Serving the Soldiers, Civilians and Families of 2nd BCT, 4th Inf. Div.

AUP, GIRoA feed the needyStory and photos by Spc. April York2nd Brigade Combat Team, PAO

Afghan Uniformed Police from Sub District 4 of Kandahar City partnered with Soldiers from the 58th Military Police Company, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, to conduct a humanitarian assistance food drop near Police Sub Station 4 for needy families in the district. The HA drop was planned for the end of Ramazan in order to assist the people of the community celebrate Eid.

Vouchers were handed out to more than 100 needy families in the district and when they presented them at the drop they were given rice, flour, beans, cooking oil and small hand-held radios. The hand-held radios were an op-portunity to allow the citizens to hear messages from AUPs in their area.

Shair Alam, Sub District

4 manager, made sure the vouchers were handed out to local elders who then deter-mined which families were most in need.

“Giving food to the poor is a great thing,” said Mahazd Ghaiz, an AUP soldier who has worked for the district for four and a half

months. Ghaiz and his fellow AUPs pulled security at the drop off location.

“The event was pretty positive,” said Capt. Megan Spangler, commander of the 58th MP Co. who helped unload supplies at PSS 4. “We were able to have a lot of AUP participate and actively inter-act with the community.”

Missions like this one are a good thing, said Sgt. Brittany Deters, an automated logistics specialist with the 58th MP Co. Deters helped search Af-ghan women for weapons and improvised explosive devices during the drop.

“It gives me a warm fuzzy helping out the community,” she said.

“It’s pretty exciting; this is

Issue 68 Sept. 2, 2011

An Afghan Uniformed Police soldier observes the dis-tribution of goods to families in need at a humanitarian assistance food drop sponsored by AUP soldiers from Police Sub Station 4 and Soldiers from the 58th Military Police Company, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Aug. 29.

A young Afghan girl receives rice, beans, flour and cooking oil from a humanitarian assistance food drop sponsored by the Afghan Uniformed Police of Police Sub Station 4 and Soldiers from the 58th Military Police Company, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Aug. 29.

actually one of the things my Soldiers and I really look forward to,” said Spangler.

Young Afghan girls wait patiently with their families in hope of receiving food at a humanitarian assistance food drop sponsored by AUP soldiers from Police Sub Station 4 and Soldiers from the 58th Military Police Company, attached to 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Aug. 29.

ANA, AUP go through counter IED trainingStory and photos by Sgt. Ruth Pagan2nd Brigade Combat Team, PAO

Improvised explosive devices are not discriminating; whoever walks or rolls onto them ultimately pays the price. The combat engineers of 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, are teaching the Afghan National Army and the Afghan Uniformed Police to combat this threat by teaching them counter IED techniques. “We teach them how to find IEDs, avoid them, and what to do when they are on top of them to save themselves and their buddies,” said the lead instructor Sgt. 1st Class Chris-topher Ten Eyck, a combat engineer, 2nd Bn.,

8th Inf. Reg. The weeklong class has two phases. “Death by Power Point is the first day and we teach them what exactly an IED is,” said

Spc. Xanthin Luptak, combat engineer with 2nd Bn., 8th Inf. Reg., and one of the instruc-tors. Then life is brought into the teachings by getting them outside and into real-world scenarios where they can start putting to use what they’ve learned as well as learning from their mistakes, Luptak said. “We use live detonations to make it real-istic,” Ten Eyck said. “The training aids are coming straight from the Taliban. We find them and use them in class. They are real-world training aids.” The class is not without obstacles. “One of the challenges is the language bar-rier,” Ten Eyck said.

Continued on page 2

Spc. Xanthin Luptak, a combat engeneer with 2nd Bat-tatlion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, shows Afghan Uniformed Police the end of a rocket Aug. 22.

Warhorse PridePage 2 Issue 68 Sept. 2, 2011

The Warhorse Pride is produced in the interest of the Soldiers of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. The Warhorse Pide is an Army-funded news-letter authorized under provision of AR 360-1. Contents of the Warhorse Pride are not necessarily the view of, nor endorsed by the U.S. government, Department of Defense, Department of the Army or the 4th Infantry Division. All editorial content of The Warhorse Pride is prepared, edited, provided and approved by the 2nd Brigade Combat Team Public

Affairs Office. The Warhorse Pride welcomes articles, commentary and photos from readers. The Warhorse Pride reserves the right to edit submissions selected for the publication. All issues of The Warhorse Pride can be viewed online from your home computer at www.facebook.com/2bct4id Submissions should be e-mailed to the editor:seth.barham@afghan.swa.army.mil

Col. John S. Kolasheski...................2nd BCT CommanderCommand Sgt. Maj. Ralph Delosa..............2nd BCT CSMMaj. Kevin Toner................................................2nd BCT PAOSgt. Seth Barham..................................................PAO NCOICSgt. Ruth Pagan......................................Layout and DesignSpc. April York.........................................Layout and Design

Warhorse Pride

Counter IED...

FET obtains vital information from Afghan women

The Female Engagement Team with 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, is enhancing the ability to gain intelligence from an untapped resource: Afghan women.

“Our mission is to go where the men can’t,” said Sgt. Shanequa Cardona, a team leader with the FET of 2nd Bn., 8th Inf. Reg., “be-cause of their customs, it is seen as inappro-priate for women to talk with men who live outside their home.”

“Without the FET we would have no way to engage the female populace,” said Capt. John Intile, the commander of Company C, 2nd Bn., 8th Inf. Reg. “In some cases we get different perspectives and points of view on things.”

“The women have a lot of concerns about their children’s education and medical needs,” said Spc. Christina Alvarado, a FET member with 2nd Bn., 8th Inf. Reg.

Not only do the Afghan women have dif-ferent points of view on things but sometimes

they are more willing to talk.“The men are targets of intimidation tac-

tics; the women might talk because they don’t have those pressures,” Intile said.

The job isn’t as easy as just going in to talk to the women. An Afghan Uniformed Police officer will go in and secure the premises, then tell the women to all go into one room and if there are men in the home the AUP will question them.

“The men don’t want the females to talk to us,” Alvarado said, “sometimes they will hover

around and try to take over the conversation and that can be frustrating.”

“It’s challenging to try to get the women to feel comfortable with us and trust us enough to give us good information,” Cardona said.

It’s important to gain a good rapport with the women because they are more likely to confide real information instead of the bland answer that everything is fine within the com-munity, said Hayda Azizi, an interpreter who works with the FET.

“I try and show them that I’m a wife and mother, just like them,” Cardona said. “I carry a family photo that I pass around for them to see.”

“Our interpreter plays a huge role; we would be useless without her,” Alvarado said. “She really knows how to get in and talk to the women and make them feel more com-fortable.”

Even with some difficulties, the FETs have proven their effectiveness.

“We have seen great success when we use FETs; they are like any other enabler, you just have to realize how to utilize them properly,” Intile said.

“Not only language but two different coun-tries, two different militaries, two different lifestyles but we overcome that by showing them, ‘hey we do this too,’” Luptak said. He added, “When we get out there with them and are doing hands-on training it eliminates the language barrier.” “They are doing really good—they are like sponges soaking up the information like its water,” said Spc. Xavier Perez, an instructor and combat engineer with 2nd Bn., 8th Inf. Reg. “This is very challenging but at the same time it’s great,” Perez said. “We are helping them to achieve the main goal, which is to neutralize the enemy and continue fighting.” Currently, the combat engineers are going through their third class of students. “By the end of the course the guys are find-

Continued from page 2

Story and photos by Sgt. Ruth Pagan2nd Brigade Combat Team, PAO

Spc. Christina Alvarado, a Female Engagement Team member with Headquarters and Headquarters Compa-ny, 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, passes out pencils to local children in Diwatiano Aug. 5.

Spc. Xanthin Luptak, a combat engineer with 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Com-bat Team, 4th Infantry Division, teaches an Afghan Uniformed Police officer to deactivate an improvised explosive device Aug. 22. Luptak is teaching both AUP and Afghan National Army soldiers counter IED techniques. The weeklong course is training Afghans to better identify IEDs while out on patrol.

ing everything and finding the indicators,” Ten Eyck said. “Since we started these classes there haven’t been any deaths.”

Lt. Col. John Cook, commander of 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, passes the guidon to Capt. Aaron Cross, the new commander of Troop A, during a change of command ceremony at Combat Outpost 9-1, Aug. 27.

Apache 1-10 COC