Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Sgt. 1st Class Riley G. Stephens, 39, of Tolar, Texas, died Sept. 28, in Wardak, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained from enemy small arms fire. Stephens was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, N.C.

For more information, media may contact the U.S. Army Special Forces Command (Airborne) public affairs office at 910-689-6187.

Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Master Sgt. Gregory R. Trent, 38, of Norton, Mass., died Aug. 8 in Bethesda, Md., from wounds suffered July 31 in Baktabad, Afghanistan, when enemy forces attacked his unit with small-arms fire.  Trent was assigned to the 4th Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, N.C.

For more information please contact the U.S. Army Special Forces Command public affairs office at 910-689-6187.

Task Force Promotes Philippine Military Capability, Partnership

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines, July 18, 2012 – The senior U.S. commander in the Pacific capped off his visit to the Philippines yesterday getting a firsthand view of the fruits of a decade-long partnership between the two allies that has helped make solid progress in countering terrorism.

Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, toured the Joint Special Operations Task Force – Philippines at Camp Navarro and the site of one of its three task forces operating in the southern Philippines.

JSOTF-P, stood up 10 years ago at the Philippine government’s request as it struggled against radical extremism, includes just over 400 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, explained Army Sgt. Maj. Charles Beebe, a Special Forces soldier who serves as the task force’s senior enlisted advisor.

The U.S. forces here advise and assist the Armed Forces of the Philippines, boosting their capacity to conduct offensive counterterrorism operations primarily against two al-Qaida affiliated groups: Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiya, Beebe said.

“But at no time are our forces on the ground with them conducting operations,” he emphasized.

Beebe said his troops work in the background, helping the Philippine forces to improve their tactical skills, staff and planning procedures, intelligence operations and other capabilities so they can be more effective in the fight.

“Because the U.S. military, in particular its Special Forces, have a significant amount of experience dealing with these types of things, we were able to provide them that assistance and training that allows them to be able to very effectively deal with the counterterrorism threat in that region,” Locklear told American Forces Press Service.

To a lesser degree, the U.S. forces here also help fill capability gaps, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, transportation and to a diminishing degree, medevac assistance.

For example, Army Sgt. 1st Class Timothy Wright, the task force’s maintenance manager, is part of a team helping the AFP develop a preventive maintenance culture and identify efficiencies that will make a lasting impact on their maintenance processes.

“We are the overwatch, doing assessments and giving feedback,” Wright said. “It’s all very positive. They really want to learn through this.”

Army Col. Eric Miller, the task force commander, said the arrangement has gone a long way in improving the Philippines’ capability to deal with the terrorist threat. “They’ve always been pretty good in the counterinsurgency fight,” he said. “But they have truly advanced. They are now ready to move forward.”

Meanwhile, the Philippine military is building confidence in its own capabilities and winning their countrymen’s support, said Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Pete Foster, the task force’s senior enlisted advisor.

“People want a better life for their kids. And they know that the only way to have that is to get rid of the violent extremists and lawless elements,” Foster said. “So we’re seeing huge increases in that trust and confidence [in their forces]. That’s huge, and it’s growing and growing.”

The task force members work hand in hand with Philippine military units and government agencies to conduct civil-military operations that deepen that support through quality-of-life improvements ranging from medical and dental clinics to school, well and road construction projects.

Army Capt. Jason Tebedo, civil affairs team leader at the remote Task Force Mindanao site, told Locklear about several of these projects for young children and the elderly. As older Philippine citizens get receive cataract surgery, the third Operation Smile campaign will kick off on Aug. 1 to repair children’s cleft palates.

“We do different things in our military careers, but these are the kind of things that you remember,” Tebedo told the admiral.

More importantly, these projects have an impact on many people who may have felt disenfranchised from their government, he said. “They demonstrate that their government cares about them,” Tebedo said. “And that’s how you tie people back in.”

Locklear said he was particularly impressed by the scale and scope of the civil-military outreach.

“It is not just about addressing the counterterrorism threat in these areas,” he said. “It is about helping [the Philippines] address the issues and conditions that create an environment that allows terrorism to grow.

“And this has a lot to do with the quality of life and the quality of the prospects for the people who live in those areas,” the admiral continued. “So I am seeing good opportunities that have been realized between the Philippine military and the U.S. military to actually add value and add quality to the lives of those people who are in those remote areas. And that, in itself, adds to the overall security.”

The support U.S. forces are providing the Philippines is helping to create conditions for peace, stability and prosperity, Locklear said. “It is helping to give them a security environment where they don’t have to worry about terrorists dictating their future,” he said, “and gives them that lift that allows them to start realizing better potential in the area where they live.”

Reflecting on his visit, Locklear said he was impressed by the close relationship that has developed between the two militaries. “At every step I saw great coordination and communication between our forces and those of the Filipinos,” he said. “I saw opportunities s where they not only learn from us, but we learn from them.”

In doing so, he said, “we also built good friendships and relationships that will help us as we address future security challenges.”

Walking through the camp yesterday and meeting with the service members deployed here, Locklear said he was struck by their commitment to the mission in such a remote, austere location.

“I appreciate what you do and your country appreciates what you do,” he told a group of task force members. “You have tough work here, and I promise to make sure that you are supported.”

Recognizing that those serving here are among the U.S. military’s most elite -- Special Forces, Rangers, SEALs and the forces that support them -- Locklear said he wasn’t surprised to see them thrive in such difficult conditions.

“Where they saw an opportunity to improve the training or the overall relationship or to improve someone’s lives, they jumped in there and did it without being asked to do so,” he said. “As I have repeatedly said, we have the very best force we have ever had.”

Wright, deployed here from the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, said the chance to work directly with a host-nation military in a joint environment was “much more positive than I ever imagined.”

“They really want to learn,” he said of the Philippine troops. “I think this is going to be one of my best deployments.”

For Army Staff Sgt. Ethan Verozola, the chance to return to his native country as a U.S. civil affairs soldier was a dream come true. “It’s a huge honor for me to come back to my home country and to be able to take my knowledge and experience in the military and share it” with the Philippine military and national police, he said.

Miller said the sharing and collaboration taking place here will have a “long-term impact that is going to be huge,” particularly as the United States engages increasingly with the Asia-Pacific region.

“Those relationships are going to be key,” he said.

Signs of Military Professionalism, Cooperation On Rise in Africa

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

STUTTGART, Germany, June 26, 2012 – Dotting the African continent are promising examples of the capable, professional military forces U.S. Africa Command is working to promote.

As Tunisia spawned what became known as the Arab Spring in December 2010, its military opposed then-President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s order to use force against the pro-democracy protesters who ultimately brought down his regime.

The Ugandan army has become a professional force and plays a key role in advancing regional peace and security, conducting humanitarian operations at home while contributing thousands of troops to counterterrorism and peacekeeping efforts in neighboring Somalia.

Uganda is also among four African nations -- also including South Sudan, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- that have come together to fight the Lord’s Resistance Army, one of Africa’s most violent and persistent rebel groups which has brutalized civilians in the region for a quarter-century.

Meanwhile, Uganda, Burundi and Djibouti are contributing forces under the banner of the African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM, to help Somalia deal with the al-Shabab terrorist organization that threatens its transitional government.

And in Liberia -- a nation long wracked by civil war and instability -- the military once discredited as the puppet of former president and convicted war criminal Charles Taylor has become a respected organization under the direction of the democratically elected civilian leadership.

Officials at Africom, the United States’ newest combatant command focused on Africa, see these and other developments as a sign of positive trends they’re helping to shape on the continent.

Strengthening the defense capabilities of African countries and encouraging them to work together to confront common security threats and challenges has been a cornerstone of Africom’s work since its standup in 2008.

Africom has been instrumental in supporting other promising developments, Army Maj. Gen. Charles J. Hooper, Africom’s director of strategy, plans and programs, told American Forces Press Service. “We see increasing trends toward democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights,” he said. “And I think Africom has played a very positive role in supporting those trends.”

Hooper pointed to the role U.S. military advisors and mentors have played in rebuilding the Armed Forces of Liberia through a five-year, State-Department funded Africom program known as Operation Onward Liberty. For the past two years, Marine Forces Africa has led the joint Marine-Army-Air Force effort aimed at helping professionalize the Liberian military and ensuring it's able to defend the country’s borders and come to the aid of its neighbors if needed.

“This small training and education mission [is] focused on developing a cohesive Liberian armed force,” said Hooper. “I saw our Operation Onward Liberty mentors assisting them in everything from [establishing] a fair military justice system and teaching the military police to serve, to working in the clinics, all the way to assisting the young soldiers in the Liberian army who volunteered and started an elementary school on their base,” he said.

Particularly encouraging, he said, was the Liberian military’s new focus on internal development. Engineering units, for example, were using their equipment to build roads and rebuild infrastructure ravaged during years of civil war.

Hooper said he was impressed by the Liberian force that has emerged. “What I saw there was a Liberian military that had a renewed faith in itself, a renewed enthusiasm about being a force for good in its country and serving the people,” he said.

Michael Casciaro, Africom’s security cooperation programs division chief, reported similar promise in Uganda, where the command is providing training and equipment to build capability and capacity.

Casciaro said he received favorable feedback about the transformation taking place in the Ugandan military from the unlikeliest of sources: an opposition leader. “What he told us was, ‘I see the difference in Americans operating in my country… I see the impact of Americans working with the Ugandans because now they … go out and do humanitarian things for their own country, and are being used in a different way,’” Casciaro said.

In 2007, Uganda stepped up to support the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, followed by Burundi; both remain today as the primary troop-contributing nations. “A major objective of ours has been to prepare Africans to go into Somalia to create stability,” Casciaro said. “And [the African militaries] have been instrumental in clearing a prominent terrorist group out of Mogadishu,” a first step toward expanding the effort north to regain control of the country.

Army Brig. Gen. Arnold Gordon-Bray, Africom’s deputy operations director, called the mission in Somalia “one of the best examples of Africans helping themselves that we are involved in.”

The African Union established its African Union Mission to Somalia with a clear vision that a failed Somalia would impact the entire continent, Bray said.

“This collective grouping is epitomizing what Africom is able to do, working with the State Department, working with other international partners, working by, with and through African partners to bring stability,” he said. “It is a great mission. It is symbolic of all the great things we are trying to do.”

A full range of peacekeeping training and instruction falls under the Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance, a program funded and managed by the U.S. State Department. It is designed to improve African militaries’ capabilities by providing selected training and equipment required to execute multinational peace support operations. U.S. military trainers play a supporting role, providing mentorship and specialized instruction in areas such as bomb detection or deployment logistics.

Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, the Africom commander, told Congress earlier this year he’s also encouraged by “an increasingly collaborative approach” among African nations standing together against al-Shabab. As they rallied to Somalia’s aid, the U.S. State Department responded to their requests for help in training and equipping those forces so they would be able to deploy to conduct their operations.

Ham called this effort a model of what U.S. Africa Command is all about: a command able to tap into the full range of U.S. government capabilities to help African nations better provide for their own security.

“And it is starting now to have significant benefit… We are seeing those African forces being more and more successful against al-Shabab each and every day,” he said. “This is one example of how building partner capacity really yields a decisive result in Africa,” he said.

Ham cited similar success in helping Africans in their fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army.

U.S. Special Forces advisors working with the four nations on the ground “are having a very positive effect,” he told the House Armed Services Committee in February. “We’re assisting in intelligence fusion, in facilitating long-range communications, logistics operations to sustain forces in the field for long periods of time and increased intelligence collection.”

“So I’m optimistic,” he told the House panel. “But I’m not yet to the point where we see the end in sight.”

The result, Ham said, is fulfillment of Africom’s goal of enabling Africans to solve African problems.

“If that is successful -- and I believe the trend line is pretty good right now -- that means that’s an area where the United States would not have to commit sizable forces to address a security situation,” Ham told the House panel. “And that’s really what we’re trying to do. That’s the essence of building partner capability in this collaborative approach with state and defense.”

Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Staff Sgt. Andrew T. Brittonmihalo, 25, of Simi Valley, Calif., died April 25, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained from small arms fire.  He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.

For more information related to this release, the media may contact Special Forces public affairs at 910-689-6187.