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Capt. Kearney, leader of the hardy group perched on the mountainsides of the Korengal, had fought in Iraq. Of the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, he says: "But as hard as Iraq was, he said, nothing was as tough as the Korengal. Unlike in Iraq, where the captains and lieutenants could let down their guard in a relatively safe, fortified operating base, swapping stories and ideas, here they had no one to talk to and were almost as vulnerable to enemy fire inside the wire as out..."

This is a brutal story. This is an area that the Afghani gov't has all but written off, due to it's geographical isolated region and the villagers and elders being largely Taliban -

This is an area you don't read about when you hear Gates and others talking about sending extra troops = this is an area you don't hear even mentioned by Gates or DOD.

But our troops are there - and they deserve not to be forgotten...

Do yourself a favor = read the whole story

If Gates or anyone else in the DOD was to speak directly about every hard place that US troops are currently at work in Distributed Operation type environments, they’d have to spend several dozen hours listing places and events. And the list would be obsolete before the presentation could even begin.

Just because they’re not on the evening news does not mean they’ve been forgotten, except by those who’s entire reality is formed by the evening news.

These docs are USMC centric but the DO operational model is getting widely used by all combat branches.

http://www.mcwl.usmc.mil/SV/DO%20FAQs%2016%20Mar%2005.pdf

http://www.mcwl.usmc.mil/SV/SV_DO.cfm

Small unit detachments operating in dispersed nodes is how things are being done and how it’s going to be done in much of the fighting we’re going to see in the foreseeable future.

Something that definitely needs to be taken care of, though, is this continued mistaken concept that personnel of a non-uniformed force are “civilians” and any part of “innocent” when they conduct support operations, either as intel gatherers, communicators or logistics operators, be they young, old or female. If they’re assisting the enemy, their proper designation is as targets.

For so long as we let ourselves get played by such, we’ll continue to get punked by such.

The problem here is one that has continued since the Korean War...we are not prepared to fight an enemy that uses maneuver, fieldcraft, suprise, and psychology with a decentralized command/control, instead of firepower and attrition with a centralized command/control. In short, after 50+ years, we are still not prepared to fight those who use guerilla-style tactics.

For some reason, we still seem to think that the technology bought from defense contractors will make-up for shortcomings in training and skill among our troops. The problem is, our troops (specifically the NCOs) are too wrapped-up in training the troops how to use and maintain their gear rather than how to out-maneuver and out-think the enemy.

When I was an infanty squad leader, I would have loved nothing more than to take my squad out to the nearby woods and train on our own. But no, there were too many bereaucratic tasks to be done (endless details, paperwork, etc), and someone up the chain-of-command would have frowned on the idea; and God forbid that we would ever decide to come up with out own solutions to tactical challenges, because we would still be forced to fight the same way we have over a half-century ago.

I just got my copy of the NY Slimes Magazine -

The article itself is decent, considering - but the lines the NY Slimes chose for the cover of the mag. have me seeing red. They WILL be hearing from me.

I realize they sent the writer out to get a hit piece, as the writer says, the question going in was "Why are so many civilians getting killed."

It seems, in reading her piece, that after being with the troops, getting to know them, seeing the battles, the blood and deaths up close and personal, witnessed how the Taliban operate, she found the answer - tho' not the one the Slimes wanted. The civilians get killed because the Taliban deliberately put them in harms way - so that their allies, like the NYSlimes can rush to their aid.

But the writer has no say in the cut lines - the editors reserve that 'right'

The editors had to comb through and dig deep to get the four derogatory quotes they put on the cover - and bypassed the pro-troops and anti-Taliban quotes - not including even one.

Their bias is showing - but when did it not?

Their chickens will come home to roost one day...in the meantime, let's see it they have to guts to print the 'letter to the editor' they will be getting from me.

And I hope they get deluged with letters letting them know just what scum we think they are...

They are still trying to whip up another Viet Nam era anti-troops 'surge' = we need to let them know it isn't going to happen...