OK, that is a very interesting take on this situation by someone who was there, enough so that I’m going to ping my original ping list to your post.
See “To 44” at the bottom of this post, folks.
Now, regarding #1, given a temporary halt and the Brit 1-star in the area of operations, who even you seem to admit was a liability, I can see why Yon may have gotten the wrong idea.
I agree with you. IDF and CAS are notoriously (in general) difficult to get the OK for, and I even repeated, via Facebook, Yon's article. Then a buddy of mine who was just over there as an artillery officer cleared up the confusion. Yon was parroting the very limited view of a young private instead of verifying through people higher up the chain exactly what was happening.
I now know to be very skeptical of Yon's writings, and his championing of COL Tunnell further cements that in my mind.
Thank you for pinging me to this. I really haven’t discussed things in Afghanistan much with my son, but I get a sense that it’s very hard to pin down, based on where a person is located in Afghanistan, and their command structure (and the personnel within in it). That and he’s in the Marines, but I have a feeling he’d very much agree with what Future Snake Eater had to say about it. He is happy with his officers, and I thank God for that.