North County Times January 01, 2011
MILITARY: Bell tolls frequently for local Marines in Afghanistan
By Mark Walker
Reports of their deaths come with regularity.
Last week, there were two more battlefield deaths for Camp Pendleton's 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.
The announcements were terse.
On Monday, it read: "Lance Cpl. Kenneth A. Corzine, 23, of Bethalto, Ill., died Dec. 24 of wounds received Dec. 5 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan."
On Wednesday came this: "The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. Cpl. Tevan L. Nguyen, 21, of Hutto, Texas, died Dec. 28, while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan."
After more than nine years, the outcome of the war in Afghanistan remains as uncertain now as it did when it was launched in response to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
What is certain is that more locally based troops will be killed and wounded, as several thousand are scheduled to deploy to the southern Helmand province in 2011.
The base toll death for 2010 in Afghanistan stood at 56 through Thursday, according to a count kept by the North County Times.
Of those, nearly two dozen were from the base's 3/5, the "Dark Horse" battalion.
About 20,000 Marines are in Afghanistan, with a like number expected to be there throughout the next 12 months.
Since March, the Marines have served under the command of Camp Pendleton's Maj. Gen. Richard Mills, who claims that significant gains in rooting out the insurgent Taliban are occurring in Helmand.
"Just a year ago, Helmand was a vast Taliban stronghold, and in many areas there were no coalition forces," Mill wrote Thursday in an e-mail to the North County Times. "Since then, there has been solid progress."
Sangin bloodshed
Mills attributes the Dark Horse battalion losses to the Taliban's attempt to hold the Sangin district of Helmand, a center of illicit drug activity and roadside bomb manufacturing.
Shortly after arriving in late summer, battalion troops launched regular foot patrols and convoys searching for insurgents.
That aggressive tactic has led to numerous firefights, exposure to roadside bombs and the resulting casualties.
Mills acknowledged the losses, writing that "3/5 has done a heroic job in Sangin."
"We have incurred casualties, that is true, but Taliban insurgents are fighting in desperation because Sangin is their last toehold," Mills said. "They are willing to fight and die in place there. We are rapidly destroying them."
But the deaths have affected Camp Pendleton greatly.
In early December, the new commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Amos, spent several hours behind closed doors with battalion family members.
The meeting went much longer than scheduled, causing the general to cancel an address to a large group of recently returned Marines.
Shortly thereafter, Amos headed to Afghanistan, meeting with troops in the Sangin area and addressing them on Christmas Eve.
"We know that you’ve been in a hell of a fight for that last, almost five months, and we wanted to come out here with you," the general told the troops during a nighttime address.
Uncertainties
President Barack Obama has vowed to start bringing home some of the more than 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan starting in July, but only if the conditions warrant it.
The administration and its military commanders in recent months have pointed to 2014 as the year when overall responsibility will be transferred to the Afghan National Army and local security forces.
That may be a more realistic goal.
Last week, Nic Lee, the director of the independent Afghan Non-Governmental Organization Safety Office, which issues reports on security for aid groups, said the administration is wrong when it says insurgents control less territory now than a year ago.
"We don't see (that the counterinsurgency effort) has had any impact," he was quoted as telling a McClatchy newspaper, referring to the strategy employed by U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, the overall commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Insurgent attacks are up nearly 70 percent this year, according to the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, and other analysts maintain that Taliban-backed tribal leaders control nearly all of the country's 34 provinces.
Those reports are in stark contrast to Obama's statement in early December that fewer areas are under Taliban control.
Hearts and minds
Controlling territory is just one metric of a broader effort.
"It isn't a land-grab," said John Pike of the defense monitoring group GlobalSecurity.org in Washington. "It would be very easy to control a lot of territory. But we're not talking about controlling territory; we're talking about controlling hearts and minds."
The coming year could provide a better definition of what the U.S. will consider success, Pike said.
But he doesn't expect any massive change without a campaign that targets Afghanistan's poppy crop, which the Taliban convert to illegal drugs to fund the war.
"If we don't do anything about the drugs, we can't do anything about the corruption," he said.
Efforts to close down the insurgent "rat line" along the Pakistan border have largely been unsuccessful, prompting U.S. and NATO forces to concentrate on going after the fighters once they're a few miles into Afghanistan.
Pike said he thinks the Obama administration may face increasing pressure over the next two years to bring home most combat troops in favor of special operations forces working in concert with air and missile strikes.
"If our objective is simply to keep the Taliban pruned back and make sure the government in Kabul will let us go around blowing up their citizens, we could do that," he said. "We could do it with 20,000 or 30,000 (special operations forces) there."
Helmand outlook
On Pike's point about the poppy crop and how it fuels the insurgency, Mills said more farmers in the agriculturally dominated Helmand province are turning to crops other than the poppy.
"Just over 40,000 farmers took advantage of the wheat seed and alternative crop programs," he said. "Their pledge is to not grow poppy."
The Marines and Afghan and NATO forces are also developing more road systems, he said.
"That not only provides more freedom of movement, but will open up bigger and better markets for farmers," Mills said.
He also maintained that Afghan security forces are rapidly maturing in the province allowing him to shift his troops to other areas under Taliban domination.
"We have been able to thin our forces out in areas such as Nawa and Garmsir (districts) as Afghan National Security Forces have taken over, Mills said. "My expectations for the months ahead are continued, deliberate progress."
The hearts and minds campaign that military strategists hold as key in an insurgent war is also going well, according to the general. Increasing numbers of U.S.-backed community councils are being formed, and more than 120 schools are now open in Helmand staffed with 1,700 trained teachers for more than 90,000 pupils, he said.
In early December, the Marine Corps for the first time dispatched tanks to Helmand.
It's the first time in the war that the heavy machines ---- with long-range guns and armament able to withstand the roadside bombs or improvised explosive devices ---- are being used.
"Our tanks, counter-IED equipment and additional troops will intensify efforts," Mills said.
Whether that promised intensity will result in more or fewer casualties remains to be seen. The general said he believes his force's efforts are turning the tide in their favor.
"I want this battlefield to be completely different come spring," he said.
© Copyright 2011, North County Times - The Californian
