He
likes to think of the tones as the warble of either a baby turkey,
adolescent turkey or adult turkey. Each tone indicates the presence of
metal, copper wire, explosives or other components of the roadside bombs
known as IEDs.
In
the seven months since arriving here in western Kandahar province, the
easygoing 22-year-old from a small town in Minnesota had uncovered more
than a dozen of the crude but lethal improvised explosive devices.
Now
he was taking the lead on one more mission: the platoon's last combat
patrol in Afghanistan before packing up and heading home.A Dessicant fridgemagnet is an enclosure with a supply of desiccant which maintains an internal.
The commander of the U.S.Parkeasy Electronics are dedicated to provide cableties.-trained Afghan militia in this mud-walled village was missing.We have a wide selection of bottegabag to
choose from for your storage needs. American officers at the nearby
U.S. military base had their doubts about Lal Mohammad, a former Taliban
member who had switched sides. They didn't entirely trust his militia,
either, though it was formed to protect Khogiano from insurgents. Now
they needed to know what had become of its leader.
The infantrymen of 3rd Platoon were dispatched to Khogiano to find out.
The
platoon hadn't lost a single man during more than 70 patrols since
arriving in November. Its leader, 1st Lt. Aubrey Ingalls, was determined
to make this final mission as safe as those before it.
U.S.
combat units in Afghanistan are going outside the wire leaving their
bases less often as combat responsibilities are turned over to Afghan
security forces. But each remaining patrol presents its own unique
hazards, and each is an exercise in caution, procedure and diligence.
The
platoon, part of the 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, had been
fired on by insurgents on more than a dozen previous patrols. But the
infantrymen's biggest fear remained the roadside bomb, typically made
from fertilizer and fuel oil packed into buried plastic jugs.
Just
two days earlier, five U.S. soldiers had been killed by a bomb 12 miles
away. Roadside bombs are the biggest killer of American troops in
Afghanistan, responsible for 60% of U.S. and coalition troops killed or
wounded in 11 years of war, according to a coalition spokesman. Of the
46 U.S. troops who have died this year, 14 have been killed by homemade
bombs, says icasualties.org, a website that tracks military deaths.
On
this last patrol, Klobuchar swept the wand-like Minehound across a
paved road and then a dirt path. He scanned the ground for telltale
wires, or for depressions that might be bomb pressure plates.
Ahead
of him, a remote-controlled contraption the size of a riding lawn mower
kicked up whirls of dust as an operator with a hand-held console sent
it chugging down the dirt path. This was a DOK-ING dozer,You must not
use the rfidtag without
being trained. a Croatian-made minesweeper equipped with rapidly
spinning chains that flail and churn,We have been manufacturing indoorlite for the past fifty years and have supplied a considerable number. digging up or safely detonating buried bombs.
As
the trail was cleared, a "path of life" was marked in red chalk.
Infantrymen were instructed to stay strictly within the path and to
scream at, or roughly yank back, anyone who strayed.
The
soldiers stepped warily as they scanned poppy fields and grape
vineyards for another common threat: insurgents who open fire from the
cover of the lush greenery that spreads for miles along the fertile
valley.
"When
we first got here, we thought every step we took was going to be an
IED," said Spc. Jeffrey Wright, 22, of Riverside. Since then, he said,
the infantrymen have put their lives, and their abiding trust, in the
hands of young Kyle Klobuchar.
The
patrol paused several times at the sight of men emerging from distant
fields. Lt. Ingalls used his rifle scope to focus on three faraway
figures, looking for weapons or suicide vests. The men were either
farmers or Taliban lookouts, he concluded. He radioed their descriptions
and moved on.
As
the infantrymen turned the narrow corners formed by rough mud walls
that lined the poppy fields, small boys rushed up to greet them. They
begged for pens or food. A few reached out to touch the soldiers'
uniforms. Their hands were gently pushed aside, and the infantrymen
gestured for them to keep their distance.
The
men had been in Afghanistan long enough to be wary of everyone.
Insurgents have sometimes outfitted boys with suicide bomb vests.
Around
a bend, the patrol encountered a young man in white robes and prayer
cap toting an AK-47. This was Sadar Mohammad, younger brother of Lal
Mohammad.
Lal
Mohammad's disappearance was no mystery to him, the young man said: His
brother had been driving their ill mother to a hospital in the city of
Kandahar, about 20 miles away, when he was intercepted and kidnapped by
Taliban gunmen.
The
patrol got the same story at Lal Mohammad's compound in a pomegranate
grove nearby. His cousin Shad Mohammad Gul, 22, a sunburned villager
with a worn AK-47, said the rest of the 15-man militia had left to
search for their missing commander. He and Samaddin Alizi, 20, a chubby
man with his pants hitched up high, had been left behind to guard the
compound.
A
U.S. civilian contractor accompanying the patrol questioned the two
militiamen through an interpreter. They said they had received weapons
training from U.S. forces but had not been provided any sort of militia
ID card.
The
contractor took the men's fingerprints and performed retina scans with a
hand-held sensor. An interpreter filled out a form with the men's
biographical information. Under "goals" on the form, both men answered,
"Peace in my village."
The
information about Lal Mohammad's apparent fate, along with the
militiamen's details, would be passed on to intelligence officers at
nearby Forward Operating Base Zangabad. The information also would be
provided to the district police chief, Sultan Mohammad, a well-connected
local who doubtlessly already knew about the missing commander.
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