1-15 Soldiers Strengthen Ties With Salman Pak

Cpl. Aaron Wait, a San Antonio native and a rifl eman with Company A, 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, escorts a young girl across the street during a dismounted foot patrol in Salman Pak June 20.

SPC. BEN HUTTO
3RD HBCT, 3RD INF. DIV. PUBLIC AFFAIRS
FORWARD OPERATING BASE
HAMMER, Iraq — Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment stationed at a combat outpost in Salman Pak are getting to know the town’s citizens up close and personal. Soldiers from 1-15th Infantry are spending more times these days interacting with the Salman Pak citizens during dismounted patrols.

Maj. Steve Delgado, the executive officer for 1-15 Infantry, explained that Soldiers live amongst the people they are trying to assist, and are able to respond to threats quicker than if they were living on Forward Operating Base Hammer --miles away. Living in Salman Pak also helps the 1-15 Infantry Soldiers understand their environment better.

“This helps us in two ways,” said Delgado. “One, we become closer to the populace by sharing some of the same experiences and trials as they do, and it helps us think like the threat force. We now know where they live, hide, run to and attack.”

All of this information has been very helpful to 1-15 during Operation Marne Torch, a Multi-National Division-Center operation which aims to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries southeast of Baghdad.

“We have been extremely successful in accomplishing our purpose for this operation, disrupting the extremists’ activities and denying them safe havens,” said Delgado. “We have accomplished this by conducting numerous operations which have uncovered a plethora of caches and we have detained numerous individuals.”

All of the operations, according to Delgado, will help secure the area making it safer for troops operating in the area and the people who live there. “Generally, the response from the populace has been positive,” said Delgado. “The good people of Iraq know we are conducting operations to secure them and disrupt insurgent activities. They want to help us and try to provide assistance by giving us information.

This operation is another opportunity to demonstrate to the populace how we are here to help.