Photo By Staff Sgt. Joshua Ford | U.S. Army Soldier 2nd Lt. Steven Smith, 1st Platoon leader, Company C, 2nd Battalion,...... read more read more
Subscribe
By Sgt. Joshua R. Ford
3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division Public Affairs Office
SAMARRA, Iraq—For paratroopers in Samarra, missions don't always include knocking down gates and kicking in doors. Sometimes all the troops have to do is ring the doorbell.
Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Samarra has been a hot spot for insurgent activity. Multiple bombings of the Askirya Mosque – also known as the Golden Dome Shrine and one of Shia Islam's holiest sites – and the slaying of Col. Jalil Nahi Hasoun, Samarra's former police chief, as well as numerous other attacks throughout the city have transformed Samarra from one of Iraq's most well-known tourist cities to one of the most violent.
Paratroopers from Company C, 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, have been fighting the insurgency in Samarra for more than a year and said troops don't always have to use lethal force to get the job done. Sometimes all it takes is a knock on the front door and a friendly conversation to catch the bad guys.
Soldiers around the Army call these missions cordon and knocks, and sometimes they are more important than kicking in the front door, said Sgt. Tim Curry, team leader, Company C.
Cordon and knock missions start off just like a cordon and search. The difference occurs when the paratroopers actually arrive at each house. Rather than opening the door with force, they knock on it and most of the time the inhabitants of the house let the troops in, said 2nd Lt. Steven Smith, 1st Platoon leader, Company C.
"(Initially) everyone is always scared. You have 10 paratroopers coming in with guns, and they're moving in quickly. Its always going to be an intimidating experience, but once we sit them down and start talking to them the situation calms down very quickly, and the people are happy to have us there," said Smith.
"(Cordon and knocks) are very important, because (the Iraqi people) don't need to think that every time we come around that it's just to bust them up or to do bad things," said Curry. "We are trying to help them. We are here trying to make things safe. We are here to make sure the insurgents aren't taking all of the good things that (Iraqi people) have away."
Paratroopers need information from the Samarra community to make sure the people are safe from the lurking insurgency infesting the city. Cordon and knock missions help provide that information by conversing and questioning the city's citizens, said Curry.
"We can't win this fight on our own, and we depend very heavily on intelligence and any information the city can give us," said Smith.
Questioning isn't the only thing that brings Smith's platoon to the neighborhoods of Samarra though. Sometimes the troops just stop by to inform the citizens what U.S. and Iraqi forces are doing in the city. Whether it is school or soccer field building projects, or to tell the people of possible security threats the troops are aware of in the Samarra citizen's neighborhoods, Smith said.
"We try to convey as much trust as we are able to," added Smith.
"We want them to know that we are here for them, we are not here to run around and arrest everybody and to kill everybody. We are here to help them. We are here to make it safe in Samarra. We are here to catch insurgents, that way these people can go on with their normal lives," said Curry.
| Date Taken: | 08.22.2007 |
| Date Posted: | 08.22.2007 07:36 |
| Story ID: | 11928 |
| Location: | SAMARRA, IQ |
| Web Views: | 478 |
| Downloads: | 397 |
This work, Paratroopers fight insurgency by simply knocking on the door, by SSG Joshua Ford, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
