In Afghan Outposts, a Low-Key Tour for a Low-Key War
By Tamara Jones, Washington Post
BAGRAM AIR FORCE BASE, Afghanistan -- Christmas comes cautiously to this hostile place. A tinsel wreath appears outside an Army tent. Military buzz cuts are hidden by camouflage Santa caps. An inflatable snowman wobbles in the desert wind. Across the freezing dustscape of Afghanistan, the soldiers fighting America's war on terrorism, Operation Enduring Freedom, do just what the slogan advertises. They endure.
Entering a fourth year now, their war is rarely headline news anymore, not like Iraq with its daily battles, its suicide bombings, the kidnappings and beheadings, the flag-draped coffins sent steadily back home.
This war is more subtle than that, shifting from combat to reconstruction. Enemy rocket attacks are rare now, and the American troops rolling into remote mountain villages are more likely to be digging wells than foxholes. What the service members talk most about is not fear, but about months passing without having to fire their weapons even once. They talk about isolation, boredom, about the way loneliness can burrow so deeply into hours so empty.
(snip)read complete article at link above
Mata Musing
The fruits of a job well done... boredom. And I must add... I hope they stay "bored", and return home safely. I pray for this same boredom for those in Iraq.
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