Great reporting: A patrol with the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan’s Arghandab

When I was a kid in Kabul, the Arghandab Valley was a place for Americans living in Kandahar to go on picnics. Now it is where Americans die, as a well-reported article in the new issue of the Atlantic shows. Here are some of the passages that struck me: ‘My wife told me not to ...

By Thomas E. Ricks

U.S. Department of Defense Current Photos/flickr

November 2, 2010, 10:37 AM

When I was a kid in Kabul, the Arghandab Valley was a place for Americans living in Kandahar to go on picnics. Now it is where Americans die, as a well-reported article in the new issue of the Atlantic shows.

Here are some of the passages that struck me:

‘My wife told me not to come out on this one. She said she had a bad feeling," he told Lachance. "The last time she told me that, I spent three months in Walter Reed."…

A new soldier, underhydrated and overheated, passed out. Then another… Gerhart radioed up a third heat casualty. The soldier lay on the ground and moaned, his muscles racked by heat cramps. Gerhart fumed. "Hey, bro," he said, "I’ve got friends who have been hit by IEDs and didn’t bitch this much."…

Gerhart’s squad should have had two more 2 Charlie soldiers for the last trip to the Devil’s Playground, but they had been refusing to patrol. One of them was Spc. Matthew Emmite. Lean and strong, with ropey muscles, Emmite had once wanted to be a Special Forces soldier. Instead, after months in the Arghandab, he just wanted out of the Army… Emmite wasn’t alone in this. "All I know is, I’m sick of seeing people laying there without their legs," another soldier told me. "That shit’s fucking with my head."…

Knollinger moved back into the compound and shouted at a 101st sergeant to rotate his men on guard on the roof, to prevent more heat casualties. A 101st captain who’d just landed in one of the Black Hawks grabbed his shoulder. Knollinger spun on a heel. "Get off me!" Knollinger snapped, and shoved him.

"You’re out of control," the captain said.

"Your decision-making is out of control," Knollinger said.

Later, in the room where the squad had holed up, the captain tried to ease the tensions that had built through the day. "You need to exhibit calmness," he told Knollinger and Gerhart.

"It’s not a calm situation, sir," Knollinger said. "We’ve been out all day saving this platoon’s ass."

"The situation isn’t as bad as you think," the captain said.

"No," Knollinger said. "It’s a whole lot worse than you think."

Just a terrific piece of war reporting, that smacks of reality. Beats a lot of Ernie Pyle’s work, because he tended to pull his punches.

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1