Things have been fairly quiet compared to the last 11 months, but the other day we had some busy times. The rain has not stopped and the wadis are still impassable, the enemy keeps up to no good.

Even though Prophet, Rog-O, Loon, and myself are on the ANP mentoring team now, we are still part of the QRF for this FOB if anything happens. There are not enough ANA ETTs left and none outside of what was my ANA ETT team that know this area and have actual ground combat experience. So if there is enemy contact that requires US personnel to respond, we are it.

The first day of the two days was when Jingle trucks were getting attacked and robbed. It was not in area that is our area of responsibility, but the ANA BDE Commander sent troops there. We were told to stand up the QRF, which we did. Trucks were started, radios turned on, weapons mounted and gear loaded, and then we waited. We were constantly in the TOC trying to get situation updates and develop a mental picture of who, where, what and how things were happening on the ground. Because we know this battle-space so well, we know the routes in, out, and best ways to approach. Loon, Prophet, Face and I sat around the Humvee hood mapping it out and talking about where things were happening, where we knew danger areas would be and possible enemy courses of action when we approached.

There were a lot of decision makers that had to weigh the options and see how the situation evolved on the ground. Even though there had been direct-fire contact with the enemy, it had quieted down and it was eventually decided that there was no reason in going out. The ANA and ANP had contained the situation and the enemy slipped away. So after leaning forward for a few hours, ready to go, it was decided for us to stand down.

The weather has been decent lately with the sporadic thunderstorms and hail, but for the most part decent. There has also been an increase in enemy activity all over our sector as seen on the news a lot lately. So we did not think it would be long for the QRF call to go out again, and we were right.

The next morning I was woken up by Prophet at 7:30 AM when he banged on my wall and said “Top, we are standing up QRF”. I was up and throwing clothes on within seconds, not knowing what the situation was but it did not matter. He would not have woke me up and told me that without a reason. As soon as I was dressed, I grabbed my truck keys and weapons and took off to the truck. On the way there I found out that we were just getting ready to possibly respond to a all night attack on an ANP district center that left a couple ANP dead and several wounded. In addition there were enemy dead, wounded and captured. As the intel was coming in and again trying to be deciphered, we were going through our same steps; who would be doing what, turning on electronics and radios, calling for terps, re-checking weapons and ammo loads and of course trying to get a sense of what was happening.

At one point it was decided that my truck would not roll because we are ANP mentors, but then, thanks to some sanity checks that was reversed as it was more important to have enough US personnel on the ground and plus it was an ANP station that was attacked. It was eventually decided that we would roll, and out the gate we went. It was another area that was outside our normal area to operate in, but we still knew the area around there. When we got there, the district center showed all the signs we expected to see. There were bullet casings all over the compound, RPG tail fins on the ground, RPG holes into the building, and bullet holes everywhere with every door looking like swiss-cheese and all the windows shot out. Several vehicles were also shot up. The attack and firefight lasted over 5 hours, with the ANP suffering some losses but the enemy suffering many more. A very important leader of the enemy was captured after being seriously wounded and that was a big win for the ANP.

It looked as if the ANP were caught off-guard by a large and maneuvering force, but they were able to defend and eventually beat them back. As Face and I (who represented the ANA and ANP ETTs respectively) moved on the ground, interviewed people and tried to gain situational awareness it became apparent they had a heck of a fight here. I had one ANP soldier ( they call the junior police soldiers) come up to me to thank me for coming, and I noticed his head was bandaged. I asked him if that was from the fight and he told me yes, that a piece of RPG fragment hit him in the forehead. Since they don’t have really well trained medics, if any, I sent him with my terp to my truck to see Prophet and Rog-O who were there. I called them on the radio and told them he was coming and to break out our medic bag and check his wound, because I thought they could do a better job of fixing him up. I realized Face had the investigation going well so I started taking pictures to take back to our HQ. The ANP showed me many more signs of the attack of which I documented with my camera. I could not even begin to count the number of holes in the building or casings on the ground, but there had to be close to 600 -1000 casings scattered throughout the compound grounds. It seems that the enemy actually breached the perimeter, but like I said the ANP beat them back and eventually had a running gun battle with them that ended in the local hospital.

It is a shame the message did not get to us sooner as we could have helped them turn the tide a lot faster had we gotten there during the fight. They did well, as they could have been completely wiped out, especially since they were heavily outnumbered. So after we collected all the info we needed to, took all the pictures and finished up it was decided that we were done and it was time to go.

We mounted up, received many thanks from the ANP for coming and headed home. Always on the lookout for a follow-on attack or IEDs of course. But the trip home was uneventful and we made it back safe. Then it was time for de-briefings and sharing of the intel we collected with the higher HQs. A little excitement every once in a while never hurts to keep reminding the new guys that yes, there is still a war on here.