TEAM COVERAGE
Dayton Daily News reporter Barrie Barber, Newscenter 7 anchor Cheryl McHenry and Newscenter 7 videographer Bob Garlock went on a 12,000-mile journey with a crew from the 445 Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base from Dec. 31-Jan. 4.
The journey took them from Dayton, to Maryland, Germany and Afghanistan. On the way back to the U.S., they traveled with injured American troops coming home for treatment.
Online: Last Sunday, we gave an overview of the trip from Dayton to Afghanistan and what it's like to fly onboard a C-17. If you missed last week's report, you can read it at MyDaytonDailyNews.com, watch videos and interact with a map of the trip.
In the newspaper: Today, we will take a deeper look at how Wright-Patterson trains crew members for aeromedical evacuations.
On Newscenter 7: Cheryl McHenry shows the mission of the Aeromedical Evacuation Crew and talks to the injured troops they bring home, one of them an Army Major emotional about leaving his soldiers behind. Her report aired last week, but you can watch it at whio.com
War in Afghanistan
The U.S. and NATO have fought in Afghanistan since Oct. 7, 2001 until formally declaring an end to ground combat operations last month. Operation Enduring Freedom has been replaced by Operation Resolute Support. Now, U.S. and coalition troops have taken on an advise, training and air support role.
Here’s a look at the war in Afghanistan:
Number of U.S. troops deaths: 2,216 (hostile-1,833, and non-hostile -383, as of Jan. 16, 2015)
Wounded: 19,951 (as of Jan. 16)
Coalition deaths: More than 1,000
Afghan security forces deaths: More than 13,000 (as of March 2014)
War costs to U.S. taxpayer: $557.9 billion (as of June 2014)
Number of U.S. troops remaining: 10,600 (as of December 2014)
Date of final U.S. withdrawal: 2016
Source: U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, The New York Times
After leaving Germany, Lt. Col. David Drake walked into darkness on the tarmac at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan a short time before Master Sgt. Scott Hickerson and four other Green Berets climbed aboard the same C-17 Globemaster III cargo jet for a return flight to Germany.
The comings and goings of U.S troops in Afghanistan hasn’t stopped — even as the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ceremoniously ended combat operations in December and brought home tens of thousands of troops. The American and coalition troops remaining in Afghanistan are there primarily to assist, not fight, maintaining a training, advisory and air combat support role.
After a holiday visit with his family in Germany, Drake, 44, arrived in Afghanistan aboard the C-17 flown by an Air Force Reserve 445th Airlift Wing crew from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. For Drake, a legal advisor to the NATO Special Forces Component Command, this is his first Afghanistan deployment and fourth overall.
“They’re very excited to take over the mission themselves,” Drake said of the command members who will be advising Afghan troops. “They’re very capable. They’re willing, they understand the mission, they understand the needs. They understand the limitations and the budget aspect of it and the coalition part and they’re willing to take it on.”
Hickerson, 38, who has had three tours of duty in Iraq and 12 in Afghanistan, was returning to the United States where his wife is expecting their fifth child. He plans to go back to Afghanistan to help ease the transition to an all-Afghan security force.
He is not entirely comfortable about the timeline for the withdrawal of coalition forces.
“A lot of the stuff they’re doing here is calendar driven and we would like to see it be effects driven,” he said. “Instead of being held to a calendar timeline, it’s kind of like once they’re able to do this, let’s pull back on involvement in this. And when they can do x or y, let’s pull back a little bit more.”
U.S. and NATO forces have fought side-by-side with Afghans against al-Qaida and the Taliban regime since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. The war has changed and so have the troops fighting it.
‘The first time we came here, the only Afghans you saw were the ones you were fighting,” said Hickerson, who marked his first tour of duty on Afghan soil in 2002. “And again, that’s me being naive and inexperienced at that point in the war that you assumed everybody’s bad over here.
“And then when you come here two or three times and you get to know them, they have a story of their own. They’re just trying to live and have security for their family and go to school, and basic human rights.”
‘We’re naturally aggressive soldiers’
The U.S. has had a significant draw down in Afghanistan to 10,600 troops as of mid-December in a transition from Operation Enduring Freedom to what NATO calls Operation Resolute Support and what the U.S. calls Operation Freedom Sentinel.
After surging to a high of 140,000 U.S. and Coalition troops at the height of the war, the U.S. expects to withdraw American forces at the end of 2016.
As of Jan. 16, the war in Afghanistan had cost the lives of 2,216 American troops, both hostile and non-hostile deaths, and 19,951 wounded since hostilities began Oct. 7, 2001, according to the Department of Defense. As of Friday, no U.S. troops had been killed or wounded since the transition.
The war has taken a financial toll as well. U.S. taxpayers spent $557.9 billion on Operation Enduring Freedom from Sept. 11, 2001, through June 30, 2014, the most recent figures available, according to Navy Cmdr. Elissa Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
More than 1,000 coalition soldiers have died, according to published sources.
The New York Times reported in March that Afghan authorities had counted nearly 14,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers killed during the war and more than 16,500 wounded. Most of the deaths happened as they began taking more of a lead in security operations, the newspaper reported. The death toll has risen in steep fighting this year, reports show.
Hickerson, a member of the 7th Special Forces Group at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., said it was tough to step back.
“I mean, we’re naturally aggressive soldiers so we want to get in the fight, but we also understand that they’ve got to stand on their own two feet at some point and they’ve got to take ownership of their country and the fight itself,” he said.
‘We stay back’
Fellow Green Beret and Master Sgt. Johnny Crocker, 39, wishes the Afghans had taken the lead more quickly in the 13-year-old war.
“I think it could have happened sooner, but they did a really good job,” said Crocker, assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group, 3rd Battalion, at Fort Bragg, N.C.
“The Afghans have come on board, and are really taking the front lead in the missions right now,” he said.
Crocker was on his second tour of Afghanistan when he boarded the C-17 at Bagram headed back for leadership training in the United States.
“Our mission now is we do not directly engage anybody,” he said. “We stay back. It’s an Afghan alone mission. They take care of all of it, so our guys kind of step back and just make sure nothing goes crazy. Help them out if needed.”
Of the war, Crocker said, “I think it’s going well. There’s going to be hiccups, just like anything else. … Since we’ve been here, most of the units there we’ve trained with have done a pretty good job.”
Hickerson, too, has seen marked progress, though he said there have been ups and downs.
“Some of the problems are old and tough for them, mostly logistics,” he said. “The actual tactical fight they’re doing very well at. They’re fully capable of winning the fight. It’s just the issues of getting them bullets to the fight, or training and money for helicopters and fuel. That’s what’s hurting them right now.
“But overall, there’s definite progress from the very beginning. The security situation is way better — way better. But we’re not there. We just need time.”
The Green Beret said U.S. troops can do little to help if they are positioned too far away from the fight.
“You’ve got to do the right things while we’re here,” he said. “We could stay here another year or two under the right authorities, we can make a difference. But if we’re forced to stay behind the Hesco (blast) walls and you can’t make a difference, your hands are tied behind your back…. If we’re doing that, it’s not going to do anything.”
Coming home
Army Maj. Stephen Ang, 38, of Lakeland, Fla., was being transported back to the United States after he injured his knee when he fell off a truck during a military exercise in a sandstorm at “an undisclosed location in southwest Asia.”
He was deployed to Qatar during his most recent overseas assignment but has also deployed to Afghanistan.
“I would say it’s a transition,” he said in an interview at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, before boarding the C-17 for a flight to Maryland. “At some point, a mission has to come to an end and so this is not an end, this is just a continuation of what we’re trying to do to meet their national interests. I think we’re heading in the right direction, and of course … support will require commitments not only on materials, but on personnel.”
Army Spec. Gabriel Lossing of Millington, Mich., wasn’t as optimistic. An appendectomy sent the Fort Hood, Texas, infantry soldier on a plane out of Afghanistan.
The 19-year-old soldier said he doubted the Afghans had the will to fight for freedom in the war.
“My personal opinion is I don’t think it’s going to work, I guess,” he said, adding that most Americans don’t understand the war’s complexities.
The training he has received taught him that “you have to watch who you are affecting,” he said. “It’s not how many insurgents you kill today, it’s how many insurgents have you created.”
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