And while the 1-508th is in the same brigade that I am assigned to, I probably won't serve with them directly. I got the chance to talk to the soon-to-be G4 (head logistics officer) for the 82nd Airborne Division at the Battle Command Conference this week. He said that I (and the other new quartermaster/logistics officers) should expect to be assigned to the 782nd BSB (Brigade Support Battalion) right away and take command of a platoon of some type. So I'll be working with the infantry/artillery/cavalry/special troops battalions of 4th BCT, but in a support role.
----
Posted : Monday Apr 12, 2010 8:55:31 EDT
FORWARD OPERATING BASE MIZAN, Afghanistan — Army Sgt. Rigoberto Munoz would rather be staring down the Taliban in Helmand province. He doesn’t even try to hide how jealous he is of fellow members of the 82nd Airborne who are seeing all the action.
Munoz and his men, 41 mostly 20-something paratroopers, are here in Zabul province, finding schoolteachers and opening a shopping bazaar — work that many airmen do as members of provincial reconstruction teams.
Never did the members of Terror Platoon, A Company, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, imagine that their job would be to bring this region of 19th-century villages into 2010.
“We are kinda like fobbits here,” said Munoz, Terror Platoon’s Alpha team leader. “I’d much rather be out there fighting the enemy.”
Still, the Alpha team has its priorities straight: Mission always first.
Mizan district is rural, not one of the urban areas that the U.S. is focused on securing from insurgents, but it is a major route for Taliban fighters making their way from neighboring Pakistan to Helmand province.
If the paratroopers can win over the villagers by helping irrigate their fields or making their children safer on the way to school, the enemy will have to set up another supply line.
In mid-March, the soldiers, along with their Afghan counterparts and members of the Afghan National Police, went into Mizan to meet with village elders. They heard stories of how Taliban fighters had demanded food for their journeys to Kandahar and Helmand.
The fighters started coming through Mizan after coalition forces “put the squeeze” on their positions along the Arghandab River, about three miles to the north.
“We have had significant success disrupting the [anti-coalition militia’s] jet stream, but like a jet stream, high-pressure areas build up to the south and north near places like FOB Lane and Mizan,” said Army Lt. Col. David Oclander, commander of Task Force 1 Fury, the unit that oversees U.S. forces in Zabul.
“So we needed to bring in an aggressive group of soldiers to deal with that, and these paratroopers are known for that,” he said.
An uneasy peace
Relatively speaking, FOB Mizan is quiet, but the soldiers know the enemy is not far off.
Only a ridge line next to the base divides Mizan from about 200 Taliban fighters, according to Badamgul Qalamyar, commander of the local Afghan National Police force.
The commander of the Afghan National Army unit in Mizan warns more Taliban fighters are headed this way.
“As more Americans go to Helmand, more will come here,” said Capt. Hamza Jawid, the Afghan National Army’s 2-2 Kandak commander.
Village elders remember two years ago, when the Taliban used fear to rule the region, carrying out kidnappings in the middle of the night and burning schools.
“We would send our children to school if there was security, but we are afraid,” Abdul Halib told Sgt. 1st Class Victor Delvalle, Terror’s platoon sergeant, at a March 11 meeting.
Re-establishing some sort of normalcy in Mizan is a priority, Delvalle said. To do that, the 508th plans to work with the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police to open an abandoned shopping bazaar and a school.
“The people need something normal again, like schools and roads,” said Qalamyar, the police commander. “I am hopeful we can open the school and the bazaar.”
If the U.S. soldiers fail to offer a better way of life, Oclander worries the poor farmers who make up most of Mizan will remain targets of Taliban recruiters.
Led by Delvalle, the soldiers travel from village to village to find out what the elders need. Sometimes they have to walk as far as 10 miles round trip — up and down rolling hills, loaded with up to 60 pounds of kit.
“We have to make our presence known out here,” Delvalle said.
The elders want medicine, their fields irrigated or a school for their children. Mostly, though, they want to be safe — from mines, from Taliban attacks at night.
“If you secure the area, then we will come,” Altaji Mihullah told Delvalle when asked what it would take to convince his villagers to shop at the bazaar and to educate their children.
Security is something the paratroopers feel comfortable providing — opening the bazaar and the school less so. Still, Oclander said he is confident the young NCOs and officers of the 1-508th can do whatever they have to.
“I wish I had a magic bullet training to send them to get ready for stuff like this … but instead we have to depend on guys to be inventive and think outside the box,” he said. “This is problem solving.”
Delvalle has shown he knows how to trouble-shoot. More than once, elders have told him that reopening the bazaar would put shopkeepers in danger.
Through an interpreter, Delvalle asked the elders what they wanted sold at the bazaar.
“Cigarettes, sugar and tea,” they replied.
Delvalle thought about it for a second.
“Why don’t we just go to Qalat [a city six hours away] and buy our own cigarettes, sugar and tea and sell it ourselves?” Delvalle suggested to 1st Lt. Sean Snook, the temporary platoon leader. “Once we get one shop open, all of these guys are going to want to come down here and open their own.”
Snook nodded.
A melting pot
No bigger than a Wal-Mart and surrounded by razor wire, FOB Mizan is home to the 42 paratroopers, seven Romanian soldiers, 52 Afghan National Army soldiers and 15 members of the Afghan National Police.
Led by Romanian 1st Lt. Andrei Neacsu, a member of the International Security Assistance Force Operations Mentor and Liaison Team, the Romanians serve as the liaison between the U.S. and Afghan soldiers.
The mix of language and cultures adds to the mission’s complexity.
Each day is a new lesson for the Afghan soldiers and policemen as they try to mimic the U.S. soldiers. Afghan 1st Lt. Mohammad Neda and 1st Lt. Mohammad Sedique watched intently one day as Munoz and three other sergeants — Jonathan Dean, Timothy Mitchum and Colin Hanks — demonstrated how to zero their M16s on the shooting range.
At first, the shots fired by the Afghans sprayed all over the target. Over the next hour, Neda and Sedique took better aim; their shots drifted closer to the center.
“You can see that these guys want to learn,” Dean said.
Other Afghan soldiers, though, have failed to impress the Americans.
“Some of the officers would just walk off when we were talking to them, and that’s frustrating because we are essentially here to help them,” Spc. Christopher Barlow said.
Oclander, the commander of the unit that oversees U.S. forces in Zabul, thinks the Afghan soldiers have made “tremendous progress” since the two forces started an “embedded partnership.” Rather than a mentorship, the Afghan and American forces depend on each other just like any other ally.
“When we adopted that principle, it made the Afghans hold themselves accountable,” he said. “We have been able to build that mutual trust.”
Before the partnership, Oclander said, the Afghan National Army went on two patrols a week in Zabul. Now, they go on patrols almost every day, even helping conduct night patrols.
“It’s about accountability,” said Snook, the temporary platoon leader. “Now the Afghans can hold us accountable in the same way we can.”
The night before a mission in March, Delvalle briefed the details to the U.S., Afghan and Romanian troops in the FOB’s gym. If the Afghan soldiers make a recommendation, the platoon sergeant was not afraid to alter the plan.
Sedique, one of the Afghan first lieutenants, warned that the road Delvalle had planned to take the next day could be laced with mines. He recommended the coalition walk the patrol.
“If they want to walk, then we’ll walk,” Delvalle said.
The day of the mission, the Afghan soldiers led the patrol down the same dirt path they had advised Delvalle against taking.
“I thought they were worried about [improvised explosive devices],” said Delvalle, shaking his head in bewilderment. He then patiently recommended that the Afghans move their patrol out of the road.
The paratroopers here realize the sooner the Afghans become self-sufficient, the sooner they can go home. Delvalle and Snook often urge the Afghan soldiers to take the lead on all sorts of duties, especially meetings with the village elders. Lately, the soldiers have seen the Afghan officers take the initiative.
At a meeting in an orchard, Neda, the other Afghan first lieutenant, pleaded with an elder to send men from his village to join the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police.
“If you just sit and do nothing, it can’t improve,” Neda told the elder. “You need to go to the bazaar, and you need to give your young to the ANA.”
Oclander agreed the ANA and ANP must start to recruit villagers. Task Force Fury has already started talks to recruit locals to help police the road leading from Mizan to Qalat. Mizan elders have told Fury’s leadership they could get up to 300 men to join the army or the police.
“I wish I could bring in all 300, but right now we are going to only start with 100 because that’s what I have the funds for,” Oclander said.
Neda and Jawid, the Afghan army commander, said they believe villagers are the only ones who can truly bring a lasting peace to Mizan.
“The local people must give their people to the ANA and ANP,” Jawid said. “Then finally the Taliban will be afraid of the people of Mizan.”
No comments:
Post a Comment