Writer and journalist Sebastian Junger, who spent much of 2007 and 2008 embedded with Battle Company of the 173rd Airborne in the Korengal, pens a farewell to the embattled six mile long valley in eastern Afghanistan. He worries about the emotional repercussions of the pullout on the many soldiers who fought there and saw their companions killed and maimed over a valley of "dubious strategic value."
"For soldiers, the fight is what gives a place meaning, rather than the other way around. In that sense, the Korengal was literally sacred ground. Every man in Battle Company lost a good friend there, and every man was nearly killed there. These soldiers did not require “strategic importance” or “national interest” to give the place value — it already had that in spades.Outpost Restrepo was named after Juan Restrepo, a platoon medic who was killed on July 22, 2007. He was one of the best-liked men in the platoon, and his death was devastating. The men took enormous pride in the outpost they built, and they can now go online and watch videotape of it being blown up by an American demolition team. It is a painful experience for many of them, and in recent days, e-mail messages have flown back and forth as the men have tried to come to terms with it. One man became increasingly overwrought from watching the video over and over again, wondering what all the sacrifice had been for. Another soldier finally intervened.
“They might have pulled out but they can’t take away what we accomplished and how hard we fought there,” he wrote to his distraught comrade. “The base is a base, we all knew it would sooner or later come down. But what Battle Company did there cannot be blown up, ripped down or burned down. Remember that.”
-- Greg
