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It was the first thing I saw when I landed at Forward Operating Base Tillman in eastern Afghanistan’s Paktika province: a craggy mountain with several huts perched right at the peak, a place called Outpost One. I wanted to meet the men who lived on the mountain.
Matt Ford / AP
U.S. Army soldier Pfc. Kyle McClintock, 23, as he stands guard at Outpost One on a mountain top overlooking Forward Operating Base Tillman near the Pakistan border. Growing up, McClintock hated that his mom and dad were in the Army. As Army reservists, they would be gone for long periods. His father fought in Saudi Arabia during Desert Storm, and his mother served in Afghanistan along the Uzbekistan border.
In the remote mountainous regions along the Pakistan border, these outposts are the first line of defense against the Taliban, members of the Haqqani network and other insurgents that move into Afghanistan from Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The outpost used to be located much lower on the mountain, but it was overrun in 2007. In Afghanistan, the oldest tenet of warfare still applies: The advantage goes to he who holds the high ground. So they moved the outpost as high as they could – to the summit.
There is no running water, so they wash themselves with bottles of water and spit toothpaste over a cliff. The soldiers take turns standing guard on the roof of one of the makeshift structures built out of plywood and sandbags surrounded by multiple gun positions and surveillance equipment.
The rest of the soldiers entertain themselves any way they can. They watch movies on their computers, play cards and lift weights with a bench press and two dumbbells. They don’t know what unit before them brought the weights up the side of the mountain, but they're glad they did.
I was taken by how young most of the men are. Now in their early 20s, they were just children in grade school when the war began and they have little recollection of the initial invasion.
Now they sit on top of a mountain in Afghanistan, at war.
Explore both the impact on coalition military forces as well as civilians in Afghanistan, a decade into the war
Look back at Afghanistan at the start of the war
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These guys have it good compared to us in Vietnam. Hootches with cover, weights (?), OMG. Change of uniforms every few days instead of 7. Raunchy when the cloth feels like cardboard from your fear and sweat. Probably radios, No Radios in the jungle dude. Noise discipline. No Momsoon there? Do they have mosquitoes? Mosquitoes buzzing and biting for 6-8 hours everynight is tough and malaria is a little hard. The dreams are probably like what you would have on opium. Clarity. dream of firefights and open sunken wounds, bodies without feet or hands. Where is my Machine Gun Wit? I'm unemployed and my Leukemia and open heart surgery didn't qualify me for no disability. The PTSD claim, my Vietnamese Psych said, I should re-direct my anger. Where do you sign up? I want to re-direct my anger to the ugly afghans. Sorry, it's your war dude. Fight on. say no to the Reup bird. He lies. Infantry, the Queen of battle. Tell them why?
Seriously dude, ask for a change of Meds
Retired Marine
Seriously?? You are one bitter man. This isn't about who is suffering more or less... this is about the sacrifice of those fighting for this great country! Be proud of your service and proud of all of those that serve, don't criticize because it is different than when you were in.
As a mom of 2 U.S. Soldiers both who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq-HOOAH! and THANK YOU! May all of you come home safe and soon from that god for saken hell hole where we should never have been in the first place.
Sorry Mom. its there or here.
Retired Marine
Richard,
You are deluded, and manipulated.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/recognizing_the_language_of_tyranny_20110206/
I'm with you mom...Son in Patika province Afg....Daughter in Iraq...God be with them all. And a big THANK YOU for your service !!
My son is in the Army. He's leaving for Afghanistan in about a month. He's going roughly to the same area mentioned in this article. He's proud to be an American, proud to be a U.S. Soldier, and proud to defend all of us -- including the ones on this thread who don't believe in the mission. My son does. He understands that we are at war with an enemy who attacked us for no other reason than religious zealotry. You can say all you want about misguided American foriegn policy, American imperialism and all those other hackneyed arguments. But my son is there to kill those who want to kill us and I hope he kills them all.
i thought they stopped sending troops there