Barely There
May 15th, 2008 (9:19 am) by Troy-They were barely there, having just got on the ground after a lot of hype and media coverage. It is a true shame that so soon after getting on the ground in a war zone that most of America has forgotten about or chose to ignore, we lose two more brave Americans.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-04-22-afghanistan_N.htm?csp=34
The ironic thing is that these were not the infantrymen on the tip of the spear, like I was when I was there or that the Marines are who are kicking in doors and killing the Taliban. These are the support folks, the ones that make it possible for the grunts to take the fight to the enemy.
I keep saying and I will keep saying that Afghanistan is a dangerous place and there is a WAR GOING ON THERE. I will keep shouting that from the rooftops and doing whatever I can to get that message out. The other day there was a report saying so far the spring offensive has not been as bad as was feared because the number of direct fire attacks are down. Two things about that statement which are misleading. One is that they are not measuring attacks against Afghan forces and Two is that the enemy is learning from Iraq. Even though it took them a while, they are seeing that huge IEDs like this are much more effective at killing coalition forces and keeping themselves out of harms way, then direct attacks. In fact just this morning between 15-20 civilians were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up while disguised as a women wearing a burqua in the city of Farah out in western Afghanistan.