JERICHO, Vt.—The commander of a 3,000-strong infantry brigade headed to Afghanistan says the unit is well-prepared for the mission, but he acknowledges his troops could face hazardous duty.
Col. Will Roy, who will lead about 1,500 Vermont National Guard soldiers within the 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, says his unit has the latest in weapons systems, body armor and intelligence-gathering equipment, but that Afghanistan remains a dangerous place.
“Every night I go to bed, I pray to God that … we are going to be able to bring all of our soldiers home to their families,” he said Tuesday, in an interview in his office at the Ethan Allen Firing Range in Jericho.
The danger has been underscored this week, with the deaths of eight Americans in roadside bombings and an attack Wednesday in which Taliban militants stormed a U.S. guest house in Kabul, killing 11 people.
The brigade, which is comprised of guard units from Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire and Vermont, began its pre-mobilization deployments last weekend and will arrive in Afghanistan in stages, beginning in January. For the Vermont National Guard—nicknamed “the Green Mountain Boys”—it’s the biggest deployment since World War II.
The mission—training and mentoring Afghan national security forces, police and border patrols as the mountain nation continues its civil war with the Taliban. If an Afghan battalion is conducting counterinsurgency efforts, the brigade’s troops will be alongside them, according to Roy.
Roy, 49, a native of Concord, N.H., who has been deployed to Afghanistan three times before, said the fact that his troops will be working alongside Afghanis bodes well for their security. Still, there are no guarantees.
“A lot of it depends upon where our soldiers are at, which we really can’t speak to specifically,” he said. “But I will say, when talking about the hazards, what I believe is our greatest safety mechanism is that we are working as part of the Afghan national security force. These are people who are obviously born and raised in the country who recognize who belongs, who doesn’t belong, what looks right, what doesn’t look right.
“In my previous deployments there, we helped them build up their capabilities in training, their capabilities to command and control, but they also helped us to recognize what was right and what wasn’t, what fit and what didn’t fit,” he said.
President Barack Obama is considering whether to commit large numbers of additional troops to the war next year in hopes of extending the U.S. military’s reach into areas now controlled by Taliban forces. Whatever he decides won’t likely affect the 86th’s mission, according to Roy.
“The mission we are about to undertake is the same mission we’ve known since January 2008, and that is for our soldiers to work alongside the Afghan security forces and help them to develop into a stronger, more effective organization,” he said.
On Friday, a farewell ceremony for a 35-member group of soldiers is set at the Vermont Army Aviation Support Facility, near Burlington International Airport. The soldiers will fly to Fort Polk, La., before continuing on to Camp Atterbury, Ind., for training and then onto Afghanistan.
“It’s never easy being away, and certainly some of our soldiers will be in harm’s way and we will do our very, very best to ensure that we bring them all home,” Roy said. “But the enemy does get a vote.”
