The battle for COP Keating
Michelle Malkin has links to the profiles of the eight fallen of the battle last weekend in Afghanistan.
Many were fathers. All were patriots. They were stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado. They leave behind grieving wives, girlfriends, young children, family, and friends. Remember their names. Remember their heroism:
ABC News reports that the guys flying close air support for the battle were amazed at the situation when they arrived on station;
“When we first showed up and put our sensors on Keating, it was just kind of shock,” said Bardwell, 35, of Liman, Wyo., who piloted one of a swarm of Apaches that rushed the base’s defense. “All the amount of flames and the smoke and to see that amount of personnel running outside of their wire. It was really kind of shock.”
Lewallen added, “I’ve been on three deployments and I’ve never seen that large of a force attacking one static position.”
When he first arrived on the scene Saturday, Lewallen said he could see about 30 fighters just along the camp’s perimeter.
The number of attackers has been estimated from 100 to 200. Lewallen said he thought as many as 350 were involved in the assault.
Everyday, I am more in awe than the day before of the quality of young men and women who volunteer to put themselves in harm’s way for us. If this is what they do when they’re “disillusioned” imagine what they’ll accomplish when the Obama Administration gets off their collective ass and starts supporting them.
Category: Terror War
From the ABC article:
“The camp’s defenders, who endured small attacks several times a week, had been warned by villagers about 10 minutes before the onslaught began. While the camp prepared for a pending attack, soldiers were not alarmed by the warning because it was one of the almost daily stream of tips they received.”
There’s a lot to take in from that statement, mostly good. Nice to see at least some of the locals were on our side. Nice to see we had some intel. Nice to see the troops were caught completely unaware. Shocked that the attackers were able to breach the COP’s defenses even without the element of suprise. Saddened to know that once we leave, those intel assets will probably be strung up or worse.
“Nice to see the troops wereN’T caught completely unaware.”
“If this is what they do when they’re “disillusioned” imagine what they’ll accomplish when the Obama Administration gets off their collective ass and starts supporting them.”
Change that “when” to “if”.
The military might be strained, but their not broken as so many have said over the last few years. Hopefully, one day movies will be made to show the courage of these great young men and women currently serving. That way future generations will have true heroes to look up too as I did growing up watching movies about WWII.
I thank God every day for men like those. Every day.
God rest their souls.
Damn…they got a warning, and it could have been worse? As my friend Claire used to say, “Well, Fuck me, dead,” as in SOFB.
Jonn, how right you are with that last sentence about the October fool who’s just been awarded a nobel prize. (are you friggin’ kidding me? JC 1.0 got his after he was prez…this is just laughable.)
This is certainly a case where the old addage “better to have and not need than to need and not have” applies. The constant shoving aside of our Military’s needs for the men on the ground by this administration is disgusting. Have we not learned from our past. We need to play to win or we should take our ball and go home. The biggest need is more troops according to the CG installed by Obama. If they don’t listen to him who will they listen to? My biggest fear at this point is now with a Nobel Prize for his efforts at “World Peace” (What were they thinking??) Our president will sacrifice those needs in the interests of maintaining the image of World Peace Negotiator.
Woodman beat me to it: IF it ever actually supports them.
[…] It turns out I did read of this battle on an awesome milblog called This Ain’t Hell when Jonn reported on the battle in 2009. While national media was barely covering the battle in October of 2009, milbloggers at The […]