CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan – I went to the gym today at 3 p.m. That may not exactly sound like breaking news, but the time signifies something bigger: Camp Leatherneck’s gym controversy is finally over. About a week ago, Capt. Thano Pravong, Leatherneck’s camp commandant, made the decision to close the gym from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. after it was discovered that the midday temperature inside was edging toward 120 degrees. Helmand province cracks triple digits regularly now, and when you add in a few hundred men (and a few women) pumping iron in an enclosed tent, it can get…
Browsing: Afghanistan
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…
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…
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 — The bullets snapped overhead angrily, and all I could feel were the insects crawling up and down my legs and the sludgy water seeping into my boots. That’s how I’ll remember an ambush on a Marine patrol today, in which I saw my first warzone firefight. It began at about 12:30 p.m., as 10 members of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, and six Afghan National Army soldiers pushed east on a dirt trail splitting two agricultural canals in central Marjah. The sky was clear and the air temperature had crept into the 90s, as the hot Afghan sun…
MARJAH, Afghanistan — It’s day three for Tom Brown and I today at the Yellow Schoolhouse, a school built by the U.S. in Afghanistan in the 1950s. We went on a patrol with Marines on Sunday, and while it was uneventful, it was clear just how active the Taliban has been recently in this area. The patrol took us through several areas where Marines have been ambushed recently, including one Thursday in which eight to 10 insurgents opened fire on a group of Marines from India Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines. An Afghan National Army soldier was killed in the…
MARJAH, AFGHANISTAN — Hello from the ‘stan, friends. Tom and I have made another move, leaving Patrol Base Yazzie yesterday to spend some time with the Marines of the Yellow Schoolhouse, a deserted Afghan school for which Marine Corps leadership has high hopes. Third Platoon from India Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines rotates squads through here on a revolving basis. As you can see, the school is rather, uh, rustic. There are no windows, numerous holes in the roof and a variety of birds and insects sharing the building with the Marines deployed there. I’ll have substantially more to a…
PATROL BASE YAZZIE, Afghanistan — As I mentioned earlier this week, it isn’t hard to find marijuana while traveling with Marine fire teams based here to patrol Marjah. Tom Brown captured just how easily this morning with this eye-opening photograph. For some of Tom’s work that doesn’t appear on Battle Rattle, check out the Military Times Line of Sight blog. All the fans of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, will probably get a kick out of this photo.
PATROL BASE YAZZIE, Afghanistan — I’ve been meaning to do this blog entry for quite some time, but, well, I figured we should get to know each other a bit before diving in. In my newly educated estimation, one of the things Americans take for granted the most is their plumbing. Fresh, crisp running water is a beautiful thing, whether it’s used for bathing, drinking or flushing the toilet. Flushing the toilet, you ask? Oh, yes, compadres. This is a blog entry about what happens when you no longer have that option. And since this blog is devoted in part…
