From The Sandpit..

OFF THE WIRE
THANK YOU WILL...

From The Sandpit...

A very interesting read, a Marine's View of what is really going on. This
young man is articulate and has a flare for colorful language, and
descriptive prose, Scorpions, Chiggers & Sand Fleas. It's a great letter,
a must read for every American ci

From a Recon Marine in Afghanistan:
From the Sand Pit

It's freezing here. I'm sitting on hard cold dirt between rocks and shrubs
at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains, along the Dar'yoi Pamir River,
watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my
friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.
I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen seconds to
avoid another scorpion sting. I've actually given up battling the chiggers
and sand fleas, but the scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like
a bastard. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid, but God bless the
Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack. The one truth the Taliban
cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means
they have to eat food and drink water. That requires couriers and that's
where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy.
I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities,
type the info into the hand held, and shoot the coordinates up to the
satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware. We
bash some heads for a while, and then I track and record the new movement.
It's all about intelligence. We haven't even brought in the snipers yet.
These scurrying rats have no idea what they're in for. We are but days away
from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin. But
you know me; I'm a romantic. I've said it before and I'll say it again:
This country blows, man. It's not even a country. There are no roads,
there's no infrastructure, there's no government. This is an inhospitable,
rock-pit shit-hole ruled by eleventh century warring tribes. There are no
jobs here like we know jobs. Afghanistan offers only two ways for a man to
support his family, join the opium trade or join the army. That's it.
Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp
and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose
with stomach flu, if that's your idea of a party. But the smell alone of
those 'tent cities of the walking dead' is enough to hurl you into the poppy
fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day. I've been
living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks, and Turkmen and even a couple of
Pashtu's, for over a month-and-a-half now, and this much I can say for sure:
These guys, are Huns, actual, living Huns. They LIVE to fight. It's what
they do. It's ALL they do. They have no respect for anything; not for
themselves, their families, or for each other. They claw at one another as
a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their
five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Just
Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other's
barbarism. Cavemen with AK-47's. Then again, maybe I'm just a cranky young
bastard.
I'm freezing my ass off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer is running
out of juice, and I can't recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours.
Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write
a letter to CNN and tell Wolf and Anderson and that awful, sneering, pompous
Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban "smart". They are not smart. I
suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is
"cunning". The Taliban are cunning, like jackals, hyenas, and wolverines.
They are sneaky and ruthless, and when confronted, they are cowardly. They
are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything
else.
Smart? Bullshit! Yeah, they're real smart, Most can't read, but they've
spent their entire lives listening to Imams telling them about only one book
(and not a very good one, as books go). They consider hygiene and indoor
plumbing to be products of the devil. They're still trying to figuring out
how to work a Bic lighter. Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his
quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen.
Eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it. OK,
enough. Snuffle will be up soon, so I have to get back to my hole.
Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice, but I'm good at it.
Please, I tell you and my fellow Americans to turn off the TV sets and move
on with your lives. The story line you are getting from CNN and other news
agencies is utter bullshit and designed not to deliver truth but rather to
keep you glued to the screen so you will watch the next commercial. We've
got this one under control. The worst thing you guys can do right now is
sit around analyzing what we're doing over here. You have no idea what
we're doing, and you really don't want to know. We are your military, and
we are only doing what you sent us here to do.

From a Jack Recon Marine in Afghanistan, Semper Fi.

"Freedom is not free, but the U.S. Marine Corps is paying most of your
share".