Combat Veterans for Ron Paul 2012

Via Oathkeepers

In May of 2007, the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team deployed to the Konar Province of Afghanistan. The 2/503rd Infantry Battalion occupied the Pesche River Valley, which is the mountainous tribal region along the Pakistani border where the Russian military was pushed out in the 1980’s. I was an active duty soldier who served there until our deployment ended in August of 2008. While we were there, ABC’s “Nightline” ran a special about one of our platoons, calling the area “the most dangerous place on Earth.” The White House and DOD (Department of Defense) publicly proclaimed that we were at the tip of the spear of the Afghanistan campaign in the “War on Terror.”

During this deployment, our Unit dropped more ordnance than any other unit in any other area in Iraq or Afghanistan. Journalist Tim Hetherington of Vanity Fair covered part of our experience which led to the Oscar-nominated documentary, “Restrepo.” Tim would later be killed covering the U.S. intervention into Lybia. Many of the soldiers he covered would come home to find that they had been so affected by combat experiences, they could no longer function as average members of society. Many would go back to Afghanistan again, or to Iraq… again. Some of them had already been to both… again… and again… and again. Some would choose to take their own lives. I came home with a combat-related disability and was honorably discharged via medical retirement. American forces were pulled out of the Korengal Valley in 2010. That whole region of Afghanistan is still in chaos as of this writing.

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