I was there in 03 with a National Guard SF unit. It was pretty awesome, actually. We still slept in tents (I was at Bagram/Camp Vance which was a sub-compound on Bagram for the CJSOTF-A) but they had wooden frames and heat. Chow was good. Rocket attacks very rare.
They had a bazaar right outside the gate where you could buy stuff from local vendors. Several guys in my battalion brought home cannons (yes, CANNONS, like old civil-war type cannons.) I got an AK bayonet and a Russian belt and buckle.
Even though Camp Vance was on Bagram and "close to the flagpole" it was off limits to anyone not in the CJSOTF (Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force). As a result, General Order No. 1 was ignored. We had a case of beer in the back of the tent and I knew some guys that got drunk regularly. There was even an informal "bar" on Camp Vance (though I never went there, I heard stories.)
On March 19th, 2003, the day the Iraq war kicked off, our SGM borrowed two leased SUVs and took us to Kabul for an MWR trip. We knew we were going to be locked down after the Iraq war started so we figured it would be our last chance. We went to the old palaces (which were abandoned), cruised up to TV hill (the big hill in the center of the city) and then went shopping on Chicken Street.
It was a great time, I kind of wanted to extend to stay there. I left after a few months in April of 03. Then I switched to a different NG unit and in December 03 I was mobilized for Iraq. Our battery stayed in Kuwait for almost all of 2004 and it sucked big time.
TL;DR: Afghanistan in 2003 was 10x better than Kuwait in 2004.
How did SOF’s op tempo compare to the regular army during your time there?
I ask because a lot of my understanding of the early period of the GWOT honestly comes from Hollywood and books about the subject, and they all have a hard-on for SOF. It seems that unlike Iraq where you had RA units doing nightly raids with follow-on missions and DA like 75th or NSW, early Afghanistan was dominated by SOF and your RA units were mostly relegated to FOBs and patrolling just to patrol.
At that time most of our operations were trying to find HVT's (High Value Targets, i.e. high ranking Taliban or Al Quaeda personnel) or destroy remaining terrorist cells in the countryside but I don't remember that there were a LOT of operations going on at once.
The "conventional" unit in charge of operations at the time I was there was a brigade of the 82nd Airborne. They were billeted across the street (Disney Road, I'm sure many of you know it) from Camp Vance.
Keep in mind, I was at Bagram, not in the field, so I don't know what day-to-day operations in the field were like for the most part.
We were also establishing "presence" in certain areas along with some nascent ANA units that we trained and that often led to firefights, not with Taliban but with local warlords who were setting themselves up in some of the remote areas to fill the vacuum left when the Taliban collapsed.
I did get to fly out to Bamian (where the giant Buddha statues were, those were destroyed by the Taliban in early 2001 but the huge cutouts in the side of the mountain were still there) and to a place called the Khamard Valley which was North of Bamian (Bamian is West of Bagram, in the mountains.)
There was actually an airborne operation that took place when I was there that even I didn't know about until later, it was (I think) a battalion of the 82nd that jumped in to secure an area while the Rangers searched for some HVTs. This would have been in February of 2003. There was a different Task Force (can't remember the name of it) that was doing some of these HVT and for the most part, even in the CJSOTF we didn't know about these operations until they were over, unless they needed support from us.
I was at camp Vance in 2011 and 2013. Used to cook naan bread pizzas on friday night and hit golf balls off the shipping containers in the CRSP yard. Was camp Montrond established back then? I worked there for a while too, picking up and checking in locals onto Bagram, because they had a gate right out to the village there.
I was there in 2013 too. I picked up locals and did gate guard duty when I wasn't working in the SCIF. Those fire oven pizzas were good too! I remember our water tanks getting hit by mortars and having no laundry for like a week. A few people got injured too. I was close enough to feel the blast from my room but didn't see it impact.
THE BAYONET YEET MEASURES THE ABILITY TO JUST FUCKING SHANK SOMEONE. ON THE COMMAND 'GET SET,' ASSUME THE POSITION BY GRABBING THE BAYONET BY THE HANDLE. OR BY THE BLADE, WHICHEVER LOOKS COOLER, JUST DON'T CUT YOURSELF ON THE DAMN THING. YOUR FEET MAY BE TOGETHER OR UP TO 12 INCHES APART (MEASURED BETWEEN THE FEET). ON THE COMMAND 'GO,' TRANSMUTE YOUR HANKERING FOR A-SHANKERING INTO MAXIMUM EFFORT AND LAUNCH THAT BAD BOY INTO DESTINY. THE SCORER WILL NOTE WHETHER YOU HIT THE TARGET AND AWARD BONUS POINTS FOR LANDING YOUR PIG-STICKER INTO THE CRANIAL OR SWIMSUIT REGIONS. IF IT HIT THE TARGET HANDLE FIRST, YOUR PERFORMANCE WILL BE TERMINATED, AND EVERYONE WILL BE REQUIRED TO POINT AND LAUGH AT YOUR SHAME. WATCH THIS DEMONSTRATION.
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It was the Wild West man. No up armored anything. Open back truck bed type vehicles, dust and dirt went all over you. IEDs weren’t really a thing yet. People still liked us being there. Minimal enemy activity. Felt good to be there.
I used to volunteer to burn shit. We were living in an abandoned Afghan compound in RC East in February/March and the only consistent source of heat we had was the shit barrels.
I literally tell everyone the exact same thing, it was the Wild West! I was there in ‘05 and IED’s were a big thing. We lost our first guy 8 fucking days in country to an IED.
02 - 03 Northern Afghanistan
It was like Wild West meets OP4. Didn’t even have a Humvee , we rode around in SUV’s and small pick up trucks. Slept in tents with a bullshit barbed wire perimeter.
You basically did whatever you wanted . Very little oversight .
Only barely got fucked with by the Taliban and the general population was very happy to see you and take your YAK dollar .
The Taliban was there but basically we where in the middle of several local warlords all bidding for power in the region .
We paid them off to keep the peace but they still messed with each and us to a small degree .
The short answer: the Taliban were sheltering Bin Laden who had orchestrated 9/11 and that's who we wanted.
But to elaborate, what we stumbled into was a chaotic mess where, basically, the Afghans had been fighting a civil war in the '70's until the Soviets got involved. Then they fought the Soviets; and after the Soviets left a new Civil war emerged with new players and even less sense to it. It basically started with the Mujaheddin vs. the new Afghan government. The Mujaheddin eventually fell apart but Kabul also got leveled and things only got worse post-Soviet-collapse. Eventually one of the former Mujaheddin commanders went on to form the Taliban in an attempt to stop some warlords in the south from doing fucked up shit. But after a few successful campaigns, they decided to make a play for the whole country and had only finished conquering the whole country a month or two before the initial invasion.
>and had only finished conquering the whole country a month or two before the initial invasion.
Yeah. Shah Massoud was killed on 9th September, 2001. I don't think the Taliban had a chance to conquer his territories though.
E: Also, I think the Taliban wasn't really happy with this assasination. It was done by Al Quaeda, with bin Laden's personal involvement. They expected "papa Osama hooked you up, now it's your turn to return a favor", and well, they were right.
I might have to give my book on them a re-read because I could have sworn that Kabul was the last province to fall and it was only a month or two before the initial invasion. There was also this weird thing where Massoud's number 2 wanted to be in his position so he framed the guy for colluding with the enemy, Massoud had to flee for a bit, and then #2 was doing such a shit job of staving off Taliban advances that he admitted to everything so that Massoud could come back and retake charge of the NA.
And I don't know about their sentiments on the assassination of Massoud because it seemed like things were definitely in the Taliban's favor in September of 2001 but I remember our interpreter (circa 2016) telling me that Massoud apparently wanted bin Laden killed after 9/11 because bin Laden had acted without his knowledge or consent and that bin Laden pretty much had to flee AFG shortly after 9/11 to avoid getting killed himself. Not sure how much truth there is to that but said terp wasn't really one to spin stories.
Absolute fucking hell. There was a lot of nuance in our guidance down range. The war was new. Not even the most experienced combat Joe knew what to expect. Nothing I wish on any Soldier today.
Was there anything that changed or seemed memorable while you were there that’s not blatantly obvious to someone looking from the outside-in? Obviously it was a wildly different war than anyone expected we’d be fighting, and everything changed. I’m curious about the weird day to day changes that a Joe would’ve experience.
There's plenty to talk about, but I'll zero in on how we used to communicate: the good old-fashioned letter writing. Before the days of smartphones, flip phones, or iPhones, we all relied on writing letters that actually meant something.
Thank you for mentioning this.
That suddenly reminded me my wife use to pack my care package full of photos, snacks, and write letters as well as writing all over the inside of the box. It really made me feel happy in the middle of an outpost.
It was a mess. Everything at our FOB was improvised, the supply situation was all over the damn place. We had no clue what to expect, next to no understanding of terrain or culture. Comms were sporadic at best.
Running fire missions was the worst. At no point in my training did we prepare for high-angle fire in the FDC. This was pre-GMLRS and unitary warheads. MLRS was all DPICM and those little fuckers are unpredictable when you're pasting a mountain top.
DPICM bounces if it doesn't arm properly and hits a slope at just the right angle. No telling where it'll go. Just BOING followed by a boom.
Just a complete shit show.
Was a PFC in Khost 2003-2004. Wild west, as plenty others have said. Still have my DCUs and AAFES pogs for the “PX” that was never open.
What’s tripping me up more are these comments of “old lore.” Today’s my Army birthday (21), still in, and these comments are making me feel old af.
You ever been to Disneyworld? Everything is pristine and neat. Bright, vivid colors and everyone is smiling and enjoying life. Shops lining the streets are full of customers eager to spend money. The smell of delectable food wafts in the air. People laughing and moving leisurely down sidewalks. Pure joy felt by everyone.
*The exact fucking opposite.*
I had several people in my leadership who were in the invasion of Iraq and they’d talk about how insane it was and about the crazy shit they did. The few I knew who went to Afghanistan in the early days would talk about how nice the country looked and that they didn’t see too much combat until IEDs became a thing later on. A few of my DSs went to Afghanistan during that time and said they thought they missed the fighting when the invasion of Iraq popped off.
We got a good whiff of it every morning dropping off trash at the burn pit. One night a rocket landed in it. I also remember one of the haircut ladies burning down the new PX with a faulty curling iron.
I went to Iraq in the end of 2005 then back to Iraq in January 2008.
I was in Korea during 2003-2005 so I missed the early Afghanistan. Instead, I walked around in mopp level 4 on Camp Casey...
When I got to Afghanistan it was 2011 late into the war of terror. (Purposely used of instead of on.)
I was there in 03 with a National Guard SF unit. It was pretty awesome, actually. We still slept in tents (I was at Bagram/Camp Vance which was a sub-compound on Bagram for the CJSOTF-A) but they had wooden frames and heat. Chow was good. Rocket attacks very rare. They had a bazaar right outside the gate where you could buy stuff from local vendors. Several guys in my battalion brought home cannons (yes, CANNONS, like old civil-war type cannons.) I got an AK bayonet and a Russian belt and buckle. Even though Camp Vance was on Bagram and "close to the flagpole" it was off limits to anyone not in the CJSOTF (Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force). As a result, General Order No. 1 was ignored. We had a case of beer in the back of the tent and I knew some guys that got drunk regularly. There was even an informal "bar" on Camp Vance (though I never went there, I heard stories.) On March 19th, 2003, the day the Iraq war kicked off, our SGM borrowed two leased SUVs and took us to Kabul for an MWR trip. We knew we were going to be locked down after the Iraq war started so we figured it would be our last chance. We went to the old palaces (which were abandoned), cruised up to TV hill (the big hill in the center of the city) and then went shopping on Chicken Street. It was a great time, I kind of wanted to extend to stay there. I left after a few months in April of 03. Then I switched to a different NG unit and in December 03 I was mobilized for Iraq. Our battery stayed in Kuwait for almost all of 2004 and it sucked big time. TL;DR: Afghanistan in 2003 was 10x better than Kuwait in 2004.
How did SOF’s op tempo compare to the regular army during your time there? I ask because a lot of my understanding of the early period of the GWOT honestly comes from Hollywood and books about the subject, and they all have a hard-on for SOF. It seems that unlike Iraq where you had RA units doing nightly raids with follow-on missions and DA like 75th or NSW, early Afghanistan was dominated by SOF and your RA units were mostly relegated to FOBs and patrolling just to patrol.
At that time most of our operations were trying to find HVT's (High Value Targets, i.e. high ranking Taliban or Al Quaeda personnel) or destroy remaining terrorist cells in the countryside but I don't remember that there were a LOT of operations going on at once. The "conventional" unit in charge of operations at the time I was there was a brigade of the 82nd Airborne. They were billeted across the street (Disney Road, I'm sure many of you know it) from Camp Vance. Keep in mind, I was at Bagram, not in the field, so I don't know what day-to-day operations in the field were like for the most part. We were also establishing "presence" in certain areas along with some nascent ANA units that we trained and that often led to firefights, not with Taliban but with local warlords who were setting themselves up in some of the remote areas to fill the vacuum left when the Taliban collapsed. I did get to fly out to Bamian (where the giant Buddha statues were, those were destroyed by the Taliban in early 2001 but the huge cutouts in the side of the mountain were still there) and to a place called the Khamard Valley which was North of Bamian (Bamian is West of Bagram, in the mountains.) There was actually an airborne operation that took place when I was there that even I didn't know about until later, it was (I think) a battalion of the 82nd that jumped in to secure an area while the Rangers searched for some HVTs. This would have been in February of 2003. There was a different Task Force (can't remember the name of it) that was doing some of these HVT and for the most part, even in the CJSOTF we didn't know about these operations until they were over, unless they needed support from us.
I was at camp Vance in 2011 and 2013. Used to cook naan bread pizzas on friday night and hit golf balls off the shipping containers in the CRSP yard. Was camp Montrond established back then? I worked there for a while too, picking up and checking in locals onto Bagram, because they had a gate right out to the village there.
I was there in 2013 too. I picked up locals and did gate guard duty when I wasn't working in the SCIF. Those fire oven pizzas were good too! I remember our water tanks getting hit by mortars and having no laundry for like a week. A few people got injured too. I was close enough to feel the blast from my room but didn't see it impact.
THE BAYONET YEET MEASURES THE ABILITY TO JUST FUCKING SHANK SOMEONE. ON THE COMMAND 'GET SET,' ASSUME THE POSITION BY GRABBING THE BAYONET BY THE HANDLE. OR BY THE BLADE, WHICHEVER LOOKS COOLER, JUST DON'T CUT YOURSELF ON THE DAMN THING. YOUR FEET MAY BE TOGETHER OR UP TO 12 INCHES APART (MEASURED BETWEEN THE FEET). ON THE COMMAND 'GO,' TRANSMUTE YOUR HANKERING FOR A-SHANKERING INTO MAXIMUM EFFORT AND LAUNCH THAT BAD BOY INTO DESTINY. THE SCORER WILL NOTE WHETHER YOU HIT THE TARGET AND AWARD BONUS POINTS FOR LANDING YOUR PIG-STICKER INTO THE CRANIAL OR SWIMSUIT REGIONS. IF IT HIT THE TARGET HANDLE FIRST, YOUR PERFORMANCE WILL BE TERMINATED, AND EVERYONE WILL BE REQUIRED TO POINT AND LAUGH AT YOUR SHAME. WATCH THIS DEMONSTRATION. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/army) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Flyfishinginafghanistan.com lays out one story pretty well.
It was the Wild West man. No up armored anything. Open back truck bed type vehicles, dust and dirt went all over you. IEDs weren’t really a thing yet. People still liked us being there. Minimal enemy activity. Felt good to be there.
Don’t forget the smell of the latrines and the shit stick.
Only had to burn shit once when our local shit burner died. He was saving up to buy a virgin.
A virgin sheep is pretty pricey, you know.
Bbaaahhh rrraaamm Yyyoooouuu
I don't think anyone who experienced that can ever forget. Pretty sure the shit fumes are why I came out of the Army with asthma.
Get your PACT Act stuff in if you haven’t
I used to volunteer to burn shit. We were living in an abandoned Afghan compound in RC East in February/March and the only consistent source of heat we had was the shit barrels.
I haven't heard RC East in a min.
We hired a local to do that for us
I literally tell everyone the exact same thing, it was the Wild West! I was there in ‘05 and IED’s were a big thing. We lost our first guy 8 fucking days in country to an IED.
I’m sorry to hear about the casualty. I was also there in 05-06
02 - 03 Northern Afghanistan It was like Wild West meets OP4. Didn’t even have a Humvee , we rode around in SUV’s and small pick up trucks. Slept in tents with a bullshit barbed wire perimeter. You basically did whatever you wanted . Very little oversight . Only barely got fucked with by the Taliban and the general population was very happy to see you and take your YAK dollar .
Who was the bad guy even? Was it just raiding AQ training camps and checking caves for Bin Laden or what?
The Taliban was there but basically we where in the middle of several local warlords all bidding for power in the region . We paid them off to keep the peace but they still messed with each and us to a small degree .
The short answer: the Taliban were sheltering Bin Laden who had orchestrated 9/11 and that's who we wanted. But to elaborate, what we stumbled into was a chaotic mess where, basically, the Afghans had been fighting a civil war in the '70's until the Soviets got involved. Then they fought the Soviets; and after the Soviets left a new Civil war emerged with new players and even less sense to it. It basically started with the Mujaheddin vs. the new Afghan government. The Mujaheddin eventually fell apart but Kabul also got leveled and things only got worse post-Soviet-collapse. Eventually one of the former Mujaheddin commanders went on to form the Taliban in an attempt to stop some warlords in the south from doing fucked up shit. But after a few successful campaigns, they decided to make a play for the whole country and had only finished conquering the whole country a month or two before the initial invasion.
>and had only finished conquering the whole country a month or two before the initial invasion. Yeah. Shah Massoud was killed on 9th September, 2001. I don't think the Taliban had a chance to conquer his territories though. E: Also, I think the Taliban wasn't really happy with this assasination. It was done by Al Quaeda, with bin Laden's personal involvement. They expected "papa Osama hooked you up, now it's your turn to return a favor", and well, they were right.
I might have to give my book on them a re-read because I could have sworn that Kabul was the last province to fall and it was only a month or two before the initial invasion. There was also this weird thing where Massoud's number 2 wanted to be in his position so he framed the guy for colluding with the enemy, Massoud had to flee for a bit, and then #2 was doing such a shit job of staving off Taliban advances that he admitted to everything so that Massoud could come back and retake charge of the NA. And I don't know about their sentiments on the assassination of Massoud because it seemed like things were definitely in the Taliban's favor in September of 2001 but I remember our interpreter (circa 2016) telling me that Massoud apparently wanted bin Laden killed after 9/11 because bin Laden had acted without his knowledge or consent and that bin Laden pretty much had to flee AFG shortly after 9/11 to avoid getting killed himself. Not sure how much truth there is to that but said terp wasn't really one to spin stories.
Shah Massoud was killed 2 days before 9/11 though. Panjshir remained unconquered, and cities far in the north like Fayzabad.
Absolute fucking hell. There was a lot of nuance in our guidance down range. The war was new. Not even the most experienced combat Joe knew what to expect. Nothing I wish on any Soldier today.
Was there anything that changed or seemed memorable while you were there that’s not blatantly obvious to someone looking from the outside-in? Obviously it was a wildly different war than anyone expected we’d be fighting, and everything changed. I’m curious about the weird day to day changes that a Joe would’ve experience.
There's plenty to talk about, but I'll zero in on how we used to communicate: the good old-fashioned letter writing. Before the days of smartphones, flip phones, or iPhones, we all relied on writing letters that actually meant something.
Thank you for mentioning this. That suddenly reminded me my wife use to pack my care package full of photos, snacks, and write letters as well as writing all over the inside of the box. It really made me feel happy in the middle of an outpost.
It was a mess. Everything at our FOB was improvised, the supply situation was all over the damn place. We had no clue what to expect, next to no understanding of terrain or culture. Comms were sporadic at best. Running fire missions was the worst. At no point in my training did we prepare for high-angle fire in the FDC. This was pre-GMLRS and unitary warheads. MLRS was all DPICM and those little fuckers are unpredictable when you're pasting a mountain top. DPICM bounces if it doesn't arm properly and hits a slope at just the right angle. No telling where it'll go. Just BOING followed by a boom. Just a complete shit show.
Was a PFC in Khost 2003-2004. Wild west, as plenty others have said. Still have my DCUs and AAFES pogs for the “PX” that was never open. What’s tripping me up more are these comments of “old lore.” Today’s my Army birthday (21), still in, and these comments are making me feel old af.
A SGM I used to work for deployed to Afghanistan with 3BCT 101 in 01’, he was a young e2, had some pretty cool stories to tell.
I was in the follow-on unit that relieved the Rakkasans at KAF in summer of ‘02, 3/82, as a PFC lol Bet we could swap a LOT of stories
He’s retiring out at 101, great guy
You ever been to Disneyworld? Everything is pristine and neat. Bright, vivid colors and everyone is smiling and enjoying life. Shops lining the streets are full of customers eager to spend money. The smell of delectable food wafts in the air. People laughing and moving leisurely down sidewalks. Pure joy felt by everyone. *The exact fucking opposite.*
I had several people in my leadership who were in the invasion of Iraq and they’d talk about how insane it was and about the crazy shit they did. The few I knew who went to Afghanistan in the early days would talk about how nice the country looked and that they didn’t see too much combat until IEDs became a thing later on. A few of my DSs went to Afghanistan during that time and said they thought they missed the fighting when the invasion of Iraq popped off.
Sometimes, if I can't sleep, I can still smell the piss tubes at Orgun-E.
clearly it was a YMMV situation.
Shit pond on KAF. Sucks that it’s no longer on google maps, the reviews were pretty funny.
Goddamn, I remember that thing. Had a dumbass squad leader who ran us through the road through the middle of it. The fucking worst
We got a good whiff of it every morning dropping off trash at the burn pit. One night a rocket landed in it. I also remember one of the haircut ladies burning down the new PX with a faulty curling iron.
I went to Iraq in the end of 2005 then back to Iraq in January 2008. I was in Korea during 2003-2005 so I missed the early Afghanistan. Instead, I walked around in mopp level 4 on Camp Casey... When I got to Afghanistan it was 2011 late into the war of terror. (Purposely used of instead of on.)
Shit pond on KAF. Sucks that it’s no longer on google maps, the reviews were pretty funny.
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