Afghan police, grader operator aid stuck Missouri National Guard vehicles

Pulaski County Daily News ^ | 2/17/2010 | Jon E. Dougherty/Missouri National Guard Public Affairs

[darrellmaurina]

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHARANA, Afghanistan (Feb. 17, 2010) — Late in the afternoon a convoy on a route clearance patrol mission rolled into an Afghan village which would serve as the furthest point of the day’s patrol. Members of the 203rd Engineer Battalion, Missouri Army National Guard, and 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery (the 5-3), 17th Fires Brigade, an active duty unit based at Fort Lewis, Wash., were working together in road conditions made hazardous by melting snow as well as insurgent-planted explosives. Two-thirds of the way through the village the convoy’s lead vehicle, commanded by Staff Sgt. Gary Rhodes stopped short of a ditch that had been dug across the road by Afghan road crews. A narrow bypass that jutted out to the right of the ditch then turned sharply to the left back towards the road, had been built around the obstacle, and Rhodes — after surveying the area — made a decision to go around. It was the only way through. Slowly Rhodes’ hulking RG-31, with a cumbersome mine roller device attached to its front, eased off the main road onto the bypass, which looked as if it has just been dug only a few days earlier. The MRAP’s tires quickly sank several inches into the fresh earth. Just when it looked as if the crew would make it, the RG’s massive right rear tire sank three feet into the muck within a few feet of the main road, bringing the vehicle to an immediate stop and leaving its crew stranded at a precarious angle.

[Jet Jaguar]

Good read.

[darrellmaurina]

Thanks! I’m a reporter outside Fort Leonard Wood, home of the Army Engineer School, and while being embedded in Afghanistan with local troops is not realistic, I love to be able to run articles like this describing conditions of those who are actually boots-on-the-ground in Afghanistan.