What Happened in Kunar

by: Brandon Friedman

Mon Jul 21, 2008 at 17:34:21 PM EDT


When nine soldiers were killed in a coordinated Taliban attack 10 days ago, details were slow to emerge regarding what had actually happened.  But Stars and Stripes now has the story.  Here's the beginning:

Everything was on fire. The trucks. The bazaar. The grass.

It looked surreal. It looked like a movie.

That was what Spc. Tyler Stafford remembered thinking as he stepped onto the medical evacuation helicopter. The 23-year-old soldier would have been loaded onto the bird, but the poncho that was hastily employed as his stretcher broke. His body speckled with grenade and RPG shrapnel, the Vicenza, Italy, infantryman walked the last few feet to the waiting Black Hawk.

That was Sunday morning in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province. At a forward operating base - maybe as big as a football field - established just a few days prior.

Outnumbered but not outgunned, a platoon-plus element of soldiers with 2nd Platoon, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne), 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team accompanied by Afghan soldiers engaged in a fistfight of a firefight.

After maybe two hours of intense combat, some of the soldiers' guns seized up because they expelled so many rounds so quickly. Insurgent bullets and dozens of rocket-propelled grenades filled the air. So many RPGs were fired at the soldiers that they wondered how the insurgents had so many.

Read the rest here.

Our guys shouldn't be so strung out in Afghanistan where they're put in positions where they have to fight like this.  We need more people there.
Brandon Friedman :: What Happened in Kunar
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What Happened in Kunar | 7 comments
I've Got it Over on The Right (0.00 / 0)
With the Video of the Two Injured Soldiers that Stars and Stripes has with the report.

'Hearts and Minds, "The ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live there." -- President Lyndon Johnson
I Just Read (0.00 / 0)
A report about some Officer there saying that that tragic incident doesn't show a disintegration in Afghanistan, or along those lines, but I can't find it now.  

'Hearts and Minds, "The ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live there." -- President Lyndon Johnson
[ Parent ]
Where was thier support? (4.00 / 3)
In a fight like this, where was there CAS, their COLT team, their scouts, their arty?

Oh, yeah.... in Iraq.

"No U.S. soldier ever dies in vain because they're carrying out the missions of their commander in chief. And we honor all the service that they've provided." - Barack Obama

Now that both parties agree on Afghanistan's importance... (4.00 / 1)
Why don't they send over more troops NOW?  There's still a bunch of folks in the military that haven't deployed...I see them in uniform everyday, and I'm nowhere near a real Army base.  If nothing else, this FOB could've used more security.  Hell, send the Bush twins and Cheney's daughter, or use the selective service system as it was intended, and by God, levy a war tax if the military needs more money.  There's no reason to be ill-equipped and undermanned almost seven years into this war.  
And Don't Forget (4.00 / 1)

The new Son-In-Law!!

'Hearts and Minds, "The ultimate victory will depend on the hearts and minds of the people who actually live there." -- President Lyndon Johnson

[ Parent ]
The NINE....one at a time, remembered. (4.00 / 1)
Jason, Matt, Pruitt, Gunnar, Sergio
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo...

Jon, Ira, JonJon, Jason
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo...

That story gave me chills..... (0.00 / 0)
How fucking brave were those guys we lost on that OP.

And man do they need more troops there.

Thanks to W and McSame, more guys are gonna go through that same shit.

I feel more like I do now than when I first got here!

What Happened in Kunar | 7 comments
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