Pennsylvania Guardians - Summer 2010

By Sgt. Tom Bourke
Piloting the 35,000-pound Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
vehicle up a creek bed embankment, Pfc. Matthew Randall’s
pulse raced as the five-truck convoy headed back toward Forward
Operating Base Gardez April 8. Minutes earlier, his unit had
received mortar fire while on a mission in Afghanistan’s
Zormat district.
Earlier in the day, while inspecting a school being built in
the district, a pillar of smoke and debris engulfed his MRAP as
an improvised explosive device detonated beneath the 10,000
pound mine roller attached to the front of his vehicle. The mine
roller, which resembles a cement roller, was torn apart as pieces
flew a hundred feet in the air.
“As soon as the blast hit, I felt like I was floating,” said Randall,
of Jamestown, Pa. “I kept the throttle down and pushed forward
until I saw sunlight streaking through the cloud of smoke.”
As a member of Provincial Reconstruction Team Paktya,
Randall and the rest of First Platoon, Charlie Company, 1/110th
Infantry, deployed from their headquarters in Connellsville, Pa.,
6 / GUARDIANS / Summer 2010
Provincial Provincial
Reconstruction
Reconstruction
Team Team Paktya’s Paktya’s mine mine
roller roller functioned functioned as
designed on a
recent mission in
Zormat province,
Afghanistan, by
absorbing the blast
of an improvised
explosive device. device.
Members Members of the the
team team went went to the the
district district in early early April April
to inspect inspect a school school
being being built there. there.
Photo: Photo: 1st 1st Lt. Michael Michael
Bromley Bromley
to Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush Mountains in early March.
The unit has been conducting mounted combat patrols in
Paktya Province nearly every day since.
The PRT mission is to secure the populace and connect
the government to its people through assisting the Afghans with
governance, development, security and agriculture. The PRT
has approximately 30 ongoing development projects at any one
time designed to help the Afghans rebuild their infrastructure.
Roads, schools, clinics, district centers and other structures
are all requested, prioritized and built by Afghans for Afghans,
under the guidance and funding of the PRT and its government
partners.
“The mission to see this particular school was vital,” said
U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Chuck Douglass, commander of the
PRT. “The area where this school is being built has little to no
infrastructure or governance by the Afghan government.
Getting this school established is a step toward connecting these
people to their elected government that is here to help them.”