As told to our correspondent, George H.
Wittman
Usually there are only twelve men in a patrol. It
depends. When possible, there are three more. These extra guys are what the
Army calls “redundant.” I don’t think it’s the correct word in ordinary
English, but in Army lingo it means that the jobs these three men do can be
done by one of the other members of the patrol. In plain talk one out of every
four soldiers has a back-up if he gets hit — or falls down and breaks a knee
cap or whatever. It sounds good in the training manual.
A really important thing in patrolling in
Afghanistan is to have extra ammo available. This can come about by detailing
one or several of the guys to carry extra rounds. Or preferably, some sort of
vehicle — we call it a “gun truck.” It’s just an up-armored Humvee with a
swivel mount 50 cal. on top. Nobody wants to hang around too close to it
when we’re on the move because it’s a prime IED target. But we have to stay
close enough so somebody can be sent back to grab the extra ammo as needed. The
gun truck is also useful as an emergency ambulance if the Medevac choppers
can’t get in. Well, that’s at least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.
Sometimes we keep extra water and rations in the truck if there’s room, though
we’re not supposed to.
I was surprised to find that a lot of Afghanistan –
at least the part I saw – was pretty flat. Most of the time people talk about
the mountains, but in RC-South, which is south of Kandahar — where by the way
most of the opium comes from — it’s sort of rolling and flat. Sometimes there
are clumps of trees, mulberry I was told, and some sort of local orchards. But
mostly it’s flat fields with some narrow water canals in this part of the
country. Definitely exposed. Little mud-walled villages that look like they’ve
been there for centuries are sprinkled around the countryside. Ordinary people,
mostly unsmiling, try to ignore us. The smiley ones are a little spooky.
They’re all scared to death of the Taliban, but some are Taliban themselves.
You just can’t tell.
Hot as hell in the summer and always dusty, very
dusty. In the winter it’s the same, only very cold. Kids pop up out of nowhere
and generally scare the crap out of you if you’re not used to their being
around. Replacements always have to be warned about them. Later when you’ve
been there for a while you just keep an eye open for them. You want to be on
the ball to see if they seem to be acting as message carriers or otherwise alerting
local Taliban that your patrol is taking this or that direction. Frankly, it
gets on your nerves, but you get used to it.
Usually the intel is pretty good in finding large
concentrations of what our Lt. says we should call “insurgents,” but sort of iffy
when it comes to just a few. As long as you are expecting to be in one of those
hostile locations, all you need is some unusual movement in the distance to
alert you – or, of course, a few rounds of incoming small arms fire. For the
most part the Taliban are damned smart about exposing themselves, but not
always. They make mistakes and so do we. But when we can’t handle them we
usually have ISR assets (air cover) to call in — Apaches, Kiowas, F-16s,
whatever. Sometimes, though, we do get hung out to dry and that’s when you’ve
got to suck it up and use whatever you’ve got — and get the hell out.
They know we’ll be back.
That air support stuff doesn’t work too well on
dispersed targets or if you’re caught in a small village ambush. Obviously you
avoid getting hung up in a village. The close-in work can get hairy. By the
way, that’s where having those three extra guys comes in handy. A regular medic
along with a couple of guys lugging ammo is damn useful when the mud chips
start flying off the walls you’re ducking behind. Suppressing fire from behind
cover holding your weapon over the top while ducked behind the crumbling mud
plaster may not seem too hard core, but it can get the job done if your rifle
is pointed in the right general direction of the incoming.
The .50 cal’ M2 set on top of our gun truck can do a
lot of damage if it can get into position. That is one awesome piece of
artillery if it’s got a well-defended hard point to shoot at. I’ve seen one
shoot right through house walls. The problem with the gun truck is that even
with it being more heavily armored, it really is a prime Taliban target. The
Taliban love to use their RPGs on them if they’re in range. The Taliban haven’t
been much for night ops, but when they have the urge, they can crawl in close
enough for some RPG kill rounds. Somebody said they’ve picked up some of our
night vision stuff and might be able to use that.
One of our guys got himself a Bronze Star with a V
decoration. I think he was embarrassed. All the guys thought it was a good
medal. He didn’t get scratched or anything, though he must have been pretty
close to the frag when the bad guys (sorry, insurgents) tried to overrun his
squad’s position. He still can’t hear too well, but otherwise he’s okay.
One of the guys said he would like to come back here
someday when the whole deal quiets down. Not me. I haven’t seen anything I want
to see again. They’re just going to keep shooting at each other for some new
reason anyhow.
Don’t forget to say hello to President Obama, if you
see him. Ask him when he’s going to come over and see us! Armed Forces Radio
says he does travel around a lot.
Mr. Wittman is a proud former enlisted
man in the United States Army.
Photo: UPI
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