How the Spanish treat our guys in A-stan

[Vertigo]

Linkie

Monday, 08 March 2010

Kandahar, Afghanistan

Yesterday, an American involved in the war effort handed me a document. It was an email from a Lieutenant Colonel in the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan. His unit is in combat seven days a week. To be clear, I did not get the email from the officer and I have never met him.

The email is about the abysmal, unsafe conditions which some of our most dedicated troops are living in, at a remote base run by the Spanish military in Afghanistan. All deletions [xxx] are by me. I have the entire email. The serious and disturbing allegations are found in the second and third paragraphs.

Please note, that the failure to support permanent US troops at this Spanish base constitutes real negligence about their ultimate safety. And that comes on top of a degree of harassment that is shocking among allies.

The message begins:

On that note, the email closes.

So, our soldiers and Marines, living in rough conditions at the far tip of the spear, apparently are being treated with contempt, with all basic support denied, from laundry to the conditions of the field on which our troops do their thankless job. If this report is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, the Spanish are endangering the lives of our warriors by failing to provide basic safety.

To the extent that there is an international dimension to this potential problem, requiring a diplomatic solution, it deserves the immediate attention of our civilian leadership. Our able Secretary of Defense will likely wish to investigate, and bring it up with our Spanish allies for any corrective measures that might be in order. I will personally see that this gets to Secretary Gates. When Secretary Gates gets wind, we can rest easy that proper attention is forthcoming.

Sincerely,

Michael Yon

Supposedly a photo of the area-

[Guest TheBull]

If we can’t get gravel, how about putting some AM2 matting, stakes and a couple of Red Horse guys on a CH-47 and fly them in to build a couple of pads just big enough to park an individual UH-60 on? We’ve been pushing the gravel issues since last fall and are no closer to a solution. Those guys are living in fighting positions. When it begins to warm up in the next month, that field will be untenable without gravel or AM2 matting.

Heh... yeah, not sure how much you're going to get from a Chinook full of RED HORSE dudes if you can't even get gravel... AM2 will just buckle and settle unevenly, and eventually fail if you don't compact the soil, lay/compact some basecourse, and grade is such that water drains away. You'll have a parking area with a bunch of jagged edges to catch tires on, and it'll still be covered in mud anyway.

Would you lay laminate flooring over a crappy subfloor? That's essentially what it is - aluminum laminate flooring for craters.

Also - considering the altitude at this place, and the weight of a bundle of AM2, and the weight of equipment needed to compact... you're starting to talk A LOT of Chinook flights for a doomed plan.

The rest of that email is pretty infuriating.

[afnav]

From what I could tell last year, the Spanish didn't do much in the west, or at least never asked for air cover for it.

I did get to witness a German colonel in RC-N lose it on a VTC concerning the Turkish troops he was trying to train. "These people cannot be trained. I am sorry."

I guess it was almost a WWI flashback, in a way.

[PapaJu]

From what I could tell last year, the Spanish didn't do much in the west, or at least never asked for air cover for it.

I did get to witness a German colonel in RC-N lose it on a VTC concerning the Turkish troops he was trying to train. "These people cannot be trained. I am sorry."

I guess it was almost a WWI flashback, in a way.

Yeah, I worked with some NATO policy types last year...let's just say that the Spanish were the target of a lot of the "not pulling their weight" jokes more than any other country.

[Guest]

Let Red Horse in there and they will figure out a way to fix the problem.

[MKopack]

I spent a couple of years at the old Torrejon AB where the 401st TFW was a tenant unit on the Spanish AF base, and reading this isn't really a big surprise. It's how the Spaniards treat the Spaniards as well.

Mike