Griffith set to leave Cumberland County ag board for Afghanistan

By MILES JACKSON
AFP Correspondent

MILLVILLE — Cumberland County Agricultural Board Chairman Michael J. Griffith is scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan soon, if not already.
The exact date of Lieutenant Griffith’s deployment has not been released by the United States Navy, where he serves as a Seabee battalion supply officer in the Navy Reserve Supply Corps.
His duties are expected to include providing material and equipment to units below the regimental level in an undisclosed part of Afghanistan.
Griffith, who farms 150 acres of soybeans, corn and wheat in western Cumberland County, also teaches agriculture at Cumberland Regional High School and serves as head advisor for that school’s FFA Chapter.
His deployment could keep Griffith away from his wife, Heather and the couple’s three children, who are 12, 8 and 4 years old, for up to a year.
Griffith’s duties will keep him busy during his deployment and he doesn’t expect to have a chance to study Afghan agriculture in depth while he is deployed.
But he expects to “obtain a better understanding of their particular production challenges from my points of view,” Griffith said.
In addition to his experience as a farmer, a teacher and a community leader, Griffith also is a graduate of Rutgers University and was a member of the Class V with the New Jersey Agricultural leadership Development Program.
“I am thankful for the opportunity to serve our country in this small way,” said Griffith, who has 13 years experience in the Navy Reserve. “I am privileged to count as friends veterans from several wars and I stand in awe of their personal sacrifices and contributions.”
Griffith said he has “immeasurable gratitude” for his friends and neighbors who are watching over his farming operations in his absence as well as thanks for the support of landowners from whom he rents farmland along the Cohansey River, the site of meadows that were some of the first farmland tilled by settlers who arrived in southern New Jersey more than 300 years ago.
Heather Griffith said she admires her husband’s desire “to do what he feels he has to as a member of the military and to commit himself to the sacrifice he is making for his country.”
But she admitted to being apprehensive about watching her husband go off to a nation that has known little peace during its history.
“He believes so much in what he’s doing and you can’t help but respect that,” she said.