![]() ![]() “It's rewarding to finally be able to go in, and say that nobody has been able to go here before, and now we've done it.” The mission resulted in 4 suspected and 2 confirmed enemy-killed-in action, the discovery of several IEDs. “Naka was known as the ‘place where the bad guys are ’ it was their safe haven it's said that the Americans can’t really go in there, but all year we've been locking down the AO,” he said. We've put in the work to make sure the insurgents are unable to bypass our presence.” Then, we expanded further to more and more towns, and are having more and more shuras with the villagers. made the effort to go out and do repetitive, monotonous, horrible patrols in the mountains, and we took the IDF locations away from the enemy. “When we got to COP Zerok, we were getting hit with indirect fire (IDF) on a day-to-day basis,” said Nunes. “I think they'll be frustrated now, because they won’t be able to use Naka the way that they always have.” “I think they were expecting some kind of mission to come to Naka, but I don’t think they expected it to be on the level that we did,” said Nunes. That only left them able to attack our blocking positions, our support by fire, and our PBs.” “Their only option was then to operate on the outskirts in the mountains around the towns, because they were unable to operate in the town. The Currahee Soldiers and their ANP partners occupied the area around Naka for more than 11 days, and they faced an enemy that didn't seem content attacking their combat force head on. “Insurgents had left the villages by the time we got there,” said Nunes. “It really helps to have them with us, because it puts a local face on what we're trying to do." ![]() Sean Bedard, a counter-insurgency team leader with E Co. To counter the issue, the Soldiers of Easy Co encouraged their ANP counterparts to take the lead when dealing with their countrymen. “We worked with the ANP on this mission,” said Spc. “It's hard to speak to the locals not knowing the language-a lot of times they won’t trust the Americans, because the Taliban has influenced them, or told them false things about us.” Not only did the Soldiers face the challenge of clearing unfamiliar hostile territory, they accomplished it in weather conditions that included rain, hail, cold temps and gusty winds, with 110-lbs worth of equipment on their backs to last a minimum of 3 days.ĭuring missions to remote villages the Soldiers face other challenges outside of the enemy threat. “There are a lot of challenges, but one of the biggest is the communication barrier,” said Hann. Rex Hann, an infantryman with Co E ‘Easy,’ their mission was to disrupt any enemy that might be in the area, and keep the local populace in Naka safe. “It affects the overall security, because we have pretty much pushed the Taliban and foreign fighters to Naka, the farthest point from our COP, and we're trying to push them completely out of our AO." This was our big push to take Naka away from them too.”Īccording to Spc. “Throughout the deployment we've been doing shaping ops to cut off their access to the rest of our AO, and basically limit them to only being able to operate in Naka. Matthew Nunes, the plt leader with 2nd Plt, Co. The preparation for Op Overlord was months in the making. “Traditionally, insurgents have used Naka as a staging area and bed down location, so they can conduct ops throughout our area of operation (AO), and AOs to the south,” said 1st Lt. PAKTIKA PROVINCE - Nearly 350 ANSF and Soldiers from TF White Currahee air assaulted into Naka District for the first time this deployment, April 10-21. Their mission, the largest combined ops for TF White Currahee, was to clear and eliminate the insurgent staging area. ![]()
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