Friday, May 01, 2009

These boys are tough

I found this article oddly enough on the MSN website. It is actually a NYT article which makes it even more of a deviation.

Anyway, The two devil dogs in the article have a pair so big it is lucky they can walk.

From the article,

This is Firebase Vimoto, named for Pfc. Timothy R. Vimoto, an American
soldier killed in the valley two years ago. If all goes according to the
Pentagon’s plan, this tiny perimeter — home to an Afghan platoon and two
Marine Corps infantrymen — contains the future of Afghanistan....

There are nearly 30 Afghan soldiers here. Their
senior mentor, Cpl. Sean P. Conroy, of Carmel, N.Y., is 25 years old. His
assistant, Lance Cpl. Brandon J.Murray, of Fort Myers, Fla., is 21.

Each day they organize and walk Afghan Army patrols in the
valley below,some of the most dangerous acreage in the world. Each night
they participate inradio meetings with the American posts along the ridges,
exchanging plans and intelligence, and plotting the counterinsurgency effort
in the ancient villages below.
In Corporal Conroy’s war, two Marines train Afghans in weapons,
tactics, first aid, hygiene and leadership. They keep the firebase supplied with
ammunition, water, batteries and food. Theydefecate in a rusting barrel and
urinate in a tube that slopes off a roof and drains into the air. Fly strips
surround them. They have no running water; their sleeping bunker stinks of
filthy clothes and sweat.
The corporal has tied a flea collar through his belt loops; he needs it like a
dog. He served two tours in Iraq. His four-year enlistment ended last month,
but he extended for nine months when promised hewould be assigned to a
combat outpost in Afghanistan.


He does not hide that he likes his life here: the senior man in an isolated
post, surrounded by the Taliban, waking to a new patrol every day and drilling
what he calls the Alamo Plan, to be executed if the firebase is overrun.
“This is the sweetest deal ever,” he said one evening between firefights.
“There is no other place I could get a job like this — not at this rank.”

He woke the next daybefore 4 a.m. for a patrol. As he slipped into his ammunition vest,
he
groused that back home, when conversations drift to the war,the infantry too often is
misunderstood.

“You know what I don’t like about America?” he said, in the chill beneath lingering stars. “If you do what I do, then theythink either you should have PTSD or you are some sort of psychopath.”

He exhaled cigarette smoke. “This is my job,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

Amen Brother..

The can-do attitudes and sacrifies of men like these should be required studies in high schools and colleges all across this land.

Full article HERE

1 comment:

Subvet said...

"The can-do attitudes and sacrifies of men like these should be required studies in high schools and colleges all across this land."

When they are I'll stop griping about public schools.