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Going back to Afghanistan no doubt.

Frightens me to death = "Musharraf last month suggested that Bajur and Afghanistan's neighboring Kunar province were possible hiding places for Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, because of their remoteness. "

We have small handfuls of troops in the Kunar...Osama considers the Korengal Valley in the Kunar Province as his home...it's where he trained he Twin Towers bombers - it's where he was caught on aerial camera 2 years ago, scooting down a mountain side into the valley for winter...why they sent in a 4 man seal team to get him. One wounded seal came out and all 16 aboard a rescue chopper were lost.

It's where BATTLE COMPANY of the 173rd Paratroopers are hunkered down like mountain goats in a hardscrabble bunker they chiseled out of the mountain side - the valley where they have, since getting there in June, been in over 500 firefights....with the Taliban who ooze into the Korengal from Pakistan like cockroaches thru' a seive - see aerial -

http://us.mg2.mail.yahoo.com/dc/launch?.rand=9d1kpfffq41t3

the white line is Pakistan - The Korengal is called "Taliban CentraL" and the fighting there this year is as heavy or heavier than the first year.

For those who didn't catch the special on BATTLE COMPANY featured on ABC NIGHTLINE last month, filmed by embeds with them for months - and/or if you haven't seen the article on them in the current (JAN 2008) issue of Vanity Fair - you can see both on links in the military Home Base web site for the 173rd - at SETAF (Southern European Task Force - Airborne)

http://www.setaf.army.mil/

Scroll down to

Go behind the front lines in Afghanistan

tissues recommended

and to Vanity Fair: Into the Valley of Death"

for the magazine article.

These troops are in the most dangerous part of the whole WOT - brutal. They never got the NATO troops they were promised. Add to that that the commander of the Marines want to pull out some Marines in Iraq that are no longer needed there and put them into Afghanistan where they ARE - but Gates, who - I wonder - is protecting his territorial butt and rule - says NO.

I haven't seen any stories that allude to any stepped up help for our troops in the Kunar, even knowing that the Pakistan military actions would send the hard core Taliban scooting back across the border - straight into our troops.

NOw would be the perfect time for the US and Pakistan to work together to catch the vermin in a pincher action - pop 'em when they head over the border, pop 'em if they try to scoot back - and those they don't get, can freeze in those mountains of the infamous Hindu Kish - some of the coldest mountains in the world.

Pray for our troops in that God forsaken valley = no running water, no PX, no buildings - just hooches they've cobbled together out of rock and wood...

They cold, they're tired of MRE's (and sometimes run out) they need to hear someone cares - they love hard candy, gum, beef jerky, peanut butter power bars, licorice, wool socks, wool blend long johns, hand/foot warmers- etc...there's a list... I think the magazine article gives an address boxes can be sent to =- and the post office gives a flat rate of $8.95 for shipping, no matter how heavy, in flat rate boxes they provide free.

WAtch the film. Read the article.

And when you settle down in your warm bed tonight, think of them - there for 15 months straight = under constant fire and suffering a KIA/wounded rate of 1 in 4! - and now in one of the fiercest winters - goes to -40 with lots of blizzards - in their hooches...

Pray for our Troops