Soldiers Recount Deadly Attack On Afghanistan Outpost That Killed Nine Of Their Comrades

Spc. Tyler Stafford, 23, a soldier from Company C, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne), recounts the hours-long fight that killed nine of his comrades as he recuperates at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Ben Bloker / Stripes

From Stars And Stripes

Everything was on fire. The trucks. The bazaar. The grass.

It looked surreal. It looked like a movie.

That was what Spc. Tyler Stafford remembered thinking as he stepped onto the medical evacuation helicopter. The 23-year-old soldier would have been loaded onto the bird, but the poncho that was hastily employed as his stretcher broke. His body speckled with grenade and RPG shrapnel, the Vicenza, Italy, infantryman walked the last few feet to the waiting Black Hawk.

That was Sunday morning in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province. At a forward operating base — maybe as big as a football field — established just a few days prior.

Outnumbered but not outgunned, a platoon-plus element of soldiers with 2nd Platoon, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne), 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team accompanied by Afghan soldiers engaged in a fistfight of a firefight.

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More News And Details On The Fight In Kunar Province:

Commander: Media reports on Afghanistan outpost battle were exaggerated -- Stars And Stripes
First-hand account of heroic outpost defense in Afghanistan -- American Thinker
Belmont Club looks at the propaganda implications if the outpost was wiped out.
Taliban launch deadly attack on a combat outpost in Afghanistan's Nuristan province -- Long War Journal

This Taliban video gives an indication of how hard it is to defend outposts


My Comment: If two or more attacks of this magnitude happen again this summer, this will the clearest indication that a major escalation on the war in Afghanistan is occurring. But what happened in a Kunar outpost I think is indicative of how vulnerable other outposts are now in, and as a result coalition forces are not taking counter measures.

For example ..... when Canadian troops arrived in the south of Afghanistan they had outposts that were 80 miles away from the main base in Kandahar. Now the distance is 40 miles.