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By Al Zdon
First Lt. Patrick Sullivan is the All-American kid working at one of America's major projects.
The only problem is that hardly anybody in America is paying attention.
With most of this
nation's media and energy focused on Iraq, the military presence in Afghanistan has received little coverage. Yet, there are 18,000 American soldiers assigned there, doing their best to bring a permanent
peace and democracy to a nation that has seen little of either for decades.
Sullivan's latest project was to build a road, where no road existed, between two of Afghanistan's major cities. It was the
longest road every built by the American military on foreign soil. It will enhance commerce in that nation. It will allow farmers to get their crops to market.
The road was completed under trying
circumstances in record time in an area that had been controlled by the extremist Taliban.
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Patrick Sullivan grew up in Hibbing, the son of Charlie and Shelly Sullivan,
and he graduated from Hibbing High School in 1998. His grades and citizenship and potential earned him an appointment to West Point Military Academy.
He did well in the intensive Army training. Not
only did he graduate 43rd in his class of 850, he also managed to complete Airborne training at Fort Benning before his graduation in 2003. After leaving West Point, he applied for and was accepted to
Ranger School, also at Ft. Benning, where he graduated (only about half who enter the school do graduate) in 2004.
His first leadership assignment was to Ft. Lewis, Washington, where he became a
platoon leader for an earth moving unit in the 555th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, 864th Engineering Battalion. Sullivan admits that despite his college engineering background, bulldozers were not his
specialty at that point.
"The NCOs are there, and they can teach you a lot. You just have to learn from them. The platoon sergeant had 18 years experience."
The unit's prior deployment had been to
Iraq where it had rebuilt airfields. In March, 2005, the unit began its deployment to Afghanistan.
Sullivan was sent in the advance party to prepare for the arrival of the construction unit, the only
platoon leader sent ahead. His training as a Ranger helped prepare him for the tactical side of building things in a potentially hostile environment.
The unit brought with it initially 75 pieces of
heavy equipment, shipped in huge containers and landed at the Kandahar Airfield in south, central Afghanistan. Along the way the flights had stopped in several way stations, and then got stuck for five
days in Krygystan when civil war erupted in that country.
Sullivan and the others first got a chance to learn from the 538th Engineering Battalion which was heading home. Eventually, the men and the
equipment all came in, and the battalion set up shop in Kandahar.
The first project was to do an airfield expansion at Kandahar, creating what was called a mobility ramp or a place to park the large
transport aircraft. Previously, without parking space, a plane would have to leave before another one could land.
That project was only a warm-up, though, to the main task assigned to the unit. About
80 miles north of Kandahar is another large city called Tarin Kowt. Despite their proximity, the two major centers were only connected by a dirt trail that only hardy vehicles could traverse at a slow
pace.
The roadway would open commerce between the cities, and allow those in the middle a link with the cities and a way to get their crops to market.
It was a challenge to build the road through
the rugged Afghan countryside, a challenge made tougher by the fact that the hilly area had been a stronghold of the Taliban, the radical Islamic group that had ruled Afghanistan after the Russians left.
The Army planners set a deadline of February of 2006 to build the road, but the task force commander, Sullivan's boss, proposed that it be done by Sept. 15, 2005 – in time for the provincial
elections. "No one thought it could be done in that time."
Sullivan's platoon of heavy earth-moving equipment operators first worked in the south, and then moved to the north, heading back towards
Kandahar. The convoy of 60 vehicles took 15 hours to traverse 55 miles.
Hauling the huge equipment on the trail was hard. "There were times when we were just dragging the trailers on their axles. It
was all we had left."
Progress on the project at first was slow, only about 200 to 300 feet a day. But the unit learned, and soon they were accomplishing 1,500 feet a day.
The task force commander
came up with the idea of putting an operating base in the middle of the project, cutting the commute time for the engineers from over an hour to about 10 minutes. The unit worked in two shifts, about 15
hours a day, seven days a week, with people rotated out for rest and recuperation on a schedule.
"The terrain was so difficult at times that our stuff was breaking, we were pushing it so hard,"
Sullivan said. "We had to schedule a maintenance day or two every week."
The planners created a route right against the mountains or right along the river. The roadway was two lanes with a shoulder,
about 35-40 feet wide.
Problems came up when the road had to go through a village or across a farmer's field. It was one of Sullivan's jobs to barter with the local people to keep the road moving
forward.
"I would meet with the elder or elders. We'd have tea and some local food. It was an amazing experience." Sullivan used an interpreter, but also learned a few words of the local language,
including how to ask somebody's name.
"The kids loved that, when you'd ask them their name. I got along with the children really well." Sullivan said it was critical for the new generation growing up
in Afghanistan to not fear and hate Americans. "We need to change their culture, and that started for us with building that road."
Sullivan said that the Russians had spent a decade in Afghanistan and
had never won over the people. "Afghanistan was Russia's Vietnam. For them it was a political thing. It wasn't for the betterment of the people. The people were never behind them. When you're fighting
the entire population, you can't win that battle."
Once the Russians left, an era of warlords took over in Afghanistan, reducing the country almost back to a state of feudalism. The Taliban moved into
that situation. "They didn't want anything to be improved."
When the Americans came on the scene, they were regarded with caution by the Afghan people. "We were just another in a line of people who
wanted something from them. But we've never taken anything from them."
Working with the translator got interesting sometimes, Sullivan said, and when it became obvious that the translator was
freelancing too much, "I'd have to reel him in." Usually the locals were very agreeable to the road, or suggested detours around a town. "The people were all pro-road. The only contention was about where
it went."
The Army was careful to find right-of-ways that were satisfactory to everyone. "When we'd talk, we'd joke around. You can share humor between different cultures. We'd go back and forth, and
by the end of the day we'd have a mile of road laid out. Sometimes they wanted to bargain just because they know that Americans are so wealthy. They want to know what they can get out of the deal."
At
one point, though, a farmer brought 50 supporters along to argue about placing the road through his field. Sullivan had his platoon, beefed up with extra equipment, quickly make the rough cut through the
field. The opposition, somewhat hostile at one point, dissolved when the road became a done deal.
Safety from terrorist attacks was always a concern. "They had certain ambush spots, and they had used
some of them for years." The Taliban or other radical group would place an "improvised explosive device" or IED under the road bed. Often these were old Russian mines or shells. A terrorist would then
wait in hiding and then set off the device as a vehicle passed over it.
Part of the American plan was to respond to such attacks quickly. "If we got attacked, we wanted to be aggressive, we wanted to
get these guys, or we'd be facing the same thing tomorrow."
A major help to the construction workers was a mine detecting unit that would check the area before work every day for IEDs. The sapper unit
consisted of four vehicles.
One would be a smaller vehicle, called a "meerkat," with mine-detecting equipment, and the second, called a "buffalo," would be a heavily armored vehicle with a robotic
arm to dig up the mine. They would be accompanied by two other vehicles with fire power to provide aggressive support. "They were a huge asset for us. They cleared the route for us every day, and that
was important because it was very obvious where we were going."
Despite the mine clearing unit, the road builders still unearthed mines along the route, four in one day. Fortunately, none of them
exploded.
There were days as the construction moved on where three helicopters would circle the area to make sure no terrorists were in the surrounding hills ready to detonate a bomb.
Just
before the completion of the road, tragedy struck. Lt. Laura Walker, one of Sullivan's closest friends and a classmate at West Point, was killed by an IED.
The woman officer had been a platoon leader,
but had been assigned as the battalion's public affairs officer. She was traveling with the task force commander on the new road when the bomb exploded.
"Most of the road was paved, but not in the low
areas where the water crosses the road. Eventually that will be covered with concrete, but not yet. They were able to bury the IED in the road bed."
Setting off an IED by remote control needs perfect
timing. Too soon, and the bomb will only strike the heavily armored front end of the Humvee. Too late, and the vehicle will be past the danger. The unit had been hit four times by IEDs, but every time
the bomb had been timed wrong and the passengers had survived.
In this case, the bomb exploded right under the driver, killing him instantly and ejecting him from the vehicle. Lt. Walker was sitting
directly behind the driver, and her legs were severely injured. The task force commander and the gunner were only slightly injured. Tourniquets were applied to Walker's legs, but she died of loss of
blood before she made it to a hospital.
"It was definitely the worst experience I ever had," Sullivan said. "It makes me respect those World War II guys even more. That kind of stuff happened to them
everyday, but they carried on.
"If you let your guard down just a little bit over there, that can happen. Most of the people in Afghanistan like us, but some still don't."
Work continued at a
furious pace on the road, and it was completed on Sept. 1, two weeks before the self-imposed deadline set by the engineers and six months ahead of the deadline set by the Army.
Sullivan said the rapid
progress on the road was monitored closely by the Pentagon, and the construction scene drew high ranking officers frequently.
With the road completed, it was a matter of getting the equipment back to
Kandahar for the next mission. The forward operating base also had to be torn down. By the end of September, 2005, everything was out.
It was time to refit the equipment which had been used to the
extreme. "We were down to bubble gum and duct tape at times. It was tough to get parts. You fixed it when you could, or just ran it till it died."
As the unit got ready to move to a new location, near
the Pakistani border, Sullivan had been promoted to executive officer. Again, he was sent in the advance party to plan the unit's move, which came later in a 16-hour convoy that began after dark.
At
its new location, the construction battalion immediately began constructing a base of operations including barracks, laundry, barber shop, chapel, first aid station, internet building for the soldiers,
mess hall and 64 buildings similar to World War II's Quonset huts.
Again, Sullivan had little experience in what the Army calls "vertical construction." "It's the NCOs that know how to do it. It's
the officer's job to make sure that everything is ready for the next day, the building materials, the plans."
Sullivan was home for Christmas, but is now back in Afghanistan. The unit will complete
its deployment in March. The battalion, during these times, deploys every other year. "They really know what they're getting into. They know what to bring. They know the equipment."
For Sullivan, when
he returns from Afghanistan in March, he will likely attend company commander's school and then wait for another assignment. Down the road, on his wish list, are obtaining a master's degree in
engineering management and continuing his career in the Army. His five year commitment following his education at West Point will end in 2008, but he's planning on staying in.
At some point, he would
like to teach at West Point, and he would also like to work with the Corps of Engineers on projects in the U.S., perhaps in Minnesota.
He is proud of his service overseas. "So many good things are
going on in Afghanistan with the provincial elections and now the presidential elections. It's too bad the media only focuses on the negative side."
The goal in Afghanistan for the military, in
addition to building the infrastructure for the nation, is to train up the Afghans to take care of themselves and assure their national independence. Even now, Sullivan said, it's so much better to have
Afghani soldiers at check points rather than Americans.
His fondest memory thus far of Afghanistan is the children. "They'd learn my name, and when they'd see me coming they'd yell out 'Sull-ee-vun!'
The kids were great. They could just sit and watch those big vehicles all day long. I think personal relations make all the difference over there."
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