Photo By Spc. Paul Harris | Sgt. Nathan Wyatt, native of Louisville, Ky., personnel administrative assistant and...... read more read more
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by Pfc. Paul J. Harris
3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division Public Affairs Office
BALAD, Iraq (July 7, 2006) - It is a different war from 2003. In Operation Iraqi Freedom I, coalition forces were still fighting the remains of a traditional army. Three years later, the battlefield has evolved and so too must the Soldiers who fight in it.
The Soldiers of 3rd Battalion, 29th Field Artillery, 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Task Force Band of Brothers, thought they were coming to Iraq to provide fire support for Logistical Support Area Anaconda. They did not realize in addition to providing fire support their mission would change constantly and they would end up being more like a maneuver battalion than a fire battalion.
Our battalion task force is probably the most diversified of any task force that has ever been, said Command Sgt. Maj. Dean Keveles, command sergeant major, 3rd Bn., 29th FA. Taking an artillery battalion that is used to only shooting cannons and making them into a maneuver unit and still have the responsibility of counter fire missions, that is a sexy mission.
A mission that runs like clockwork in the event an insurgent decides to shoot a mortar or rocket onto the LSA. Radar will detect the incoming round and immediately generate a counter fire mission request. It is up to Sgt. 1st Class Alberto Vasquez, battalion chief fire control NCO, 3rd Bn., 29th FA, to make sure the airspace around the LSA is clear before sending the fire mission down to the fire teams.
The hard part is clearing the area for collateral damage, Vasquez said. We work closely with the Air Force to get visuals from their planes in the sky to make sure we do not shoot into an area that is populated.
All Vasquez has to do to get clearance is pick up a dedicated phone to Balad Air Tower and tell them which type of gun he is preparing to fire. Within seconds the tower can give him clearance. With Balad Air Base being one of the busiest airports in the world not every clearance request is granted.
"It gets frustrating because you're sole mission is to protect the LSA," Vasquez said. "You are receiving indirect fire from the enemy and you want to shoot back but you can't because of air clearance."
"Just because a bad guy shoots from behind a school we do not want to destroy that school," Kevels said. "That is difference between us and them, our morals and our values govern our behavior. We are not willing to put innocent lives at stake to reach our ideals and goals as much as they are."
If the insurgent cannot be fired upon at least he can be tracked using a new piece of technology called the Raven. It is a small Styrofoam plane coated with Kevlar to give it durability. It has two cameras one for day and one for night. Coordinates can be fed into a computer that sends it to the Raven via a Global Positioning System receiver built into the plane.
The Raven is mostly used for something called terrain denial, said Sgt. Nathan Wyatt, personnel administrative assistant and lead raven operator, Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 3rd Bn., 29th FA. Most of the time the bad guys can hear the plane so they know we are watching them, it keeps them out of the area we are patrolling and prevents them from placing an improvised explosive device or mortar tube by the side of the road.
The Raven can be flown from inside a moving vehicle giving more aid to patrols outside the wire. The area tasked out to 3rd Bn., 29th FA to patrol and secure is equivalent to three times the size of Colorado Springs, Colo. It is the Soldiers in these patrols that have had to learn new systems like the Raven and adjust the most out of any other in the Pacesetter Battalion.
Staff Sgt. Donald White, patrol leader, Btry. B, 3rd Bn., 29th FA, has covered most of the terrain and has had to wear many different hats in doing so. In addition to fighting the enemy he and his patrols have also had to be teachers in helping train and work with Soldiers from 4th Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division and diplomats in dealing with the Iraqi people he encounters on patrol.
On a recent patrol White heard mortar fire coming from a house in the town of Abu Hishma. Upon approaching the house it was discovered the insurgent round had detonated in the courtyard killing an Iraqi girl. White returned to the house the next day to offer his condolences to the family and to tell the father of the little girl "we are here to catch the people who did this to your little girl."
White is a great gun chief, Keveles said. He knows how to get behind a gun and take care of the enemy but he also has a big heart as well, kind of like a big muscular teddy bear.
Kevels attributes a lot of the success 3rd Bn., 29th FA has had to the senior command for empowering the NCOs, letting them learn from their mistakes and expand their capabilities.
"Instead of telling them how to do every little step of the mission, we allow them to use their brain cells," Keveles said.
With Soldiers going out on patrols every day and new armor and technology being added to the Humvee, it creates a lot of wear and tear on the vehicle.
"The Humvee was never designed to do what it is doing now; it was a replacement for the jeep," said 1st Sgt. Richard Koeppel, first sergeant, Company G Forward Support Company, 64th Brigade Support Battalion attached to 3rd Bn., 29th FA. "For what it does it is superb."
The amount of maintenance the vehicles require in a desert condition keeps the maintenance crews of Co. G very busy.
We have a lot of new Soldiers out here on their first deployment and one of the good things about being out here is the constant experience they are getting, Koeppel said.
Napoleon said an army marches on its stomach and today's Army is no different. It was Co. G job to get food twice a day to places like Forward Operating Base O'Ryan where there is not a dinning facility. The job has since been transferred to another battalion but that does not mean the cooks job is finished. They have been tasked out to Forward Operating Based Warhorse to provide security for the Provincial Reconstruction Team.
"The thing that allows me to hold my head up high on this place is the ability of my Soldiers to adjust to this type of mission we were given that has made us so diversified," Keveles said. "What is the motto of the field artillery, the "King of Battle," we can adapt and overcome."
| Date Taken: | 07.10.2006 |
| Date Posted: | 07.10.2006 16:27 |
| Story ID: | 7111 |
| Location: | BALAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 333 |
| Downloads: | 123 |
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