Afghanistan: Tough Mission for Marines

60 Minutes: Officer Describes The Restraint He Imposes On His Increasingly Frustrated Troops

(CBS)  If the United States can win in Afghanistan, it will be thanks to the privates and corporals who are now being asked to turn around an eight-year war with a brand new strategy.

60 Minutes and correspondent Scott Pelley saw how tough it is when we spent three weeks with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines regiment. They're part of the 21,000 reinforcements ordered over the last several months by President Obama. The new plan, called counter-insurgency, sounds simple: separate the enemy from the people, then convince the Afghans to support their government. But it requires more forces, more time and more risk.

While the president is wrestling with whether to send up to 40,000 more troops, we joined with the battalion's Company G, "Golf Company," which was taking the highest casualties in the Taliban homeland.

In September, the men of Golf Company assembled for roll call in their combat outpost. First Sergeant Robert Pullen shouted for Marines who could not answer.

This was the roll of the dead.

The company's 200 Marines paused for a battlefield memorial, for the seven they call "brothers" killed in action: Lance Corporal Jonathan F. Stroud; Lance Corporal Gregory A. Posey; Lance Corporal Dennis J. Burrow; Lance Corporal Javier Olvera; Lance Corporal Patrick W. Schimmel; Lance Corporal Leopold F. Damas; and Lance Corporal David R. Hall.

In July, Golf Company was pushing into a part of Afghanistan never occupied by U.S. troops. During an exhausting three-day march from battalion headquarters to what would become their combat outpost, in brutally hot temperatures, they were ambushed repeatedly by the Taliban, the enemy that carries the name of the fundamentalist Islamic government overthrown in the U.S. invasion after 9/11.

But the enemy isn't one force: "Taliban" is a catch-all for a collection of tribes and warlords. Some are religious extremists, some are drug traffickers, and in Golf Company's area, many are locals fighting for money.

Golf Company set up in Koshtay, a village in the Garmsir District of Helmand Province near Pakistan.

It's a strange twist of history that Golf Company's area used to be called "Little America." In the 1950s, a massive U.S. foreign aid project dug the canals that now feed half the world's heroin poppies, and shoulder-high marijuana, both prime sources of Taliban cash.

Golf Company covers just a few square miles. The job is to push the Taliban out and stay in place.

Second Lieutenant Dan O'Hara from Chicago is a platoon leader. It's his first combat tour, and two of his Marines had been killed.

Asked how he can distinguish the enemy from citizens, O'Hara told Pelley, "For the most part, you don't until they start shooting at you. And even then, their tactic is hit and run. They will shoot and before you get the chance to close on them, they will run away and kind of just run back into the population."

Lieutenant Colonel Christian Cabaniss leads the 2/8 battalion. He sent Golf Company into battle with orders to use restraint.

[lsanderson1s]

Patrick Schimmel was my boyfriend and the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I'll never forget the night his father called to tell me Patrick was gone. It is a feeling I never want another to experience.
Girls and guys, hang on tight to your Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, or Airmen. They need your support and your love.
To those in uniform, and especially the ones in 2/8 Golf Company: hang in there. You'll be home before you know it. Just think of all the Pizza you can eat when you get back to Camp Lejeune. Order a peperoni and drink a Coca-cola for Patrick.

[deboldt]

Where is everybody? I thought we had a pretty active thread going here. I hope Mr. Fleshman is OK.

Peace,

Bob Boldt

[jefleshman]

Mr. Boldt,

I am here and ok; God willing...will continue to be ok. The 8th of Oct was pretty close but, we all have days like that.

[jefleshman]

Thank you freedom for your comments.

[vietmanvet1967]

This is Nam all over again, instead of Johnson & McNamara running the war from Washington its Obama, Gates & Biden, Either fight the War to Win or get OUT!

[USMC-Mom]

I have to agree with you. We/ They must go in hard & strong. This sending a few thousand here & there will not get the job done. These Afgan's are a real strong enemy. They don't care if the live or die or about there kids at home. You have to go in to win the war not play war.

[USMC-Mom]

"Its an Honor to serve to join in the fight to lift up my voice and lay down my life Giving Glory to GOD seekeing none in return, It's an honor to serve." (ooh-rah) wonderful words from a song by Ray Boltz
My son has asked that these word be said if he doesn't make it home. Its a song he loves,that boy can't sing a lick, but he will raise his voice loud for this one.
Thank You, Lance Corporal Jonathan F. Stroud; Lance Corporal Gregory A. Posey; Lance Corporal Dennis J. Burrow; Lance Corporal Javier Olvera; Lance Corporal Patrick W. Schimmel; Lance Corporal Leopold F. Damas; and Lance Corporal David R. Hall.
God Bless your loved ones. Thank you for giving all so we can sleep better at night & feel safe. Know that the Marine famlies feel you pain. God please comfort them all...

[finkfust]

Jerry

Are you ready to answer questions honestly and openly yet?

[jefleshman]

fink

With all due respect. I have ALWAYS answered with honesty and openness. I have given you the benefit of doubt in spite of others cautioning me on how you were. I was always taught to trust until proven otherwise and you have proven otherwise on every occasion.

As I have stated in a previous warning to another individual on this blog. My impression of you is that you do not want to have open dialogue. So I decline your invitation to questions and answers. Lets hope that you one day have an open mind and can appreciate others differing point of view. Because sometimes both points of view are correct because it is the individual perception of what they believe is happening.

It is a shame you have sunk so low not to believe anyone and think everyone is out to get you or there is an alternative motive somehow as in a government conspiracy. I have given you more than one opportunity and yet you continue your closed mind approach and argumentative posts often resulting in name calling and disgust. My name is not Jerry nor do I know a Jerry Fleshman. But if you want to continue to call me Jerry I do not care. I just find it extremely humorous now. Now that I know you thought I am someone else this whole time and this is why you thought it was some kind of government propaganda effort.

Good day to you Fink.

[jefleshman]

Fink

This is starting to make sense now you put out this big warning that I may get in trouble for posting things and you may be right if I was PAO. I will have to ask PAO but I do not think they are authorized to blog. So you thinking I was someone I am not believed I was part of a propaganda effort by the military which I am not.

I just want people to know the good things we are doing over here. It is really that simple. No conspiracy involved.

[jefleshman]

Ok that was a big run on sentence let me try this again.

This is starting to make sense now. You put out a big warning (on another article blog)that I may get in trouble for posting things and you may be right if I was PAO. I will have to ask PAO (In the morning when they come in) but I do not think they are authorized to blog (They may be I do not know). So thinking I was someone (who I am not). You believed I was part of a propaganda effort by the military which I am not. (This is why you kept putting you believed I was part of a propaganda effort on my posts)

I just want people to know the good things we are doing over here.

It is really that simple. No conspiracy involved.

Now I am very tired and have to get some rest.

[RedWings_ninety_one]

Bush wanted oil, not restitution for Iraq. Afghanistan is the only place we ever needed to be after 9/11.

[freedom_veteran]

Really?!? That's funny! Why are gas prices so high??? Oh, and exactly how did this oil get back to the US?

[RedWings_ninety_one]

Correction, Bush's Daddy's War

[RedWings_ninety_one]

This war needs to be turned around. Iraq was a war we never should've entered in the first place. G.W. Bush just wanted to finish "Daddy's War." Iraq made us take our eyes off of the ball. Afghanistan is where the terrorists who are behind 9/11 are. That's who we need to be after, not the oil in the middle east.

[bubbadubba]

Would it be possible to change the name of this nation building and police action in Afghanistan to "Our New Vietnam War" since the strategies and the actions taken by the so called generals are identical?

[themooniac]

WHEN WILL ANY POST FROM MY VIEWPOINT
AN EX-GI-15-juliet,13-papa, honorable discharge
A LOT OF LIFES WILL BE LOST IN THE TURNOIL I HAVE VOLUNTEEREED FOR KBR 5 TIMES IN LAST FIVE YEARS, Help me if I can serve, Thx,Tom, 2ID 1987-88

[themooniac]

send the second ID.... PERIOD., From a
Second ID MEMBER.

[edgy44]

"I don't want to hear any reports that we are holding our position. We aren't holding on to anything. We are going to grab the enemy by the nose and kick them in the b*lls." -- General Patton, 1944. COIN takes about 14 years, total war takes about 1 year. Preparing for total war takes about 2 years. I'm for total war. We invade Pakistan, move through Afghanistan, and end-up in Iran. 1000 years when the radiation levels decrease, humans can once again inhabit the area. If we have an Armageddon, then Jesus will come sooner.

[finkfust]

Why don't you just kill yourself? You'll meet Jesus straight away (if he exists) and do yourself and everyone else a favor.

[edgy44]

The private doesn't care, because he has a calendar when he is leaving. You could say the same about everyone over there. If you have a calendar, you don't care about the war, only the days you have left. The first thing I would do, is to put everyone on a four year rotation. People start worrying about tactics and strategy when they don't have to worry about ever going home again. My father's orders in WW2 were "duration plus 6-months." He got an in-country R&R every 4 weeks, and it rejuvinated him. He said he could fight like that indefinately. Every 4 weeks he got a new uniform, and a hot shower and was good to go. These troops need to know that they can't come home until either victory is achieved, or they surrender. I served 20 years, of which 14 years were in Arabia, Iraq, and Iran. You can't dip your toes in a lake, you have to go all the way in, or you'll never come out, or be too scared to be effective. Man-up, or go home.

[finkfust]

Good point. I think the same was true of the British troops in WW2, but they started a couple of years before the Americans and they didn't get anything like so many new uniforms...... or anywhere near the pay!

[freedom_veteran]

Maybe true for some... And I agree, if you can't do your job and all you care about is going home, then yes they need to man up...

But that is simply injust to say that for EVERYONE over there. For the support troops, you might be correct. But as for Infantry- Marine or Army, and the select few other frontline combat roles, not so much...

I was deployed in 2003, and didn't have the luxuries that you hear about at the main bases. The support troops live at these bases, and they are mostly the ones that generally complain about the conditions/going home/etc... The Infantry/front line soldiers deploy to Forward Operating Bases where the luxuries are NOT.
We built a firebase during the last half of my tour, from the ground up. Our entire company had it engrained in our heads that we would fight there until relieved, no matter how long it took. The 1st two months we spent enclosed in a small mud wall complex, sleeping in our bivy's on the ground in 2" - 2' of snow... Even when the snow melted, we had no electricity, no running water, and spent the entire time pulling guard and foot-patrolling day and night... We went 3 MONTHS without a shower, a hot meal (not including a BS heated MRE) or running water...

Just don't generalize the entire military by saying that about them as a whole...

[deboldt]

finkfust said October 12,
jefleshman - Why don't you say WHY you disagree with Bob's point of view?

Thanks for asking the question finkfurst. I usually don?t respond much to soldiers serving and presumably under fire. They have quite enough on their minds and hearts. I too am interested in exactly what our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan think they are fighting for. I tend to discount all the phony rhetoric about fighting for our freedom and all that jazz. Whatever the hidden geopolitical motives are, they seem to be as occult as the ones we were defending in that made up dominos game in Vietnam.

One thing that jefleshman said that I do emphatically disagree with is that old illusion of ?freedom of speech and voicing your point of view without fear of prosecution or intimidation? that people still think exists in this country. In my small, insignificant case, I lost a lucrative job in a very tight market, lost my marriage and my home as the direct and indirect results of my signing something as seemingly insignificant as a petition published in the local paper that simply said, in as many words: ?Let?s establish definitively that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction before we attempt to invade Iraq.? I did it and I would do it again and if I thought it would bring jeflishman home and end the horrible atrocities tomorrow, I would give my life. But make no mistake, the freedom our troops delude themselves into thinking they are defending no longer exist in this country. If you want to defend our freedom come home and blow up a few Pay Day Loan offices, some recruiting centers and perhaps the offices of Goldman Sachs. If you are really serious, and believe violence is the answer to every problem public and private, that would be a good start.

Peace!

B

[finkfust]

Bob

I find it amazing that you could lose everything through exercising your absolute right to criticise your government. I'm so glad I don't live in the USA. I was one of the million or more people marching through London to protest against invading Iraq. I didn't lose anything through that or repeatedly writing to my Member of Parliament etc., but I'm not sure it achieved much either.

Don't have too much sympathy for jefleshman, he's not quite what you think he is!

I think your last two sentences are a little ill-advised, even in an ironic vein.

[jefleshman]

Mr. Boldt

Thank you for your response. I will address you questions with honesty and to the best of my ability from my Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan. Having been here now on two separate occasions for almost 2 years I have seen and experience more than most men my age the atrocities the terrorist do over here. I have seen the heads and burnt or mutilated bodies of men woman and children being cut off by the Taliban because of many reasons they give. Such as a womans ankle was seen because her Burka was too high. Or witness to the aftermath of a family living in fear of the Taliban as they broke into their house after detonating an IED to demand sanctuary and food and shelter. As the father showed temptation not to adhere to the threats these Terrorist set his son on fire to show they meant business. I have been witness to seeing the aftermath of ACID being tossed in a womans face because it was not covered. I have seen in the hospital a 16 month old little girl who was set on fire by the terrorist on purpose to prove their point. I cried and cried and that picture still haunts me today. For I am a father and a husband and a Soldier. I would never want my family or any family to be subject to those atrocities every. I was sick to my stomach watching the movie Hotel Rwanda and could not fathom why we as human kind would allow and sit back and watch the genocide take place.

To answer your question do I know why I am here. Yes Mr. Bolt I know why I am here!

You see Fink hounds me ever since my first weeks on this blog thing. Which is only maybe a month now. So I will not respond to him anymore. So what you do not see but will now is how he attacks and eggs me to respond to him every post. I hope someone gets him banned again since he was before just recently as screen name Hower4.

I was tired of reading and complaining about the media and not doing anything about it. My disagreement was about the media originally in your first blog post. Ironically I believe they are doing a horrible job trying to inform the reading or listening audience of the efforts being made over here and are more propaganda for the terrorist more than anyone. All they seem to tell is about Drone Attacks. IEDs. Suicide bombers and Death! It is appalling to me that is all they show the public about our efforts over here which are for more than that. We do economic and development as well but you never see those efforts highlighted or if they are it is blown off because it is not sensationalized. I am tired of the garbage the media is putting out just like you but in a different way.

But my point I want to make is. I was simply disagreeing with the way the media was handling the current conflict. I do not think they are doing a good job promoting it. I believe they are doing a horrible job and only report bombs. IEDs and Death. They might as well work for the terrorist in my opinion. There is so much more to be talked about and reported. If you would like just a snippit that doesnt even compare to the progress being made here in Afghanistan. Please see a Story written by Mr. David Wood from politics daily or my own Task Force Stories Links are below.
SOURCE: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/09/16/a-plea-from-afghanistan-my-friend-do-not-go/
SOURCE: http://www.youtube.com/tfspartan
SOURCE: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Task-Force-Spartan/114841476833

Thank you Mr. Boldt for asking my thoughts. I hope you check out the stories and maybe you will have a appreciative point of view.

[hamudlawyer]

Tragically, the U.S. strategy to protect Afghan civilians and place Marines at greater risk of death or serious bodily harm includes Aghanistan's crops. In the segment, the Marines had intel that Taliban were setting up an ambush in a cornfield adjacent to a Marine patrol. Another patrol was in position to envelope the attackers. Military tactical doctrine calls for turning the cornfield into popcorn with cluster bombs, napalm, white phosphorous, etc., and letting the enveloping patrol finish off any stragglers/survivors. Instead, the Marines beat a hasty retreat through another cornfield, leaving the bad guys to live another day and probably mount another attack about which we might not have any advance warning at all.

Obviously our perverted counterinsurgency policy also protects the crops, including opium, from damage for fear of aleniating the local farmers. Pay them for the damned corn, eat the popcorn, and kill the bad guys; or else, get the Hell out of there altogether!

Randy Hamud

[finkfust]

hamudlawyer said - "Military tactical doctrine calls for turning the cornfield into popcorn with cluster bombs, napalm, white phosphorous, etc., and letting the enveloping patrol finish off any stragglers/survivors."

If that's true then military tactical doctrine is illegal. In fact you are a fool and a liar.

[hamudlawyer]

Tragically, the U.S. strategy to protect Afghan civilians and place Marines at greater risk of death or serious bodily harm includes Aghanistan's crops. In the segment, the Marines had intel that Taliban were setting up an ambush in a cornfield adjacent to a Marine patrol. Another patrol was in position to envelope the attackers. Military tactical doctrine calls for turning the cornfield into popcorn with cluster bombs, napalm, white phosphorous, etc., and letting the enveloping patrol finish off any stragglers/survivors. Instead, the Marines beat a hasty retreat through another cornfield, leaving the bad guys to live another day and probably mount another attack about which we might not have any advance warning at all.

Obviously our perverted counterinsurgency policy also protects the crops, including opium, from damage for fear of aleniating the local farmers. Pay them for the damned corn, eat the popcorn, and kill the bad guys; or else, get the Hell out of there altogether!

Randy Hamud

[spaceatoms]

as a u.s citizen with over 2 years active service and over 10 in the army reserves, I will do what the leaders tell me to do, but overall I am dissatisfied with the cowards in this country and Wall Street. I barely make more than in 1990, yet it goes about 40 percent of before as everything is being inflated out of control like food, entertainment, its almost 20 dollars for popcorn at a movie for two people, and 20 dollars for two burgers on a Friday night. And its all so the investors can be wealthy. I can only laugh as the prior wars were for the defense of the democratic way, now communist China has invested so much in the country and is giving nothing to the war, I don't here about Chinese military supporting Iraq, Iran or Afganistan. The U.S. is a confused country with all its issues and drugs.

[BigButch55]

The parallels to Viet Nam I understand, but not the cut our losses
and run, because we dislike the war attitude. We MUST finish this.
Our Government is responsible for creating most of the problems in
the region.(read Charlie Wilson's War) If we leave now, how long
before it is once again brought to our doorstep because Americans
do not have the Heart to Fight? Give the Military the tools needed
and let them do their Jobs.