FORWARD OPERATING BASE RAMROD, Afghanistan — Spc. Harold Stallwood and Malik Hajji Baridad have very little in common.
One is a young soldier from Providence, R.I., and the other is a village elder from Afghanistan. Yet, despite their differences, they share a common enemy, and according to Baridad's son Omar Jan, that makes the men more similar than they might think.
Stallwood, a medic assigned to A Troop, 8th Battalion, 1st Cavalry Regiment, made Jan and Baridad's lives a little easier by providing the two with medicine, Nov. 23, in the Arghandab region of Afghanistan.
"I am very happy and I appreciate that you respect my father," Jan said. "He is the Malik and he is in control of this village. You showing respect to him means that we show respect to you."
The respect shown by Jan's family to U.S. forces has been noticed by the Taliban.
Nearly six months ago Taliban soldiers approached the walled shrine Jan and his father tend near in the Arghandab region asking for water and rest. The children in the shrine had good intentions when they opened the gates. The Taliban fighters, on the other hand, did not.
They tied up the children and beat Jan's cousin before attempting to behead the beaten man inside of the holy site.
"The Taliban are the enemies of Afghanistan," Jan said. "The destroy schools, hospitals and everything. They are not happy."
Stallwood thinks the medicine given to the family is a small thank you to them for the sacrifices they have made to help troops.
"I think to it's to show , for letting us use their land to stay out here, it just shows a good heart on our part to help them out," he said. "Either way, even if we weren't staying here, we would still roll through here and see what was going on."
According to Stallwood, seeing that the locals are taken care of is a very important mission for U.S. soldiers.
"We try to interact with the locals as much as we can to find out if they have any issues or concerns or anything like that going on," he said. "We try to take care of as much as we can while we're out here."
Stallwood believes sacrificing medicine from his supplies serves a greater purpose for the larger fight in Arghandab.
"It shows them we're willing to take the time to take our own stuff that we use for our own guys and help them and it builds a great rapport," Stallwood said. "It shows that were not just out here to patrol their villages. We'll stop and take the time out to see what's going on. Hopefully they'll see that and when we're on patrol maybe help us out a little bit more."
| Date Taken: | 11.23.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 12.21.2009 02:14 |
| Story ID: | 42982 |
| Location: | FORWARD OPERATING BASE RAMROD, AF |
| Web Views: | 593 |
| Downloads: | 378 |
This work, Spc. Harold Stallwood, by SGT Nathan Booth, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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