I expected it for weeks, but that didn’t make President Obama’s announcement last week that 30,000 more American troops were soon headed to Afghanistan any easier to take.

What I didn’t expect was John Lennon’s iconic lyrics from the late ‘60s Beatles anti-war anthem to start rattling around in my head… again, after all these years. Also coming quickly to mind was the impressive work in the mountain villages of Pakistan and Afghanistan by an unassuming man that is instructive to anyone who hopes to bring peace, and justice, to those distant lands… and the world, for that matter.

If you have become a regular reader of this column you have probably come to realize that I not only appreciate the little things in the world around me, such as the beauty of translucent, backlit mussel shells on a rock or the premature crimson radiance of a maple leaf in August, but also the bigger picture, and issues, as well. Much bigger, in fact.

Earlier this fall I wrote about climate change and this week’s long-awaited international summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. With the exception of the entire cosmos, the picture of consequence doesn’t get much bigger than that. On a national level, I recently registered my two-cents’ worth on health care reform.

I can lighten up as well, such as the October column about my Minnesota connections, to include my undergraduate alma mater, Concordia College in Moorhead, with humorist Garrison Keillor. This column is about a connection, real as well as philosophical, with another accomplished Minnesotan, and one who attended that same small liberal arts college on the state’s northwestern prairie. However, it has nothing to do with humor and everything to do with the much more important mission of peace in volatile and repressive lands.

It is an impressive story, as conveyed in Greg Mortenson’s book “Three Cups of Tea.”

It is an unlikely, incredible and very memorable read. That is not just my opinion. It had been on the New York Times bestseller list for months since its 2006 publication. The subtitle of the book is “one man’s mission to promote peace… one school at a time.” That says it all.

Quite honestly, I picked up Mortenson’s book because the cover explained that he was a mountain-climber… and the fact that the book began with his attempt at climbing K2, the world’s second highest, and arguably the most difficult, high Himalayan peak. I have been devouring mountaineering books for years, especially since my Mount Rainier summit climb in the early ‘90s. There is a heightened appreciation of the physical and psychological effort involved that comes from being lashed to a rope-team while jumping crevasses at 16,000 feet. While reading his incredible account, I learned that this Minnesotan with worldly experience, attended Concordia College in the late ‘70s. That fact, among many others, kept me reading on to the book’s conclusion.

This book is much more than a mountaineer’s account of a climb. It is 98% about his post-climb relationship with northern Pakistan villagers who befriended him after wandering lost and exhausted after his summit-attempt. He asked what he could do to repay the people of the village for their kindness. When he asked what they wanted most, they replied “a school for our children, especially our girls.” He said he would.

What follows is an incredible account of Greg’s mission to de- deliver on that promise, and much, much more. It is one of the most impressive, and effective, accounts I have ever read. I could go on and on, however I suggest you read the book for yourself. I am confident you won’t be disappointed.

Perhaps the best summary of Greg’s story, and what I want to convey here, is found on his blog where he writes: “Young women are the developing world’s greatest agents of progress. Just one year of schooling will dramatically raise a girl’s later economic prospects, and where girls get to fifth grade, birth rates and infant mortality plunge. Teaching girls to read and write reduces the ignorance and poverty that fuel religious extremism and lays a groundwork for prosperity and peace.” It is that last sentence that resonated with me the most (not that the previous sentence isn’t incredibly important as well).

The fact that the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, has read and endorses this book, gives me hope. As does the interview in the Dec. 6 edition of the Maine Sunday Telegram’s consistently insightful column by Bill Nemitz. Bill talks with Captain Paul Bosse, commander of Maine’s Army National Guard’s Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry, due to deploy to Afghanistan in early 2010.

Captain Paul Bosse sees books like “Three Cups of Tea” as “valuable windows into Bravo Company’s immediate future.” That gives me hope. Maine has a legacy of thoughtfulness and reason, insofar as its elected national officials are concerned. That legacy seems to be in good hands with Captain Bosse. I hope he is able to influence his colleagues in Afghanistan.

It also reinforces the knowledge that Maine’s tradition of common sense, and independent thoughtfulness, will help insure a positive intervention in Afghanistan in the near future. There is little else that gives me comfort at this point in time.

In the meantime, I am taking two, relatively insignificant, actions. I am renewing my membership in Veterans for Peace, an organization with Maine roots going back almost 25 years… and ordering Greg Mortenson’s newly released, and critically acclaimed, second book “Stones into Schools,” subtitled “promoting peace with books, not bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

It is the least I can do, frustrating as that may feel. It all seems incredibly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Yet I know that if I continue to do my best to stay informed as far as these important, and nationally significant, issues are concerned (I do not include parroting the bombastic and thoughtless tirades of the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck, mind you), and contribute to the national dialogue in various ways, I am upholding my responsibility as an American citizen. I suspect that most of you feel the same way. It is our Maine legacy.

“We need to write, otherwise nobody will know who we are,” Garrison Keillor.

Per usual, your thoughts and comments are welcome. Write them at the end of your review of either or both of Greg Mortenson’s books, and slip them inside the log door of our mudroom on the west shore of Gull Pond… or simply fire off an email to allenwicken@yahoo.com.