Michael's Dispatches

FYI: Paperwork for Afghanistan Media Embed

2009-11-18T03:56:01Z

17 November 2009

There has been much curiosity about the procedures involved during the embed process. The process is constantly changing, and is different for Iraq than for Afghanistan. A Philippines embed is different still, and requires embassy approval because, am told, the State department is worried about what one might say. In Afghanistan, the process with the British and Lithuanians also varies. The process can be dramatically different for powerful media outlets, who often come in on "junkets." In Iraq, in 2005, saw CNN have two helicopters dedicated to it for a day in Diyala Province. (I went with them.)

The process can be simple and easy, or very complicated. For instance, I was recently asked to go to Iraq and agreed. That got bogged somewhere so Iraq is out unless I go alone, which will probably do in 2010. There is no standard.

As of today, this is the first set of paperwork for Afghanistan. Minutes ago, I completed and emailed these forms to Afghanistan for an embed with the Stryker Brigade. Looking forward to getting back with the infantry:

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Hostages

2009-11-16T15:17:56Z

Michael Yon
16 November 2009

When New York Times journalist David Rohde was kidnapped last year in Afghanistan, the company engaged in a painstaking effort to squash the story. They succeeded in persuading major media who learned of the kidnapping to keep quiet. The cover-up was so good that a New York Times reporter I spoke with in December 2008, while she and I joined Secretary Gates on a trip through Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq and back to the United States, had not heard about the David Rohde kidnapping.

The New York Times openly agrees that publishing such articles increases the peril to the lives of hostages, yet it published details about a British couple being held hostage in Somalia, and thus increased the value of the hostages to the kidnappers.

Some months after Mr. Rohde’s kidnapping started leaking, I published a generic blurb about the case, but made sure none of the information was new.

I knew more than was included in the vignette, but chose not to release it. I did not share what sources had told me: that Taliban members were being paid large sums of money (and that money was being wasted) and that some of the efforts flowed through Dubai. I have not published any other additional information from sources. Shortly after publication, March 13, 2009, I received an e-mail that included this request from a person close to Rohde:

“The NYT has asked for a news blackout while they do what they can for David Rohde's release. All the wires and the big papers are following it. Therefore, while I'm sure you don't mean any harm, I'm not sure your post about him is helpful.”

The person who e-mailed was not from the New York Times. I removed the blub I had posted to my site. Though no new information was released, I had offered the kidnappers more coverage.

Sources continued sending reports about attempts to repatriate Rohde. I had not sought out this information. It had fallen as it usually does, like rain.

After Rohde returned to the United States and details became public, the Washington Post and others contacted me about my decisions to publish and then remove the vignette. My thoughts were that if the words risked the life of Mr. Rohde, they should not be publicized.

While reading the New York Times’ article about the British couple, I became upset, and wondered why they would implement a black-out for one hostage, but not another.

I shifted my Blackberry over to Twitter and punched out some blurbs, one of which said the following:

“Numerous very well placed sources have told me New York Times/associates paid millions to get Rohde release.”

And:

“NYT is endangering the hostages in Somalia.”

It is important to know that while tweeting those words, I was sitting on an airplane, on a research trip, for an article for the New York Times. An editor had asked for something about Afghanistan, and I chose the topic of biogas, which included trips to Cambodia, Laos, Nepal (twice), Vietnam (this week), and Afghanistan.

The New York Times is one of the best sources on Iraq and Afghanistan. Their war correspondents are the “A-Team” and that included David Rohde. I was happy to write a piece for the New York Times.

The flurry of follow-on stories that picked up on my tweets, such as those by the Huffington Post, focused on ransom for Mr. Rohde, rather than the point about the harm the New York Times’ detailed coverage could cause the hostages.

On November 2, the New York Times posted a public response:

“Several Web sites repeated Monday erroneous allegations that The New York Times had paid a ransom in the case of its reporter David Rohde, held by the Taliban for seven months.”

The New York Times didn’t mention me by name, but the story continued spreading, with people reporting that I accused the New York Times of lying. Nowhere in the “tweets” was ransom mentioned, or anything about lying. I have no evidence that the New York Times misled the public, nor did I say or imply such. The tweet about money was based on what I had been told by reliable sources. Again, this is the tweet:

“Numerous very well placed sources have told me New York Times/associates paid millions to get Rohde release.”

The New York Times rebuttal statement goes on to quote David Rohde:

“American government officials worked to free us, but they maintained their longstanding policy of not negotiating with kidnappers. They paid no ransom and exchanged no prisoners. Pakistani and Afghan officials said they also freed no prisoners and provided no money.

“Security consultants who worked on our case said cash was paid to Taliban members who said they knew our whereabouts. But the consultants said they were never able to identify or establish contact with the guards who were living with us.”

Though it didn’t address the exact amount of money, the New York Times confirmed my tweet about money by acknowledging that “cash was paid to Taliban members.” My sources have said that large sums of money went through Dubai to Pakistan, not to mention the costs paid to consultants and other expenses.

Though my statements were in line with the New York Times’ statements, other outlets continued to state that I was accusing the New York Times of “lying.” Not the case.

Chris Rovzar, who blogs at New York Magazine, was off mark when he ran this headline: Freelance War Reporter Accuses Times of Lying about Taliban Bribes.

My words said nothing about lying or bribes, and I am not a “freelance” or a “reporter,” though some of the work involves reporting. I contacted Mr. Rovzar and was pleasantly rewarded by his goodwill, candor and willingness to reexamine the words.

Moving on, the New York Times picked up on points about its coverage of the Somalia story when it published:

“Bloggers also accused The Times of hypocrisy in reporting on a British couple kidnapped by Somali pirates while keeping quiet Mr. Rohde’s kidnapping. . .

“The New York Times did not break the story of the kidnapping of Paul and Rachel Chandler, and during our reporting of it The Times consulted Christine Collett, Ms. Chandler’s sister-in-law, to ask her if the family objected to the publication of any information regarding the case. Ms. Collett, who was quoted in the story, said the family had no objection to The Times reporting on the case.”

Reporting with permission from a sister-in-law hardly makes it right. How many everyday people have experiences dealing with kidnappers? In fact, the Rohde case was the first time I realized how sensitive negotiators are to even passing acknowledgment. How many of us know that even acknowledgment of the kidnapping can lead to harm? Most people are unaware, but the New York Times knows. Did the New York Times share advice on its recent experiences when it asked Ms. Collett’s permission?

This incident aside, my respect for the New York Times’ reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan is undiminished. It offers world-class coverage, and continues to be on the reading list.

The New York Times and I simply have a difference of opinion on the hostage topic.

I believe that they have been truthful, while understandably guarded on the abduction of David Rohde. It would be wrong to bash a paper that has fielded such an outstanding team in Iraq and Afghanistan. The hostage issue is just one important issue, and all points by all parties seem to have been made and noted.

Finally, it’s time to move on from this distraction to a much larger topic: Afghanistan. Bad signals are coming from the White House.

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Japanese Aid to Afghanistan II

2009-11-13T02:32:25Z

12 November 2009

I asked General David Petraeus, General (ret.) Barry McCaffrey, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, about the Japanese decisions on Afghanistan. (The Japanese plan to recall their refueling capacity but to add $5 billion dollars in development aid over five years.) All three responded. This from Geoff Morrell, who is the spokesman for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

"We welcome Japan's additional contribution and its continued partnership in the stabilization and reconstruction of Afghanistan."

Answers from Generals Petraeus and McCaffrey are here.

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Japanese Aid to Afghanistan

2009-11-12T14:33:29Z

Published: 12 November 2009
By Michael Yon

Kathmandu, Nepal — The Japanese are pulling naval assets from the fight in Afghanistan, but they are adding assets in another category. I asked Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (who has not responded), Gen. David Petraeus, and Gen. (ret.) Barry McCaffrey to comment on this report:

Japan plans additional $5 billion for Afghanistan
By JAY ALABASTER (AP)

TOKYO — Japan on Tuesday announced $5 billion in fresh aid to Afghanistan even as it plans to bring home refueling ships supporting U.S.-led forces there. The pledge comes just days before President Barack Obama arrives in Tokyo for talks that are sure to focus on the countries' military alliance.

The announcement appears to be a way for Japan, which is barred from sending troops for combat by its pacifist constitution, to show support for Afghanistan's reconstruction while Obama reviews his options for a new strategy in the conflict.

General Petraeus responded: “It reflects a significant commitment, one that will provide important resources to Afghanistan during an important period.”

General McCaffrey responded:

Michael,

The Japanese commitment of $5 billion in aid to Afghanistan coming just prior to President Obama's visit to Tokyo is a welcome signal of financial support for Washington.

Our Allies in Afghanistan are headed for the door. The Canadians and Dutch have already said they will withdraw troops in the coming 24 months. The Germans are of dubious value with their constricting rules of engagement. Japan itself has announced it will end its Indian Ocean refueling mission. Only the courageous Brits are there in any strength with the will to fight.

The Japanese constitution and their political legacy from WWII make them literally worthless as a deployed ground combat military force. In Iraq they were incapable of even defending themselves with their modest troop commitment. Therefore, this significant financial support during a Japanese financial recession is a positive outreach for this critical ally.

I am very interested to hear the thoughts of Secretary Gates. The Japanese decision is significant and will affect the war. I suspect the Canadian decision is mostly (but not totally) “final.” Canadian soldiers earned a hard reputation the hard way. They get respect, but the Canadian government is not to be taken seriously. The Dutch need to stay in the fight. Their contribution is crucial. The Germans will get whipped to pieces, in my judgment, but the Dutch need to stay with the winning team — and they can. General McCaffrey wrote, “Only the courageous Brits are there in any strength with the will to fight.” Well, there are some others who will fight, but the Brits definitely get huge respect. The Aussies, in their tiny numbers, will fight. The Danes and the Dutch will fight, as will the Canadians if given the chance.

Japanese financial aid already has been very helpful to Afghanistan; I have seen its positive effects. The previous Japanese aid package that is nearly spent was worth $2 billion. (Japanese officials told me some months ago that they had spent $1.8 billion and had $200 million left in the fund.) The injection of another $5 billion in development money is a very good thing.

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Ambush of the Common Sort

2009-11-08T12:12:23Z

08 November 2009

Got a ping today about an attack on the road between Jalalabad and Kabul. It's a dangerous road and I don't like to drive it. The source has always been reliable, so I pinged Tim Lynch (who often is on that road), and Tim just sent these pics and a quick narrative. (Unedited, and my post also coming via Blackberry.) Tim writes:

The ambush happened around 0845 or so on the west side of the Duranta Tunnel. Steve and I rolled out to look - the fuel convoy had security escorts from Compass security and they plus some ANP are who you see up in the ridges. Three tankers were burning and three more were shot up and leaking fuel all over the place. There was a section of OH-58's up and after about 20 minutes of figuring out who was who on the ground they started in on the bad guys with rockets and mini gun.
There was still some fighting going on when we arrived and few rounds came our way but were very high and not to close. The bad guys had one belt fed which opened up briefly - the Blue Compass/ANP guys clearly had the momentum and used damn good fire discipline - we only heard volleys when the Taliban exposed themselves and those volleys were not that long.
The Army claims four KIA from the OH's which is not doubt true given how low they were scouting about for targets - there is no cover out there just fingers and draws and the security guys were putting pressure on the Ambush team to keep moving which exposed them to the birds.

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Smithsonian Air&Space on Kopp-Etchells Effect

2009-11-05T03:11:02Z

November 04, 2009

Helo Halo

Luminous halos twirled above a Boeing CH-47 Chinook on a recent night around 11:30 p.m. local time at Forward Operating Base Jackson in Sangin, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, as helicopters ferried casualties and supplies in and out of the base. The photographer was independent journalist Michael Yon, a former U.S. Army Special Forces soldier who has covered Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Philippines with a camera. Helicopter pilots don't have a name for the effect, but one explained to Yon, "Basically it is a result of static electricity created by friction as...dissimilar material strike against each other. In this case, titanium/nickel blades moving through the air and dust." Yon says, however, that a researcher studying helicopter brownout emailed him to say that scientists are not 100 percent sure what causes the effect. Depending on the viewing angle, it creates dazzling little galaxies. An even longer exposure reveals stars and another aircraft marked by a string of lights at upper left of center; Yon suspects this aircraft was a Predator or Reaper UAV, which, unlike manned military aircraft, fly with their lights on in the Afghan night to avoid collisions. Yon, who made these shots with a Canon 5D Mark II with a 50 mm lens at an ISO of 800, claims that the night was far darker than his sensitive camera conveys, as evidenced by the green chemlights on the ground to guide the pilots. He was moved to create a name, the Kopp-Etchells Effect, for the rotor phenomenon to honor a pair of fallen soldiers, U.S. Army Corporal Benjamin Kopp and British Army Corporal Joseph Etchells, who died one day apart in July after fierce fighting in Helmand (Kopp had been evacuated to the U.S. before he died). "The tent in the foreground is a medical tent," says Yon, "so that casualties can be kept in a tent until the last minute. A substantial number of British casualties in Helmand have been lifted off of this exact spot...because this is probably either the most dangerous place in Afghanistan, or nearly the most dangerous."

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Great Britain Loses one of its Finest

2009-11-03T05:34:28Z

03 November 2009

British soldiers at war are an incredible group. Courageous, competent, and committed in very difficult conditions. An email came today from London, from a BBC correspondent who has been to Afghanistan saying that Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid had been killed.

To see the article in the BBC was deeply saddening: Soldier Killed While Defusing 65th Bomb.

On a side note, the British soldiers are conservative. Though this is not very important, it’s difficult to imagine that Olaf had only destroyed 64 bombs before being killed. Just on this single mission, during which all these photos were taken, and during the surrounding few days, his crew must have destroyed several dozen bombs. You had to be there. By the time the mission in these photos happened, the crew was very experienced.

Courage is as common as boots among these soldiers, but Olaf stood out even in that company. You could tell that Olaf knew his business from mean experience, and that he was ready for battle. His mind was very quick.

His crew was competent and confident, and worked faster to clear bombs than any I had seen. If not, the soldiers could never have completed this mission, because there simply were too many bombs. They say all beekeepers get stung, but these are not bees. These soldiers were facing an extraordinary number of bombs and booby-traps that are designed to kill the team.

According to the Oxford Mail,

“During the course of his tour, he attended 41 tasks, rendered safe 64 IEDs and attended 11 finds of bomb-making equipment.”

The married father-of-one lived with his family in Winchester. His wife Christina said: “Oz was a phenomenal husband and loving father who was cruelly murdered on his last day of a relentless five-month tour."

Olaf was lost on his last mission. The enemy are blowing up civilians everywhere, and taking a toll on our folks.

According to the BBC:

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Thomson, commanding officer of 2 Rifles Battle Group, said: "Staff Sgt Oz Schmid was simply the bravest and most courageous man I have ever met."

"No matter how difficult or lethal the task which lay in front of us, he was the man who only saw solutions."

"He saved lives in 2 Rifles time after time and for that he will retain a very special place in every heart of every rifleman in our extraordinary battle group."

According to the Oxford Mail,

Lt Col Robert Thomson, the commanding officer of the 2 Rifles Battle Group, said: “Staff Sgt Oz Schmid was simply the bravest and most courageous man I have ever met."

“Under relentless IED and small arms attacks, he stood taller than the tallest. He opened the Pharmacy Road and 24 hours later, found 31 IEDs in one go on route Sparta. Every single company in 2 Rifles adored working with him."

They really did. Everybody liked to see not just Olaf, but his entire great team. The mission succeeded that day. For more about the lives, and missions of these excellent soldiers, please read Bad Medicine.

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Colors

2009-10-28T14:29:34Z

A military watchdog gets it wrong on the debate over camouflage.
By Michael Yon

Some things are not as they seem. Many people, for instance, seem to think Stars & Stripes is a military lapdog, but this is untrue. If Washington had a yearbook, Stars & Stripes might be voted “most apt to slam the military.” Stars & Stripes is a watchdog.

Drew Brown is a Stars & Stripes writer with much battlefield experience. Drew’s stories on Iraq have always rung true, as have his stories on Afghanistan. However, his recent story from Afghanistan about Stryker camouflage left room for respectful disagreement, or perhaps a “context adjustment.” One might suspect that the editorial process changed the tone.

The story begins:

Army to phase in tan-colored Stryker vehicles
By Drew Brown, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Monday, October 26 2009

ZABUL PROVINCE, Afghanistan — More than six years after sending the first Stryker armored vehicles into desert combat, the Army has decided that it’s probably a good idea to start painting them tan so they will blend in with the environments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The tone here is off, depicting the situation without the context or dimension that it deserves.

Long-time readers are aware that I do not hesitate to bite the Army when the watchdog hat is on. Given my frequency in combat with our folks, any lack of gear, or poor gear, is as bad for my health as for the troops’. Hence I have been yelling at Washington that we need more troops in Afghanistan, and more helicopters.

However, controversy should only grow in fertile ground. And having spent more time in combat with U.S. forces than any writer/journalist/photographer during the Iraq War — something likely to be duplicated in Afghanistan — my observation is that the U.S. military, on the whole, is incredibly well resourced. I have probably spent more time with Stryker units than any journalist living or dead, and the fact is that while it may now be the case that Strykers should be painted brown, there are good reasons this wasn’t done earlier.

The story is datelined to Zabul Province, Afghanistan, and true enough, the color out there should be desert brown. (Or perhaps, in some places at some times, white.) But elsewhere in Afghanistan, as in Iraq, civilians mostly live near water, so colors around their homes generally are green during the green months. In Afghanistan, the “Green Zone” (GZ) is the area around the rivers and lakes, and much or possibly most of the fighting occurs in these green areas. The enemy fights more when the GZ is green than during the winter brown.

Just as important, predicting camouflage needs for Strykers can be incredibly difficult. Stryker units tend to get moved around more than other combat units because Stryker units can project so much force quickly. Afghanistan’s geography doesn’t help: Down in the Helmand River valley where Brits, Danes, Yanks, and others are fighting, you can go from strict GZ to 100 percent desert-brown conditions in just a few seconds. The border between verdant and seemingly endless cardboard brown is usually only the width of an unpaved road — literally, a line in the sand and rocks. One side of the road can be dry as bone, while just meters away on the other side of the road, the mud tries to suck the boots off your feet. (The Brits have the opposite problem; they have very good desert-brown camouflage, but do most of their fighting in the GZ.)

Also, even if brown is a better overall camouflage for Afghanistan — though this is unclear even to many experienced soldiers and me — it is unfair to imply (by datelining the story to Zabul Province and referring to more than six years of Strykers in desert combat) that the Army has had Strykers there during the entire war. The first rotation of Strykers to Afghanistan arrived only some months ago; before that, they were in use only in Iraq.

In Iraq, Generals Casey and Petraeus wisely used Strykers as their “QRF” (Quick Reaction Force) during the severe fighting of 2006–2007. Stryker soldiers fought all over the place. They moved constantly. The brigade commander would have needed ESP and the vehicles chameleon skin to keep up with the changing environments.

Drew and I both covered Operation Arrowhead Ripper with Stryker units during the scorching summer of 2007. We spent far more time in the cities than in the desert. Some Stryker soldiers might have had different experiences, depending where they fought.

Also, Stars & Stripes’s insinuation that U.S. military leaders would leave our troops without appropriate materiel does not square with those leaders’ recent performances. I am confident that if commanders were screeching about getting those Strykers painted, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates would get it done, and bets are on that the next rotation will be brown if that is what commanders want. General Petraeus, meanwhile, is the boss of CENTCOM, where all Strykers in combat are operating. In Iraq, it was common to see General Petraeus on the battlefields, and he rode in a Stryker on at least one occasion during Operation Arrowhead Ripper. I saw him there. And though I don’t know Gen. Stanley McChrystal, he has a solid reputation. He wasn’t shy about asking for more troops, so it’s hard to imagine he would hesitate about getting some buckets of paint.

Command Sergeant Major Jeffrey Mellinger, an ex-Ranger like McChrystal, is the senior NCO at Army Materiel Command. AMC oversees all Army materiel ranging from bandages, night vision, and weapons to tanks and helicopters. CSM Mellinger has seen a lot of combat, and I have done countless missions with him in Iraq, including missions in Strykers. Never once during that time did I think that Strykers should be brown, and if CSM Mellinger thought they should have been brown, he would surely have told his successive bosses, Generals Casey and Petraeus. CSM Mellinger still regularly travels to Iraq and Afghanistan and would not hesitate to recommend a change if soldiers on the ground were asking for it.

CSM Mellinger knows more about Army gear than anybody I know, and he’s my number-one source for advice on what to wear during fighting. When I asked Mellinger about camouflage, he said that “what works today won’t work tomorrow,” and that “there is no perfect camouflage.”

The CSM for the Strykers now in Afghanistan is Robb Prosser. I’ve done probably 100 combat missions with Robb in Strykers in Iraq, and now he is the senior NCO for those Strykers in Afghanistan. Never once did I hear Robb say that Strykers needed to be brown.

The Strykers currently in Afghanistan probably should be painted brown, but it is not true that the military dragged through these years without noticing, or that Gates, Petraeus, McChrystal, Mellinger, and Prosser didn’t ask for something they needed. Stars & Stripes plays a valuable role as a military watchdog, but this time, they’re barking up the wrong tree.

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Afghanistan: Electrification Effort Loses Spark

2009-10-21T03:32:14Z

21 October 2009

In 2008, I was trekking in the Himalayas in Nepal preparing for a return to Afghanistan. A message came from a British officer suggesting to end the trip and get to Afghanistan. Something was up, and I didn’t bother to ask what. Days of walking were needed to reach the nearest road. After several flights, I landed in Kandahar and eventually Helmand Province at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan. The top-secret mission was Oqab Tsuka, involving thousands of ISAF troops who were to deliver turbines to the Kajaki Dam to spearhead a major electrification project. The difficult mission was a great success. That was 2008. During my 2009 embed with British forces, just downstream from Kajaki Dam, it became clear that the initial success had eroded into abject failure. And then the British kicked me out of the embed, for reasons still unclear, giving me time to look further into the Kajaki electrification failure.

After communications with many American and British officers, a sad picture emerged.

The following message was provided by a well-placed officer. The message has been slightly edited by me for clarification.

Michael,

ISAF's initiative [at Kajaki] to light up southern Afghanistan following the successful delivery of a third turbine to the Kajaki hydro-electric dam has run into major problems which could set the project 24 months behind schedule.

Last September, US and British special forces spearheaded a 100 vehicle convoy from Kandahar 180 miles across open desert, much of it owned by the Taliban, to Kajaki. The Operation, codenamed Oqab Tsuka, included 4,000 British, US and Canadian troops in what was hailed as the biggest demonstration since 2006 that ISAF is delivering progress in the south.

The heavily guarded convoy contained what was called T2 (Turbine 2) and was successfully delivered to the US AID built dam after a six-day operation which saw significant fighting by British paratroopers and advance clearance operations by special forces. As it crawled north up the Sangin valley the Brits mounted the biggest deception operation seen since World War Two.

With just one road available which was an obvious target for insurgents' IEDs, special forces located a second, more difficult and remote route. After confirmation that it could be used, a battle group was flown into the area of the main route, giving the enemy the clear perception that the convoy was heading that way. Then a dummy convoy headed up the road, while the Brits used the alternative route out of sight.

But despite last year's success it is now becoming clear that little progress has been made. At the time of the operation a US contractor, known as Kajaki Joe, stated that the turbine would be installed by April 2009 with all three turbines in action by September 2009. However, problems with engineers and missing elements of the turbine have caused significant delays.

When the turbine was delivered only one turbine was in action, another was being overhauled on site with the aim being to install the new one and commission all three into service. Now exactly a year on a report submitted to US AID in Lashkar Gah has suggested that the turbine which was being overhauled needs replacing. Sources in Lashkar Gah say this is a gross overestimate of the situation and that there will be no mission to deliver another turbine.

In 2006 US AID representatives in Lashkar Gah asked the British to play down the project and not to raise people’s expectations about when power would be delivered. The British Foreign Office was quick to try and hijack the public relations spin of last year's success, even though the UK gave no funding to the project.

The overall aim of the turbine mission was to support the power grid in southern Afghanistan. In fact Canada pledged millions of Canadian dollars to the Kandahar economy once the power was plugged into the grid and supplying business in the city. But the Canadians seem doubtful that power will be switched on before 2014—by which time they will have pulled their troops out of Afghanistan.

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Adopt-a-stan

2009-10-19T00:03:15Z

18 October 2009
By Michael Yon

The inbox was peppered with hyperlinks to Dexter Filkins’ story in the New York Times, Stanley McChrystal’s Long War. One message came from Kathryn Lopez at National Review, asking if I had seen the article and for any thoughts.

It should be said that I respect the work of Dexter Filkins. Mr. Filkins is a seasoned war correspondent whose characterizations of Iraq ring true, while Stanley McChrystal’s Long War resonates with my ongoing experiences in Afghanistan. Despite the great length of the article, the few points that did not resonate were more trivialities for discussion than disagreements. Mr. Filkins did a fine job.

To be clear, I have developed a strong belief that the war is winnable, though at this rate we will lose. Mr. Filkins seemed to unfold a similar argument. In my view, we need more troops and effort in Afghanistan—now—and the commitment must be intergenerational.

In Mr. Filkins’ article, a couple of seemingly small points are keyholes to profound realities, and to a few possible illusions. For instance, the idea that Afghans are tired of fighting seems off. Afghans often tell me they are tired of fighting but those words are inconsistent with the bitter fact that the war intensifies with every change of season. The idea that Afghans are tired of war seems an illusion. Some Afghans are tired. I spend more time talking with older Afghans than with teenagers, and most of the older Afghans do seem weary. Yet according to the CIA World Factbook, the median age is 17.6 years; meaning half of Afghans are estimated to be this age or below. The culture is old, but the population is a teenager. Most Afghans today probably had not reached puberty when al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks. Eight years later, Afghanistan is more an illiterate kid than a country. The median age for the U.S. is given at 36.7. In addition to the tremendous societal disconnect between Americans and Afghans, there would be a generational gap even if those distant children were Americans. Clearly this could lead to frustrations if we expect quick results.

We ask Afghans for help in defeating the enemies, yet the Afghans expect us to abandon them. Importantly, Mr. Filkins pointed out that Afghans don’t like to see Americans living in tents. Tents mean nomads. It would be foolish for Afghans in “Talibanastan” to cooperate with nomadic Americans only to be eviscerated by the Taliban when the nomads pack up. (How many times did we see this happen in Iraq?) The Afghans want to see us living in real buildings as a sign of permanency. The British at Sangin and associated bases live in temporary structures as is true with American bases in many places. Our signals are clear. “If you are coming to stay,” Afghans have told me in various ways, “build a real house.” “Build a real office.” “Don’t live in tents.” We saw nearly the opposite in Iraq where pressure evolved to look semi-permanent. The Dr. Jekyll–Mr. Hyde situation in Iraq seemed to seriously catch hold by 2006 or 2007, by which time Iraqis realized we were not going to steal oil and might decide to pull out while leaving them ablaze in civil war.

A great many Iraqis wanted to know that we would stay long enough to help them stand, but were not planning on making Iraq part of an American empire. It became important to convey semi-permanence, signaling, “Yes we will stay and yes we will leave.” Conversely, Afghans down in the south, in places like Helmand, tend to have fond memories of Americans who came mid last century, and those Afghans seem apt to cooperate. That much is clear. But Afghans need to sense our long-term commitment. They need to see houses made of stone, not tents and “Hesco-habs.”

It’s crucial to hold in constant memory that Afghanistan is the societal equivalent of an illiterate teenager. The child-nation will fail unless we are willing to adopt the people. Many Afghans clearly hope this will happen, though of course we have to phrase it slightly differently. Afghans are, after all, proud and xenophobic. They are not just xenophobic but also afghanophobic. Most houses are built like little Alamos.

Half-solutions failed in Iraq and are failing in Afghanistan. There will be no cheap, easy or quick compromise that will lead to long-term success in AfPak. Erroneously adopting a paradigm that scales back to a counterterrorism approach would be like dispatching the potent but tiny Delta Force to the Amazon jungles with orders to swat mosquitoes. We can give them every Predator and Reaper in the arsenal, yet twenty years from now they’ll still be shooting Hellfires at mosquitoes. Gutting mid-level enemy leadership has been very effective in Iraq and Afghanistan, but only in a larger context. Using strictly a counterterrorism approach, we’ll end up killing relatively zero mosquitoes—the birthrate alone will see that we never win—before coming down with war malaria and nothing will change. Counterterrorism in today’s context remains important but CT is only one of many subheadings in the great accounting. It’s time for CT to crawl into the backseat, not take the wheel. Afghanistan was a special operations playground for more than half a decade. Nobody can argue that special operations forces were not given plenty of assets and discretion with special affections from the White House. They also got more than a half-decade of free press passes. Many people argue that the press lost the war in Vietnam, but that argument has no fizz in Afghanistan. Nobody knows that better than Stanley McChrystal, who today is asking for more troops, not fewer. We need to provide General McChrystal with the resources to win and nobody is in a better position to know what he needs.

If Afghanistan is to succeed, we must adopt it. We must adopt an entire country, a troubled child, for many decades to come. We must show the Afghans that together we can severely damage the enemies, or bring them around, and together build a brighter future. The alternative is perpetual war and terrorism radiating from the biggest, possibly richest and most war-prone drug dealers the world has ever seen, and what could eventually reverse and become the swamp that harbors the disease that eventually kills Pakistan, leaving its nuclear weapons on the table.

Adopting this child-nation means more than the relatively simple task of building security forces bankrolled by foreign governments. Afghanistan cannot finance its police and army, much less the education and vast infrastructure needed to fashion and fuel a self-sustaining economy. The Coalition has already adopted the Afghan security forces and this remittance arrangement is perpetual until we squeeze the account and watch it die, or Afghanistan stands. The illiterate people of Afghanistan are multiplying like rabbits, and so thousands of schools, teachers and entire educational infrastructure must be raised up; uncontrolled population growth, among Afghanistan’s countless other problems, is born in the bed of ignorance. Only through education and opportunity, and eventual meritorious inclusion into the international community—if meager—can narcotics production, criminality, warlordism and fanaticism be eroded and whittled back. By adopting Afghanistan, bringing peace and creating a nucleus for progress, the many private donors who profoundly help develop countries such as Nepal can operate freely to spread seeds of civilization not just in Afghanistan, but in the region.

Finally, we are not the Russians, nor the failed Soviet Union. It is important to learn from Soviet success and failures, but comparing too closely Coalition efforts to theirs quickly becomes silly. The Coalition can succeed where the Soviets failed, and it should be remembered that the Soviets failed in the “easy” places where democracy now thrives, such as Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, and a distinguished list of others who this moment are helping in Afghanistan, and whose countries are today thriving and where we are welcome.

I remember Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania and others during the dark days. It is no wonder to me that the Soviets failed while freedom and democracy succeeded. People who saw Prague then and can see it today likely will have great difficulty explaining the differences to the uninitiated. The Coalition in Afghanistan is largely comprised of nations who have suffered greatly in recent times. They get it.

We should adopt Afghanistan for the long term. If not, there will be perpetual and growing trouble. This Coalition can succeed in Afghanistan where others failed.

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Afghan Lunacy

2009-10-14T03:30:26Z

[This dispatch was written by me in December 2008 in southern Afghanistan. It was never published though I recently found it in the unpublished archives. The photos came from the same period.]

Published: from Nepal on 14 October 2009

On May 25, 1961, the President of the United States of America said:

“Finally, if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all, as did the Sputnik in 1957, the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere, who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take. Since early in my term, our efforts in space have been under review. With the advice of the Vice President, who is Chairman of the National Space Council, we have examined where we are strong and where we are not, where we may succeed and where we may not. Now it is time to take longer strides—time for a great new American enterprise—time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.”

And thanks to bold and visionary leadership, the collective intelligence, courage and commitment of Americans from coast to coast, America had seemed to achieve little more than a stunning list of public failures on the way to space. Our rockets exploded on the launch pad. In the air. Burned up on reentry. Or disappeared into solar orbit. But our grandparents never allowed us to be defined by our faults or failures; only how we greeted adversity. Failure after failure after failure. We got up and launched again, into failure. Fine astronauts were lost. And yet today, in 2008, after a dozen Americans have walked on the moon, citizens from no other nation have managed to land on the lunar surface. What inspiration kept the people at NASA going, when their early years were marked seemingly only by failure? The scientists, engineers and space pilots were living the American dream, not a dream of mere perfection, but of valiant and worthwhile effort. President Theodore Roosevelt said in 1910:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

And so I write these words from Afghanistan, as a grandchild of many great men and women who built “America” and bequeathed it to us. The challenges facing us in Afghanistan, and this region in general, are monumental. We have been failing in Afghanistan. We have been losing the war. But losing does not mean lost. Failing does not mean failed. Yet if we are to succeed in this endeavor, we must be realistic that putting people on the moon was more straightforward than lifting Afghanistan from the stone ages.

“Taming” this land and its human inhabitants into a civilized country will require great investments in time, resources, imagination and intelligence. Bringing Afghanistan out of the Stone Age is not a decade-long project; we are already seven years into the war, and it’s only getting worse. Some people say it will take two generations, but more realistically, a century will be needed. Afghanistan is not Iraq. This is a very primitive, almost lunar place. Yes, cocktail party correspondents can surf their way through meetings in Jalalabad, or Kabul, or Mazar-i-Sharif, and come home with reports of success. But they are wrong. And the counterinsurgency “experts” who come here on short trips, and fly home to America or Britain with poison dripping from their lips, spitting words that we are winning, are doing Great Britain, the United States, and our allies a great disservice. Those who came to Afghanistan with open eyes and open minds, and who are not afraid to jeopardize access or careers by reporting truth, will have clearly reported by early 2006 that we were losing ground here. Who are these “experts” who didn’t see this thing for what it was, early on? And now even in 2008, some people bring home messages that this place is not as bad as it really is. Yes, it’s true that we lost but one U.S. soldier to combat in Afghanistan in November of 2008, but we should not let this number confuse us. The Af-Pak war has great potential to devolve into something far worse than what we saw in Iraq. The “experts” who did not sound the alarm by at least 2006, that Afghanistan by then clearly was slipping through our fingers, are no more useful than a fire alarm with dead batteries. A fire alarm with dead batteries is far worse than merely useless. Let the counterinsurgency “experts” step forward, and show us that they put to writing several years ago what is today obvious. We need to know who to listen to, and who to ignore.

We can succeed in Afghanistan, but we cannot pretend this will ever be the Sea of Tranquility.

Our new President will need to demonstrate wisdom and resolve in dealing with Af-Pak. The peril might not yet be obvious, but the consequences are far too grave to ignore. Enemies of humanity are trying to pull India and Pakistan into war. Ignorance is their primary weapon, and Afghanistan is merely one battlefront. Most of these kids will remain illiterate, and the children of their children likely will not be able to read. Even if they were literate, there are few books available in languages such as Dari or Pashto. This kid in Zabul Province is already lost. Afghanistan will be doing well to get his sons and daughters into a school, but more realistically it will be his grandchildren that might first be reached. We must be realistic. America did not succeed in putting people on the moon by hiring mathematicians who could not expertly use the slide rule or correctly perform the math. America succeeded in part by hiring the best mathematicians, along with the best scientists and engineers of all sorts, who possessed powerful intellects, realistic imaginations, and a volatile intolerance for anything less than pure truth. They didn’t drink anyone’s Kool-Aid.

And so President Kennedy said, “First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.” And they kept pushing through a painful series of dramatic failures, until, within that same decade, in 1969, the first words spoken from a man on the moon came beamed home to earth:

“Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed.”

And soon astronaut Neil Armstrong was stepping off the ladder, and he said, “That’s one small step for a man. One giant leap for mankind.”

Hard never meant impossible.

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MARKET GARDEN

2009-10-12T13:42:27Z

Market Garden

A Remembrance During Time of War

Kandahar City, Afghanistan

Slowly, surely, the city is being strangled. Signaling the depth of our commitment, security forces are thinner in Kandahar than the Himalayan air. During the days and evenings, there were the sounds of occasional bombs—some caused by suicide attackers, and others by firefights. The windows in my room had been blown out recently and now were replaced. We came here to kill our enemies, but today we want to make a country from scratch.

A world away from Afghanistan, over in Holland, was approaching the 65th anniversary of the allied liberation from Nazi occupation, and I had been invited to attend by James “Maggie” Megellas. Maggie, who had fought his way through Holland and is today remembered there as a hero, is said to be the most decorated officer in the history of the 82nd Airborne Division. Now 92, Maggie has recently spent about two months tooling around the battlefields of Afghanistan, and though it would be an honor to finally meet him, there was the matter of extracting myself from Kandahar City and getting through about forty minutes of dangerous territory to the military base at Kandahar Airfield.

And so a friend and I donned local garb and loaded into the car.

Criminals and Taliban were on the lookout for westerners to kidnap, and unknown to us an intelligence report had just been issued that men in a stolen Toyota Corolla were on the prowl in Kandahar City.

The camera was mostly kept down but occasionally I lifted for quick shots. Kandahar City, like other main Afghan cities, belies the fact that most Afghans will never have one minute of electricity, nor will they ever see a westerner.

Afghan police love to jet around at high speeds in their trucks, often with powerful machine guns mounted on back.

Shortly after this photo was taken, my friend, who had been a South African cop for 16 years, spotted two men in a white Toyota Corolla who had locked onto us. They drove swiftly by for a look-see, then hit a Y intersection ahead on the right. They tried to get back in, but traffic slowed them by about ten seconds. I was watching over my shoulder when they dangerously bolted back into the traffic a couple hundred meters behind us. The camera was on the floorboard. I had picked up a pistol and rested it on my right thigh. My friend rolled down his window and I rolled down mine. They were moving in. In less than a minute, someone probably would die. The car was speeding closer when per chance a green Afghan police pickup rocketed by the pursuers. The green police truck was mounted with a machine gun, and a long belt of ammo was dangling, while a policeman kept his hands on the gun. I hid the pistol. The pursuers slowed. We continued at about 40mph as the police swooshed by. The police pulled off the road a few hundred meters ahead of us and the white car fell back more, until it passed the police and began to speed up, but that was it. The pursuers were caught behind too many trucks and fell away. I put down the pistol and picked up the camera.

None of the paved roads in Afghanistan were built by Afghan vision with Afghan resources. If not for the many foreign invaders, this land would be road-and runway-free.

An American convoy of MRAPs approached from the front and a soldier in the lead vehicle shot a pen-flare, causing everyone to pull off the road. The convoys are more menacing from the outside and in fact I kept the camera down and this is exactly why Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is concerned about adding too many troops. Can’t argue with his reasoning; convoys and troops truly are menacing despite that U.S. and British soldiers are very disciplined. It must look far worse to Afghans. Most Afghans never talk with foreign soldiers and those who do normally only see us in passing. In fact, most soldiers never leave base. Our forces at KAF (Kandahar Airfield) have a base so large that this commercial jet is about to land there after flying dangerously over this unsecured road.

After arriving at Kandahar Airfield, the Dutch Air Force took me, and long after midnight we boarded a Canadian C-130 and flew to Dubai.

From Dubai, the Dutch soldiers got onto a chartered flight to Eindhoven, Netherlands.

Over the Arabian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, skirting Iraq.

Finally into Holland, we landed at the Dutch Air Force Base at Eindhoven, where families and others were waiting for Dutch soldiers. Someone shoved a rose and a gift into my hand and I smiled, protesting that I am only a writer, and tried unsuccessfully to return the rose and the gift.

There was a short taxi ride to the hotel.

And right there in the lobby was a throng of World War II veterans whose first trips to Europe had been either under parachute into combat, or by gliders into combat. (As would be revealed over the next five days.) So I sat down with Guadelupe Flores because he was sitting alone while people crowded around other vets. His grandson Matt came over. I hadn’t even fully checked in yet. Guadelupe said he was from Texas originally but now lived in Ohio, and he’d just arrived. “Did you parachute in this time?” I asked. Guadelupe only chuckled, “Not this time,” and chuckled some more. Please have a look at Guadelupe’s left eye. This is the last picture before he got the black eye, which is a funny story. (Guadelupe was on the Army boxing team, he would later say.)

Maggie Megellas was there along with a large group of American university students who had broken off with small groups of veterans. A man said that General Petraeus’ staff was here and General Petraeus was coming to stay at the same hotel.

Finally I got to the room and there was an email from Afghanistan:

I've heard we had to be on the lookout for a group of kidnappers, targeting expats in Kandahar. Apparently they are using a stolen white Toyota Corolla station wagon and a red Toyota Surf. Wonder if we “met” them yesterday?

Actually there had been two suspected vehicles that seemed like they might be working together, but I didn’t mention the second vehicle. Every day in the war is a close call.

The Market Garden remembrance was to begin in the morning.

DAY ONE

Before the description of this incredible remembrance begins, it must be noted this was all paid for by the Market Garden Committee (MGC). The hotel, buses, many of the meals, was all paid and arranged for by the Dutch. Alex Ohmof was the ringleader for the MGC and it can now be said with certainty that Mr. Ohmof is a master coordinator. Over the next nearly week, I was the only man who got lost from the group. We seemed to drive all over Holland and didn’t lose a single veteran or soul, other than me.

Next morning we—the veterans and university students who were traveling with them—loaded into a bus and drove to Margraten Cemetery, the only U.S. military resting place in the Netherlands. Margraten was immaculate and huge and the Dutch people were treating our veterans extremely well, and some were saying “Thank you for liberating us.” (Over the next days, this must have been repeated thousands of times.)

Veterans arrived who were not with our group, including this gentleman whose accent was difficult to discern. His accent didn’t sound American but his cap and words were 100% “Made in USA.” He talked with other veterans about landing on D-Day. When he finished, I asked, “Are you American?” and again he laughed, “Of course, son, look at dis hat!” and he tapped his hat. “But your accent doesn’t sound American.” He was from Georgia but after the war had married a Belgian girl. He wanted to take her home to Georgia but she wanted to stay in Belgium. He’s been married ever since. In Belgium. We must have talked for twenty minutes. His story was so interesting that I didn’t even ask his name.

The caretaker of Margraten welcomed the veterans and gave a little speech and told some history. He seemed proud of his important responsibility.

We walked out to the graves where 8,301 Americans are at rest. Several Dutch would say that every single grave has been adopted by a Dutch family and they put flowers on the headstones at special times.

Robert G. Cole earned the Medal of Honor.

Homage.

An American who parachuted into combat at sixteen years of age. He recounts the day that he and his sixteen-year-old buddy were crawling in a low space and a couple German soldiers threw in a grenade and blew off his buddy’s face, killing him. But the Germans didn’t see this soldier, so he shot them and then killed two more. Stress washed over his face as he recounted that day.

Maggie recounts how his buddy 1 LT Harry Busby had a premonition before crossing the Waal River, that he would be killed. So Harry stripped off watch and other valuables and handed those to his buddies. To try to understand why the Dutch so revere these men, and what Maggie was talking about when he, Harry and the others crossed the Waal River, it would be good to watch this trailer from A Bridge Too Far.

This clip depicts the Waal River Crossing.

After paying respects at Margraten we loaded on the bus to a village called Eerde. The corn in Helmand, Afghanistan is taller now. Firefights will be occurring today in cornfields in Afghanistan.

In Eerde were many dozens of World War II re-enactors who take their roles seriously, trying to accurately maintain or reproduce everything from the tiniest part of bootlaces to rifles, cannons and airplanes. They were a sight. They were living out there for some days, complete with World War II tents of all sizes, sleeping bags, jeeps and the works.

A re-enactor loads a rifle with blanks. Usually blanks are not loud, but these were ear-splitting like the real McCoy.

Looks can fool: The most dangerous animal on the planet is a young infantryman.

Many or all of the re-enactors here seemed to be Dutch. They brought an eerie realism, maybe because just yesterday I came in from Afghanistan. This was like a big movie. Two movies. Afghanistan and now a World War II set. It felt strangely like home. I remember one mission in Iraq, when we were moving into ambush and soon would successfully kill some insurgents, when it felt so incredibly eerie, as if I had done this thousands of times over thousands of years. With the birds and frogs and insects filling the night with sounds, and the firefights in the distance all around, and us moving in for the kill, it was like an eternal groundhog day, and then we killed them and went home. The soldiers did the killing and I just watched and said good job and later went to bed as if we had only gone to the movies.

In addition to the World War II veterans and re-enactors, there were dozens of U.S. active duty soldiers from the 101st and 82nd.

Many of the re-enactors seemed better versed in the history than the veterans. This would not be surprising; combat troops are so focused that they rarely have any idea of what’s happening outside of their gun sights. After war, many of them spend decades trying to forget about it. It’s not hard to find people who’ve done a couple hard tours in Iraq who don’t really know much about the bigger picture and don’t care to think about it for now.

Re-enactors.

All the gear is privately owned.

The re-enactors seemed to be having a ball.

Medic!

The local band.

When a U.S. soldier wears a patch on the right shoulder, it means a combat tour was done with that unit. The 101st liberated Eerde and so the people put on a parade and there must have been a thousand thank yous.

During the speeches and ceremonies, Dutch kids read poems to the veterans, the band played music and people recounted the Nazi times. One person said that the Nazis threatened to hang one man, one woman and one child if the train tracks were again sabotaged. The story ended there. The Dutch, who have been fighting well in Afghanistan, had adopted a stance of neutrality and pacifism in face of the Nazis and were gulped down. Some people resisted while others collaborated. The Dutch say that even today the scars caused by collaborators have not completely healed. Imagine going through life knowing you had collaborated. Better to be dead.

American paratroopers landed near the village. During the ensuing battles, Americans, British and others, with help from the Dutch underground, routed the Nazis from Holland.

DAY TWO

The veterans and university students loaded up the bus and headed to a village that Maggie and his men had parachuted near and walked into.

The dike we are on has a cornfield on one side and homes and buildings on the other. Guadelupe was coming down the way and I snapped a photo and looked at the image and said, Whoa! “Matt, what happened to your Granddad’s eye?” The automatic doors at the hotel can be tricky and Guadelupe walked into a door as it was opening, which nearly had gotten me, too. “I think he needs to go to the hospital,” I said. Guadelupe wasn’t going to roll like that. Later I told Matt that it would be easy to call a doctor and ask the doctor to come. This is the Netherlands. All is possible here. But apparently Guadelupe didn’t have time for bleeding. More on that later.

Dutch people were coming out of the woodwork to talk with the vets. We were heading to a special house and a family rolled up in several cars.

The kids had sunflowers which made the photo of the day.

Maggie received more than 25 medals, including the Distinguished Service Cross, 2 Silver Stars, 2 Bronze Stars, 2 Purple Hearts and was recommended/nominated for the Medal of Honor for actions at Herresbach, Belgium on 28 January 1945. During this important remembrance, Maggie also received a Medal of Honor from the Mayor of the City of Nijmegen.

Airborne.

U.S. Paratroopers had arrived to deliver some airmail packages to the enemy.

After the jump during World War II, Maggie came to this house. One of the Dutchmen would say today that he remembered Maggie showing up with a pistol in his hand, saying, “Where are the Germans and how many are there?”

And so the family gave Maggie an old photo of the same house with a piece of parachute from that day, and they said “Thank you for liberating us.”

They gave Maggie a photo with some important words, which were captured by a Dutch television crew. It aired that night.

A Dutch woman explained how the Nazis had taken everything they could find, even their bicycles. But Maggie said after his soldiers parachuted in, the Dutch had stuff hidden everywhere, including weapons, vehicles, motorbikes and the works. They started hauling it out to help with the fight. He said the well-organized Dutch underground was delivering the most important weapon of all: intelligence. The Dutch had been keeping close tabs on the Germans and began unloading the info, which was the key to the kingdom.

Carole Megellas is Maggie’s better half, and I realized on the first day that she is actually the commander. (No kidding.) In fact, Carole is the one who has been reading this site and getting the mailouts. We talked every day. She was always in the background but she is running the show.

A family worth fighting for. They talked about their lives and it sounded like after liberation they made the best of life and liberty.

The older ones are gone and the younger ones are old.

On the way out, some school kids were riding by with teachers. The vets and the kids were all waving at each other.

Like it was all just yesterday, fighting in these fields.

We loaded back on the bus and headed to a drop zone where re-enactors started jumping out of airplanes, including these two who collided just in front of me.

No broken bodies that time.

Barely missed the trees.

One of the C-47s had blown an engine so re-enactors, ironically, had to rent German-owned Russian biplanes for the jumps.

A parachute landed nearby.

A crowd swarmed around.

This veteran had jumped tandem. He was going to turn 90 in a few days. Actually, two veterans jumped at Overasselt. Unfortunately the other got a severe concussion and a broken shoulder.

Thousands of people had turned out, though the big jump was next morning where some people believed that maybe 50 to 100 thousand spectators showed up. While I talked with some active duty soldiers and vets, time slipped away and so did my bus. Our hotel was about 40 miles away. A policeman said the taxi might cost $300! I hitched and an elderly lady stopped immediately and drove about twenty minutes to Nijmegen Train Station. She was very friendly and happy to see the veterans come back.

In the station were European veterans in old uniforms catching trains to who knows where.

Eindhoven was about an hour away. Along the way it occurred to me that Maggie and the other veterans had jumped nearly this exact time, and maybe the corn was just like this in September 1944. Maybe they had fought through this corn as is happening now in Afghanistan.

Eindhoven.

But where is the hotel? Everywhere were veterans and re-enactors or active duty American soldiers. Some Dutch re-enactors showed the direction to the hotel.

That evening, a big parade was brewing and more veterans were arriving.

Thousands of people were assembling near Eindhoven City Hall.

The veterans took VIP seating while crowds had to stand for hours.

General Petraeus arrived and said hello to each veteran, some of whom shook his hand while others saluted. If General Petraeus had any idea of the hectic schedule that was still unfolding, he’d probably have wanted to get straight back into the war. It seemed like everyone in Holland wanted to see the vets, and despite that the old soldiers were in their eighties and nineties, they kept going and going.

There must have been hundreds of vehicles in the parade.

And there on one of the military vehicles was Guadelupe with a big bandage wrapped around his head, like he’d been shaved too close by a bullet. Most people probably thought he was just role-playing with all that gauze. As it happened, the Market Garden Committee was keeping an angel eye on the veterans and took Guadelupe to the hospital but there was a crowd in the emergency room. (How could there be a crowd in Eindhoven? Bicycle pileup?) But when the doctors realized Guadelupe was a veteran who liberated Eindhoven, they made Guadelupe the number one priority and he was first to be helped. By the time Guadelupe got his head wrapped like a mummy, the parade was started and it was hard to get through town. Some re-enactors saw Guadelupe and loaded him into a jeep and that’s where I saw him, rolling in the parade with that bandage.

So when Guadelupe got in front of General Petraeus and the Mayor, they stopped the parade and came down to check him out! Guadelupe had a huge grin on his face, which unfortunately the lens didn’t catch.

The parade kept going, on and on.

Streets full of people.

Some Scots arrived and so this is some gratuitous advertising for RAFHALTON.com.

It kept going…

Veterans of the 82nd and 101st whose forerunners had helped liberate the land.

Never forget the Red Cross.

A big screen for those who could not see up close.

Are you tired yet?

Then came the kids bearing fire.

That’s Ralph Manley holding the torch. Ralph was constantly on the radar screen. Ralph was like Maggie; if he was talking, people listened. He’s one of those men who once you meet him, you know you will never forget him. Within the first minute Ralph had handed me an Eisenhower silver dollar and proceeded with what obviously was an oft-told story about meeting General Eisenhower. There was something magic about Ralph. When Ralph was eighty-two, another vet said, he had danced three women into the ground during a remembrance. And so there he is up front and he’d somehow gotten hold of a torch.

It seemed like a matter of time until someone was set ablaze.

Dutch Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts marched by.

The parade finally ended. It seemed to last all night but probably was only a couple hours, depending on when you started and stopped the clock.

Turns out, Ralph was carrying the torch to light the eternal flame.

Moments of silence under the glow of the flame. Over the days, Ralph always radiated a powerful ambience when he saluted the flag or sang the National Anthem.

More honors are rendered.

These signs were all around, thanking the British and American soldiers.

After an exhausting day, some of the eighty- and ninety-plus-year-old veterans actually went out for a beer, while people danced in the streets to the Scottish bagpipes.

DAY THREE

Americans have a habit of making a first visit to Holland by parachuting in. Next morning was a big jump as members of the 101st and 82nd Airborne did the same. Nobody knows how many people attended but some say it was maybe fifty or a hundred thousand spectators.

Later that afternoon, the bus headed to the “U.S. Army Garrison Schinnen,” where there was a party and barbeque along with a live band.

Re-enactors were there with these signs. More reminders of Afghanistan. “Roadside bombs” are nothing new to warfare. The Iraqis did not invent IEDs. Similar bombs were used during World War II.

More Afghanistan reminders.

There were U.S. Civil War re-enactors. Many Germans are involved in reenacting our Civil War, and though they are not permitted to re-enact World War II in the Netherlands, some actors talked about Germans who reenact entire battles in the United Kingdom.

There were Dutch soldiers present who had fought in Urozgan Province and every one of them wanted to return to Afghanistan. Every Dutch Afghan veteran I have met—whether that be in Borneo, Afghanistan, UAE or the Netherlands—all want to return to combat in Urozgan.

The students often lined-up with the veterans for a photo.

DAY FOUR

We loaded the bus and rallied somewhere—by now there had been so many events (not all described herein) that time had melted into goo and I often didn’t know where we were. Some German veterans arrived and we spoke at length in German. One had been a POW in Colorado picking potatoes and said his treatment had been very good and honorable, a story oft-repeated.

We loaded onto the bus and headed to the Waal River, where Maggie and others had crossed under heavy, direct German fire. The crossing seemed suicidal. Today the Dutch people had set up a giant monitor and two viewing sections where veterans would again be honored.

More veterans joined in.

Bus after bus arrived next to the Waal River.

Still more veterans.

Captain Will Garrison, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, had driven in from Germany.

Guadelupe unraveled the mummy bandage and was sporting his shiner. Asked if it hurt, Guadelupe said he used to box in the Army and didn’t feel normal unless he had a black eye.

Again the ceremonies last hours and again the best part was the kids.

That’s the Waal River in the background. This photo is taken from the viewing area as veterans again cross the river. In order to secure the nearby bridge to keep pursuing the retreating Germans, Maggie and his men were tasked to cross the river and attack across this open space and secure the bridge that was loaded with explosives. Please make sure to watch this movie trailer: A Bridge Too Far.

The movie “A Bridge Too Far” includes a reenactment of the Waal River Crossing.

America lost 47 men during The Crossing.

And so they crossed again, and were greeted by Dutch and American soldiers and lots of cameras.

Maggie, who had made the crossing then and today, said the government of the Netherlands will soon build a new bridge. This sign will mark the bridge that will be called The Crossing (De Oversteek).

The ceremonies continued with more talks and the names of the fallen were remembered and flowers were placed.

Veterans and General Petraeus gave inspiring talks.

This veteran had everyone rolling with laughter at his stories.

Maggie could probably talk for two days without a note. After maybe thirty minutes, a note was slipped to him that Queen Beatrice was waiting to meet him. He needed to cut it short, but Maggie said she could wait and everyone kind of laughed because he was not really joking, but then after some more minutes Maggie cut it short. At ninety-two and with all Maggie has lived through, he was having a say.

When he finished, General Petraeus and the rest high-stepped it over to see Queen Beatrice and Prince Philip. Some folks said Queen Elizabeth was coming.

Maggie, General Petraeus and crew where whisked off to the Royalty while we Commoners loaded into the long line of buses.

When we arrived to downtown Nijmegen, another big parade was looming. Folks who had joined my Twitter page and kept getting Tweets that the Dutch were treating our veterans like rock stars and Royalty can now see there was no exaggeration. British soldiers from the Nijmegen Company of the famous Grenadier Guards marched in. Today they were in Nijmegen, but by the time this is published these British soldiers will be arriving in Afghanistan. God bless them. Many of these soldiers will not come back alive. The only thing assured is that they will fight well.

Grenadier Guards.

Though ceremonies were all over the news, this was a non-commercial remembrance. In fact, I sensed that it was taboo in Holland to attempt to profit from this remembrance. Nobody was around selling hotdogs and hawking t-shirts. We were given shirts and hats and accommodations of all sorts. Free food, free soft-drinks, beers, coffees, whatever.

The Grenadier Guards saluted Queen Beatrice of the Netherlands and Prince Philip from the United Kingdom. Queen Elizabeth did not arrive.

Queen Beatrice must have been about the safest woman on the planet. She was surrounded by British, Dutch, and American soldiers, gobs of whom are combat veterans and no strangers to drama, not to mention the old veterans who still have fight in them.

Prince Philip.

The people seemed very fond of Queen Beatrice. Someone said she chatted thirty minutes with Maggie.

National Anthems were played.

Ralph, with that look on his face, was singing the National Anthem.

This Army soldier had parachuted in.

The Polish Ambassador and others placed wreaths.

The Canadian defense attaché placed a wreath.

As did several others.

Germans were welcomed and also remembered.

Again, the highlight was the kids who read poems.

And then another parade including driving safety violations too numerous to count.

The kids were having a time.

Veterans huddled like normal.

Of course there was another group photo.

Now do you believe that Dutch people treat our veterans like rock stars and Royalty? Are you tired? Is this dispatch too long? But wait. It’s not over yet.

Conversation with General Petraeus

After all that and lots more, the bus took us to a reception at the town hall where food and drinks were served and there were loads of soldiers, including Brits who were about to head over to Afghanistan. Some German veterans were there and Americans pulled around them for translated accounts. One Panzer veteran said his outfit was the best in the world, even better than Patton’s that had beaten them. He must have been ninety years old but he was drinking beer and showing an American veteran of the similar age how to prost, German Army style. He said that for decades it had been “streng verboten” (Strongly Forbidden) in Deutschland to talk about war experiences, and especially not so in any proud light.

Time and conversations melted by until there was a tap on the shoulder, asking if I wanted to talk with General Petraeus. We were staying at the same hotel but I wasn’t going to bug him; there was too much going on. But the tap on the shoulder was opportunity knocking, and soon I walked upstairs where General Petraeus had a little command center, where he was running CENTCOM.

I asked General Petraeus about his dad, and he said his dad was a Dutch ship captain and was at sea when the Germans invaded Holland. And so he sailed to New York and there eventually met his American mom. (Touchdown for the United States.) His dad joined the Merchant Marines, who suffered more casualties per capita than any other service during the war. I asked General Petraeus what he thought about all these incredible remembrance ceremonies, and he talked about the Margraten Cemetery, saying a Dutch family had adopted every single grave. General Petraeus was struck by the Dutch gratitude and talked about it for some minutes, saying in part, “This is a country that makes an enormous effort to remember and honor those who liberated them.” “Symbolically,” he said, “in saving a bridge, we strengthened enormously a bridge between two countries. That relationship is exceptional.” “I am struck by the sheer sacrifice that was made,” he said, “Just the river crossing, there are 47 names on that plaque.” General Petraeus had long-commanded the 101st, including in combat in Iraq, and had briefly been acting commander of the 82nd, the two principal divisions being honored today.

General Petreaus recounted working with the Dutch in the Cold War, Haiti, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan, and now on counter-piracy efforts off of Africa, saying of Holland, “This is a country that punches above its weight class.”

On Afghanistan, I brought up the severe shortage of helicopters, saying this shortage is hampering our ability to fight, and at one point I said, “But I am talking to the choir,” to which General Petraeus answered, “Yes you are.” He said we had doubled our helicopters in the last four months and that we are about to add a couple more “fistfuls.” I asked how many we have and how many we need but he would not go there, which was understandable but it doesn’t hurt to ask. I told him about the pathetic helicopter debacle unfolding with the British and mentioned that the British MoD had recently kicked me out, apparently for reporting the helicopter debacle. The MoD screams bloody murder at papercuts, I said.

General Petraeus said that he watches the helicopter and other statistics very closely (and I know they do, having sat in on many briefings at lower levels), he said, “What we watch very closely is medevac—I specifically watch that closely,” and he said “average medevac time is about 50 minutes.” I told General Petraeus about the U.S. Air Force Pedros, saying they are beating the clock and doing stellar work, which brought a smile to the General’s face.

(General Petraeus’s words are a fact when it comes to U.S. medevac. But I am very uncomfortable if our soldiers operate in areas that are not covered by U.S. or British medevac; I am not confident in some of the other partners’ willingness or ability to go into crucial situations. For example, one U.S. captain told me about a U.S. soldier who died because a non-U.S. non-British partner failed to extract him in time. I continue to hear similar reports from U.S. officers and NCOs. I did not ask General Petraeus about this but should have. Our folks need an American or British medevac umbrella.)

Questioned about national commitments of various countries, the General wasn’t going to touch that for obvious reasons, but again it doesn’t hurt to ask.

I asked General Petraeus about troop levels and he said he was waiting for General McChrystal’s report. General Petraeus said he had not yet seen the report but that it should be out in a couple of weeks. (Hours later the “big memo” was leaked by the Washington Post, which I first heard about the next day from General Petraeus.)

I’m as confident in General Petraeus today as back in January 2007 when we were on the brink of losing the war in Iraq. Afghanistan is looking like Humpty Dumpty, though.

DAY FIVE

The next morning, Maggie and General Petraeus were scheduled to give a Freedom Lecture at a local university. Word had come that protestors of some species or another were using SMS and emails trying to make a “flash protest,” to yell about something. It was unclear what they were going to protest. Some guy had run out in protest at one of the parades, in front of the stands where General Petraeus was standing, and everybody just laughed at the guy. I didn’t even bother to make a photo. Apparently sensing he did not have any popular support, the guy disappeared and the cops didn’t seem to bother going after him. (Maybe they did, but I didn’t see.) If any protestors arrived today, they remained invisible.

Before the talks began, distinguished folks talked by the stage. The man behind General Petraeus who is shaking hands with Maggie is Captain Marco Kroon. Alex Omhof told me that Cpt Kroon resisted coming today because he is uncomfortable with all the attention. He would rather be back in Afghanistan, but was in essence ordered to come. Captain Kroon had been awarded the Dutch Medal of Honor for his actions in Urozgan Province, Afghanistan. Alex Omhof would later write me,

“Regarding CPT Marco Kroon, he didn't want to receive the Dutch Medal of honor because he wanted that his buddies who he fought with should have been honored too. Maggie had met Marco before during and after the Dutch Medal of Honor ceremony. The Dutch MOD had flown [Maggie] over for this ceremony because Maggie received the Dutch Medal of Honor on behalf of the 82d Airborne Division in 1945. He was hereby the first American to be decorated by the Dutch Government.”

The speeches began and when Maggie got there, he went for maybe an hour without a single note.

General Petraeus, of course, brought PowerPoint and a laser pointer, as do U.S. Commanders. He talked about the challenges of the CENTCOM AOR (Area of Responsibility) and focused some time on Iraq. Progress is unfolding in Iraq and despite the problems, progress is undeniable.

Examining the graph closely, violence was at an all-time high in about June 2007, right when I reported on the Hugh Hewitt radio show that the Surge was working. Needless to say, a lot of people said that was crazy. (Just look at that graph!) During a more recent interview with Hugh, we remembered that interview in 2007. But look what started to happen in July. When I was reporting the growing civil war in 2005, the civil war was not yet showing itself in the statistics but I could feel it growing. By 2006, Iraq was starting to burn down, but by June 2007 the Surge obviously was working even though Iraq was mad with violence at that time.

In this type of war, as with Afghanistan, the statistics lag behind the realities. This month’s statistics are ancient news even though the events that underpin the graphs just occurred. A witness must be on the ground and know what to look and listen for, and be willing to disregard what the crowd is saying (unless they are right). The witness must be politically tone-deaf.

If General Petraeus did not take the Iraq reins in early 2007, I would say there would have been maybe a 90% chance that genocide would have occurred. Of course Petraeus never said anything like that during today’s talk, nor did he tell the audience that he had taken command in late January 2007 and that by July 2007 violence began to subside. Those are the facts.

General Petraeus mentioned during the talk that the Washington Post had just released the classified message from McChrystal to the White House. The memo has since set Washington ablaze, yet the McChrystal document delivered news so old and parched that Indiana Jones might find it more useful for finding hidden treasures. That Washington finds the ideas new or shocking only shows that Washington is shot full of painkillers and can’t feel a thing. The report should have been submitted by the Commanding General in Afghanistan in 2006.

Petraeus’s talk included a description of good progress on the Pakistan side, which looked pretty doggone bad earlier this year. Back in December in Bahrain, I had put General Petraeus on the spot about Pakistan and our supply routes. His descriptions back then actually are coming true, though at the time it had been doubtful.

His descriptions about Afghanistan were accurate in fact and in tone.

Last year I said during an interview with Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit that we need tens of thousands of more troops. What is coming on the radar these last couple weeks is ancient history and in fact the war at this rate is tantamount about lost. General Petraeus did not say this, but it’s true. My instinct is that if the President does not make a quick decision to send those troops and resources, the war certainly will be lost.

General Petraeus talked about the trends. In April 2006, I told Hugh Hewitt on air that we were losing Afghanistan, and then wrote twelve dispatches that we were losing. The statistics flew in the face of the claims and, ironically, the statistics seemed to be reasonably accurate. I never disputed the statistics that appeared to shoot down the claims. The violence, or lack thereof, lags behind the causes. Violence is not the disease but a symptom that changes post facto.

Despite all that, morale remains good, and General Petraeus’s slide showing the July 4th reenlistment ceremony is an accurate reflection. We can still make success in Afghanistan, but time is just about gone.

The speeches were over and we headed to a big lunch with the veterans who liberated the Netherlands and other places.

At the lunch, General Petraeus walked over to Captain Marco Kroon, Dutch Medal of Honor recipient, and they stepped out of the main hall to a quiet spot, but I spoiled the moment for a photo. General Petraeus said, “Michael, do you know who this is?” “Yes Sir, I do,” and I snapped a photo that didn’t turn out so well.

And that was it. A remembrance during a time of war, and now it’s time to move back to the war.

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A Story From War

2009-10-08T03:38:00Z

Published: 08 October 2009

“In April this year it became 2 Rifles’ dubious fortune to be sent to Sangin on a six-month tour. By mid-August their battle group, a composite force from various units built around a core of several hundred riflemen and fusiliers, had the worst casualties of any British brigade sent to Helmand, with just over 100 soldiers killed or wounded: a fifth of their total patrol troops. The trend suggested that by the time the battle group’s tour ends this month as many as one in four of these infantrymen will have been slain or injured, a figure that compares with British infantry casualty ratios in Europe during the later stages of the Second World War.”
Anthony Lloyd

Anthony Lloyd, the famed British war correspondent and author has seen much in war. Years ago, when I read his book My War Gone By, I Miss It So, the idea of taking up the pen and going to war had never been in the question. After reading Anthony’s book it was definitely out of the question. War correspondence is a horrible profession. Taking inventory of battlefields, psyches and body parts is an inevitable, recurring theme. The horrors are too many to remember or attempt to recount, if there were desire. And there was Anthony, one of the most experienced war correspondents, and he was going to the same British unit that I was embedded with. Though Anthony’s journey with British 2 Rifles partially coincided with my own, mostly we were at different bases. From FOB Inkerman or during missions in the area, I could sometimes hear the fighting over at “his” base on FOB Jackson because, for instance, soldiers at Inkerman would fire the Howitzers in support of combat taking place around Jackson. Or bombs would drop and noises carry, or sometimes the Apaches would be churning up the enemy with rockets and 30mm cannons. Modern combat can be loud.

As years roll by and more soldiers have done two, three, four or even five long tours, writing about war has changed. In the early years most of the soldiers and correspondents were green to war and were on equal footing, but these days only a handful of correspondents remain who keep going back and their numbers are diminishing, while the concentration of highly experienced soldiers is increasing. The increasing and probably irreversible imbalance means that fewer correspondents will share common experiences with current veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, and very few writers will possess the experience to render so fundamentally accurately what Anthony Lloyd captures in this story from war.

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Nick Gurr: Reply to Michael Yon

2009-10-02T14:01:50Z

Official News Blog of the UK Ministry of Defence

« Defence News: 1 October 2009 | Main | Defence Diary: 2 October 2009 »

Thursday, 01 October 2009

Nick Gurr: Reply to Michael Yon

Last week Michael posted a highly critical piece on the ending of his embed with Task Force Helmand (TFH). This attracted a large number of posts from outraged readers supportive of Michael. I undertook to investigate what had happened. I have now done so.

I know that some readers will not be sympathetic to the MOD's position on a matter such as this. But I would be grateful if you would hear me out. It is clear that there has been a (to quote Michael) "Texas-sized" misunderstanding here, made worse by various other factors, and I apologise for any part that MOD has played in that. But there are a few important points that I would like to make:

Michael's embed is the longest of any person this year by quite some way. Most embeds are for between one and two weeks. And demand for embeds with TFH always exceeds our capacity to supply. I wish that were not the case. But it is. Despite this, we have facilitated 136 media visits to TFH since January this year. On average there were about three people per visit, which means that some 400 media people have visited TFH over the first nine months of this year.

Michael's embed ended because the media ops team needed to assist a number of visits by other journalists, including a package from Northern Ireland regional newspapers (home ground for 19 Brigade), reporters from The Times and Independent, a BBC TV crew, a documentary team and a team from PA. Capacity is limited. I can understand that this may have looked different to Michael. But it was the reason that the embed ended when it did.

Hence the Defence Secretary's reply to Anne Winterton.

Last, and most importantly, while we take a number of factors into account in deciding who to embed and when (when an individual was last embedded, when his/her organisation was, readership), a demand for positive coverage is not among them. We believe that the efforts of our forces in theatre will speak for themselves. Of course we hope for balance - and by and large we get that. We have certainly never had an issue with Michael's reporting.

Clearly something appears to have gone seriously wrong in this case. But everyone in theatre is working under huge pressure which will sometimes generate friction and, as I said, I am sorry if Michael felt he was not being treated as he should be. I am assured that the media ops team in theatre worked hard to support him. It is a shame that the experience should have ended on a sour note.

I hope Michael will find the time to drop in for a chat about how we go forward from here when he is next in London.

Posted at 01:16 PM in From the Director

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YON: The Greatest Afghan War

2009-10-01T06:33:09Z

Published today in:

01 October 2009

By Michael Yon

The Greatest Afghanistan War has deteriorated so noticeably that one can now feel the enemy's growing pulse. Each month it beats steadier, stronger, and in 2010 it will finally be born.

On Sept. 11 in Kandahar, a South African civilian working without security was visibly upset - not at the Taliban but at the police. The 16-year police veteran recounted seeing Afghan police speeding through crowded streets and hitting a bicycle. The rider gymnastically avoided impact while the bicycle was tossed down the road.

The South African, with whom I spent a week in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, said the police never slowed down. "That's part of the reason the Taliban are gaining ground," he said. "The police are out there recruiting Taliban."

I have searched for answers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Along with the more strategic questions (for example, should war be pursued?) are those closer to the shop floor: Are we gaining or losing popular support? Is the enemy gaining or losing strength? Is the coalition gaining or losing strength?

The first answer is a common denominator for the rest.

We are losing popular support. Confidence in the Afghan and coalition governments is plummeting. Loss of human terrain is evident. Conditions are building for an avalanche. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the military commander in Afghanistan, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates are aware of the rumbling, and so today we are bound by rules of engagement that appear insensible.

We must curb civilian losses at expense to ourselves. I believe the reasoning is sound and will share those increased dangers. Erosion of popular support seems reversible. There still is considerable good will from the Afghan population, but bomb by bomb we can blow it. We have breathing room if we work with wise alacrity. I sense a favorable shift in our operations occurring under Gen. McChrystal.

Enemies are strengthening. Attacks are dramatically increasing in frequency and efficacy. We are being out-governed by tribes and historical social structures. These structures are - and will be for the foreseeable future - the most powerful influence upon and within the political terrain. "Democracy" does not grow on land where most people don't vote. The most remarkable item I saw during the Aug. 20 elections was the machine-gun ambush we walked into.

The coalition is weakening. While the U.S. has gotten serious, the organism called NATO is a jellyfish for which the United States is both sea and prevailing wind. The disappointing effort from many partners is best exemplified by the partners who are pushing hardest: The British are fine examples.

The British landed in Helmand province after someone apparently vouched that Helmand would be safe, and they believed it. Helmand is today the most dangerous province in Afghanistan.

British combat tours are arduous and the troops suffer in countless ways. The soldiers sweat and freeze in the desert filth; British rations are terrible; mail can be weeks late; and they fight constantly. Troops endure high casualties yet they keep fighting. These things are true. Some say the British "lost Helmand," but this is not true. Helmand was a mess before they arrived. British soldiers are strong but their government is pitiful, leading to an average effort in Afghanistan.

Example: The British serve six-month tours, minus two weeks' leave. Travel is not deducted from leave. Troops are so few at Forward Operating Base Inkerman that missions are planned around leave schedules. For leave, a soldier at Inkerman must helicopter to Camp Bastion (the main British military base in Afghanistan) to jet home.

Helicopters are scarce, making flight schedules erratic. As leave approaches, soldiers stop doing missions and wait for a helicopter. The waiting can last a week or more. Then they get home, take two weeks' leave, then transport back to Bastion, where the soldier waits to helicopter back to Inkerman.

When I departed Bastion last month, some soldiers waited three weeks to helicopter back to Inkerman, and were still waiting. That's six to seven lost weeks for a soldier on a six-month tour. After other distractions, British soldiers might net three months of focused work. There is zero time to conduct counterinsurgency, and besides, the British military, despite its war-fighting ability, is not good at counterinsurgency. Without change, London likely will be defeated in Helmand within roughly two years, which brings us to the fall of 2011.

Germans had deployed to one of the safest areas in Afghanistan yet today they are staggered by Taliban punches. Berlin is brittle and apt to quit. Smart money says the Germans crumble from any significant role by 2011.

Canadians will quit in 2011. Canadian soldiers have earned respect, but their NATO-partner government has empowered our enemies by quitting at a crucial moment. This likely will be remembered consciously and subconsciously in future dealings with Ottawa.

Other fine partners, such as the Dutch, who have fought well, plan to downsize right when we need them most. The Dutch need to stay in this fight and increase their efforts. We need them.

The key partner in redirecting Afghanistan should be the Afghan government. Yet Afghan President Hamid Karzai's corrupt narcocracy is widely disrespected by Afghans and increasingly combative with the coalition. We are pouring support into a government that we don't want, and many Afghans resent.

On Aug. 26, I was in Helmand with the British when a bomb exploded in Kandahar, killing at least 41 people and blowing out windows in the room I later rented to write this account. There were bombs and attacks on a daily basis in Kandahar but I only watch from the roof as Afghans kill Afghans. Potential for civil war is great.

In this unprecedented moment, dozens of the world's most notable nations have focused on helping one land, yet Western sympathies for Afghanistan already have peaked.

While an Afghan avalanche is poised, our thoughts are growing cold. This is it. Either we will begin to show progress by the end of 2010 or, piece by piece, the coalition will cleave off and drift away, meaning 2011 will begin the end to significant involvement in Afghanistan.

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Two Firefights: One Video

2009-09-27T03:17:24Z

05 October 2009

In July, British soldiers and I boarded a CH-47 helicopter at Camp Bastion for the flight to FOB Jackson at Sangin where fighting is brutal. The helicopter was so stuffed with men, gear and supplies that the cargo was not even strapped down. We steadied the long stack with our hands and prayed that the pilots not begin flying violent evasive maneuvers. The tail gunner partially lifted the ramp to prevent bundles from tumbling into the skies, and that was it for securing the bundles. Just a week before, a giant MI-26 helicopter was shot down on final approach to this same landing zone. All aboard died in flames, as did two children on the ground.

This is, interestingly, the same landing zone where I would make the photos for “The Kopp-Etchells Effect” dispatch, which was published in many languages around the world. Many readers have weighed in with ideas about the causes of the glow. Some say the cause is St Elmo’s fire or the triboelectric effect, or perhaps the piezoelectric effect. The actual cause does not seem to be surely known, according to J. Gordon Leishman, D.Sc.(Eng.), Ph.D., F.R.Ae.S., Minta Martin Professor of Engineering, Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland. I don’t know. Maybe it’s caused by angels. It definitely is beautiful.

We landed and British Soldiers from “2 Rifles” swarmed in to help unload cargo. Since I made this photo, at least two British CH-47s have been lost in combat operations, one of which was just north of here.

We need more gear and more forces now. We can outfight these enemies and we can win the war, but at this rate a favorable outcome is difficult to imagine. This war shows signs that it will become more intense than Iraq at its peak. As with my twelve dispatches from 2006 warning that we were losing this war, the warnings over the past couple of years seem to be falling on incredulous ears. We will lose the war unless we get more troops and more gear soon.

This weekend we lost eight more soldiers in a firefight. I learned about it while they were still fighting, but did not report it until just before the media broke the story the next day. Still unreported, to my knowledge, sources tell me that FOB Keating was destroyed and that troops were under siege for up to 24 hours before Air Force Para-rescue got them out. (Subject to confirmation.) The fighting will only intensify. We can beat these guys, but not under current conditions.

The last two missions I did with British 2 Rifles ended in firefights. Due to bandwidth difficulties, only a small part of the video was uploaded. Those two firefights were melded into one short video. These are just typical hum-drum day-in day-out missions, nothing like what happened this weekend in Nuristan.

Please click Firefights.

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Bullshit Bob

2009-09-25T04:51:54Z

By Michael Yon
25 September 2009

The surprise discontinuation of my embedment from the British Army left my schedule in a train wreck. Until that decisive moment, I am told, that my embed with the British Army had lasted longer than anyone else’s; other than Ross Kemp’s. I’ve also been told that I’ve spent more time with the British Army in Iraq than any correspondent. So it’s fair to say, we have good history together.

In the last 12 months, I’ve embedded with the British Army in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, then over to the jungles of Brunei to attend a man-tracking school, and again back in Afghanistan. During that time, I’ve also been with U.S. forces in Iraq, the Philippines, and Afghanistan. I’ve accompanied the Lithuanians in Afghanistan and also been downrange for months without any troops or official assignment.

This dispatch, and many others, should have been about soldiers at war. But it’s not. This dispatch is being written in downtown Kandahar City and I have not seen a soldier in days. The Taliban is slowing winning this city. There have been many bombings and shootings since I arrived in disguise.

In 2006, Iraq was melting down and I had just written twelve dispatches that clearly stated we were losing in Afghanistan. Those dispatches caused a public uproar and the consequences were such that U.S. military refused to let me back into Iraq. Because of the U.S. military censorship in Iraq, I published a dispatch in the Weekly Standard titled, Censoring Iraq. General Petraeus emailed to me immediately, and if not for his intervention, there would have been Censoring Iraq II, III, IV, V…. Ultimately, dozens of dispatches about soldiers have been forever lost.

I returned to Iraq in 2006, and in 2007, I reported that the war had turned around and progress was clear. In 2008, I wrote that we had won the Iraq war. And although recent bombings have grabbed headlines, overall violence continues to decrease.

This brings us to Afghanistan, 2009.

My latest embed with British 2 Rifles, which began in July, was extended on at least two occasions. The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) had recently agreed that I would spend roughly one more month with 2 Rifles. My scheduled embeds with the United States Air Force and Marines were specifically arranged around the British schedule, and I was enjoying reporting on the excellent British troops.

However, on August 24th, with no warning, unseen faces of MoD discontinued my embed from 2 Rifles. The message that I was no longer embedded was emailed to me by Media Ops, just as I returned from an interesting firefight in the Green Zone. Luckily, none of our guys got hit, but I think the British soldiers may have killed some Taliban.

I do not know the reason for the embed termination. My best guess is that it relates to my sustained criticism that the British government is not properly resourcing its soldiers.

Before going further, it is essential to underscore the importance of the “Media Ops” in the war. When Media Ops fails to help correspondents report from the front, the public misses necessary information to make informed decisions about the war. Many soldiers in the British Media Ops are true professionals who strive constantly to improve at their tasks and work very well with correspondents. Their professionalism and understanding of the larger mission—ultimate victory—provide an invaluable service to the war effort.

But there are a few who should not be in uniform and it takes only one roach leg to spoil a perfect soup.

For example—without giving names so as not to tar and feather someone for his entire life when he still has a chance to change his behavior—the British Major running Media Ops at Camp Bastion has been particularly problematic. Even before my embed started with 2 Rifles, his words raised red flags among the correspondents about his priorities.

I had a specific incident with this British Media Ops Major.

The Major and I were driving in Camp Bastion around midday when it was very hot. A British soldier ran by wearing a rucksack. He was drenched in sweat under the blazing, dusty desert. I smiled because it’s great to see so many soldiers who work and train hard. Yet the Major cut fun at the soldier, saying he was dumb to be running in that heat. I nearly growled at the Major, but instead asked if he ever goes into combat. The answer was no. And, in fact, the Major does not leave the safety of Camp Bastion.

That a military officer would share a foul word about a combat soldier who was prepping for battle was offensive. Especially an officer who lives in an air-conditioned tent with a refrigerator stocked with chilled soft drinks. Just outside his tent are nice hot and cold showers. Five minutes away is a little Pizza Hut trailer, a coffee shop, stores, and a cookhouse.

This very Major had earned a foul reputation among his own kind for spending too much time on his Facebook page. I personally saw him being gratuitously rude to correspondents. Some correspondents—all were British—complained to me that when they wanted to interview senior British officers, they were told by this Major to submit written questions. The Major said they would receive videotaped answers that they could edit as if they were talking with the interviewee. (Presumably, senior British officers are avoiding the tough questions, such as, “So, when do you plan to send enough helicopters?”)

When I asked a different Media Ops officer about meeting with a senior British General in Afghanistan, I was told that submitting a CV (curriculum vitae) would be helpful, to which I laughed. A CV? How about this:

Name: Michael Yon
Profession: Writer
Experience: Years
Notes: I will be in and affecting your battle space for years to come. (By the way, you are losing the war. Hiding from correspondents does not change that fact.)

This war is moving fast and there is no time for games. If a general does not want to tell his story, someone will tell it for him. He will have failed by losing another winnable media battle.

On a sidebar, before this article was published I was invited to the Netherlands by the esteemed James “Maggie” Megallas to attend an incredible Dutch remembrance for our World War II veterans.

For those who don’t know him, James Megellas is a retired U.S. Army officer who commanded Company "H" of the 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), 82nd Airborne Division during World War II. Maggie is the most-decorated officer in the history of the 82nd Airborne Division, having received a Distinguished Service Cross, a Silver Star, and been nominated for the Medal of Honor. Maggie at 92 and is an extraordinary man. He can give an eloquent speech for an hour without a single written note.

He has spent a couple months in Afghanistan—in the worst places. He’s a true leader and a wise man, known to General McChrystal and General Petraeus. General Petraeus told me last week that CENTCOM had okayed Maggie’s trip to Afghanistan. Maggie is an American treasure. Last week in the Netherlands, “Maggie” was spending time General Petraeus and with European royalty, including Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. General Petraeus and World War II veterans stayed several days at the same hotel Maggie and I were in.

In Holland, folks were lining up to honor and pay tribute to our World War II veterans and General Petraeus. I didn’t want to distract General Petraeus with any questions while he was so busy. But on about the third day, there was a tap on my shoulder and I was told that General Petraeus had some time if I wanted to talk.

I asked the good General some tough questions on Afghanistan—the kind that would end discussions with timid people—yet, like normal, he fielded those questions with the candor that I so respect in him and have come to expect. The same has happened to me with the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, and other top military leaders. Gates and Petraeus will field challenging, difficult questions and will take what you throw at them. Yet the British Media Ops in Afghanistan wants correspondents to submit written questions so they can provide tidy answers. That’s a sad joke and there are many correspondents, including me, who are not laughing.

More on the trip to Netherlands will be forthcoming, but now back to Afghanistan:

At Camp Bastion there are two tents at Media Ops. One tent is for the Media Ops staff and the other is for the itinerant correspondents. When ever the Internet died in the correspondents’ tent, the Major in question let the journalists use the Internet in the staff tent. That was helpful and appreciated. But he locked the door at night (the tent has a door) and kept it that way until the morning so that no correspondent would wake him with keyboard tapping. Not helpful on transmitting information.

At a glance, that seems trivial stuff, really. But it’s not trivial when you know that these are the same Media Ops people—who do not leave their base or go on missions—who are spooling out “the message” to the media. They are clueless about the state of the war in Afghanistan. For instance, many of the Media Ops officers will insist that we have enough helicopters in Afghanistan. Those officers are either completely oblivious to the actuality of the situation or lying.

General Petraeus told me straight up that we don’t have enough and that we doubled our helicopters in the last four months and are in the process of fielding “two more fistfuls.” (He did not give specific numbers.) Those BS-filled officers who deny the obvious are, in fact, symptomatic to why we are losing the war.

When I deliver good news, out rolls the red carpet. Bad news, and it’s time to fight again. Only now it’s not Censoring Iraq, it’s Censoring Helmand. And it’s not the U.S. doing it this time, but the British government. The British people are demanding truth and they deserve accountability. They aren’t getting it from Camp Bastion.

Some of the Media Ops guys in Afghanistan are good at something such as threatening future access if a correspondent shows “attitude” about being poorly treated. My answer is go to hell. They can take their access and. . . . I work for the soldiers, for the readers, and for the people in general. If Media Ops chooses to be an obstacle, that is their choice.

After being summarily disembedded it took days—due to the helicopter shortage—to catch a helicopter from the Green Zone and head over to the posh Media Ops tent. There I found the same Major still up to his old attitude with some of the correspondents.

Meanwhile, because of the abrupt embed, my scheduling problems were unfolding. The U.S. Marines, of whom I have never seen treat anyone like the British Major treats correspondents, wanted to take me. But the earliest I could embed with them was on 16 September. This fell at the same time I needed to punch out and head to Eindhoven in The Netherlands for the World War II remembrance ceremonies which I had been invited to long ago. The Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNAF) had made arrangements to fly me from Afghanistan to Eindhoven. Disembedded or not, it should have been a simple matter for me to have a few days, even out of pure courtesy, where I could settle some business with the U. S. Air Force and U.S. Marines. But the boss of Media Ops in Afghanistan, Lt Col Nick Richardson in Lashkar Gah, through the Major at Bastion, demanded that I leave the Regional Command South (RC-South) which is under British control.

I said in essence, hold on, partner, are you saying that you are knowingly interfering with my ability to arrange an embed with the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Marines? Especially after you abruptly released me as correspondent? Because if that’s what Media Ops was saying, then we were going to have a Texas-sized fight.

The boss of Media Ops in Afghanistan Lt. Col. Richardson has tweaked other peoples’ BS sensors on the helicopter issue, including Daniel Bennett at the Frontline Club. Richardson is doing more damage to the war effort than the Taliban media machine. By perpetrating falsehoods that undermine our combat capacity, Richardson has helped the enemy.

Some of the smokescreens are less important but they are demonstrative of the pattern: On 20 August a, CH-47 helicopter was shot down by a Taliban RPG during a British Special Forces mission. Richardson reported that the aircraft landed due to an engine fire. Some hours later, while I was on a mission nearby, the Taliban were singing over the radios about shooting it down. I heard the rumble when the helicopter was destroyed by airstrikes. The Taliban knew they hit the helicopter. So who is Richardson lying to? Not the enemy…unless the enemy is the British public.

Stephen Grey and others have noted the censorship:

“Despite the risk of being blacklisted and refused access to report from the frontline, journalists are speaking out about what they say is the government's attempt to control the news. It is "lamentable", says one Fleet Street foreign editor; the Times correspondent Anthony Loyd describes it as "outrageous"; Christina Lamb of the Sunday Times calls it "indefensible"; it is "redolent of Comical Ali", says the Sun's defence editor, Tom Newton Dunn.

“Almost all journalists travelling with British forces are ordered to email their copy to the military's press officers in Helmand before publication. Many fear that negative coverage could mean trips back to the frontline are cancelled or delayed.”

The Media Ops boys are treating this like a game.

Eventually I had a meeting at the same table with a U.S. Air Force officer, a U.S. Marine officer, and the British Major from Media Ops in an attempt to work out a solution that would get me with the Air Force or Marines. The Major was docile in the presence of the two other officers. The Marine and Air Force officers said that they were willing and happy to help. Despite their goodwill, the scheduling train wreck had other moving issues stacking up, and the British Media Ops weren’t done with playing games.

In addition to the disembed, the British Media Ops were insisting that I leave RC-South at once. Let’s be clear – this was Afghanistan, not London where I can easily hail a cab or jump on The Tube. By their demands, the Media Ops folks were ignoring the obvious truth that it takes time, planning, and much coordination to move anyone, soldiers or correspondents, around Afghanistan.

Also, Media Ops knew that I was waiting for two important packages to arrive at Camp Bastion – packages that took a great amount of time and expense to send for. When I brought this up, the Major said he had checked into the packages and that because there was no FedEx in Camp Bastion, my packages must be in Kabul.

This was a flat out lie. When soldiers hear something that is patently false, they call it “bullshit.” I looked at the Major and said, “Bullshit,” to which he stomped out. He later said I had cursed him, which, if by calling him on his lie he implied that I was cursing him, then so be it; he was right. It was bullshit because there is a FedEx and a DHL in Camp Bastion. Something you would think (and hope) a Media Ops guy would know about his own camp.

The Major said again that Lt. Col. Nick Richardson demanded that I leave RC-South, and that Media Ops would forward my satellite and night vision gear that was in transit. Before the Major had stomped out, I said that I was not leaving Camp Bastion until those packages were in my hands. I told him to call Lt. Col. Nick Richardson at Lashkar Gah—a nearby base—and say that if Richardson wants me gone, he’d need to call the Royal Military Police (RMP). The satellite gear is crucial to the operation and the night vision gear is expensive. I was not going to leave without the gear unless under arrest. I had heard the Major arrogantly tell a correspondent how a soldier had punched another correspondent and “knocked him on his ass.” Bullying apparently had been working for him; he was still doing it.

“Go ahead,” I said, “Call the RMPs right now. Have them come down and flex cuff me and put me on an airplane out of here.” I waited for the RMP’s to arrive and arrest me. At least they would be professionals.

There is the maxim that a customer can judge the cleanliness of a restaurant’s kitchen by the restroom. After much experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, I have discovered another: Soldiers always treat correspondents they way they treat the local people. When soldiers treat correspondents badly, they treat local people even worse and are creating enemies. Those troops who brag about how they mistreat or detest correspondents are abusing and resentful of the local population, and they cannot win this sort of war. The people will kill them and the media will bash them and they will blame the people and the media. When a soldier alienates sympathetic correspondents, he has no real chance against mortal enemies such as the Taliban and al Qaeda, and they will defeat him. Yet there is subtlety: for “the people,” in the case of Media Ops, is you.

The Major doesn’t deal with Afghans. Afghans are not his target and it is not correspondents who are being denied access. YOU are being denied access. YOU are resented and deceived, and people like Minister of Defence, Bob Ainsworth, wish to separate realities from readers.

The reader is my boss, and my job is to observe, analyze where possible, and report back. When Media Ops or others try to deceive my boss, I fight for my boss. That’s my job and duty.

I told some U.S. Marine officers about issues with Media Ops. The Marines wanted to take me but there was a pesky twelve-day wait before I could start with them, and as mentioned I needed to get to The Netherlands. Luckily, the Marines and Air Force helped me get the packages.

The problem with embedding with the U.S. Air Force, as with the U.S. Marines, was timing. The U.S. Air Force rescue folks, the Pedros, were going home to America and were being replaced but there was a window of opportunity before that happened. The bottom line: Air Force Pedros took me on three missions, but it could have been a lot more.

Meanwhile, the British Media Ops, who backed down from the arrest, made a Plan B. The Major said I must leave the media tent because fourteen journalists were coming and needed space. There were six bunks and two cots, meaning all fourteen spots would be filled. I asked the Major who the journalists were and when they were coming. The Major answered that he didn’t exactly know who was coming or when, but they were (or might be) coming, and they needed space. The Major was easier to read than a five year-old, and too sad a specimen to be angry with. I had been sleeping outside for weeks and would readily continue, but instead contacted the Pedro guys who let me stay with them. Ironically, our Pedro teams happened to be staying with British 2 Rifles at Camp Bastion—and so 2 Rifles welcomed me back.

This was all bizarre. Although the British Media Ops kicked me out, I was now staying in a tent with the U.S. Air Force who were also staying with British soldiers, so I was right back at home.

Word had somehow spread that I told Media Ops to have me arrested. I had not mentioned the confrontation. Word must have gotten out from Media Ops themselves and some journalists soon realized that a fight was on. The correspondents I was talking with did not like Media Ops—not one bit—and support poured in.

An email came from a fellow correspondent with these words:

“During all of this time I was aware that your own predicament was also strained with the Pic [Media Ops]. Rumour reached me in […] that you had told the pic team in Bastion that if they wanted you out then they’d have to get the RMPs to arrest you, and that they were forced to back down! (I don’t know if the story was true or not but it was a huge morale boost to all who heard it in [...].)”

The British soldiers from 2 Rifles were angry with Media Ops for ending the reporting and their families are forever deprived of the dispatches that would have been written. Media Ops said they needed the space, but nobody replaced me in combat, and nobody is likely to. Media Ops lied again.

Meanwhile, British citizens began demanding answers from their government.

A question was asked and Minister of Defence Bob Ainsworth made public his reply:

Ann Winterton (Congleton, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Defense for what reasons the journalist Michael Yon is no longer embedded with British armed forces in Afghanistan.

Hansard source (Citation: HC Deb, 14 September 2009, c2121W)

Bob Ainsworth (Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence; Coventry North East, Labour)

Opportunities to embed with Task Force Helmand are in high demand from across the media—national, regional, print, broadcast, specialist and new media. It is not possible to meet all requests and slots must be time-limited to ensure that the opportunities are shared as widely as possible. A normal embed for a national news organisation will last on average around two to three weeks, including time for travel.

Michael Yon had been embedded with British forces on a number of occasions before his recent visit—twice in Iraq in 2007, and once in Afghanistan in 2008. His latest embed had been scheduled to last for two weeks but it was extended to take account of delays to his arrival.

In all, his stay was extended twice and he was embedded for five weeks—much longer than is normally the case, and longer than had been agreed with him before he went. He was facilitated by British forces in a number of locations and given a high level of access both to the operations and to our personnel. At the end of this five-week period Task Force Helmand ended his embed as they were no longer able to support it given their other commitments, including other media visits.

That’s hogwash, Mr. Ainsworth. Pure hogwash!

The fact that the British Minister of Defence (MoD) would go on record with hogwash is again symptomatic of a much larger problem. Mr. Ainsworth is lying to the British public about the helicopter issue in Afghanistan. Mr. Ainsworth tells the British public that British soldiers have enough helicopters. British troops are suffering—even dying—for those lies. Mr. Ainsworth is, in effect, murdering British soldiers by not resourcing them.

If the British MoD is demanding that I be complicit in their lies to gain access to their soldiers, I decline. I strongly believe that the embed was cancelled due to my criticism of the helicopter shortage. Yet helicopters are just the most obvious issue that needs to be raised and addressed.

This story rings true:

From The Sunday Times
August 30, 2009

Bob Ainsworth in 'cover-up' over soldier's death

Bob Ainsworth, the defense secretary, has been accused of a cover-up over the death of the first British soldier to be killed in action in the Nato operation in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, by smearing his commanding officer.

The story continues:

“This will prove Bob Ainsworth was trying to cover up the real reason for James’s death. He was trying to shift blame away from the lack of equipment for which the MoD was responsible and negligent,” Philippson said.

Bob Ainsworth is covered in British blood and painfully deceptive. Henceforth, he will always be known as “Bullshit Bob” to me.

My relationship with the British military is not diminished and I would go into combat with their soldiers anytime. My respect for British soldiers is immense and undying. But I’m ready to throw down with Media Ops if they even glance in my direction. I refuse to work with the crew at Camp Bastion.

It’s hard to forget the Major’s cutting insults at the soldier who was training in the heat as a commendable young man. Any combat troop, whether they are pilots, PJs, sailors, special operations, or my favorite—the infantry—should never be the subject of jokes or derision from any military leader of any rank. The infantry soldiers are out there living like animals, taking bullets and getting blown up and, all while the Major sits back in his comfortable tent, playing on Facebook and watching The Simpsons. Those combat troops, British and American, are my family. That Major and his ilk should not cut fun of them.

Bottom line for the bad apples: Nobody is asking for access. This is not a game. Stay out of the way.

[Note: Word arrived that the Media Ops crew has been replaced during a normal rotation.]

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Maqaleh v. Gates Amicus Brief

2009-09-24T02:25:52Z

America in Danger: Important Courtroom Battles

Published: 24 September 2009

Dear Mr. Yon:

It is my pleasure to forward to you the attached copy of the amicus curiae brief which we filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on behalf of the Special Operations community on Monday evening.

We believe that this unique brief has the potential to play an important role in the Court of Appeals’ consideration of Maqaleh v. Gates. We are especially optimistic that the Court will value the insight that only veterans of Special Operations can offer as to the extremely adverse operational consequences that would flow from upholding the District Court’s decision. Thank you for being an integral part of this effort.

It has been an honor to represent true American heroes in this matter.

Best regards,

David

Please click here to view the entire brief emailed by David Rivkin.

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Afghanistan Force Requirements

2009-09-22T13:43:50Z

Published: 22 September 2009

Please click here to view the entire pdf from Fredrick and Kimberly Kagan.

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Pedros

2009-09-14T02:45:13Z

14 September 2009
Helmand Province, Afghanistan

With the war increasing, Air Force Pararescue has been crisscrossing the skies picking up casualties.

That’s the Green Zone of Helmand Province, the opium capital of the world. Those fields are the great ATM of our enemies here. The fertilizer used to make those fields green is the same fertilizer used to make countless bombs.

We are flying in a special U.S. Air Force Blackhawk helicopter to fetch a seriously ill British soldier.

In Iraq, many of the casevacs were done by ground forces. In other words, if we hit a bomb or got shot, soldiers would load up the dead and wounded and rush them to the CSH (Combat Support Hospital or “cash”). But in Afghanistan most of the fighting occurs outside the cities and far away from the base hospitals. Rescue helicopters stationed at places like Bagram, Kandahar Airfield and Camp Bastion have been flying thousands of missions.

There are numerous helicopter rescue “services” in Afghanistan. For instance, the British have MERTs (Medical Emergency Response Teams) that fly in a CH-47, and the U.S. Army uses Blackhawks as does the U.S. Air Force. Special operations teams normally cover their own evacuations.

This U.S. Army rescue helicopter parked at Camp Bastion (Helmand) flies with the red cross symbol allowing the enemy to get a better aim at the helicopter. Unfortunately, by displaying the red cross symbol, the helicopters are not allowed to carry miniguns or other large weapons. This seems a rather questionable decision given that the Taliban and other enemies could not give a hoot about law. It is unclear why the Army decided that a red cross provides more protection than miniguns.

These Air Force “Pedro” rescue helicopters have two miniguns each (total of four miniguns), and the PJs all carry M-4 rifles. They do fire those weapons in combat. In July, a helicopter swooped down during a rescue and picked up some wounded soldiers and then was shot down. The second Air Force helicopter had to get the U.S. Army patients off the bird that had been shot down. But there was not enough room in the second bird for the Pedro crew. (No injuries.) So the tiny Army OH-58 Kiowa helicopters flew out—Kiowas only seat two people and both seats were full—and some of the Pedro folks had to clip onto the skids and fly out like James Bond.

The damaged helicopter was left behind. Bullets had hit a fuel line and caused the fuel to leak out, and so the pilot had no trouble landing, but the helicopter was now stuck in the middle of nowhere. So after the Pedros rescued U.S. soldiers who then rescued Pedros, other soldiers flew out to rescue the Pedro helicopter. The plan was to cut off the rotors and have a bigger helicopter use a cable to lift out the Blackhawk and fly it back to base. But when the soldiers started using a saw on the rotors, sparks hit the fuel that had leaked and the Blackhawk burned to the ground. The Army killed the Air Force’s helicopter.

The helicopters take hits. On another mission in Helmand, an RPG shot through the tail but luckily it missed the transmission; if the RPG had hit the transmission, the entire crew likely would have been killed. And so . . . those miniguns come in handy. The gunners are great shots and can return accurate fire within seconds.

Some readers have gotten upset that I call them “Pedro,” thinking the name is secret. The concern is welcome but not warranted in this case. The Pedros don’t care and they even have a Pedro patch.

The Pararescue medics are often called “PJs.” The SEALs, Delta, Rangers and Green Berets all hold the PJs in high regard. Firstly, the PJs are among the best medics in the U.S. military (we have incredible medics—so that’s a significant statement). Secondly, PJs go through just about any combat training available, ranging from HALO to mountaineering to scuba. They’ve got scuba gear here at Camp Bastion and have had to use it to recover soldiers who were killed after the enemy blew their vehicle into some water. In a different war, the Pedros would be tasked to rescue pilots who might be shot down hundreds of miles into enemy territory.

As we fly out to pick up a sick soldier, the door gunners and PJs test-fire the miniguns and M-4s.

When we get low, the PJs sit with their feet hanging out the doors so they can return fire, but up high they relax and take in the scenery. That’s the Helmand River and part of the “Green Zone.”

The Pedro commander, Major Mathew Wenthe, said that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had issued a directive that all casualties be evacuated and arrive at the hospital within one hour of the call. Pedros intend to fulfill that directive.

The Pedro crews at Bastion have three helicopters but they only take two on missions. Major Wenthe gave high credit to the mechanics who are constantly changing out parts, up to and including seven engines in the last few months. The birds are ready, and that’s the first step.

There are two Pedro shifts who work 12 hours on, 12 hours off, with no days off during the tour. The first shift starts at 0200 and runs to 1400 and the second shift takes 1400 to 0200.

Inside the TOC (Tactical Operations Center; the HQ), Pedro has a big board where reports from around Helmand Province scroll down. If a British unit gets into a firefight, for instance, Pedro knows about the firefight within probably a minute because the messages are relayed to TOCs that need to know. At least one person is always watching that screen, and so you might hear a pilot say, “The Marines are in contact near such and such.” Or, “The Brits just hit an IED near Sangin.”

The casualties are classified as Category A, Cat B, or Cat C. Cat A basically means the soldier is probably going to die, lose a limb, or lose his eyesight if not quickly treated. Cat B is more like someone who’s gotten shot in the foot. It’s a big deal, but not immediately life-threatening. Cat C might be some kind of non-life-threatening illness or a broken finger.

When the Pedro crews see injuries scroll down, they rush out to the helicopters like Batman and Robin heading to the Batmobile. Really, you’ve got to get out of the way or they will knock you down. Within a few minutes the rotors are spinning but the Pedros actually have not yet been tasked to go. The British-run JHTF (Joint Helicopter Task Force) is watching the same information but they also have other assets that can be sent, such as the U.S. Army or the British MERT (Medical Emergency Response Team) in the CH-47. The Pedros are always the first who are ready to go, but it might make sense for JHTF to send MERT because MERT is a bigger helicopter and so it flies faster than Blackhawks. Plus, the doctor on the MERT can actually pump blood into patients, because when the patient gets shot or blown up, medics on the scene radio the blood types, and the MERT crew can actually fly out with the right blood. Pedros don’t push blood but do start IVs. However . . . the CH-47 is a big helicopter and is easier to shoot down, and so if the landing zone is going to be tight or under fire, it might be better to send Pedro. Yet much of Afghanistan is high and hot and the CH-47 can fly in thinner air than can Blackhawks.

While the JHTF makes a decision, Pedro is waiting with rotors spinning and all they need to hear is “Go Pedro.” Thirty seconds later they are gone. (The British MERT CH-47 flies faster, but it’s slower to start.)

Every day is a “National Geographic” day. Afghanistan is incredible.

As we approach the LZ, the PJs pull on rubber gloves; the helicopter is subject to getting bloody.

This rotation of Pedros had done just under 400 missions in three months. Similar crews in Iraq might do half a dozen missions in the same period.

These PJs have treated hundreds of patients and gone into dangerous areas every day.

Typical compound.

Afghan interstate system.

The Afghans call this the Dasht-i-Margo (Desert of Death).

The roads of nowhere.

Lone vehicle in the Desert of Death.

Some compounds are miles from the nearest neighbor, yet they still have walls. Afghanistan is the land of a million Alamos.

When Afghans build a home, they start by building a wall. When the wall is finished, they start on the home.

The pilots swoop in for the patient. There is only one thing that British soldiers love more than mail and that’s Pedro. When I told British soldiers from 2 Rifles that Pedro was going to take me, many British soldiers asked me to say “thank yous” to the Pedros. The Pedros are a great morale booster because we know when we take casualties, Pedro is coming with miniguns and incredible medics. When other helicopters are grounded by bad weather, Pedro goes. When bullets are flying, Pedro comes in with miniguns blazing. They also rescue Danish, Americans, and others, including contractors and Afghan civilians sometimes.

We picked up a British patient from 2 Rifles, one of my favorite infantry units. The British are more sensitive about casualties than Americans (many Americans don’t care about photos if they are wounded, though some do). Although I was not embedded with the Brits and so do not have to follow British rules, I respect the soldiers.

And so, without the patient’s consent (which was hard to get because he was in pain and the helicopter was loud and the PJs were working), these photos will not show his face.

The problem was apparently appendicitis. The PJs went to work and at one point a PJ smacked the bottom of the patient’s right boot. The PJs said that if his appendix is bad, smacking the bottom of his right foot should cause sharp pain in his abdomen. And true enough, when the medic smacked his boot, the soldier winced in pain.

As we are flying back, vitals and other information are being transmitted back to Camp Bastion so that when we land, the right doctors and nurses will be ready.

The medical evacuation system is excellent. Our folks work hand in glove with British and Danish back at the hospital.

During the flight, the PJs also put earplugs in the patient so that his head isn’t rattling from this very loud helicopter. When patients are brought aboard, the PJs slide the doors shut.

This was an easy mission, but at other times there will be multiple amputations and KIAs and so the helicopters can get full.

British fire crews rush to grab patients.

The hospital is about 30 seconds away from the LZ and the PJs usually go inside so that they can do a handoff to the doctors. Then we fly back to the runway about half a mile away, refuel, and get ready for the next call.

The motto of Pararescue: “That Others May Live.” And they mean it.

Don’t mess with the miniguns . . .

The next mission took us to a Special Forces base where an ANA soldier had somehow managed to get shot in both feet. It was lucky for him that he was with Special Forces; the Green Beret medics also are tops. I’ve seen the Green Beret medics at work on countless occasions. It’s bad to get shot, but if you must, it’s best to happen in the presence of Green Berets and to get picked up by Pedros.

Some Green Berets helped load the patient and then went back to whatever it is that Green Berets do out here.

The medic(s) on the scene already have prepped the patient, so the PJs don’t have to bandage him up other than plugging his ears, taking vitals and other tasks.

The pilots flew very hard and at times.

On the way back with the ANA soldier who managed to get shot in both feet, another call came so we diverted to get two more patients.

Americans lived down here before the Soviet invasion and built much of the irrigation networks. The poppy has already been harvested this year and other crops are in the fields.

The other Pedro bird flies in to get the two patients.

We fly low and make hard turns. The PJ has to crane his neck back just to see the horizon.

In combat, the Pedro can land and get a patient loaded in about thirty seconds.

The patients are loaded and off we go. One guy had a tooth problem, and the other got bitten by a bat.

The last mission. Just under 400 on this tour, and I had the honor of going along. We’ll never know how many lives the Pedro crews saved this year in Afghanistan, but it was a lot. A book could be written about their tour, but alas, this is likely about all the recognition they will ever get. The two crews that I did missions with were:

Pedro 35
Maj Mathew Wenthe
1Lt Josh Roberts
CMSgt Rick Nowaski
TSgt Christopher Gabor
Capt Dave Depiazza
TSgt Tom Pearce
SrA Eric Mathieson

Pedro 36
Maj Mitzi Egger
Capt Adam Tucci
MSgt James Patterson
SrA Adrian Jarrin
SSgt Joe Signor
SrA Anthony Daroste
SrA Alejandro Serrano

The crews assembled and asked me to make their photo, but . . .

Just as they were starting to line up for the photo, a call came in and the helicopters flew away.

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Eight Years After 9/11

2009-09-08T03:35:21Z

08 September 2009
Helmand Province, Afghanistan

Just before the mission, soldiers form up near the memorial for our fallen.

The mission was simple. Taliban had been watching FOB Inkerman and British patrols from various compounds and we were going to occupy those compounds and pick a fight with all comers.

The mission is set to begin just at sunrise, so soldiers use white lights because night vision will not be needed. (We are still well within the base.)

The sounds: Muffled discussions, metallic clicks and snaps, and the sound of gear being stuffed into rucksacks. A soldier can be heard taking a long inhale from a cigarette. The tip grows brighter and he pauses; the tip dims and he exhales while quietly talking at half volume.

The task was very dangerous and we expected a fight. Ross Kemp, the famous British journalist who shot a documentary here, did a fine job in catching the truth of the Green Zone. Little has changed since Mr. Kemp came here; his work is as true now as it was then. Every British soldier knows and respects Ross Kemp—not because he made them heroes, but because he told the truth.

As a mood-probe, I posed a silly question from the darkness: “Is this dangerous?” Two soldiers burst into laughter, and a third said, “It’s stupid as shit, that’s what it is.” The mood was good. It’s when you don’t get an answer that you need to watch out.

Leaving base, we pass the mortar pits where the crews are ready to support us with lethal fire. A hundred meters away, the 105mm howitzers also are prepared, as are the Javelins and machine guns and grenade launchers on the perimeter. Today, when the fighting begins, they will fire many shots.

It’s time to head to the gate by the 611 “highway” that separates the desert from the Green Zone. FOB Inkerman is on the desert side, but just fifteen seconds’ walk from here begins the Green Zone.

The enemy owns the Green Zone and so platoons don’t push far from base. The risk of being outnumbered and outmaneuvered is evident. Some commanders might take issue with that statement, but the commanders here will not. To any commanders who are distant and would like to challenge my claim that the enemy owns the Green Zone here, they might consider accepting my challenge: When an officer of the rank of Colonel or General is ready to walk from FOB Jackson to PB Wishtan to FOB Inkerman and walk back to FOB Jackson, please call and I’ll walk with you.

Yes, if they accept this challenge and spend the day to walk this route, their words will stick. Yet today, even with so much immediate support from the mortars, guns and Apaches and jets, little imagination is required to envision losing most or all of a platoon within a couple miles of a base.

Despite all that, the morale of British troops is unmistakably good, which cannot be attributed to the terrible rations they eat. After more than a month with British combat troops in the Green Zone, I hadn’t seen a piece of fresh fruit on a base, despite that we are surrounded by farms.

Riflemen Ben Taylor and Aaron Jones always seem ready to roll. Moments before we head into the mission, I say, “Don’t worry men. If there are any dramas, just fall behind me and obey my commands.” Their eyes go wide, then Ben laughs loudly and Aaron goes “Kookoo, Kookoo,” while twirling a finger close to his ear.

We snap on helmets and enter the Thunder Zone. Lance Corporal Johnston takes file behind Ben Taylor. Two soldiers wearing at least three types of camouflage because the British Army has not properly outfitted its soldiers. Missions here range from Brown Zone to Green Zone back to desert brown within minutes. The soldiers need camouflage similar to what special operations folks wear. British and American special operations folks use camouflage suitable for both environments. It’s cheap and every combat soldier should have it.

We have so few troops that we cannot even control the veins of Green Zone.

As we step off base from FOB Inkerman, we are immediately subject to coming under small-arms attacks.

We walked off base, briefly along the 611 “highway” that runs just by that power line. On the hill, just this side of the mosque, are approximately 35 men and boys. They are watching us. The speakers mounted on the mast above the mosque are used for the call to prayers.

Is it a security violation to print Google maps? Those men up on the hill and the farmers in the fields see every move we make. If this were the opening stage of the war, it would be a mistake to print such a map. But not now. The people here know exactly what we do and where we do it. The people at home are in the dark, but not the Afghans.

We move through the corn and other crops under the eyes of the Afghan men on the hill. Soldiers on point mark a possible bomb.

As the sun rises, the variation in from Brown Zone to Green Zone becomes evident.

Rifleman Jack Otter is in the file just behind me. It seems that the most dangerous place in the file is at the point, but after that everywhere is probably about equal. The battle spaces around Afghanistan are very different. Here at Inkerman, for instance, the fight is remarkably different than the fight four miles away at Sangin. At Inkerman there are bombs, but it’s still mostly a gunfight, whereas in Sangin most of our KIAs come from bombs.

The opium has been harvested and these fields have been sowed with corn and other crops. Farmers are not happy with this year’s opium prices.

The corn provides great cover for the enemy and for us. Operating in the corn is like being aboard a British submarine while we cruise around for Taliban subs. We can’t see more than a few meters, and so it’s particularly important to be quiet and try not to ruffle the corn stocks which jiggles the tassles. Even in this kelp-like maize, we are subject to being hit by bombs. There are so many IED attacks that it’s hard to keep track. A special operations unit was attacked in late August resulting in one KIA, some amputations, and a soldier who lost his genitals, which happens more often than one might think.

Land mine? Nail?

The PKM is a common enemy weapon that packs a wallop. It can penetrate our helmets. Untrained fighters typically will fire high during night time, or in places of limited visibility such as in the corn. Good fighters often use “grazing fire,” so that even when the enemy is lying flat the gun can get hits. During our ambush on 20 August, four days earlier, the enemy had used good fire discipline and it was only due to pure luck that none of us were killed. Our guys are better shots and more tactically sound, so whereas the terrain definitely belongs to the enemy, when firefights actually start, the smart money is on the Brits or Americans, not the Taliban. They might kill a few of us, but if they stick around and fight we will wipe them out.

Lately the Green Zone has been flooded by the farmers and the fields have been muddy, yet today the irrigation had shunted and the irrigation ditches were mostly dry for this mission. Sometimes the enemy plants bombs in trees, or stretches tripwires high so that antennas will catch, which is part of the reason why being on point is not always most dangerous. Often, the point elements miss the bombs which then hit the main body. IED strikes are not like the war movies where somebody gets shot, falls down dying in his buddy’s arms saying, “Tell Lara…cough cough… Tell Lara…I love her.” And his buddy says, “No Jimmy, hang in there! Tell her yourself! Tell her yourself! Don’t die Jimmy! Don’t die you bastard!”

No, that’s not how it is at all. After an IED strike you are using sticks to knock body parts and gear out of trees, and you are collecting arms, legs, and helmets splattered with brains. Bodies get blown from one compound into another compound, and parts land on roofs. Weapons are completely lost or shattered into pieces. There is nothing romantic about the bombs. It’s straight up combat. Body parts we cannot find get eaten by dogs and nobody wants that, so we try to find every little piece—if time permits, and if there is enough light. Lately, the enemy have often been killing more of us with the second bomb than the first. After we get blown up and start collecting casualties, BOOM, other bombs start exploding.

There are loads of Fijian soldiers in the British Army. The Fijians make good soldiers and they also are very friendly and easy to get along with.

When firefights start, maneuvering can be tricky; the “cleared” lane is only a few feet wide.

Nearing the objective. We had split into several elements for mutual fire support.

As we approached the compound that was our objective, the point elements kept sweeping for bombs. Often there will be a metallic ping on a corner. I went around a corner a month or so ago, and found a sheer hole that might have been forty feet deep. Just how many soldiers have fallen into holes in this country is unknown, but it’s got to be a lot. Afghans are liable to dig holes just about anywhere, and you can bet that the holes will be unmarked. The deep holes around here are wells. Perfect tiger traps in the making.

We enter the compound and find this man. He looked familiar. As it happens, he had come to FOB Inkerman on 21 August along with nine other men, when an elder asked to be compensated for a generator that got shot on the 20th by a Javelin missile. (I had photographed the Javelin shot and can confirm that the big fireball seemed to have come from a hit on fuel.) Captain Ed Addington asked for his ID, and other details. The man claimed not to know any Taliban, though of course he probably is part of the gang. He seemed friendly and self-assured, and despite that he probably is the enemy, I would end up sitting with him for about an hour. When he learned I am American, he smiled and said “Barack Obama President.” The man said he had never heard of Michael Jackson. Just behind the man is a hole that’s about 10m deep, and about 8m x 5m on the surface. (About 30x25x15 feet.) At the bottom was water. The massive hole was dug by hand—about 4,000 cubic meters—and the whole hole was inside his compound walls. I asked how long it took to dig that hole, and he said six men would need two months.

Information flow from locals is tantamount to zero. There are some local sources, but on a scale of 1–10, information flow is probably about a 2. The other 8 must go to the Taliban, though the more time I spend in the Green Zone the more I begin to think we are fighting the people in general, and not some small group of Taliban. The British government insists that British must guard Kajaki Dam (just upriver from here) or the Taliban will destroy it because the Taliban does not want people to have electricity. This is untrue. The Taliban had years of control over Kajaki and never destroyed the dam. British officials also tell me that it would do no good to build an electrical grid because the Taliban would destroy the grid. This is patently false. The power lines in this area – under Taliban control – are in fine condition. The Taliban controls the electricity and shuts it off at night, along with cell phone towers in many places. We generate the electricity and the Taliban collects money for wattage.

Water well in the compound.

The soldiers occupied the walls and watched for attacks, while I sat with the two men in the compound.

He was all smiles and then asked for his photo. When the camera was brought to bear, he got the serious look. The moment the photo snapped he was all smiles again and wanted to see the photos on the screen.

I counted five kids. They never avoided us but never approached us and never smiled. If the kids were a barometer of the house, this house did not like soldiers.

The children’s dollhouse also had walls.

The handmade dolls might have reflected a census of the household.

Even the dolls had sleeping mats.

The younger man watched the soldiers while holding a wrench that I figured was for hitting us if he got in the mood. The soldiers found an ammunition carrier in the house but no ammo.

We had reliable information that the enemy was moving in on us.

Shots were fired by us on several occasions but the firefight had not yet started.

We kept getting information that the enemy was moving in on us. The machine gunner in the background fired at men who were maneuvering in. The soldiers were very confident that we would be attacked on the way out. As we moved into the corn, a shot rang out and I fell flat and a soldier behind me said, “That was impressive,” and I said, “I told you I am always the fastest to the ground.” Turns out it was just a warning shot . . . but nobody warned me! A couple minutes later a proper firefight broke out and we were all on the ground but we were not actually in contact. Another element was shooting at the enemy with machine guns, rifles and grenade launchers. The mortars began firing and we moved to contact, and along the way encountered what appeared to be an IED laid out for us. We went around and ended up with the element that was doing all the shooting. The 81mm mortars and the 105mm howitzers were firing dozens and dozens of shots into a compound where the enemy had disappeared.

Lance Corporal Lee Casey stays on the gun. After each firefight, the soldiers redistribute ammo so that the loads are more even.

Lance Corporal Gareth Prior

Lance Corporal Michael Pidgeon

Behind the dust is the compound we were hammering. We got intelligence that some enemy might have been killed or wounded, so the British commander said, yeah, right, hold on. Cease fire. Let’s give them a chance to send a recovery party and when they’ve had time to get there, unleash again with the mortars and guns. And so that’s what happened. The next barrage was intense and on target. Again, dozens of howitzer and mortar rounds landed inside the compound and a B-1B was said to be in the area, and there were hopes that we could drop a bomb in there, too. No bomb was dropped.

After the fighting, we moved back to Inkerman, and along the way we kept getting reports that the enemy was trying to hit us with bombs they had hidden. We got lucky this time.

More than two years ago, Ross Kemp, an outstanding British journalist, filmed a documentary series here. I have recognized many of the scenes in his footage. Little has changed other than it’s more dangerous here now. If you want to see what it’s like here through a video camera – Ross Kemp and his crew have done an incredible job. His facts and the tone were just right.

And that was it. We came back to base and I received a message. The British Ministry of Defence had canceled my embed. Here we are, eight years after the attacks on 9/11, watching censorship creep in to “the forgotten war.”

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New Afghan war: Frontline correspondent says fight has morphed – but we still can't afford to lose

2009-09-06T13:19:41Z

6 September 2009

This story was published in the New York Daily News on 6 September 2009.

By Michael Yon

Helmand, Afghanistan - The West is losing this war. This has been obvious for more than three years. Less obvious is that in 2009, we are down to the wire. Gen. Stanley McChrystal and others will soon recommend to President Obama the latest treatment for a dying patient.

Meanwhile, allies and Americans are asking themselves why we are here. Some are saying that Al Qaeda is still here or is waiting in the wings to return to its home. Yet Afghanistan was never Al Qaeda's permanent home to begin with. Al Qaeda was just renting a little space here, just as it was renting space in places like Germany and Florida.

We must face reality: Our reasons for continuing are not the reasons we came for. We are fighting a different war now than the one that began in 2001. Today's war is about social re-engineering. Given the horrible history of Afghanistan, and the fact that we already are here, the cause is worthy and worthwhile.

The decisions facing us are perilous and immense. On the one hand, we desperately need more troops, while on the other increasing troop levels introduces a host of costs and potential traps.

Yet it seems certain the war will be lost if we do not significantly increase troops. While our enemies grow stronger, years will pass before Afghan forces can replace us. Enemies are gaining ground while we lose the goodwill of the people through disillusionment. In the mostly peaceful Ghor Province, for instance, development is scant and there are no Afghan soldiers.

I just spent more than a month with British combat forces in Helmand. Instead of concentrating on training and operating with Afghan forces, the British are involved in a daily struggle for tiny pieces of real estate.

Last December, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told me in a private discussion while flying back to the U.S. from Afghanistan, Bahrain and Iraq, that his greatest concern is that we will lose the goodwill of the Afghan people. Gates is correct and my confidence in his judgment is high. Gates knows that our stock is still okay here, but clearly it is losing value.

The strongest indicator of progress will come in the form of cooperation from the people. In Iraq, especially in about mid-2007, I witnessed a tidal shift in cooperation from the civilians and largely from that was able to report that the surge was working, long before the statistics would support what might have appeared to be a wild claim.

During 2006 in Afghanistan, I witnessed areas where the population was alienated from Kabul and Western forces. Again, long before the statistics would support what appeared to be wild claims, I published 12 reports saying we were losing here. Analysts cannot feel the pulse through statistics; in this sort of war, statistics lag behind the realities. An observer must be on the ground to sense the pulse.

Pundits who are saying we should pull out of Afghanistan today, to my knowledge, are not here.

Having just spent another month with British forces in Helmand, today I am on my own in the same province. During the last month, our great allies the British lost dozens of soldiers who were killed or wounded. Cooperation from locals is almost nonexistent in many places. Interaction between civilians and British soldiers was nearly zero. The British treat the civilians very well, but being polite and respectful is not enough.

Without significant reinforcements, the British likely will be defeated in Helmand within a couple of years. My respect for British soldiers is immense. I have been in combat with them many times in Iraq and Afghanistan, including during the last couple of weeks and would go into battle with them today. Yet it must be said that the average British soldier has practically no understanding of counterinsurgency.

The enemies here cannot defeat the United States, but they can dissolve the coalition. Some allies are ready to tap out, while others are learning that counterinsurgency is difficult. The Germans, for instance, are losing in their battle space. To avoid watching the coalition melt away, we must show progress before the end of 2010.

Today, the war is still worth fighting, yet the goal to reengineer one of the most backward, violent places on Earth, will require a century before a reasonable person can call Afghanistan "a developing nation." The war will not take that long - but the effort will.

There are no short-term solutions to fix this place. We are planting acorns. Oak trees grow slowly.

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Precision Voting

2009-08-31T04:48:18Z

31 August 2009
Helmand Province, Afghanistan

The historical Afghan elections scheduled for 20 August were days away. While the west mostly continued to vote for Afghanistan, the big question was, “Will Afghanistan vote for itself?”

The latest media wave splashed into the main voting centers in places like Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat and Lashkar Gah. The larger cities only account for perhaps 20% of the Afghan population. Whereas the easy and obvious stories are in the cities, a crucial and larger dimension—the other 80%—would unfold in the boonies. Most Afghans would have no chance to vote.

The election was to be run by Afghans. In theory and in practice this would be a recipe for disaster. The strategic thinkers cannot be faulted for this; after nearly eight years of war, if the west were still running the elections, the elections and government would be a failure to begin with. By comparison, the Iraqi elections on 30 January 2005 (less than two years after invasion) were run mostly by Iraqis. In the voting of October and December of that same year, Iraqis had two more runs at the ballots, which were increasingly successful. Afghanistan, however, is different. This would be only the second election in history.

There are no good choices here. Either we run the elections and the central government and in doing so undermine the same central government we are investing in, or we allow that central government to run the elections and probably watch it undermine itself. But who knows?

We need more troops. The leadership tells us that the Taliban and associated groups control only small parts of the country. Yet enemy influence is growing, and so far, despite that we have made progress on some fronts, our own influence is diminishing. For example, an excellent British infantry unit that I embedded with in Iraq and now Afghanistan, the “2 Rifles,” is staked out in the “Green Zone” around the Helmand River. HQ for 2 Rifles is at FOB Jackson near the center of the map above. There are several satellite FOBs and Patrol Bases, each of which is essentially cut off from the outside world other than by helicopter or major ground resupply efforts (which only take place about once a month). The latest ground resupply effort from Camp Bastion resulted in much fighting. The troops up at Kajaki Dam are surrounded by the enemy, which has dug itself into actual “FLETs.” FLET is military-speak for “Forward Line of Enemy Troops.” In other words, the enemy is not hiding, but they are in trenches, bunkers and fighting positions that extend into depth. The enemy owns the terrain.

The British are protecting Kajaki Dam but otherwise it’s just a big fight and no progress is being made. The turbine delivery to the dam, which I wrote about last year, was a tremendous success. Efforts to get the turbine online have been an equally tremendous failure. Bottom line: the project to restore the electrical capacity from Kajaki Dam is failing and likely will require multi-national intervention to bring it online and to push back the enemy.

We need more helicopters. Enemy control of the terrain is so complete in the area between Sangin and Kajaki that when my embed was to switch from FOB Jackson to FOB Inkerman—only seven kilometers (about four miles) away—we could not walk or drive from Jackson to Inkerman. Routes are deemed too dangerous. Helicopter lift was required. The helicopter shortage is causing crippling delays in troop movements. It’s common to see a soldier waiting ten days for a simple flight. When my embed was to move the four miles from Jackson to Inkerman, a scheduled helicopter picked me up at Jackson and flew probably eighty miles to places like Lashkar Gah, and finally set down at Camp Bastion. The helicopter journey from Jackson began on 12 August and ended at Inkerman on the 17th. About five days was spent—along with many thousands of dollars in helicopter time—to travel four miles. Even Generals can have difficulty scheduling flights. Interestingly, when I talk with the folks who reserve helicopter space, they say the Generals are generally easy-going about the lack of a seat, but that Colonels often become irate.

A helicopter finally was heading from Camp Bastion to FOB Inkerman, which is cut off from its own headquarters at FOB Jackson only four miles away. The war and fighting can vary dramatically around Afghanistan. In Sangin, the enemy uses mostly fertilizer bombs, which, along with normal leave schedules, has rapidly attrited the battalion to the point that replacements have been sent. Conversely, four miles away at Inkerman, it’s still mostly a gunfight, though the use of bombs is increasing. Inkerman sits on the desert side of “highway” 611 that goes from Highway 1 (the “Ring Road”) to Kajaki. The 611 marks the border between the deadly Green Zone and the desert. The road is almost completely controlled by the enemy. Only tiny patches of the 611 are under serious NATO/ISAF influence. Some will take issue with this statement; if they claim to be in control, they should readily accept the challenge to drive in an unarmored car in those areas they claim to control.

To help avoid being shot down, the helicopter approaches Inkerman from the desert side. (In fact, two days later on the 19th, a similar helicopter was shot down near here.) The Afghan road system is the human equivalent of ant trails. After thousands of years of living here, the Afghans have not cracked the code on road building. Many people will say that geography has been cruel to the Afghans, and that the mountainous, landlocked terrain is the problem. Yet this does not explain away the success of landlocked, mountainous countries such as Austria and Switzerland, nor does access to the sea guarantee anything more than saltwater. The meek have inherited this plot of earth because the strong don’t want it enough to take it.

Where liquid water can be found, so too can Afghans.

Some people point back to the “good-old days” in Afghanistan, when hippies could smoke hash and swim naked in the streams. The good old days in Afghanistan did not leave much evidence of progress in the form of roads, architecture or written history.

The stories of foreign invaders do not explain away the great walls built around nearly every home and every mind. The problem is not the terrain. The problem is not that Americans and others supported the Mujahadin when they fought the Soviets. The problem is not the artificial boundaries penciled in by the British all over Asia and the Middle East. The people are backwards and many want it that way. You can fly over a compound in the desert, miles from the next compound, and still it will have walls. Afghanistan is the land of a million Alamos.

As the pilot brought the helicopter to the yellow pin called FOB Inkerman, an Afghan man had parked his car just near the front of the base on the 611. He took out a shovel and began digging, hidden by his car, he thought, at a spot where a bomb had recently detonated. A British soldier fired a warning shot and the man drove away. An Apache helicopter eventually attacked the car out in the desert. There he was, just within direct view of Inkerman, digging in a bomb. This is typical of the larger situation.

Helicopter landing site at FOB Inkerman.

Two platoons are stationed at Inkerman; meaning only one platoon at a time can leave the base. Using one platoon to cover this area is like trying to water a football pitch with a drop of water. The enemy fights just outside the base, even planting IEDs in view of the guard towers. On my first morning at Inkerman, one of the platoons was outside the wire in the corn. They came across tripwires and other booby traps. The enemy was so close that soldiers could hear the enemies’ own radios crackling nearby in the corn. A firefight ensued. Machine guns and mortars were fired. The white smoke is a screen launched by the mortars to help the infantry platoon break contact. There are too few troops to fix the enemy and prosecute attacks.

Cleaning the mortar tubes after the fire mission.

Restacking unfired mortar bombs.

The platoon comes back to base. Amazingly, despite the dire situation, British morale is high. My respect for the men and women here only grows by the day.

The soldiers keep streaming in from the mission. The Pentagon and British MoD spin lies (though I have found Secretary Gates talks straight), but veins of pure truth can be found right here with these soldiers. The Pentagon and MoD as a whole cannot be trusted because they are the average of their parts. There are individual officers and NCOs among the U.S. and U.K. who have always been blunt and honest with me. Among the higher ranking, Petraeus and Mellinger come to mind, but for day-to-day realities this is where it’s at. Out here. Nothing coming from Kabul, London, or Washington should be trusted.

A recent controversy was stirred in the U.K. by my photos of British soldiers in the GZ (Green Zone) wearing brown uniforms. There is some truth to the controversy, but in fairness to the British MoD, only part of the battles take place in the GZ. Much of the fighting takes place in the deserts. Even individual missions often alternate between the Green Zone and the Brown Zone, and so neither green nor brown is perfect. The British SAS and American special operations forces are using camouflage that is more suitable for both environments. It would cost very little to outfit these soldiers in better camouflage.

These men and women will never get the credit they deserve.

The women are medics, and they brave the combat just like the infantry soldiers. But again, they will never get the credit they deserve, and so we joked that they should just let people think they spent the entire tour at Camp Bastion. Who would believe that they were out there in the thick of it? On this day, an Afghan man showed one of these medics a rash on his arms, but the medic carried no such medicines out into the fighting. When medic Evans said she had no medicine, a young man picked up a big stone and was preparing to hit her. Rhian instantly pointed the rifle at the man who put down the rock.

Still streaming in.

Another day in the war.

Finally they are all in the gate and nobody is shot or blown up this time, and I say a quiet thank you for bringing them back in one piece.

After each mission soldiers drop gear and go immediately into a debriefing to discuss what has occurred. They discuss things that were done well, things that were done not so well, and there is discussion about how to improve before the next fight. They talk about the performance of the enemy and any good moves or bad tactics used by the enemy. They talk about any gear that may have failed or performed well.

The soldiers knew they were doing well and I knew it because they invited me on more missions than I could possibly go on while still being able to write.

Some things could have been done better—always the case even among the most experienced soldiers—so the soldiers talked it through, and after it was over they headed back to re-issue new ammo, clean weapons, recharge batteries for various gear, and prep for combat on a moment’s notice.

About three hours after the firefight, an Afghan man was brought to FOB Inkerman with the note above. The note was signed with the name Dr. Haji A. Baqi, who the British said is a doctor for the Taliban. (Not necessarily a “Taliban doctor,” but someone who definitely treats Taliban.) The Brits said that Dr. Baqi gets medical supplies from the ICRC. The referral says the patient was “SHOUTED BY GUN,” and judging by the small bullet hole it might well have been a British gun.

Normally, a correspondent would not be permitted to publish photos of a captured enemy (while embedded with British or U.S. forces), but this guy was not captured and he was not being detained. He was not officially deemed the “enemy,” despite that his hands were soft and he likely was hit during that firefight.

The medical team: Nikole Cunningham, Rhian Evans, Jonathan Richards, Daniel Yeoman, all led by Dr. Gabriel Shaya, going to work on the suspected Taliban. His only real problem seems to be the bullet hole (entry and exit) in the abdomen. Luckily for him, he seems to have been hit by the same bullets used in American and British assault rifles (5.56mm), which lack the power to make the definitive hits caused by more powerful weapons. The man was alert throughout.

Dr. Shaya tries to find a vein, but ends up drilling into the guy’s right tibia to deliver fluids. This is Dr. Shaya’s first combat deployment. On August 2nd the monthly convoy was moving up from Camp Bastion to resupply bases that no longer see fresh apples, fresh milk, or fresh anything. The convoy had been harassed along the way and the enemy already knows the expected convoy routine, so they were busy with ambushes. When the convoy passed by FOB Inkerman, Captain Shaya was on QRF (Quick Reaction Force) duty. A nearby IED strike caused a casualty just near the base. Captain Shaya loaded up with only two other soldiers into the Pinzgauer vehicle. Darkness was falling when the total of three soldiers launched out of Inkerman and Dr. Shaya thought it was exciting to be on his first mission, but he also knew the dangers, having worked for three weeks at the Camp Bastion trauma center. Shaya was sitting in the back and realized that if the Pinzgauer got hit with an IED, he might break his neck on the partial ceiling, so he shifted to sit under the open space. He began to ready his gear to accept the casualty, when about five minutes into his first mission, BOOM!, the front of the vehicle apparently hit a pressure plate.

The explosion did not seem loud to Dr. Shaya. Dust and smoke filled the darkening air as the vehicle came to a stop, and part of the truck fell onto Shaya. His arms and legs were still attached but due to a partition he could not see either man in the front. He shouted to them and they both responded and both were wounded. The easiest, quickest way to the front was to crawl out the back and open the driver and passenger doors, but there might be IEDs because the enemy often plants bombs in clusters. Dr. Shaya did not want to walk on the road until it had been cleared. They were alone in the dark. He didn’t even want to turn on his red flashlight. He could climb over the top but did not want to be an obvious target, so he shouted to the front for them to use the radio to call for help. The truck had no radio.

Dr. Shaya climbed over top to the front, but didn’t want to turn on his light. Soon he saw a dim light approaching from down the road and he felt anxious. As the light grew closer and closer the anxiety increased, and it came closer still until he saw it was the company Sergeant Major and some soldiers. The anxiety evaporated into profound relief. The soldiers opened the doors and Dr. Shaya saw that the driver’s lower right leg was gone, while the dashboard had crushed in on the passenger who was in great pain. The driver was trapped by the steering wheel, and while soldiers tried to pull him out, Dr. Shaya, now between the driver and the passenger, tried to lift up the steering wheel and finally they got him out to a stretcher where Dr. Shaya had to screw into his tibia to administer fluids. Dr. Shaya thought the driver was losing his will, and so he gave a pep talk and tried to keep him in the fight. The other patient was screaming as he was pulled from the vehicle. He was a large man and difficult to move, and continued to scream with pain as he was put onto a stretcher and the IV was inserted. Three morphine doses later he was still in great pain due to a severely fractured femur, and as they drove in another vehicle back to base he screamed on the bumpy road. Dr. Shaya was painfully honest with his recounting, saying that during the stress of his first combat, he had forgotten his weapon and medical bag on the damaged vehicle. He was upset with himself that he could not administer more because of that oversight. “The journey back seemed to take an eternity,” he said. The British MERT helicopter was circling in the darkness overhead and when it landed at Inkerman, he ran off, helping with the stretcher, when he should have been preserving his strength for other casualties.

Dr. Shaya told me that when he returned to the medical tent, “When I got back, I was shattered (exhausted) and shaken.” He began to pack another medical kit in case he had to crash out the gate on his second mission, yet now soldiers were arriving for treatment after the initial blast that wounded the first soldier, and only when all of that was done could Dr. Shaya relax, and begin to feel the pain from his own throbbing, bleeding elbow.

Combat is the cruelest teacher. Dr. Shaya, who makes no pretense of being a combat soldier, had been five minutes into his first mission when suddenly he was alone in the dark with two seriously wounded men.

Dr. Shaya treating the suspected Taliban. Maybe this was the guy who blew up the vehicle.

Soldiers examine the referral note, signed with the name Dr. Haji A. Baqi, wherein the suspected doctor of the Taliban describes symptoms.

Backside of the referral note.

The 129th ERQS (Emergency Rescue Squadron), flying a pair of HH-60G Pavehawks, launched from Camp Bastion to retrieve the suspected Taliban who was deemed a “Cat A” casualty. Category A means the patient requires immediate evacuation. Total flight distance (given the route) from Bastion to Inkerman back to Bastion would be about 100 miles.

Among the British combat soldiers in Afghanistan, Pedro is the only thing more popular than mail. When friendly forces are in need, Pedro will come anywhere, anytime, during any weather, and their helicopters have gotten the bulletholes to prove it. The United States Air Force runs the only rescue service that will always be there, no matter what, no matter that there is no moon for flying, or the dust is too heavy for everyone else, or you are in a firefight. American Army helicopters in Afghanistan fly with the red cross on the side. Flying with that symbol makes it illegal for our people to carry weapons. The decision seems ridiculous; the enemy will only use the red cross for an aim point. While the Army flies armed with a red cross, Pedro flies with miniguns. And they bring some of the most highly qualified medics in the entire U.S. military–which is saying a lot. They bring miniguns, and powersaws to cut soldiers out of MRAPs or other twisted hulks, and scuba gear when troops and gear are lost to the water. If our people can manage to get there, Pedro can manage to get them out. Pedro rescues people every single day.

The lead aircraft, Pedro 35, brings two pilots, a gunner, a rescue officer, a flight engineer, and two PJs (elite “rescue specialists”; these men are a story unto themselves).

When Pedro 35 landed at FOB Inkerman, the two PJs along with the rescue officer, Captain Dave Depiazza received the patient while British soldiers brought the suspected Taliban toward Pedro. The PJs like to meet the ground troops outside to make sure the patient is properly categorized, assessed, and loaded. One challenge with some ground troops is that they will rush the helicopter during a “brownout” and start to load the patient feet first (or headfirst), when the PJs might need the patient the other way; the PJs want the head near the lifesaving airway equipment, and since helicopters vary in configuration, the PJs need to take control early to save seconds. They want to spend no more than 30 seconds on a hot landing zone; the aircraft do take hits but they have been lucky so far. (A Pedro from Kandahar Airfield was shot down in July. Luckily all survived and kept doing missions, but the helicopter was ultimately destroyed during a recovery mission that went awry.)

Sometimes Pedro 36 comes in first, but this time Pedro 36 flies top cover while Pedro 35 loads the patient.

Pedro 36 racetracks low watching for ground threats. The door gunners can—and often do—return lethal fire in a couple seconds.

Pedro 36 roars low and then both disappear and head back to Camp Bastion. When the Pedro 35 landed near the Bastion trauma hospital, Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman happened to be visiting the hospital as the PJs helped unload the suspected Taliban. (Just the day before, when I had spent some hours with the Pedros before heading back out with British infantry, one of these same PJs said he would clean the operations center for a week if he could meet McCain. I said to him, “Fat chance you’ll get to meet with McCain,” and so imagine the PJ’s surprise when he carried the suspected Taliban into the hospital and accidentally ran into Senators McCain and Lieberman, and shook their hands.)

The war is a busy place and far too much happens out there than can possibly be explained. Llater that night, a platoon launched on a mission to raid several compounds. I was invited on the mission on 18 August but did not go due to the usual writing-crunch and impending elections, and so during breaks I sat in the ops center and listened to the radio calls. The raids unfolded, and after half a night the soldiers brought back six suspects, one of whom had run from the soldiers and urinated on his hands to remove explosives residue. The terrain had been rough and the night was dark and so two soldiers busted their ankles.

Major Ian Moodie, commander of B Coy 2 Rifles, guaranteed me that in the morning there would be a gaggle of locals, including elders, who would arrive to demand release of the prisoners. Major Moodie said this problem is exacerbated by the helicopter shortage; if he could get the prisoners extracted as soon as they were captured, he would be able to say that the prisoners had already been moved and there was nothing he could do, but already in the past he had decided to release prisoners to cool tensions.

Later in the day of 19 August, locals arrived to demand release of the six. All were released except for one, who was finally picked up by a helicopter on the evening of the 19th, the day before the latest historical Afghan elections wherein Abdullah Abdullah and Hamid Karzai had reached the showdown to decide who would become the President of one of the most primitive countries on Earth, but one that probably gets more international press and attention than Japan and Germany combined.

As the helicopter lifted off with the prisoner, the JTAC who talked the helicopter in said to me that “Axle” Foley, another JTAC four miles away in Sangin, was about to call in a bomb from a B1. The fighting had begun and it was not even election day. Taliban in the area were threatening people to stay in their compounds and not vote.

On the afternoon of the 19th, before our election-day mission on the 20th, “Snowy” meticulously cleaned every speck of dust off his weapon. He disassembled the magazines, cleaned the springs, and individually cleaned each bullet.

Snowy then counted every last bullet—twice—and I joked that if his weapon failed the next day, cleaning would not be the issue. The weapon was ready, it seemed.... Meanwhile, my BGAN satellite communications gear was malfunctioning on the evening before the election. Hours would be wasted before it was ascertained the satellite gear was officially broken. Murphy’s Law was in effect for all guns and gadgets. I’ve come to a remote base and can report what others are not seeing, and the crucial link was broken at the crucial moment.

At about 2245 a rocket banged and zoomed overhead but missed the base and exploded seconds later somewhere out in the darkness. Orange illumination rounds drifted down nearby and in the far distance, some casting long, flickering shadows. Radio chatter at the ops room said that an SAS (British special forces) helicopter had been shot down north of us and one troop was wounded, and that the enemy was moving toward the crash site which was still occupied by British soldiers. I headed to bed because the mission on election day was likely to include serious fighting. The alarm was set for 0330, but by midnight there had not been time to get a wink. Just after midnight, having seen no less than 10 meteors streak through the darkness above, sleep came. The alarm sounded and I pulled out of the cot, already dressed for the mission, and pulled on the boots in the dark. Sometime around 0400, there was a distant thud as the helicopter that had been shot down was destroyed. (An officer later said that two bombs were used, but I heard only one.)

By 0436, the soldiers were ready to launch on the mission and there was time for a few images on this historic day in the middle of nowhere.

The soldiers had erected a memorial for lost comrades.

Metal detectors and other gear were tested.

It was time.

The mission began.

Suspected bombs were marked along the way. Dozens of them. The metal could be anything from an old bullet to a nail. For years, the enemy has seen us with the metal detectors and so are making bombs with LMC (low metal content).

The soldiers on point with the metal detectors have an incredibly dangerous job. They must watch for all sorts of ambushes, high and low. The enemy uses command wires, pressure pads, trip wires and radio-controlled devices. Some people say the enemy bombs are cowardly, as if we are in a gentlemen’s duel. Others might say IEDs are no more cowardly than our using B-1Bs and A-10s.

Election day begins.

Our mission was to move to an over-watch position to prevent Taliban from harassing voters on their way to Sangin. Most people in Afghanistan would not have a chance to vote even if there were no Taliban. British officers told me that between here and Kajaki, for instance, there were no polling stations.

Fatal funnel: the enemy often plants bombs in walls, or simply throws grenades over top.

Often after ground has been “cleared,” soldiers far down the line get blown to pieces.

Open areas make us less predictable for IED strikes, but now we are extremely vulnerable to machine-gun, RPG fire and other weapons such as B10 rockets. Luckily they are terrible shots with mortars.

If we get ambushed, the only cover is accurate return fire, but the enemy of course tries to hide their firing positions.

Nobody from either side was dead yet. Not here, anyway.

We reached our objective; an occupied compound that British forces had used three times before and this boy was waiting. Afghans often stand with an arm behind their back, or they walk up and down steep mountains in the same fashion.

Nearby compound with a possible IED at the corner.

Several sections occupy different compounds giving us better arcs for mutual fire support.

The opium had already been harvested and the poppy bulbs were hard and dry. How many bulbs does it take to buy one bullet? The drug dealers are getting rich, and so a strong central government is a natural enemy.

As we occupy his home, this Afghan boy plays like he is killing us with a rifle and then wants to see his photo.

The man of the house says he is worried that on our fourth stay, the Taliban will think he is collaborating and will kill him. Asked if he will vote, he says no, and that nobody in this area will vote because the Taliban will kill them.

Climbing around these compounds takes its toll. One can only imagine how many bones are broken. Often, the entrances of the compounds are laced with explosives, so the soldiers blow a “mouse hole” through a wall, or use ladders to scale, and so the enemy now places booby traps atop walls. Again, some people will say it is a “security violation” to say that the enemy places bombs atop walls, as if the enemy doesn’t know that the enemy has placed bombs atop the walls. People will say it’s a security violation to say that we use ladders to climb walls, when every day countless thousands of Afghans see us with ladders. We’ve been fighting this war for nearly eight years. The enemy knows we listen to radios, cell phones, and just about anything else we do. It’s the people at home who do not know. The enemy has learned our tactics and psychology.

Joseph Etchells had been killed nearby almost exactly a month ago, on 19 July. “The Kopp-Etchells Effect” dispatch was written partially in Joe’s memory. Several times, the events of Joseph’s loss were recounted to me, in clear hopes that important details would be told. I said not to worry, it will be told. The missing details were that soldiers had complained about not having enough ladders to scale walls to avoid dangerous compound entrances. During a mission the soldiers needed to get over a wall but were without a ladder, and so Joseph Etchells volunteered to go through the entrance, where he stepped on a pressure plate.

The compound we occupied on election day was littered, partially with batteries. Soldiers do not throw away old batteries, but collect them in boxes because the enemy digs through trash to collect batteries to make bombs, but just as often something like this is benign.

Afghans in this area typically live with their animals.

Many believe that the Pashtun people are one of the lost tribes of Israel. If true, some Taliban might actually be descended from Jews, which would be one of the most severe ironies of humanity. Some branches go off and earn Nobel Prizes and unravel the secrets of the universe while advancing humanity by leaps and bounds, while another turns malignant and doesn’t know how to build a road.

The FST (Fire Support Team) goes into position over-watching a road leading to Sangin. The mission is to prevent any roving bands of Taliban from interrupting voters traveling to Sangin.

The family keeps two myna birds whose wings have been clipped, and the Hazra interpreter tells me the birds can talk. I tell him that birds of similar appearance, also called myna, are sold in America. “What if the bird says, ‘I love Mullah Omar.’” I asked the interpreter. “Then we must shoot it!” he answered.

The heat increases and the soldiers wait.

The first customers arrive. Maybe they are a probe.

The men are searched. If others were planning to come down the road on this day, none do.

A radio call said there was an IED strike nearby, in the area of Patrol Base Wishtan, which would be on or in the area of Pharmacy Road (the subject of the latest dispatch “Bad Medicine.”)

Later we learned that two soldiers were killed at Wishtan: Sergeant Paul McAleese, 29, and Private Jonathan Young, who was 18.

According to the BBC:

They were killed while on a routine foot patrol near the town of Sangin, in Helmand province, on Thursday. Their families have been informed.

Their deaths bring the total number in Afghanistan since 2001 to 206.

Lt Col Nick Richardson, spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said: "It is with deep regret that we report the deaths of two soldiers in Helmand Province.

"Our deepest heartfelt thoughts and sympathies go out to the bereaved family, friends and comrades of these brave soldiers."

The MoD said the deaths were not connected to Thursday's presidential elections in Afghanistan.

Every mission here on the 20th was connected to the elections. The idea that the losses were not connected to the elections seems off, not that it would make a difference to the fallen. Yet the slights and spins, often for no apparent reason (even if not the case here), undermines the messengers.

There would be much fighting around Afghanistan this day.

Men were watching us and roving around at a distance of about 900 meters. Sniper Keiran Jones is told to fire a warning shot.

Fighting was kicking up in the distance, and FOB Inkerman was starting to get attacked. Out in Sangin the fighting would last all day.

Rifleman Keiran Jones keeps his eye on the target while rolling the foam earplugs. The man watching us is wearing a white dishdasha and a white turban.

BAM! Keiran Jones launches a bullet from the .338 rifle, which cracks just a few feet away from the “dicker.” (Watcher.)

Another FST member has already recorded coordinates for targets and is ready to start a fire mission using mortars or the 105mm howitzers.

Rifleman Keiran on the scope. The snipers would fire about half a dozen times this day, and not all were warning shots.

Steady…

BAM. Dust fills the air and reflects off the morning sun.

Re-chamber.

Steady…

BAM. More dust.

The snipers are cleared to kill a man, the same one who has been watching us, as he peeks his turbaned head around a corner about 900m away. The shot is difficult because Keiran is in a tough and painful position to shoot from. I joke that they need to do “sniper yoga” and Jones replies with a chuckle, “No shit. It’s a stress position.” Both snipers stayed in positions that were agonizing for their legs and backs. There were no good places to get a relaxed shot.

Keiran Jones aimed for the man’s head and BAM! The supersonic bullet that could kill an elephant raced toward the target.

Keiran was very upset, thinking he may have missed, though others thought he might have hit the man. The shot would have been an easy shot if Kerian were prone, but the muscle stress in the growing heat was adding up.

The snipers stayed for hours up in that sun, sometimes taking alternating breaks, but they were in competition to get the enemy.

Like dueling banjos.

I sat in between them for about 20-30 minutes and all three of us were aching from the positions, though my position was far easier and shaded by one of the snipers.

They stayed at it.

Jones, drenched in sweat, takes a micro-break.

Fighting continued in the distance over in Sangin. We saw bombs drop and the mortars and howitzers were firing dozens and dozens of rounds, while the Apaches were hammering away with their cannons, and launching about 30 rockets through the day.

The compound and our soon-to-be ambush spot.

CPT Ed Addington keeps an eye out. We could hear firefights but other than the snipers peeling off some shots, we were not in contact.

We were not trying to hide. The Brits wanted everyone to know we were there.

A jet drops a bomb in the Green Zone.

Down inside the compound, soldiers began to try to compress themselves into any sliver of shade but the shade kept shrinking. Though we had occupied the compound, soldiers respected the house by staying outside.

The dog looked thirsty but when I tried to give him water, he launched out like the Killer Rabbit on Monthy Python. If not for the rope around his neck, there might have been a death match. The dog seemed completely insane, as if he had been attending al Qaeda seminars. The soldiers couldn’t believe that five minutes later, little Cujo was still viciously growling. I slid the water close enough but by several hours later he still never took a sip.

Medic Nikole Cunningham goes into firefights in the middle of bomb-laced country. Nikole said her family thinks she never goes on missions.

The family was long gone, but two boys came back and fed their grandfather (apparently) who was very old and stayed with us.

The plan was to stay all day, but we were told that by late afternoon, only 245 ballots were cast. And so it was decided that we should head back before dark, which would make it easier for us to avoid IEDs, but more difficult to avoid ambushes from machine guns and RPGs. No matter what you do. . . .

Everybody expected an ambush. The enemy had had most of the day to cook up something.

Off we went, down the middle, taking chances with the machine guns, RPGs and other rockets, but avoiding the more likely IEDs for the first leg.

The Taliban is in complete and uncontested control of the nearby power station. We don’t even have enough soldiers to take and hold the power station, and so the enemy controls the on/off switch, and they charge locals for power. While we generate electricity up at Kajaki, the Taliban makes money off it. It’s no wonder why the Taliban laugh at the idea of negotiating.

The thought went through my head, “If I were the enemy, I would ambush us right. . . . ” ZIP, SNAP, CRACK, CRACK, CRACK!

Their machine-gun fire was accurate and we all dove to the ground.

ZIPT! SNAP SNAP! Some bullets hit between this soldier and me.

There’s Snowy, who had cleaned his weapon with surgical care. He had wiped down every bullet and every millimeter of the magazines. His weapon was working just fine. For now.

Sapper Cameron Baldry starts to get up, and I think, “Why is he getting up?” Bullets were snapping by.

The soldiers often complain that when they hit the dirt, some of the bulky radio frequency gear they carry gets in the way of their helmets. When soldiers are down in the dirt they cannot aim their weapons because their faces are stuck in the ground. So Baldry rolled into a sitting position to return fire.

Meanwhile behind me, Snowy’s weapon began to malfunction.

I was making video when a soldier fired a Javelin missile which impacted close to the nearest compound.

This is where untrained fighters usually crack and run away in a jumble. British soldiers, however, are well-trained. While some provided covering fire, others peeled off in an organized fashion.

At this point another Javelin was launched and can barely be seen in this photo.

Impact: I’d never seen a Javelin explode like that. Usually they are like gigantic hand grenades, but this one looked like a bomb from a jet.

What in the world did he hit?

A fireball gathered and left a mushroom cloud.

None of us knew what had been hit, but of course there was speculation that the Javelin had found ammunition or bomb-making material. Maybe a tractor, I thought.

We went to a nearby compound that was empty and I stayed low near the front thinking this was the real ambush and that a cluster of bombs was about to kill half of us.

A soldier dropped his pants to see where he had been hit. Apparently a bullet had sent a rock into his thigh. The fire truly was accurate. We truly were lucky that several of us did not get hit. Meanwhile, other soldiers were checking ammo levels and doing redistribution as needed. After every firefight, the Brits (and Americans) check for wounds, redistribute ammo, and check critical gear. Two or three British soldiers asked if I was okay. Meanwhile, leaders would consult maps, develop SA and figure out what they wanted to do next. It cannot be stressed enough to check your buddies for wounds. Soldiers have often died because in the adrenaline rush and cascade of survival juices, or sometimes simply because they are still fighting, troops don’t realize they are badly wounded, and so they bleed out and die.

Being just a writer, it’s not my domain to intrude, but after every drama I closely watch their uniforms and hands for blood. All the soldiers are well trained, but some are still just teenagers and so you start to feel responsible for the younger ones, especially.

Sapper Cameron Baldry, a twenty-three-year-old soldier from 2 Troop, 11 Field SQN of the 38 Engineer Regiment, pointed at me exclaiming something like, “Did you see those bullets hitting between us! They were striking right between us!” I chuckled, saying yes, it was close, and those guys are good shots but we got lucky. Baldry’s antenna had been shot off but he didn’t get shot.

We headed back to FOB Inkerman, avoiding many markers for potential IEDs.

Aircraft could still be heard, and there was fighting in the distance.

Marker.

Fighting continues to our left, but it’s in the far distance. To our right about a thousand meters away someone is using a signal mirror, probably tracking our movements.

The heat and the weight cause some soldiers to pause, and finally we are back on base and somehow got away with no fatalities or even injuries.

There is no telling how much ammo was fired by 2 Rifles elements in Sangin, Wishtan and elsewhere, but the soldiers from Inkerman fired at least 1,100 rounds of 5.56 (rifle and link), 800x 7.62mm, 3x Javelin, 133x 81mm mortar, 172x 105mm howitzer. The Apaches fired about 500x 30mm, 28x flechette rockets and a Hellfire. Someone dropped 2x 500lb bombs and a British Tornado strafed, while American A-10s and Belgian F-16s also joined up.

Too much was going on to keep up, and in fact the base had been hit while we’d been gone, destroying someone’s sleeping space. Soldiers on base had identified at least one firing point and kept eyes on, and we got back just about the time I saw John Loughday and Simon Wagstaff trying to kill someone with a Javelin as the enemy occupied a firing position with what soldiers identified as a B10 rocket laucher. The first Javelin failed, and so they grabbed another and launched. With six seconds of flight time to that target, the single enemy saw the messenger coming his way. Instead of praying he made a run and I heard the explosion. The men radioed down from the tower, “Hello Two Zero this is crow’s nest. Good strike one enemy dead.”

The day kept going but a man can only record so much. My sat-gear was broken and so there was no way to file a detailed account of the election day, which in this area was a failure.

The next morning, on the 21st, ten men showed up to the FOB to talk about the generator that he said had been hit by the Javelin missle during the ambush yesterday. The soldiers had previously been to his compound and confirmed that he had a nice generator, which now apparently was the victim of a Javelin missile and had gone out as a fiery mushroom cloud. As a heat source, it would have stood out as a nice target to lock the Javelin onto. As a side note, the man said they had gone to Sangin to vote and had voted for Karzai. Yet we had watched his compound all day and nobody had left it to travel to Sangin. Furthermore, three days later, I was present when the same platoon occupied a compound of the man wearing blue (above). On the 24th, he said he had not voted. We occupied his compound on the 24th because British soldiers thought it was being used by the enemy. Yet here he is on base on the 21st, part of the party asking for money for the blown-up generator. On the 24th he said he didn’t know any Taliban and had only been here for a month. He spontaneously said he knows that Barack Obama is the President of the United States, but when asked, did not know who Michael Jackson was. On the 21st he was on base, while on the 24th I sat with him for about an hour while we waited for the enemy to square off for a fight. (And there came another firefight.)

On the 21st, the elder said the generator cost about 70,000 Afghanis, or about $1,400, but the most that could be paid from this base was $300. The inanity of it all is difficult to fathom in one sitting. We were taking machine-gun fire, apparently from his compound or that area, but he had no information about the Taliban. Probably because he is Taliban. We blew up his generator and now he wanted to get paid.

Later the evening of the 21st, soldiers held a ceremony for recently lost comrades and the next day they were right back out there in combat.

On the 22nd there was business as usual. A patrol was out on the road and a man was driving toward them on a motorcycle. The daylight was fading and a warning shot was fired but the man kept coming so a soldier went lethal and shot to kill, grazing the man’s arm. The man didn’t realize at first that he had been shot, or where it had come from.

As with young American soldiers, nobody seems to believe that a man cannot hear a warning shot while he’s riding his motorcyle, or that he can’t see soldiers wearing camouflage during the last rays of daylight. Despite being in countless firefights wherein we often have great difficulty identifying firing positions (such as two days earlier when machine guns were nearly hitting us), many young soldiers think that firing a warning shot is enough. We all know that snipers who are in hiding fire only one shot to avoid conveying their firing position. Warning shots mean nothing to an old man who needs glasses, who is riding a motorcyle at twilight in an area where gunshots are more common than frogs. So a small piece of flesh was stripped from his arm and the man got off light.

The world kept turning and on the 24th “Bad Medicine” was published just after midnight Eastern Standard Time, and that morning before sunrise the soldiers were going on a dangerous mission and I went along. The result was a firefight and much mortar and cannon fire using prox fuses, delay and airbursts into the enemy position. Though we had information that the enemy was trying to get us with IEDs, we escaped getting blown to pieces. When I got back to base, there was a message from British MoD that my embed had been canceled (about one month before we had agreed it would end) without warning. The message and timing were clear enough. “Bad Medicine” was published, and I was out. The soldiers at 2 Rifles were astonished. The MoD gave the reason that it was unfair to the journalists who were clamoring for spots, but my sense was that MoD had created a convenient excuse that was kept in the chamber, and now they had pulled the trigger.

I responded to the MoD:

Thank you for the message.

The precipitous decision by the MoD to cancel my embed after today's dispatch is unfortunate.

The sudden reversal after today's dispatch -- apparently a publication that did not sit well with the MoD -- will cause me significant headaches. As you know, there are many balls in the air, and the MoD has effectively shoved me out of the way.

Please forward to Ltc Richardson that the message was received.

Michael
----

And so that was it. My last day with the British 2 Rifles had ended the same as it had ended in Iraq. In combat. I’ll miss the British soldiers. They constitute a truly professional force–if dangerously underresourced. It has been my honor to accompany them in combat. In theory I would do so again anytime, but in practice this will be the last time MoD will have a chance to cut me off in mid-flight, wasting much time and resources that should have been devoted to telling the story. Barring a guarantee from a British General Officer that something like this will never happen again, my days of covering British operations are over.

On Sunday morning, 30 August, the United States Air Force “Pedros” took me on three missions. Please stand by. This is very interesting.

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The Kopp-Etchells Effect, Part II

2009-08-27T03:44:18Z

27 August 2009

My embed with British forces has ended. Will be out with U.S. forces for the foreseeable future. After that, will strike out alone into the wilds of Afghanistan. There are two more stories in the pipeline about the British soldiers I was with, who were in a couple of firefights. The bullets got pretty close. The events are worth recounting. Unsure if I will be able to complete those dispatches due to the time wasted with the sudden ending of my embed. Am attempting to publish at least one. The soldiers deserve both, but time is cruel when its wasted.

A researcher who studies helicopter "brown outs" contacted me regarding the Kopp-Etchells Effect. Apparently the effect is unrelated to St. Elmo's Fire. In fact, it sounds as though scientists remain unsure of exactly what causes the Kopp-Etchells Effect. The phenomenon remains a mystery.

Please Click Here to Read Part I of The Kopp-Etchells Effect.

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Important Update

2009-08-24T16:06:40Z

Greetings,

The British Ministry of Defence canceled my embed after today's dispatch. Please Read "Bad Medicine".

Next Stop U.S. Forces.

Your Writer,

Michael

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Bad Medicine

2009-08-23T18:49:13Z

On Pharmacy Road

24 August 2009
Helmand Province, Afghanistan

The British soldiers of 2 Rifles had a mission: clear and hold Pharmacy Road.

FOB Jackson is currently home to Battlegroup headquarters for 2 Rifles. The area around the river is called the “Green Zone,” but just as appropriately could be called the Opium Zone. During season, the area is covered with colorful poppies, whose 2009 products are probably showing up by now on the streets in Europe. European money flows back here and buys fertilizer in the Sangin Market, which can be used to make bombs, produce more opium, get more money and make more bombs and grow more opium and make more money and bombs and grow more opium. Sangin is at once an ATM and weapons bazaar for the enemy. Nearly all fatalities in this unit have been caused by fertilizer bombs. The decision to mostly ignore the drug dealers has been a strategic blunder.

This mission was about tactical exigencies created by the strategic realities. Though FOB Jackson is small enough to walk from one end to another in a few minutes, it is the main base in Sangin, with smaller patrol bases spread around the Sangin area of operations. Two of those bases are Patrol Base (PB) Tangiers and PB Wishtan. Tangiers is an Afghan National Army (ANA) PB often used by 2 Rifles, while PB Wishtan is manned by C Coy of 2 Rifles. (“Coy” is British for “Company.”)

From Jackson, one can often see or hear fighting related to Tangiers or Wishtan while tracers arc into the night, and illumination rounds cast long, flickering shadows as they float to Earth under parachutes.

Though PB Tangiers seems randomly named, PB Wishtan is named after the local area which the locals call Wishtan. The main resupply route from Jackson to PB Wishtan goes through the Sangin Market, past Tangiers, and west along the approximate 1 kilometer of Pharmacy Road through Wishtan to PB Wishtan.

British soldiers from 2 Rifles said they had sustained approximately twenty fatalities and injuries in the area. (More were killed and wounded in Sangin since this mission.) The situation is reminiscent of so many roads in Iraq, such as Route Irish, previously dubbed the most dangerous road in the world. The short stretch of Route Irish is situated between main bases in Baghdad. Since we never had enough troops in Iraq, the route was difficult to secure despite that it was a short stretch with bustling military traffic nestled between huge bases. A lot of people were killed and maimed on that short stretch—I have little idea of the numbers of casualties on Irish—but the total must have reached at least the hundreds. Irish was eventually made far more secure by allocating substantial Iraqi and Coalition troops along with what must have been many millions of dollars’ worth of physical defenses, all augmented with frequent coverage from the air. Despite that, car bombs, IEDs and small-arms attacks continued to occur on a less frequent basis. I’ve probably driven Irish a hundred times with no dramas, but it was never safe. Despite international infamy and the sharp political desire to secure at least one small stretch of road between main bases in Baghdad, Irish was never completely secured. Pharmacy Road in Wishtan is a small-town redux of Route Irish in Baghdad.

Pharmacy Road was effectively closed by enemy harrasment, including a blockage caused by two blown-up vehicles (a “jingo truck” and a British tractor). Resupply and troop movements were performed by helicopter, despite that a patrol could walk from Jackson to Wishtan in an hour, and straight driving would only take fifteen minutes. A bypass route was made with similar results. Captain Alexander Spry told me that Wishtan is like something from a Freddy Kreuger movie where bombs are planted in broad daylight and the enemy chisels small firing holes through the fifteen-foot walls and launches bullets down the tight spaces and alleyways. The Afghan mud walls are so robust that the 30mm cannons from the air will not penetrate. Dropping a 500lb bomb into the middle of a compound will leave the walls standing. In Wishtan, our snipers are of little use because they can’t see or shoot through the walls, and there is no commanding terrain other than the air. As with Route Irish and probably hundreds (thousands?) of other routes in Iraq and Afghanistan, routes cannot be secured without pinning substantial numbers of troops. Life is far easier for the guerrilla than for the counterguerrilla, just as arson is easier for arsonists than for firefighters.

With the shortage of helicopters in mind (and the fact that an RPG was recently fired at a helicopter as it lifted out of PB Wishtan), closure of Pharmacy Road increased enemy freedom of movement while decreasing our own. Though British forces continued to push into combat around Wishtan, battlegroup commander LtCol Rob Thomson wanted Pharmacy Road open.

Most of us tried to sleep the night before the mission, but there was much to do. At one point, perhaps half a dozen 81mm mortar illumination rounds from another base were shot straight over FOB Jackson. The empty casings, weighing perhaps 2lbs each, swooshed through the darkness, possibly at several hundred miles per hour, and thumped onto Jackson. (Terminal velocity varies from object to object.) One casing was heading toward a sergeant named Marty who runs Flight Ops. Marty hit the dirt and the casing landed just next to him.

The mission began under cover of darkness. Conditions were far too dark to focus and the soldiers were not using lights, so focus was done by trial and error. A sniper team quietly sat beside a dog and its handler. The dog seemed to take interest in the sounds of the camera.

The few who speak only whisper. A soldier checks his night-vision monocular.

Flipping up the night-vision monocular puts it on standby.

The mission will be very dangerous and the soldiers, who mostly could not see me taking photos unless they were using night-vision gear, seemed lost in thought.

The friendly attack dog. A dog handler recently told me he was urinating when an Afghan soldier tried to grab his willy. The handler said the dog bit the Afghan soldier who needed a few stitches.

We set off down the market road. Some folks believe such reports are “security violations,” as if the thousands of people living here do not know exactly where the bases are, or do not know exactly where we came from and went to. Operations take place here every day. Civilians are everywhere.

We made it to FOB Tangiers with no dramas. Some Afghan soldiers were on guard while others seemed comatose.

The commander of 2 Rifles is Lieutenant Colonel Rob Thomson (right), who this morning was constantly studying maps or soaking up information by talking with soldiers whose ears were glued to radios. Most soldiers did the smart thing and immediately began to fall asleep; experienced combat soldiers never miss a chance to fill canteens or sleep. Meanwhile, the Commander’s work has just begun (despite my having seen him work late the night before). LtCol Thomson has chided other officers and NCOs about sleep, saying it’s an advantage of growing older. You just don’t need as much sleep. Plus having children is good training for combat.

Corporal Mark “Axle” Foley (left) is the JTAC who controls air strikes. Axle is a good-spirited soldier and funny to talk with, always cracking jokes though sometimes I have difficulty understanding his accent. When Axle picks up that radio, a magical toggle-switch clicks in his head from “fun” mode to “all business.” While Axle talks business with the pilots, one can only wonder how well the American pilots understand Axle. Yet the pilots work with Axle all the time, and seem to understand him perfectly on the first go, and he understands them. One night, I heard a Southern accent come down from an aircraft, which set the Brits to laughing and trying to immitate the accent. Brits and Europeans often get a big kick out of thick Southern accents but all attempts to imitate the twang seem to fall flat. (Except by country bands in Germany who can perfectly imitate the patois as if they grew up next door to Willie Nelson.)

Axle, who often works with American pilots, says these A-10 and B-1B pilots are probably the best to work with because they come to Sangin so often that they know the terrain, the roads and bases, so they are easy to talk onto targets.

Sitting there in the darkness, Axle works the radio while watching the downlink screen. As the A-10s approach at about 0314, the aircraft are still about 40 miles out, and a pilot starts listing off all the various sorts of weapons they are carrying. They had more spells than Harry Potter. As the A-10s close in on our postion, Axle picks up a downlink and suddenly he can see through the A-10 crosshairs. Whatever the pilot is looking at comes on Axle’s screen. Axle gives the pilot some reference points and each time the crosshairs instantly go to that point, and within maybe thirty seconds, the crosshairs slewed precisely to the spot where we were sitting. Axle told him that’s us, which probably sounded to the A-10 pilot something like, “Ah roga, dat’s us,” and then Axle starts walking the pilot through to all the friendly locations so he can know where our guys are.

An A-10 was transmitting downlink but we were getting interference, maybe from the building or other radios. Axle moved outside where Corporal Henry Sanday from Fiji came in. Henry is a good man whom I got to know in Iraq, and sometimes we have lunch or dinner at FOB Jackson, where he constantly invites me on missions. Henry is battle-proven and very good under fire. When your life is at stake, Henry is a man you want to be with, as you will soon see. This morning, his men were falling asleep, but as a section leader Henry kept working. Major Karl Hickman (right) is the A Coy Commander, and while his men plopped down to sleep, Karl kept working. I’ve never been in combat with Major Hickman, but his men say he’s good and steady under fire. Axle as JTAC is a crucial link to this mission, which explains why when Henry and Major Hickman might be sleeping, they are checking in with Axle to keep their SA (Situation Awareness) updated.

We had the A-10s for only a few minutes when a radio call from a different net came to Axle to release the A-10s for a TIC (troops in contact) somewhere in South Helmand. Axle radioed the pilots to switch freqs, and I recall a pilot apologizing and saying he looked forward to getting back up here. Axle put down the radio and looked straight at me, saying, “That’s such a bummer,” as if his fishing buddy had to go home early, then Axle finished with, “However, the guys that get them will be well happy,” and started shutting down his gear as the sounds of the A-10s faded into the darkness. While Axle worked, I asked about times when he “smashed” the Taliban. British soldiers like to use the word “smashed” when talking about the Taliban. When Axle would finish talking about one fight, I would ask about another. Finally, Axle said, “You Yanks are great. You like to hear stories about us smashin’ the Taliban but people at home want to know how much we miss our families.” We both chuckled, and I asked, “Really? They don’t ask you about smashing the Taliban?” “That’s right,” then Axle said something like, “They only want to hear how sad we are.” Axle and I got along great because I didn’t care if he missed his family and he didn’t care if I missed mine. This part is about smashing people who would help those who smashed the World Trade Centers and blew up people in London and Bali and Jakarta and Israel and Spain and the Philippines and anywhere else they can reach. There is a crucial development and governance aspect to this war, and still a crucial smashing side. Sometimes you’ve got to swap hats for helmets. Mullah Omar is still alive, apparently in Pakistan, and he needs to be killed. Just on 20 August I heard a Taliban singing over a walkie talkie that Mullah Omar “Is our leader,” and they were celebrating shooting down a British helicopter only twelve hours before just some miles from here. There will be time to hug families later. Now is a time for fighting.

We talked some more about smashin’ the Taliban. When the A-10s turned toward some distant battle, nobody here complained. Yes, we need more helicopters, but since I have been in Sangin, we never have been short on attack aircraft. The JTACs are happy. Air cover, since I have been in Sangin, is better than we could honestly hope for. Axle talked about strike aircraft; “The F-15E Strike Eagles are brilliant,” he said. The JTACs, if given a choice of the other fourteen types of piloted aircraft that come on station, seem to vote for F-15E Strike Eagles.

The F-15E package (weapons, electronics, and strike pilots) is particularly lethal for this fight. When strike aircraft come onto station, the pilots declare their weapons load. A typical F-15E declartion sounds like this: An American voice crackles over the radio, “Good morning. I’ve got 4 GBU-12s, 6 GBU-38s, 2 GBU-31s, and 1,000 x 20mm cannon.” [GBU-12: 500lb Laser Guided Bomb is the JTAC favorite here; GBU-38 is a 500lb JDAM and also very good; GBU-31 is a 2,000lb JDAM and too big for use in Sangin but there are many other fights in Afghanistan; 20mm cannon can destroy armored vehicles but bounce off the compound walls here.]

In total, the two F-15Es arrive with a dozen accurate bombs, a thousand rounds of 20mm, incredibly good optics, and a great downlink package so the JTACs can peer through F-15E crosshairs and coordinate with the pilot. Most importantly, the Strike Eagle pilots are specifically trained for this mission. Nobody on the ground complains about this package.

Whereas Strike Eagles are favored in Sangin, there are close runner-ups. B-1Bs are called “Bones” because B-One spells bone. Bones were made for nuclear war with the Soviets and for carrying hydrogen bombs, and so they don’t carry a lot of different tricks for small battles. B-1Bs do come with 12 GBU-38s and 8 GBU-31s, very good optics and Axle says the pilots are easy to talk onto targets. When a B-1B runs low on gas, refuelers can fly to us. One day, Axle could see Bones refueling directly overhead while continuing to track a target.

In all, about fourteen types of aircraft fly topcover, including American, Belgian, British, Dutch and French. JTACs here say the least desirable aircraft of those fourteen are the French M2000D. A package of two jets carries no cannon, no downlink and a total of only 4 GBU 12s. The optics aboard the aircraft are not good, and the trail aircraft spots targets with binoculars like the Red Baron. Also, the French and British have problems understanding each other’s accents. The British who work with French forces refuse to say a bad word. They say the French are good and ready—which can be surprising because the Brits and the French like to slag each other—but the French aircraft simply are primitive in comparison to the American jets. An American unit in Zabul Province last year said that some French pilots probably saved them, or at least made a big difference, and so any words about primitive aircraft should be taken in light of respect for the pilots.

No mention is made of the Apache helicopters because Axle was talking about jets. The Apaches seem to do most of the heavy lifting—for every jet strike I must have seen 5-10 Apache strikes. Apaches are very effective. We are too far out for coverage from Kiowa Warriors. Predators are excellent but Reapers are especially welcome.

The A-10s were gone and so Axle headed to sleep but Corporal Henry Sanday keeps working while all his men are zonked out.

The following account does not pertain to Pharmacy Road, but pertains to Corporal Sanday, his men, Axle and others in these photos. These photos were made on 09 August. On 13 August, a bomb detonated at 0523, wounding Matthew Hatton and two others. Sanday arranged to evacuate the wounded by helicopter but there were IEDs along the routes to the HLS (Helicopter Landing Site).

As Daniel Wild and Mark Hale helped the wounded Matthew Hatton, they were hit by a second bomb, killing all three men. In total there were five casualties, and call-sign “Pedro,” helicopters from the United States Air Force had come in to evacuate the killed and wounded. Henry Sanday was acting Platoon Sergeant and wanted to land Pedro on a roof but the roof was too small. He finally got the casualties loaded out. After suffering three killed and two wounded, the men continued the mission though some of the men were very rattled. Later that evening, when the mission had been completed and the soldiers were moving back to FOB Jacskon, they were hit by a third bomb leaving two casualties. Sanday was setting up another helicopter extraction when a fourth bomb detonated and an interpreter turned into a “white mist” leaving only a leg. The interpreter went MIA. Sanday asked the Apaches to search for the body but they found nothing. I’d seen this happen in Iraq and it took us a long time to find two of the bodies. One missing body was maybe a hundred meters away. The other body was farther. It’s been a long time, but I think it might have taken an hour to find the last body, and we had dozens of people looking. Sanday was down to four unwounded soldiers in his section and in Sangin the IEDs often seem to come in big clusters. No matter which way you go, there is a high probability of more. Two interpreters were killed in the strike and three were wounded.

Some of the men were in shock and did not react to Sanday’s commands. They were seriously battle-affected and refusing orders, though others rose to the occasion and were the glue. I’ve seen this breakdown happen. Soldiers typically bounce back. Two officers described to me their thoughts on Corporal Sanday. “He is an absolute hero,” said one, and the other agreed. Sanday’s name was mentioned with respect all the way back in Iraq. Now in Afghanistan he continues to rise to the occasion, but now with more experience. The next day, Sanday went on a combat mission in Sangin. About 100 meters in front of him an IED detonated on another section. Three soldiers from the Royal Regiment Fussilliers were killed. During extraction to the HLS, a pressure-pad IED caused more casualties. Again, I am told Sanday and others rose to the occasion.

The interpreter who disappeared was found in the Helmand River, about 20 miles south at FOB Price.

But those attacks were still a few days away. Today, Sanday had more dangers to lead his men into, and through, and as they slept, he worked.

Body armor for a pillow. Many soldiers buy those bracelets because they say the profits go to support wounded warriors. Next time I’m in Camp Bastion, I’ll buy a couple.

“Axle” Foley, who was on that horrible mission with Sanday, went to sleep until more aircraft were scheduled to show up. This photo was made at about 0517 and I put down the camera then my head down at 0521, just in time for the first explosion seven minutes later at 0528. The explosion was close and powerful and literally raised some dust. AFTER it exploded, someone said it was EOD for the first controlled detonation. The Bang Boys were out there in the danger zone, cracking away. I said a little prayer for them and put my head back down and that’s when the rooster started crowing—from inside the building! Look at the halls in the photo. A rooster is very loud inside here, as if he were crowing straight into our ears. The ANA keep the rooster for fighting. He was incredibly loud. BOOM at 0540. EOD was back at it, and at 0548, then 0558, then 0610 and 0612 and 0621. The EOD soldiers were into a rhythm. Between the rooster crowing inside the building and EOD blasting away nearby, sleep was hard to come by, so I got up and walked to one of the guard towers. LtCol Rob Thomson seemed to be the last one working, and warned me not to get shot. (During the bad morning on the 13th, LtCol Thomson saw some gloom on a few faces and he jerked those faces back into the fight.)

The British call guard towers “sangers” (a word the Brits picked up during a previous Afghan war). At the bottom of the ladder, I announced my presence to the ANA soldier and he waved me up.

The EOD were blasting just a few hundred meters away, and after every explosion, the ANA soldier would imitate and laugh, “BOOM, BOOM, hahahahah BOOM, BOOM, hahahaha.” He was like a big kid. He begged to have his photo taken and then wanted to stare at his photo and begged for another photo and another. Finally, he got behind the machine gun and acted like he was shooting. He was saying “gugugugugugugugugugugugugugug” like he was firing the machine gun. I walked over to make sure the gun was not aimed at any British EOD soldiers, who were in a different direction off to the left. The ANA soldier kept making the gun rattle, “gugugugugugugugugugugugug,” while laughing like a six-year-old boy, “gugugugugugugugugug.” Where were the 3- to 5-round bursts? He was wasting imaginary ammo. I said “No! It should be gugug…..gugugugug…gugugug. Not gugugugugugugugugugugug.” He wrapped his finger on the trigger and started to pull, but before doing so, a red LED seemed to flash inside his brain. He stopped. And there was a long pause, like on one of those old-timey calculators where you press “2” “+” “2” “=” … and then wait five seconds for the answer “4.” He checked the safety which, predictably, was on FIRE despite that a long belt of ammo was draped from the loaded gun. He clicked the safety on and pulled the trigger and kept going, “gugugugugugugugugugug.” Some men should not touch guns. He made me nervous that he might accidentally shoot someone, especially a British soldier, and so I distracted him with the camera, and started taking notes. Every time the pen hit the paper, he would lean over and stare at the writing, as if he were going to accidentally poke out his eye with the pen.

“Gugugugugugugugugugugugug.”

That’s when his buddy showed up with the dog. In Afghanistan mostly only villagers keep dogs, but the ANA are copying the British and adopted their own guard dog. Sometimes I wish all the readers could just come out here for a single day. Readers would never forget it. Look at that dog. What’s he going to do against Taliban with RPGs? He’s hardly got energy to bark. The gugugugugugugug man insisted that I photograph his friend and the dog, and then Dog Boy sprinted to the base of the sanger, tied the breathless guard dog to the ladder, climbed up breathlessly and stared at his photo and laughed and smiled and started jabbering on and giving the thumbs up, crawled back down, untied the dog and ran away laughing while the dog tried to keep up and they both disappeared around that corner.

The British and American soldiers often like the Afghans they work with; most of the Iraq veterans (British and American) did not make friends in Iraq, but most soldiers who work closely with Afghans seem to like them. The Afghans do some crazy, goofy things, but something about Afghans can be very likeable. Practically none of us want to be here, but nobody seems to have malice for Afghans. It’s difficult to explain.

Mud walls meet cinderblocks. Locals fill the cinderblocks with mud. If the people spent as much time building roads as they do building walls, this place would have more roads than California.

Sangin from the Sanger. The town of Sangin is not exactly Jurassic Park like most of Afghanistan. Despite that the British have been here since 2006, some people just a few miles from town still think the British are Russians, and the more enlightened ones seem to think the British are Americans. Most people seem to know who Michael Jackson is, but few have heard of Canada.

A couple days before this photo, British soldiers on FOB Jackson were firing large .50-caliber machine guns over my head, intermittantly, for about an hour. I thought they must be shooting someone, but this dispatch was a work in progress and so eventually the .50 caliber noise started affecting my concentration while I sweated over the keyboard. Finally, I pulled out the earplugs, walked outside and asked why the heck they keep shooting right over base?! There was no return fire. Turns out they were test-firing the machine guns, but every time the Fire Support Group launched bullets, villagers would see tracers and run toward the beaten zone where dust poofed up and rocks splintered through the air. Each time the soldiers fired the machine guns, the British soldiers would have to wait for the villagers to clear out, then fire again and the villagers would run back to the impact zone. The soldiers and I laughed at the absurdity. Iraq was almost never funny. Afghanistan can be like a war version of Comedy Central.

That man is walking on Pharmacy Road. Most of the the walls are roughly fifteen feet tall, though the walls behind him are shorter. There is no commanding ground—this is about as good as it gets—and the snipers cannot get long shots or observe far. The enemy are aware and use the labyrinth of walls nearly as effectively as if they were tunnels.

Scrap in front of PB Tangiers.

The mercury rose with the sun. LtCol Rob Thomson gathered up some men and wanted to go see the EOD soldiers as they were clearing some of the most dangerous ground. Though they had just cleared this stretch, there have been many instances where soldiers got blown to pieces by ground that was just cleared. Cleared is more like “cleared.”

The EOD soldiers said this dog missed a big pressure-activated bomb and led his handler right over it. Luckily the team didn’t step on the device. The dog is better at finding shade than bombs, apparently. Probably should be a drug dog. I’m no expert on search dogs, but it is true that glaring sun can bake away scent. I had the feeling that the soldier felt like he let people down, but nobody said any such thing. Everybody knows it’s tough out here and sometimes you simply miss the bomb.

The “Wishtan 5” were killed on the Wishtan market road on the top left. Those five soldiers were killed in a similar attack wherein soldiers who survived the first attack were killed while rescuing their buddies.

We came into a compound that had been “cleared.” Without EOD, our losses would be far higher in Afghanistan. The EOD soldiers get special respect and earn every ounce of it.

LtCol Thomson checks progress.

The imagery from November 2004 does not show the power lines in the photo below. I made the photo below from nearly the same angle as the image above. So, the EOD soldiers on top of the truck are in the corner of the compound overlooking Pharmacy Road. The soldiers are a few meters from where the yellow thumbtack denotes “Blown Vehicles.”

The EOD team is rigging this wall to blow part of it down. On the other side of the wall are the two blown-up vehicles; one of the vehicles is British and the other is the trailer from a “jingo truck.” The area surrounding the trucks is booby-trapped with explosives, and the vehicles also are booby-trapped. So the goal is to blow down the wall and drag the vehicles off the road and into this compound.

These EOD soldiers wear a Rainbow patch and call themselves Team Rainbow, which of course seemed quite curious.

The wall is so thick and strong that Team Rainbow put about 200 pounds of plastic explosive in all the right places, then rolled out the wire. The reader might be surprised to see what 200 pounds of high explosives does to the wall.

Team Rainbow and LtCol Thomson stayed up close, but I got behind the farthest vehicle because I have no pride in my courage. Some people think this is crazy work, but I’m actually a safety fanatic.

When the enemy hears a detonation—which typically occurs many times per day—they wait for helicopters, knowing that if helicopters swoop in and land, they have achieved success. Many of the enemy bombs in Sangin are detonated by command wire, while many others are pressure-activated and are simply improvised land mines. The enemy often uses pressure cookers to make bombs, just as was done by the Maoists in Nepal. In Nepal, the government began confiscating pressure cookers (which angered many people), and the government often shut down cell service (angering many people) because the Maoists used cell phones. The Maoists won the war. We are operating far smarter in Afghanistan. Here it’s the enemy who actually shuts down cell towers—and this angers the people. Also, the enemy bombs around here are killing a lot of innocent people, and this also angers the people. Despite progress made by the Taliban, they alienate many people.

And so that’s all that 200lbs of high explosives, in perfect contact with the target, placed by experts, could do to this wall. When soldiers come back from Afghanistan and say that the compounds are like fortresses, this is what they mean. The electrical wires, which cannot be seen in the Google Earth imagery of 2004, got blown down. The EOD soldiers wanted to avoid the live electrical wires. EOD called the Royal Engineers to come up with a non-destructive solution to the wires. Within minutes they thought of a solution. The vehicle above cut a notch in the top of the far wall with his scooper.

He drove the scooper machine to the front and opened the wall to let a bigger truck inside. The Engineers hooked webbing around the electrical wires, and using the winch on the big truck, pulled the wires up and draped them over the notch the scooper had cut. EOD was back in business clearing Pharmacy Road. In fact, the soldier who is driving the scooper is the same driver who got blown up on Pharmacy Road, and his blown up vehicle is one that they were about to drag into the compound.

It can be very rattling out here. But they keep getting blown up and going, and the enemy is getting it worse.

Preparing plastic explosives in slivers of shade. Iraqis thought our body armor was air conditioners, and thought we have “cold pills” to chill us out. The soldiers carry far more weight than I do, and they work three times harder. This heat is bad even for me, but much worse for them. Often U.S. and British soldiers end up back at the hospital after they collapse, but in nearly all cases they come straight back to the fight. There was a U.S. battalion in the 1st Infantry Division in Baquba, Iraq, who were constantly pumping IVs so they could outlast the enemy.

SSgt Schmid of the Joint Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal (JFOD). Dealing with hidden bombs made by pernicious enemies requires special people. I asked Ssgt Schmid which wire he cuts when dealing with booby-traps—red wire, or the green?—SSgt Schmid just laughed and kept working.

The blown-up vehicles were dragged through the blown-up wall under the blown-down wires.

As the midday sun pounded down, the EOD soldiers continued to work in the heat. LtCol Rob Thomson stayed out in the boiling sun with the men. I retreated with some others to a cooler place that was halfway underground. Most of us soon fell asleep as the EOD soldiers kept blasting, blasting, blasting. They must have made dozens of explosions during the day and they never seemed to take a break. None of them, nor LtCol Thomson, ever took even a minute of shade break with us.

After an afternoon of blasting, LtCol Rob Thomson headed to PB Wishtan, but my gear was back at Tangiers, where some ANA were preparing for a mission.

During the clearance, this soldier fell off a ladder. He was all the way at the top, about fifteen feet high. Luckily he was wearing his helmet because he said he also cracked his head. His spirits were good but he seemed a little embarrassed for falling off, but accidents like this happen a lot. Even when nobody is shooting, there are plentiful ways to get hurt out here. In the background are two improvised cots where I slept the second night. Just on the other side of the barrier, the Hescoes got hit some months ago by an RPG, as seen below.

RPGs are simple but enormously effective.

As the shadows grew longer, the British and ANA began playing volleyball while EOD kept blowing up charges along Pharmacy Road.

When people complain about the British rations, I think of Laxle Kedian Harris, more commonly known as “H.” I offered some weightlifting tips but H laughed and changed the subject. But make no mistake—the rations are . . . to put it kindly, bland.

It’s dangerous to leave a camera unguarded around soldiers. It could have been much worse.

That night, we stayed in the field because the mission was not merely to clear Pharmacy Road, but to build a sanger (guard position) about halfway down—one which would be constantly manned. While we slept, soldiers from 2 Rifles and the engineers worked all night erecting the sanger.

After a long, hot day taking back Pharmacy Road.

Some work while others sleep.

And that was it. Pharmacy Road was cleared and the sanger was built and most of us headed back to FOB Jackson just as the sun was rising on the second day.

Later that afternoon, back on FOB Jackson during the Battle Update Briefing (as Americans would call it), a BOOM shook the room. Word came that a local person was pulling parts from one of the vehicles that were dragged off Pharmacy Road. He encountered a Taliban booby-trap and he was killed. EOD had not cleared the vehicles of booby-traps; the two vehicles had merely been pulled off the road. Next day another local was killed on a parallel road that he thought the British had cleared. It had not been cleared. The Taliban blows up a lot of local people in Sangin.

The mission was an obvious success. It was surprising that we endured no fatalities or serious injuries. The mission was well-executed and since many of the soldiers have substantial combat experience from Iraq and Afghanistan, major dramas were averted. Murphy had smiled upon us. The only injury to my knowledge was the soldier who fell off the ladder. Soldiers who had previously fought on Pharmacy Road said we had sustained about twenty fatalities and injuries in that general area. And though at least one IED has been placed on the road since last week, C Coy and the ANA are now regularly patrolling and the freedom of movement has resumed.

This is a brutal fight. Since that mission, eight more British soldiers and two interpreters have been killed in this area. That’s ten KIA plus the wounded. The soldiers keep going.

Coming up next: the fighting we saw on election day wherein the soldier beside me got his antenna shot off.

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Afghanistan Elections Spot Report

2009-08-20T17:06:31Z

20 August 2009

This dispatch has been dictated by satellite phone due to communications difficulties. My satellite gear has failed on election day. I do not know how well the elections turned out in other parts of Afghanistan. Here in North Helmand Province, near Sangin, I am told that less than 300 people voted. In this area the day was marked by serious fighting. Apache attack helicopters were firing their cannons throughout the day. The howitzers fired many times. The mortars were firing. Various bases were attacked. On the mission I accompanied the snipers were firing. We got into a firefight, and the soldier beside me had his antenna shot off. I would not characterize this as a failure of the elections, it was a local setback. We saw the same in Iraq in early 2005, where some people boycotted the elections. The situation here is not good, but this is only one area of Afghanistan. I do not know what happened elsewhere.

Michael

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Do Americans Care about British Soldiers?

2009-08-19T01:59:27Z

19 August 2009
Helmand Province, Afghanistan

A gunshot ripped through the darkness and a young British soldier fell dying on FOB Jackson. I was just nearby talking on the satellite phone and saw the commotion. The soldier was taken to the medical tent and a helicopter lifted him to the excellent trauma center at Camp Bastion. That he made it to Camp Bastion alive dramatically improved his chances. But his life teetered and was in danger of slipping away. Making matters worse, the British medical system back in the United Kingdom did not possess the specialized gear needed to save his life. Americans had the right gear in Germany, and so the British soldier was put into the American system.

British officers in his unit, 2 Rifles, wanted to track their man every step of the way, and to ensure that his family was informed and supported in this time of high stress. Yet having their soldier suddenly in the American system caused a temporary glitch in communications with folks in Germany. The British leadership in Sangin could have worked through the glitch within some hours, but that would have been hours wasted, and they wanted to know the status of their soldier now. So a British officer in Sangin – thinking creatively –asked if I knew any shortcuts to open communications. The right people were only an email away: Soldiers Angels. And so within about two minutes, these fingers typed an email with this subject heading: CALLING ALL ANGELS.

Soldiers’ Angels Shelle Michaels and MaryAnn Phillips moved into action. Day by day British officers mentioned how Soldiers Angels were proving to be incredibly helpful. The soldiers expressed deep and sincere appreciation. Yet again, the Angels arrived during a time of need.

The severely wounded soldier, whose name I will not print without explicit permission, is recovering in the United Kingdom.

Two or three weeks after the injury, I was having dinner with a British Major and several Captains. The Major talked reverently about Soldiers Angels, and then about a herculean effort that the United States military extended to save a single British soldier. I had no idea about that effort. I just heard the gunshot, saw the soldier carried away into the night, and heard the helicopter roar into the darkness. I knew Soldiers’ Angels had intervened back in Germany, but the details that followed came as incredible surprise. The U.S. military had quietly moved Heaven and Earth to save a single British “Squaddie.”

Please read the following description, authored in part by Soldiers’ Angel MaryAnn Phillips:

The Needs of the One...

In late July, a British Soldier deployed in Afghanistan sustained life-threatening wounds to the abdomen and chest. I alluded to him in this post, but his identity has not yet been made public.

The article quoted below describes the extraordinary (and to my knowledge unprecedented) efforts made to save his life. It is a testimony to the advancements made in the technological, logistical, and medical fields. But most of all, it is a testimony to the commitment of the many to care for the needs of the one.

Here is a summary of the medical, logistic, and air assets involved in this incredibly complex mission. It is almost certainly incomplete.

Aircraft:
- One C-17 aircraft to get the medical team and equipment from Germany in place at the hospital in Afghanistan.
- One C-130 aircraft to fly a pulmonologist from a different hospital in Afghanistan to the Soldiers’ location.
- A second C-17 aircraft to fly the patient from Afghanistan to Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
- LifeBird German civilian medevac helicopter to fly the patient from Ramstein Air Base to Regensburg University hospital.

Aircrews:
- Three C-17 aircrews; four sorties
- LifeBird helicopter aircrew

Medical Teams:
- British, Danish, US surgical team at the hospital in Afghanistan.
- A pulmonologist from a different hospital in Afghanistan flown to the facility where this Soldier was located.
- The Landstuhl Acute Lung Rescue Team (Specialized Critical Care Air Transport)
- The LifeBird medevac team in Germany
- The thoracic surgical and ICU teams at Regensburg University hospital in Germany, for the highly specialized treatment developed and available there.

Logistics Teams:
- Combined Air and Space Operations Center (SW Asia)
- Joint Patient Movement Requirements Center (within the CAOC above, SW Asia)
- Global Patient Movements Requirement Center (Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, USA)
- 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center (Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, USA)
- Landstuhl DWMMC (Deployed Warrior Medical Management Center)

Air Force aeromedical evacuation teams give British soldier fighting chance
by Capt. Justin Brockhoff

618th Tanker Airlift Control Center Public Affairs

8/4/2009 - SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. (AFNS) -- Three Air Force aircraft along with multiple aircrew, aeromedical evacuation teams, and agencies from around the world gave a British soldier a fighting chance at life in late July after the soldier sustained multiple gunshot wounds and had his blood supply replaced more than 10 times at a military hospital in Afghanistan.

According to officials, the soldier sustained multiple wounds to the abdomen and chest, and was transfused with 75 units of blood and another 75 units of platelets.

Emergency surgery was conducted to repair the Soldiers’ liver and lung. After being stabilized by the medical teams on the ground, the patient's respiratory condition worsened and doctors determined that the patient had to be moved to upgraded care in Germany.

Officials at the Combined Air and Space Operations Center and Joint Patient Movement Requirements Center at an air base in Southwest Asia, and the Global Patient Movements Requirement Center and 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., immediately started working to find the aircraft, aircrews and medical crews to airlift the soldier to further care.

"We received the call on our operations floor to airlift the British soldier from Afghanistan to Germany and immediately did what we could to make it happen," said Col. John Martins, the 618th TACC director of operations who led coordination efforts for the mission. "It was a complex move. Not only did we have to find a plane and crew to fly the patient out of theater, but also we had to find another plane and aircrew to get the right medical personnel and equipment into Afghanistan because we needed specialized medical teams to care for the patient in-flight."

In less than six hours, a C-17 Globemaster III previously scheduled to fly a cargo mission was airborne with the required medical personnel and equipment from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, to Afghanistan.

"We were able to quickly identify a mission that was planned to fly into Afghanistan, and after coordinating with other agencies in the 618th TACC we were able to re-task the mission as an aeromedical evacuation flight," said Maj. Kris Rowe, an aeromedical flight manager. "At the same time, we needed a pulmonologist to be part of the AE team due to the trauma to the Soldiers’ lungs. Working with our counterparts at the CAOC, we were able to get the pulmonologist from a different location in Afghanistan to the Soldiers’ location on a pre-scheduled C-130 (Hercules) mission."

The pulmonologist arrived to the Soldiers’ location and continued to care for him on the ground, while the C-17 carrying the medical teams and specialized lung equipment were still en-route on the eight-hour flight from Germany.

Because of crew duty day restrictions, safety regulations that dictate how long an aircrew can be on-duty before they're required to rest, the original C-17 aircrew couldn't stay the six hours it would take the lung team to prepare the soldier on the ground, and still fly the mission back to Germany. Instead, once they arrived, the C-17 and its crew were able to wait on the ground for just over an hour while nine other patients, in addition to two amputees previously picked up during a fuel stop, were on-loaded for a flight to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, near Ramstein AB.

Once they had dropped off the medical crews and equipment to stabilize the British soldier, and its 11 new patients were prepped for flight, the first C-17 took off back for Germany. Its mission was complete.

Enter the second C-17 and aircrew, assigned to the 385th Air Expeditionary Group, who were also previously scheduled to fly a cargo mission in Afghanistan. Officials at the 618th TACC delivered a similar notification that they'd been re-tasked to be involved in the lifesaving effort.

"The patient was loaded on the second C-17 and airborne within 22 hours of receiving the call for support at the 618th TACC," said Master Sgt. Keyser Voigt, an aeromedical evacuation mission controller at the 618th TACC. "When you look at the requirements we had, its awe inspiring to see how many people will come together to save one life. It took two airplanes to get the medical team and equipment in place, another to fly the patient to Germany, three aircrews, four sorties, AE personnel and many more coordinating on the ground to get this done. Including the fact that we had to fly in specialized teams and equipment from eight-plus hours away and it took a minimum of six hours on the ground to prepare the patient using that specialized equipment, everyone involved did absolutely everything we could to give this soldier the care he deserves."

At approximately 1 p.m. local time Aug. 2, the British soldier landed safely at Ramstein AB and was flown to further medical care at a university hospital by helicopter.

"It's a true testament to the aircrews, the medical crews, and the ground personnel around the world and at the airfield that we could get this soldier out of Afghanistan so fast," said Lt. Col. Duncan Smith, the 618th TACC's Aeromedical Evacuation Division chief. "It is truly amazing to see this coordination take place in such a short amount of time, because we're literally coordinating these moves from a world away. We are in the business of saving lives, and we will do everything we can to reach that goal."

As of press time, the soldier was still at the university hospital in Germany, where he was listed in critical condition.

This movement marked the 8,563 patient movement by U.S. Air Force aeromedical evacuation teams in 2009, and the 135,233 since April 1, 2003.

(emphasis added)

As of today, almost 10 days after this story was written, the Soldier remains in Germany where his condition is stable. He may be able to fly home to the UK soon.

The doctors say it's a miracle.

I'd say it's probably close to a thousand miracles: A miracle for each of the many who came together to meet the needs of the one...

--
MaryAnn Phillips
Vice President, Warrior Medical Support Europe
Soldiers' Angels main web site: www.soldiersangels.org
Soldiers' Angels Germany blog: www.soldiersangelsgermany.org

*** New shipping address ***
MTD
Attn: Soldiers' Angels
CMR 402
APO AE 09180
*** New shipping address ***

Post Script from Michael Yon:

Soldiers’ Angel MaryAnn Phillips emailed to me:

“I thought you might be interested in this. Incredibly, [British Soldier] is actually beginning to do quite well. He has regained consciousness and may be able to be transported to the UK within the next week.

While at Regensburg hospital with his mom […] right after she arrived here, I told her about some of this. She broke down and couldn't believe "all of those people would do all that for my son". It was a very, very moving moment.

Take care of yourself, Michael.

mp

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The Kopp-Etchells Effect

2009-08-17T03:20:56Z

17 August 2009
Sangin, Afghanistan

The roads are so littered with enemy bombs that nearly all transport and resupply to this base occurs by helicopter. The pilots roar through the darkness, swoop into small bases nestled in the saddle of enemy territory, and quickly rumble off into the night.

A witness must spend only a short time in the darkness to know we are at war. Flares arc into the night, or mortar illumination rounds drift and swing under parachutes, orange and eerily in the distance, casting long, flickering but sharply defined shadows. The worst that can happen is that you will be caught in an open field, covered by nothing and concealed only by darkness, when the illumination suddenly bathes you in light. Best is to stay low and freeze and prepare to fire, or in the case of a writer, to stay low and freeze and prepare to watch the firing.

17 August 2009
Sangin, Afghanistan

Explosions from unknown causes rumble through the cool nights while above drifts the Milky Way, punctuated by more shooting stars than one can remember. The Afghanistan nights will grant a wish to wish upon a shooting star. And while waiting for the next meteor, the eyes are likely to catch tracer bullets.

A CH-47 helicopter whirls in with a “sling load” of resupplies from Camp Bastion to FOB Jackson in Sangin.

The pilot comes in fast, to the dark landing zone, lighted only by “Cyalumes,” which Americans call “Chemlights.” The sensitive camera and finely engineered glass make the dark landing zone appear far lighter. The apparent brightness of the small Cyalumes provides reference.

A show begins as the helicopter descends under its halo.

The charged helicopter descends into its own dust storm.

Gently releasing the sling load.

The pilot hovers away from the load, pivots and begins to land.

The dust storm ripples and flaps over the medical tents.

Heat causes the engines to glow orange.

Dust begins to clear even before landing. The helicopter, under its own halo, casts a moon shadow.

The halo often disappears when the helicopter ramp touches the ground. Again, the conditions are quite dark, but the excellent camera gear has tiger vision.

The British medical staff treats many wounded Afghans who often show up at the gate. In the photo above, Dr. Rhiannon Dart (right) observes as an Afghan patient is medically evacuated to the trauma center at Camp Bastion. The medics and Dr. Dart are especially respected for the risks they equally share here. The medical staff walks into combat just like the other soldiers—frequently side by side in close combat. Numerous times per week, their battlefield work, often under intense pressure in hot and filthy conditions, is the deciding factor on whether soldiers or civilians survive or die. I asked Dr. Dart if Afghan men have any reservations when being treated by a woman. She answered that when men are seriously wounded—which is about the only time she sees Afghans as patients—they don’t care if she is a man or a woman. During a mission last week, I saw an Afghan soldier walk by with a bandage on his hand. Dr. Dart stopped the soldier, asking him to remove the bandage. Contrary to harboring reservations, the soldier appeared relieved that she wanted—actually sort of politely demanded—to examine his injury.

The ramp lifts in preparation for takeoff and the halo begins to rematerialize before the helicopter lifts into the darkness and disappears. Soldiers call the medevac flights to Camp Bastion, “Nightingales” or “Nightingale flights.” Shortly after sunrise on the morning of 13 August, an element from this unit was ambushed nearby, killing three and wounding two others. Despite the immediate danger, the helicopter came straight onto the battlefield. After the initial ambush, and another successful ambush during the evacuation, the British soldiers did not return to base but continued with the mission. Later that evening they were twice ambushed again, sustaining more fatalities as two interpreters were killed. Soldiers asked me to go on that mission but I was busy assembling this dispatch. One of the killed soldiers, shortly before the mission, had looked over my shoulder as I selected the photos. Captain Mark Hale was killed while aiding a wounded soldier. Mark had particularly liked the next three images:

Night after night, helicopters keep coming. Last month a civilian resupply helicopter had tried to land at this exact spot but was shot down on final approach. Two children on the ground and all persons aboard were killed. The helicopter crews earn much respect.

Sometimes the halos appear like distant galaxies.

In motion, the halos spark, glitter and veritably crackle, but in still photos the halos appear more like intricate orbital bands.

Perhaps like the rings of Saturn.

The halos usually disappear as the rotors change pitch, dust diminishes and the ramp touches the ground. On some nights, on this very same landing zone, no halos form.

On another night, the helicopters return. The camera is jostled, accidentally creating a double image.

They keep coming.

What is this halo phenomenon called? None of the American or British helicopter pilots seemed to have a name for the effect. They provide only descriptions and circumscriptions. I asked many people, and finally reached out to Command Sergeant Major Jeff Mellinger (one of my “break glass only if” sources whom I ask when other means have failed). Jeff asked pilots, and came back with an excellent description from one pilot:

"Basically it is a result of static electricity created by friction as materials of dissimilar material strike against each other. In this case titanium/nickel blades moving through the air and dust. It occurs on the ground as well, but you don't usually see it as much unless the aircraft is landing or taking off. The most common time is when fuel is being pumped. When large tankers are being fueled they must be grounded to prevent static electricity from discharging and creating explosions."

But still no name. How can the helicopter halos, so majestic and indeed dangerous at times, be devoid of a fitting name?

A phenomenon in need of a name. Mark Hale had liked this image and the next.

I spent two weeks searching for a fitting handle but all attempts came to naught.

The halos are different every night. Some nights they are intense, other nights dim, but often there are no halos.

There are explosions and fighting every day and night.

Under the moon.

This time exposure shows where the pilot briefly hovered before dropping in.

Our casualties in this war reached an all-time peak in July 2009 and the heaviest fighting was here in Helmand Province. On 10 July, elsewhere in Helmand, some of America’s finest soldiers were hunting down Taliban.

Members of the U.S. 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment closed space with the enemy, apparently killing at least ten. Corporal Benjamin Kopp was shot and evacuated to Germany, then back to the United States, where he died just over a week later on 18 July. Benjamin was 21 years old and at the very tip of the spear. If not for such men, we would be at the mercy of every demon.

Benjamin Kopp and his comrades were delivering the latest bad news to the sort of people who harbored the terrorists who attack innocent people around the world every day, and who attacked us at home on 9/11. Ranger Kopp was a veteran with three combat tours. He knew the risks, yet continued to fight.

Benjamin was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates quietly attended the funeral, as did my good friend, Colonel Erik Kurilla, the new commander of Ranger Regiment, where Kopp served until America lost one of its finest Sons.

Yet the effect of Corporal Kopp did not end on the battlefields of Afghanistan; he only regrouped and continued to serve. Corporal Kopp had volunteered as an organ donor and his heart was transplanted. Two days after most people would have died, Benjamin Kopp’s heart was transplanted into Judy Meikle. According to the Washington Post, Meikle said, "How can you have a better heart?" said a grateful Judy Meikle, 57, of Winnetka, Ill., who is still recovering from the surgery. "I have the heart of a 21-year-old Army Ranger war hero beating in me."

Other organs were also donated for other recipients.

Benjamin Kopp’s case is reminiscent of so many others whose names are and faces will forever remain unfamiliar to most of us. The Angels Among Us are nearly always invisible to our eyes until it’s too late to say “thank you,” and “farewell.”

On August 11, I attended a small ceremony for a British soldier from this base in Helmand who was killed in combat the day after Benjamin passed. His name was Joseph Etchells. I was told how Joseph died in a bomb ambush, and that his last request was to be cremated, loaded into a firework, and launched over the park where he used to play as a kid. When Joseph’s last request was explained, I burst out laughing and the British soldier who told me also was laughing. The absurd humor of Joseph’s request was familiar, and it was as though Joseph were standing there with us, laughing away.

Lieutenant Alan Williamson was “Joey’s” platoon commander here in Sangin. LT Williams said that the other soldiers called him “Etch,” or Joey, and that Etch was born in 1987. He joined the army at age 16, though he could not deploy for combat until he was 18. Etch did a tour in Northern Ireland and three tours in Afghanistan, including 2006 in Now Zad where he endured 107 days of straight combat wherein they fought literally every day. In 2007 Etch deployed to Kabul and then performed “Public Duty” by guarding the Queen outside the palaces.

Lt Williams said that Etch was a, “Young and very keen Section Commander. Most Section Commanders like to be a few men back so they can command without being in immediate danger, but “Etch” refused to be that far back, and was always right behind the [“point man.] He was an outstanding runner. He left his fiancé behind. He would have been a very young sergeant. He was an outstanding, outstanding soldier.”

Joseph Etchells and Benjamin Kopp were both Corporals in different armies. Both had served three combat tours. Ben was 21, Etch was 22, and they both fought their last battles in Helmand Province. The names of these British and American warriors are listed consecutively in a roster chronicling our sacrifices in Afghanistan.

Last month there had been a large service here for Etch, but I witnessed a much smaller service where those closer to him came together to pay final respects. This service in Sangin occurred on the same day that a final ceremony was being held back in the United Kingdom. About twenty soldiers attended. The event was quiet and respectful and I wanted to be back in the United Kingdom to salute the rocket launch as it carried away the payload of Joey’s ashes, and exploded over the park. Here in Sangin, the bugler played and his buddies tossed their cap feathers into the Helmand River. The red and white feathers drifted away in the same waters where Etch used to swim after missions, down into the desert. Here they call it the “Dashti Margo,” the Desert of Death.

And so a fitting name had arrived to describe the halo glow we sometimes see in Helmand Province: Kopp-Etchells Effect, for two veteran warriors who died here in Helmand, Ben on the 18th, Joe on the 19th of July in the year 2009. It’s not hard to imagine the two Corporals have already linked up and regrouped, and in sense they have. Knowing combat soldiers, it’s easy to imagine them laughing away at the idea.

The Kopp-Etchells eponym can be seen as a cynosure for the many who have gone before the Corporals, and those who will follow. I had talked to Captain Mark Hale nearly every day for two weeks. Mark liked the name. And then Mark himself was lost on Thursday along with Daniel Wild as they were aiding a wounded Matthew Hatton. I heard very good things about Daniel Wild. They say he was a good and tough soldier. I’d seen Matthew Hatton on the battlefield and felt more confident by his presence. Hatton was a well-respected man. As for Mark Hale, I only knew him for two weeks. Mark will be missed by many people, myself included.

The war goes on and all the fallen soldiers know what we must do. We must keep moving. There will be time in the future to pay proper respects, and to reflect upon their honor. Now is not that time.

While waiting for a helicopter to land, there was activity on the perimeter, and then an unseen hand fired a flare so that we could see who was out there.

Epilogue:

The following men and women sacrificed their lives in Afghanistan since the time that Benjamin Kopp and Joseph Etchells passed on. I am told that more names will soon be added to the list:

8/13/09	Cahir, William J.	Sergeant	40	US
8/13/09	Hale, Mark	Captain		UK
8/13/09	Wild, Daniel	Rifleman	19	UK
8/13/09	Hatton, Matthew	Lance Bombardier	23	UK
8/12/09	Tinsley, John	Captain	28	US
8/10/09	Ferrell, Bruce E.	Lance Corporal	21	US
8/10/09	Ambrozinski, Daniel	Captain	32	Poland
8/9/09	Schimmel, Patrick W.	Lance Corporal	21	US
8/8/09	Smith, Tara J.	Staff Sergeant	33	US
8/8/09	Olvera, Javier	Lance Corporal	20	US
8/8/09	Swanson, Matthew K.S.	Specialist	20	US
8/8/09	Williams, Jason	Private	23	UK
8/7/09	Burrow, Dennis J.	Lance Corporal	23	US
8/7/09	Evans Jr., Jerry R.	Sergeant	23	US
8/7/09	Freeman, Matthew C.	Captain	29	US
8/6/09	Adams, Kyle	Private	21	UK
8/6/09	Hopkins, Dale Thomas	Lance Corporal	23	UK
8/6/09	Mulligan, Kevin	Corporal	26	UK
8/6/09	Argentine, James D.	Lance Corporal	22	US
8/6/09	Babine, Travis T.	Lance Corporal	20	US
8/6/09	Rivera, Christian A. Guzman	Corporal	21	US
8/6/09	Hoskins, Jay M.	Sergeant	24	US
8/5/09	Garcia, Anthony C.	Petty Officer 3rd Class	21	US
8/4/09	Lombardi, Anthony	Craftsman	21	UK
8/2/09	Granado III, Alejandro	Sergeant 1st Class	43	US
8/2/09	Summers III, Severin W.	Sergeant 1st Class	43	US
8/2/09	Luce Jr., Ronald G.	Captain	27	US
8/1/09	Walls, Jonathan M.	Corporal	27	US
8/1/09	Fitzgibbon, Patrick S.	Private	19	US
8/1/09	Jones, Richard K.	Private 1st Class	19	US
8/1/09	Allard, Matthieu	Sapper	21	Canada
8/1/09	Bobbitt, Christian	Corporal	23	Canada
8/1/09	Bodin, Anthony	Caporal (corporal)	22	France
7/31/09	Miller, Alexander J.	Specialist	21	US
7/30/09	Posey, Gregory A.	Lance Corporal	22	US
7/30/09	Stroud, Jonathan F.	Lance Corporal	20	US
7/29/09	Vose III, Douglas M.	Chief Warrant Officer	38	US
7/29/09	Smith, Gerrick D.	Sergeant	19	US
7/27/09	Upton, Sean	Warrant Officer Class 2	35	UK
7/27/09	Lawrence, Phillip	Trooper	22	UK
7/25/09	Vincent, Donald W.	Private 1st Class	26	US
7/25/09	Hopson, Craig	Bombardier	24	UK
7/24/09	Coleman, Justin D.	Specialist	21	US
7/24/09	Xiarhos, Nicholas G.	Corporal	21	US
7/24/09	Lasher, Jeremy S.	Lance Corporal	27	US
7/23/09	Charpentier, Andrew Scott	Aviation Electronics Technician Airman	21	US
7/23/09	Lane, Ryan H.	Sergeant	25	US
7/22/09	King, Christopher	Guardian	20	UK
7/22/09	Rimer, Joshua J.	Sergeant	24	US
7/22/09	Neff, Jr., Randy L.J.	Specialist	22	US
7/21/09	Morales, Raymundo P.	Specialist	34	US
7/20/09	Shepherd, Daniel	Captain	28	UK
7/20/09	Owens Jr., Gregory	Sergeant	24	US
7/20/09	Lightfoot, Anthony M.	Specialist	20	US
7/20/09	Roughton, Andrew J.	Specialist	21	US
7/20/09	Pratt, Dennis J.	Private 1st Class	34	US
7/19/09	Etchells, Joseph	Corporal	22	UK
7/18/09	Kopp, Benjamin S.	Corporal	21	US

http://icasualties.org/OEF/Afghanistan.aspx

*Note: some photos were slightly altered to obscure base defenses.

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Stars & Stripes

2009-08-13T13:29:01Z

13 August 2009

Reporting from Afghanistan: Not your typical job

Posted August 12th, 2009 by Leo Shane in Stripes Central

Back in 2006 I spent six weeks traveling around Afghanistan with various U.S. Army units and reporting on what troops were dealing with in the "forgotten" war. Filing stories and calling my editors was always a tricky prospect, even without any of the heavy fighting that reporters there now are seeing.

So it's humbling to me to listen to this live interview with Michael Yon from his latest travels into Afghanistan, this time with British troops.

Yon has already made a name for himself with his freelance work in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and his latest work has given an up-close view of the tension and danger in Afghanistan right now. But this interview may top all that.

At just about the 7:30 mark, you can start to hear gunfire in the background as he talks with Military.com's Ward Carroll about recent violence in the area. A few minutes later, he pauses for a minute to get to a safer location as machine gun fire intensifies and a rocket whizzes overhead.

But it's only a momentary pause, and he doesn't let the fighting rattle him.

"As if on cue, this is a very contested area," he says, laughing. "It's getting pretty intense here."

Most reporters don't face danger comparable to soldiers on the front lines, but that doesn't mean it's a safe job. The two AP journalists who were seriously injured earlier today in an attack serve as a grim reminder of that.

Our editors keep close tabs on our Stripes' reporters downrange too. Drew Brown and Dianna Cahn have been filing remarkable reports for us from Afghanistan; Our own Pentagon correspondent Jeff Schogol is in Iraq right now. All of them are under strict instructions to make sure they're keeping their own safety in mind while they're chronicling the important stories there.

I don't know Yon well -- just a few casual emails back and forth -- but I know his reporting well enough that he travels that fine line too. Hopefully he can keep delivering that insightful view of war without ending up too close to the firing line in the future.

[PHOTO: Drew Brown]

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No Young Soldiers

2009-08-10T00:21:18Z

10 August 2009
Sangin, Afghanistan

Daily dramas unfolded, including the bangs, booms and small-arms fire that punctuated the times. At 1800, I was preparing to go to orders with 1 Platoon, A Company of 2 Rifles, when shots from a large-caliber rifle began cracking low over base. I passed by sniper, Kris Griffith, and said, “Hey Kris, why don’t you grab your rifle and go shoot that guy?” Kris replied that two other sniper teams were on it. “He’s close,” I said, and Kris answered, “About 600 meters.” Then we went our separate ways.

Orders were given and then the soldiers performed final checks on their gear and tried to fall to sleep in the sweltering evening heat. Some nights I would go to sleep using the sleeping bag as a pillow, only to wake up with it drenched in sweat.

The alarm was set for 0213 hours, but at 0211 I sat up and turned it off before it could wake the soldiers who were not going on the mission. I had nineteen minutes to pull on my boots, body armor, and small rucksack, before I had to get to breakfast, engage in final conversations, and then show up for the mission at 0310.

The following series of photos were taken during the early morning hours of August 2nd . The conditions were “red illume,” meaning there was less than 10 millilux of ambient light and it was too dark for most helicopters to fly, even while using night vision gear. It was plenty dark.

Soldiers and section leaders did “final check” after “final check” of their gear, and talked quietly among themselves while last-minute updates came over the radio.

In red illume, the soldiers used dim red lights that were harder for the enemy to see. Red light also preserved our night vision. By showing up a half-hour before departure and sitting quietly, our eyes and senses had time to adjust and tune in to the battlefield. The battlefield was a thirty-second walk away.

Some soldiers smoked cigarettes before stepping out into the wild zone. Most were quiet. There was little talking during the last ten minutes.

My section assembled…

…While another section waited.

The first section moved out nine minutes before the mission for my section began.

Six minutes to departure.

Final red lights were out. Our mission started three minutes early.

Despite low ambient light, the market in Sangin was dangerously lighted.

By 0357 hrs, some shops were already open, including this shoe store. The Taliban in this area did not seem to wear running shoes as did some of the enemy groups elsewhere in Afghanistan. Here, the enemy mostly wore sandals or went barefoot. (Many often ran right out of their sandals, especially during combat.)

Shops on this very street sold fertilizer used to make bombs. They might as well have sold dynamite. (The fertilizer also happened to be good for growing opium.) The bombs regularly blow the limbs off troops around Afghanistan. Soldiers may lose their legs, or their legs and an arm and their eyesight, or worse. But what can we do, really? Gasoline, like fertilizer, can be an incredible weapon. Are we to ban gasoline and attack gas shipments while trying to build a country from scratch? We talk about weapons flowing in from Pakistan, while in reality most of the casualties in this area come from bombs made from fertilizer sold in the open markets. We talk about Pakistani Taliban flowing in, while the local ANA Commander, Colonel Wadood, tells me that some of the fighters are Tajiks from places like Ghor Province. Tajiks generally hate the Taliban but they come to make money, he says.

The crux of the mission was a raid, but the task of our section was to provide security and fire support for the raiders. If the enemy were to try to hit our guys during the raid, our job was to kill the enemy, and so our objective was a farmhouse that overlooked the target.

British soldiers moved into an occupied farmhouse as the man willingly opened the gate to let us in. Several cute children were sleeping under the stars. The soldiers were so quiet the kids were not disturbed. I thought to myself, “What would the kids think if they woke up and saw the soldiers?” About fifteen minutes later, one of the children woke up, and his voice could be heard through the silence of the night. The man with the turban stepped over and spoke quietly to the child who immediately zonked out again, as if it were all part of a dream.

After the compound was quietly and respectfully searched, some of the soldiers sat down while others pushed into security positions.

The soldiers were perfectly early: not so early that they risked tipping their hand too soon, but early enough that they had time to collect thoughts and tune-in after the movement and get into good positions while the raiders skulked in on the nearby target, only 150 meters away.

Instead of pushing everyone into position immediately—increasing the chance of compromise—most of the team waited down in the compound until just before first light.

This man seemed unconcerned. The British soldiers respected the locals while the Taliban acted out on a whim, murdering innocents or splashing acid in the faces of schoolgirls. Within hours of the time this photo was taken, we felt the rumble as the Taliban blew up a local bridge and killed two ANA soldiers. In addition to the killing, the bridge was important to the locals. This was not a fight for terrain, but for the sentiments of the people.

As with al Qaeda, the Taliban is our best weapon against themselves. The Taliban issued a code of conduct, which likely was a blunder on their part. Why? Because the Taliban are undisciplined savages, and every time they violate their own code of conduct—which happens every day and night—the good guys have a chance to broadcast the transgression.

More soldiers moved to the roof at 0442 while the raiders got into final position. At 0500 the raid began, but only two air rifles were found. At 0510 “dickers” (watchers) were spotted on motorcycles and on a roof, as the FST plots potential enemy positions.

Though it might seem like a simple raid, it would take many long dispatches for the untrained reader to develop a reasonable understanding of this three-dimensional battlefield and what the soldiers were doing. There was more going on than just “1 Platoon, A Company, 2 Rifles, with guns on a roof in Afghanistan.” 1 Platoon was a small part of a larger package.

Embedded within 1 Platoon was a handful of specialists from 636 (Arcot 1751 Battery), 40 Regiment Royal Artillery, “The Lowland Gunners,” simply called the “Fire Support Team.” Most soldiers just say FST.

The primary function of 1 Platoon was to provide security for the raiders, and to deliver the FST, whose primary function also was to provide security for the raiders.

The FST controls air assets, mortars, cannons, howitzers, and remote rocket systems known as GMLRS, (which Americans pronounce “Gimmlers” while the British say each letter: G-M-L-R-S).

GMLRS (Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System) scares the heck out of the enemy; GMLRS can be launched from dozens of miles away and reliably kill a man—or a lot of men—without warning. GMLRS are like the ultimate sniper rifle, only the bullet is a large explosive warhead. The system is so reliable and accurate that during operation Arrowhead Ripper during the summer of 2007 in Iraq, our people were hitting IEDs from dozens of miles away. Whereas the enemy can see or hear most aircraft, they get no warning with GMLRS. Even with the invisible and silent Predators and Reapers firing the small Hellfire missiles, the enemy has a few seconds warning. Hellfires are like gigantic hand grenades with a homing system. A Hellfire can hit a car and not necessarily kill everyone. But if GMLRS hits a sturdy two-story house, the house is gone. The Taliban hate it.

The FST had an array of tricks up their camouflaged sleeves; the primary weapons of this mission were the devastating 81mm mortars, the even more devastating 105mm howitzers, and the GMLRS many miles away. Overhead were two American A-10s; British Apaches attack helicopter; and a supersonic American B-1B bomber that was designed to deliver hydrogen bombs into the heart of the Soviet Union. The call sign for the B-1B might as well have been “Strangelove” and it’s not difficult to imagine Slim Pickens at the controls. (A message came that a B-1B crew who had covered us on a recent mission, had read the dispatch and sent a message to me. The Brits relayed the message; thank you B-1B! During upcoming missions, I’ll be the one waving up at you in the stratosphere. The enemy has IEDs, but the riflemen are monkey-stomping these guys. Thank you for the top cover.)

FST soldiers plotted all suspected enemy firing points and listed the coordinates while other soldiers were ready near the mortars and howitzers and would fire into the target mere moments after a “FIRE MISSION…” radio call came in. At 0521 a man was spotted in a dark dishdasha moving through a woodline. Sergeant Wotherspoon, a Scottish soldier who sounds very much like the Scotsman on the Simpsons, pulled out his laser range finder, checked the distance and plotted a fire mission. The “dicking screen” seemed to be increasing so the FST stayed busy plotting potential targets. At 0544 the first raid was over and the raiders moved to hit a second compound. Amazingly, some people in the United States believe that the raiders should take time to gather forensic evidence for later court cases. This would spell many death sentences for us, and prove a potent disincentive to soldiers who risk their lives to capture suspects alive. If soldiers at war are held to the same evidence collection standards as law enforcement officers at home, we need to end the war before we sink further into the quicksand. If the judiciary enforces unbearable standards in this ugly war, a fair-minded, informed person likely would say that we need to conclude our attempts to raise up Afghanistan, and we should bring home the troops.

At 0546 there was a large caliber rifle shot that kicked up dust about a hundred meters from us. A minute later there was another shot but we saw no splash. Wotherspoon said, “That’s how it started last time; single shots trying to find us.” (Wotherspoon really does sound like the Scotsman on the Simpsons but I didn’t dare say it.) They had gotten into a serious firefight here before and expected another. I fell asleep when shots woke me up at 0633. There were sounds of motorbikes and sporadic shots being fired as I fell back to sleep. While most soldiers worked some were switching watch and a few slept. An infantryman’s rule of thumb: never miss a chance to fill canteens or sleep.

Modern battlefields bring countless strange sounds. What does a bomb sound like when it slices overhead through the dark to a target? An RPG launch? How about a Javelin or Hellfire or 81 or 105 or 107 or 155 or A-10 or Shadow? Everyone reading this likely knows the sound a train rumbling by, or a car horn, yet out here on the battlefields there are probably hundreds of new sounds to learn. While falling back to sleep, an incident came to mind from my first day or two at FOB Jackson. The mess tent was crowded and we all heard a THUMP, which sounded remarkably like an incoming mortar launch. This base – despite all the combat – does not take mortar and rocket fire (touch wood), so nobody hit the deck. But in the seconds after the THUMP, the loud mess tent went completely silent as all ears strained to hear. And then came a slight whistle and at least fifty people were on the ground in a second or two. But one soldier, Corporal Ryan Hone, just sat there and said “What?” Corporal Hone was temporarily deaf because he had been flat-blasted by an enemy bomb some days back, and so he didn’t hear the whistle. And there was no incoming mortar. I’ve never heard one whistle, anyway. The whistle came from Serjeant Rob Grimes from 2 Platoon!

In addition to plotting potential enemy FPs (Firing Points), any potential enemy group who came within our reach was also immediately plotted. The machine guns, rifles and grenades the soldiers carried were the least things the enemy should have been concerned about. Fine training and attention to detail are crucial in this job. All targets were “danger close” to us, and often to the other elements on the ground.

“Danger close” means that even if everything goes just right, friendly troops are so close to our fires (such as bombs, mortars or the guns), that we might take casualties from our own fires. Any fire missions that the FST would have called from the position we were in would have been danger close, to us and probably to the raiders. Most fire missions in the Green Zone are danger close.

So if one of these soldiers made a mistake—even one digit off—the mistake could have wiped out an innocent family, us, or both. To safeguard, they train constantly, and during missions two FST members plot each target separately then compare answers.

FST soldiers must be able to pass the tests during firefights and when bombs are exploding or when people are screaming with horrible injuries. They must reliably call fire missions during all conditions, such as fitful, dark nights when the men are tired, hungry, and in need of rest.

While the soldiers on the roof worked radios on different nets, plotted their own solutions and shared information, the family below offered bread and tea to the soldiers.

From the roof, the FST can call a fire mission from scratch and have rounds landing in -- let’s not give the enemy a clue, and just say “very fast.” Since the FST had already plotted all likely enemy positions, the fire mission would be accelerated Time Of Flight (TOF) for the 105mm Howitzer shots would be 22 seconds while the 81mm mortar bombs will fly for about 33 seconds before detonating. All fuses are dialed to “proximity low” to reduce structural damage and increase damage to Taliban fighters.

On the roof, Gunner Jake Beale mentioned that he turned 19 in May, and later Corporal Mark Foley recounted how he saw Gunner Beale shoulder his 40mm grenade launcher and take aim at a Taliban who was about 200m away. Beale launched the grenade, which arced lazily to apogee and fell straight into the Taliban and detonated. While shots were being fired in the distance, the soldiers joked that it takes eight washings to get the smell of Afghanistan out of your gear. Beale said that if you iron your uniform, the smells take you on a tour around Afghanistan with smells from fields, compounds, markets, irrigation ditches and shit.

There were various shots as the morning unfolded and at 0743 there were two explosions that we thought were an RPG attack. Actually it was an IED attack with two bombs on the ANA. The sun was rising and the morning was already hot when we heard random scattered shots and a short but brisk firefight. The soldiers were in good spirits. I said, “Those guys out there with guns are not very friendly,” and they laughed and told jokes of their own.

Bones the B-1B had flown over a couple times, and at 0759 the two A-10s flew over and popped flares nearly over our heads. The ANA, some hundreds of meters away, had been ambushed by a bridge and the bridge was destroyed. One soldier was dead and another dying. We could hear bullets flying but could not see the action other than some dust. A British rescue helicopter carrying a MERT (Medical Emergency Response Team) was dispatched from Camp Bastion and headed straight into the danger.

The raids were over and the raiders had pulled back, so we departed the roof. I saw a couple soldiers say goodbye to the turbaned man who was waving his farewell.

As we entered the first funnel between two compounds which ended at an open area, we were in the perfect position to sustain a hit. When we entered the open area we saw a half dozen men watching us from a mud building that had been melting through time. We seemed to have surprised them. No weapons were visible but my danger alarms kicked to red-alert, and the same happened with the soldiers who immediately prepared for combat. It seemed to me that soldiers were clicking rifle selector switches to FIRE, but I am not certain. Some kids were also watching from another position. Everything seemed wrong.

One man, among the group of men in the melting building, pushed a small child in front of him and at least two British soldiers told all the men to “Get out of here right now!” I could sense that British trigger-fingers were a glance away from pulling into action. No shots were fired and we moved on.

Were those men and the children part of something bigger, or just onlookers? A European or American likely would have taken cover if they saw a firefight brewing, but that doesn’t mean these people would. Combat veterans of the Iraq war might remember seeing women and children walking down the streets during the middle of firefights. Hundreds or thousands of bullets might be snapping by, yet some woman with a couple kids would appear and leisurely cross the street like nothing was going on, as if protected by a force field.

Some people say the Taliban are cowardly for planting bombs, but I do not believe this makes them any more cowardly than the A-10s, Apaches, B-1Bs and Reapers make us cowardly. We didn’t come here for a fair fight. We came to win. Some troops even say that if you show up to a battle and find it’s evenly matched, you didn’t plan well. What most of us find cowardly and despicable are the enemies who hide behind children. The bombs they plant for us are fair play. But males who hide behind children are not worthy of respect.

It’s difficult to move unpredictably in tight areas. There are choke points and only so many ways to travel in the limited battle space. And so we were bottlenecked, and the point man detected something suspicious.

Most of the bombs here are command detonated, requiring only that someone push the button or connect the battery. Despite the danger, the point man crawled on his belly to the suspected bomb. If what he saw was a command detonated bomb, he likely would die suddenly and we would be pelted by the blast. If what he saw was a pressure plate, he might save the life or limbs of one or more of those behind him.

A cow was munching green just to my right. The soldiers were quiet, as they scanned the danger areas. Everyone was quiet: If you’ve got nothing to say, now is a good time to not say it. Should the point man have been killed we would likely have been in a firefight right there. By this time the British helicopter is just minutes out from picking up the dying ANA soldier who had been blown up earlier, while his buddies loaded up the dead soldier.

Point man said quietly back, “Barbed wire,” and it was relayed back to me and I said, “barbed wire” to the man behind, who said, “command wire” and the file behind immediately started to pull back. I said, “No, no, barbed wire, not command wire,” and he understood then, so we all moved forward. The point man found no bomb.

We pushed farther into another fatal funnel.

The enemy often plants bombs in the walls, or they can easily dig under a wall and put a bomb under the path without leaving visible disturbance. These are normal tactics. They also shoot through small holes in the walls. At this range, the A-10s and Bones the B-1B could do little more than watch.

The soldiers cleared through the funnels and moved back onto the market street.

The suicide bomber threat was high, and unfortunately we had become an irritant to the people. We could not let motorcycles and cars just roll by or it would be just a matter of time until a bunch of guys would get flattened.

Back in May, a motorcycle rammed a patrol and when soldiers got out to help, he detonated, killing two British soldiers. This happened in nearby Gereshk. One of the soldiers had been a Gurkha. Word came to Brunei where I was training with Gurkhas. The soldiers halted the exercise briefly and held a moment of thought, then returned to training for a return to Afghanistan. That attack had occurred in Gereshk. There had been four suicide attacks in Sangin.

When we stopped traffic the people would become irritated; most of them were just going about their lives. I saw a letter wherein one American officer said that he did not see people irritated when he stopped traffic in Kabul, but he must not have been paying attention. The people do get upset, and so it was important to smile, wave and act as non-threatening as possible. Sometimes there was little else you could do.

Typical transport on the main road in the district capital of Sangin.

There are many tractors in Sangin. Diesel fuel can be mixed with the fertilizer to make bombs (ANFO: Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil), but here the bomb-makers had been mixing the fertilizer with fine aluminum powder used in spray paints.

Apparently this ANP is not accustomed to shoes or boots with laces. The golden sacks on the right are fertilizer that can be used in bombs.

We made our way through the market and one motorcycle looked like he would crash the patrol and a soldier immediately shouldered his rifle, aimed at the man and yelled, “STOP!” The man skidded to a stop. I waved and he actually waved back.

Nobody liked doing this, pointing a rifle at someone who was probably in his hometown.

Some of the soldiers out here might seem young, but there are no young soldiers here. Not even one.

The British MERT helicopter had landed on the battlefield and picked up the severely wounded Afghan soldier. He was delivered to Camp Bastion where he died that day.

While the helicopter had evacuated the soldier who died shortly thereafter, the Afghan soldiers loaded up the dead soldier, the one who was killed in the initial attack, and brought him to our base despite the fact that he obviously was dead. Maybe they thought the British could do something but he was dead and nothing could be done, so the Afghan soldiers kept guard on the body and for a time at least two of them cried for their comrade. I brought them water. They wanted a British helicopter to come take the body somewhere, but this was not going to happen.

It’s a bad idea to land helicopters here in broad daylight other than for casualty extractions, and the ANA has helicopters; their own commander could request the same. FOB Jackson is a busy little base where Afghan soldiers also live, so most people probably had no idea why the Afghan soldiers were even sitting there—but the medics had told me.

Later that afternoon the two Afghan soldiers were still there, but had lightened up and wanted their photo taken. That day like every day kept unfolding, and ended just as it had begun.

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Pixie Dust

2009-08-07T15:38:57Z

Thursday night, 06 August 2009
Afghanistan

I made this photo last night in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. This Landing Zone is very dangerous. A few weeks ago, another helicopter was coming into this LZ and was shot down at the last minute, killing all passengers and crew. Two children on the ground also were killed. The sparks coming off the rotors occur when the helicopters land in hot, dusty conditions. The landing itself occurs in a dangerous "brownout." Brownout danger is compounded by the sparks which light up the dust and can confuse pilots who are wearing extremely sensitive nightvision goggles.

Michael

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