E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSThree weeks into the fight in the volatile Arghandab Valley, an American platoon of the Army's 101st Airborne Division is heading to the rear, weakened by horrific war injuries and unable to continue its mission. The platoon -- 1st platoon, Alpha Battery, 1st Battalion, 320 Field Artillery Regiment, of the 101st Airborne Division -- started the mission with 17 men, and now is down to nine. Combat Outpost Nolen has seen some of the most intense fighting in Kandahar Province.
This area is critical to U.S. control of the region because it's a main supply route into the city of Kandahar for the Taliban. It's also treacherous for the platoon trying to carry out its mission.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Shrapnel ripped into Sgt. Matthew Kendall's face and left arm on July 4, when a soldier from another unit stepped on a homemade bomb, which the military calls an IED, as Kendall walked next to him.
Spc. Kevin Gatson fell victim to another IED July 12. It was one of many that have been seeded in farming land surrounding the former school the platoon is using as a base. Gatson lost his leg and three fingers. The platoon leader, 1st Lt. Norman Black, had his eardrum blown out by the blast.
A quick reaction team was immediately sent from COP Nolen and came to Gatson's aid. On the way, an IED exploded and Staff Sgt. Kyle Malin lost both of his legs. Less than 45 minutes later, an IED took off both of Pfc. Corey Kent's legs and part of his left hand. Sgt. Michael Hagan was hit in the face and arm by shrapnel, and also suffered a ruptured eardrum.
Just two days later on July 14, Pfc. Brandon King, a soldier from a different platoon, was shot by a marksman while standing guard duty. He was the first soldier killed at COP Nolen since it was taken over by the 101st Airborne Division.
On July 19, Staff Sgt. Avionne Reese walked into an IED for the third time in the three-week deployment -- it shot pieces of the bomb into the right side of his body. Luckily no one was seriously injured in the first incident on July 5, when an IED went off near a patrol. But on July 12, in the second incident, he was struck by shrapnel from the IED that hit Gatson. After three IEDs the Army will take a soldier out of the fight for evaluation.
Spc. Pedro Torres injured his arm and was hit in the face by the same blast that hit Reese.
The group has already been recommended for 10 Purple Hearts.
Sgt. Leon Richards, from a different platoon, was recommended for a Bronze Star for Valor for calling a medivac helicopter, providing aid and assistance to the wounded, and helping Spc. Jacob Walker out of a field peppered with IEDs.
The numbers alone tell you Afghanistan is getting more dangerous by the month, but those tragically killed in action only tell part of the story.
The numbers can't describe the feeling these men have of leaving the razor wire around their tiny mud-walled compound each day. Every day they try desperately to walk in the footprints of the man in front of them, in 120 degree heat, while weighed down by 85 pounds of gear through humid pomegranate groves and grape fields. The fields swamp visibility in every direction, with green foliage carpeting otherwise dusty terrain areas.
They can't walk on roads or paths because the IED threat is too great. They must climb over 10-foot mud walls on a route so difficult that 600 meters of walking could take an hour and a half. All the while they're on the lookout for a command wire, milk jug, or a rock pile that wasn't there the day before.
The minute they leave the wire the enemy has been alerted they're on the move. The element of surprise is not in their favor. Firefights are a daily occurrence. In fact, COP Nolen is attacked so often that the men refer to a "witching hour," usually between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. That's when the energy-sapping heat has faded down enough that the Taliban is ready for fighting.
The buzzwords here are about counterinsurgency doctrine, fighting corruption in the government, setting up local governance, and standing up the Afghan Army and police. But at the very basic level it's about survival for the men leaving the wire to walk through the fields, and for the average farmer working those same fields, too.
Numbers can't explain the constant tension, fear, lack of sleep, or horrific scenes that unfold before platoon members' eyes each day.
Soldiers often say that courage isn't just willing to go into the fight. True courage is knowing what's waiting for you, and going anyway.
Editor's note: Associated Press photojournalists Evan Vucci and Rodrigo Abd are Photoblogging for msnbc.com while embedded with U.S. troops stationed at Combat Outpost Nolen, in the volatile Arghandab Valley in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
U.S. Army soldiers from Alpha Battery walk among grape orchards during a patrol towards COP Nolen, in the Arghandab Valley, Kandahar, Afghanistan, Tuesday, July 20, 2010. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Leave a Comment:
Finally a real report versus all the flowers that are used as cover up. These men are tired, tired of being shot at, tired of seeing their friends and comrades blown to pieces and tired of the enemy. We at home in our comfortable lives have grown tired of the costs of war in a financial sense. Long past time to come home!
better yet, change the Rules if Engagement so we can actually win the war and then bring our brothers and sisters home to a victorious homecoming.
last time i checked a platoon was 4 to 5 squads 10 to 12 per squad. so they are fielding a severley understrength squad to do a platoons job.The reason they have non infantry units i.e. arty and support units patrolling is they don't have anywhere close to enough infantry units in country. Yes every soldier starts out with basic infantry training but have to be retrained to do these missions it is not the same as a full time infantrymans training or mental conditioning.These arty toops need to be given back their equipment and do what they do best blow stuff Up with large amounts of HE.but that would not be politically correct.To all service members depolyed or are going to be deployed do what you need to do to survive these pathetic rules of engagement most of us are with you.
The article said the platoon had 17 soldiers..which can be correct.
(A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two to four sections or squads and containing 16 to 50 soldiers)
i can remember that most remf units are 1 squad but now that being a remf means doing a infantrymans job there should be at least 48 troops in the platoon.Now take into accout the whole time i was an infantryman we were down at least 4 men per squad at anygiven time it still a lot more that 17.My cousin has just returned from his 4th tour 2 iraq 2 afgan. he is a FIST but on his last tour they had him drive a truck and pull patrols because they are so restricted on use of arty that they were not assigned to a company for fire direction because it's restricted to the point it has no immediate affect due to the time it takes to get permission to actually use the 155mm batteries or air support.They need the Gen. Patton rules of engagement.
The army isn't set up like that anymore. Depending on your MoS and what type of unit you are in will determine how many people are in a squad. A Corps element MP platoon squad consists of a Sqd Ldr, 3 Tm Ldrs, and 6 Tm Members. A division MP platoon squad is set up differently. I've never been a division MP so I can't speculate on their set up, but I do know that it's different from a corps MP set up.
From a current servicemember, everyone here is complaining about "ROE" and not having what we need, and everything else. None of it matters, we have a job to do and we will do it come hell or high water, regardless of what we have and when we can return fire, its what we are trained to do and we do it damn well. All of these people on here talking about "bring our troops home" that is such B.S. No-one held a gun to our heads and said you are joining the military and going to war. We volunteered during a time of war for a reason, to go do a job that 99% of "proud" americans would never dream of signing up to do. Quit all this 'bring our troops home' business. Leave us to do the job we willingly signed up to do.
stay alive
god bless you and keep you strong - please let our leaders use force when force is just.
When I read the title for this article "We don't have enough power to fight," I was under the impression that someone was referring to the overall strategic situation of our military in Afganistan. When I listened to the video, the soldier who said it was referring to the fact that his particular platoon had lost half it's strength. So that platoon did not have the "power to fight" and had to be replaced. I really loathe how the media miscommunicates what people say these days! They are not reporting or practicing journalism, which is their true task. They seek only to foment controversy.
If the Stone Age living idiots over there are not capable of kicking the nut case terrorists out of their country then UNTIE our soldiers hands so they can do it and win this stupid war. If you don't want to do that then nuke the morons and be done with 'em.
Either fight to win using the entire power of the U.S. or get to hell out and let them destroy themselves. Bring our military home and let them protect the U.S. at every airport, along every border and at every coastal port. Use them at every nuclear plant too.
IEDs can't get planted in great numbers without the locals passive consent. It just suggests that we are not winning the hearts and minds over there and it's not the answer to preventing another 9/11. Bring the boys home and use them to save us from another 9/11
Enough is enough, will the president please make a choice on which path to take? Either send everything we have in and rebuild it the way we did in WW2, or leave. I am sick of seeing us run into civil wars for no good reason and coming out no better than before. What would germany have done if we would have simply went in with a 10th of the military that we did, captured hitler, then left a small force behind to let them setup their own government. We'd have exactly what we have now and what we had in vietnam, and that's insurgency. The foolish man lets his enemy live, take over and occupy the whole country now or leave.
Of course we have the power to fight anything..its the idiotic agreements we do in those wacko lands.
Like this one told to all fighting there..Even if a Taliban shot your squad buddy right between his eyes you can't shoot him back if he drops his weapon and walks away..Or if they are shooting from a building and you don't know if women and children are in it...you can't call for air support!
Like another poster said..its like playing dodgeball in a playground with rules instead of a war zone!
Nowhere in the RoE does it state that if they drop their weapon and walk away you can't react. I don't know about any of you, but I've seen an enemy combatant simply pop off some rounds and then drop his weapon and walk away. If i'm close enough to see him shooting and I can positively identify him, then I can return fire. If he drops his weapon and walks away then he's getting taken in. Grow up a little people and use some common sense.
person = logical rational
people = the opposite
wars cannot be won and man cannot rule man.
Look if you fight a war you fight to win period. This is a disgrace to send our young men into combat without the proper equipment and rules of engagement that should be simply "kill the enemy on sight."
The whole engagement is political and being run by a President who was never in charge of anything. What does community organizing have to do with Commander In Chief?
Please level the country and send out troops to our own border to protect Americans. I am proud of each and every person in our military. I am not at all proud of the way they are being used!!!!!
bill
we all know about being sent to combat without the proper equipment - just look at George the jerk off Bush and what happened when he basically blew off afghanistan to invade iraq for no damn reason without the proper equipment to do it - 8 years of stupidity that could have been avoided except for the fact that he thought he knew how to fight a war when he knew jack sh it
vietnam vet
DAN-260821 You goddamn Vietnam vets need to shut the he!! up. You were defeated in Vietnam. Your advice is worth sh!t.
When I see Vietnam vets singing the loser song, proper equipment, Washington tied our hands, blah blah blah.
THE WORST PIECE OF EQUIPMENT IN VIETNAM AND AFGHANISTAN, IS THE TROOPS.
These clowns came up with the "Support the troops" crap song, because otherwise the troops would have been lynched when they came home. Take away the "Support the troops" nonsense. What have you got. NOTHING.
Real mature with the personal attacks there mike. Because of that "loser" vet there, you don't have to serve. You probably wouldn't make it passed the MEPS station anyway.
We're sacrificing U.S. and allied lives simply because we won't fight back with the power and ability we have. Meanwhile the enemy is blowing off the one arm we've got tied behind our backs.
well sonny boy, that is what war is all about
if our generals fought the wars it would be much better but they have to listen to the paper generals back in the pentagon and the politicians in washington, dc. that is basically why we have never won a war since world war II - way too much interference by the scumbags that are not involved in the fighting. with us vietnam veterans it was the politicians and the f'ing people of our country who were against the war and the americans fighting it
vietnam vet
BehrFacts Same whiney bu!!shi!t from the same whiney losers. Got their asses beat in Vietnam and Afghanistan, and they come up with a million excuses. Romans would have taken these chickensh!ts out and shot ever tenth troop till they learned how to fight.
Just get out!
the problem with the war in afghanistan is the simple fact that we never learn from history and nothing more than that
the same damn thing happened to the mighty soviet union when they were basically extremely very strong. we just might end up like they did by going bankrupt and splitting apart our states like they did.
the russians should have known better because russia was never successfully invaded, neither was vietnam and afghanistan in their existence
the best thing we can do over there is say screw it and pull out and forget it. they will not follow us back to the united states because they have their own way of life and only want it back
vietnam vet
Very simple... give them what they need to fight. do this with a complete over kill. We have the technology and weapons. Why in the hell would we hold back on using them. Save our sons and daughters and kill the enemy.
War only needs one side willing to fight. Those that say war is wrong and we should bring our troops home learned nothing from 9/11. If you have an enemy that will not tolerate your existance then you ether fight him on his soil or you fight him on yours.
john, when it comes right down to it would you rather fight on your own soil where you know everything or go to some strange place where you know nothing ??
fight them there or fight them here is a george the jerk off bush saying to scare the hell out of the extremely dumb over here and there were enough dumb people over here to fall for it. they have the best advantage in the world - on their own territory where they know every inch of it since child hood. we would have the advantage over here because we know the area and the ultimate kill zones, atleast i do and i have experience too with 18 months over in vietnam that is still embedded in my head and i have one more thing to my advantage, i know how to kill without emotions from that experience too - do you??
also, all the technology in the world never won a war for us. what good is technology unless it is used to the benefit of the people of our country. we only use it for the military
vietnam vet
I see a lot of comments on here that are just uninformed. People are commenting when they don't know what a platoon is, they confuse NATO for the UN, they have absurd notions of UAVs monitoring where our troops patrol and so on. They have no idea what it takes to fight, how to, or the nature of armed conflict at all. Likening enlistment to indentured servitude is just ridiculous. I could go on but I won't.
If you have no experience with war or the armed forces, don't trouble yourself with forming an opinion about them. Instead talk to a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine and learn something. You have to be in it to win it and complaining on an msnbc.com blog doesn't count. If you want to change something, sitting idly by a casting about opinions does nothing, you have to be part of it.
Hoorah to all my brothers and sisters in the field. That proud and brave 1%.
I will use the words of a great orator of our time, Mr. Rodney King, "Why can't we all just get along."
Profound words from an exceptional intellect.
Quoting Rodney King...we have serious problems and need serious people so I assume you are being facetious.
We watched the scenes of the war in Vietnam every night on the news; we watched the body bags return. We see none of that now; what is this, out of sight, out of mind? I can watch something happen around the world on you-tube 30 seconds after it's occurrence, but we don't really see any of what is going on in these wars we are fighting. I've been medically retired for 13 years, and a couple doses of reality might get us out of there a bit more quickly. It can't be too soon.
Bring back the draft and let's see how many of the warhawks on this board suddenly get cold feet and become squawking chickenhawks
No thank you.....I do not want someone who has been drafted to fight next to our Marine, he would rather fight along someone that wants to be there!!!
Llad Yeah bring back the draft and the unwilling troops will shoot any officer on the back who orders them into combat. Just like Vietnam.
DAN-260821 .....dont assume you are the only combat Vet....24th Mech Dessert Storm here and then 25 years as a police officer....All you need is one party to do evil and if you dont make a stand you will lose....But then I guess my perspective came from winning my war not losing it.
This is all I know. You have a war going on that has one side fighting for their religious beliefs and the other side to protect our freedoms and keep us safe. I never joined the military mainly because I wasn't one that liked to follow orders. Now we are in a war fighting against people that will do anything for their god because of the delusional belief that there is a reward in death. Here I thought Catholics did a great job of brainwashing but it doesn't compare to the worshipers of Allah.
I believe that war is a last resort and when you have cowards flying planes into civilian buildings the last resort comes into play. The Rules of Engagement should be followed to the same degree the cowardice terrorists followed them. When you attack and kill civilians with whom you have no idea of their beliefs, no regard for anything other than the country they are in at the time, there are no rules.
What really amazes me is the hatred toward this country and why it is we still feel the need to appease everyone by following a standard, fitting in, fighting the good fight instead of setting a precedent and using all the knowledge and force that we have to eradicate the world of what I feel is the biggest evil ever faced. The reckless abandon of the Taliban and Al Quida can only be fought off with brute force. It would behoove the citizens of these hiding places to kill them off themselves before a country does say they had all they can stand and drops one big bomb in the center of town.
There are no referees in war, no flags thrown, no penalties issued but lately there has been plenty of yardage lost to fighters, not soldiers, fighters. Our organized military group with the size and strength that we have is being pushed back, injured or killed with gallon milk jugs. We can send a probe to Mars and find things that we didn't know were there, we can send a shuttle up to dock with a space station, we have thousands of satellites surrounding the entire planet and we can't find a seven foot tall diabetic old man running the show.
This much is for certain and it has been proven through many wars, if the US was to pull out of every territory they are protecting, bring "all" of our soldiers home to keep defenses up in our country, the rest of the world would fall apart. No matter how evil a lot of the world thinks the US is those countries need us. I think they should pay for our security services because our military are being used as rent-a-cops around the world.
I, like a lot of others here, believe that we either give these kids who are willing to sacrifice their lives for the good of "our" country, all the resources necessary or bring them back home to protect our borders. Most of us swat the flies that are in our houses, we don't chase them outside to kill them.