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COMBAT OUTPOST LION, Afghanistan - The clanking of rocks against steel and the humming of bulldozer engines have become a normal sound around Do’ab, a farming village near the tip of the Horn of Panjwa’i, as a platoon of engineers work on building and extending routes from Combat Outpost Mushan to COP Lion.
With gravel hard to come by, the engineers have turned to a natural resource to help build the road used by troops and local farmers in the area— a river bed.
The river bed, which has dried up, has proven to be an innovative way of making the road drivable.
“Normally, the gravel is contracted out, but the contractors haven’t felt safe coming into this area. We weren’t getting the gravel we needed as soon as we needed it,” explained 1st Lt. Marc Helm, an engineer platoon leader with the 322nd Engineer Company, 368th Engineer Battalion, Naval Construction Regiment. “That’s when the idea was brought up to use the riverbed to quarry the river rock to lay on the roads and inside of (COP) Lion.”
Helm and his platoon of engineers from the 322nd Engineer Company, Iowa Army Reserve, and the 475th Engineer Company, Puerto Rico Army Reserve, assessed the river bed and went right to work on extracting the rock, which covered the mile and a half road, known as Route Agha, named after Hajji Sayed Fazluddin Agha, the Panjwa’i district governor. The route extends from an Afghan National Army checkpoint into the entrance of COP Lion.
The rock has proven the best defense against the sandy air caused by the mixture of moon dust and Stryker combat vehicles; “moon dust” is a term used by troops to describe the fine, flour-like sand in the area.
“The moon dust is terrible. In some places we’ve plowed, there has been 24 inches of it, and our vehicles will get stuck on the road because of it,” said Helm, of Des Moines, Iowa.
The rock not only makes the road drivable, but also increases visibility while decreasing the occurrence of small dust storms, he added.
Perhaps the major benefit of using the river bed to quarry rock is the ability to limit freedom of maneuver for the Taliban. By removing rock in precise places, Helm said the river bed will now become an obstacle for insurgents.
“Before we started in the river bed, the Taliban were able to freely move north and south of Do’ab. It was as simple as walking or driving across,” he explained. “But now that we have made a ditch by removing rock, the only way to really maneuver around it is to go to either end, which is where ANA checkpoints are set up.”
By limiting freedom of maneuver, the enemy can no longer use the same routes to plant improved explosive devices or set up ambushes, said 1st Sgt. Jeff Peppin, first sergeant of A Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.
“We can deny the Taliban any terrain and, in turn, make the area more secure and help the government of Afghanistan support their people,” said Peppin, a Coeur d ‘Alene, Idaho, native.
Since quarry operations began nearly one month ago, Peppin said he has already seen a decrease in enemy activity when his soldiers are on patrol.
One definite sign the river bed has helped deter enemy activity was the arrival of 22 dump trucks, driven by local construction contractors on Oct. 19. The trucks, filled to the brim, lined the road outside COP Lion and, one-by-one, pulled in to deliver gravel.
| Date Taken: | 10.19.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 10.24.2011 13:10 |
| Story ID: | 78924 |
| Location: | COMBAT OUTPOST LION, AF |
| Web Views: | 219 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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