Holley Stick (Information Below)
Articles:
Marines, "Marines take a stroll down 'IED lane'" https://www.marines.mil/Photos/igphoto/2000929333/
Dvidshub, "Marine Posthumously awarded bronze star for valor" https://www.dvidshub.net/news/67106/marine-posthumously-awarded-bronze-star-valor
FirstMarineLogisticsGroup, "1st MLG Marines Honor Fallen Brother" https://www.1stmlg.marines.mil/News/Article/Article/543387/1st-mlg-marines-honor-fallen-brother/
Video:
O.J.Video, "Marines in Garmsir, Afghanistan, 2010-2011 USMC Documentary" (47:27) https://youtu.be/2dGVMqKIzBo?si=0PwjuQRti0W2P6Aq – Shows Marines using a Holley Stick a minute and a half into the documentary.
The Hill by Aaron Kirk (Memoir)
Afghanistan-Hemend province, Garmsir District (2011)
Quotes:
"I am scraping furrows in the ground, searching for a bomb. The device in my hands is called a sickle. Some call it a Holley stick, after the Gunny (GyStg Floyd E.C. Holley) who invented it. It's a six-foot-long piece of bamboo with a dull iron hook on the end. An opium farmer sold us the hook. We found the bamboo by the river. We used duct tape and nails to attach the sickle part to the bamboo part. We used a rock to grind the edge off the sickle blade. Now the sickle pulls up wires but doesn't cut them. You don't want to cut the wires. I draw two-foot by two-foot X's. I make sure the X's intersect. I pull from far to near, left to right, then right to left. I make sure not to drop the sickle blade too heavily in the soft dirt. I move forward slowly. I step only where the X's cross. 'Clear,' I say to the guy behind me. I backtrack through the cleared path. He takes my place. He carries a metal detector, and as he starts off in an uncleared direction, he swings the metal detector's head back and forth, back and forth, rhythmically, stepping with each swing. His eyes scan not just the ground in front of him but also the path ahead, which is not a path at all but open field. We don't walk paths. His pace is measured but not slow. He misses very little. I remain stationary as his team leader, my number two, walks up and grabs the Holley stick from me. Wordlessly, routinely, he takes his place five yards behind the sweeper. He guides the sweeper. He nudges him this way and that, grunting rather than speaking."
"I am shirtless, and they ask questions, and I explain how we fight our personal war. We don't leave without Thor Pack, a sickle, two metal detectors and a dog if he's available. Eight guns minimum, that counts Afghans, doesn't count terps. We don't have vehicles, so we walk everywhere. we don't walk on roads. we don't walk on goat paths. We don't walk anywhere we walked on the last the last three or four or five patrols. We don't cross bridges - we go down a bit and cross the canal instead. We get wet. If we cross a bridge we'll see if there are any civilians crossing it so we know it's safe. We walk with the civilians if we can-they know the safe paths, and the Taliban don't want to kill a regular Afghan, just like we don't. If we come up to a place where two roads or paths meet and we have to go through it, we scape if up with the end of the sickle, Little X's, maybe a foot long, overlapping. If there are wires the sickle will pull them up. If there is a pressure plate, the sickle will sink down into the ground. When you Bury someone there's a pocket of dirt, and then the sicklehead gets up underneath it and you can feel it pulling. And the wire will show in the dirt, like a snake, and if you get lucky you will catch a big hole with a big yellow jug in it, you can pull that right by the handle if you want. We don't do that though, that's EOD's job. You can also use the sickle to bust up stacks of poppy stocks, or hay, or wherever you think a bomb might be hidden. Its war. It's not war. It's just a game, it's just a dangerous little game we play with the Taliban. Pretend you're one of them, pretend your a Taliban spotter, and you've been watching the patrol all day. You say, where would I put put this bomb to kill the Marines? And then you avoid those places, if you can. If you can't, you find the bomb. or try to. Avoid paths. Sweep. Sickle. You're always being watched, so you can't walk anywhere you've walked before, except there is only so many places you can walk. So sometimes you'll walk the same places again, and that's where it's dangerous. If you can, walk a little to the left, a little to the right. stick to the rules. The Taliban won't put a bomb where they can't hit one of us. They always want to hit one of us."