Deployment Journal: Camping in an insurgent hotbed - life of an Army scout

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Kevin Wallace
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
BADGHIS, Afghanistan --  I've been living on a remote observation post that overlooks Nawbor Village, Badghis Province, Afghanistan, for several days.

The best way to describe this life is camping. The weekend forecast: a constant threat of insurgent attacks.

OP Cougar is home to a handful of U.S. Army scouts who rotate in from Combat Outpost Delorean. This week, Navy Petty Officer 1st Class John Pearl and I were part of their crew.

The scouts work and sleep in shifts up on the mountain. Day and night they keep a keen eye over the COP, and nearby villages and provide over-watch protection to the Afghan National Army, villagers and fellow scouts below.

To many, this may seem pretty exciting. I admit that it is.

However, imagine living in a place where there's no running water, no toilets, no showers, no hot food, and incoming rockets and accurate fire almost daily.

While imagining that, fathom a circumstance where radio batteries die or supplies are needed, and being the Soldier who exposes himself to the enemy to run down the hill, get supplies and come back up.

Normally, there's a rope-fed sled that takes care of that. But, when it rains around here, the ground gets mighty sticky and, as I both witnessed and accomplished this week, the hillside dashes become very necessary.

Petty Officer Pearl and I have now come back down to the COP, performed a presence control, augmented an Afghan National Police checkpoint and are preparing for a likely kinetic night. This is the life at the COP, just like on the OP.

Last night when we came back down from the hill, we found many of the scouts on the COP standing around a barbecue. Army Sgt. Jonathan Sweetman's home-made stew was on the grill.

Sergeant Sweetman is a scout from White Platoon, Bulldog Troop, 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, and bragged about his stew all week.

I've got to say that it was as good as he boasted it would be. We even had a brief comedy break when Petty Officer Pearl took a full swig of JP-8, jet engine fuel.

You see, the scouts at the COP and OP use JP-8 to run their generators and many other things. To transport the fuel, they sometimes pour it into empty water bottles, which is safe because the fuel looks different than water.

Under the blanket of darkness, Petty Officer Pearl grabbed the wrong bottle. He quickly spit it out and gargled water for a really long time.

I'm sure the experience was less-than pleasant for him, but gave us something to joke about that night ... well, we still joke about it.

It's the little things - the barbecues, dashes up the mountain for resupply and laughs - that keep this crew of scouts a family. Because more often than not, we're hard at work on foot patrols, or under enemy fire around here.

This is just the life, when you camp with Army scouts in Bala Murghab.