Posted By Bouhammer on November 18, 2008

The following article was recently published in Army Times newspaper. The reason I am re-posting it here is because I know this area well. I went to Zerok before and it has always been a bad area. We had a mission planned once to go in there and take out some known bad guys, but the mission was compromised somehow and we detected that the enemy in the town started putting in minefields and building defensive positions. Enough that even big army did not want to try and take them on at that point. The mission eventually went, after I left this team but was pretty quiet. However a short time later there were several fierce firefights conducted on this exact road where these trees are that the article mentions. Anyone who has ever served in or around Orgun-E knows this area well.

The Naka Valley in Zerok district

By Gina Cavallaro
gcavallaro@militarytimes.com
Spc. Dillon Bergstad stood at at­tention while a Silver Star medal was pinned to his uniform during an Oct. 30 ceremony at Caserma Ederle in Vicenza, Italy.
He had earned it for ruthlessly firing his machine gun, while wounded, during a firefight with heavily armed gunmen in eastern Afghanistan on Aug. 27, 2007.
When Bergstad, of Headquar­ters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Reg­iment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, speaks of that day, he thinks of his best friend, Pfc. Thomas Wilson, who died fighting off the attackers.
“I would trade 10 of these [medals] to get Thomas back,” Bergstad, 24, of North Bend, Ore., told Army Times.
“I don’t think that I did any­thing more outstanding than any­one else; it was a group effort and if it hadn’t been for the men be­hind me and in front of me it would have turned out a lot worse,” he said.
As many as 30 fighters ambushed the soldiers in the Zerok district of Pak­tika province near the border with Pakistan.
Bergstad’s seven-vehi­cle patrol was on its way to establish a security over-watch position for a route clearance unit that was coming up behind them. Bergstad was in the second Humvee.
The section of dirt road where the ambush started was lined with juniper trees. Below the road to the left was a wadi and to the right a hill rose above the road.
“I recall the first [rocket-pro­pelled grenade] going off and after that it was like a car wreck. The details are blurred. I was more fo­cused on exactly what I needed to do,” Bergstad said.
The gunmen were posi­tioned in an L-shape for­mation, hidden behind trees and in low ravines between the spurs on the hillside. They fired RPGs and rounds from machine guns and rifles from as close as 10 feet away.
“At first it felt like any other ambush — adrenaline pumping, gaining fire superiority and ma­neuvering from there,” he said. “The intensity of the fire that was coming at us just kept up the en­tire ambush and it didn’t catch me off guard, but it was surprising because it was like they never even had to reload. I know I had to reload at least twice.” The Humvees moved several times to adjust position, he said.
“The only thing I could hear was my .50-cal and the incoming rounds.” While he spun around in his tur­ret, exposing himself to suppress fire, his truck sustained several direct hits and he was knocked around violently. An armor-pierc­ing incendiary round hit him and made him drop into the turret.
“When I got shot it kind of pushed me over and knocked me down in the turret. It kind of felt like some­one had punched me,” he said.
When he looked down at his arm it looked normal because the bul­let “was under my uniform.” “I looked it up and down and went back to the business at hand. I wasn’t sure I got shot be­cause, you know, it was the first time I got shot. I don’t know what I thought it was,” Bergstad said.
Nor did he know that Wilson had been killed while manning his own .50-caliber machine gun in the Humvee directly behind him. It wasn’t until Bergstad ar­rived at the helicopter landing zone to be medically evacuated that he found out.
Wilson’s body was evacuated on the same helicopter. “It wasn’t ex­actly a good day,” Bergstad said.
Bergstad remembered Wilson, 21, of Maurertown, Va., as a prac­tical joker, someone who had be­come a close friend in the two years since they met.
“He kept the mood pretty good over there, he kept everybody’s spirits light, he was a phenomenal individual and a phenomenal sol­dier,” he said. “He knew his job excellently.” Bergstad said he hopes to finish his undergraduate degree in the two years he has left in the Army and become a physical therapist working at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
“I think that would be a phe­nomenal job,” he said.

Categories: Afghanistan Tour, News Stories
Tags: