Photo By Capt. Cory Titus | Sergeant Matthew Wilhoit, team member, Apache Troop, 6th Squadron, 4th Cavalry...... read more read more
By: 1st Lieutenant Sven Jenson
KUNDUZ PROVINCE, Afghanistan – For the last three months, the cavalrymen at Forward Operating Base Kunduz have been busy with more than just conducting combat patrols and manning the base perimeter.
In what little free time they have, the soldiers of the 6th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, applied their efforts to retrograde the equipment that has kept the FOB operational for the last seven years.
The departure of the Squadron embodies the last symbolic step of the security handover process since the Afghan National Security Forces took the lead in June 2013. For the first time since U.S. forces entered the Kunduz province in 2001, members of the ANSF will be solely responsible for the province’s security. This important step is one more milestone in the transition of responsibility for Afghanistan’s security from North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces to the ANSF.
Where once there was a busy airfield, a bustling dining facility, and living arrangements to support the soldiers, FOB Kunduz just before its closure looked like a ghost town operated by a skeleton crew. The airfield was pulled up, tent cities were pulled down and millions of dollars of government equipment was disassembled, packaged and prepared for shipment back to the United States.
Captain Richard Varner, commander, Apache Troop, commented on the situation, mentioning that it’s “…been a challenging mission – our Soldiers have had to transition from conducting combat patrols to functioning as deconstruction crews – sometimes with only an hour or two in-between”. The Fort Knox-based cavalrymen retrograded nearly six million pounds of equipment from the base, and were joined by soldiers from the 617th Engineer Company out of Ft. Lewis, Washington, who disassembled every fortification and fighting position on the base.
For their part, members of the ANSF will be able to use the former US base FOB for training, command and control, storage, maintenance, and billeting. As the Americans finished loading the last of their vehicles, Pfc. Amadeus Schroeder said it best: “…it’s definitely [been] hard work, but what we did here was good. We needed to get all of our equipment out to make room for the Afghans...having a FOB like ours will definitely help them.”
As the Soldiers of Apache Troop rolled out of FOB Kunduz’s gate for the last time, Soldiers from local Afghan National Army garrisons streamed in, supporting a seamless security transition not only for the FOB, but for the citizens of Afghanistan’s Kunduz province as well.
| Date Taken: | 10.23.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 10.24.2013 05:51 |
| Story ID: | 115633 |
| Location: | KUNDUZ, AF |
| Hometown: | ELIZABETHTOWN, KENTUCKY, US |
| Hometown: | FORT KNOX, KENTUCKY, US |
| Hometown: | LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, US |
| Hometown: | RADCLIFF, KENTUCKY, US |
| Web Views: | 865 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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