MEDEVAC at FOB Pasab, Afghanistan
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24 October 2012
Mullah Omar
Google has a function called “Alerts.” This function allows users to program keywords and receive daily updates from the web. Using alerts is like having your own investigative wing scouring for information on topics of interest. Two of the keywords that I use are MEDEVAC and MEDIVAC.
After a group of concerned citizens and I started raising MEDEVAC issues last year, the net alerts suggested that an extraordinary number of MEDEVAC units were sent to Afghanistan. Later, word came from Afghanistan that our efforts caused a great increase in available MEDEVAC assets.
On a side note, it appears that communities across the United States are buying MEDEVAC helicopters for civilian use.
Army MEDEVAC uses the call sign “Dustoff” (or Dust Off). The call sign derives from the Vietnam era. The most renowned Dustoff pilot is probably Major General (ret.) Patrick Brady. MG Brady received the Medal of Honor for flying Dustoff in Vietnam. I am currently reading his excellent book called Dead Men Flying.
Interestingly, many opposed our MEDEVAC awareness work, which stemmed in part from a MEDEVAC that failed to launch from FOB Pasab in time to save an American Soldier: RED AIR
And so when our group noticed that MG (ret.) Brady held similar views, we were not surprised. Many Dustoff pilots share General Brady’s views. This October 2012 article outlines how MG Patrick Brady believes that the military is failing to reach the highest standards in its Dustoff mission.
Google Alerts brought this story today from FOB Pasab, the same base in southern Afghanistan that launched the tardy Dustoff on the 2011 morning when Chazray Clark was killed by a bomb strike:
Medevac central: A glimpse at one of the busiest medevac locations in Afghanistan
The most recent story from FOB Pasab contains many clues. Importantly, a Captain wrote this article, and the Army published it.
The Army story indicates that there are now two Dustoff helicopters at Pasab. The story does not explicitly say this, but it mentions two crews who sometimes are flying simultaneously. While I was there last year, there was only one Dustoff, along with a chase helicopter. The military seems to have at least doubled MEDEVAC assets at Pasab. Did the dispatches about MEDEVAC make a difference? For Pasab, we do not know for sure, but where the bigger picture is concerned, we know that they did.
Now to a broader part of the Army story linked above. Casualties last year already were high around Pasab. A Dustoff from Pasab typically picks up casualties on battlefields that are very close. Sometimes the casualties happen on base due to rockets or other incoming fire. Other times, you can hear a large bomb explode off base, and about ten minutes later the Dustoff launches. That is your sign that the Internet is about to “black out,” so that troops cannot speculate online about what happened.
For American casualties, a Dustoff from Pasab typically flies to the trauma hospital at Kandahar Airfield. If the wounded Soldiers survive, they will be stabilized and are often sent to Germany. If they die, normally they will be sent home immediately after respects are paid at a “ramp ceremony.”
The craters on the moon cause me to wonder how many bombs exploded in Afghanistan
Last year, the area around Pasab was as dangerous as Sangin was during the period when the British had the lead. Both Pasab and Sangin reminded me at times of heavy fighting in Iraq. The area around Pasab is a trauma zone, and the Army has beefed up evacuation assets after our MEDEVAC advocacy efforts.
The war effort seemed to evince some regional progress in that area last year, but the proof eventually will be in the numbers. The area is not large. Either the place is becoming more secure, or it is not. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the area is not becoming more secure. Messages come from our troops that the place is still a bomb and shoot-out gallery.
This battle space is not deep in the Hindu Kush or a Congolese jungle. The terrain is wide open, readily accessible by foot, or even on a bicycle. The terrain around Orlando, Florida is tougher. The micro-terrain can be challenging, but in reality what makes the micro-terrain tough is that the enemy forces you off of the easy places to walk, and causes you to climb walls and grape rows like a monkey. If the people were not waging war, even the micro-terrain would be easy because you would walk through the grape rows, not over them, and you could walk through doors instead of climbing walls.
Just go to Google Earth, type in “Panjwai,” and have a look. Simple terrain. Unless people are trying to blow you up.
From a large military perspective, considering the needs of American technology, the terrain could hardly be more American-friendly. You could, without exaggerating, fly straight to Kandahar, hop on a motorbike and be in the middle of the battle space an hour later. But too many of the people do not want us to be there.
It may interest Americans to know that in 2011, American time, effort and resources were spent (not invested) refurbishing Mullah Omar’s Mosque in this same battle space that is covered by the Dustoff helicopters at Pasab.
The mosque is in a village called Sangsar. Sangsar Village is the very bellybutton of the Taliban. Ground Zero. This is it. The birthplace of the latest Mad Mullah war. And we refurbished Mullah Omar’s mosque there in 2011. This would be like building a memorial for Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad.
Some folks may have forgotten who Mullah Omar is. After all, the war is into its 12th year with no end visible. Mullah Omar is the top Taliban leader, who welcomed Osama bin Laden into Afghanistan. By refurbishing his mosque, we pretend that we have a role to play in Mullah Omar’s home village, and that we are winning friends and influencing people.
According to the Army MEDEVAC story:
“Pasab averages 30 percent of all Category Alpha medevac missions in RC-South. The medevac crews at Pasab also see the worst injuries as they only respond to urgent medical calls, known as CAT-A missions. These are calls with injuries, such as a multiple amputee patients, that require a response from mission start to medical facility delivery of less than one hour - known as the golden hour.”
This is what we get in return for refurbishing Mullah Omar’s mosque. We cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel in Afghanistan. There is a reason. We are not in a tunnel. We are digging a hole. This hole is nothing but a grave for our youths who trust that we know more than we do.
At what point do we start calling this murder?
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Comments
ISO 125, f16, 1/25sec, 800mm, exposure bias -0.3. I do not see which country I took this in, or the date (for some reason). Am thinking either Afghanistan or Nepal.
Now you have gone and done it
I thought my last comments on the present POTUS where a bit strong, but this appears to be an excoriating indictment of the whole Military Industrial Complex, and the politicians too
Talk about throwing down the gauntlet
Yet from a warriors perspective, your are right on target
I don't know of any other conflict in history, Vietnam included, which has had more in depth reporting and analysis on what an absolute FUBAR the Middle Eastern wars have become
Yet the American viewing and slightly interested public is told by the lamestream media, what some asinine celebrity said or did is more important, than issues like the ones dealt with here
Most of the people I see going about their buiness everyday, don't have the time to care, they are either too busy desperately trying to hold on to what they've got or they are in some altered reality wherein they don't have a clue, i.e. substance abuse, legal and illegal
Michael keep up the mission no matter what, your enlightened message will eventually find it's way into the collective American psyche and then there will be HOPE, for some real and positive CHANGE
SHALOM
Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.
So, we refurbished a Mosque big deal.
Problem isn't trying to be friendly. Problem is we keep trying to wage war on the cheap, as in:
Let the locals do it.
If we send less people then less people will die.
We don't want to look like occupiers even though we are.
Total BS, we should have sent in a million man army, treated the locals with respect, provided security from the Taliban, and killed Bin Laden at Tora Bora. Set up a gov't on our terms.
Thanks for your updates on this subject and many other stories you have brought to light.
God bless you and kee you safe.
T
Get this through your heads - America will not be able to scuttle out of Afghanistan in 2014 without a price being paid by you at some point.
Your enemies remember defeats - just like they remember Somalia, Beirut and Vietnam.
Bin Laden hit you on 9/11 because he saw you as weak and in retreat. Bugging out of Somalia led directly to 9/11.
The question should be 'how do we win?'
If the US cannot or will not defeat a motley crew like the Taliban in terrain that appears tailor made for US supremacy, then God help you is all I can say. Just go home, pull the covers over your heads and wait for someone formidable, like the Chinese, to really kick you ass.
And you think 12 years is a long time? WWII lasted 6 years - it didn't start on D-Day in 1944 you know. There'd been 5 hard long years before that.
And here in the UK we were in Northern Ireland for 30 years before the IRA disarmed.
And you lose more people every 3 weeks on your roads than you have in 11 years in Afghanistan. Why aren't you screaming about that? Why aren't you talking about the sinister "automobile-hig hway complex", as you do about the 'military-indus trial complex'?
This world still needs America to have that kind of determination. I know that we here in the UK still need you. With only 60 million people here, and with a Europe that has basically given up on the idea of military force, we can't do much alone.
It actually frightens me a bit that it might be true that America is no longer willing to pursue victory when winning is hard.
As you say, you can be sure that your enemies are watching and learning and planning how to beat you by wearing you down.
It seems pretty clear from here that the strategy and tactics in Afghanistan are not working.
For example, the occasional patrols through hostile terrain seem pointless.
But I simply cannot accept that a superpower like the United States and its allies cannot create strategy and new tactics to defeat a poorly equipped and organised enemy like the Taliban.
As you say, the terrain is perfect for American weapons.
And I still say that even if a 100% reduction in Taliban activity is impossible, the US should hang on until the general radical Islamic threat has declined worldwide. If that takes 30 more years, then so be it.
They are easy to beat. That would be little challenge and more a function of fuel and ammunition. That brings with it broader implications. Especially in this age.
Or maybe something else, like search the mosque for stored weapons, which would mean that the next time the Talibans want to shoot from it, they're going to have to bring new weapons, and that'd make them legit targets for a UAV loitering the area with its neat Hellfire missiles.
I can't believe it...about the mosque. Makes me heart sick.
red cross emblem.
I respectfully suggest that you check your history of post WWII Japan. The US fearing a rise in communism the US allowed the most of the key members of the Zaibatsu to re-establish themselves as the power behind the throne. As to the Emperor he remained on the throne. Attempts to de-deify him failed. To many Japanese he was and is the living magnification of Amaterasu. As to the Middle East, democracy functions properly only with an informed and educated populace. In the Middle East illiteracy is rampant and the primary source of information is the local Mullah. Who is the same one spurring them to Jihad against the crusaders and the Jews. Devotees of Islam understand power and the will to exercise it. Past that they are instructed to pretend to befriend the infidel until the time is right to strike.
Finally, we went into the Afghanistan to remove Al Qaeda and kill/capture its tier 1 asset. Al-Qaeda has moved on, our geopolitical interest in Afghanistan is gone. Get our people out and allow the Afghanis to return the 7th century. Regardless of where they are now we need to hunt down and kill any member of Al Qaeda we can find; such as Somalia. Yemen and North Africa. If by chance Al Qaeda rears its filth little head again in Afghanistan again then return, only long enough to chase them back under the rock they slithered out from. Lastly, nation building as it currently practiced is a BS concept. One rebuild nations, after they have been brought to heel, as you referenced in post war Japan. Other attempts at nation building are a fool's folly and a sure place to lose men, machines and money.
Sooner or later someone's going to start suggesting that this might have been God's judgement on that mosque; when this occurs, rubbish the notion using the most unbelievable, incompetent blimp of an officer you can find. Then shut up again. Rumours will spread thereafter...
It's a nice aggregator and does link analysis as well.
tom
A little history. Dustoff 90 is the only Dustoff that did not return from Vietnam.They went MIA (later changed to KIA)on 12 Feb 1968. The co-pilot was my cousin, CWO Alan Gunn, USA. Remember them.
Paul Garner
aka The Old Sarge
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