kraznyi_oktjabr
10-05-11, 09:23 AM
After 10 years in Afghanistan, foreign troops can claim successes in the notorious province of Helmand - but a vicious guerrilla war still rages in the Upper Gereshk valley, which US marines are in the process of handing back to British forces.
It has only just turned 07:00 and it's already pushing 35C (95F). The three litres of warm water you drank at dawn have already soaked into your flak vest.
The patrol advances slowly, inching through poppy fields like their lives depended on it. Suddenly a massive explosion rips through the air less than 50m behind. The Taliban have booby-trapped the right-hand gate of the compound with a grenade and an IED (improvised explosive device) during the night. By chance we exited by the left gate.
"Well good morning to you, too," grunts a marine.
Twenty-one-year-old Dustin Weier picks himself up and leads with a metal detector sweeping this way and that, followed by a dog handler with a black Labrador called Moxi. Both are there to detect the countless other IEDs buried just inches under the dry, lumpy soil, and they're not always successful. The patrol follows directly in their footsteps, a safe path indicated by baby powder or bottle-tops placed on the dirt.
"Straight line 10 yards until you get to the bottle-top, then turn and come directly to me," the message is whispered from one man to the next down the line. To deviate a few inches could result in a pressure-plate being compressed and the baritone boom of 20kg of silvery-grey homemade explosive exploding underfoot.
It's happened twice in the last four days, three times if you count that near miss. Around here that makes it a good week.
The sun is beginning to burn as the patrol pushes 150m across an open field when the Taliban open up from tree lines to the west. One marine drops instantly, shot in the lower back.
"I'm hit," he shouts as he falls to the ground.
The rest of the squad returns fire. Time compresses as a thousand bullets make an impossible noise. But instead of the insurgents ghosting away before the marines can take aim or helicopter gunships arrive, they increase their rate of fire.
Sustained, accurate gunfire rips through the patrol and the Americans are forced to retreat to safety, running through a wall of gunshots from the west that are joined by fire from the east. A well-executed complex ambush.
Article continues here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14897977)
Note: Last updated 1 October 2011 at 23:31 GMT
It has only just turned 07:00 and it's already pushing 35C (95F). The three litres of warm water you drank at dawn have already soaked into your flak vest.
The patrol advances slowly, inching through poppy fields like their lives depended on it. Suddenly a massive explosion rips through the air less than 50m behind. The Taliban have booby-trapped the right-hand gate of the compound with a grenade and an IED (improvised explosive device) during the night. By chance we exited by the left gate.
"Well good morning to you, too," grunts a marine.
Twenty-one-year-old Dustin Weier picks himself up and leads with a metal detector sweeping this way and that, followed by a dog handler with a black Labrador called Moxi. Both are there to detect the countless other IEDs buried just inches under the dry, lumpy soil, and they're not always successful. The patrol follows directly in their footsteps, a safe path indicated by baby powder or bottle-tops placed on the dirt.
"Straight line 10 yards until you get to the bottle-top, then turn and come directly to me," the message is whispered from one man to the next down the line. To deviate a few inches could result in a pressure-plate being compressed and the baritone boom of 20kg of silvery-grey homemade explosive exploding underfoot.
It's happened twice in the last four days, three times if you count that near miss. Around here that makes it a good week.
The sun is beginning to burn as the patrol pushes 150m across an open field when the Taliban open up from tree lines to the west. One marine drops instantly, shot in the lower back.
"I'm hit," he shouts as he falls to the ground.
The rest of the squad returns fire. Time compresses as a thousand bullets make an impossible noise. But instead of the insurgents ghosting away before the marines can take aim or helicopter gunships arrive, they increase their rate of fire.
Sustained, accurate gunfire rips through the patrol and the Americans are forced to retreat to safety, running through a wall of gunshots from the west that are joined by fire from the east. A well-executed complex ambush.
Article continues here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14897977)
Note: Last updated 1 October 2011 at 23:31 GMT