Mission to Afganistan

Nov. 2, 2008

How does a woman from Northern Michigan end up as a journalist embedded with U.S. troops in Afghanistan? For me, it was starting out as an artist.
Like my parents, Cheryl G. and T. Adair Correll of Maple City, I was born and raised in Northern Michigan. I have since gone on to college in Chicago, taught and traveled abroad, attended grad school in California and now live in Los Angeles, working as an interdisciplinary artist.
Last January, a photographer-writer friend made it possible for me to visit The National Training Center (NTC) for the U.S. military in Fort Irwin, California. I was there posing as a “journalist” for the first rotation of what has become “Fake Afghanistan,” a dressing-up of the Mojave desert base to mimic the experience of being on a base in Afghanistan for the soldiers that are soon to be deployed there.
At the NTC, I made connections that paved the way for my recent media embedment approval to visit Bagram, Afghanistan this month. This November, I will reconnect with the soldiers I met during my two-day stay in the Mojave last January, now, as a real journalist in the reality of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.
“First Assignment,” the name of my project, is a video-performance essay with an accompanying book. Les Figues Press, a literary press of Los Angeles, is commissioning a book about the embedment and it is through this representation that I am approved to visit the base in Bagram (just outside of Kabul) as media. I am traveling there to study how the ideas of counter-insurgency are used as a leadership-modeling device among the female soldiers, and in turn, can be used to aid the state of women’s education in Afghanistan.
I will be on the base shortly after the U.S. presidential elections and over the Thanksgiving holiday. I am interested in how counter-insurgency not only has combat underpinnings, but can help the local infrastructure.

ROOTS AS AN ARTIST
My work as an artist draws on the fact that both of my parents are artists: my mother, a visual artist whose photography, painting and sculptures have been exhibited internationally. She is also an arts educator through TCAPS. My father is a singer-songwriter and an organizer of the Northern Michigan Songwriters in the Round.
I felt their influence this spring when a video I made at the National Training Center was screened at a conference at the University of California - Santa Cruz. The video involved a singing prelude, which resembles my father’s vocal sensibility. The work was screened just a few weeks after a photograph of my mother’s was on exhibit at a nearby gallery in the city.
When I visit the U.S. Air Base in Bagram, Afghanistan for 10 days this November, I will be reconnecting with Lt. Kelly Lavorgna. Kelly is an S2 officer in the Intelligence division of the 201st Brigade. At the NTC, she was charged with protecting me as a member of her unit’s public affairs duties.
Lavorgna and I became instant friends. I quickly learned -- even through a war simulation scenario -- how a journalist and soldier can form a bond. Lavorgna earned a degree in finance before joining the military in 2005. Her father was involved in international business, so she and her sister lived in many countries throughout their childhood. Lavorgna’s mother is a painter. Neither parent has a personal history of the military, so when hearing of their daughter’s decision to enlist, they were first stunned. Soon, however, they supported her in this field of her choice.
Lt. Lavorgna and I are the same age (27) and even look alike. She has been featured in much of the documentary work I have made out of my experience with the U.S. military.

FUNDS NEEDED
I began querying the military about an embed in March, but it wasn’t until a few weeks ago, and after much correspondence, that I received official approval to visit the base. The limited time before I leave makes me ineligible for many artists’ grants or funds in advance of travel, and being that I am not a member of the popular press, I do not have the logistical or financial support of a news agency to help me with the process. In an effort to realize my goal of visiting Afghanistan I have launched a fundraising site - first-assignment.com - to afford the plane ticket, required body armor and a driver and translator while in Kabul, which will amount to more than $5,000.
I have also been in communication with Thomas Gouttierre of the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Center for Afghanistan Studies who recently spoke in Traverse City. Through his generosity, I will be visiting the Center, along with military officials and diplomats for a weeklong intensive course on Afghan culture before departing. Additionally, through a network of friends and artists, I have met individuals with connections in Afghanistan who have been generous with advice and logistical support. Through them, I have developed an itinerary which includes visiting a private girls school outside of Kabul, a university printing press, and some performance venues within the capital city.
I feel very much like an individual citizen who has the right and responsibility to report on a situation. I will be proud to bring back a distinct visual project generated by my experience in Afghanistan.