LtCol Al Burghard
Al made one of Spirit of America's first requests for dental supplies. You can read about the results.
LtCol Al Burghard, US Marines
The story is from New Jersey's Daily Record.
Marine from Parsippany helps in rebuilding of Iraq By Jillian Risberg, Special to the Daily Record
In a world away, U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Alan G. Burghard, a native of Parsippany now residing in California, stepped into unknown territory and saw the human side of war that few others will ever even glimpse.
During Operation Iraqi Freedom with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force/3rd Civil Affairs Group, Burghard aided the country's reconstruction.
"We ended up providing humanitarian assistance and conducting civil military operations in the southern half of Iraq at the peak," Burghard said. He said the Shiite Iraqis were the oppressed community under former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and they were wonderful.
"It was a very, very rewarding experience," he said. "Most times the military only deals with the bad people, and they don't have the chance to connect to the real reason we're there, and that was to liberate the Iraqi citizens."
Burghard returned to Iraq in February, this time as the Governate Support Team Commander in the Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad.
His team is made up of 30 Marines and sailors who will assist the provincial government in a variety of areas: public health, public works, public safety, veterinary care, legal, business and commerce, until the Iraqi leaders are able to resolve the issues on their own.
"That is a very different mission for the Marine Corps," Burghard said. "We don't normally do this; this is nation building."
Though there are some humanitarian aspects to this operation, Burghard said it is beyond that.
"Now we're working on responding to long-term goals, and those goals are for the Iraqis to be confident and able to make important decisions without fear. We want to show them rather than do for them," Burghard said.
While rebuilding Iraq, Burghard and his unit stayed in a building away from the military base that they had to make habitable. Construction people secured the area by putting barbed wire and engineering stakes down into a ditch of water, thought to be a drainage ditch.
It was really aquaculture, the freshwater cultivation of aquatic plants and animals for food or other purposes, where the villagers were raising carp. The barbed wire fell into the water and the fish were getting injured as they swam through. Upon hearing about it, Burghard and a master gunnery sergeant went to survey the problem.
Four young Iraqi boys approached, the oldest one stating with perfect clarity, "Mister, fish die in river." Burghard said they assured the boys it would be taken care of and stuck to their word, fixing it the next day.
Some of the young men doing labor around the grounds returned after a few days with platters of baked carp, rice, vegetables and fruit.
"They said, 'This is from the elder of the village (Haji) thanking you for saving the rest of his fish,'" Burghard recalled.
"We learned later that they were part of the extended family of the farmer who owned all the land around us. We Marines tend to treat people well because we know that in return what respect you give you get."
According to Burghard, there was a tremendous cultural exchange between the Taie tribe, in Al Hillah, and the Marines. "And that was just one small village that was our neighbor," he said. The tribe lived close to the Coalition Provisional Authority compound (CPA), Iraq's acting government.
"We were the Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Center (HACC)," Burghard said. "It was the right thing to do. You don't have to be a Civil Affairs specialist to do this; you just reach out to your neighbor."
Retired Marine Col. Bob Jakucs, formerly of Linden, has been in the same unit with Burghard for 13 years and was director of the HACC when Burghard was deputy director.
"Al is a wonderful officer and Marine and American," Jakucs said. "He is a consummate professional, cool as a cucumber, never gets riled, and always maintains his composure even under the most stressful conditions."
During times of intense fighting, Jakucs said he and Burghard brought non-governmental organizations (NGOs) into the embattled areas to provide medical care, emergency food and propane (Iraq's primary source of cooking fuel) to the Iraqis.
"Without a doubt it saved thousands of lives," Jakucs said. "I think that was our greatest accomplishment and the other was freeing them (Iraqis) from a tyrant."
According to Jakucs, Burghard goes all over the world at the drop of a hat for the Marine Corps Reserve and the country.
"He never complains, he always has a positive attitude, best foot forward. I would take Al Burghard anyplace," Jakucs said. "Wherever I would go he would always be what I used to call jokingly my 'top draft pick.'"
Burghard was no stranger to unpredictable and challenging situations.
On several occasions when insurgents were spotted entering the date palm plantation between the village and the Marines' compound, Burghard said, "The village elder's sons fired at them (insurgents) to drive them off, not letting them even get close to us, and they would report it to us afterwards.
"There was a high threat of mortar attacks, where people could jump in there, fire them off, and disappear into a car in the blink of an eye."
The Marines and the Taie tribe found common ground as neighbors, but their cultural mores differed when it came to dogs.
"Dogs in the Arab culture are a dirty animal, with a very limited purpose. They're mongrels, they're junkyard dogs, not pets, like we consider them," Burghard said.
All that changed when a scruffy young stray they nicknamed "Joe the war dog" came into the picture. He hung around the compound eating garbage and was very antisocial. One of the Civil Affairs veterinarians examined the dog and told Burghard it was a puppy that had not yet experienced any positive human contact.
The Marines fed, cared for and socialized the dog. Burghard said one solider made the mistake of trying to move Joe's food around when he was eating and the dog bit him.
At that point Joe had no medical history, so the soldier had to be given a series of rabies shots and word came down that the dog was going to be destroyed.
"We got really angry because we had spent months with this dog, and the Marines would not have any of that," Burghard said. After observing Joe for a while and having him checked out, the dog exhibited no sign of rabies.
"Because of the relationship we had with the village, we asked them if they would take the dog and bring the dog to their village and let it live there. They don't think of dogs like we do, but because we were friends with them, they realized it was important to us and they went and did it."
When one of the acts of insurgency occurred later that week, Joe barked frantically until he woke up the villagers, who raised the alarm and drove the armed gunmen away.
That was not an isolated incident and Joe became the village guardian, according to Burghard. "He stopped who knows what. We don't know how bad it would have been had it been silent," he said.
The Marines continued to seek humanitarian ways of helping the villagers. Jim Hake, the founder of Spirit of America, a nonprofit organization that assists Americans serving abroad in improving the lives of people in need, said he started the charitable business to contribute in some way to the world after the tragedy of 9/11.
"I learned about the individual efforts and initiative of service people, principally over in Afghanistan at the time, who were finding a way to get baseball equipment and school supplies over there to help out children in villages that they were serving in," Hake said.
Knowing how poor the dental hygiene was in Iraq, and that cost and availability to dentistry was a very low priority, Burghard thought a small dental campaign would make an impact.
"With the younger kids they still have a chance if they get some decent dental hygiene to not have to be destined to pain and suffering," he said.
Responding to Burghard's request last summer, Hake garnered contributions of $4,800 and volunteers who made up 2,000 dental kits filled with a full-sized tube of toothpaste, toothbrush and a flier from the Spirit of America that read: 'A gift from your American friends.'
"I was extremely encouraged and I think any American would be encouraged by the thoughtfulness and intent of Al and I can only imagine the difficulty of fighting a war one day and the next day you're helping people and trying to rebuild a country," Hake said, adding that combining both qualities in a person is tough and Burghard was able to do it very effectively.
According to Hake, equally impressive was Burghard's caring and sensitivity to the needs and customs of the people in Al Hillah and his desire to do all he could to lend a hand.
"Just the kind of thing that really makes you proud to have guys like him over there representing us," Hake said.
Near the very end of their stay the Marines distributed 200 dental kits, transporting them on a stretcher during a large procession through rice fields and cow pastures.
"The other 1,800 we sent out to a village about two hours away where we had established a very good relationship with one of our other units in Ad Diwaniyah, and they had a very large need for this," Burghard said.
"We wanted to let them know that this was something from America, not just from us," Burghard said. "We had the interpreter pull one of these out and explain it to the Haji, who clearly understood what I was saying, that I didn't buy these myself, I was just able to work with other people that did this."
Visibly moved by the compassionate gesture, the Haji told the Marines the village considered them part of his tribe.
Even the Shiite women, who are prohibited from speaking to non-tribal members, came out to express their gratitude and wish the Marines well.
"We couldn't stop to look, we couldn't stop to shake their hands, we couldn't stop to hug them, but the fact that they would come out to address us was the final proof that we really had made a small difference," Burghard said.
"You multiply that times the hundreds of locations and then you start talking some real change."
"So I guess you can trace a lot of who and what I am back to the great foundation I received while an active resident of Parsippany," Burghard said. "And it certainly led toward my chosen paths with the Marine Corps as well as in Federal Law Enforcement."
In the early 1970s, Burghard was a competitive target shooter with the Parsippany-Troy Rifle Team and the Parsippany Hills High School Rifle Team. A Marine Reserve unit at Picatinny Arsenal in Rockaway Township sponsored an Explorer post that specialized in marksmanship training.
Burghard said he enlisted in the unit when he turned 18 because he enjoyed it and thought, "Hey, if I'm a part of this, I can be on their (the Marine Corps) rifle team." He never fulfilled that aspiration because he was working at UPS evenings, when the team met.
As a volunteer with the Parsippany Rescue and Recovery Squad, Burghard said he acquired extrication and diver recovery training that motivated him to become a Master Instructor with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI).
While attending Fairleigh Dickinson University in Florham Park, Burghard became a local recruiter's assistant. On a whim he decided to take the test to qualify for officer candidate school. After achieving high marks and graduating from the 10-week training program, Burghard was off to Quantico, Va., to become a commissioned officer.
At Field Artillery School in Fort Sill, Okla., from 1979 to 1984, Burghard attended a local Red Cross Advanced First Aid and CPR Instructor course, where he met his future wife, Willie. Both were members of the Red Cross Disaster Recovery Team. From there he went on to Camp Lejeune, N.C.
An unexpected assignment in 1983 took Burghard to Beirut, Lebanon, as part of the U.S. Marine Peacekeeping Force.
"They blew up the American Embassy while I was there," he said. "When they fired rockets at the ambassador's residence, I was called upon to go out and recover them and analyze them and figure out where they were fired from."
Within a year of his return, Burghard was released from active duty after fulfilling his obligations and honored with an Outstanding Citizenship Award by Parsippany's then-mayor, Frank Priore. In 1984, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) hired him as a special agent to help conduct felony-level criminal, fraud and counter-intelligence/anti-terrorism investigations and operations. He also returned to the reserves as an intelligence officer.
Burghard's parents, Doris and Armand, who have called Parsippany home since 1972, said they think of their son not as a hero, but as a human being caring for other human beings.
"We are very proud of him," they said. "We thank the good Lord," Doris added.
Of their son's benevolent nature, Doris Burghard said, "It's always nice to be able to do for others, and to help others and those less fortunate or to return something that we might have been given, to others."
