Spc. Josh Nelson of Greenville was one of four soldiers killed in September in the worst green-on-blue attack of the year in Afghanistan, as Americans were preparing to hand over a small outpost in the Zabul Province to Afghan forces. Courtesy of the Nelson family
NC Soldier Betrayed By Afghans He Was There To Help -- Newsobserver.com
The killers bided their time for days, then weeks, patiently waiting for a moment when the American soldiers were vulnerable.
It came, finally, in the early hours of Sept. 16. Four cavalry soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Wash., and two communications specialists from Fort Gordon, Ga., had an overnight assignment at a hillside observation point in the Mizan District of Zabul Province near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. They watched a valley they suspected enemy fighters were using to lob mortars into the soldiers’ small forward base a mile away.
About 20 more members of their platoon rested in a fortified checkpoint a quarter-mile distant; some were sleeping.
The soldiers’ thermal imaging scopes let their eyes cut through the dark for several hundred yards. It was a huge nighttime advantage over their enemies.
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My Comment: Stories like this one always makes my blood boil. My prayers and sympathies are with the families who lost their loved ones in this (and other) attacks.