Afghan Journal
Lifting the veil on conflict, culture and politics
from Photographers Blog:
38 days and 10 years in Afghanistan
By Erik de Castro
As I write this blog, I am on the 38th day of my current assignment to Afghanistan as an embedded journalist with U.S. military forces. I have been assigned here several times since 2001 to cover the war that is still going on 10 years after the al Qaeda attack on U.S. soil. Mullah Omar, popularly known as the one-eyed Taliban, was the first member of the Taliban I met back in 2001. He held press conferences almost daily at the Afghan embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan a few weeks before U.S. forces and its allies attacked Afghanistan to remove the Taliban government.
Ten years and several trips back to Afghanistan later, I still haven't seen a lot of Taliban fighters. My present assignment is the time I’ve experienced the most encounters between the combined U.S. and Afghan forces and the Taliban.
It is remarkable how the Afghan soldiers and Taliban fighters are more aggressive now. The insurgents, though they know their artillery is no match to that of the Americans, are daring enough to attack at every opportunity, be it with small arms, RPGs or, on occasions, IEDs and rockets. Most of the time, it is a “hit and run” kind of attack wherein they flee after firing some shots. Such eagerness, however, could cost lives.
from Photographers Blog:
Medevac! Medevac! Lifeline over Afghanistan
I had just reached the camp of the unit I would be embedded with at remote Forward Operating Base Ramrod in Afghanistan's Kandahar province.
As soon as I got off the military aircraft that took me there, I saw a helicopter with a red cross sign painted on it. I approached a crew doing a routine check on their aircraft and, after introducing myself, they explained the details of my embed and gave me some instructions. They pointed me to a section in the chopper where they said I should keep my body armor and helmet, which I have to put on when we flew.
Early morning on the second day of my embed with the “Dustoff” medical evacuation team of Task Force Shadow from 101st Airborne Division of the 101st Aviation Brigade, the sound of “Medevac! Medevac!” echoed on the two-way radio issued to me earlier.
Barely awake, I rushed out of the tent and saw everyone in a hurry. Remembering the briefing I had on the first day with the unit, I realized the urgency of the radio message. The Medevac team was rushing to the Black Hawk helicopter, including a female pilot who dashed from the container van shower room straight to the aircraft with water still dripping from her hair.
I was in a panic, worried that I wouldn’t make it, as I hurriedly put on socks and tied the strings of my boots while recalling instructions from my briefing. In five minutes, or a maximum of seven, we had to be flying. I ran inside the tent to grab my cameras and gear and then sprinted to the chopper. Sure enough, as soon as I was done putting on my flak jacket and helmet, we were up in the air.
Nice one. Thanks for taking us to the scene with your words and pictures.
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Afghan Journal Expert
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@Erik
Good work in catching the images of the conflict which the American warriors family are never going to forget in generations. Good work indeed.
However, as a journalist you did not learn that the local residents as you named them were TALIBANS.
It has been the destiny of Pashtuns, labeled by the yanks as talibans, to have the last encounter with Imperial forces of our times and to degrade them before they retire to oblivion. It is so sad that the USA had to fall into the same trap as the Brits and later the Soviets after them. During ten years the USA has lost the status f a super power, has gone broke and is unable to raise money for infrastructure reapirs at home and give employments to GI’s who suffered humiliation after humiliation by serving in the orient.
Rex Minor