Panjwai, Kandahar, Afghanistan, known as the heart of the Taliban, the birthplace; and I am headed there. I had just said goodbye to my wife whom at this point I have been married to for 4 months, and was now on my way to a combat deployment. My emotions were all over the place. I knew that I have to be the strong soldier for my peers, the soldier my leaders can trust and depend on, but I am also the loving husband that had to say goodbye to his wife. Furthermore, I knew that this could quite possibly be the last time that I would ever see her. As battalion mortars we were set up on Forward Operating Base (FOB) Zangabad. It was 2011 and the only American troops here before us were Rangers in 2007. The first day that I pulled tower guard I counted
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We entered the first compound, it consisted of 2 small mud huts and 1 large grape hut in the middle of vast fields with mud walls on its perimeter. Our security consisted of staying relatively in our file and not pushing out because we knew of how many pressure plate IEDs were in the area. In addition to our security, we pushed the ANA out for an outer cordon perimeter. The clearing team went through and searched buildings and inspected the area and once it was clear we stepped off towards our next compound. As we were moving to the next compound, roughly at the halfway point of an open field, we took harassing fire from the southeast; determined to be 3 AKs using sporadic fire. I quickly returned fire, but the engagement did not last long. The patrol continued moving to the next compound that was located to the east about 400 m. This compound was a lot larger; it consisted of several medium to large walled buildings. We began clearing the compound only to find that there were only a few villagers. The rain started to come down extremely heavy, so we strong pointed inside of a building for roughly 30 minutes. As soon as we began to step off, one of the ANA shot into the sky right next to us for absolutely no
We entered the first compound, it consisted of 2 small mud huts and 1 large grape hut in the middle of vast fields with mud walls on its perimeter. Our security consisted of staying relatively in our file and not pushing out because we knew of how many pressure plate IEDs were in the area. In addition to our security, we pushed the ANA out for an outer cordon perimeter. The clearing team went through and searched buildings and inspected the area and once it was clear we stepped off towards our next compound. As we were moving to the next compound, roughly at the halfway point of an open field, we took harassing fire from the southeast; determined to be 3 AKs using sporadic fire. I quickly returned fire, but the engagement did not last long. The patrol continued moving to the next compound that was located to the east about 400 m. This compound was a lot larger; it consisted of several medium to large walled buildings. We began clearing the compound only to find that there were only a few villagers. The rain started to come down extremely heavy, so we strong pointed inside of a building for roughly 30 minutes. As soon as we began to step off, one of the ANA shot into the sky right next to us for absolutely no