U.S. Marines secure a landing zone while an MV-22 Osprey departs before a meeting in Nimroz province, Afghanistan, March 13, 2013. The Marines are assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Tammy K. Hineline
Cyclical Nature Of Afghan Fighting May Mask Deeper Trends, Experts Warn -- McClatchy News
FORWARD OPERATING BASE APACHE, Afghanistan — On a blustery, subfreezing night in a sandbagged guard tower, Army Spc. Anthony Ross, 24, of Carson, Calif., twisted and spun in a brief dance. Sometimes Ross does push-ups on guard duty to stay alert, sometimes he dances.
His fellow boredom-fighter for the evening, Sgt. Ulisses Monteoncruz, 21, of Los Angeles, looked up, then went back to the tedium of scanning the rolling, muddy terrain behind the base through a night-vision device that rendered it in shades of gray.
Guard-tower duty is seldom exciting, and it’s particularly tedious in Afghanistan in winter, as hundreds of American soldiers in towers across the country that same night were painfully aware. And Ross knew that in a week or two, when he’d rotate off tower duty back to his regular job – patrolling the roads to clear them of improvised bombs – there probably wouldn’t be much action then, either.
For a little while.
Read more ....
My Comment: When U.S. forces were engaged in Vietnam in the 1960s they also thought that the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese were finished .... until the Tet offensive. Prudence and caution is definitely recommended during these 'lull' periods.
No comments:
Post a Comment