ANSBACH, Germany (Sept. 23, 2014) -- When Lori Hickey signed up to be an English teacher at Ansbach Middle/High School, she never expected to be one day teaching in a combat zone. Yet in 2012, when she volunteered to go on a tour to teach English in Afghanistan, that is exactly what happened.
David Carlisle, principal of Ansbach MHS, was supportive of Hickey going to Afghanistan, knowing it would be a great opportunity and experience.
Carlisle said he just knew Hickey would be an "excellent addition to a team in Afghanistan. We always think of sending a Soldier, but never an English teacher."
Hickey had two reasons for going. She wanted to know first-hand what so many of the parents of DoDEA students were experiencing while on deployment. Also, she was also curious about linguistic instruction, said Hickey.
"DLI (Defense Language Institute) has been teaching English for 60 years," she says. "I wanted to know what DLI's secret was."
Before her first deployment in 2011 to Afghanistan, Hickey completed training in the U.S. in San Antonio and Indianapolis. Training included mortar drills, weapons training, language training, exiting helicopters wearing individual body armor, and setting up strategic scenarios. She recalls training on the range as "every day, 90 minutes a day, 60 bullets."
Once she got to Afghanistan, Hickey was assigned to a site in Kabul, where a school was to be built. Hickey worked with engineers and a general to build the school. Thirteen months later the school was finished, with two American teachers and four Afghan teachers. There, Hickey taught English to Afghan soldiers for a year.
Teaching was not all Hickey did. Hickey, who wore body armor and a Kevlar helmet and carried a 9 mm pistol, was under constant threat from the Taliban -- including rocket attacks. In Kabul, these attacks happened only a couple of times, but in Kandahar, Hickey said attacks happened with greater frequency.
"There were more rocket attacks in four weeks than in one year in Kabul," said Hickey. "When you were driving an SUV, and there was a rocket attack, you got out and jumped into a ditch."
In Kabul and Kandahar, Hickey lived in a large steel shipping container that had been transformed into an 18-foot-long room with bunk beds. There were two toilets and sinks, and water came in bottles. In Shindand, she stayed in tents.
After her one-year stint in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012, Hickey returned to Ansbach MHS to teach language arts and the program called AVID, or Advancement Via Individual Determination. Then, in the spring of 2013, Hickey received news that the DLI program was once again looking for English teachers to deploy to Afghanistan. She jumped at the chance to return for a repeat performance by applying for the position.
When she returned to Kabul in 2014, the school she had established had been transferred to the Afghan military. The Afghan teachers she had worked with earlier were now be the ones who taught in the school.
By having this first-hand experience, Hickey can now better understand deployed Soldiers' situations and relate to their daily challenges. Carlisle said Hickey brought back "knowledge of what it is like to be deployed."
Those two years were not easy, according to Hickey. Her experiences in Afghanistan were dangerous, but she made one significant observation:
"You see the best of the military in a combat zone."
On the subject of returning to Afghanistan, Hickey said, "Yes! I would enjoy it."
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