The sub-governor of Dari-noor in eastern Afghanistan looked surprised to see us. Us being a big truck packed with blankets and winter coats escorted by four Humvees complete with gunners sticking out the top.

He should have been surprised - the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) I was traveling with didn't tell anyone it was visiting. Many PRTs - military teams that try to coordinate much of the reconstruction and governance work in most of Afghanistan's 34 provinces - rarely announce their visits beforehand.

With 13, the United States has the largest number of such teams in Afghanistan.

Back to Dari-noor - soldiers and airmen spilled out of their Humvee dangling rifles and wearing helmets and flak jackets. A couple of civilians came too but really this feels like a military operation; it is a military operation.

We sat down on a carpet with a small group of local officials in the district centre, a new and freshly painted but bare three-storey building. The Afghans took off their shoes, the soldiers kept on their boots and flak jackets. A soldier trained his binoculars on the jagged mountains that seemed to sit just outside the windows.

As we sipped hastily brewed tea and ate Afghanistan's ubiquitous yellow cake, Capt. Ryan Calvin asked the police chief and sub-governor whether they had received needed aid.

"How is farming?" he asked, a sensible question given that the vast majority of Afghanistan's populations subsists off the land.

At one point Calvin asked whether Dari-noor had received the ambulance it was allocated. The men shook their heads: "No, no, no".

"Are you sure? This list says this district received an ambulance." Ryan's voice was soft and low.

Someone remembered the ambulance. The problem is it is near the clinic, a man said. Perhaps the PRT could provide a new one or bring the old one closer to the district offices?

Ryan said that it was probably better to keep the ambulance close to the district's clinic.

He asked again - how had things been and did their communities need help?

After most requests from local officials - food aid, winter clothes, anti-poppy help, new roads - Ryan suggested ways to get the help from specific agencies or government offices. The men sitting around the circle looked genuinely confused - depending on the government for help is a revolutionary concept for many because central control of the provinces has always been tenuous, if not nonexistent. Often it has been violently rejected.

One man complained about recent floods and how there was no-one there to help - the provincial government, the central government, the United Nations, NGOs and the PRT all ignored pleas for aid, he said. Ryan stopped him: "I honestly believe that if you had asked the PRT we would have helped."

Based on the little I know of PRTs, I believe him - these army bases are packed with people and machines able to do heavy lifting. Indeed, during the recent weeks of terrible flooding they have reportedly helped save lives and goods throughout the country.

Sounds good so far, but PRTs are very controversial (here's an interesting if not very recent discussion on them). For one thing they are terribly expensive - it is hard to track down exactly how much they cost but where I am in Nangarhar almost 100 Americans are housed, fed and protected. The food, for example, is flown in.

Getting to Dari-noor required four Humvees, each with three or four people in them. Then there's a base - the actual humanitarian, reconstruction and governance work is done by a minority, while the rest of the people mainly provide protection.

Also, many aid workers are worried that when armies provide aid as well as fight they confuse the local community, who will conflate the two. As this happens, different sides of the conflict tend to view aid workers as well as soldiers as worthy targets.

Finally, PRTs, especially American ones, have been accused of bypassing nascent institutions to provide aid, thus undermining a system that desperately needs bolstering.

I don't know where I stand on this whole issue (my nearest and dearest tell me that I'm forever stuck on the fence). I can't escape the fact that we're in a dangerous part of the world. Take the epidemic of school and clinic burnings - the reasons for these are complicated but are an indication of how development and aid are weapons in the ongoing struggle.

Also, it is another source of funds. As one person involved said: "Why not use their money? The military has SO much money."

This is a land of almost endless needs - among the worst maternal and infant mortality rates in the world, vast illiteracy, a decimated infrastructure, a badly damaged judicial system... The list goes on and on. So maybe this sort of help is good.

Still, it makes me very uncomfortable to see men and women in flak jackets and carrying guns sit and try to speak to often confused Afghan villagers.

But I also know that on this base at least, there seems to be an enormous desire to help. The stories of ad hoc assistance - school books, winter clothes, Beannie Babies - flooding in from families in the U.S. abound.

Yesterday I accompanied the convoy to pick up mail. A containerful of boxes spilled out - what did they hold? Winter clothes that the wife of an airman had collected in her community.

Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.