Afghan chase hard lesson for Schofield unit
By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer
SREH KOWT, Afghanistan — U.S. Special Forces troops had been watching the compound high in the pine-covered mountains, and about a dozen people moving about with AK-47 rifles, when their position was compromised.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
In the firefight that followed, five suspected Taliban operatives were killed.
Pfc. Eric J. Medlin, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, pulls himself up a rock face as his unit pursues insurgents in the mountains of Afghanistan.
For good measure, an AC-130 Spectre gunship overhead, unseen in the night sky, leveled the buildings below with rapid-firing cannon.
To get an assessment of casualties and catch any fleeing forces, the soldiers of Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry, were sent in after them.
But they had to get there first.
The 25th Infantry Division (Light) troops would hike for a day and a half, clambering up a rocky waterfall by rope, passing through canyonlike dry riverbed wadis, and gasping for air at nearly 2 miles elevation with heavy combat loads — only to be told they needed to hike back down less than half a mile from their target when their mission changed.
And then changed again.
"We hit 10,000 feet, hooah," said Pfc. Michael Thomas, 19, as he lay against his 60-pound pack and rested on a pile of loose shale, his 26-pound Squad Automatic Weapon across his chest.
"I think I earned my paycheck today and yesterday, and I'm going to earn two going back."
For the jungle fighters of the Tropic Lightning division, it was a heart-pounding, lung-stretching reality check on the rigors of mountain warfare in Afghanistan and the yearlong mission to come.
Pfc. Aliioniga Lesii, carrying close to 100 pounds, bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees to catch his breath.
"That was good PT (physical training) right there," said Lesii, who's from Helemano.
Almost all of the "Wolfhounds" made the trek. But three soldiers with Company B, moving in from a different direction, had to be evacuated after suffering altitude sickness at 11,500 feet.
"This is going to be it," said 2-27 Command Sgt. Maj. David Yates II. "They'll acclimate, get used to it, get used to living outdoors constantly. They'll all be first-class runners when they get back home."
Imposters captured
For Operation Wolfhound Reach, Special Forces troops combed mountain ridges while 2-27 soldiers maneuvered through the rocky valleys below.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Setting out from the village of Sreh Kowt in Paktika province, in the southeastern border region with Pakistan, Charlie Company at one point spotted as many as eight people across the valley, high on a distant ridgetop, wearing woodland camouflage.
Lt. Col. Walter E. Piatt, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, meets with the village elder of Sreh Kowt, where his Schofield soldiers are based. Piatt donated a 13-kilowatt generator, wiring and lights to the village, which lacked electricity.
They would later learn Special Forces troops — soldiers who work with indigenous forces and favor unkempt hair, long beards and white Toyota pickup trucks — had killed two of the men, identified as Pakistanis, and wounded and captured three others.
The men were found wearing uniforms mimicking those of the Afghan National Army.
Some of the Schofield soldiers expressed frustration at hiking nearly five miles at altitude and climbing 1,000 vertical feet, only to find out that Army Rangers with a quick reaction force had flown in to assault their intended target.
"I think they did real well, and given all the changes, the morale stayed up pretty well," said Capt. Tage Rainsford, Charlie Company's commander. "Sometimes the soldiers don't see the big picture."
The Pakistanis were prevented from escaping by the rifle company of 140 soldiers in the valley below.
"What I'll tell these guys is, hey, we helped flush them out," said Rainsford, 29, from Trumansburg, N.Y.
Collaborators sought
Since March 7, U.S. forces have been conducting Operation Mountain Storm in southeastern Afghan-
istan, the latest in a series of missions to capture or kill al-Qaida and Taliban exerting influence in the mountainous border region with Pakistan.
Yates said the going rate is $1,200 to come across the mountains and fire rockets or place mines in the road. The price used to be $200.
"It's good news. The price is going up. It means there's less of it," Yates said.
The 2-27 Wolfhounds are responsible for Paktika province, an area twice the size of the Big Island that includes Shkin, a border village that a U.S. commander told Time magazine was the "evilest place in Afghanistan."
Just 15 miles to the north of Sreh Kowt, Spc. Pat Tillman, a Ranger and former starting safety for the Arizona Cardinals football team, was killed April 22. Two other U.S. soldiers were wounded in the ambush, and as many as three other Rangers were killed Monday in the area, officials said.
There have been no Schofield casualties, although Company A soldiers in Shkin under the control of an OGA, or other governmental agency, have been shot at from across the border and recently came under rocket attack, officials said.
Warring influences
Paktika province "is one of the more dangerous places in Afghanistan, no doubt about it," said Lt. Col. Walter E. Piatt, the 2-27 battalion commander.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
The inhospitable region is marked by centuries-old tribal influence and flip-flopping loyalties. Five major tribes are found in Paktika, including the Waziri, across Afghanistan and Pakistan, who consider themselves a nation-state.
An Afghan girl carries supplies in the village of Sreh Kowt, near the border with Pakistan, where Schofield troops sought a former high-ranking member of the Taliban.
"Basically, you have us and you have al-Qaida and the Taliban, and in the middle you have the local population," Rainsford said. "And the local population is very easily swayed."
He characterized the tribal attitude as: "Who can do more for me?"
Piatt said intelligence had led U.S. forces to believe a former high-ranking Taliban member was using the compound at 11,000 feet outside Sreh Kowt as a way station for foreign fighters.
A farming and goat-herding village of pink-hued mud brick homes, Sreh Kowt is about 25 miles from the Pakistan border,
"We follow the intelligence, and we have to be prepared when that intelligence presents itself," Piatt said. "It's not a conventional threat."
That information led Charlie Company up the mountain valley whose pines and rugged terrain could have been transplanted from Montana, to an altitude of 10,000 feet.
That night, the soldiers bivou- acked in a windswept canyon where temperatures dropped to 40 degrees.
An AC-130 gunship passed low overhead several times in the starry sky, monitoring the friendly forces and watching for the enemy.
The soldiers were told to leave behind sleeping bags to save weight, and relied instead on Gore-Tex "bivvy" sacks and poncho liners to stay warm.
Pfc. Ash Comer, 20, a forward observer from Kettle Falls, Wash., said he didn't mind the daylong high-altitude march.
"Sometimes it's necessary. I don't really have a problem with it," he said as he prepared to bed down in the sand and rocks on the canyon floor. "Going into a combat MOS (military occupational specialty), you've got to expect to walk."
Comer said he was prepared to face the hardships of Afghanistan.
"They told us the elevation was going to kick us in the butt," he said, adding he and other soldiers had trained on the highest reaches of Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island to get a feel for the altitude.
No training compares
It was by turns sunny and warm, rainy and cold, and it snowed briefly on the first day of the three-day march.
Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser
Staff Sgt. William Dunn said he went to Hawai'i "to get away from stuff like that," but found himself back in Afghanistan.
Pfc. Aliioniga Lesii of Helemano feels the burden of nearly 100 pounds of water, food and ammunition on a high-altitude trek to intercept insurgents in the mountains of the Sar Hawzeh district.
The 32-year-old father of two, who was with the 10th Mountain Division during Operation Anaconda in March 2002, said he was shot in the chest twice by a man with a .22-caliber pistol.
Dunn, whose Kevlar vest stopped the slugs, took the weapon away and killed the man in the pitched battle with Taliban and al-Qaida forces.
He said it's almost impossible to train for the mountains of Afghan-
istan and the altitude. "Just physical fitness is the biggest thing," Dunn said. "We walk a lot of hills (in Hawai'i)."
Charlie Company was ordered north of the targeted compound at one point, then told to head back down the valley to catch any enemy forces as Company B moved into Sreh Kowt in four CH-47 Chinook helicopters and moved out from there.
Updated intelligence indicated the former high-ranking Taliban member might now be at the new location, but Schofield soldiers later determined their target had a 48-hour head start and had slipped away.
"But we took some of his fighters away from him (earlier), and that's significant," Piatt said.
Political gifts
In addition to maintaining security in Afghanistan, the coalition is trying to win over the people, and battalion commanders can authorize spending as much as $25,000 for improvements or equipment, such as tractors, under the Commanders Emergency Response Program.
Piatt met with the elder of Sreh Kowt, Shir Mohammed, a man with copper-colored eyes and red-dyed beard wearing a green turban, and gave him a 13-kilowatt generator, wiring and lights for use in the village of 52 homes that did not have electricity.
School supplies were given out, and Sgt. 1st Class David Dougherty punted soccer balls to a throng of smiling children.
Army officials said the village flanked by steep mountain ridges had never been visited by conventional U.S. forces.
"Our goal is to come visit every village in every district and to work with you so we can better bring security to your people," Piatt told the elder.
Mohammed, who said he was 45 but whose weather-beaten face made him look closer to 65, said through an interpreter, "We are happy you have come here. You will come here and find peace with the Afghan people."
"I think we can make a difference on the proxy fighters (soldiers hired by the Taliban or al-Qaida) by what we're doing in this village today," Piatt said later.
The coalition effort gives villages a choice between good governance and insurgency, he said.
But Piatt, who was in Afghanis-
tan with the 10th Mountain Division in November of 2001, recognizes there are still many challenges ahead for the region.
"Since Alexander the Great, no foreign army has survived in Paktika province," Piatt said. "Paktika province is a very different place. People here see things very long-term, and they've seen a lot of occupation before."
But he believes the coalition will succeed "because our line of operation is with the people and government."
"Their success is our success," he said. "We're not here to dominate and conquer."
