Dad of Medal of Honor winner OK with Afghanistan move

The father of Medal of Honor awardee Lt. Michael P. Murphy said he has confidence in a decision announced Wednesday to withdraw U.S. forces from the valley in Afghanistan where his son was killed five years ago.

"Michael's service in that particular area was part of a larger strategic plan of targeting individuals for capture or removal, and not for taking land and holding it," said Murphy's father, Daniel Murphy, of Wading River. "I don't think Michael's mission was in any sense to pacify the Korengal Valley."

Murphy was leading a four-member team of Navy commandos on a clandestine mission to interdict a high-level Taliban leader when his team was ambushed in June 2005. Murphy and two of his subordinates were chased down a mountainside and killed.

Wednesday, Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, commander of joint forces in Afghanistan, issued a release saying U.S. troops have been reassigned from the hotly contested Korengal Valley.

The valley, in the Hindu Kush mountains, has served as a conduit for insurgents moving back and forth between Afghanistan and western Pakistan. U.S. troops established a Korengal outpost several months after Murphy's death.

But a Bronx soldier, who spent a year trying to secure the valley, said he left part of his childhood there and is frustrated by the decision.

Spc. Rob Soto, 20, of the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, said that although he was proud to have served in the valley from July 2008 to July 2009, he never felt U.S. troops were winning over the population.

Soto said eight members of his company were killed during his time there, including four from his platoon. One of them, Pfc. Richard A. DeWater, 21, of Topeka, Kan., had been walking a few feet from Soto when he was killed by an IED last April 15. "I'm a bit frustrated, but I do understand the overall decision," said Soto, who is stationed in Haiti.

The withdrawal follows a strategy shift announced last year by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, who said troops had been spread too thin, adding America could not win unless it could demonstrate an ability to keep civilians safe.

Murphy, a Purple Heart recipient in Vietnam, said the shift seems reasonable.

"Personally, I have a lot of confidence in General McChrystal and General [David] Petraeus, whom I've both met, and the strategy they have adopted in Afghanistan," Murphy said. "My reaction to this decision is a non-reaction."