Sestava 1

: report21Encounterwith cruelty,dust and hope/ Report and photo Jozef ŽIAKThere was a deafening explosion. Staff Sergeant Martin Bodnárik, ForceProtection Team Commander, identified the place of explosion as thenearby settlement of Bazar. It turned out later that a suicide bomber hadblown himself up, causing numerous deaths and scores of injuries...ratures below zero when the surrounding hills were covered withsnow. They were exposed to heavy showers, hailing, strong winds,and were even caught in a desert storm. Differences between dayand night temperatures often reached more than 20° C. Now inspring, the shade temperatures during the day have exceeded 30° C,which puts added strain on a body system. Nevertheless, our troopscontinued to perform all the tasksCamp Hadrian is in Oruzgan province. Occupyinga total area of 12,640 square kilometres, theprovince is mountainous and rather sparselypopulated (with only some 320,000 inhabitants).The camp is approximately 400 km south-west of theAfghan capital – Kabul. Situated at an altitude of over1,100 metres above sea level and surrounded bymountains, troops from the Netherlands, France andSlovakia live and work side by side in the camp.Camp Hadrian is located in the valley of theHelmand River. It supplies local people with enoughwater, which is in stark contrast to many otherregions in Afghanistan. For this reason, the valley isoften referred to as the “Green Valley“. Thanks to thehelp of the multinational Provincial ReconstructionTeams (PRTs), many petrol stations and schools haveassigned. Let me mention two of thehottest bits that made me particularlyproud of their performance. First, it wasduring suicide bomb attacks in a nearbyBazar settlement when hoards of thewounded were carried to the gate.By then, the soldiers had never seenbodies mangled and torn to shreds,bleeding children that would moan andscream in pain. In spite of this, oursoldiers proved to be true professionals.When it was over and all the emergencyadmissions were taken care of, theCommander of Camp Hadrian personallythanked me for an excellent andprofessional conduct of the Slovaksoldiers. Second, it was short beforethe end of our operational tour. TheDutch Commander, Major Hans vanHaas said that over the whole period ofour deployment he had felt he could go to bed in the evening withoutbeing concerned about the security of the Dutch and French troops inthe Camp, knowing that the Slovak soldiers would at all times reliablyperform their tasks of force protection. For me and my men that wasthe best acknowledgement we could ever receive“ – with emotion inhis voice concludes the Commander of the Slovak Force ProtectionUnit in Deh Rawood, Lieutenant Slavomír Káčer.been recently built, roads repaired, and infrastructuredevelopment projects launched, boosting growth andliving standards for local populations.A good reason to be proudOver the past years, Lt. Káčer, together with other commanders,took his share in making up a core of the 2nd Mechanized Company.Camp Hadrian Force Protection Unit was mostly made up of themembers of this Company. According to him, it was only beneficialthat they had known each other from the times of joint training andCamp Hadrianexercises in the training areas andfacilities. However, they wouldreally get to know each other onlyduring the six months when theylived together in a rather smallarea of a multinational base morethan four thousand kilometersaway from home, performing theirtasks together.At the end of our Force ProtectionUnit’s operation in Camp Hadrian,the Commander of the BaseMajor Hans van Haas awarded itsmembers with the Non Article 5NATO Medals. In Camp Hadrian,the Unit under the command of Lt.Slavomír Káčer leaves behind acommemorative plaque made by asniper Private First Class GabrielKováč. This was added to the plaquesthat had been left on thewalls of accommodation facilities and other premises by individualrotations of the Dutch and French soldiers, one Czech and now altogethertwo Slovak units. The operational task in Deh Rawood was takenover by the Force Protection Unit under the command of FirstLieutenant Matej Mikuláš. Predominantly it is made up of the troopsof the Michalovce Mechanized Battalion and the members of theother units of the Prešov Brigade.SLOVAK ARMED FORCES 201020n a short time, the wounded were carried into the Dutch Field Dressing“IStation based in our Camp. Soon, people waiting in front of the basewere counting in tens, later even in hundreds. Mostly they were relatives of thewounded, and they all demanded their relatives be expeditiously treated. Wehad to follow security procedures, though, and search each of the wounded fora gun. The wounded would scream in pain, their wounds being horrible, someof the bodies torn apart, and the relatives accompanying them would screamhysterically from behind the gate,“ Staff Sergeant Martin Bodnárik, Commanderof Force Protection Team, recalls the harrowing Afghan experience.Staff Sergeant Bodnárik, who, according to the Platoon Commander, LieutenantSlavomír Káčer, was the best commander of the team, adds: “We had beenwarned that Taliban supporters would often exploit a similar situation and strapexplosives to the bodies of the wounded, and after these were carriedinto the camp, the explosives were remotely detonated. We could notafford the risk this situation would present to the Dutch medicalpersonnel and to the other people on the base, so we just set our teethon edge and took to search even the mangled bodies of childrencovered in blood and moaning with pain.“The school of hard knocksAlthough he had served in the UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprusbefore, he points out that for him and his subordinated troops the pastmonths were quite an experience. “We were given a chance to contributeto enhance security environment. Meeting the local population, wewere faced with a completely different culture and mentality. People inEurope and the Afghan people have different value systems, and for usthe traditional values held in Afghanistan are often beyond allunderstanding. Women are on the lower end of the value scale…”Another member of the Slovak contingent, Corporal Tomáš Šamudovský,serving as a gun operator, recalls that in the evening of the very firstday after their arrival into the camp, a vehicle of the Dutch patrol rolledover an IED. The vehicle was demolished and the soldiers were wounded. Thiswas his first confrontation with the Afghan reality, which he had known onlyfrom TV news by then.A big thank you to Slovak soldiers!“Our soldiers are charged with the task of force protection, including the protectionof the Camp. They serve sentry duty in two watch towers, on the forwardsentry post as well as on the Java observation post situated off the Base, on theabove hill, being relieved only after 24 hrs. The long six months of performingsuch a challenging task were extremely demanding in terms of physical andmental strength. The troops operated in an environment characterized by climaticfluctuations. During the six months they experienced winter with the tempe-A new ECP opens at Kandahar AirfieldEntry Control Point 5 (ECP 5) was turned over to Slovak guardsmen during a ribbon-cutting ceremony onKandahar Airfield (KAF) on 19 September 2010.The official opening ceremony for the new ECP 5 was held on Sunday, 19 September, and was attended byColonel Henk Bank (the Netherlands), Chief of Staff for Commander Kandahar Airfield (COMKAF), representativesof KAF Command, and Slovak officers, including SLOVCON Commander Lt. Col. Marián Mjartan,Slovak Guard Unit Commander Capt. Tibor Grigerek, and commanding officers (COs) from the SlovakGuard Unit and the Slovak Engineer Company.Coordinated by the Afghanistan Engineer District South (AES), the participation of the Slovak EngineerCompany in the construction of ECP 5 was significant insofar as it decisively contributed to the completion ofthe entry control point, especially in the final phase of construction work. The ECP 5 project will support theoperating ability of KAF and enhance delivery of supplies and materials.ECP 5 is manned by Slovak guardsmen doing entry-control-point duty. After increasing its manning levelsin the September 2010 rotation, the Slovak Guard Unit’s new tasks now also include conducting mobile perimeterpatrols while using vehicles with improved ballistic protection, which greatly increases crew safety, especiallyin the case of ground attacks on the base.