Blowing up Afghanistan, one wall at a time

While clearing a path through neighborhoods in Talukan, a village in the Horn of Panjwaii, an Afghan soldier approached a gate and was stopped by a U.S. soldier.

"Those gates can be rigged with mines," Staff Sgt. Dustin Ingle explained to the Afghan through an interpreter.

Ingle continued, "This man is my door," and pointed at Staff Sgt. Jerry Pringle.

Pringle is a combat engineer, a job that often puts him in the forefront of the battle against improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Engineers, or sappers as they are called, are demolitions experts by trade, and the situation in Talukan called for a true artist with high explosives.

The area of Kandahar Province that borders the Arghandab River has been plagued by huge numbers of anti-personnel IEDs and mines that have maimed and killed scores of soldiers and civilians alike.

When Ingle's squad set out to search compounds in Talukan for weapons, they knew all the roads were mined. Instead of taking roads and using doorways, Pringle methodically blew passageways through the high walls that connect all of Talukan's buildings. Each explosion brought hundreds of angry wasps streaming out of the mud walls, but nobody got stun.

After every thunderous blast, Pringle and his assistant, Pfc. Robert Brand, got dustier and dustier until they were perfectly camouflaged with the walls they were disintegrating.

Homeowners were compensated with cash for the damage to their property, which was part of the plan for clearing Talukan.

Five blocks of C-4: $300. Ten feet of destroyed wall: $200. Walking through Talukan without stepping on an IED: Priceless.

Soldiers take cover from one of Pringle's blasts. (Photo by Ben Brody for GlobalPost)

Staff Sgt. Jerry Pringle prepares to blast a hole through a thick mud wall to allow soldiers to move between compounds more safely. (Photo by Ben Brody for GlobalPost)

Pringle's job is a dirty one. (Photo by Ben Brody for GlobalPost)

Pringle waves troops through a breach he created. (Photo by Ben Brody for GlobalPost)

Pfc. Robert Brand carries bricks of C-4 that can disentegrate the thickest of mud walls. (Photo by Ben Brody for GlobalPost)

Pringle throws a ladder charge over a wall he is trying to knock down.  Eight bricks of C-4 turned the wall into a cloud of dust. (Photo by Ben Brody for GlobalPost)

Afghan troops file through a "door" made by Pringle and Brand. (Photo by Ben Brody for GlobalPost)