America's North Shore Journal

A Pan­jshir Provin­cial Recon­struc­tion Team truck dan­gles off the edge of a cliff while PRT mem­bers and local res­i­dents work to recover the vehi­cle in Pan­jshir province, Afghanistan, Dec. 10. The truck was being used to deliver mate­r­ial assis­tance to a remote vil­lage in the Dara dis­trict of the Pan­jshir val­ley when it slid back­ward out of con­trol and off of the moun­tain road. (Photo by U.S. Air Force Mas­ter Sgt. Jeff Kelly, Pan­jshir Provin­cial Recon­struc­tion Team Intel­li­gence Operations)

The adven­ture began on the cold, win­tery morn­ing, Dec. 10, deep in the Hindu Kush Moun­tains of the Pan­jshir val­ley in Afghanistan. The Pan­jshir Provin­cial Recon­struc­tion Team con­ducted a rou­tine mis­sion to deliver mate­r­ial assis­tance, such as cloth­ing, food and other sup­plies to a high-altitude vil­lage in the Dara dis­trict of the valley.

It snowed all morn­ing, but tem­per­a­tures were a bit too warm for it to stick to the road. The con­voy departed with three trucks filled with sup­plies bound for the dis­trict cen­ter in Dara, assess­ing the sit­u­a­tion and decid­ing whether to leave the sup­plies with the dis­trict gov­er­nor for dis­tri­b­u­tion or to con­tinue on our own into more remote regions.

When we arrived, it was still snow­ing but not heav­ily. The road was clear up until that point, and, as far as we could see, it was still pass­able. The fore­cast said the snows would sub­side, so the mis­sion com­man­der decided to continue.

I was in the third truck as we trav­elled upwards along the road that wrapped along the moun­tain­side. The road was barely wide enough for one vehi­cle, with the moun­tain on the left and a sig­nif­i­cant drop to the river on the right.

In an instant, the sit­u­a­tion turned ugly, as the sec­ond truck could not main­tain enough speed to make it up the now ice-covered road and slid back­ward. My truck also began slid­ing back down the hill. My dri­ver, U.S. Air Force Mas­ter Sgt. Jeff Kelly, delib­er­ately slammed our truck into the moun­tain side to stop our decent. It worked, but the sec­ond truck smashed into us.

Both the trucks were now stopped on the moun­tain road. We checked for any injuries, and, for­tu­nately, there were none. I radioed the first truck, which we had lost sight of, to inform them of the situation.

“Sir, we are in a predica­ment,” said Senior Air­man Bryan Ulloa, PRT Civil Affairs. “We couldn’t stop and our truck is now dan­gling off a cliff.”

I arrived to a fright­ful scene. The truck’s right side was com­pletely off the road with at least a 15-foot drop to the boul­ders below. Every­one had made it out safely, and some had leapt from the vehi­cle as it had slid toward the cliff.

With the help of a crowd of local res­i­dents who had gath­ered to lend assis­tance, we began recov­ery attempts on the dis­abled vehi­cle as we relayed infor­ma­tion regard­ing the sit­u­a­tion back to our for­ward oper­at­ing base. Help was dis­patched, but the weather impeded arrival. As dark­ness set in, tem­per­a­tures dropped, and the snow con­tin­ued to fall, we were forced to aban­don the recov­ery mission.

“The deci­sion was made to down­load all sen­si­tive items, such as radio equip­ment and weapons, and return to base with the hopes that the truck would remain in its cur­rent posi­tion until we could resume recov­ery efforts the next morn­ing,” Kelly said.

That’s when the Pan­jshir Afghan National Police and the local res­i­dents dis­played their hero­ism. Together, they took turns brav­ing the frigid tem­per­a­tures, cut­ting winds, and mount­ing snow-fall to guard the truck all night long, mak­ing sure it didn’t fall and no one was injured. When morn­ing came they worked, stone by stone, to build a new rock wall reach­ing up from the riverbed to sta­bi­lize the truck. Then they used wooden logs to push the vehi­cle back onto the road. The ANP drove to the PRT’s FOB to let us know that our truck was safe and ready for us to retrieve it.

“This is proof that the gov­ern­ment and cit­i­zens of Pan­jshir are capa­ble of accom­plish­ing great things,” said U.S. Army Maj. Ian Mur­ray, PRT Oper­a­tions Offi­cer. “Not only did they watch over our truck, but they took it upon them­selves to make sure we got it back. They put them­selves at risk to help us. If it weren’t for their efforts, the PRT would have lost a valu­able asset. We are proud to live and work in part­ner­ship with all of them.”

When asked why they did it, a local man named Pahlawan who had helped lead the recov­ery efforts stated sim­ply, “You would do it for us.”

CJTF-101
Writ­ten by U.S. Air Force Cap­tain John T. Stamm