Strykers in AFghanistan: A Dangerous Night at Babur

Strykers in Afghanistan1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment in Kandahar Province 2009 by Kevin M. Hymel

Securing the Election

The 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry (1-17 IN), known as the Buffaloes,had a lot to accomplish in its first operation but little time in which todo it. Arriving at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Frontenac, 30 milesnorth of Kandahar Airfield (KAF) in southern Afghanistan on 7 August2009, the battalion had only two weeks to prepare for its security role during Afghanistan’s presidential election. The march from KAF to FOB Frontenac, its occupation, and all other tasks leading up to the elections were components of the battalion’s security mission, Operation BUFFALO STAMPEDE.

The 1-17 IN traced its lineage back to the American Civil War, in which the 17th Infantry Regiment fought under the Army of the Potomac. The unit then participated in the Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War, and the Punitive Expedition into Mexico. During World War II, the unit, assigned to the 7th Infantry Division, foughtin the Pacific Theater, where it conducted amphibious assaults on Attuand Kwajalein islands, the Philippines and Okinawa. When the Korean War broke out, the unit landed at Inchon with the rest of the 7th InfantryDivision and remained in the field for its duration. It was in Korea that theunit received the “Buffalo” designation, after Colonel William “Buffalo Bill” Quinn, the unit’s commander. A single company of the unit fought in Vietnam. The battalion also participated in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM from 2005 to 2006.1

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Neumann commanded the Buffaloes in Afghanistan. A 1989 graduate of the US Military Academy, Neumann had seen combat as a platoon leader in the 82d Airborne Division in Operation DESERT STORM. In Iraq in 2004, he had served as a battalion executiveofficer for the 25th Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry, also aStryker unit. He took command of the 1-17 IN almost two years before it deployed to Afghanistan and trained it at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. At six feet two inches tall, Neumann towered over most of his Soldiers as well as most Afghans. With a shaved head, he stood out whenever he took off his helmet.2

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Figure 5. Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan T. Neumann (Left) commanded the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry, during its deployment to Afghanistan in 2009-2010.

Photo courtesy Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Neumann

While based at FOB Frontenac, Neumann’s area of operations (AO) included the parts of the Kakhrez District to the northwest, the Shah Wali Kot District to the northeast and the Arghandab District to the southwest. Kakhrez and Shah Wali Kot were mountainous, desert areas, while the Arghandab was mostly desert except along the Arghandab River, wherethe irrigated land supported pomegranate orchards, grape fields and heavyvegetation, all cut by canals or separated by earthen walls. The dense foliage made for excellent defensive positions and hampered line-of-sightradio transmissions, making situational understanding at times difficult.The Soldiers referred to the lush Arghandab Valley as the “Green Zone.” Highway 617, designated Route BEAR, connected the three districts with FOB Frontenac and Kandahar city. Route BEAR, the only paved road in the area, ran northeast to southwest and entered Kandahar city from the west. Route RED DOG, an unpaved road, ran parallel to Route BEAR, west of the Arghandab River. The two routes merged eight kilometers south of FOB Frontenac.

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GOVERNMENT CENTER

Figure 6. Key terrain of the Arghandab “Green Zone.”Source: author/CSI generated

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Between 1979 and 2009, the Arghandab River Valley saw intense combat. During the Soviet-Afghan War, both the Soviets and theMujahideen mined the fields around Kandahar city, forcing most of the civilian population in and around the city to flee to Pakistan. Inthe summer of 1987 the Soviet Army and its Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) allies attempted to push the Mujahideen out of theirwell-established fighting positions in the towns of Babur and Jelawur.For a month, Soviet tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs) triedto penetrate the grape fields and orchards while airstrikes and artillerypounded strong points. Mujahideen fighters, hunkered down in bunkerswith a few scouts positioned outside, waited for the bombardment to pass, and then engaged the DRA. When the DRA troops closed to within 10 meters, the Mujahideen would fire, ensuring that the DRA soldiers couldnot escape. By the end of the campaign, the Mujahideen had killed some 250 Soviet and DRA soldiers, wounded approximately 800, captured more than 100 vehicles, and accepted 2,500 defectors from the DRA into their ranks.3

After the Soviets withdrew in 1989, the country gradually fell into a civil war three years later. In the spring of 1994, as rival tribes and warlords fought each other, the newly-formed Taliban captured Kandahar City under the leadership of a charismatic cleric named Mullah Omar.As the Taliban made gains on the battlefield, it also welcomed foreign fighters into its ranks. Osama Bin Laden’s al Qaeda organization came toAfghanistan in 1996 and moved to Kandahar the following year, setting upa training camp near the Kandahar Airfield.4

When the United States and its allies launched Operation ENDURING FREEDOM on 7 October 2001, American bombers pounded Taliban bases and infrastructure while the Northern Alliance, with the help of Army Special Forces, drove them from the country. Kandahar fell on 7 December, but both Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden escaped. In Bonn two days earlier, a United Nations conference nominated Hamid Karzai, an anti-Taliban Pashtun, to head a provisional Afghan administration. For the next four years, Kandahar Province remained relatively calm as the United States kept its forces low in Afghanistan. But during this period,the Taliban slowly regrouped and infiltrated back from Pakistan—manyreturned to their homes in Kandahar Province. By 2006, when a Canadian battalion assumed responsibility for the province, its soldiers found the enemy ensconced in Kandahar’s districts. Insurgents ambushed Canadian patrols or planted roadside IEDs, while both sides fought pitched battles west of the city. The next year the Taliban shattered the local militia

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blocking their entrance to Kandahar city from the north. The number ofcivilians killed either by suicide bombers or caught in crossfire in thecity rose. The security situation eroded further in 2008 when the Taliban attacked the Sarposa Prison and freed 1,100 inmates, many of whom werecaptured Taliban fighters. Making matters worse, the Arghandab Districtpolice chief was wounded, forcing his evacuation. In his absence, policeleadership fell apart. The firefights, suicide bombings and IEDs continuedunabated into 2009.5

This was the situation around Kandahar City when the Buffaloesarrived. To make matters worse, Lieutenant Colonel Neumann learned that the Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers’ enlistments in his AO were about to expire. They had been operating for a long time far from their homes in northern Afghanistan without leave. “They were kind of burned out,” explained Neumann.6 Adding this problem to the loss of the local police chief and an ineffective local militia, Neumann decided he had “a perfect storm” of trouble on his hands.7

The 750-strong American battalion replaced a 72-man Canadian reconnaissance troop and a Canadian Operational Mentor Liaison Teams (OMLT, pronounced “omelet”) that advised ANA units, half of which hadbeen based at FOB Frontenac. “[The Canadians] just kind of had their fingerin the dike,” said Neumann.8 The Canadians did have one thing in common with their American cousins: they were equipped with Light Armored Vehicles (LAVs), the same basic vehicle as the Stryker. Unfortunately, the relief in place did not go smoothly. The Canadians provided the Buffaloeswith written briefings, radio transcripts and anything else to learn aboutthe enemy and conditions on the ground; however, almost everything was written in French. During the relief in place process, the RC-South Staff briefed 5/2 Stryker that there were only approximately 30 or 40 Taliban in the area. Yet when they conducted combined reconnaissance missions down Route BEAR during the transition period, the Canadians wouldpoint into the thick green fields that bordered the road and explain to theAmericans that, because of the small size of their force, they did not go into those areas.9

In order to accomplish their mission, the Americans planned to go where the Canadians had not. Operation BUFFALO STAMPEDE’s goal was to provide security for the national elections scheduled for 20 August2009. Neumann first needed to identify the approximately 25 polling sitesto protect while supporting the Afghan Security forces. It would not be easy. The list of sites provided by the brigade was incomplete, containing grid coordinates for some locations but not others. Some villages lacked

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names. “Some are easy to find,” said Major Ryan O’Connor, the battalion operations officer, “others are almost impossible.”10 The Buffaloes would serve as a quick reaction force (QRF) for the ANA and Afghan National Police (ANP) because, as Neumann later said, “nobody wanted to see American Soldiers guarding polling places.”11

The upcoming elections were vital to Afghanistan’s future. The firstnational election in 2004 drew a 75 percent voter turnout. Hamid Karzai, then the interim president, was elected with 55.3 percent of the vote. Now, with a resurgent Taliban bent on keeping people away from the polling booths, Coalition forces had to ensure a safe election. During the 2004 election the Taliban controlled only 30 of Afghanistan’s districts. In 2009 they controlled 164. 12 The Buffaloes would have to guarantee voters safe passage through a wave of enemy activity.

Neumann’s battalion contained four companies: Captain John Hallett’s Alpha (“Attu”) Company, Captain James “Jamie” Pope’s Bravo (“Bayonet’) Company, Captain Joel Kassulke’s Charlie (“Chosin”) Company, and Captain Joshua Glonek’s Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC). All the company commanders were West Point graduates. Neumann sent Hallett’s Alpha Company north to Shah Wali Kot District. He sent Pope’s Bravo and Kassulke’s Charlie companies south to the Arghandab Valley. Bravo Company would patrol the west side of the Arghandab River, based out of Combat Outpost (COP) Jelawur, while Charlie Company patrolled the east side from the Arghandab Joint District Control Center. Glonek’s HHC coordinated security for FOB Frontenac. Since Alpha Company had the largest AO but the smallest population, Neumann used it as his economy of force and peeled off that company’s assets to assist Bravo and Charlie companies whenever needed. To ensure election security, Neumann ordered his units to scout out the enemy’s most likely avenues of approach to the polling sites, then set up observation posts and blocking positions.13

For this first operation, the companies lacked mine detectors and bomb sniffing dogs, to the frustration of the men. Other equipment ofdubious value to their mission was in abundant supply. “We had too much equipment,” explained Captain Glonek, who was given a nine-pound underwater camera during the deployment.14 Other pieces of equipment required training for which the men did not have time. “I’d say I don’t want it and I was told ‘it doesn’t matter, you have to sign for it.’” 15

While the Buffaloes’ rifle companies were ready to operate, Neumann’stactical operations center (TOC) was not. Seven equipment containers were

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missing, all filled with communications and support materials. Neumann’sstaff adapted by working from paper maps or writing on the battalion headquarters’ walls with dry-erase markers. They also worked out of their tactical command post (TAC) Strykers. The lack of equipment would hinder Neumann’s ability to see and understand what was happening with his companies temporarily as the election drew near. 16

First Contact

With the clock ticking down to the election, Captain Pope’s Bravo Company conducted an area reconnaissance in the Arghandab on 10 August. His AO included ten ANP checkpoints along Route RED DOG.17The lushness of the Green Zone, with so many mud walls separating the grape rows and pomegranate orchards, proved frustrating to the Soldiers. “We’re talking about a maze,” explained Pope. 18

To ensure safe travel down Route BEAR, a route clearance platoon from the 562d Engineer Company—referred to as a Route Clearance Package (RCP)—preceded Bravo Company, checking for IEDs. The journey did not last long. Two hours into the mission, just outside thetown of Shuyen-e Sofla, the lead Engineer Squad Vehicle (ESV), a Strykerequipped with a mine roller, fell victim to a command-detonated IED. The explosion destroyed all eight tires and injured two engineers, one with a broken arm and the other with a leg injury. Pope called for a MEDEVAC,which flew the two men out of danger. The engineers were on edge as theycontinued searching, but had only traveled about 50 feet when another Stryker triggered a second IED. No one was injured but the company stopped while Pope waited for trucks to tow the two damaged vehicles back to FOB Frontenac.19

The men found the control wire for the first IED leading into apomegranate orchard. Pope ordered two squads, one from First Lieutenant Daniel Boirum’s 3d Platoon and one from First Lieutenant DanielBerschinski’s 2d Platoon, to dismount and move into Shuyen-e Sofla toquestion villagers while the rest of the Soldiers guarded the vehicles.Boirum’s men led the way through the empty town, finding only a smallgroup of children playing in an orchard. When the pilot of an OH-58 KiowaWarrior helicopter flying overwatch reported a group of 11 military-agedmales on the south end of town, Pope directed Boirum and Berschinski to move toward their location. He then joined the two units.20

Boirum’s men pushed south through the town and an adjacent openfield until they reached a narrow road between mud walls. A pomegranate field and a canal were to their left. As the Soldiers approached an L-shaped

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turn with another wall to their front, they heard a loud “ka-chunk,” the sound of a PKM machine gun’s bolt hammering forward, but failing tofire.21 Insurgents then opened up with AK-47 rifles from behind the wallto the Americans’ front. Specialist Richard Thibeault took a round to the chest from only 20 feet and dropped to his knees. Staff Sergeant JoshuaMeyers grabbed him and threw him behind cover while returning fire. Everyone else opened fire at the enemy muzzle flashes. Despite his pain,Thibeault emptied his magazine at the enemy and, as he reloaded, slipped his hand underneath his body armor. When he didn’t see any blood heshouted to Meyers that he was okay and continued to fight.22

Boirum shouted for Berschinski to move up. The Soldiers behind him shouted to pull back. “No!” Boirum shouted, “Move up! Get on line!”23But Berschinski, to his surprise, had no one available to reinforce Boirum.His squad was missing. When the enemy first opened fire, Berschinski’s men charged across the open field and found protection against a wall at a90-degree angle from Boirum’s engagement. Captain Pope, who was with Berschinski, wanted to act but his options were limited. He couldn’t go left because of the canal and he couldn’t go forward because of the enemy. His Land Warrior System, however, showed him a number of alleywayson his right flank, so he called for Staff Sergeant Daniel Rhodes to follow him and took off for the alley. Rhodes, who had just crossed the open field,led the squad after Pope. This was when Berschinski, unaware of Pope’s action, turned around and noticed his entire squad gone.24

First Lieutenant Victor Cortese, the company fire support officer, stoodnear Pope but close enough to Boirum that, when he heard Boirum shoutand saw the desperation in his eyes, he joined the fight to the front. Anenemy RPG ricocheted off the wall in front of Boirum and shot up into the air, temporarily deafening him. At that same time, two of Boirum’s men, who were at the front and armed with M-203 grenade launchers, bounded back to Boirum’s position to gain the grenades’ minimum arming distance of approximately 25 meters. “They ended up going through their entire loads of 203 HE [high explosive] rounds,” recalled Boirum.25 Enemy firetapered off as the rounds exploded, allowing Boirum’s men to consolidateand find better cover.26

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Figure 7. Bravo Company engages the enemy in Shuyen-e Sofla.Source: author/CSI generated

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Figure 8. First Lieutenant Victor Cortese (left) checks a map while Captain James Pope (right) uses his Land Warrior system during a patrol in the Arghandab’s Green Zone.

Photo courtesy of Major James Pope, US Army

Meanwhile, Pope led Rhodes’ squad down the alley. He contacted a Stryker to support Boirum with its machine guns, but the Stryker’s vehicle commander could not see through the mazeof buildings to where the fire was coming from, 500 meters away.The vehicle commander ended up following Pope’s men as close as the terrain allowed. Pope turned the corner around a building and suddenly ran into a barricade not marked on his Land Warrior system. His force circled around a wide compound and through a maze of alleys and mud walls, while he placed men in positionsto suppress enemy fire and continue advancing. He could hear the 40-mm rounds fired by Boirum’s men exploding to his left, butbuildings, walls and barricades prevented his men from engaging the enemy. When a Taliban truck pulled up behind the insurgents on the opposite side of the canal, Rhodes tried to suppress the insurgents around it while Pope tried to push the men forward, but they were stopped by the canal and another barricade. Finally,Rhodes bounded across the canal, continually firing at the enemyas they retreated.27

At Boirum’s position, rounds flew in between Boirum, his radiotelephone operator (RTO) and his squad automatic weapon (SAW) gunner,Specialist Andrew Bellach. Two enemy fighters had flanked Boirum on his left. Bellach returned fire with his SAW, hitting one of the insurgents in thechest. The wounded man went down while his companion ran off. With his hearing slowly returning, Boirum got on the radio and called his Strykers forward, but he still could not hear a response and prepared to pull his men back to First Lieutenant Berschinski’s position.28

Berschinski meanwhile, had radioed for a Stryker to pick him up and marked his location with a smoke grenade. Unfortunately, the vehicle went the wrong way, and once the driver corrected himself, hit a berm, ripping off his front left tire. An engineer Stryker then arrived to pick up Berschinski. He and his RTO jumped inside and Berschinski ordered the driver to take him to Boirum’s position. At the same time, First Sergeant Tony Holcomb drove up to Boirum in a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle equipped with a .50-caliber machine gun. But he did not need the weapon; once the enemy saw the vehicle they withdrew. As the engineer Stryker with Berschinski arrived, Pope showed up with Rhodes’squad. The fight was over. A few Soldiers assisted Thibeault into theMRAP, while the rest mounted their Strykers and returned to the damaged engineer vehicles.29

At battalion headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Neumann monitored the entire action. He decided not to involve himself personally with thefirefight, trusting Pope’s leadership, even though the battalion stood readyto provide additional resources upon Pope’s request. “Captain Pope was aggressively reacting to combat,” Neumann later explained, “and [he] didn’t need either our help or our injection of a bunch of questions that would slow down his actions.”30

Pope’s company secured the disabled engineer Strykers as the men waited for the arrival of recovery vehicles. Berschinski’s platoon took up a position on the edge of the town facing a pomegranate orchard. Instead of ordering his men into the overgrown orchard, Berschinski had themfire their machine guns into it. Nothing happened so the men stayed inplace until ordered to pull back. Before leaving, Berschinski had his men sweep all the empty casings and water bottles into the canal to keep the enemy guessing about his position. “I didn’t want to leave any signs that we had been there,” Berschinski later explained.31 The next day, Pope’s men continued to secure the area, even driving a Stryker through a wall,giving the men access to the orchards. Canadian engineers finally arrivedand removed the three disabled vehicles.32

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The engagement revealed an important shortcoming: the Buffaloes did not have the equipment required to recover damaged or destroyed Strykers and had to rely initially on the Canadians for catastrophic vehicle extraction. Later, 1-17 IN received a recovery package from a US support unit thatincluded two wreckers and a flatbed truck. Throughout their training inthe United States, the Buffaloes had trained for vehicle recovery, but the “disabled” vehicle always had at least two operable wheels. In combat, IEDs often blew all the wheels off a Stryker. Only the Canadians, who had been dealing with destroyed LAVs since 2006, were prepared to deal with the situation.33

In order to counter any Taliban operations aimed at disrupting the election, Captain Pope tried to be proactive. Two days later he sent First Lieutenant Berschinkski’s 2d Platoon on a dismounted night patrol toidentify enemy infiltration routes. Pope picked what he thought was agood site on a map and Berschinski led his men out into the darkness.They walked through numerous fields and climbed over walls trying to find the location, only to be channelized by walls and buildings. Finally, after almost five hours of searching, Berschinski contacted Pope, reportingthat the terrain was horrible and that he was in danger of getting ambushed. “Someone’s going to toss a grenade over a wall and take out my platoon because we can’t see anything.” Pope agreed and called Berschinski back.34

Figure 9. First Lieutenant Daniel Berschinski, standing in his Stryker’s commander’s hatch, leads his platoon out of FOB Frontenac. A Mobile Gun System (MGS) Stryker is in the background to the right.

Courtesy First Lieutenant Daniel Berschinski, US Army

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The Scouts Enter the Fray

On 14 August, once the battalion headquarters was in place at FOB Frontenac, Lieutenant Colonel Neumann ordered elements of his scout platoon to check out the area around the base. Captain Adam Swift led the scout platoon. A graduate of the Air Force Academy, Swift had insteadchosen an Army commission. “I was going to be an intel[ligence] officer in the Air Force and I figured that was going to be kind of boring,” heexplained.35 So he set his sights on the Army. There would be no lack of excitement in Afghanistan.

Swift was leading a four-vehicle Stryker patrol west of FOB Frontenac when an IED detonated directly beneath his Stryker, penetrating the hull and ripping off all eight tires. Swift, who had been standing in thecommander’s hatch, awoke upside down on the floor. The blast cracked hispelvis and shredded the legs of both Sergeant Tanner Kuth and Specialist Derek Ford, who had been sitting across from each other. The driver, Private First Class Joshua Seaver, was knocked unconscious. Men yelledand screamed inside the Stryker as alarms went off. Dust and smoke filledthe vehicle. “There was blood and stuff everywhere,” recalled Swift.36

The second Stryker immediately pulled up and dropped its ramp. Scouts and snipers poured out and set up a security perimeter while the wounded men were pulled out of the damaged Stryker. One sniper team positioned themselves atop a ridge. Inside the damaged Stryker, Seaver awoke, opened his hatch and spotted armed men on the ridge. Thinking theywere insurgents, he aimed his rifle at them. Using his Advanced CombatOptical Gun Sight, he drew a bead on the Soldiers, but as he clicked off therifle’s safety, he realized he was looking at American snipers.37 He then ran up the hill and asked the snipers if they needed any help. They made him sit down and checked his eyes for signs of a concussion, or as Seaver remembered it, “seeing if I wasn’t crazy because I just got blown up and knocked out.”38

The platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class Bryan Wells, in the last vehicle, called for a MEDEVAC and organized security. He came across Swift, who was trying to take charge of the situation despite a heavy concussion. “I really didn’t know what was going on,” Swift later confessed.39 Wells told Swift that he had everything under control and sat him down. As the men set up a pick-up zone for the helicopter, Captain Glonek arrived with elements of Hatchet Company, escorting a Stryker ambulance. Swift wanted to stay with his men, but Glonek insisted he see the medics and offered that he could come back in the morning. The three men were loaded into the ambulance. Kuth would eventually have a leg amputated while Ford suffered fractured ankles. The rest of the Soldiers

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spent a quiet night guarding the damaged Stryker. The next morning a Canadian team, driving an oversized wrecker and trailer, arrived and pulled the Stryker onto the trailer’s bed.40 Between Bravo Company’s engagementwith the enemy in Shuyen-e Sofla and the Scout’s experience outside FOBFrontenac, the Buffaloes were quickly learning that the enemy was quiteproficient in using mines to blunt 1-17’s combat power.

Two Fights at Once: Alpha and Bravo Companies in Combat

With the election only two days away, on 18 August First Lieutenant Zachary Osborne learned from the ANP that insurgents were gathering in a town called Buyana, southeast of the Shah Wali Kot District Center. Osborne, the 2d Platoon leader for Alpha Company, led his platoon out of the district center in four Strykers. Three carried his three squads and a sniper section, while the fourth was an M1129 Mortar Carrier. Since the ANA and ANP were familiar with the area, Osborne let them take the lead in their Ford pickup trucks. When they reached the town around 1500, the ANP occupied a large hilltop south of the village while Osborne and Staff Sergeant Robert Montez positioned their two Strykers on the west side of the hill and Sergeant First Class Troy Faver and the mortar carrier stopped on the east side, approximately 300 meters from Osborne and Montez.41

Osborne dismounted and led a rifle squad into the town where he metwith the town elder, who told him that his people had beaten the Russians with picks and shovels. Sergeant Pedro Colunga did not like the sound of that and warned Osborne that something was wrong, but Osborne told him they still needed to search the village.42 The meeting had only gone on fora few minutes when Osborne heard a rifle shot. He looked at the elder and,through a translator, asked, “Is that Taliban?” The elder responded, “Yeah, probably.”43

Osborne ran back to his Stryker as the enemy, hiding in a curved wadito the north, engaged the Americans with automatic weapons and RPGs.Soon, the insurgents began firing mortars at the ANP on top of the hill, wounding two Afghans. The ANP fired wildly in response, expendingalmost all their ammunition in just a few minutes. Sergeant First Class Faver sent Staff Sergeant Rick Briolla and a medic out to help the ANP, but as they climbed the hill enemy mortar rounds began exploding around them and they quickly returned to their Stryker. One round exploded near Sergeant Colunga, knocking him to the ground. He immediately checked his legs and was relieved to discover they were still attached. The ANP, out of ammunition, ran down the hill, climbed into their vehicles, and roared away. The ANA joined them.44

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Osborne dispatched his sniper team to a side of the hill to fire downonto the enemy, then deployed the mortar Stryker to maintain rear security while Faver anchored the right side of his position on the hill with hisStryker. The Strykers returned fire with their M240 machine guns and Mk19 grenade launchers while Soldiers stood and fired from the Strykers’ hatches. In Faver’s Stryker, Briolla stood in an air-guard hatch firingrounds when he suddenly yelled at Faver, “RPG! RPG!” just as the round screeched over his head. Faver immediately began conducting survivability drills—moving his Stryker in bursts every few minutes to prevent the enemy from locking on to his position—and he directed the other vehicles to do the same. Faver’s gunner, Specialist Benjamin Swaing, wanted to unload his Mk 19 at the village, but Faver refused. “[Not] Unless we have positive ID on the enemy,” he told Swaing, “we’re not going to engage.”45Swaing saw an insurgent crawling low by a house and fired grenades athim until the man stopped moving.46

The snipers engaged the enemy within the town and the surroundingbrush. While two snipers suppressed insurgents with their M24 rifles, Sergeant Keith Brantley fired his M110 rifle. Osborne’s Stryker circledaround the left side of the hill, shooting down at the enemy to their rightuntil they came under fire from the high ground to the left. The enemy’sfast movement surprised Osborne. “It was extremely quick,” he recalled, “how they adjusted to our maneuvers—they had a group encircle us.”47The enemy was so close that the Americans were throwing hand grenades out of their hatches.48

Enemy fire intensified. Two RPGs impacted on Staff Sergeant Montez’sStryker but failed to explode. When Montez’s MK19 grenade launcher ran out of grenades, he climbed onto the deck of his Stryker to reload it and caught shrapnel in his face when an enemy bullet smashed into the gun mount. The impact threw him down into the Stryker, but he climbed back up and completed reloading, receiving additional wounds to his hands.Enemy fighters began to encircle the sniper team on the hill, their shotsgetting closer. Sergeant Brantley called a Stryker to his position to gundown insurgents advancing on his right flank.49 The enemy’s proximity tothe Stryker surprised Colunga, firing from the hatch of Montez’s Stryker.“I looked at [one of our] snipers,” said Colunga, “he was shooting really close to us.”50 Osborne was standing in his hatch and could hear the snap of bullets overhead when his vehicle commander shouted, “Hey, get down!” and pulled him into the Stryker.51

Even though Osborne had a mortar Stryker in his element, he did not possess the authority to use it as the coordinates he relayed to the crew

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were too close to structures, which might contain civilians.52 “We were getting attacked on three sides at that point,” Osborne explained.53 He requested air support but none was available due to enemy action in Bravo Company’s AO.54

While Osborne slugged it out with the enemy in Buyana, Captain Pope, more than forty kilometers to the south in the Arghandab, prepared Bravo Company to conduct another reconnaissance after the previousnight’s failure. “If we want to find the enemy,” Pope reasoned, “let’s just start where we had enemy contact the first time.”55 Pope’s company had been bolstered by the addition of Alpha Company’s 3d Platoon, led by First Lieutenant Brian Zangenberg. Pope sent Zangenberg’s platoon and Berschinski’s 2d Platoon to patrol up north while Bravo Company’s 1st and 3d platoons rehearsed their security plan for polling sites with the ANA and ANP in the town of Jelawur.56

Zangenberg and Berschinski developed their plan together.Zangenberg would leave COP Jelawur first and head north through thedesert paralleling Route RED DOG to avoid IEDs. Just south of the town of Babur, Zangenberg’s men would dismount, cross RED DOG to the east, and head into the orchards. Once in the orchards they would turn north and head into Babur. Berschinski would leave a half hour after Zangenberg, follow his same route, pass Zangenberg’s dismount point,and then dismount near Shuyen-e Sofla, where he would head east into theorchards, then south to link up with Zangenberg. Once the two lieutenants linked up, they would lead their platoons back to their Strykers. The entire mission was planned to take about three hours.57

At 1500, while Osborne was under fire in Buyana, Pope’s two platoonsheaded north, paralleling RED DOG. Zangenberg’s men dismounted at their designated location and moved into the orchards while a few men stayed behind to maintain security and overwatch the orchards. The men in the orchard soon turned north and crossed into the town of Babur. They advanced through the maze of buildings and walls until they reached more orchards to the north. Sergeant Troy Tom then walked point across a small, concrete footbridge. He had just crossed the bridge when an IED exploded.Tom was killed instantly as the enemy opened fire from the south, behindZangenberg’s platoon. Those not knocked down by the blast took a knee. Fortunately, the men were walking 10 meters apart, spaced far enough so that not everyone was affected. “The spacing is what saved us,” explained Specialist Guillermo Garcia.58

The enemy fired five unaimed rifle shots near the Strykers. The men guarding the Strykers returned fire. Sergeant First Class Rande Henderson

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popped off ten rounds while Staff Sergeant Justin Prince, the company’sfire support NCO, laid down and fired his rifle. The enemy fire ceased. Atthe explosion site, everyone did a head count but Tom did not respond. Sergeant First Class Bobby Ciman rushed to Tom’s location with two medics, but he was nowhere to be found. Zangenberg called Pope, “We’ve encountered one IED,” Zangenberg reported, “one possible casualty.”59The men began searching the area and walking the canal looking for Tom. They only found ID tags and parts of his equipment.60

Meanwhile, First Lieutenant Berschinski’s men had just dismountedtheir Strykers, passed through an empty Shuyen-e Sofla and were movingtoward an orchard when they heard the IED explosion to the south,followed by small-arms fire. They saw the plume of smoke. Berschinskiordered his men to halt and listened to his radio as Zangenberg called in his report. Realizing that Zangenberg was in trouble, Berschinski called for his men to move back through the town. When he heard civilians cheering in the distance, he knew the situation was bad. He needed to get to Zangenberg quickly, so he called for his Strykers to move south as he moved dismounted south. He saw Zangenberg’s position on his Land Warrior map, but the image kept popping in and out intermittently. When he saw a trail on his paper map leading through the orchards to where he thought Zangenberg was, he directed his Soldiers to a footbridge. As one squad secured the far side of the bridge, Berschinski crossed with his RTO, Specialist Roger Garcia. Private First Class Jonathan Yanney was crossing behind the two men when an IED exploded on the near side of the bridge.61

The powerful blast knocked everyone to the ground, blinding themwith dust. An enemy fighter in front of the platoon engaged the lead soldiers, and those who could, returned fire. Berschinski crawled forward,sweeping his hands in front of him until he found Garcia, who was lying on his back. He checked Garcia for blood but found none. As the dust started to clear, Berschinski pulled his face up to Garcia’s to tell him he was okay, but Garcia just yelled, oblivious to his lieutenant. The blast had deafened him. The men up front shouted back that they had engaged theenemy fighter and he had broken contact. Berschinski ordered his men to cease firing and began a head count. Like Tom minutes before, Yanneydid not respond when his name was called. Shredded bits of Yanney’smap fluttered down from the sky. The men looked up and saw twistedfragments of his radio antennae caught in the tree branches. The explosion gouged a two-foot deep crater where Yanney had been walking. With Yanney unaccounted for, Berchinski’s platoon shifted its mission from reinforcing Zangenberg’s men to searching for Yanney.62

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Berschinski pulled all his men back to the western side of the canal and set up a security perimeter. He then called Captain Pope but did not know how to explain the situation. “We just took an IED,” he reported. “Yanney is missing but I’m pretty sure he’s KIA [killed in action].” Berschinski had never before called in a missing person, known as a Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown (DUSTWUN), and did not want to broadcast what had happened. “I knew that everyone was listening over the radio.”63

While Bravo company dealt with its casualties, First LieutenantOsborne continued his fight outside Buyana. With so much enemy firecoming into his position and unable to use his mortars, Osborne decidedto break contact. His snipers bounded to the Strykers under fire. Onceonboard, the vehicles roared out of the area. Insurgents followed on foot,continuing to fire. When the M240 machine gun on one Stryker ran out of ammunition, a Soldier popped out of the hatch and fired his M-203grenade launcher. He hit an insurgent in the leg, but a motorcycle with a bin on the back quickly carted the wounded man away, using a wadi as an escape route. As the Strykers departed, the insurgents on the roofs ofbuildings celebrated, firing their rifles into the air.64

Osborne’s four Strykers drove 1,000 meters into the desert and stopped to form a 360-degree security perimeter. Each Stryker faced out in a different direction with its rear ramp lowered so the Soldiers inside could communicate directly with others in their vehicles. The men reloaded their weapons and were preparing to reengage when their company commander, Captain John Hallett, drove up with the 1st Platoon, led by First Lieutenant Seth Wilkin, as the company QRF. The ANA and ANP had also returned. When Hallett had passed the ANP headquarters on the way to Buyana, he had picked them up. Hallett asked for a situation report and then directed his two platoons to mount an attack back into Buyana. A force of ten Strykers now charged forward in a line, surprising the Taliban who thought the Americans had retreated for good. As the company pushed forward, one of Wilkin’s Strykers hit a large rock and broke an axle.65

The Strykers formed a Vee formation as they rolled up on a corner ofthe village. One insurgent fired an RPG that flew 10 feet over one Stryker while another insurgent fired an RPG from a building doorway, which streaked between two other vehicles. The crews immediately returned firewith machine guns and Mk 19 grenade launchers, setting the building onfire. Enemy rounds pinged off the Strykers. Some of the men dismounted their vehicles and engaged the insurgents, who were firing RPGs andmachine guns while retreating northwest through the town. First Sergeant Eugene Hicks could see the enemy moving from building to building

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and escaping into a wooded area. He wanted to enter the buildings but Hallett refused, preferring that the Afghan Security Forces be used for this purpose.66 Hicks dismounted his vehicle anyway and closed on a buildingwhere the enemy fired RPGs. From a distance of only 15 feet, Hicks opened fire on four men. “I think I hit one guy twice,” explained Hicks,“but he was just kind of lurching forward. He wasn’t going to stop.”67

Hallett learned that Kiowa helicopters were inbound. When theyarrived Osborne fired tracer rounds from his rifle to point out enemylocations. When the insurgents saw the helicopters, they retreated along a wadi. The men later found a number of blood trails but no bodies. Thefirefight was over, but because the Soldiers had to recover two damagedvehicles, it took the company until 2200 to return to FOB Frontenac.68The men were pleased with their first performance against the enemy butwondered why it took so long to get helicopter support. They found out when Captain Hallett explained what happened to Tom and Yanney in the Arghandab Valley. “Everybody was pretty much on cloud nine,” recalled Staff Sergeant Forbes, “[but] that kind of ruined the elation real quick.”69

Dealing with Two DUSTWUNS in the Arghandab

In the Arghandab, Captain Pope was rehearsing election security atCOP Jelawur when he first learned about Tom and Yanney. Pope calledFirst Lieutenant Boirum, whose 3d Platoon was his QRF, and told him to go to Readiness Condition-1 (REDCON-1), meaning his platoon needed to be alert, mounted in their vehicles with their weapons loaded. Pope then loaded the few men with him into a Stryker and an MRAP and headed north to First Lieutenant Berschinski and First Lieutenant Zangenberg’s positions.70

At the battalion headquarters, Neumann monitored the situations with both Alpha and Bravo Companies. He was concerned that the enemy hadcaptured Yanney. When Boirum’s men reported finding some IV bags andbloody bandages in a house, Neumann thought the enemy had given Yanneyfirst aid. “No,” Boirum radioed, “there’s zero chance that that happened.”71Boirum had seen the blast site, Yanney’s destroyed equipment and a few of his human remains. He knew what had happened to his Soldier. Withthe dense vegetation making communications difficult, Neumann wasnot clear on exactly what had happened to Yanney. When Pope reported that he could not account for all his men, Neumann made up his mind. “That was the trigger,” he explained.72 Leaving Major Darren Jennings,the battalion’s executive officer, to manage Alpha Company’s situation, hetook his three Strykers that made up his TAC, including Major O’Connor and the battalion scouts, to Pope’s position.73

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Boirum was ready for Pope’s call. He had heard the first IEDexplode some four kilometers away while he was leading a foot patrol through Jelawur, with his Strykers paralleling him outside the town. He immediately had his men go to REDCON-1. As the men climbed into the Strykers and loaded their weapons, the second IED went off and Pope’s order came in. Boirum raced to Berschinski’s position and found it in trouble. “The platoon was in a state of shock,” recalled Boirum. “First Lieutenant Berschinski was heavily concussed.”74 Boirum got Berschinski to sit down and ordered Berschinski’s men to establish security while his men helped search for Yanney in the adjacent buildings. Men kicked in doors and searched rooftops. Others walked shoulder-to-shoulder through the orchards. Boirum and Staff Sergeant Joshua Meyers climbed into thecanal and walked upstream with their fingers probing the bottom. The men found only Yanney’s empty boot, a twisted M4 rifle grip and somebody parts. Medics arrived and evacuated the deaf Specialist Garcia and Sergeant Kevin Deas, who had taken shrapnel in his bicep.75

With First Lieutenant Berschinski not wanting everyone to know whathappened to Yanney, Staff Sergeant Justin Prince, the fire support NCO, called in two DUSTWUNs using the fires net, which put him in directcontact with the battalion headquarters with fewer Soldiers listening in. DUSTWUN calls usually meant the enemy had captured a soldier and triggered a lockdown to seal off the area until that Soldier could be found. Colonel Tunnell, the brigade commander, passed the Buffaloes as manyassets as possible to find Tom and Yanney. A US Special Operation Force (SOF) element was sent to the area along with fixed- and rotary-wingaircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles to search for the two men. The brigade reserve moved to Pope’s location to block the area from the south, while Captain Joel Kassulke’s Charlie Company, on the eastern side of the Arghandab River, set up blocking positions along various checkpoints, inspecting vehicles at entry control points along Route BEAR.76 At a bridge between Bravo and Charlie companies, one of Kassulke’s squads set up a second checkpoint across from one of Pope’s. “Everybody got checked by them,” recalled Corporal Chad Cannon of Charlie Company, “and then checked again by us.”77

While Boirum and Berschinski continued their searches, Captain Pope arrived on Route RED DOG near sundown and requested an escort into First Lieutenant Zangenberg’s position. Through a miscommunication, Boirum and Berschinski thought Pope wanted them to stop their search for Yanney and assist with the search for Tom. Both platoons departed the area, mounted their Strykers and drove to Pope’s position. The large escort

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surprised Pope but he could not send them back. “Night’s falling and I need to get into defensive positions,” he later explained.78 From there they escorted the captain to Zangenberg’s location, getting lost along the way, adding to everyone’s frustration.

A Dangerous Night at Babur

By the time Pope’s platoons accomplished their link up, all the officersand men of Bravo Company were exhausted and frustrated. Some were in shock from the day’s events. First Lieutenant Zangenberg reported that his men had cleared all the compounds in his area so Pope assigned eachplatoon a specific compound to bed down for the night. After letting themen consolidate the compounds, Pope called a huddle with his key leaders. The lieutenants and a few NCOs met on the roof of Pope’s building. “I was running ragged,” Pope later confessed.79 He was supposed to be preparing for an election and running patrols, but instead he was leading a DUSTWUN recovery operation. He reviewed the situation and told theofficers that they would resume the search for Tom at daylight, and thensearch for Yanney.80

The meeting broke up around midnight and the men returned to their compounds. First Lieutenant Berschinski walked with Specialist Nick Torres back to his platoon’s compound. As they neared it, Berschinski called to the men guarding the walls of the compound, “Friendly coming in!” Just then, an IED detonated.81 The blast threw him into the air, destroying his legs, lacerating his left arm, and breaking his jaw. He bounced off a walland landed head first into the crater. “Guys, guys, I need your help,” hecalled out as Soldiers raced to him. “I hit a bomb, I don’t have any legs.”82Three medics applied tourniquets, inserted an IV and wrapped hemostatic control (HemCon) bandages on his legs to stop the hemorrhaging. Captain Pope arrived and slapped Berschinski’s face to try to keep him conscious and reminded him of his parents. Berschinski cursed in response. Pope then told him “Stay with me. The birds are going to be here.”83

Staff Sergeant Prince had radioed for a MEDEVAC and was told it wasfive minutes out, then ten minutes, then five minutes away. When an on-station Kiowa helicopter offered to MEDEVAC Berschinski, Prince called a circling US Air Force AC-130 Gunship to clear a helicopter landing zone. Using its 25mm Gatling gun and 40mm auto cannon, the gunship blasted an area of 400 meters in only two minutes. The Kiowa then landed and the co-pilot got out. The men tried to cram Berschinski into the seat, but realized he might bleed to death before reaching a hospital. As they debated what to do next, a US Air Force Para-Rescue Jumper HH-160 Black Hawk helicopter pilot radioed that he was two minutes out. The

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helicopter landed quickly, took Berschinski on board, and flew him to ahospital in Kandahar city. The men on the ground had waited almost an hour for Berschinski’s evacuation. 84

Berschinski survived. He credited his survival to hitting the wall and falling into the crater, where he could be easily found. “The medics did an incredible job,” he said. “The guy who pretty much everyone credits with keeping me alive is [medic] David Luketti.”85 Just as the Black Hawk departed, Lieutenant Colonel Neumann’s TAC reached Pope’s Strykers but could not raise the company commander on the radio. Neumann had been delayed when his small convoy passed a vehicle with a body in the trunk and stopped to inspect it only to discover it was a local Afghan, not one of his men. Upon Neumann’s arrival he climbed into one of Pope’sStrykers and used its radio. He then learned for the first time that both Tom and Yanney were officially DUSTWUNs.86

Neumann went to work. He realized that the platoon sergeant in charge of Bravo Company’s Strykers had not moved his Strykers, something that invited an enemy attack. The sergeant had also done little to maintain security or communications with other Strykers and small units. Neumann ordered Master Sergeant Mark Hamil, the battalion’s operations sergeant major, to take charge. Hamil organized the company’s ten Strykers into a cohesive defensive position and reestablished communications. Neumann then conferred with Pope and ordered him to consolidate and reorganize his company to allow both Bravo and all the Buffaloes to better set the conditions for the search come sunrise. With Major O’Connor, Neumann coordinated with the rest of the battalion, as well as the brigade and other units assisting in the DUSTWUN.87

Activity dominated the night. Helicopters roamed the skies, searching for the two missing Soldiers. Enemy radio chatter revealed an imminent attack, so the Soldiers divided up the ammunition and prepared a counterattack. “If they’re coming,” thought Specialist Guillermo Garcia,“it’s going to be a good fight.”88 But the attack never came. When aerial assets spotted a man with a weapon conferring with a group of men near a van, Pope obtained permission to drop a bomb on their position, with unexpected results, “There were huge secondary explosions off in the distance,” he said.89 The men were obviously working with IEDs. Before sunrise, the troops heard movement outside their position and anoccasional clanging of a bell. They fired at the sounds, which turned out tobe a donkey. The braying animal fell over into a canal.90

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Continuing the Search

The next morning Captain Pope continued the search for his two missing Soldiers. Around 1000 the men found Sergeant Tom’s body in the canal, close to where they had searched the day before. They put a stretcher underneath him, lifted him out of the water and brought him to a nearby compound to account for his gear and remove any sensitive items. The men called for a helicopter but none was available. Because Tom was a DUSTWUN, with so many resources committed, Lieutenant Colonel Neumann needed to personally verify the body. The exhausted men carried Tom through grape rows, a swamp, and a canal. On the way out, Staff Sergeant Prince spotted two insurgents holding weapons in the distanceand called in two Kiowa Warrior helicopters, which swooped in and fired,not only killing the men but also setting off a weapons cache. “Therewere five minutes’ [worth] of secondary explosions,” said Prince.91 OnceNeumann positively identified Tom’s body, a helicopter arrived. Neumannthen patted Pope on the back, told him he did a good job and ordered his platoon back to Alpha Company at FOB Frontenac. Neumann would substitute another Alpha Company platoon, First Lieutenant Osborne’s 2d Platoon, for 3d Platoon during the election.92

With Tom found, Pope could now concentrate his search for Private First Class Yanney. He knew the enemy had likely prepared for this movement. “Past success equals future performance for the enemy,” Pope later explained.93 The search became a battalion operation with Bravo Company designated as the main effort. Neumann gave Pope an engineer platoon to breach the IED belt located on the edges of the orchards that made up the borders of the green zone. Also joining Pope were his 1st Platoon under First Lieutenant Ryan Fadden and his Mobile Gun System Platoon under First Lieutenant Fiorenzo Iaconangelo. While enough hadbeen found to confirm Yanney as KIA, the officers wanted the rest of hisbody. “We owed it to both him and his family to get back to the blast site and see if there was anything else to recover,” Neumann later explained.94

The MGS platoon provided overwatch as the attack began. They loaded with an anti-personnel canister round to penetrate the dense orchards. The engineers led the way into the Green Zone, breaching the IED belt. They were followed by the MGS, 2d and 1st platoons, all mounted intheir Strykers. The engineers combed the grape fields and pomegranateorchards for an hour until their platoon leader reported to Pope that the area was clear. Then the engineer lieutenant reported two armed males in the area and Pope ordered, “Engage, engage!”95

As the engineers took the enemy under fire, multiple vehicles pushedinto the orchards. An MGS Stryker rolled forward and was engaged by a command-detonated IED. The explosion rocked the vehicle, injuring its driver, immobilizing the vehicle and knocking out its electrical power. Inside the MGS, Sergeant First Class Edward Weig ordered his gunner toreturn fire with manual controls, then extracted the driver from his seat andpulled him atop the vehicle. An engineer Stryker vehicle pulled up next to the MGS and the engineers pulled the crew onto their vehicle. When theenemy opened fire at the two crews, Weig climbed back inside, traversed the MGS’s turret, and fired a cannister round at the enemy. The powerfulblast peeled back the trees. “There was nothing of the enemy left,” saidStaff Sergeant Prince, the fire support NCO.96

With enemy fire suppressed, Pope ordered the remnants of FirstLieutenant Berschinski’s 2d Platoon forward, since they knew where Yanney had been. As the unit advanced, concealed insurgents engaged the men with machine guns and AK-47s. The enemy ran behind buildings, tree lines and walls. “They were everywhere,” explained Prince.97 Whilethe Americans returned suppressive fire, Prince jumped into Sergeant FirstClass Tony Dimico’s Stryker and said he needed to get as close to theengagement as possible to call in fire support. Dimico drove forward, at times coming under enemy fire. Prince climbed on top of the Stryker andcalled in gun runs by Kiowa Warrior helicopters, which shot up a tree line and targeted two- and three-man enemy teams who were trying to converge on Pope’s company. When the helicopters’ gun runs failed to take out an enemy bunker, Prince backed the men 25 meters away andused a Predator drone to fire a Hellfire missile, which destroyed it.98

Prince spent most of the battle standing atop Dimico’s Stryker, callingin helicopters and only ducking down when enemy fire got too close. He would then immediately return fire and stand back up to resume his duties.“Rounds were bouncing off the Stryker right bedside us and hitting the dirt right beside us, [and] passing over our heads,” he later explained.99 His work with the aerial assets impressed First Lieutenant Fadden: “He did a pretty incredible job of calling in air support,” said Fadden. “He probablyhad about five or six different layers of air assets stacked on top of eachother.”100 First Lieutenant Boirum succinctly summed up the engagement, “The enemy took a lot of casualties.”101

During the engagement, Lieutenant Colonel Neumann and his TAC monitored the situation from right behind the engineers’ breach point, while simultaneously overseeing the other companies, scouts, mortars andair assets. When the enemy fired at the TAC Strykers, they returned fire and

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conducted survivability drills, so as to prevent a full-on engagement while coordinating the various assets. Neumann’s staff relayed target information to Bravo Company’s security elements on the friendly side of the breach, allowing them to engage the enemy while Neumann concentrated on thelarger fight.102

When the engagement ended, Bravo Company established a foothold where Yanney had been. The engineers swept with mine detectors whileothers resumed the search. One enemy fighter continuously fired roundsfrom across the canal. The search was slow and deliberate but the sun was setting and the election was the next day. Pope reported to Lieutenant Colonel Neumann that they had found body parts of and bits of Yanney’s equipment.1* Neumann in turn reported to Colonel Tunnell, who called off the DUSTWUN. Neumann continued the search, not wanting to stop until he could really verify for himself that Yanney was dead.

Finally, Neumann realized his men were not going to find anythingmore of Yanney, and not wanting to risk any more casualties in a night defense, he recommended to Colonel Tunnell that the search be called off. The brigade commander concurred. “That was a tough call,” Neumann later admitted, “because we live by the ethos that [we] never leave a fallen comrade.”103 For two years the unit had ended every battalion formation by reciting the Soldiers’ Creed, which included the line: “I will never leave a fallen comrade,” but in the violent underbrush of the Green Zone, Neumann knew his men could not recover every bit of their fallen brother.104 Major Jennings defended Neumann’s decision. “We would have lost more people if Colonel Neumann hadn’t made the recommendation to pull out.”105 In the darkness, Pope’s men departed the orchard, remounted their Strykers, and raced back to COP Jelawur. They had only a few hours until the polls opened.106

* A month later at a border crossing into Pakistan, Afghan National Policestopped a man with confiscated photocopied documents that had been inYanney’s wallet.

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