construction projects throughout Paktya, as well as checking on health clinics, attending govern-ance shuras, and helping our part-ners in the provincial leadership to find ways of serving the people of Paktya.

Keep the cards and let-ters coming, and as always I will do my best to keep them safe. Until next month…

Dear PRT Paktya friends and family,

We’re wrapping up our second month at FOB Gardez, and the excitement continues. We’ve promoted some of your loved ones, recognized others for their great performance, and we are still doing the hard work we’ve been given, with creativity and a pursuit of excellence.

By now, most of you have heard about a mission on the 8th of April when we had some contact with the enemy. Everyone here is fine, and I sus-pect everyone on the enemy side is fine, but we did lose a mine roller. Some areas we have to travel through are still not very secure, and the attack wasn’t exactly unexpected. Our resi-dent journalist Sgt. Tom Bourke wrote about that incident in this month’s newsletter, so I won’t steal his thunder.

The piece of bad news I’m also sure you’ve heard about is the theft of our tuff-boxes as our shipping container transited Pakistan. Most of you probably already know that we followed

standard procedure and packed a lot of our issued and personal items into hard plastic trunks and sent them here via commercial transport to a port in Pakistan. The investigation is ongoing and your soldiers and airmen are going through the claims process right now to try to recoup some of their losses. This is one of the top items on my desk.

One thing I would ask you all to be vigilant about is helping our loved ones protect their identities. Most everyone had at least something in their trunks that would be valuable to someone looking to steal an identity, and your soldier or air-man could probably use some help protecting their good name and credit.

On the mission side of things, we’re making progress across the board. This month we broke ground on a major road that will run from Gardez to Ghazni. Our plan is to make this a major commerce corridor in the province, and we’re in the final phases of submitting project pro-posals toward that end. We con-tinue doing quality checks on

PRT PAKTYA

April 2010 Volume 2, issue 2

THE DOUBLE TAP

Inside this issue: Commander’s Corner 1

Life on the FOB 2

Missions 3

Life with the Sec For 4

Promotions 5

PRT Paktya Sees Enemy Contact 6

Commander’s Corner

Lt Col Charles Douglass PRT Commander

Page 2 THE DOUBLE TAP

PFC Hunter Fronius and SPC Bradley Johnson try the Afghan food at Ms. Libonati’s birthday party.

Lt Col Douglass presents SrA Joshua Governal with the Amn of the month award for outstanding performance.

Lt Col Douglass presents SSgt Brandon Ellis with

the NCO of the month award for outstanding

Ms. Genevieve Libonati cuts the cake at her birthday celebration here at the USO.

SPC Robert Dodds and 1Lt Rosita Rodriguez enjoying the little things on the FOB.

Lt Col Douglass presents Zia with an award for his out-standing work with the PRT.

Page 3 VOLUME 2, ISSUE 2

Our Fleet keeping security in Gardez City.

1Lt Mike Bromley tries to comfort the loser in a candy stampede.

Fresh vegetables at the market place

Checking out the butcher’s block

1Lt Ramona Governor conducting business with key leaders

Lt Col Douglass (PRT Commander) talks to a

local boy in the market place

Page 4 THE DOUBLE TAP

Demonstrating what we are made of!

Team Bad Hats!

Pennsylvania’s Finest!

Our SECFOR hails from the Pennsylvania Army National

Guard Goofy’s hat made its way to Gardez

Picking up the team

Page 5 VOLUME 2, ISSUE 2

Left: PFCs Matthew Randall, Scott Hatfield, Joseph Siebert,

and Trevor Yeager get promoted to the rank of Specialist (E4) by Lt Col Charles Douglass (PRT

Commander). Randall, Hatfield, Siebert and Yeager are all part of

the Pennsylvania Guard.

Right: A1C Daniel Boggs gets pro-moted to the rank of Senior Air-man (E4) below-the-zone, mean-ing he was promoted six months

early, due to outstanding perform-ance. Way to go, Boggs!!

Left: 1Lt Scott Dyer gets promoted to the rank of Captain (O3). Cap-

tain Dyer is stationed at Fort Stew-art, Georgia and is originally from

Sterling, Virginia.

OUR ADDRESS:

PRT Paktya FOB Gardez APO AE 09354

We’re on the web!

Facebook.com/PRTPaktya

ment roller, was torn apart as pieces flew a hundred feet in the air.  “As soon as the blast hit I felt like I was floating,” said Pfc. Randall, a Jamestown, Pa. native. “I kept the throttle down and pushed forward until I saw sunlight streaking through the cloud of smoke.”  As a member of Provin‐cial Reconstruction Team (PRT) Paktya, Pfc. Randall and the rest of First Platoon, Charlie Company, First of the 110th Infantry deployed from their headquarters in Connellsville, Pa. to Afghanistan’s Hindu‐

Piloting the 35,000 lb. Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehi‐cle up a creek bed em‐bankment, Private First Class Matthew Randall’s pulse raced as the five‐truck‐convoy headed back toward Forward Operating Base Gardez.  Minutes earlier, his unit had received mor‐tar fire while on a mission in Afghani‐stan’s Zormat District.  Suddenly, a pillar of smoke and debris en‐gulfed his MRAP as an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated beneath the 10,000 lb. mine roller attached to the front of his vehi‐cle. The mine roller, which resembles a ce‐

Kush Mountains in early March. The unit has been conducting mounted combat patrols in Pak‐tya Province nearly every day since.  The PRT mission is to secure the populace and connect the government to its people through assisting the Afghans with governance, devel‐opment, security and agriculture.  The PRT has approximately 30 development projects at any one time that are ongoing to help the Afghans rebuild their infrastructure.  Roads, schools, clinics, dis‐trict centers and other structures are all re‐quested, prioritized  

PRT Paktya Sees Enemy Contact by SGT Tom Bourke

and built by Afghans for Afghans, under the guidance and funding of the PRT and its govern‐ment partners.  "The mission to see this particular school was vital," said U.S. Air Force Lt Col Chuck Douglass, commander of the PRT.  "The area where this school is being built has little to no infrastructure or governance by the Af‐ghan government.  Get‐ting this school estab‐lished is a step toward connecting these people to their elected gov‐ernment that is here to help them."  As the security element for the Air Force and civilian civil engi‐neers, the unit em‐barked on a mission the morning of April 8 to inspect construction progress at a primary school. Shortly after arriving at the walled compound, Sergeant Sam Wills, a Somerset, Pa. resident, observed frantic activity among the local populace.  “I saw people running around while men herded the women and children away from us,” said Wills, who was up in the gun turret of the fourth MRAP manning the M2 50 caliber machine 

gun. “The first mortar im‐pacted less than 100 meters from my vehicle. They must have been a skilled mortar team to get their first shot so close.”  Then, Sgt. Wills saw a plume of smoke as the enemy launched a second mortar round from a dry stream bed. Luckily for the PRT, the second mortar round failed to detonate on im‐pact. Responding quickly, the soldiers in the MRAP gun turrets returned fire with their automatic weap‐ons as the vehicles and dismounted troops got on line and moved to assault the enemy position.  As the soldiers advanced, the enemy retreated without causing any casualties. “At that point, we thought the action was over,” said Ser‐geant George Blouse, who resides in York, Pa. “We got the vehicles back on the road and started head‐ing home.”  Sgt. Blouse manned the M240 B machine gun in the lead MRAP driven by Pfc. Ran‐dall. Standing up in the turret, he was in the most vulnerable position as the IED destroyed the mine roller on the first vehi‐cle.  “In an instant, everything went black and I felt the concussion of the blast,” he said. “Then, everyone 

started yelling over the radio to keep moving and push through the kill zone. That’s when we started to receive small arms fire.”  Once again, Sgt. Blouse and the other gunners returned fire as the other MRAPs “circled the wagons” around the damaged vehicle, which had moved several hundred yards out of the kill zone. In the distance, the sol‐diers spotted an individual videotaping the incident and several local men danc‐ing a jig in celebration of the attack.  “They may have been danc‐ing, but the victory was ours because no one was hurt in either attack,” Sgt. Blouse said. “The mine roller equipment did its job and probably saved my life. Also, the guys’ training kicked in and they reacted quickly to danger. I’m sure we’ll be ready if the bad guys try to hit us again.” 

Continued from page 6

Page 7 VOLUME 2, ISSUE 2

PFC Matthew Randall, SSG Juan Macias, and 1Lt Mike Bromley keep security around the destroyed mine

roller