Soldier Retells Battles In Watapur
(February 26, 2011) |
|
|
| NANGARHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan (2/24/2011) – Three knocks
at my office door indicated he arrived. He entered the room
as if most of the world was lifted from his shoulders. He
told me he had just come from another visit at the combat
stress clinic. |
U.S. Army Sgt. Kevin
Garrison, a squad leader assigned to 1st
Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade
Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, tells his
story Feb. 4, 2011 about his experiences in
eastern Afghanistan's Pech River Valley.
Garrison, a St. Louis native, has become an
advocate of the combat stress program designed
to help soldiers overcome the anxieties of
deployment.
|
|
He sat down and explained he was ready to tell
his story and tell why he encourages soldiers
seek help. He relaxed, settled back in his chair
and said, “My name is Sgt. Kevin Garrison, and
this is my story of 3rd Platoon, Company D, in
Afghanistan.”
Garrison recalled a late
fall morning in the Watapur Valley. His team was
tasked to over watch another unit during an
operation known as Bulldog Bite.
He
reminisced walking through the steep, rugged
mountain terrain as the morning sun rose with
the sound of their steps deep into the valley. I
listened silently and watched as Garrison's eyes
shift to the table before us, his right hand
moved as if pinching the grip of his rifle. He
was in his world now.
“We air assaulted
in about two (kilometers) west of a village
called Sangar,” said Garrison. “Company A's 1st
Platoon was |
|
going into Sangar, and we were setting up to
over watch them.” |
|
Garrison's team arrived at their temporary camp. There, they
waited till the sun came up and soon spotted an enemy scout
on the Watapur horizon.
“The scout disappeared,” said
Garrison. “I mean there were trails everywhere. “This was in
the heart of Taliban country. There was nobody up there that
wasn't Taliban. The women and children left, and all that
was left were Taliban fighters.”
Around 10:30 a.m.,
Garrison heard an explosion and quickly moved to the east to
observe. It was too late. His team had already been
surrounded.
“(The enemy) had low crawled up, and they
were bounding up onto our position trying to overrun us,”
Garrison said shaking his head slightly. “To the east there
was a big drop off so we couldn't move to the east. To the
south, we couldn't get down, there was nothing but terraces,
high terraces. To the west, we were surrounded, and to the
north, we were surrounded.”
As he continued,
Garrison's demeanor became uneasy.
“There were enemy
fighters down to the east in the trees shooting at us,” he
continued. “We were taking fire from at least three of our
four directions, and there was no place we could go. We
couldn't move—if you moved, you got hit.”
Company D
fought back, but the enemy increased their resistance.
Garrison remembered rocket-propelled grenades coming in
from their west and bullets flying in every direction.
He ceased his hand movement. I watched as bitterness
filled his eyes. I wasn't prepared for what he was going to
say next.
“Spc. (Shannon] ‘Doc' Chihuahua, he was hit
by an RPG,” said Garrison. “It blew him in half. It was him
and four other ANA. One of them was blown up so bad that we
didn't even realize he was there until we found extra hands.
We continued taking fire. My best friend was wounded. My
lieutenant was wounded. Our (radio operator) had been shot
in the head, but he was still talking on the radio, doing a
hell of a job.”
Garrison was also among the wounded.
“We've had concussions,” Garrison said, referring to
himself and a fellow noncommissioned officer. “(The doctor)
medevaced (me) and the other sergeant off the mountain that
night. We went from 22 (platoon members) to 16, then from 16
to nine, and from nine to seven in a matter of the first 24
hours of the mission.”
Garrison grew silent, shifted
his weight then shook his head.
I've had a few
concussions, and I have some issues such as headaches,
dizziness, forgetfulness and sometimes I stutter real bad,”
he said. “I still shouldn't have let them take me off that
mountain.”
He said the soldiers remaining continued
the fight for the next four days of the five-day operation.
By mission's end, Garrison explained his unit
estimated more than 200 insurgent fighters were killed.
“What they did up there was nothing short of
miraculous,” said Garrison. “They were nothing short of
amazing. The men that stayed up there that day deserve every
award they've got, and they've earned their right to pick
their place in society. Nobody will ever be able to take
away from them what they did.”
With his wounds
healed, Garrison said he was sent back into the Watapur
Valley, Jan. 1. He recalled having bullets whizzing by so
close to his head he could feel the breeze during his
battles there.
I sat back in my chair. Nothing I
could say would bring comfort to his nightmares. Garrison
turns to me as if sensing my uneasiness.
“If you'd
asked me a couple weeks ago to tell this story, I'd be
bawling right now,” Garrison humbly admitted. “But (several)
weeks ago, I went in and saw (the combat stress team), and I
bawled my eyes out there. Yeah, hard (explicit) infantrymen
— we do cry, we lose brothers, and we come closer to death
than a lot of other people ever will. I bawled my eyes out
to the combat stress officer, and it's good to get it out.
Ever since I got it out, I've felt better. I've been able to
operate better, function better.”
Garrison explained
this is his second tour and has become quite an advocate for
the combat stress clinic on Forward Operating Base Fenty. He
stops by every time he visits the FOB.
“After nine
months of hard combat, 10 months, whatever it's been now,
you need to talk and let it out,” he said. “Soldiers need to
be aware of that and then take advantage. It's really a
beneficial program. They can offer you further assistance
when you get back home.”
While deployed, there are
classes for communications, anger management, and combat
stress management. Garrison said he recommends them to any
soldier.
“I'm getting the help I need so I don't take
this out on my wife and my kids,” he said. “So I don't bring
this war home with me. What I've done here, what my soldiers
have done here — we'll never forget it. And we are right not
to.” |
Article and photo by Army Spc. Richard Daniels Jr.
Combined Joint Task Force 101
Copyright 2011 | |
Provided
through DVIDS
Comment on this article |
|
