“Our specialty is very useful, especially when you're on missions outside the wire,” said Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Adam Molatore, a military working-dog handler and caretaker. Molatore is teamed with Enyzi, a Belgian Tervuren. “We find IEDs; that's my main mission here.”
“There are certain things, like the dogs sense of smell, their sight, and their hearing. Everything about them is way more in tune,” said AF Staff Sgt. Patrick Spivey. “You might be out on a patrol, and to you it looks like a normal road; and then your dog ... it lets you know, hey there is something not right there.
He said his dog’s senses are incredibly fine-tuned. “Their sense of smell is so good — for instance, a cheeseburger; we might only smell the cheese or the burger, but they smell the cheese, the pickle, the tomato and the lettuce,” said Spivey. “It's almost as if they smell it all in 3-D.”
Not only do the dogs provide enhanced capabilities to find threats on the battlefield, they provide a morale boost wherever they're located. “When I'm walking by with my dog, the first thing people want to do is pet my dog,” said Spivey. “It reminds people of back home, of their pets and families. They're obviously not pets, but it kind of gives people a little more normalcy.”
For the military working dog handlers and their canine partners, the preparation to deploy is an extensive process of training, and inspections designed to fully vet the dogs before they deploy. “The dogs go through a school, similar to basic training,” said Spivey. “Once they get their basic task accomplished, they come to us at the units, and that's kind of like their advanced individual training. Right now, my dog is like that new private who just got out of training, and I'm trying to teach him ‘this is how you really do it.’”
At their home station, the handlers help ensure that the dogs are fully prepared for deployment. “By the time the dogs deploy they're all pretty solid at everything," said Molatore.
The dogs provide a significant benefit to their units, but there are some challenges to accommodating them. “Logistically speaking, the dogs require some special attention, but their needs are not that much different from a regular Soldier,” said Sgt. Nicholas Kosierowski, a MWD handler and caretaker, teamed with Beny, a German Shepherd. “They need food ordered from supply, kennels built to house them and a vet or vet tech available for emergency care.”
While on patrol, the dog handlers have to bring additional supplies for the dogs. “When we go out and we leave the wire, you're not just caring for yourself, but you're caring for the dog as well,” said Molatore. “So, where the normal Soldier would carry equipment for himself, we'd have to carry more for the dogs. We have to carry extra water, food for the dogs, an emergency kit for the dogs and gear for the dogs, such as goggles and boots, and rewards.”
Overall, the benefits of having dogs with the units far outweigh the challenges they create. “I'm never alone, and when we go out, I trust my dog 100%,” said Molatore. “I will tread carefully, but I know that when I walk in her footsteps, I will be fine, because if something was there she would have found it already.” TF Currahee plans to add 2 kennel masters and 31 more dog/handler teams to the fight this spring.
The men responsible for the project gathered for a luncheon atop the new OP to congratulate and thank one another. Following the luncheon, certificates were presented to vital members of the construction process. “The special forces (SF) mentors were so kind to us,” said Qatee. “They spent a great deal of money investing in this project, and all of our soldiers helped very much with the construction as well, bringing supplies and lending a hand whenever possible. We're very thankful to all of you.”
The OP is positioned on a high mountaintop overlooking FOB Thunder, and offers commando forces an opportunity for early detection of threats approaching the base. “Before when we walked here, there was nothing,” said Qatee. “Today we have a building that will stand the test of time, and allow us to protect ourselves from the enemy.”
The building’s thick walls offer security, and a centrally-located wood stove is available for heat. “It’s something that's sustainable,” said Aaron Throop, the civilian ops and maintenance site supervisor for FOB Thunder. “They just bring firewood up if they’re cold. They have oil lamps for light. That building will be there for more than 200 years.”
The completed project is a sustainable solution to FOB security. The faces at the inauguration were filled with joy as they broke bread with each other atop their new OP. “The OP is a really good example of an Afghan solution to an Afghan problem,” said Throop. “It works and will be here long term, when everything else that needs fuel and supplies is long gone.”
NANGARHAR PROVINCE – ANSF partnered with the Soldiers assigned to 1st BCT, TF Bastogne, 101st AD, to begin ops in the Shawan Ghar Valley, of the Lal Por District, Feb. 3. The combined forces, which included ANA soldiers, Afghan National Civil Order Police, and ABP officers, began clearing ops of several villages throughout the valley, of insurgent fighters.
"The Nangarhar provincial Gov. Sherzai requested that SECFORs conduct ops in the area to reinforce security in the border region,” explained Lt. Col. James Sisemore, cmdr. of 1st STB, 1st BCT, 101st AD. “I'm confident in our Afghan partners, that together, we can accomplish the mission the gov. has given us. We'll continue to disrupt the insurgents that target the GoA, and threaten the security of Lal Por District.”
“We've seen the success of our soldiers in recent ops, to include Sherzad District, and we're confident in our ability to restore order to this important part of Nangarhar,” said ANA Maj. Agha.
Operations are ongoing.
“I was called in the middle of the night,” Marti recalled. “They requested a FET, and with Soldiers on leave and so forth, I only had so many to pick from. The mission was to air assault in, NE of the village of Tili, and push through the Mayl Valley.”
Twenty-four hours later, the team was in the air. During the mission, dubbed “Op Rock Star”, the 7 female Soldiers and infantry Soldiers from Co. A, as well as other U.S. and Afghan assets, swept through the Mayl Valley. “In the Islamic culture, men cannot search women, and a lot of times men cannot engage in conversation with the women,” said Sgt. Shannon Osterholm, a truck driver with Co. E, 1st Bn., and FET member. “The overall goal of the FET is to get info out of the female population, because they know a lot about what's going on, sometimes more than what the men will give up.”
"There are numerous cultural considerations the FET members had to consider and adhere to during the mission," according to Sgt. Samantha Kauffman, a signal support systems specialist with Co. E, and a FET member. She said, "no man, other than a woman’s husband, is supposed to see the woman’s face or hair. If a piece of clothing such as a scarf needed to be removed during a search, the FET would have to take the woman into a room or concealed area to do so, with security being in place around the room."
The females completed FET training at their mobilization station prior to deploying, including cultural awareness issues taught by Afghan women. “We didn’t just search the Afghan females; we let them know we weren't there to harm them,” said Spc. Kimberly Lindsey, an administration specialist with Co. E and a FET member.
“Some females didn’t even want you patting them down in the presence of a male, so that got a little challenging,” Kauffman said. “Then you’d be attempting to find a discreet place to search them, away from everybody, but you’re in the middle of the mountains, so you didn’t have a lot of places to go.”
The team proved even with cultural sensitivities, Afghan women could be searched, and valuable info found. The enemy has been known to conceal info and items with their women. On one woman, who the team members said was visibly nervous at the time of the search, the team found a cell phone with numbers of a man making IEDs in the area, as well as the info of several of his insurgent colleagues. The man, who was hiding in a closet in his shop, was located during the mission, along with a large amount of homemade explosives.
“They did a controlled detonation in a cave on the mountain of some of the explosives we found in a pressure-cooker,” Osterholm said. “All of a sudden, you heard this massive boom and could see and feel the shockwaves move down from the mountainside through the valley.” It was a good find, and one the team members said they know may have saved U.S. and Afghan lives.
With the knowledge that the explosives were destroyed, and couldn’t be used to harm CF, Osterholm said that the mission was a satisfying experience, especially from a truck driver’s perspective. “For me, it felt like I had helped to do something to keep the convoys I’m on a little bit safer,” she said. “It was just unreal.”
“When our guys would find weapons and stuff, we knew it was a good thing,” Marti said. During the mission, Marti said her team of 7 Soldiers separated into 3 small groups. The 1st group included Staff Sgt. Jennifer Voegtlin, a combat medic, with HHC., Pvt. Olivia McBride, a production control specialist with Co. E, and Pfc. Shannyanne Adame, a truck driver with Co. E. Their task during the op was to search females at a traffic control point just NE of COP Najil.
The 2nd and 3rd teams moved with the mission’s maneuvering elements, through the mountainous Mayl Valley. Osterholm and Kauffman paired together and moved through the south end of valley. Marti and Lindsey moved through the northern part of the valley. “We searched females throughout the valley, and helped talk to them,” Osterholm recalled. “There were a few situations where the matriarchs of the village were quite helpful in giving us info on where the Taliban had been.”
The mission was also a very physically demanding one, especially for the teams moving through the valley. They arrived in enemy territory in the middle of the night, in an area unfamiliar to them or anyone in the op. “We immediately scaled the face of this cliff to go down into Tili,” Marti recalled. “The females we came across were a little different from those the other team encountered; they didn’t want anything to do with us. Tili was the hardest village.”
The team hiked up and down the steep cliffs with full rucksacks, numerous times during the course of the mission.
Osterholm and Kauffman’s team was at the foot of a mountain, which was a known enemy hideout just outside Tili. The enemy was identified and engaged by coalition aircraft.
At the end of the day, several Taliban members were confirmed killed during the battle damage assessment, and numerous weapons caches were collected. “The light show we watched was very close, very loud and bright!” Osterholm said. “It was much closer than we anticipated. This mountain we were beside just got lit up.”
The FET members worked their way from one village to another throughout the valley, interviewing women after CF cleared the towns. They also catalogued and photographed evidence found in the searches. In the village of Kanday, the Soldiers searched the house of a known high value target, where several pieces of enemy info/propaganda were seized.
“It was chaotic,” said Marti. “No matter what village we went into, it seemed like there was something going on.”
“We didn’t know what to expect; no one knew,” Lindsey said. “We knew what our overall mission was, but no one had really done this before.” But, after 3 challenging days, CF had killed more than 10 insurgents, seized hundreds of pounds of explosives, weapons, money and other info from the insurgency, and the FET showed that they could go into uncharted waters, and contribute to a highly successful mission.
A mission to COP Terezayi, saw members of the ADT facilitating a class on poultry, an important component of the Afghan agricultural economy. “There's a lack of understanding here on nutrition and vaccinations for poultry, and other livestock,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Samuel Rance, rangeland mgr for the 3-19th ADT. He helped coordinate the ADT poultry mission, which was designed to improve health mgt., vaccination practices, and production techniques in the poultry field.
However, the ADT Soldiers brought more than agricultural knowledge and experience to the poultry training location. Fifty chickens, very much alive and kicking, and purchased beforehand through Afghan contractors, accompanied the Soldiers on the ride from FOB Salerno.
Five chickens each were given to the farmers as an incentive to attend the training. Farmers spent a morning in the classroom listening to Haji Mohammed, the Afghan agricultural agent for the Terezayi area. "In all, there are 18 agricultural agents in Khowst Prov., operating under the authority of the Afghan DAIL," said Rance.
"Metrics for success, commonly known as benchmarks, previously hadn’t been established properly," said Rance. Now, more focus will be put on safer, efficient, and modern poultry mgt. techniques. “The farmers will learn that it’s important to keep accurate records on how many chickens were still alive, sick, eaten, sold or stolen,” Rance said.
The training is designed to provide background knowledge for a 5-day seminar to be held later this winter at Khowst University. During the seminar, instructors will train 100 people in many of the same poultry techniques discussed at Terezayi.
The ADT will also facilitate future training in compost and forestry techniques. Earlier projects included the building of a greenhouse, at the ANA’s COP Parsa, located near the U.S. Army’s Camp Clark, which allows for controlled horticulture experiments.
Sgt. Brandon Reese, an infantryman attached to the 3-19th ADT, has farming experience back home. While many of the agriculture techniques which are taken for granted in the states, are just now being learned in Afghanistan, he’s comforted to know there’s a collaborative effort to help others learn the principles, no matter the distance or culture. “It’s nice to know we’re helping. Our main goal is to put an Afghan face to the training, where they can conduct the training on their own, without our support,” said Reese.
“It’s the ANA’s first time out here shooting weapons,” said Spc. Dennis Padgett, ANA adviser. “It’s a new experience for them, and we’re hoping they’ll learn a lot from what we teach them. The knowledge the students learn can help them serve their country in the future," said Padgett.
“The training continues to move forward, as we work shoulder to shoulder with the ANA instructors to coach and teach the trainees,” said Astello. “We're teaching them how to properly apply the fundamentals of marksmanship. Learning these things helps them to defend their country.”
The trainees expressed pride in their new skills, as they walked off the range, smiling after having qualified on their weapons. “I joined the ANA to protect my family, and defend my country,” said Dost Muhammad, a basic trainee with the ANA’s 203rd Thunder Corps. “I’ve been in training for 3 weeks, and being able to shoot my weapon today made me very happy.”
"The mission is to facilitate the 15th IA Bde’s transition to a self-sufficient fighting force, capable of providing security and stability for the Iraqi people," said Maj. Samuel Hall, deputy team chief, Team 15. "Team 15 advises and assists the 15th Bde.’s leadership, by teaching them the more nuanced aspects of leading soldiers," he said.
“We've been teaching them soldier skills for years,” said Hall. “Now, sitting in an office talking about how to order supplies, and keeping their ops organized, is the focus. We've been working with them for months, but the IA is definitely operating on their own,” he said. “They're running ops on their own, and not just planning combat ops, but ceremonies, as well. They are doing it all.”
IA Lt. Col. Zeyad, civil affairs officer said, "the mentorship by American Forces has greatly improved the ISF’ mission to gain the trust and support of the Iraqi people. "U.S. forces deserve recognition for their hard work and efforts," said Capt. Mohammad, cmdr., Communication Co, 15th Bde., 12th IA Div.
Hussein, who began his command in July with one tent to house his men and equipment, used money from his own pocket, and employed assistance from 1st Bn., 14th Inf. Regt. to build a HQ for his company. “American forces especially have provided logistical support to help build my company’s HQ,” said Hussein. “I'm very grateful to them.”
“Stepping off the plane, smelling fresh air – I can’t wait,” said Jackson. Like many soldiers, Jackson said he misses the “simple pleasures,” that are foreign to Iraq. “Just being able to walk outside in civilian clothes, to drive to the store if I need something; that’s the little things we look forward to,” he said.
Spc. Manuel Ortiz deployed with the unit once before in 2007. For him, it's a new mission and another countdown. This time, Ortiz looks forward to reuniting with his wife, whom he married 3 months before leaving. “Being married has made it harder and easier,” he said. “Either way I can’t wait; we get our place, be together.”
The brigade still has a good deal of work ahead of it prior to its return. Serving as the only aviation brigade in Iraq, it's responsible for an area that was previously supported by 3 aviation brigades. In addition to mandatory redeployment briefings, classes and paperwork, the brigade’s return home is a mission in itself.
But, it's simple to Spc. Jason Sulser. “All I’ve got to say,” he said, “is tell me when it’s time to go.”