers and win the hearts and minds of Afghan people to help build a nation resistant to the Taliban insurgency.
"The Jordanians just recently joined us," U.S. Army Capt. Isaac Greenberg tells Jewish News. "Their main responsibility is to engage the local nationals and show a Muslim face, that the Americans are changing, that President Obama has asked the Jordanians to come to Afghanistan to help out a fellow Muslim brother in order to build a better relationship to get rid of the Taliban."
For instance, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Jordanians hosted an iftar, break-fast dinner, for Afghan provincial leaders and American guests, including Greenberg.
"I find it an awesome experience because these people actually are able to engage the (Afghan) people, unlike we (Americans) are, because of their similarities," he says. "And because of that, we are using them in our combined patrols to gain intelligence and build a better relationship with the local populace."
The piece of real estate Greenberg patrols, near the strategic Khyber Pass into Pakistan, is nearly 8,000 miles away from his home.
Born and raised in Tucson, he was an all-star in football and wrestling at Sahuaro High School, graduating in 2001. He was appointed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point by Sen. John McCain and Rep. Jim Kolbe. Greenberg graduated from West Point in 2005 and, like all graduating cadets, was commissioned as a second lieutenant (two ranks below captain).
Having grown up at Tucson's Congregation Anshei Israel, Greenberg, 26, serves as a lay leader for services held each Shabbat at "FOB Shank." (He pronounces the two words as they're spelled.)
Serving as lay leader "gives me the great honor to observe our religion so far from home," he wrote in an e-mail this summer.
While there may be no atheists in foxholes, attendance at services is low - typically Greenberg and another Jewish soldier, and some non-Jewish friends.
"They'll join us because they enjoy hanging out with us just checking out a different culture," he tells Jewish News while he is in the Valley for the funeral of his grandfather, William Rosenberg, in early September.
Greenberg wonders why there aren't more Jewish soldiers these days. His outreach on the subject is one reason he's been nominated as a Jewish Community Hero (jewishcommunityheroes.org), an initiative of the United Jewish Communities/The Jewish Federations of North America. The site says that Greenberg "is constantly reaching out to the Jewish community, specifically rabbis and students, to further educate them as to being Jewish in the military."
Over the past five years, whenever he's been able to go home, he's spoken about the subject to students at Tucson Hebrew Academy, and he maintains an extensive e-mail list in which he discusses his deployment and issues like this one.
In a note he sent to Hillel at the University of Arizona over the summer, he asked to speak to the Jewish students there about possibly serving in the military.
"I won't be preaching that they should join," he wrote, "but I think it's a great topic that is necessary to discuss. Jews are represented in virtually every profession - from law to medicine to science - but they are few and far between in the armed forces serving our country. My question is, 'Why?'"
Asked why he believes this is so, he says, "I think they hear stories that it's a dangerous place over in Afghanistan or Iraq, that it's not a typical job that Jewish personnel are inspired by their parents (to consider) when they're in high school. ... They're more told to talk about going to law school or to medical school or entering a more prestigious (profession) that doesn't sound like the military, where they give you an M4 and you go off to foreign lands to serve your country."
Greenberg is serving his country in the 710th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) as head intelligence officer for more than 500 soldiers.
As he nears the end of his second deployment in Afghanistan, Greenberg says he has come to believe that individual interactions will be the key to strengthening civil society in Afghanistan.
"We have a huge responsibility to serve the people and interact with them to build a better relationship with them," he says. "I majored in international relations, and I'm actually living what I studied, just engaging with people."
As an intelligence officer, his focus is terrorism and counterinsurgency.
"I actually get to see what it's like, to see people being intimidated by the Taliban and trying to counter those tactics with daily operations, by talking to people, by giving them projects, such as building a mosque ... and just trying to become friends with these local nationals to build a better environment and security for them."
He is committed to at least four more years in the service. His current 12-month deployment ends in December, and soon afterward he'll head to the Military Intelligence Captain's Career Course at Fort Huachuca, Ariz.
Although he can tell plenty of stories about near-misses with enemy IEDs (improvised explosive devices), Greenberg says, "I most likely see myself coming back at least one more time to either Iraq or Afghanistan. Only time will tell."
