Helmand Province Research Articles

Service Quality Determinants of (DHBS) Electric Company on Customers Satisfaction in Helmand Province, Afghanistan

Service Quality Determinants of (DHBS) Electric Company on Customers Satisfaction in Helmand Province, Afghanistan

Mapping Agricultural Land in Afghanistan’s Opium Provinces Using a Generalised Deep Learning Model and Medium Resolution Satellite Imagery

Understanding the relationship between land use and opium production is critical for monitoring the dynamics of poppy cultivation and developing an effective counter narcotics policy in Afghanistan. However, mapping agricultural land accurately and rapidly is challenging, as current methods require resource-intensive and time consuming manual image-interpretation. Deep convolutional neural nets have been shown to greatly reduce the manual effort in mapping agriculture from satellite imagery but require large amounts of densely labelled training data for model training. Here we develop a generalised model using past images and labels from different medium resolution satellite sensors for fully automatic agricultural land classification using the latest medium resolution satellite imagery. The model (FCN-8) is first trained on Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) satellite images from 2007 to 2009. The effect of shape, texture and spectral features on model performance are investigated along with normalisation in order to standardise input medium resolution imagery from DMC, Landsat-5, Landsat-8, and Sentinel-2 for transfer learning between sensors and across years. Textural features make the highest contribution to overall accuracy (∼73%) while the effect of shape is minimal. The model accuracy on new images, with no additional training, is comparable to visual image interpretation (overall > 95%, user accuracy > 91%, producer accuracy > 85%, and frequency weighted intersection over union > 67%). The model is robust and was used to map agriculture from archive images (1990) and can be used in other areas with similar landscapes. The model can be updated by fine tuning using smaller, sparsely labelled datasets in the future. The generalised model was used to map the change in agricultural area in Helmand Province, showing the expansion of agricultural land into former desert areas. Training generalised deep learning models using data from both new and long-term EO programmes, with little or no requirement for fine tuning, is an exciting opportunity for automating image classification across datasets and through time that can improve our understanding of the environment.

Decreasing lower extremity junctional and perineal injury from explosive blast with a pelvic protection system

ObjectiveLower extremity junctional injuries due to explosive blasts are among the most lethal sustained on the battlefield. To help reduce the effects of junctional and perineal trauma from this injury mechanism, a tiered Pelvic Protection System (PPS) was fielded during the war in Afghanistan. MethodsThirty-six patients with known PPS status who sustained traumatic above knee amputations, with and without perineal injuries, were identified from an operative amputation registry in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, spanning a 12-month period. ResultsIn Group 1 patients with above knee amputations who wore some tier of the PPS system, 47% (8 of 17) sustained junctional/perineal injuries. Of the patients in Group 2 who wore no PPS, 68% (13 of 19) sustained perineal injuries associated with proximal amputations. Overall, these differences were statistically significant (p = 0.0115). ConclusionUse of a PPS may reduce the risk of having severe perineal and lower extremity junctional injury in service members sustaining traumatic above knee amputations from an explosive blast.

How Britain broke the world: war, greed and blunders from Kosovo to Afghanistan, 1997–2022

It is true that some of Britain's recent mistakes have had negative global consequences. The 2013 Syria vote in Parliament certainly influenced US President Barack Obama to sit on his hands. Britain and France were jointly responsible for the mess in Libya in 2011. Bad British intelligence made it easier for Obama's predecessor George W. Bush to invade Iraq in 2003, though there is little doubt that he would have done so anyway (p. 87). In How Britain broke the world, Arthur Snell assaults readers with a barrage of chapters about foreign policy, military and intelligence mishaps. With a wide range of case-studies, Snell starts with Kosovo and then goes on to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and India, finishing off with the United Kingdom's delusions over the ‘special relationship’ (a term which should be buried forever) with the United States. Snell lived through many of these events and witnessed them at close quarters. It is difficult to forget either the British evacuation from Basra in 2007 in the face of American and Iraqi disdain or the 2006 deal with the Taliban to allow British troops to retreat from Musa Qala in Afghanistan's Helmand Province (p. 107). But military interventions were not the only recent UK foreign policy blunders. Snell concentrates on what he sees as the error of Brexit, rather than on why the decision was so poorly implemented. Why, for example, were diplomats not able to develop a close relationship with Ireland, which stood to lose more than the UK from a bad deal? And why were they so ineffective at explaining to President Joe Biden that London had more to lose than any other country from a failure of the Good Friday Agreement (p. 324)?

The sensitivity of chest X-ray (CXR) for the detection of significant thoracic injury in children exposed to blast

IntroductionThoracic trauma is an important cause of morbidity and mortality in children exposed to blast and early recognition of these injuries is vital. While numerous studies have investigated the sensitivity of chest X-ray (CXR) for the detection of chest injury in blunt trauma, none have evaluated its performance in paediatric blast injury. MethodsCXR and Computed Tomography (CT) thorax findings were compared for 105 children who were injured by blast and presented to the UK Role 3 Hospital, Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, during the recent conflict in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2013. CXR performance was evaluated compared to the ‘gold standard’ of CT for the detection of significant thoracic injuries, defined as pneumothorax, haemothorax, aortic or great vessel injury, 2 or more rib fractures, ruptured diaphragm, sternal fracture, penetrating fragments and pulmonary contusion or laceration. ResultsThe sensitivity of CXR for the detection of significant injuries was: pneumothorax 43%, haemothorax 40%, contusion 44%, laceration 100%, blast lung 80% and subdermal metallic fragments 75%. CXR missed all cases of diaphragm injury, ≥2 rib fractures, clavicle fracture and pleural effusion, although numbers of each were small. Specificity for CXR injury detection was 94% for contusion and 93% for fragment, and 100% otherwise. The sensitivity and specificity of CXR for identifying an abnormality that would prompt CT imaging was 72% (95% CI 55–85%) and 82% (95% CI 70–90%). ConclusionsCXR has a poor sensitivity for the identification of significant thoracic injury in children exposed to blast. We argue that, given the challenge of clinical assessment of injured children and the potential for serious adverse consequences of missed thoracic injuries, there should be a low threshold for the use of CT chest in the evaluation of children exposed to blast.

A Thorough Economic Evaluation by Implementing Solar/Wind Energies for Hydrogen Production: A Case Study

A technical–economic assessment was carried out in this study to determine the possibilities for wind and solar power generation in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. The results showed that most of the province has a solar irradiance of over 400 W/m2, and also showed that wind and solar power generated in the province can be up to twice as cheap as the official price of renewable power in Afghanistan. The most suitable site for solar and hydrogen production was found to be Laškar Gāh, where solar and hydrogen can be produced at a cost of 0.066 $/kWh and 2.1496 $/kg-H2, respectively. In terms of wind power production and hydrogen production from wind, the most suitable site was Sangīn, where wind power and hydrogen could be produced at costs of 0.057 $/kWh and 1.4527 $/kg-H2, respectively. Despite the high potential of wind and solar energy in the Helmand province, the most suitable place in this region to produce hydrogen from wind/solar energy was evaluated from technical, economic, and environmental perspectives with the Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) method. The Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) method was used for weighting criteria and the Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment (WASPAS) method was used to prioritize locations. The results show that Sangīn is the most suitable place for the construction of a wind hydrogen power plant and Laškar Gāh is the most suitable place for the construction of a solar hydrogen power plant.

Twelve Insights into the Afghanistan War through the Photographs from the Basetrack Project: Rita Leistner’s iProbes and Marshall McLuhan’s Theory of Media

This article presents the iProbe concept developed by the Canadian photographer Rita Leistner. This analytical tool is one of the ways to present the image of modern warfare that emerges from messages in social media and photographs taken using smartphones. Utilized to understand the approach are photographs Leistner took at the American military base in Musa Qala (Helmand province, Afghanistan) during the implementation of the “Basetrack” media project in 2011. The theoretical basis for this study is Marshall McLuhan’s media theory, which was used by the photographer to interpret her works from Afghanistan. Leistner is the first to apply the various concepts shaped by McLuhan in the second half of 20th century, such as “probe”, “extension of man”, and the “figure/ground” dichotomy, to analyze war photography. Her blog and book entitled Looking for Marshall McLuhan in Afghanistan shows the potential of using McLuhan’s concepts to interpret the image of modern warfare presented in the contemporary media. The application of McLuhan’s theory to this type of photographic analysis provides the opportunity to focus on the technological dimension of modern war and to look at warfare from a technical perspective such as what devices and communication solutions are used to solve armed conflicts as efficiently and bloodlessly as possible. Therefore, this article briefly presents twelve iProbes that Leistner created based on her experiences from working in Afghanistan concerning photography, military equipment, interpersonal relations, and various types of communication.

Water Quality Assessment of Ground and River Water in Lashkar Gah city of Helmand Province, Afghanistan

Water Quality Assessment of Ground and River Water in Lashkar Gah city of Helmand Province, Afghanistan

Anemia among Women Who Visit Bost Hospital for Delivery in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Background Anemia is a global public health problem that affects a large number of pregnant women worldwide. In developed and developing countries, the number of pregnant women who become anemic ranges between 18% and 56%, respectively. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of anemia and factors associated with anemia among pregnant women who visit Bost Hospital for delivery in Helmand province, Afghanistan. Methods This was a hospital-based cross-sectional study that included 787 pregnant women who visited Bost Hospital for delivery services from January to June 2019. Data was collected in a self-structured questionnaire, which included sociodemographic, obstetrics, and laboratory information. Data was analyzed using SPSS 21.00 Statistical software. The prevalence of anemia was presented as a percentage. Bivariate analysis and binary logistic regression were used to identify the predictors of anemia among pregnant women. Results The overall prevalence of anemia in this study was 51% (95% CI = 48.7%–54.7%). The mean hemoglobin concentration among the study participants was 10.8 (±1.8) g/dL. On bivariate analysis, age group 30 years and above, rural residency and unemployment/housewives, multiparity, and no previous use of contraceptive were found to be associated with anemia. Binary logistic regression showed that multiparity (AOR = 3.09, 95% CI = 1.81–5.29) and no contraceptive use (AOR = 1.53, 95% CI = 1.08–2.16) were the independent predictors of increased anemia among pregnant women. Conclusion Anemia was found to be a severe public health problem in the study area. Policymakers in Afghanistan must accelerate interventions to promote family planning. The need for prospective studies is also suggested to identify other factors associated with anemia among pregnant women.

Economic Analysis of Smallholder Maize Producers: Empirical Evidence From Helmand, Afghanistan

Since war started at the end of 2001, the economy was severely devasted in Afghanistan, especially for the agriculture sector. Maize is the third most important cereal crop in Afghanistan, but the productivity of maize has a declining trend which may be caused by low efficiency of maize farmers nowadays. This study examines the production efficiency of maize producers and its important factors with the cross-sectional data form a multi-stage sampling survey of 250 maize producers in Helmand province in 2019. With the adoption of stochastic production frontier (SPF) model and production cost function, the paper gets the estimations of the average technical efficiency (0.737), allocative efficiency (0.65) and economic efficiency (0.568). The inputs, including land, labor, seed, fertilizer and pesticide/weedicides, have significant impacts on maize production and most of the farms exhibit an increasing return to scales. In addition, Tobit regression was applied to identify the influential factors of the production efficiencies for maize producers and the results indicate that education, family size, farm size, farming experience, contact to extension services and access to credit have significantly influence on the efficiency level. Finally, the study suggests that government should take some initiatives, such as extending the agricultural extension service, ensuring supply of high quality seeds and sufficient fertilizer with affordable prices and economical provision of mobile internet facility in remote areas, which will enhance the productivity and efficiency of the farmers and ultimately boost up their economic welfare and livelihood.

Correlating findings from the Central Helmand Archaeological Study (CHAS) with those from previous surveys in the Central Helmand Valley, Afghanistan

The Central Helmand Archaeological Study (CHAS) was a rapid archaeological reconnaissance led and undertaken by the author in 2011 to support counterinsurgency efforts on behalf of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in central Helmand Province. Due to the volatility in the region and the imperative to produce results that would have an immediate operational effect, the author had to forego conventional preparations which would have necessarily included a lengthy review and analysis of previously recorded sites in the region. The situation being as it was, the primary objective of this paper is to review the data that were collected and to determine whether the sites identified and investigated in the course of the CHAS can be linked to any previously recorded sites. To accomplish this task, a system for deciding whether the sites recorded in the CHAS match any previously recorded sites is devised and described. The second objective of this paper uses what information can be gleaned from the CHAS to increase archaeological knowledge of the central Helmand valley. Towards these ends, five sites that were recorded in the CHAS are found to have been previously unrecorded and are described. In those cases where the sites examined in the CHAS overlap with previously recorded sites, the CHAS supplements what has been known of the sites with new information on the sites' composition and chronology.

ОЦЕНКА АГРОКЛИМАТИЧЕСКИХ РЕСУРСОВ АНАПО-ТАМАНСКОЙ ПОДЗОНЫ ЮЖНОЙ ПЛОДОВОЙ ЗОНЫ КРАСНОДАРСКОГО КРАЯ И ПРОВИНЦИИ ГИЛЬМЕНД РЕСПУБЛИКИ АФГАНИСТАН С ЦЕЛЬЮ ОПРЕДЕЛЕНИЯ ВОЗМОЖНОСТИ ВОЗДЕЛЫВАНИЯ АБРИКОСА

ОЦЕНКА АГРОКЛИМАТИЧЕСКИХ РЕСУРСОВ АНАПО-ТАМАНСКОЙ ПОДЗОНЫ ЮЖНОЙ ПЛОДОВОЙ ЗОНЫ КРАСНОДАРСКОГО КРАЯ И ПРОВИНЦИИ ГИЛЬМЕНД РЕСПУБЛИКИ АФГАНИСТАН С ЦЕЛЬЮ ОПРЕДЕЛЕНИЯ ВОЗМОЖНОСТИ ВОЗДЕЛЫВАНИЯ АБРИКОСА

Leadership and post-traumatic stress disorder: are soldiers’ perceptions of organizational justice during deployment protective?

ABSTRACTBackground: Soldiers’ perception of leadership during military deployment has gained research attention as a potentially modifiable factor to buffer against the development of postdeployment post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Within nonmilitary research, the organizational justice (OJ) framework, i.e. distributive justice, procedural justice (PJ) and interactional justice (IJ), has been found to relate to mental health outcomes. Aspects of OJ may, therefore, be protective against PTSD.Objectives: We examined the prospective relationship between aspects of OJ, namely the perceptions of PJ and IJ by subordinate soldiers without leadership obligations in relationship to immediate superiors and PTSD.Method: Participants were soldiers (n = 245) deployed to Helmand Province in Afghanistan in 2009. Logistic regression procedures were used. The primary analysis measured PTSD cases using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-TR Axis-I Disorder (SCID) 2½ years after homecoming. PJ/IJ was measured during deployment with a 6-item composite measure ranging from 0 to 12. Supplementary primary analyses were performed with PJ/IJ measured before and immediately after deployment. A secondary PJ/IJ analysis also tested against four postdeployment measures with the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist Civilian (PCL-C) dichotomized at screening symptom levels.Results: Higher levels of perceived PJ/IJ for soldiers without leadership obligations during deployment had a prospective relation (OR = 0.86, 95% CI = 0.75–0.98) with PTSD on the SCID 2½ years after homecoming after adjustment for factors including predeployment PTSD symptoms, trauma and combat exposure, and state affectivity. Similar results were found by measuring PJ/IJ before (OR = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.71–0.95) but not immediately after homecoming (OR = 0.97, 95% CI = 0.85–1.11). A relationship with PTSD symptoms at the screening level at the four measurements of PCL-C was found, but only when predeployment PTSD symptoms were not controlled for.Conclusions: These results suggest that PJ/IJ exercised by superiors in relation to military deployments may protect subordinate soldiers against the development of postdeployment PTSD.

Newly Diagnosed Tetralogy of Fallot in a 26-Year-Old Afghan Soldier

SESSION TITLE: Genetic and Developmental Disorders SESSION TYPE: Affiliate Case Report Poster PRESENTED ON: Tuesday, October 31, 2017 at 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM INTRODUCTION: Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) is a spectrum of anatomical abnormalities that include a tetrad of (1) ventricular septal defect (VSD), (2) over-riding aorta, (3) right ventricular outflow obstruction, and (4) right ventricular hypertrophy. We present a 26 year-old male with acute dyspnea who was unexpectedly found to have Tetralogy of Fallot alongside other congenital vascular abnormalities. CASE PRESENTATION: A 26 year-old Afghan male with no past medical history presented for acute evaluation at a combat surgical hospital in Helmand Province, Afghanistan for 3 months of progressive exertional dyspnea, chest pain, and cyanosis. One of his siblings died suddenly as a teenager from unknown cause. Initial evaluation revealed heart rate of 118 and Sp02 of 62% on room air. Physical exam was notable for clear lungs, clubbing and cyanosis, a loud 5/6 holosystolic murmur, and displaced point of maximal impulse. Arterial blood gas on room air demonstrated PaO2 of 53 mmHg with normal pH. Chest radiograph showed enlarged cardiac silhouette and clear lungs. Electrocardiogram showed extreme right axis deviation, inferior Q-waves, and right atrial enlargement. Suspecting congenital heart disease, the patient was managed conservatively with supplemental oxygen by nasal cannula while awaiting confirmatory testing. Bedside cardiac ultrasonography demonstrated a large VSD and subsequent CT angiogram of the chest identified TOF as well as multiple other congenital abnormalities including right sided aortic arch, major aortopulmonary collateral arteries, a true vascular ring, and bronchus suis. The patient was counselled on his diagnosis and transported to a large hospital in Kabul, although there are no known surgical capabilities for TOF repair in this country. DISCUSSION: This is a unique presentation of hypoxia in a young soldier. In the developed world, this condition is often identified during prenatal ultrasonography screening, which can lead to early intervention and treatment. Before the advent of surgical repair techniques, approximately 50% of patients died in the first 1-2 years of life, and it was very rare to survive beyond age 30. The most commonly associated genetic abnormality is a microdeletion of 22q11 seen in 25% of patients. Less than 8% of patients survive to age 26 with uncorrected TOF, with death usually resulting from right sided heart failure or malignant arrhythmias. Patients with pulmonary atresia have a much shorter life expectancy (4% alive at age 26) than patients with pulmonary stenosis (9% alive at age 26). Surgical repair in older adults is feasible but carries increased operative risk compared to operating on infants. CONCLUSIONS: Tetralogy of Fallot is a congenital heart disease usually diagnosed and repaired at birth. Late presentations are rare in developed countries and life expectancy without repair is very limited. Reference #1: Apitz, Christian et al. Tetralogy of Fallot. The Lancet; 2009; 374 (9699):1462 - 1471. DISCLOSURE: The following authors have nothing to disclose: Andrew Berglund, David Ferraro No Product/Research Disclosure Information

The role of neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) in the detection of blast lung injury in a military population

PurposeTo study the relationship between serum neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) and military blast and gunshot wound (GSW) to establish whether potential exists for NGAL as a biomarker for blast lung injury (BLI). MethodPatients from the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Role 3 Medical Treatment Facility at Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, Afghanistan were studied over a five month period commencing in 2012. Age, mechanism, trauma injury severity score (TRISS) and serum NGAL were recorded on ICU admission (NGAL1). Serum NGAL (NGAL2) and PaO2/FiO2 ratio (P/F ratio2) were recorded at 24h. Results33 patients were injured by blast and 23 by GSW. NGAL1 inversely correlated with TRISS (p=0.020), pH (p=0.002) and P/F ratio 2 (p=0.009) overall. When data was stratified into blast and GSW, NGAL1 also inversely correlated with P/F ratio 2 in the blast injured group (p=0.008) but not GSW group (p=0.27). ConclusionRaised NGAL correlated with increased severity of injury (worse survival probability i.e. TRISS and low pH) in both patient groups. There was an inverse correlation between admission NGAL and a marker of blast lung injury (low P/F ratio) at 24h in blast injured group but not GSW group that warrants further investigation.

Flanders and Helmand: chaplaincy, faith and religious change in the British Army, 1914–2014

The year 2014 marked the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War and the end of eight years of major British combat operations in Afghanistan. Against the background of profound religious changes in British society over the course of the intervening century, this article examines the continuities and discontinuities between British army chaplaincy on the Western Front from 1914 to 1918 and in southern Afghanistan from 2006 to 2014, and explores the religious beliefs and practices of British soldiers caught up in the deadly and protracted struggles on the Western Front and in Helmand Province. While acknowledging major differences in the operational contexts involved and seismic shifts in British religious life over the course of the twentieth century, besides important divergences this article identifies striking degrees of continuity between the ministry of army chaplains and the religious attitude and behaviour of soldiers themselves.

Making sense of the war in Afghanistan

Abstract What does a reading of Karl Weick’s work add to our understanding of strategy? To address this question I first outline some of the principal ideas that inform the Weick-inspired sensemaking perspective − sensemaking, organizing and enactment. Second, drawing on Martin (2014) these concepts are applied in order to analyze the West’s strategy failure in Afghanistan, focusing in particular on the activities of the British and Americans in Helmand province. American and British strategizing, I argue, was hamstrung by a failure to understand adequately the history, context, people, actions and events in which they were embroiled: that is, there was a failure of sensemaking. This exploration suggests the value of sensemaking theory not just to academics but also to corporate strategists and military commanders. Although the nature of this failure and its implications for the West’s strategies are analyzed primarily with reference to Weick, I draw also on the broader sensemaking literature especially that which recognizes the linguistic, and in particular narrative character of sensemaking processes. Finally, some limitations of this analysis and the sensemaking perspective generally are briefly considered.

Improved estimates of opium cultivation in Afghanistan using imagery-based stratification

ABSTRACTThe United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the US Government make extensive use of remote sensing to quantify and monitor trends in Afghanistan’s illicit opium production. Cultivation figures from their independent annual surveys can vary because of systematic differences in survey methodologies relating to spectral stratification and the addition of a pixel buffer to the agricultural area. We investigated the effect of stratification and buffering on area estimates of opium poppy using SPOT5 imagery covering the main opium cultivation area of Helmand province and sample data of poppy fields interpreted from very high resolution satellite imagery. The effect of resolution was investigated by resampling the original 10 m pixels to 20, 30, and 60 m, representing the range of available imagery. The number of strata (1, 4, 8, 13, 23, 40) and sample fraction (0.2–2%) used in the estimate were also investigated. Stratification reduced the confidence interval by improving the precision of estimates. Cultivation estimates of poppy using 40 spectral strata and a sample fraction of 1.1% had a similar precision to direct expansion estimates using a 2% sample fraction. Stratified estimates were more robust to changes in sample size and distribution. The mapping of the agricultural area had a significant effect on poppy cultivation estimates in Afghanistan, where the area of total agricultural production can vary significantly between years. The findings of this research explain differences in cultivation figures of the opium monitoring programmes in Afghanistan and recommendations can be applied to improve resource monitoring in other geographic areas.

A comparative analysis of the effectiveness of aquifer thermal energy storage in Expeditionary Campaign Infrastructure

A comparative study was undertaken to predict the energy savings associated with the employment of aquifer thermal energy storage in combination with a commercial water to air heat pump when used in Expeditionary Campaign Infrastructure against the climatic demands of Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Energy usage was predicted using EnergyPlus and the thermal response of the aquifer modelled using Processing SHEMAT based on predicted energy usage. The resulting analysis suggests a 22% reduction in fuel usage against an existing air to air heat pump with a CO2 reduction of 39tonnes per annum. Although thermal stability of the aquifer could not be ensured without mitigation measures being undertaken, financially the analysis predicts a £335,000 per annum fuel saving assuming that the fully burdened cost of fuel is $11.98 per litre thus offering a payback period of less than 2years operation.

Get real: chasing Danish warrior dreams in the Afghan ‘sandbox’

ABSTRACTWhat if war is not simply a destructive force? What if war might also offer possibilities of regeneration? What if war harbours potential for self-becoming, for realizing one’s dreams, and for fulfilling one’s desires? The inquiry at hand suggests that Danish warriorhood has been revived with Denmark’s military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan. Addressing this fundamental transformation of the Danish soldier’s operational role and social identity, this article argues that there are Danish troops who seek out war in Afghanistan as an existential window of opportunity for following their desires to become ‘true warriors’ and thereby regenerate themselves as ‘authentic individuals’. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with some of the very last Danish combat soldiers deployed with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), this study explores ethnographically how these Danish ISAF troops give voice to and act upon their warrior dreams over time – before, during, and after a tour of duty in the Afghan Helmand Province. The article shows that there are Danish soldiers who become disillusioned by war – not because of any barbarity, but because of the virtual absence of any real acts of combat. As such, the inquiry bears witness, on the one hand, to how some Danish soldiers have their warrior dreams shattered by what turned out in their case to be a relatively uneventful war and, on the other hand, to how a few of these troops attempt to mend their broken warrior dreams by returning to war for a second chance.