CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan — Good morning, friends. Photographer Tom Brown and I successfully hopped a CH-53 flight night last night from Camp Hanson in Marjah to Camp Leatherneck. While that means our time with 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, has come to a close, we’ll be posting a variety of photographs and blog entries in the next few days in this space that shows what life is like for those Marines, who took great care of us while we were embedded with them. We’ll also be blogging about life here at Leatherneck again and pointing out some of the more serious…
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MARJAH, Afghanistan – When I came to Afghanistan, I expected to find many strange and unusual sights. A gunnery sergeant with a tattoo of Sarah Palin on his buttocks wasn’t one of them. So it is, however. Within minutes of meeting Marines who patrol this former Taliban stronghold from the Yellow Schoolhouse, a rundown former Afghan school here, I was asked my opinion about Palin, a hero to many politically conservative Americans. Before I had a chance to answer, however, I was introduced to fun-loving Gunnery Sgt. Benjamin Lepping’s left butt cheek. Sure enough, there’s a realistic caricature of Palin…
COMBAT OUTPOST REILLY, Afghanistan – How hot is it here? Hot enough that the air-conditioner-powering generators decided to take a vacation. The generator for close to a dozen tents overheated midday Sunday, going down as the air temperature soared over 100 degrees. It went down again briefly today, but power was restored quickly. To combat the overheating, Marines hung cammie netting this morning above each generator, giving the machines some shade from the hot sun, said Lance Cpl. Zach Warrilow, a mortarman here with Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines. He’s to the left in the photograph above.
COMBAT OUTPOST REILLY, Afghanistan – Last night, I went on my last foot patrol of this embed assignment. It was eventful, to say the least. Military Times photographer Tom Brown and I pushed north from this outpost east of Marjah with Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines. Two groups – 3rd Platoon’s 2nd and 3rd Squads – left on routine security patrols within a half hour of each other. Tom and I joined 3/3, the second group – 13 Marines, a Navy corpsman and four Afghan National Army soldiers – as they stepped off at about 4:30. It…
COMBAT OUTPOST REILLY, Afghanistan — There’s nothing like a combat zone gymnasium to make you feel like a doughy, wimpy scrub. At least that’s the experience I had after checking out the gym here today. I’m a gym rat myself and a veteran of Washington, D.C.’s summer softball leagues, but with the air temperature soaring well above 100 degrees, I was surprised to see Lance Cpl. Joseph Roncolato and Cpl. Mikah Rust, both assigned to Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, pumping iron as though they were in the air-conditioning at their neighborhood Gold’s Gym. The gym is a sight…
COMBAT OUTPOST REILLY, Afghanistan – It’s a relatively slow day here with Kilo Company, so I wanted to touch on a subject that really grinds my gears: sandstorms. If you haven’t experienced one yet, you don’t know what you’re missing. The sand pelts you hard enough that it’s painful to keep your eyes open, and the storms come out of the blue so quickly, it can be difficult to prepare for them. Photographer Tom Brown and I experienced our first sandstorm on this trip during the infamous night aboard a CH-53 helicopter, but it wasn’t the last one. Last week,…
COMBAT OUTPOST REILLY, Afghanistan — Marine Corps Times was “Oscar Mike” again yesterday, moving by convoy from the headquarters of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, at Camp Hanson to this outpost, where Kilo Company 3/6 is based. The outpost is similar to Yazzie and several other patrol bases we’ve seen recently. Marines sleep mostly in air-conditioned tents, but there is no running water or an indoor chow hall, and few ways to know what is going on in the world outside Afghanistan. We are told that Kilo Company’s area of operations isn’t nearly as hot as India Company’s right now, but…
CAMP HANSON, Afghanistan — Today, Tom Brown and I said goodbye to the Yellow Schoolhouse, a former school in Marjah where two squads of Marines from India Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, now patrol from and live. I’m now at Camp Hanson, home to 3/6’s headquarters, and awaiting for potential transportation to another 3/6 company of Marines. In the meantime, however, I wanted to take a minute to reflect on my time at the schoolhouse, which more closely resembles the Marine Corps I hoped and expected to see downrange than anything else to date. To say it’s hard living at…
MARJAH, Afghanistan — Some of you may have read that Marine Corps Times was caught in the middle of a firefight here yesterday afternoon. Well, here’s footage to match, courtesy of Tom Brown, who whipped out his video camera after diving next to me into a Marjah canal: [HTML1] Again: Everyone came out of this safe and sound, and five men were later detained. Sometimes, good luck can be found in Afghanistan.
MARJAH, Afghanistan — It has been a busy day or three here in Afghanistan, but I wanted to take a minute to share Tom Brown’s video footage of the aftermath of an improvised explosive device attack Saturday on a Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected All-Terrain Vehicle in our convoy. As you can see, the vehicle sustained significant damage. We were trailing the hit vehicle by about the length of a city block, but could see smoke, dust and small pieces of metal rocket into the air: [HTML1] Important footnote: All five Marines in this vehicle survived, and only one experienced concussion symptoms.
