And let slip the hounds of hell:
U.S. Marines in helicopters and Humvees flooded into a Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan’s most violent province early Tuesday in the first major American operation in the region in years.
Several hundred Marines pushed into the town of Garmser in predawn light, stretching NATO’s presence into an area littered with poppy fields and classified as Taliban territory.
U.S. commanders say Taliban fighters have been expecting an assault and have been setting up improvised explosive devices in response.
The Corps has been after this mission for over a year, and the 24th MEU is well-blooded after three deployments to Iraq. Of course, their adversaries have been fighting among themselves for nearly 30 years – all the stupid ones are already dead.
“When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.” — Oscar Wilde
Nice Wilde quote…and also I think from The Importance of Being Earnest: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Our guys aren’t fighting for better Pita bread or lower price for barrel of oil regardless of the chatterers.
Greetings:
Back in my Army days, my favorite platoon sergeant told me the following:
There’s a statue of an infantryman with his back pack and bayoneted weapon in the infantry training center at Fort Dix, NJ. The name of the statue is “The Ultimate Weapon.” In this business, you don’t have nothin’ till some 20 year old with a long rifle tells you you have it.