Viper team plays ambassadorial role, protects base

Photo By Master Sgt. Courtney Richardson | Tech. Sgt. Brent Stiefel, 386th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron Viper team flight chief, marks and photographs an unexploded ordinance while on a routine patrol on Oct. 22, 2008 at an air base in Southwest Asia. The Viper teams patrol the area outside of the base for UXO's and interact with the local population to ensure a relationship with the host nation remains strong. Sergeant Stiefel is deployed from Kadena Air Base, Japan., and hails from Chicago, Ill.  

(UNDISCLOSED LOCATION)

10.25.2008

Story by Staff Sgt. Thomas Doscher 

386th Air Expeditionary Wing

By Staff Sgt. Vincent Borden
386th Air Expeditionary Wing

SOUTHWEST ASIA - He pulled his vehicle off the main road, somewhat prepared for this. "Hello, hello," said a couple of men together but not in unison, as Tech. Sgt. Brent Stiefel got out of his sport utility vehicle, silencing Aerosmith mid-verse. One of the men was holding a yellowed leather glove, the other was unlocking the trunk of his SUV, and the sergeant, the 386th Expeditionary Security Forces Viper Team flight chief, instinctively felt he didn't need to draw his weapon. He wanted to hear what they had to say.

"What's the kite for?" he asked, looking up in a sky that was just beginning to change colors from a faint orange to gray. It hung there, a diamond-shaped collage of colors suspended effortlessly in the air, anchored somewhere amongst the desert terrain. The men tried to explain, but instead one of them invited him to come see what is was all about. Sergeant Stiefel, a father of six no doubt used to show and tell, obliged.

Some 200 yards away, among the taupe and tan colored landscape of the country, a falcon was feeding violently on its prey. At first it was barely visible, blended into a scene of endless sandy terrain, but as the men walked closer, talking about how much the falcons are worth on the local market, its quick pecking motion could be clearly made out in the distance. But not before Sergeant Stiefel spotted something of even more importance.

"A [high explosive] round," he said, motioning to a pointed cylinder lying in the sand. He drew a square around it in the sand with his boot. "Probably been sitting here for 17 years." He hovered over it, much less like a viper and more like a falcon, until his partner, Senior Airman Kevin DeWitt, pulled up in their SUV.

"Hey mark that for me would you?" Sergeant Stiefel asked, and Airman DeWitt began to mark it on the ground and in his global positioning system. He did it in an automated way. Effortlessly. Like it's something he's done many times before.

This is a somewhat everyday occurrence for Sergeant Stiefel and Airman DeWitt. As part of the 386th ESFS Viper team, they interact with the foreign nationals located in what they refer to as the 5K, an area of land approximately five to seven kilometers away from the air base in the area.

Part of that area is an exclusion zone, a perimeter of land where no one is allowed entry due to the security hazards it would pose. Intrusion into it prompts an immediate security force response.

"It's a bigger deal when it's vehicles," said Senior Airman Dominic Wilkerson, 386th ESFS Viper Team member deployed from Andrews Air Force Base, Md. "When it's herders, people have gotten lost and they don't know it's a restricted area. People are allowed to be on hardened surfaces like the roads and everything. But once they get into our desert, they're ours."

The remainder of the area outside the no-entry zone is also patrolled by the Viper team. They track the movements of foreign nationals camping in the area and interact with them on daily basis, gathering intelligence on new people and possible threats that may have moved in the area. While they are out, team members also keep an eye out for unexploded ordnance left over from Desert Storm operations carried on in the area years ago. In the event they find some, Explosive Ordnance Disposal members from the 386th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron are called out to get rid of it.

Sergeant Stiefel said they try to clean up the UXOs as a precautionary measure to protect the people that camp in the area. The main camping season runs from November through March, and that timeframe will see an increase in the number of women and children in the camps.

In driving around and becoming acquainted with every new face, as well as strengthening ties with the old, the Viper teams also makes sure they are respectful of the traditions and customs of the foreign nationals. The goal is to develop a positive relationship with all the families out in the area.

"If I go somewhere and nobody wants to talk, I'll at least try and keep things going," Sergeant Stiefel said. But there [are] times when you try and try and nothing happens. Fifteen minutes later you leave and you might have a name."

Airman DeWitt, who is deployed from Andrews AFB, said the time spent out here daily forging relationships is one of the reasons they come across UXOs almost every day. He's noticed that they find more of them in the high points of the terrain, and attributes it to the positioning military forces sought almost 20 years ago, during Operation Desert Storm.

The Marquette, Mich., native also said that navigating the region, which can look familiar in more ways than one, has a learning curve akin to learning how to interact with the local population.

"When I first got out here, they didn't throw me with somebody who didn't have any experience," Airman DeWitt said. "You don't know really where you are at first, so you rely on your [GPS] and your grid map a lot. But you get used to it, because we spend so much time out here."

After watching the falcon finish its meal, Sergeant Stiefel and Airman DeWitt will be invited back to its owner's camp. They'll sit on crimson rugs in the middle of the desert and drink chai tea out of drinkware that resembles ornate shot glasses, the sun setting behind the view of a nearby city beginning to light up its buildings and streetlights, transforming itself from day to night. They'll talk about their families and taxes and the livestock bleating in the background, say their cordial goodbyes and leave on the promise they'll be back again.

At the next stop, with a new camp and a new owner, they'll try their hand at picking up new Arabic words and tell tales of camps they've seen with 20 falcons in them. They'll trade stories and myths of the ghosts of Kadena Air Base, Japan, Sergeant Stiefel's home base.

Each time, amid the back and forth of conversation and glasses of tea, the foreign nationals get more comfortable with the men who drive in the area around their camps with Kevlar helmets, ballistic vests and M-4 Carbines. And the Airmen get more comfortable with each meeting, having gained another friend in the vigilant mission of protecting the air base from outside harm.

Those friends come in handy. Sergeant Stiefel said one tipped them off to a store in the local area that was selling American military uniforms. Others have helped them locate locals participating in the act of "lazing," where foreign nationals will shine lasers from miles away at aircraft approaching the runway.

But, contrary to their names, and like all good ambassadors, the Viper team engages in the fight without employing a lot of force. Instead, they rely on their own watchful eyes and the help of others to form a sort of militaristic community watch program. One that mirrors, in many ways, a group of falcons soaring out in the desert sky.

• Date Taken: 10.25.2008
• Date Posted: 10.25.2008 03:45
• Story ID: 25531
• Location: (UNDISCLOSED LOCATION)