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Afghanistan Journal:
A Reporter At War
Life and death near Pakistan
By KEITH KLUWE
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS-JOURNAL
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (May 26, 2003) — I’ve been living rather primitive for the last month or so. I was at one of the forward bases – safe houses – near the Pakistani border where the only way to call home is by (satellite) phone, there is no such thing as the Internet and rocket attacks are a nightly occurrence.
I’ve been in and out of the field since we´ve been here on most every mission the 82nd Airborne Division has run in the southern half of Afghanistan.
I now realize how well I’ve been living at dusty, dirty Kandahar. There’s nothing like coming in from the field and taking off your boots, ignoring the rules and taking a long hot shower, then sitting down at a real table to a meal that isn´t an MRE (Meals Ready to Eat).
One of the safe houses looks like the Alamo, mud walls two-stories high sitting in a valley surrounded on three sides by mountains a few kilometers away. The only resupply is by helicopters, which come once a week, twice if we are lucky.
 A paratrooper from 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment hugs another paratrooper from his unit during a memorial serice for Private Jerod Dennis, who was killed in an engagement near the Pakistani border. (Photo: News-Journal/Keith Kluwe) |
The top corners have sand-bag fighting positions and there is a huge bunker and soldiers with machine guns you have to get past to get inside the compound. There is a courtyard in the middle of the fortress where we had picnic tables for eating and playing cards and parking for our Hummer gun-trucks.
Everyone lives in real buildings instead of tents, which is kind of comforting. Hopefully, if the anti-coalition forces actually launch rockets that land near us, the thick mud walls will stop the shrapnel. Rocket attacks are an almost nightly occurrence. So far we´ve been lucky, no rockets have landed near enough to the safe house to cause a real threat. I hope it stays that way. You wouldn´t have a chance if a 107mm rocket landed on top of you.
The rockets are electrically fired. The bad guys lean them up against rocks or lay them between two sticks like a bi-pod and leave them attached to a battery and timer. They are long gone by the time the rockets launch.
Coalition forces wait out the rocket attacks in bunkers during the night-time attacks. During the few day-time attacks the Quick Reaction Force jumps into their gun-trucks armed with .50 caliber machine guns and MK-19 40mm grenade machine guns and head out to try and find the bad guys.
Two days after I left the safe house a group of men were seen in an area where rockets had been launched in the past. The Quick Reaction Force investigated and got into one of the largest fire fights I can remember. Six Americans and one Afghan Militia soldier were wounded.
Private Jerod Dennis from 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment and Airman 1st Class Raymond Losano from the 14th Air Support Operations Squadron were killed during the engagement.
One of the wounded, the platoon sergeant I climbed mountains with during Operation Mongoose, is still in the hospital. He’s going to live, but he has a long way to go in his recovery. He was the last person I spoke to before I got into the truck that was going to take me to the helicopter landing zone. I told him I´d see him when he got back to Kandahar and to keep his head down because it was dangerous up here.
I know he was hit in the upper chest and face, but he may have been hit elsewhere, too. I was told by a friend of mine that he refused to get evacuated and kept fighting until the enemy broke contact. Another friend of mine was the physician’s assistant that worked on him back at the safe house. The PA said his body armor saved him and that he is lucky to be alive.
Keith A. Kluwe
109th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
Kandahar Air Base, Afghanistan
Special Report: TERRORISM AND AMERICA |  |