Sitrep(Situational Report)
From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan
No one in America knew what they had gotten into in Vietnam except the guys who were there. No one in America
knows what a hell hole Afghanistan is and what we are getting ourselves into...this Marine kind of gives you an idea.
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.
No take out and 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 them 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.
I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot
on his throat as I spit into his face and plunge my nickel-plated Bowie
knife through his frontal lobe. 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 **** 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, 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
From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan
No one in America knew what they had gotten into in Vietnam except the guys who were there. No one in America
knows what a hell hole Afghanistan is and what we are getting ourselves into...this Marine kind of gives you an idea.
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.
No take out and 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 them 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.
I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot
on his throat as I spit into his face and plunge my nickel-plated Bowie
knife through his frontal lobe. 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 **** 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, 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