Scouts from 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne), pull overwatch during Operation Destined Strike while 2nd Platoon, Able Company searches a village below the Chowkay Valley in Kunar Province, Afghanistan Aug. 22. (army.mil)From Yahoo News/Reuters:
KUNAR VALLEY, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Lieutenant Joshua Rodriguez, a U.S. platoon commander guarding the Afghan-Pakistan frontier, reckons he is lucky to be alive.
Two weeks after he set up an outpost with 20 Afghan soldiers and seven Americans overlooking a key Taliban smuggling route, some 80 insurgents attacked them hard at daybreak.
"We were very close, very close," he said, days after the fight, holding his fingers a fraction of an inch apart.
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My Comment: If there are insufficient number of boots on the ground, the U.S. and their Afghan allies can never win this war. This near disaster illustrates this point perfectly.