I have a bad feeling about this:

Remote camp is Marines' key toehold in Afghanistan
By Gretel C. Kovach, UNION-TRIBUNE
Originally published August 21, 2010 at 6:23 p.m., updated August 21, 2010 at 7:29 p.m.

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan — Dust billows from the roads of this military base at all hours, during sun-baked desert days and hot windy nights.

The unremitting traffic of mine-resistant vehicles filled with riflemen, semitrailer “jingle trucks” loaded with supplies and the cranes and bulldozers of Navy Seabee engineers is transforming this remote encampment into a semi-permanent city.

The collection of vinyl tents, electricity generators and concrete blast walls known as Camp Leatherneck serves as the main base of operations for the roughly 20,000 U.S. Marines — half of them from Camp Pendleton’s 1st Marine Expeditionary Force — spread along the Helmand River valley in southern Afghanistan.

U.S. and NATO flags are planted here in the country’s deadliest area for international troops, in the cradle of the Taliban and poppy fields that supply about 90 percent of the world’s opium.

Maj. Gen. Richard Mills took command of the force in April, as the surge of troops ordered by President Barack Obama doubled the size of the Marine contingent. In mid-June, Mills also was tapped to lead a newly formed regional command of NATO troops in the southwestern provinces of Helmand and Nimruz.



unhappycamper comment: The Afghans do not take kindly to semi-permanent or permanent occupation bases. Ask the British or the Soviets.

Normally, they prepare and train and ready with orders coming 5 to 6 mos in advance. The current deployment orders gives them less than 3mos. He still hadn't gotten his deployment papers.. only that they were heading out (previously, it appeared as if his unit wouldn't be deployed for anywhere, let alone the Southern province of Afghanistan. And he and his wife just had a new baby last week. He'll miss the entire first year. AND for what? No one knows what they are doing wasting time, money, resources, and most importantly resources over there. It isn't making us any safer from terrorists.. Shoot, the homegrown kooks worry more currently.