U.S. civilian experts train for the real Afghanistan

BUTLERVILLE, Indiana (Reuters) - They arrive at the meeting by U.S. military helicopter, politely accept a cup of tea and haggle over a U.S.-funded water project gone awry.

This is Afghanistan -- or at least a simulation at a tatty complex in the Indiana woods to prepare hundreds of agriculture specialists, lawyers, economists and other civilian experts for the real thing.

Sending more American civilians to Afghanistan is part of President Barack Obama's strategy review as he seeks to turn around the eight-year war and improve the performance of the Karzai government while reining in a culture of corruption.

The State Department aims to have 974 civilians in Afghanistan by the end of the year, up from 320 in January, but that is still a small number for a country so shattered by war. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has asked for at least 300 more.

For 57-year-old Kathy Gunderman, going to Afghanistan is almost a calling and she hopes her decades of agricultural skills will help boost crop yields in a country where she says too many children die from hunger-related disease.

Having grown up poor in Appalachia, Gunderman feels empathy with those struggling in Afghanistan.

"I am more sure of this than I have been about anything else in my life," she says.

Gunderman and 35 others attended the training course this week at the Muscatatuck Center for Complex Operations.

The former mental institution southeast of Indianapolis was transformed by the National Guard into a mock urban center in Afghanistan where civilian experts role-play their new jobs and learn how to work with the U.S. military in a war zone.

In one scruffy meeting room, a picture of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was inaugurated for another term on Thursday, is pasted on the wall. Men in Afghan clothing, toying with beads, sit on mismatched furniture and harangue aid workers over a project that divided a community.

The goal is to be as authentic as possible. The mustachioed man posing as a provincial governor is a former Afghan diplomat and the actor playing a police chief once had that job too.

Corruption is a major theme of the training.

In one exercise, a health clinic employee tells the U.S. development worker that medicine sent by Washington to fight a cholera outbreak is being sold off in the local market.

"They will encounter these live exercises on the ground all the time," said Michael Keays, a State Department employee who just returned from Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan and now helps with the training.

It was important to be aware of a range of cultural issues, he said.

"The Pashtuns, for instance, are very traditional. They have their own tribal code -- concepts like revenge, honor and self-sufficiency," Keays said.

DIFFERENT AGENDAS

Most of those on the course are in their 40s and 50s, drawn from government jobs or out of retirement. Some are looking for adventure, others have loftier goals.

Former banker Kevin Kock said it was a hard decision to go to Afghanistan, where he will work on agriculture projects, but he hoped the experience would get him a university teaching job when he got back to the United States.

Back in Nebraska, he dealt largely in agricultural loans, experience he thinks will be useful in Afghanistan.

"Everyone understands the potential in this thing. But I am not going into this with rose-colored glasses. I understand the reality of what is going on," said Kock, who leaves behind a son in high school and a daughter due to get married in April.

Much of the training at Muscatatuck revolves around working closely with the military in what are known as Provincial Reconstruction Teams, a formula also used in Iraq.

Christine Danton, who has worked for several nongovernmental organizations in Africa, said getting to know the "protocol" for working alongside soldiers was useful.

"Just a simple thing of being around guns takes getting used to," she said.

Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew, who visited the training center on Thursday, was quizzed by one U.S. Agency for International Development worker about whether the embassy in Kabul was ready for them and how Obama's strategy review -- set to be announced soon -- would affect the role of civilians.

Lew said he did not expect major changes on the civilian side, although staff could be shifted around, depending on where additional U.S. troops were sent.

"We are doing contingency planning to be able to respond to a number of different scenarios," Lew said.

(Editing by John O'Callaghan)