Spring Brings More than Showers....

The Apache is an intepid hunter.  Vigilant, watchful, lightning fast, they travels in pairs, and are deadly.  And like their namesake, they roam the desert and the mountains they rule protecting their tribe.  Their "arrows" pack a punch, and their smoke signals can bring help in a big hurry.

For the soldiers posted outside the wire, these guardian angels can be the difference.  Much of this war is being waged by small groups of soldiers up close and personal.  Outside of Forward Operating Base Tarin Kowt, one of the bases held by the 101st Airborne and a Special Forces detachment, our soldiers try to assist the children of the adjacent villages get to the new school that was built by the Afghan government with US dollars.  But the kids won't go.  Their parents won't allow it.  They've been warned. Two special forces soldiers were killed last week running escort this way.  So the school is empty, and the teachers hide.  The face of the Taliban reveals itself in shades of evil that are hard to understand in our culture. 

You can see in their eyes the contempt and hatred, and even more...the understanding that soon we will be gone, like all the others before us, and their tribal way of life will continue.  There is a hardiness and resilience in the good people of this land.  Nothing comes easy here.  Farming the deserts of the southern part of the country the way our pioneers did it....by hand.  They can't afford tractors or fuel.  The power grid exists only in the larger province capitals.  The whole family works.  No time for school, even if you were naive enough to believe that your family could survive the decision to risk it.  It's not just the soldiers who suffer from the IED's that litter the roads, the trails, the fields...they even plant small ones in the mud walls of the homes that lines the dirt streets.  Just enough to take off legs...or worse.  And they know that killing children sends the message at a volume that all can understand.  It is deafening, and it works.

The Warlords are powerful.  They control the roads, the highways, the movement of food and water, and have uncontested dominion over their villages......unless the Marines or the Army step in.  The young of our land, led by the best trained, best conditioned NCO's and Officers we have probably ever had, walk these villages.  Sentinels...protectors....door kickers when they have to be....and life takers when given no other choice.  I hope you all know a soldier that's been here.  And I hope you'll get a chance to listen to them...to witness the sadness and the pain in their hearts that is a true reflection of the suffering they've seen,  the burden they bear, the losses they've endured ..that they refuse to let you see.  The containment for them must be unbearable.  Share your appreciation somehow.  They need to know that it means something.  I can tell you that it does.