Michael's Dispatches
Thumbs Up in Afghanistan

- Details
- Published: Tuesday, 22 February 2011 15:06
22 February 2011
Arrived back in Kandahar today and immediately set off into the wilds. Am not with troops at this time, but later will see about embedding.
While driving in Kandahar City today, we passed by some American troops doing “route clearance.” They were looking for bombs. Their work is extremely dangerous but they keep rolling. Often they find bombs only after they get hit. The “bird cage” around the vehicle is to counter RPGs. Insofar as I can tell, the US government has done cheetah flips to make sure our troops have the right gear for this risky job.
While we drove past the American unit, a friend gave them a thumbs up and nearly got in the way of my shot!
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This commment is unpublished.· 10 years agoI see those same BAE trucks on trucks here in South Carolina.
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This commment is unpublished.Very cool new website! You are back in theater and we will have first class reporting of the war in Afghanistan in the future again. Thank you for your great work. Take care ....
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This commment is unpublished.Thank you Michael for all the great reporting that you do. Stay safe!
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This commment is unpublished.Michael,
Don't sweat the thumbs up in the shot. It didn't ruin it, I think it adds a lot to it!
Stay safe and keep up the great reporting. We need more Hemingways like you out there. -
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This commment is unpublished.As a physican with the USAF and one tour of Afghanistan completed, will follow your reports with great interest
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This commment is unpublished.Michael, Your images of these armored trucks brought back memories of seeing similar vehicles in use by the South African police as they patrolled the townships outside of Cape Town during apartied in the mid 1980's
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This commment is unpublished.Dear Mr. Yon,
Thank you for what you are doing. I feel that you are one of the few reporters who will give us straight information - particularly since you are going out where the story is located - unlike many coorespondents who write from their hotel rooms.
Take care,
Eric Frazier
Chapel Hill, NC -
This commment is unpublished.Michael, Thanks for these updates . I am signing up now to make a small monthly donation to your ministry of information and fun encouragement.
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This commment is unpublished.Mike
glad you're back in the sandbox. Your incisive insight, analysis and ability to tell the real story make your blog a must read for me. If you could get over to 1/2 SCR AO and send a few reports back I'd appreciate it. I have a vested interest in that unit. It also would be good place to embed. The Cav guys never get any publicity-its all 10th Mountain, the 101st (not that they dont deserve it. Finances are tight for me right now but I will try to contribute a little to you fund. -
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This commment is unpublished.Well, this is embarrassing BUT thumbs-up to the rag-tag army who has proved that Afghanistan is still the "Graveyard of Empires" and the local despite the unavailability of sophisticated weapons, eyes in the skies, lethal missiles and never ending supplies of drug and money are giving HELL to the invaders.
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This commment is unpublished.I saw Brits rolling in mini versions of these in N Ireland. It made me feel like "they must be really scared" and "every thing outside their armored boxes must belong to the enemy"
One of the original SF guys there said they looked so native the locals didn't know they were American till they pulled a US weapon out of their robes...I'd be happier if more of us were the invisible ones...Riding around blind (can't tell a Taliban from a local) like armored ducks in a shooting gallery makes them look powerful and us like aliens. We need to figure out how to make them do the guessing about who/where we are... Can't we use web cams to watch them as carefully as they watch us? It's in the heads of men where wars are won, as Boyd would say...I can't help but feel we are using very big clubs when an ice pick would work better... -
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