Specialist’s sacrifice spurs soldiers to reach out to Afghan villagers

Specialist’s sacrifice spurs soldiers to reach out to Afghan villagers
By LAURA RAUCH
Stars and Stripes
Published: May 30, 2011

COMBAT OUTPOST NALGHAM, Afghanistan - Spc. Preston Dennis didn’t have to come back just yet. It had been less than a year since he had left Afghanistan, and the Army owed him more time with his wife before he had to return.

But his new unit, the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, was deploying to the Kandahar province. At just 23, he was a veteran and a team leader, and he couldn’t let his men go without him. He and his wife, Heather, signed the official paperwork allowing him to return three months early.

“It’s kind of hard. You want to be there for your family, but once you become a leader, you’re supposed to be there for your military family, too,” said Staff Sgt. Chuck Stevens, Dennis’ squad leader. “That’s what he chose to do.”

A month had passed since Company C arrived in the Nalgham region, just southwest of Kandahar city and about two miles from Sangsar, home of Taliban founder and spiritual leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Patrols were going out daily, and most were taking small arms fire. Several improvised explosive devices had been uncovered, and a few had blown. More than 10 soldiers had been wounded.

Just before dusk on April 28, soldiers from the third platoon set out on a night patrol near the village of Sarkilla. As they made their way from a poppy field onto a road, an insurgent spotter was perched nearby, quietly waiting to kill them.

Dennis was at the end of the column and one of the last to leave the poppy field. When it was his turn to step into the road, the silent attacker tripped a device, which sent a current of electricity down a wire to a buried IED. The earth beneath Dennis ripped open in a violent explosion of debris and smoke.
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Specialist’s sacrifice spurs soldiers to reach out to Afghan villagers