1st Sgt. David Dzwick: The terrain in that area, the river is at the very bottom of the valley where Bella was set up and then Ranch House was situated to the east of a fork in the river and up to about 8,000 feet.
Patrolling those mountains, you couldn't go off the beaten path. The paths were used by goat herders...so moving along those paths you always had to take into consideration the next step. Certain areas had some concealment, certain areas had some cover and some areas were wide open.
1st Sgt. William L. Stockard: It was very austere terrain. You couldn't walk up half the mountains because of the cliffs and loose rocks or down, so you were limited to the valley or to the goat trails, which made you pretty vulnerable at certain points or predictable.
Staff Sgt. Jason A. Baldwin: If you've seen the terrain, I don't know how any of them survived that, I really don't. I mean, there was nowhere for them to go and they were completely surrounded. Hopefully this brings to light some of the hardships that some of these guys have gone out and dealt with while they were over there [because] it was really bad out there.
Related Documents:
Description of the terrain in Afghanistan Transcript (PDF) [PDF]
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