Printer-friendly Version Email this Article Comment on this Article Reprints & Permissions Joseph Fluet III INSIDE THE WAR ZONE Picking Pilots How do you build your own air force? Joseph Fluet was on a mission to recruit pilots for a special drug-fighting helicopter squadron, but he didn't want to anger Afghan Air Corps commanders by cherry-picking their best men. So he went to the hangar at Kabul International Airport where the air corps housed its choppers. He talked to the commanders and got them excited about the project. Then he let them put out the word. Applications flooded in. The next stage was interviews. Fluet did not ask prospective pilots their ethnicity: "We wanted to start a new tribe." He did ask detailed questions about flying histories and asked why they wanted to join his new squad. Then he flew with them, evaluating their "control touch," their command over their aircraft. The candidates that made it past the application and interview rounds were, like all Afghan pilots, older men. One had been the personal pilot for Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Northern Alliance commander assassinated by an Al Qaeda agent posing as a journalist in 2001. Fluet's new squad, dubbed the Afghan Counter Narcotics Aviation Squadron, then moved to Fort Bliss, Texas, for three months of training. Citing security reasons, Fluet says he can't say how many men were eventually trained, nor what, precisely, they are doing now. But he says they are doing a "good job" and that he is "proud of them."

The Associate Who Built an Air Force

By Ben Hallman
The American Lawyer
June 1, 2007

Joseph Fluet climbed into the Russian-made helicopter with an Afghan pilot and an interpreter. It was to be his first flight with one of the Afghans he was hoping to recruit to a new antidrug squadron formed to combat the country's flourishing opium trade. Fluet, a Williams & Connolly associate with 17 years' experience flying for the U.S. Army, the U.S. Army Reserve, and the Army National Guard, doesn't speak Dari, the pilot's language, and he can't read Russian, the language the manufacturer had used to label the instruments on the control panel. With the interpreter acting as a go-between, the Afghan pilot gave Fluet a tour of the cockpit. The next step was a test flight. But as Fluet and the pilot were starting the engine, they noticed that the interpreter had left the aircraft and was climbing into a car. There had been a misunderstanding. Fluet looked at the pilot, and the pilot looked at him. Both men laughed and the tension of the moment broke. "We decided to go ahead with the flight anyway," Fluet recalls. "We did fine with pointing and gesturing. It was an early bonding moment."

Fluet likens flying a helicopter to "juggling while riding a unicycle." It requires a deft touch in the best of conditions. Afghanistan offers pilots everything but the best. It is a land of barren deserts, wind-stripped tundra, and 22,000-foot mountains. "Maps don't do it justice," he says. "It's as forbidding a country as I've seen." It was particularly important for Fluet to find experienced pilots adept at learning new tricks. Some of the techniques they would be taught, like flying close to the ground in formation, in the dark, using night-vision goggles, are incredibly challenging. Over the course of a year, Fluet interviewed and evaluated dozens of Afghan pilots, purchased aircraft, and eventually flew with them to Texas for advanced training.

The oddity of an American soldier-a law firm associate, no less-handpicking candidates for an elite military unit in a foreign country is not lost on Fluet. "The house that Joe built," he says with a laugh. But Fluet, 40, is, in truth, as well qualified as anyone to make such decisions. He has flown counternarcotics missions in Central and South America. In 1996 he left the regular Army, joined the Florida National Guard, and started law school at the University of Florida. In 2002, after a clerkship with a federal court judge, he landed a job at Williams & Connolly, a Washington, D.C.-based litigation shop with strong military ties. (The firm represents military contractors, throws a blowout party every year on Veteran's Day, and has incorporated military jargon into its marketing material. Here is a sampling from the firm's Web site: "We do not fight by the numbers. We do not fight the last war. We fight this war." And: "This fighting spirit, and the success it breeds, are what attract clients to Williams & Connolly.") Two years later, U.S. Army commanders ordered him to Afghanistan to build a counternarcotics helicopter unit. His firm, he says, was "incredibly supportive."

Fluet had no trouble finding capable pilots, even though the only flight school in the country closed long ago. Most of the pilots in the country are in their mid-thirties or older and were trained during the Soviet occupation. From the Soviets, the Afghans had acquired a fleet of Mi-17 helicopters and the training to fly them. When the Soviets left, the training and spare parts pipeline left, too. After the Taliban government was deposed, following the U.S. invasion in 2001, the pilots of the Afghan Air Corps lost their paychecks, too. For years they showed up for work every morning, in uniform, where they would try to maintain old aircraft with scrounged parts. ("The whole country is like a military surplus store," Fluet says.) They would fly in the morning and leave in the early afternoons to go to paying jobs.

Fluet was initially surprised at the level of interest. But as he grew to know the Afghans and better understand their mentality-very American, he thought, with respect to their patriotism and devotion to duty-the fact that they would volunteer for a more dangerous assignment made sense to him. They face a monumental challenge. Afghanistan is responsible for an estimated 90 percent of the world's opium. In recent years resurgent Taliban forces have offered protection to farmers who grow the poppies used for the opium, which makes the job of those who want to eradicate the crop and the trade that much more difficult.

Fluet had initially planned to return with the pilots to Afghanistan after the training in Texas, to fly with them on a few missions. Since that early bonding moment with the Afghan pilot, he had grown close to his men. "I can't tell you how much respect I have for them," he says. "I'd take a bullet for them." But his time working in the field on the project ran out. The selection and training had taken longer than planned. Instead, he moved back to Washington, D.C., where he was reunited with his wife, two young children, and law firm.

Working at Williams & Connolly is "the closest I've ever been to being back in the squadron," Fluet says. "Sometimes we work on long shots. The military specializes in long shots. I'm comfortable in that world." Fluet has handled cases ranging from representing a pharmaceutical company in a federal investigation (he declined to give specifics) to a pro bono murder case currently on appeal. He also has worked with military contractor clients. Knowing the lingo, and what, specifically, the wares of the clients are used for, he says, is a big help.

His combat flying days are done, but he continues to serve in the Army Reserve. But instead of traveling to a base for regular training, as most reservists do, he dons his uniform and drives to the Pentagon, where he advises on the counternarcotics project he started. It's not so different from his day job, he says: "I treat the secretary of Defense like one of my clients."

E-mail Ben Hallman: bhallman@alm.com