For Marines in southern Afghan town, often-invisible insurgents melt away after fighting
Oct. 18, 2010
By TODD PITMAN
MARJAH, Afghanistan (AP) _ The Marines have found bloody clothes and spent bullet casings and bombs meant to kill them. They've heard bullets flying overhead and seen muzzle flashes in tree lines.
In this southern Afghan town that coalition forces seized from Taliban fighters eight months ago _ and are still clearing _ you don't have to go far to find the insurgency. But finding insurgents is another story altogether.
"The only time we see them is when we're in contact" in a gunfight, said Cpl. Chuck Martin, 24, of Middletown, R.I.
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8 months after clearing operation, Marines in Marjah face full-blown insurgency
By TODD PITMAN
MARJAH, Afghanistan (AP) _ The young Marine had a simple question for the farmer with the white beard: Have you seen any Taliban today?
The answer came within seconds _ from insurgents hiding nearby who ended the conversation with bursts of automatic rifle fire that sent deadly rounds cracking overhead.
It was a telling coincidence _ and the start of yet another gunbattle in Marjah, the southern poppy-producing hub which U.S. forces wrested from Taliban control in February to restore government rule.
Eight months on, the Taliban are still here in force, waging a full-blown guerrilla insurgency that rages daily across a bomb-riddled landscape of agricultural fields and irrigation trenches.
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Grenade attacks cause US troops to keep their distance from Afghan town they seek to secure
Sept. 10, 2010
By TODD PITMAN
SENJERAY, Afghanistan (AP) _ Pfc. Sean Provenzano saw it whiz by out of the corner of his eye: a dark object hurled from a rooftop as he patrolled the medieval maze of alleyways in this fort-like walled village at the center of America's Afghan surge.
It bounced off his M-4 Carbine's gun-sight and landed in the dirt a few yards away. At first he mistook it for a rock _ kids here often throw them at U.S. troops. But when it rose up and began spinning like a top, he realized it was something far more dangerous.
"GRENADE!!!" the 25-year-old screamed, diving to the ground as the explosion sprayed a deadly burst of shrapnel across the street.
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As US makes gains in Kandahar, another Afghan district shows difficulty of holding ground
Oct. 27, 2010
By TODD PITMAN
MARJAH, Afghanistan (AP) _ With bandoliers of bullets wrapped over both shoulders, U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Seth Little knelt in a trench, his machine gun pointing toward a clutch of farmers in a field who stared silently back.
The 23-year-old from Bremen, Georgia, was scanning the horizon for Taliban gunmen who were maneuvering unseen somewhere across this rural battlefield, ordering civilians out of their homes in apparent preparation for a fight.
Eight months after U.S.-led forces launched the biggest operation of the war to clear insurgents from the southern poppy-growing district of Marjah, it wasn't supposed to be this way. Today, the world's most powerful military is still struggling to rout guerrillas staging complex hit-and-run attacks relentlessly, every day.
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16 firefights, 8 enemy deaths, 46 base shootings: One Marine unit describes life at war
Oct. 25, 2010
By TODD PITMAN
MARJAH, Afghanistan (AP) _ In the first two months of a seven-month tour, U.S. Marine Cpl. Chuck Martin has been in 16 firefights.
He's done laundry twice, mailed five letters and received two. He's spent 378 hours on post and 256 hours on patrol. He's crossed 140 miles (230 kilometers) of thorny bomb-laced farmland and waist-high trenches of water on foot.
Along the way, he's ripped eight pairs of pants, ruined two pairs of boots, and downed 1,350 half-liter bottles of water. His platoon has killed at least eight militants in battle and nine farm animals in crossfire. The rugged outposts he's lived in have been shot at 46 times.
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Wounded in Iraq, double-amputee returns to front lines in Afghanistan
Sept 25, 2010
By TODD PITMAN
ASHOQEH, Afghanistan (AP) _ When a bomb exploded under Dan Luckett's Army Humvee in Iraq two years ago _ blowing off one of his legs and part of his foot _ the first thing he thought was: "That's it. You're done. No more Army for you."
But two years later, the 27-year-old Norcross, Georgia, native is back on duty _ a double-amputee fighting on the front lines of America's Afghan surge in one of the most dangerous parts of this volatile country.
Luckett's remarkable recovery can be attributed in part to dogged self-determination. But technological advances have been crucial: Artificial limbs today are so effective, some war-wounded like Luckett are not only able to do intensive sports like snow skiing, they can return to active duty as fully operational soldiers. The Pentagon says 41 American amputee veterans are now serving in combat zones worldwide.
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Kandahar boardwalk at heart of Afghan battlezone is a world away from war
Sept. 6, 2010
By TODD PITMAN
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) _ It was a broiling fall evening in this southern Afghan battlezone, and U.S. Army Sgt. Charles Reed wanted to celebrate his birthday in style _ at T.G.I. Friday's on the boardwalk.
So the military intelligence soldier ducked inside the Western diner with a dozen friends, climbed atop a chair, and began a slow, solo groove as smiling Asian waiters in baseball caps clapped a carefully practiced birthday cheer.
Two nonalcoholic Dutch beers and a $30 steak and shrimp dinner later, Reed stepped out of the air-conditioned cool of the wood-floored eatery _ whose walls are plastered with guitars, surfboards and Elvis posters _ and back into reality: the sweltering desert heat of a giant NATO military base ensconced in a rocky Afghan moonscape crawling with insurgents.
"It was kind of unreal," the Steamboat Springs, Colorado native said, describing his recent 34th birthday fete at Kandahar Airfield, better known as KAF. "At least for a few minutes, you could pretend you were somewhere else. It was like going back home."
The only difference, perhaps: most of the people ordering cheeseburgers and milkshakes were decked out in combat fatigues, and heavily armed.
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