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NURISTAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan – U.S. Army 1st Lt. Lucas Peterson, a platoon leader with 2nd platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, had heard it all before.
“We didn’t see anything,” a villager in the town of Tupac told him as he talked with a group of villagers in the streets of the town Jan. 21. “The people come from outside our village.”
Peterson said it is frustrating. Two days before, an improvised explosive device had detonated in Tupac just a few feet in front of one of his platoon’s vehicles. It was a near miss and luckily, none of his soldiers were injured in the attack. The blast was in the middle of the village by a house but the people said they had not seen or heard anything.
So, the platoon kept patrolling. They had already walked miles and miles up and down mountains to get to Tupac, having conducted a key leader engagement in the town of Nengaresh earlier. They were just about to start the long march back to Forward Operating Base Kalagush, when it happened: someone came forward.
A person in the area approached one of the Afghan National Army soldiers from Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 201st Infantry Corps, on patrol with Peterson’s men, and told the ANA soldiers they had seen a wire. That was all they needed.
An hour or so later, after the soldiers had been walking for seven hours, Peterson slipped and skidded a few feet down a steep slope, in so doing, uncovering the wire, which Weapons Company soldier Shafi Ulah quickly located.
The Afghan and American troops followed the wire down one mountainside and up another together before they found that it led straight to an old blast site along the side of the road which had since been filled with rocks. The site had been used to attack the unit that Company C had replaced. The explosive ordnance disposal team was called out and located then destroyed the IED.
Because the person came forward with the littlest tip, the person potentially saved American and Afghan lives, Peterson said.
The IED obviously took a considerable amount of time to emplace, as the wire was buried up and down two complete steep valley slopes. Still, Peterson and his men have seen this before, yet gotten little information from the villagers, who are intimidated by the Taliban.
“They always say if they see something, they’ll call and never do. The story of my life,” Peterson, who hails from Ames, Iowa, said with a laugh.
U.S. Army Pfc. Brian Wisor, a 20-year-old infantryman from Ackley, Iowa, was one of the Company C soldiers on the patrol when the IED was located. He said when he started the patrol he didn’t really expect to find an IED. Prior to locating the IED, in fact, the big news of the day was that it was the twenty-seventh birthday of squad leader U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jeff Behan, from Sabula, Iowa.
Peterson said the IED was a pressure-cooker packed with 25 pounds of explosives and was comparably small to some that have been found in the area. Still, the damage it could have done was not inflicted on his soldiers.
“If it would have hit one of our trucks, it probably wouldn’t have been too bad,” Wisor said. “If it would have hit a person, though, or one of the ANA trucks it wouldn’t have been a good deal. It was nice that the people are starting to trust us enough to give us information and we can take care of it, instead of some little kid or [other] innocent person in general finding it.”
During the mission, Company C’s soldiers walked at least 10 kilometers, starting at Forward Operating Base Kalagush, over a mountain and a couple ridges to the town of Nengaresh, where they conducted a KLE. Peterson said his soldiers had often driven past the town, but never stopped and talked with the people.
“We wanted to put our face out there and talk with the people,” Peterson said. “The people said it had been a long time since Americans had been through the area. We stop at their bazaar along the paved road, but had never gone up to the village itself. Having them see us makes everything a little more personal.”
“It’s nice to get out and interact with the people, and see a different view of the villages,” Wisor said.
From there, the soldiers hiked onward, up and down valleys to the town of Tupac. They swept the bridge with a metal detector, as well as the fields near Route Philadelphia, the road going through the center of the village that the unit had been hit on two days earlier. They explored the valleys around the village but found nothing. Peterson estimated they had walked probably eight miles up and down mountains during the day. But they had nothing to show for it until the tip came in.
The patrol was a longer one for the platoon, but is nothing new. Wisor said it was his first mission back from leave, and was a quick re-acclimatization.
“It was a smoker,” he said with a laugh.
“I just want people to know my guys are out here working hard,” Peterson said.
They say hard work pays off, and this time it did. As the soldiers from Company C huffed back to FOB Kalagush, they heard the EOD team blow up the IED they had found in the distance. Though tired from the gruelling day, hearing the IED detonate and knowing it wouldn’t be able to hurt them or an innocent civilian brought a smile to their faces.
| Date Taken: | 01.21.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 01.23.2011 04:33 |
| Story ID: | 64041 |
| Location: | NURISTAN PROVINCE, AF |
| Web Views: | 382 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, ANA, Red Bulls find IED, by CSM Ryan Matson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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