|
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHARANA, Afghanistan (May 7, 2008) - Army
engineers have completed construction of a combat outpost on the
Afghan-Pakistani border to reduce insurgent attacks there.
For Task Force Pacemaker soldiers, the process started with
coordinating with their maneuver brethren to secure the terrain
where the new outpost would be built in Margah village in the
eastern part of Afghanistan's Paktika province.
The construction facilitates a key part of the counterinsurgency
fight by allowing ground forces to interact with the local people,
as well as separating the enemy in historical border-infiltration
areas. The engineers provided a residence from which soldiers
fight, officials said.
Company B, 864th Engineer Battalion, also known as the
"Bulldogs" of Task Force Pacemaker, spent their first days of
construction pounding pickets into the rocky mountainside a few
kilometers from the Pakistan border. The altitude and the steep,
solid-rock terrain challenged the soldiers. They blasted the
mountain with more than 300 pounds of explosives to carve the
mountaintop into suitable grounds for base.
With an understanding that the enemy was watching and an attack
could happen at any moment, the engineers assembled the base walls
out of hesco bastions -- wire baskets filled with dirt -- and began
construction on the guard towers. While some worked on the towers,
others built fortified living and working areas.
"Incredible. Really impressive," said Army Col. Marty
Schweitzer, the Task Force Fury commander in charge of ground
forces in the area.
Elders of a neighboring village were thankful the new outpost
allows the soldiers to move away from their district center.
"It is a very good thing that you are moving the COP up onto the
top of the hill," one village elder said. "When the bad guys attack
the COP now, we are stuck in the middle. Thank you for doing this
very good thing."
|
