From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan
From the Sand Pit. It’s freezing here. I’m sitting on hard cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains , along the Dar’yoi Pomir River, watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.
I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting. I’ve actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but the scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a bastard. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid, but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.
The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water. That requires couriers and that’s where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy. I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware. We bash some heads for a while, then I track and record the new movement.
It’s all about intelligence. We haven’t even brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no idea what they’re in for. We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin. But you know me, I’m a romantic. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This country blows, man. It’s not even a country. There are no roads, there’s no infrastructure, there’s no government. This is an inhospitable, rock pit shit hole ruled by eleventh century warring tribes. There are no jobs here like we know jobs.
Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army. That’s it. Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu, if that’s your idea of a party. But the smell alone of those ‘tent cities of the walking dead’ is enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day.
I’ve been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks, and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtuns, for over a month-and-a-half now, and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of ‘em, are Huns…actual, living Huns.. They LIVE to fight. It’s what they do. It’s ALL they do. They have no respect for anything, not for their families, nor for each other, nor for themselves. They claw at one another as a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other’s barbarism. Cavemen with AK-47′s. Then again, maybe I’m just cranky.
I’m freezing my ass off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice, and I can’t recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours. Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write a letter to CNN and tell Wolf and Anderson and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban ‘smart.’ They are not smart. I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is ‘cunning.’ The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines. They are sneaky and ruthless, and when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else. Smart. Pfft. Yeah, they’re real smart.
They’ve spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil. They’re still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter. Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it. OK, enough. Snuffle will be up soon, so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice, but I’m good at it.
Please, I tell you and my fellow Americans to turn off the TV sets and move on with your lives. The story line you are getting from CNN and other news agencies is utter bullshit and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the commercials. We’ve got this one under control The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we’re doing over here, because you have no idea what we’re doing, and really, you don’t want to know. We are your military, and we are doing what you sent us here to do.
Saucy Jack
Recon Marine in Afghanistan
Semper Fi
“Freedom is not free…but the U.S. Marine Corps will pay most of your share”.
http://nesaranews.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-marines-view-of-what-is-really-going.html
Another day at the office….
Semper Fi Recon…
JD – US Marines – A fellow foxhole jockey….
I am sick of hearing the Taliban and other over matched, under equipped and ill trained insurgents as cowards. It really pisses me off. I bet that courier bringing the ‘enemy’ food, water, and other supplies whilst running a gauntlet consisting of night vision, unmanned drones, snipers, and God knows what else that is capable of killing him without him even seeing his attacker is a real big stinky coward.
You could probably leave Afghanistan tomorrow and declare victory but make sure you employ a good advertising agency to write the press release. You truly cannot fix stupid.
Dear Saucy Jack,
If you were fighting for my freedom, I would whole heartedly thank you, but fighting in Afghanistan has nothing to do with freedom for me or other citizens of the U.S. or the world.
Unfortunately, in Afghanistan the U.S. military guards the poppies and fights for maintaining and increasing the highly profitable illegal heroin trade, and since the map of the mineral wealth of the country has been completed, will likely soon be fighting for the transnational corporatists (a nice word for fascists) that seek to pillage the world for all its resources.
You are not fighting against tyranny in Afghanistan – your fighting in Afghanistan only increases corporatist and military-industrial-congressional- complex tyranny criminality waged around the world with U.S. military used as the invaders and enforcers.
Please, wake up.
Hi Enbe,
You miss the real point of why I had this article posted, allow me to describe them:
1) For anyone not familiar with military life or life in the field, this gives a quick personal account just to give an idea what it is like.
2) We (Marines) do not pick where we are sent, nor are open to refuting such orders regardless of corporate corruption driving it in DC or DOD. The real problem is in DC &/or DOD,… NOT with the Marine carrying out his duty, and in reality, probably has little idea of the graft and corruption that has gotten him sent there in the first place.
3) Tactical: Nobody commenting thus far seemed to catch the real importance of the tactical evaluation of this story, which is – notice how despite all the “high tech” gear, satellites, and other state of the art equipment, what did it all come down to?,…. someone on the ground, with eyes on the the situation, watching and reporting.
If all this wonderful 21st century see-all, know-all equipment was really so great,… Saucy Jack would never havve been there, and would not have written this little article about it.
Thats useful.
Get it?
JD – US Marines – Always seek your enemies weakness,.. then exploit it.
My question is if he is such a great Marine, why is he still there and not at home ousting out our own foreign government like he and the rest of the U.S. military should?
I and many others are sick of the U.S. military sitting on their asses and doing nothing to get rid of the foreign government we have in office in D.C. when they know that what they are doing is wrong and that the moral rule of law and their duty to uphold the Constitution states that they need to arrest and get rid of the assholes in Congress and the White House and protect the people here at home.
THIS is what they should be doing. Chasing the scorpions out of office back home. Not in some foreign country with people who can’t even figure out how to use a pen. Of course, with the way our education system is going at home, it makes me wonder if our children even know how to use a pen anymore because most of the grown-ups don’t even know what DVD, GPS, or even CIA mean.
Hi NC,
Why aren’t you in DC ousting the traitors?
JD
Because I don’t have a marine group with me or the kind of contacts that you should have. You marine guys are suppose to be the best of the best. You’re suppose to be able to take on a small army by yourself. With a group of you, you can take out 3 or 4 armies, can’t you? If you have your group ready, call me and I’ll be sure to help you.
Take it easy, NC. Every Branch of the Armed Forces thinks they are the “Best”. Each has jokes about the other. It’s a Very OLD Rivalry. Yet, when in the Trenches, they Always Have Each Other’s Backs. Let’s try to keep Bravado out of our Trenches. There are members of Every Branch here.
Look JD, no offense to you as a marine, but I’m just sick of nothing being done by the very people who are paid by U.S. taxpayers and supposed to be trained to handle and deal with situations like this. All I see is a bunch of marines sitting on their asses doing nothing. Maybe they are still preparing, but I don’t know. How much longer do they need to prepare or how much evidence do they need in order to do their duty to oust out the government?
As I said, the marines are supposed to be the best of the best and this is what I was brought up to believe and if that is still true, then I’m ashamed at what I see so far.
NC, as a friend, I gotta tell ya that you’re “pick’n a fight.”
You’re Both sniping at each other.
Come on…
@ NC 10:09 Ya know NC the enlisted military are all bought off with low interest loans for schooling and houses and such. They never did that back in the 60`s and 70`s. Now days they got to bribe the enlisted punks. I say punks because most of them would not have enlisted if it wasn`t for being bought off with their briberies. Low interest loanes in other words. And that is one big scam also. Yea NC, I`m with ya, the military should be taking out the low life traiters before going over seas and doing their dirty work. Yea NC I agree with you. We got to give the old boy military credit though. – they were not bought off like they have been now days in the last decade or so.
They were given “Promises…promises…” They weren’t All “punks.”
“Screwed, Blued, and Tattoed” for many Decades.
@ Angel @ 8:20. Yea Angel they punks now days would never have enlisted if it wasen`t for the perks. They don`t give a flying F about our country like they did baci in the 40`s, 50`s, 60`s and 70`s. Some do but most don`t care now days.
They didn’t get it in the 60′s-70′s because Nam was Never “Officially” a “War.” It was technically a “Conflict.” Thus, the Vets. did not “Qualify.”
Exactly right JD.
I’m much too old for the Afghan shit, but many things do not change. People fail to realize that these “Hun” warriors handed the British their asses in (IIRC) 1860-80′s, then handed the Soviets their asses back in the 1970′s.
Like it or not, those cavemen with AK’s will in the end hand the US their asses.
The point is that when one is fighting for hearth and home, liberty and freedom, technology and mercenaries LOOSE!
I wish I had five viles of antidote for the scopians that we have over here in DC
God Bless you and the other Marines and other worldwide fighting for us here at Home . WE have your backs. A USAF VET
To Saucy Jack-
First, I want to thank you for your honorable intentions and service.
“The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we’re doing over here, because you have no idea what we’re doing, and really, you don’t want to know.”
You are most certainly correct. We really don’t know what you guys and gals are doing over there… and probably would not want to know because it will distort what CNN claims you are doing for God and Country.
“We are your military, and we are doing what you sent us here to do.”
I didn’t want ANY of you to be sent over there, nor did most servicemen I’ve talked to, want to stay there after they discovered the reasons (lies) they were sent there to possibly die for. I’m sure that many Reserve and National Guard troops never thought they would be sent to the Middle East or any other foreign nation for one or more tours of duty.
In my opinion, the reason why you don’t see thousands of USA citizens protesting the endless, Unconstitutional War on Terror is because our current military troops are volunteers and mercenary soldiers of fortune — you weren’t drafted against your will. It’s no different with the craft contract workers who volunteer to go over to the Middle East making $150-200+ an hour to rebuild what the military has destroyed. Ironically, it’s probably the best paying job that these contractors will have for the rest of their lives… and these contractors expect the Army and the Marines to put their lives on the line to protect them.
I also hate the way our troops are treated when they return home. Many lost their marriage, home, job, etc. That’s a fine thank you for volunteering and risking your life at the expense of your own family’s welfare. There are many soldiers that come home physically and/or mentally maimed for life, and also many who come back whole but totally pissed-off at their government, which is why they don’t want any returning, discharged soldier to ever have a gun again in civilian life.
I want to apologize in advance if anything I wrote here dishonors or insults our enlisted military men and women in uniform. We do have one thing in common though: Trusting our Government is the biggest mistake we all made.
Why do you think more vets commit suicide than have died fighting this phoney “War on Terror”?
Today,..nobody anywhere is fighting for “us”. They doing it for the USI CORPORATE NWO…Not GOD and country………..Hell we were just as dumb 30 some years ago…….they tried harder to make you believe it was the BAD COMMIES hell bent on world domination…….they were right about that…..we just had our rifles pointed at the wrong enemy……
Its true…none of us get to pick where we got sent…..but today,…a kid doesn’t have to join up for murder if he does not want to…..no draft for the moment.
Aw man oldvet, the damned govt. is try to bring back the draft. Remember that “Charlie is in the white house”.
Yeah thats why I added “for the moment”.
If Charlie Rangel get his way…little girls will be drafted too.
Wouldn`t it be great oldvet to see obama`s daughters with a uniform on overseas carrying a rifle. Damn I almost forgot about the romney kids. they should be the first ones to go.
I say let’s send all these big, brave cops who pepper spray peaceful protesters exercising their constitutional rights along with the ones bodyslamming pregnant women to the ground first. We can take care of our own.