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Caught red-handed

Photo By Sgt. Stephen Decatur | Sgt. Tyler Juden, a Paratrooper with Troop C, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th...... read more read more

03.28.2009

Story by Sgt. Stephen Decatur

4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division Public Affairs

In Edgar Allan Poe's short story, "The Black Cat," the main character takes investigators to his cellar where he buried the body of his murdered wife. He's caught when his wife's cat, buried alive with her in the wall, begins screeching.

Since it's an unlikely scenario that screeching cats will reveal hidden weapons and explosives, Paratroopers of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division instead trained on cutting-edge technology and techniques to find hidden rooms, secret compartments, trap doors and build criminal cases against terrorists March 27 to March 30 during the unit's Joint Readiness Training Center rotation at Fort Polk, La.

The training included separate forensics and search courses to give Paratroopers the upper hand in the cat and mouse game of counterinsurgency.

When Sgt. Jason Horton, an infantryman with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment heard he was going to receive forensics training, the first thing that popped into his head was "CSI: Baghdad," he said.

But tactical site exploitation, the Army's term for searching for and collecting evidence on the battlefield, is no joke. It has become so important because it not only catches terrorists, but keeps them behind bars by building viable cases that will hold up in a court of law, said Dan Foster, a former Marine explosive ordnance disposal specialist and JRTC instructor.

"It's basically all about building a case," Foster said. "Even house searches have become warrant-based."

Byron Cousin, a trainer in the forensics course who retired as a first sergeant from 2-508th PIR, 4th BCT, 82nd Abn. Div. in 2006, feels that the Army has come a long way in a short time since its battlefield forensics program started in 2004 with two ex-law enforcement officers, he said.

"It's something we just started, but we're getting pretty good at it ... think about the playing cards," Cousin said, comparing the legendary decks of playing cards issued in 2003 to help Soldiers track down Ba'ath party officials with the high-tech methods of today.

The Paratroopers started the courses by learning and practicing the basic skills of their tasks in a classroom environment, then transitioned into practical exercises set in a highly realistic training site designed to simulate a middle-eastern setting.

During the courses Paratroopers used devices like the FIDO explosives detector and the Hand held Inter agency Identification Detection Equipment, or HIIDE, which takes an iris image and finger prints, as well as a hand-held computer that allows the Paratroopers to cross-check suspects' stories with a database of known terrorists and prevent cases of mistaken identity. With comparatively low-tech devices, other troopers learned to collect fingerprints, document evidence and take forensic photos.

The new technology and techniques mean that it's now only a matter of time before a suspect who would have been almost impossible to identify years ago is found, Cousin said.

If a terrorist were to hide in a crowd and take a pot shot at American Soldiers, then drop his weapon and disappear into the crowd, he can still be caught, he said.

A terrorist "might give me a different name every time I talk to him, but fingerprints were given to him in the womb," Cousin said. "If we recover a weapon and get a print, I can do an on-scene investigation."

A forensics-trained Paratrooper can positively identify a high-value target insurgent in three to five minutes, Cousin said.

And yet no matter how much tech you have, sometimes it just takes plain old detective work to find out what the bad guys are up to, so the Paratroopers took to the woods with metal detectors and shovels to search for hidden caches of weapons and explosives, looking for out-of-place objects to tip them off. The Paratroopers also learned how to find hollow spaces in buildings by taking measurements.

To make the training as realistic as possible, former interpreters for U.S. forces in Afghanistan portrayed local security forces, interpreters and the occupants of replicated homes in the Middle East during the scenario-based exercises.

Richard Spears, a retired Marine Corps warrant officer and lead instructor at the tactical site exploitation course, said that respect and cultural awareness are an integral part of making counterinsurgency missions successful.

"After being boots on the ground for years we know more do's and don'ts culturally," Spears said. "We try to be more sensitive; not every occupant is a bad guy."

"People will be very happy to see that Americans understand the local populace," said Mohammed Habibzada, one of the role-players at the course.

Pfc. Josue Argueta, a cook with Company G, 782nd Brigade Support Battalion, was surprised to be learning forensics techniques in the Army, he said.

"My favorite part [of the training] is to see all of the things the Army wants to show us," Argueta said. "I never thought by joining the Army I'd be doing this."

Even a Paratrooper with extensive search experience like Sgt. Tyler Reece of Troop A, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment found the training challenging and informative. Reece was particularly impressed by the expertise of the instructors.

"These guys know a ton," Reece said. "I'm sure this is just scratching the surface of what they know."

One piece of knowledge that Spears emphasized to the Paratroopers is that site exploitation made the difference between success and failure when he was deployed with the Marine Corps.

"Early in our deployment, because we didn't get this training, the bad guys we caught got released," Spears said. "As we got smarter it led to what we do here."