'Raider' Engineer Company clears the way

By Sgt. 1st Class Brent Williams
1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FALCON, Iraq - Most Soldiers try to avoid improvised explosive devices.

Combat engineers of Company E, attached to the 1st Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Multi-National Division - Baghdad, actively hunt for roadside bombs; in fact they cheer when they find and IED.

As Iraqi shiites began the massive processions to Karbala in commemoration of the day on which Imam Husayn, the 3rd Shiite Imam was killed in Karbala in the year 680 AD, MND-B engineers conducted route clearing missions that play a critical role in assisting Iraqi security forces providing security for marchers.

"We are the only ones who do this mission," said Sgt. Jose Gandara, a combat engineer, with 1st Bn., 22nd Infantry Regt., 1st BCT, 4th Inf. Div., has cleared more than 12,000 kilometers of highway, street and road, since arriving in Baghdad last April. "We know that if there was a good job done, we know that we did it."

Various elements of the engineer company spent the first six months of their deployment operating from a joint security station in the Rashid district, conducting daily security operations in support of the ISF mission to provide security for the citizens of Baghdad, said Gandara.

The other half of the company operated from Forward Operating Base Falcon, training the 1st National Police Mechanized Brigade to conduct the route clearance and sanitation missions.

Gandara, of Kansas City, Mo., said that he takes pride in the fact that his crew works very hard to avoid damaging the curbs and sidewalks, as they move the heavy armor vehicles to clear the roads around southern Baghdad - a very slow, deliberate process.

"We have made the routes cleaner, conducting route sanitation every couple weeks to clean up the streets, picking debris; searching for IEDs to make the battle space more advantageous to friendly forces."

The number of roadside bombs dropped drastically this year, added Gandara, who said that in 2006 his company cleared almost 200 IEDs in less than six months.

"This year, company-wise, we have cleared not even 20 bombs," he said.

The improved security situation is a direct result of the progress made by the ISF, and the combined missions between the combat engineers and their Iraqi counterparts, explained Sgt. 1st Class Thomas Sutton, an engineer platoon sergeant, 1st Bn., 22nd Inf. Regt., 1st BCT, 4th Inf. Div.

"They're working to the point where they consistently lead the patrols and we put them out front, put them in the lead."

Sutton said the engineers did an excellent job training the ISF on their equipment; and continue to mentor the Iraqis during route clearance missions; establishing a good rapport with the ISF and the Iraqi people.

"They have taken all the [procedures] that we have established and are putting them to good use," said Sutton, originally from Goldsboro, N.C.

The work makes for long hours and hard work, said Sgt. Joshua Ruck, a combat engineer from Madison, Ohio. The Soldiers may put in long hours maintaining and cleaning the vehicles, and conducting tactical approach training and operations with the ISF, but their combined efforts have yielded results.

"We have already achieved our objectives compared to where we were the last time we were here," he said.

The engineers led the ISF from the first day, providing training and equipment for their Iraqi counterparts to establish their first route clearance team, said 1st Sgt. Sammy Sparger, the company's senior non-commissioned officer.

"They're doing their own things and they're doing it well. They've gone from a nonfunctioning unit without training and equipment to having their own vehicles with their own patrols; setting their own schedules and conducting their own maintenance."

The units now operate on a day-to-day basis to provide mobility and freedom of movement for the combined forces and to ensure that Iraqi civilians remain safe, said Sparger.

The engineering mission is tough, admitted Sparger; "like being an offensive lineman in football."

"Route clearance is a boring and redundant mission that takes disciplined Soldiers to execute."

The Soldiers of Co. E performed superbly throughout the deployment and especially during recent months, conducting consecutive back to back missions to ensure that Iraq's Provincial Elections were a success, said Sparger.

More recent, the combined forces stepped up patrols, to protect Iraqi Shiites making their way to Karbala from possible attacks.

These accomplishments are in large part due to a special group of combat support Soldiers, a collection of mechanics and logistics specialists from the 4th Support Bn. and 1st Special Troops Bn., who are serving as combat engineers to help the route clearance mission.

"The 4th Support Bn. Soldiers have done awesome," said Sparger. "They are eager and ready to learn, and have done a good job."

Staff Sgt. Yamil Velez, an automated logistics non-commissioned officer with 4th Support Bn., thought he would never be an engineer.

The mission for the Soldiers is more than just patrols in sector, explained Velez, from Bayamon, Puerto Rico, who for maintains the "Buffalo", a heavy armor, counter-IED vehicle.

Working with combat engineers since November, Velez said he believes the most important part of his job is showing the Iraqi people that the Soldiers care, and that the combined forces are willing to go the "extra mile" to keep the bombs and the bad guys off the streets.

"Everything in "Echo" [Company] is based on redundancy, and that is how we make money; doing the same thing every day, that is how we learn the mission and that is how we get proficient with it," he said. "I mean as NCOs that is what we do; train and train and train and train. We take it very seriously."