Dunford interviews very well with reports.

Interesting: Describing Marines on the field what winning looks like.

\"Q: General, Otto Kreisher with Seapower Magazine. Kind of a morale question. A lot of your people -- particularly your young Marines -- went to Afghanistan thinking they were going to be in a fight. You know, we\'ve seen some comments that the kids are getting a little bored sitting in the background as just assisting. You know, how are you -- how are you handling the situation of all of your grunts, you know, not getting into the fight where they thought they would get into?

And the other thing -- what\'s the definition of an extreme circumstance in which you\'ll -- the NATO forces would come to the help of the Afghans?

GEN. DUNFORD: (inaudible) Otto. First of all, with regard to the first question, in terms of the Marines wanting to get in the fight, you know, God bless them for that. That\'s what they came in the Marine Corps to do, and they\'re ready to do that when we ask them to. And, frankly, there is -- there is a unique leadership challenge in the current environment where Marines have to hold back. You\'re talking specifically about Marines. I would argue that the challenge is equally the case with soldiers who also want to do something when they came over here.

What we\'ve them is this is what winning looks like. The hard sacrifices of their predecessors in the last ten, 11 years have allowed the Afghans to step up and take the lead. They still do have a role in terms of providing training and advising to their Afghan counterparts. In many cases, that\'s the most effective thing we can do at this point. And frankly dealing with boredom is a leadership challenge, and what I have seen as I’ve gone around and visited, is that leaders have found innovative ways to train their Marines who are not engaged with Afghans on a daily basis and ensure they\'re ready when they\'re called. And that\'s what Marines have always prided themselves as being, is the 911 force that\'s ready to answer whatever call they get, and that\'s what they\'ll be, I\'m sure.

With regards to an example of when we will support, I\'ll give you a quick example. Recently, there was a firefight up in Badakhshan, which is a province in northeast Afghanistan. During that firefight, an Afghan unit initially became surrounded. They lost about 20, 25 Afghan soldiers within the first few days of the operation. The minister of defense called me on the telephone and asked me if we could provide close air support to his forces up in Badakhshan. So we flew a JTAC [joint terminal attack controller] team with some special forces to link up with the Afghan unit so that we had the ability to determine control aviation fires. And then subsequent to establishing good command and control, we then flew close air support up in Badakhshan in support of the Afghans. That air support was effective in destroying the enemy that was attacking and surrounding those Afghans at the time. And after getting that initial support, the Afghans were able to recover, continue the operation without our support and accomplish their objectives.\"

http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=5258

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