URUZGAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan – “See that truck over there?” asked Sgt. 1st Class Edwardo Ramos pointing at a mangled pickup with an Afghan flag jutting from its topless cab, as his platoon drove up to Afghan Uniformed Police Checkpoint Bidak in Dorafshan Valley.
“You’ll never guess where the top is,” he said laughing.
Inside the checkpoint, the piece of metal that once protected the truck’s passengers now shaded a policeman as he surveyed his section of the valley’s river, poppy fields and mountains.
The makeshift canopy was one feature distinguishing Bidak from similar checkpoints soldiers with A Company, 4-70th Armor Battalion, 170th Infantry Brigade Combat Team travel to daily to assist and train the area’s police force.
Soldiers with 1st Platoon, “Able” Company visited policemen at Bidak April 30 for two reasons, to train the policemen in lifesaving first-responder techniques and advise the checkpoint commander how best to account for his men and equipment.
Formalized literacy, leadership and first aid training courses are available at Kandahar Airfield and Taren Kowt, but checkpoint commanders in the valley are worried about surviving while they send a policeman away for weeks of training, said Capt. Neil Prakash, the Able Company commander.
And until Prakash can convince commanders of the long-term benefits of “being trained as a good cop,” he said Able Soldiers would continue to bring supplementary training to policemen at their checkpoints.
Spc. Michael Morse, a Show Low, Ariz., native, now the medic with 1st Platoon, showed policemen ways to make tourniquets using field dressings or scarves. After he demonstrated, the policemen took turns testing their skills.
Most policemen at the checkpoint had a basic knowledge of the process, learned both at a three-month course similar to U.S. Army basic training and from coalition partners who’ve stopped by the checkpoint before. They applied the tourniquets to each other but looked to Morse for approval.
“By far, hemorrhaging is the number one killer out on the battlefield here in Afghanistan and that’s why we really push the use of tourniquets to the [Afghan Uniformed police],” said 1st Lt. Clay Randles, the 4-70th Armor physician’s assistant.
The medical training comes after three policemen were killed and more injured in March. Prakash said his soldiers are capitalizing on a lull in fighting before the Taliban’s spring offensive.
While Morse trained the policemen, his platoon leader, 1st Lt. Allen Peters, was inside the checkpoint’s mud hut explaining the importance of being accountable for personnel and equipment to the checkpoint commander.
Prakash said checkpoint commanders come to either him or his platoon leaders daily and ask for supplies. Although a pool of funds is set aside to help develop the police force, he ordered his platoon leaders to show checkpoint commanders how to inventory and request equipment.
Proof on paper of what the checkpoint has and doesn’t have allows checkpoint commanders to request help through their chain of command, which Prakash said is key to the police force functioning on its own.
“Our success here is not based on how many bad guys we kill,” he said. “We walk away when the [Afghan Uniformed Police] can pull security for themselves and the people trust them.”
