Infantry Soldiers Hold Border Hilltop During Afghanistan Attack
(May 24, 2011) |
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Sgt. 1st Class Adam Petrone, acting second
platoon leader for the 101st Airborne Division's ‘Dog' Company, 2nd
Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, shown above after an enemy
attack May 18, 2011 directed his platoon's defense during an
firefight at the same location May 16 and 17, 2011. DOD photo by
Karen Parrish |
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GAYAN DISTRICT, Afghanistan, May 20, 2011 – This week, members of
'Dog' Company maintained their hold on a key hilltop located just
meters from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border by winning a 14-hour
firefight with insurgents.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Adam Petrone,
filling in for a platoon leader on mid-tour leave, was the senior
soldier on the ground with the 4th Brigade, 101st Airborne
Division's Third Platoon, Dog Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry
Regiment.
The platoon was conducting a five-day operation,
which included setting up a blocking position about three kilometers
from the rest of the company's positions.
“Our task was to
destroy the enemy in the engagement area,” Petrone said.
The
hilltop which the third platoon occupied is a now-disused
observation point, so some sandbag-reinforced dug-in fighting
positions already were in place. The soldiers added more sandbags
when they reached position May 14, 2011 – a Saturday.
About 1
p.m. Monday, Petrone said insurgents attacked the platoon from 300
meters to the east, along the Pakistan border. The enemy used
rocket-propelled grenades, multiple machine guns and small-arms
fire.
“They were set up in three different spots; I'd say
there were about 15 to 20 of them,” he said. |
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The attack started with machine-gun fire followed by around 10 RPGs,
Petrone said. Six of the grenades hit the hilltop, while the rest
went over. |
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“I know I felt one hit about 10 feet from my position,” he
said. “They were pretty effective with machine-gun fire;
they had us pretty contained in our foxholes.”
The
platoon fired back with machine guns, squad automatic
weapons, 90mm recoilless, hand-held 60mm mortars and other
weapons, Petrone said.
“We just engaged them until
they stopped shooting,” he said. “Total suppression was
probably 10 minutes to push them back. They went back over
the side of the ridge – we obviously didn't push them too
far back, since they stayed around the entire night.”
Petrone said he called for a medical evacuation after
his medic was bitten twice by a snake before the fight
started. “So the whole night we were there without a medic ...
[but] we had no injuries,” he said.
Intelligence reports
through the night indicated the enemy kept advancing toward
the platoon's position. Those reports were important; the
men on the hill couldn't see more than about 40 meters
because trees and a steep drop blocked their view, Petrone
said.
Four air-weapons teams, two Apache helicopters
at a time, and close-air support F-15s and F-16s stayed
on-station throughout much of the night, he said, reporting
enemy movements and firing at exposed insurgents.
Petrone theorized the insurgents thought they could take
advantage of the platoon's location away from the company's
other elements to overrun their position.
Air support
kept pushing the enemy back, but fighters continued
advancing through the night, Petrone said. “We could hear
them, but we couldn't see them,” he said. “We knew they were
there, but we couldn't find them.”
Around 3 a.m.
Tuesday the platoon stopped hearing the enemy, Petrone said.
By that time other Dog Company elements were moving to
reinforce the third platoon's position.
“I think [the
enemy] probably saw them coming and retreated,” Petrone
said. “Plus by that time the [Apaches] had shot a lot of
rounds.”
By 10 a.m. Tuesday relief was in place,
Petrone said, and the platoon was down to a third of its
ammunition.
Petrone, who twice served in Iraq and is
now on his third deployment, said the third platoon's
performance was “outstanding.”
“I think everything we
did was exactly what we should have done,” he said. “We had
good sectors of fire, good position, we didn't take any
injuries.”
The platoon's previous fights have usually
run 30 minutes or so, Petrone said, with one sustained five-
to six-hour contact under movement.
“This fight was
the worst one I think my boys have seen,” he said. “Not the
contact; they've been in worse contact. But this by far was
the most nerve-wracking, because there's nothing you can do
but scan your sectors and hope you see them before they're
within 35 meters.”
Dog Company commander Capt. Edwin
Churchill monitored the fight from his hilltop position with
first platoon 1,400 meters southwest of the third platoon's
location. The air support was helpful, he said, but couldn't
effectively penetrate the dense trees protecting the enemy.
Around midnight, Churchill called for two 500-pound
bombs on the insurgent position.
“We only ended up
engaging two more [enemy fighters] after that, for the rest
of the night,” he said. “The bombs cleared a bunch of the
tree cover and ... had a tremendous psychological effect.”
Spc. Alan Vogel, a fire team leader with the third
platoon, said the ammunition supply was one of his main
concerns during the night-long fight.
Vogel's team,
firing weapons including a 90mm recoilless rifle and two
light antitank weapons, fought from a dug-in position they
called the “thunder dome.”
“I had to make sure the
guys weren't firing when we weren't getting shot at, to
conserve rounds,” he said. “We were on a mountain top, and
what we had was what we had.”
“I'm a trigger-puller
too,” Vogel said. “Team leader, you're down there making
sure that your guys are shooting, you're returning fire,
controlling rates of fire.”
Pfc. Steven Boertmann, a
19-year-old third platoon machine gunner, carried nearly his
body weight in gear up the mountain where the fight
happened.
“All together, about 120 pounds,” he said,
noting he weighs 150.
Boertmann estimates he's been
in about 20 firefights during the deployment, but this
week's engagement was a little different.
“Being so
close to the Pakistan border ... this time we weren't really
ambushed, we were set into a position,” he said. Other than
that, “It was what you expect in a firefight – to get shot
at.”
The platoon was divided among seven fighting
positions, he said, and shouted enemy positions and round
counts back and forth to each other.
“There's a lot
of trust ... you're basically putting your lives in everyone's
hands,” he said. “Out here, no matter what you look like,
age, your personality ... everyone watches over each other.
It's like one big family.”
Boertmann likes his job,
he said, because he can make a difference in a fight's
outcome.
“This is a career choice for me,” he said. |
By Karen Parrish
American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2011 |
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