“It doesn’t get better” was the unofficial motto of the last unit that manned Command Outpost Keating at the very eastern edge of Afghanistan, where the Hindu Kush broods over a frontier land that is steeped in thousands of years of feud and warfare. The COP was surrounded by steep, rugged slopes that reminds me of some of the terrain in the Angeles National Forest and the population was 90 percent hostile to U.S. presence.
The soldiers of Bravo Troop, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division knew perfectly well that they were in the most tactically fucked-up place in Afghanistan. They knew “it doesn’t get better” — and it got a hell of a lot worse.
My current audiobook listen in the newspaper van is “Red Platoon,” a memoir of the defense of that wretched outpost in October 2009, when it was attacked by some 300-400 Taliban.
From the publisher:
In 2009, Clinton Romesha of Red Platoon and the rest of the Black Knight Troop were preparing to shut down Command Outpost (COP) Keating, the most remote and inaccessible in a string of bases built by the US military in Nuristan and Kunar in the hope of preventing Taliban insurgents from moving freely back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Three years after its construction, the army was finally ready to concede what the men on the ground had known immediately: it was simply too isolated and too dangerous to defend.
On October 3, 2009, after years of constant smaller attacks, the Taliban finally decided to throw everything they had at Keating. The ensuing fourteen-hour battle — and eventual victory — cost eight men their lives.
Staff Sgt. Romesha was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism in the engagement.
Staff Sgt. Clinton Romesha — MOH recipient and author of “Red Platoon.”
Take a look at the photos and video of COP Keating and it’s blindingly obvious that the place was a tactical nightmare — totally dominated by the surrounding terrain. WTF was the command in Afghanistan thinking? How could you put soldiers into such a vulnerable position — for no apparent strategic or tactical reason?
Romesha’s book is compelling. He is at pains to relate that the men who fought this battle, the men who gave their lives trying to save their comrades, were not saints or steely-eyed elite warriors. They were guys who were in a tough spot and rose to the occasion. Hats off to him and his “extraordinarily ordinary” comrades, who fought so desperately out on the edge of the Empire.
Everyone in the neighborhood could fire down on COP Keating. They call this “adverse terrain.” No shit, really?
Rick Schwertfeger says
We regularly are told that the U.S. military is the best in the world. And I have no reasons whatsoever to doubt the training, commitment, competence and courage of the American fighting men and women. But the following sentence echos in my mind: “WTF was the command in Afghanistan thinking? How could you put soldiers into such a vulnerable position — for no apparent strategic or tactical reason?” Indeed.
Paul McNamee says
“Adverse terrain.”
Like Washington looking down from Dorchester Heights on the Brits ships in Boston Harbor with the artillery from Ticonderoga.
JimC says
Right.
john roberts says
Dienbienphu.
JimC says
Exactly analogous.