Photo By Staff Sgt. James Hunter | Staff Sgt. Brandon Griffis, a squad leader, and one of his Soldiers with Company A,...... read more read more
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FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Just prior to Soldiers of Company A, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, entering an Afghan village, previous coalition forces were overrun by enemy Taliban fighters during a very complex attack. The anti-coalition and anti-Afghan national forces moved in and took over the village. This created a pro-Taliban mindset among the people.
The Soldiers of Strike decided it was time to reclaim the village and once again regain the trust of the local nationals.
Their mission was simple on paper — move in and secure the village, while allowing the company commander the opportunity to talk with the local village leader.
"We are trying to gain the hearts and minds of the people," said Sgt. Thomas Long, a native of Hartselle, Ala., with 3rd Platoon, Co. A, 1st Bn., 502nd Inf. Regt. "We are trying to convince the people that they need us to secure the village and help better the people."
They moved toward the objective, with 3rd Platoon moving along the southern access to provide support by fire, "knowing that this was a hostile city. The people here were pro-Taliban. The Taliban had dominated this area," said Sgt. Venancius Kassandji, a native of Orlando, and team leader with 3rd Platoon.
As they started coming within the city limits, they started receiving fire. The Soldiers had to transition from a force coming in as a friendly force into a force protecting themselves and the locals within the city.
"Our teams had to differentiate between the good guys and the bad guys," said Long. "We had civilians on the battlefield, but had to differentiate; take out the bad guys and keep the good guys safe."
"Once we got into the city, we cleared the city as far as we could go, and we identified a threat beyond the city limits," said Kassandji. They had the rest of their element link up with them and began bounding and over watching toward the enemy who was being suppressed by an element positioned on a rooftop within the village.
Throughout the entire engagement, while taking automatic machine gun fire, small arms fire, and mortar and indirect fire, the commander did his best to interact with a seemingly pro-Taliban local leader.
They had one objective on that day, to come into the village and establish rapport with the people and show them that they are here to protect them, with a goal of allowing a functioning Afghan government to come in down the road and help facilitate the needs of the Afghan people.
Though they were engaged during their first trip into the hostile area, they took a giant step closer in regaining the trust of the local populace.
This was all apart of a recent "Strike Blitz" training exercise Jan. 28, geared toward preparing the unit for combat and stability operations in Afghanistan, where the brigade will deploy to early this summer.
According to Kassandji, this exercise reinforces what the unit is going to Afghanistan to do and gives the Soldiers a mindset of what to expect when deployed to Afghanistan.
"I have a lot of new guys on my team and this is their first exercise encountering people playing the role of Afghans, so it was good cultural training," said Kassandji. "It helps prepare them when encountering people dressed differently and of a different culture."
Just to be able to simulate that better prepares them for when they are faced with a similar situation.
"Also, just the difference of scenarios and how things can change escalating from encountering a friendly and what you think is a friendly place to erupting into a firefight," better prepared them for combat, said Kassandji.
Strike Soldiers will continue to hone their combat skills in preparation for their deployment early this summer to Afghanistan.
| Date Taken: | 02.10.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 02.10.2010 16:56 |
| Story ID: | 45198 |
| Location: | FORT CAMPBELL, KENTUCKY, US |
| Web Views: | 247 |
| Downloads: | 167 |
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