My Personal Platoon

I am a Cavalry Scout and was deployed to Afghanistan during a time of heightened political activity and very restrictive rules of engagement. I was also attached to an Artillery Battalion with little experience with a maneuver element. My Platoon felt we were being put in harm’s way while having little impact on the mission. We decided to be creative and use our resources in an unorthodox fashion to bring positive results to our area of operations.
I was deployed to Afghanistan from February to October of 2014. My Troop was attached to an Artillery Battalion and we were charged with conducting counter indirect fire patrols in the Bagram Airfield Security Zone. This was the year of the first national election for President of Afghanistan …show more content…
It was essentially inside the wire quick reaction force. This all changed one late summer afternoon when five Czechoslovakian Soldiers were killed while providing medical aid to a young girl with burns to her face. A Czechoslovakian unit was responsible for the north western sector of the Bagram Security Zone. It was the most active for enemy attacks for the year. A platoon of Czechoslovakian Soldiers had coiled their vehicles in the parking area of a Korean Medical Center when they were approached by a man with his daughter who had significant burns to her face. A crowd began to gather and within the crowd was a man in an Afghanistan Uniformed Police uniform that was also wearing a suicide vest. The man detonated his vest killing local civilian men, women, and children as well as five Czechoslovakian Soldiers. This was a major blow to the Czechoslovakian unit and we were called to help them secure their sector. My platoon, in particular, was happy to do so because they had rescued us from a potentially very dangerous situation just weeks before as they served as the quick reaction force. We were at once relieved of perimeter response team duties and now did counter indirect fire patrols exclusively. It took several weeks to get familiar with the major routes in this sector and we did so patiently because …show more content…
It had been a fairly uneventful deployment to that point. It angered me that these people thought they could try and attack my patrol. I took it personally and decided to go back in. This time I would take my truck up the route we exited on our last patrol. I knew it would be tight but it was worth the risk. The route had ten foot mud walls on both sides of the road and a small drainage ditch on one side. Being the lead truck, I would move in to a point that I felt you could possibly get turned around. I would call the Platoon Leaders truck to me and the other two trucks would stay on the main route ensuring no one came in behind us. The movement down this route was uneventful and I made it to the outskirts of the village without incident. The significant events were happening at the Afghanistan Uniformed Police checkpoint immediately across from the route I took my truck. My Platoon Sergeant was immediately on the radio to me telling me that the police were “going crazy” as he put it. They had passed off a radio to a boy on a bicycle who had then quickly rode away. We were jamming their cell phones with our Dukes and they seemed very determined to get a message to someone. They also surrounded the two remaining platoon trucks and were screaming and yelling. The interpreter was with the Platoon Leader so my Platoon Sergeant was not sure exactly what they were saying but he was sure they did not want us driving