Holding back the Horde- dicey outpost between Pech and the Korengal provides buffer

 Outpost Pride Rock- Above the U.S. base, way above, you can see a spine of rock between the Pech River and the mouth of the Korengal Valley flying an Afghan flag.

This collection of sand bags and bunkers topped by machine gun nests, now takes the brunt of bullets and rockets once aimed down at Michigan.

U.S. forces have hiked from COP Michigan up the steep hill in the dark to stay and fight with the Afghan (ANA) soldiers for the past six weeks.

There are few outposts more exposed to enemy attacks or more important to the security of the U.S. Infantry company below, but with the cordite of expended rounds and strange beauty of double bomb drops comes a lot of questions- how long should U.S. forces stay in the Pech Valley when the number of daily attacks and the idea of connecting the people to an Afghan Gov't. is still a distant reality?

"I've never seen an outpost like this," said Ssgt. Owens, on 2nd Platoon Charlie Company's first rotation up here. "The living conditions, the lack of protection...We need somebody up here, but we need to think about fortifying it more, and they will, but right now we feel very exposed."

(Photo: 2nd Platoon C Co. 1-327th soldiers sleep in between the bunkers and sometimes under the gun turrets.)

Five Days Up Top
The dark mass of a Chinook with electricity in its blades hovered some twenty feet over the top to sling water, ammunition and a few cases of Rip Its down to the OP, along with blasting tons of sand into everything.  What they need is sand bags.  One of the previous sling loads dropped a net of sand bags too far down the saddle to safely retrieve.

The Afghan Soldiers sleep in the only thing resembling a structure.  The handful of U.S. guys on this rotation have been assigned their gun positions for the next six days.  There are few other places to move.  Their cots are a few feet away.  The have to pee in a bottle and toss it off the cliff to a burn pit below.  There's not much else- stay awake on guard, try to spot any mountain outcroppings that resemble fighting positions, provide over watch for patrols that go out of Michigan, shoot back, a lot, and call in an expended ammunition count afterward.

U.S. soldiers starting coming up here because the attacks got so bad during their first months at Michigan that it became more dangerous sitting on base than leaving it on patrol.  They say it makes a difference being up here, and it's palpable when the OP gets hit by a rockets on their first day.  Rockets that would normally be directed at the base.  Up here it feels like any year in the nine year war.  That the U.S. might go back into the Korengal Valley, where they pulled out in May, or that this sliver of guns and bunkers is just a buffer until higher command decides to leave these mountain valleys altogether.

The Afghan Soldiers on Pride Rock- diminutive guys who pass around a banjo made of a plastic machine gun drum, and a burly one with a big beard and an eye scar dubbed Rambo.  Some of the Afghan Soldiers (ANA) say they stay atop for months at a time.  They say they like the fresh air and sing karaoke songs into the night, smoking Pine cigarettes under the stars.  They cooked hearty rice and goat on tin plates in celebration of Eid (the end of month-long Ramadan observance) which they shared with the Americans.  They constantly borrowed U.S.scopes and night vision equipment, but not just to pose for cell phone pictures with.  The ANA know if they get captured by a Talib, their heads will probably get cut off quicker than the Americans.  And they love to shoot.

Just Waiting to Get Hit
Between pulling hours of scanning the mountainsides for an unseen enemy, soldiers from 2nd Platoon Charlie Co. crash without taking off their boots.  Some wrap their faces in Afghan scarves their not allowed to wear below.  This is their first rotation up here, but not anywhere near the first time they've been shot at in these mountains.  They wake up on the first crack of incoming fire.

"Yesterday it was all day," Spc. Michael Bussiere of Virginia Beach said. "The day before it was 10:18 am."  Bussiere is a forward observer who coordinates mortar and artillery fire. He looks at his watch.  It's close to 10 a.m.  The Taliban are creatures of habit.  But they don't shoot until late afternoon.

"It'd be peaceful if it didn't have that firing squad feel to it," Bussiere said.  Yesterday he tells me he was able to call in mortars to shake and bake (explosive mortars followed by white phosphorus that can burn for hours) some guys moving into position on the closest ridge line. "I'm pretty sure we got those guys," Bussiere said excitedly.  In the afternoon, an IED went off on a foot trail as the ANA were patrolling through Kandigal village at the base of the mountain.  Rambo ran down wildly spraying a PKM machine gun towards the village.  He returned up top, sobered and carrying a block of ice.

"Welcome to the dragon's butt hole," Spc. Bill Wilder of Portsmouth, 24, NH said, thinking up yet another name for the Korengal/Pech intersection of chaos.  Wilder explained they shoot into the valley, tickle the butt hole and every once and a while the dragon rears its head back at them.

That afternoon it was the crack of rifle fire over the narrow bunker with the heavy machine gun on top.  Spc. Wilder jumps on the .50 cal and churns explosive bullets at the closest mountainside, called Ranger Rock. He's not exactly sure where it's coming from.  No one is.  He ducks after a second volley of rounds come in.   Ssgt. Owens is yelling on the radio, "Where's it coming from!"

(Photo: Returning fire in the direction of Ranger Rock.)

The ANA point to Ranger Rock.  More .50 cal lead is poured in that direction.  Spc. Bussiere calls for mortars, then 155 artillery from Camp Blessing.  The last of the shells air burst white phosphorous that looks like delicate jelly fish trailing white tentacles.  Wilder claims he saw a wounded guy inching over the ridge, but knew he couldn't hit him. "You kill enough people, it becomes unimportant to get one more," he said ruefully, "besides I couldn't have hit him."

Several days later a U.S. convoy got hit by enemy rockets as it was coming down the Pech road just West of Michigan.  Wilder spotted three guys with RPGs running into the cornfield just after the attack.  The enemy were out of range except for a sniper rifle, and quickly ran towards the village where they couldn't be mortared.  The convoy was later hit again on its way back towards Michigan.  Return fire echos through out the valley.

"You saw this morning the Honcho element get ambushed," Spc. Sam Nelly said. "They got out of that unscathed, then they got ambushed on their way back through.  To see an ambush like that with people coming out of the field..." It was out of the ordinary, kind of.

The concentration it takes to constantly scan the mountains and call down or respond to radio reports doesn't leave much time for sleep. "I got up at 2 a.m., did guard until 7:45, slept til about 9 when we started taking pop shots," Spc. Neely of Tennessee said. "We fired, then I laid back down and they started shooting at us again.  It felt like it was coming through the room.  It's 14:00, I've gotten about an hour and 30 minutes of sleep."

After continued sniper fire that afternoon,  the soldiers got approval to fire a Javelin missile at a build up of rocks they thought might be a fighting position.  "I'm going to fire a sports car at them," Wilder said, referring to the cost of the Javelin.  But the snipering continued.  Capt. Dakota Steedsman decided to drop bombs on Ranger Rock.

The air is briefly filled with the concussion.  Soldiers duck behind Hesco barriers to avoid any shrapnel. "The 2,000 pound bomb drop.  Everyone gets excited about that.  It's a moral booster, seeing as we couldn't find that a____," Neely said.

(Photo: Spc. Wilder scans to the North where they took pop shots.  Usually it comes from the Korengal side to the South.)

Previous platoons have taken casualties on the OP, including a platoon leader shot through the jaw and evacuated by helicopter.  There's not enough soldiers to conduct patrols from here, and it would be highly unsafe to do so.  On the company-sized raid into Omar, a hamlet of staggered houses visible from the OP just before the first switch back into the Korengal,  two soldiers were wounded and 19 Taliban were reportedly killed.

"We surprised them in the village, they scuttled out trying to get up into the mountains," Delta Co. Commander Capt. Dakota Steedsman said of the assault last week. More than one soldier on the Omar mission said they heard the Taliban radio to each other- "The Americans have us surrounded, and the villagers won't help us." They loved repeating that story.

"When they told us we were going into Omar and it was really, really dangerous.  They told us we'd take casualties.  It was the first time I finally thought I could die," Spc. Bussiere said.

(Photo: Rips and Dip help keep guys awake.  Soldiers spend most of their time in the crow's nest scanning.)

I asked Bussiere if he thought they were making a difference.  He paused.  "The OP makes a difference, pushing into Omar mission makes a difference, but traveling back and forth along these villages here and waiting for them to attack us doesn't' because we're doing things their way way.  At least we put up an OP and actively look for them, we go and search in Omar, that makes a difference. ...."

The anecdotes heard on the OP aren't just little stories of how crazy the Afghans are.  They underline certain absurdities, despite U.S. efforts here. "We bought wood from the bazaar to reinforce our positions on Michigan.  The wood they sold us had graffiti from the old Korengal OP," Ssgt. Owens said. "They just went and sold our wood back to us."

(Photo: PFC Juan Espinoza, 19, of California (left) fires his M4 while Spc. Bill Wilder crouches down from incoming fire. "There's a line between cowardice and being smart," he said. "When it comes down to it, everybody gets down when we get shot at.")

"We always get called out  to look for Super B, the Taliban spotter.  We don't know what he looks like.  They give us a 200 meter grid (based on electronic tracking equipment).  One grid said he was in the bathroom of the COP," said Sgt. Kelly O'Donnell of Atlanta.

(Photo: PFC Mark Metzner, 28, of Colorado, holds up his helmet on a stick to see if he can draw the sniper out.)

The last evening 2nd Platoon spent on the OP, a patrol from Michigan moved through the Kandigal Bazaar searching for reports of an IED.  They found it with a loud explosion.  The lead truck just missed the detonation and a four foot wide blast hole.  Capt. Steedsman decided to close down the bazaar through Sept. 18th elections. "The people have to decide to start cooperating with us," he said.  It may be the first time the Company has tried the stick approach with the locals.  Soldiers say there's been way too many carrots.  Either way, Kunar is historically very dangerous during elections.

(Photo: Spc. Wilder mans the .50 Cal with Sgt. O'Donnell spotting behind.)

It's questionable, but the OP probably takes more fire now precisely because U.S. soldiers are there.  It's emblematic of the entire Pech Valley. "It could be that if we weren't here (in the Pech), there wouldn't be any fighting. That by us being here, trying to help the people out, is making it worse.  I'm not sure," Capt. Steedsman said.

Nothing feels better than when they know they got some fighters who were shooting at them.  There's little else the Pech Valley offers in rewards.  But in the back of soldiers' minds is the knowledge that,  "They say, It don't hurt them (the enemy) to lose anybody.  What hurts them is to lose equipment (like the dozens of recoil-less rounds captured in Omar).  They always can put bodies up here." Ssgt. Owens said.

(ANA soldier strumming a makeshift guitar on OP.)

By the sixth evening on the OP everybody is hoping the next rotation will not be delayed by the IED blast in the bazaar.  The replacements from Delta Co. arrive after midnight, exhausted from humping thousands of extra rounds and a small puppy for a mascot.  We begin climbing down, mostly skidding on our behinds.  2nd Platoon will be back in another few weeks.

"We need to be here," O'Donnell said. "Having us up here kind of keeps them contained in the Korengal.  The hardest part is not knowing when the next attack is coming.  These dudes stay and fight their ground.  They want us out.  They're not afraid to die... We have a job to do, the problem is there's always going to be someone to shoot at us.  It's just a vicious cycle."