Parker spends years working to improve Afghan justice.

After more than 27 years as the public defender in the Eighth Circuit, Rick Parker was still passionate about the pursuit of justice, but tired of the headaches of management.

Then came the opportunity of a lifetime.

In 2010, U.S. State Department contractor Pacific Architect and Engineers was looking for legal experts to help the Afghan government modernize its criminal justice system.

"I was recruited by PAE as a senior criminal defense advisor," Parker says. "When I got there, I said, 'I've been the boss, I want to work with people, I want to be on the ground.'"

Parker got his wish and worked nearly five years in a war zone, returning safely in March 2016.

But along the way, Parker ascended an alphabet soup of diplomatic advisory posts to become Acting Chief of Team for the Afghan Justice Sector Support

Program, responsible for a wide variety of missions with staff and offices in each of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.

"I was at the top of the pyramid with 500 people under me," Parker says. "I was even in charge of a prison with 72 inmates. Imagine. A public defender as a prison manager."

These days, tongue cancer has robbed the trim 70-year-old of part of his speech and forced him to cancel a second contracting gig.

But from the sun-drenched living room of his two-story brick home in a leafy Gainesville neighborhood, with his wife, Kathryn, serving as occasional translator, sipping coffee and scrolling incessantly through laptop photo files, Parker recounts his Afghan adventure with a mixture of pride, humor, and amazement.

And above all, gratitude.

"I learned the understanding of, and respect for, people of different nationalities, religions, and cultures is essential for coexistence in our modern world," he said.

"Just because we are different in many ways does not mean we can't work together cooperatively to establish peaceful and mutually beneficial relationships."

Parker says PAE tempted him with good pay and abundant leave. The couple faced months of separation, but there was ample time to reunite for side trips to Israel, Spain, France, and Portugal. Parker even managed to scuba dive off the coast of Vietnam.

Risks

There was also significant risk.

When Parker got to Kabul in October 2010, he says the city--perched 6,000 feet above sea level along the Kabul river in a narrow valley of the Hindu Kush--was "relatively stable."

Then-President Barak Obama's latest surge of 30,000 troops had brought the U.S. military contingent in Afghanistan to 100,000. But the troops were scheduled to begin withdrawing in July 2011, and Taliban fighters were counting...