This October = Deadliest Month In Afghanistan In 8 Year War

[dallaswareagle]

Dumbest one I was ever around was out of the academy.  We were training on night navigation and had to get about 10 clicks in a certain amount of time after being dropped off with no knowledge of exactly where we were.  After spending about 30 minutes orientating my team and figuring out where we were we set off on course.  About a click in this jackass decides that he should run the compass for our azimuth.  After a mild debate I decided "how bad could he fuck it up"? (I actually thought this)Gave this fucktard the compass.  For the next couple of clicks I am asking him if we are good?  He keeps telling me we are.  After about the third click I realize that I am not seeing any terrain features that I was expecting to and begin becoming skeptical about us being on course. 
Make it up to this butter bar and realize he has set the compass on the front site and compensator of his rifle which has thrown his azimuth off about 5 degrees.  We are way off course and way behind schedule.  We adjust our route and begin the fastest double time I had ever done.  The butter bar dropped out and we left him.  Made our checkpoint in time by the hair of our teeth.  When the CO asked why we were so late I told him and told him he had a platoon commander still out in the woods somewhere.  I never saw that fucker again.  I guess the CO transfered him out.

I had one shoot an azimuth to a chopper (while in the air)

[AUJarhead]

I had one shoot an azimuth to a chopper (while in the air)

What the hell do they teach these guys in OCS?  I can guaran-damn-tee you that Drill Instructor Sgt Norwood and Drill Instructor Sgt Martinez weren't there.

The only good CO I had was a former enlisted.  He and I were the only two in my unit that went to MCRD San Diego.  Everyone else went to PI.  When we went out to 29 Palms one year, we landed at San Diego, so naturally the sand flea smack talk starts.  And this CO, without missing a beat, told every single Marine that went to PI that when they went through boot camp they received "a hump waiver."

[Tarheel]

Question for you politically inclined, militarily skilled peoples.  What is our overall objective in Afghanistan?  To smoke out Bin Laden and his followers?  To secure control of the country for a particular governmental regime? How will we know we've won and it's time to go home? 

No slant here or alterior motive.  I'm asking because this war has really just come back to the forefront in recent months while it seemed to have taken a backseat to the Iraq situation for years.  I seriously just had the impression we had a nominal force over there all these years trying to root out terrorists and help the fight against the Taliban or some other obscure band of rocket carrying sheet-heads.

I'm reading a book now called "Horse Soldiers" which is a first-hand account of the initial mission in Afghanistan and that was to root out Bin Laden, bring him to justice, and to destroy the Taliban and their training camps for terrorists.

I hate to see these attacks on our troops intensifying there as each one you do I'm sure; these animals in the Taliban, these followers of the Religion of Perpetual Rage know just as well as everybody else in the world that we have a very weak, self-interested Kenyan in the White House now and he's going to dither and dither on this issue until his people can come up with a political solution to this issue that makes him look good.  The Kenyan does not care about the troops, he doesn't care about the Taliban, he doesn't care about the Afghanis who want a stable government, he doesn't care about anything other than making himself look good. 

Maybe that helps to answer your political question anyway, Birdman.