![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/Images\/Bates_Magazine\/fall06\/filson2-1C.jpg\")
Rush Filson '92 joins an impromptu shura (town meeting) held by the elders of Afghanistan's Korengal Valley during large-scale military operations last spring to oust al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives.<\/p><\/div>\n
By 2001, Filson had been a Marine for about eight years. On the morning of Sept. 11, Filson was at work as a congressional policy officer in Quantico, Va. When Peter Goodrich \u201989 died along with 64 others on Flight 175, which crashed into the World Trade Center\u2019s south tower, Filson lost his best childhood buddy. \u201cWe pretty much did everything together,\u201d Filson recalls of happy days growing up in Williamstown, Mass., with Goodrich.<\/p>\n
Filson went from behind a desk to the front lines. By 2004, he was an infantry battalion operations officer on the ground in Afghanistan, planning and executing military actions in Logar province against Taliban and al-Qaida loyalists \u2014 the people who helped kill 2,973 people on Sept. 11. Still, he says, \u201cavenging\u201d is not the right word for his mission. \u201cThere was nothing personal about my encounters with the enemy\u201d in Afghanistan. \u201cMy service over there was\u00a0one of many\u00a0ways to right a terrible wrong that affected so many people, Afghans and 9\/11 victims alike.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Marines\u2019 mission was also to provide medical and humanitarian assistance wherever they could. \u201cI guess you can call it winning the hearts and minds,\u201d Filson says.
\nOne day, Filson met a teacher whose school was a mud-brick compound with three small rooms and a tiny tent-covered courtyard. There was no indoor plumbing or electricity and few school supplies for the 300 students, mostly girls. The teacher was conducting secular lessons despite death threats. \u201cExtremists came into his house and threatened his life in front of his children: \u2018We will kill you if you continue to teach these girls.\u2019 He\u2019d tell them, \u2018I\u2019m going to continue to teach.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
This gave Filson pause. \u201cThat really struck me as incredible…. Just very profound.\u201d So Filson e-mailed his parents back home in Williamstown. Rather than sweets or treats, he wrote, \u201cwhat I need is school supplies.\u201d
\n\u201cYou travel to other countries and kids walk up to Marines asking for candy and toys,\u201d he says. \u201cThe children in Afghanistan ask for notebooks and pens. The conditions are so austere and so spartan and so uncomfortable, yet they still make an effort. They risk their lives to go to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
A social-justice activist, Filson\u2019s mother organized the donation of 10 boxes of school supplies from Berkshire Community College, where she was taking classes. She also forwarded her son\u2019s e-mail to Sally Goodrich, Peter\u2019s mother, with a note attached that said, \u201cThis is the real way to fight terrorism.\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s going to fundamentally change [extremist] views is education and enlightenment,\u201d Filson says. \u201cBut it\u2019s going to take a few generations. And it has to be done with cultural sensitivity. It\u2019s got to be consistent with Afghan traditions and culture and history.\u201d But that accomplishment, mingled with the memory of Peter Goodrich, lives large in Filson\u2019s heart. \u201cThis is just me, but what better way to be a thorn in the side of all those individuals who plotted and schemed and executed 9\/11 than to set up a secular center of learning right there in Afghanistan?\u201d Filson asks.<\/p>\n \u201cHelping, protecting, and bringing a renewed sense of enlightenment and respect to the Afghans, in the face of insurgent intimidation and religious extremism, does honor Pete\u2019s memory and what he represented in terms of thought, compassion, and selflessness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Take it from someone who knows: To win a war you\u2019ve got…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":1098,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-1100","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11241,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1100\/revisions\/11241"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPeter\u2019s parents had founded the Peter M. Goodrich Foundation, www.goodrichfoundation.org<\/a>, and through the foundation\u2019s efforts and, eventually, gifts from more than 500 contributors, $180,000 was raised to build a 25-room school in Surkh Abat in Logar province, a few miles from the school Filson encountered.<\/p>\n
\nFilson, now stationed in Italy, has not been back to Logar. He\u2019s not even sure if the teacher who inspired him is alive. He\u2019s seen only photos of a satisfying achievement in the war on terror, one that started with a soldier\u2019s age-old act: that letter home.<\/p>\n