A Grunt’s View of Afghanistan

I was checking google news to see if there was anything new in regards to the Asia Times story last week about our government getting in contact with the Taliban to set up a provisional government in Afghanistan (I didn’t blog about it because the report seemed untrustworthy, but Tacitus, Jesse, Oliver, Jim Henley and many others all wrote extensive condemnations), and I found this letter from a Lt. Col describing the scene in Afghanistan:

The area we’re in is surrounded by land mines planted by the Russians and the Taliban. The Romanians are here, assisting the U.S. forces with the perimeter and the area. Some of the locals work inside the perimeter to do grass-cutting, sweeping, etc. They have to boost the economy any way possible. The old PFCs guarding them were complaining they had to get off these details. They call themselves the “Afghanistan SWAT team: s**t, water and trash.”

We are in an Islamic country, so no alcohol for the soldiers. Drugs are everywhere. The Russian soldiers had lots of problems, as they found the opium fields in the spring and marijuana fields in the fall. (The “fall” temperature is about 90 degrees.)

Go read the whole thing– if you are weary about reporters and government officials telling the truth, I can assure you, there is nothing more brutally honest and non-partisan than a deployed soldier. They are usually too busy too lie, too pissed off to sugarcoat, and they tell it like it is.