thedrifter
05-22-04, 07:39 PM
Issue Date: May 24, 2004
Fighting the other war
Units from across the Corps take on Afghan mission
By Christian Lowe
Times staff writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The convoy of more than a dozen Humvees had reached the mouth of the canyon leading down from their mountaintop position. Suddenly, bullets and rocket-propelled grenades sizzled through the air around them.
Terrorists dug into hilltop positions to the west were gunning for the paratroopers of 3rd Platoon, Blackfoot Company, 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment as they returned from a weeklong patrol in southeast Afghanistan.
Soldiers manning .50-caliber machine guns wheeled and ripped off return fire as other troopers scrambled from their vehicles for safer ground. Deadly puffs of smoke rose above the craggy ridges as the Blackfoot soldiers pumped grenades from M203 and Mk19 grenade launchers at their attackers.
The convoy was badly exposed, its vehicles strung out for nearly 100 yards on open ground with mountains rising on either side. It could have been a turkey shoot — if not for the quick reaction of the soldiers and their comrades in the sky.
As Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt attack jets and Marine AH-1W Super Cobra gunships swept low over the adjoining hills, the enemy melted back into the countryside.
Such battles are becoming increasingly common as more Marines head into Afghanistan to help bring stability to this war-torn land. And like many of their efforts here, you’ve probably never even heard about it.
The Marines are a slice of the nearly 17,000 U.S. troops hunting former Taliban fighters and al-Qaida holdouts. With the occupation of Iraq dominating headlines, the tenuous peace here has received scant attention since the Marines’ last visit to Afghanistan with Task Force 58 in late 2001.
This spring they’re playing a significant role in the often-deadly hunt for Osama bin Laden and his allies, as well as in the careful preparation for Afghanistan’s emergence as a stable democracy.
A MEU’s dream
For a Marine Expeditionary Unit, it’s a dream mission: Sole responsibility for a region and the autonomy to do the job however the commander sees fit.
Afghanistan is a textbook lesson in expeditionary Marine Air Ground Task Force operations for the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 22nd MEU. And, tragically, the mission also has brought a harsh lesson in the brutal realities of America’s war on terrorism.
During a May 7 night patrol north of Kandahar, one Marine was killed and another was wounded when militants ambushed a group from 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion attached to the 22nd MEU.
Cpl. Ronald R. Payne, 23, of Lakeland, Fla., became the first Marine killed in combat in Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom began in October 2001. His death underscores a recent surge in violence against efforts to build peace in a country ravaged by more than 30 years of warfare.
The MEU was sent into Afghanistan in mid-March for a 90-day mission to help stabilize Oruzgan province, just north of Kandahar. The region is known as a hotbed of Taliban sympathizers, especially since it was the home of former Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
While it has been relatively quiet in that region since the fall of the country’s fundamentalist Islamic regime, danger still lurks in the Marines’ new temporary home. As the recent ambush reveals, the MEU faces a tough mission while it tries to do its part to stabilize Afghanistan.
And it wasn’t easy getting here. The MEU offloaded its complement of Marines and more than 100 vehicles — including its force of Light Armored Vehicles — at a port in the Persian Gulf and then flew aboard Air Force transports to Kandahar Airfield.
Though the MEU is scheduled to be here only three months, the leathernecks are champing at the bit to get into their mission and make a difference.
“This is a dream mission for a MEU commander,” said Col. Kenneth McKenzie, 22nd MEU commander in an April 19 interview here. “We’re going into an area that has seen little U.S. presence up until now.”
An exotic land
To Cpl. Antonio Alecia, Afghanistan is a pretty strange place. The .50-caliber machine gunner with the MEU’s Combined Anti-Armor Team drove into Tarin Kowt on a reconnaissance mission weeks before the bulk of the MEU moved from Kandahar Airfield to a forward operating base known as Camp Ripley.
As he rolled to a stop at the provincial governor’s house, Alecia noticed Afghan men holding hands as they walked along the street — a sight not uncommon in Muslim countries. But when he saw two men kissing intimately, he was a little freaked out.
“I saw these two guys making out!” Alecia exclaimed with a wince as he cleaned a .50-caliber machine gun in the dusty motor pool at their base in Kandahar. “These people are kind of strange.”
Like most of the Marines on this deployment, this is Alecia’s first MEU float. Many of the Marines have been to Okinawa on Unit Deployment Program rotations, but few have seen anything as exotic as Afghanistan.
And they’ll get to experience this country to its fullest while they’re here.
The MEU is set to help establish what’s called a Provincial Reconstruction Team — essentially a group of Army civil-affairs specialists who canvass villages in their province to assess major infrastructure needs.
Most often, villagers are desperate for wells and irrigation systems to water their crops. But the teams also help build schools and mosques, contracting out the labor to local Afghan workers.
Not only will the Marines provide security for the teams, but they also will do some of the same kind of outreach themselves, sending unit leaders into villages to talk to elders and establish working relationships with the local population.
“Part of this is to kill or capture ACMs [anti-coalition militia],” McKenzie said. “But a big part is the civil-military operations.
“This is going to be an NCO fight,” he added. “He’s got some real challenges ahead of him.”
Getting the vote out
The Marines also are here to help the United Nations with its effort to register Afghanistan’s estimated 10 million voters for elections in September — postponed from June due to security concerns. So far the United Nations has been unable to register voters in the Marines’ province — Oruzgan — along with three other volatile provinces primarily in southeast Afghanistan.
Across the country, the U.S. military is working hard to set the groundwork for elections and wipe out what is left of the Taliban, al-Qaida and the rogue warlords that want to see the U.S. effort fail. Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division — which provided the bulk of U.S. forces that occupied the country for the past year — are being replaced by soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division, who will build on the peacekeeping and counterinsurgency work already started in the rugged Afghan countryside.
Along with the MEU, the Corps deployed 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines to help stabilize the region near Bagram and Kabul in central Afghanistan. A headquarters detachment from 6th Marines also is here to take over command of Task Force Stonewall, one of four major military subcommands under CJTF-180, which was redesignated as CJTF-76 on May 15.
In addition, Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 773, a Reserve unit based in New Orleans and Atlanta, has been at Bagram since last fall, along with Minneapolis-based Marine Wing Support Squadron 471. Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 769 recently deployed to Bagram, as well, to help provide heavy lift to coalition forces throughout the country with its inventory of CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters.
Special operations troops from the Army’s 3rd Special Forces Group and others are patrolling more remote parts of the country, including the Afghan-Pakistan border area near Khost and the town of Shkin in southeastern Afghanistan.
Heading up the hunt for Osama bin Laden, his lieutenants and the Taliban leadership is the super-secret Task Force 121, reportedly a combination of CIA paramilitary officers, counter-terrorist operators from units such as Delta Force and SEAL Team Six and British Special Air Service commandos.
continued.......
Fighting the other war
Units from across the Corps take on Afghan mission
By Christian Lowe
Times staff writer
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The convoy of more than a dozen Humvees had reached the mouth of the canyon leading down from their mountaintop position. Suddenly, bullets and rocket-propelled grenades sizzled through the air around them.
Terrorists dug into hilltop positions to the west were gunning for the paratroopers of 3rd Platoon, Blackfoot Company, 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment as they returned from a weeklong patrol in southeast Afghanistan.
Soldiers manning .50-caliber machine guns wheeled and ripped off return fire as other troopers scrambled from their vehicles for safer ground. Deadly puffs of smoke rose above the craggy ridges as the Blackfoot soldiers pumped grenades from M203 and Mk19 grenade launchers at their attackers.
The convoy was badly exposed, its vehicles strung out for nearly 100 yards on open ground with mountains rising on either side. It could have been a turkey shoot — if not for the quick reaction of the soldiers and their comrades in the sky.
As Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt attack jets and Marine AH-1W Super Cobra gunships swept low over the adjoining hills, the enemy melted back into the countryside.
Such battles are becoming increasingly common as more Marines head into Afghanistan to help bring stability to this war-torn land. And like many of their efforts here, you’ve probably never even heard about it.
The Marines are a slice of the nearly 17,000 U.S. troops hunting former Taliban fighters and al-Qaida holdouts. With the occupation of Iraq dominating headlines, the tenuous peace here has received scant attention since the Marines’ last visit to Afghanistan with Task Force 58 in late 2001.
This spring they’re playing a significant role in the often-deadly hunt for Osama bin Laden and his allies, as well as in the careful preparation for Afghanistan’s emergence as a stable democracy.
A MEU’s dream
For a Marine Expeditionary Unit, it’s a dream mission: Sole responsibility for a region and the autonomy to do the job however the commander sees fit.
Afghanistan is a textbook lesson in expeditionary Marine Air Ground Task Force operations for the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 22nd MEU. And, tragically, the mission also has brought a harsh lesson in the brutal realities of America’s war on terrorism.
During a May 7 night patrol north of Kandahar, one Marine was killed and another was wounded when militants ambushed a group from 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion attached to the 22nd MEU.
Cpl. Ronald R. Payne, 23, of Lakeland, Fla., became the first Marine killed in combat in Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom began in October 2001. His death underscores a recent surge in violence against efforts to build peace in a country ravaged by more than 30 years of warfare.
The MEU was sent into Afghanistan in mid-March for a 90-day mission to help stabilize Oruzgan province, just north of Kandahar. The region is known as a hotbed of Taliban sympathizers, especially since it was the home of former Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
While it has been relatively quiet in that region since the fall of the country’s fundamentalist Islamic regime, danger still lurks in the Marines’ new temporary home. As the recent ambush reveals, the MEU faces a tough mission while it tries to do its part to stabilize Afghanistan.
And it wasn’t easy getting here. The MEU offloaded its complement of Marines and more than 100 vehicles — including its force of Light Armored Vehicles — at a port in the Persian Gulf and then flew aboard Air Force transports to Kandahar Airfield.
Though the MEU is scheduled to be here only three months, the leathernecks are champing at the bit to get into their mission and make a difference.
“This is a dream mission for a MEU commander,” said Col. Kenneth McKenzie, 22nd MEU commander in an April 19 interview here. “We’re going into an area that has seen little U.S. presence up until now.”
An exotic land
To Cpl. Antonio Alecia, Afghanistan is a pretty strange place. The .50-caliber machine gunner with the MEU’s Combined Anti-Armor Team drove into Tarin Kowt on a reconnaissance mission weeks before the bulk of the MEU moved from Kandahar Airfield to a forward operating base known as Camp Ripley.
As he rolled to a stop at the provincial governor’s house, Alecia noticed Afghan men holding hands as they walked along the street — a sight not uncommon in Muslim countries. But when he saw two men kissing intimately, he was a little freaked out.
“I saw these two guys making out!” Alecia exclaimed with a wince as he cleaned a .50-caliber machine gun in the dusty motor pool at their base in Kandahar. “These people are kind of strange.”
Like most of the Marines on this deployment, this is Alecia’s first MEU float. Many of the Marines have been to Okinawa on Unit Deployment Program rotations, but few have seen anything as exotic as Afghanistan.
And they’ll get to experience this country to its fullest while they’re here.
The MEU is set to help establish what’s called a Provincial Reconstruction Team — essentially a group of Army civil-affairs specialists who canvass villages in their province to assess major infrastructure needs.
Most often, villagers are desperate for wells and irrigation systems to water their crops. But the teams also help build schools and mosques, contracting out the labor to local Afghan workers.
Not only will the Marines provide security for the teams, but they also will do some of the same kind of outreach themselves, sending unit leaders into villages to talk to elders and establish working relationships with the local population.
“Part of this is to kill or capture ACMs [anti-coalition militia],” McKenzie said. “But a big part is the civil-military operations.
“This is going to be an NCO fight,” he added. “He’s got some real challenges ahead of him.”
Getting the vote out
The Marines also are here to help the United Nations with its effort to register Afghanistan’s estimated 10 million voters for elections in September — postponed from June due to security concerns. So far the United Nations has been unable to register voters in the Marines’ province — Oruzgan — along with three other volatile provinces primarily in southeast Afghanistan.
Across the country, the U.S. military is working hard to set the groundwork for elections and wipe out what is left of the Taliban, al-Qaida and the rogue warlords that want to see the U.S. effort fail. Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division — which provided the bulk of U.S. forces that occupied the country for the past year — are being replaced by soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division, who will build on the peacekeeping and counterinsurgency work already started in the rugged Afghan countryside.
Along with the MEU, the Corps deployed 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines to help stabilize the region near Bagram and Kabul in central Afghanistan. A headquarters detachment from 6th Marines also is here to take over command of Task Force Stonewall, one of four major military subcommands under CJTF-180, which was redesignated as CJTF-76 on May 15.
In addition, Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 773, a Reserve unit based in New Orleans and Atlanta, has been at Bagram since last fall, along with Minneapolis-based Marine Wing Support Squadron 471. Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 769 recently deployed to Bagram, as well, to help provide heavy lift to coalition forces throughout the country with its inventory of CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters.
Special operations troops from the Army’s 3rd Special Forces Group and others are patrolling more remote parts of the country, including the Afghan-Pakistan border area near Khost and the town of Shkin in southeastern Afghanistan.
Heading up the hunt for Osama bin Laden, his lieutenants and the Taliban leadership is the super-secret Task Force 121, reportedly a combination of CIA paramilitary officers, counter-terrorist operators from units such as Delta Force and SEAL Team Six and British Special Air Service commandos.
continued.......