Victory Point Read Free

attacking our positions.
    The Marines with whom I spent time, from privates to the battalion commanders, provided me with insight not only into Operations Red Wings and Whalers, but into the incredible Marine Corps ethos. I am one of the very few lucky civilians to have learned about U.S. Marines not through books, movies, magazines, or newspaper articles, but through the only real way to learn about them—as well as about the incredible mountainous landscape in which they accomplished so much: in the field, during combat operations. This education was the toughest in my life, but I would have it no other way. My involvement with the Second Battalion of the Third Marine Regiment has allowed me to recreate these operations with the accuracy that the general public deserves, as well as to create a work the Marines of the battalion can point to as a record of their historic time in Afghanistan.
     
    Ed Darack
    Pickel Meadow, California

1
    WELCOME TO AFGHANISTAN
     
     
    Y ’all mothafuckas better git ya gear on an’ quit bowl -shittin’,” Staff Sergeant Lee Crisp roared at his Marines as the rising sun began its daily pummeling of the rocky Afghan mountainscape. “Put y’all’s gear on. Put it on! Put it on now !” the six-foot, two-inch, 225-pound platoon sergeant commanded, neck veins distending and sweat pouring from his forehead.
    The Marines, members of Third Platoon, Fox Company (Fox-3) of the Second Battalion of the Third Marine Regiment (⅔) gazed solemnly at Crisp; having slept a total of just six hours in the last three days, they held out for every second of shut-eye they could grasp. Six hours of rest . . . six hours . . . three days into a foot mobile operation of unknown duration, bound for an undisclosed destination, moving through what they knew to be a cauldron of hardened Islamic extremist fighters. Surrounding them? Maybe. How many? Unknown. The Marines knew how well the enemy was able to melt into the truculent world through which Fox-3 was now venturing, that they had mastered the region’s steep and treacherous terrain, that the extremists had the advantage of familiarity here. Most importantly, they knew of the bloodshed this very enemy had wreaked against a U.S. Navy special operations team and those attempting to rescue them only weeks before—just a few miles from Fox-3’s current position. And no matter how well the Marines understood their situation, Crisp knew it even better, and seeing his grunts sprawled out on the bare earth, naked to him without their flak jackets and Kevlar helmets, enraged the staff sergeant to no end.
    “Mothafuckas—you don’t neva’ know when shit’s gonna happen!” Not even the most brazen of the Marines could feign sleep with Crisp looming over their sapped bodies. Inspired by the staff sergeant’s abrasive motivational eloquence, the grunts pressed their hands into the gritty earth and reemerged into the brutality of the northeastern Afghan summer. “Put y’all’s mothafuckin’ gear on—NOW!”
    Crisp’s watch had just ticked past 9:20 A.M. local, on a date none of the Marines would ever forget: 14 August 2005. Before the sweep hand of the imposing staff sergeant’s timepiece could tick through another full minute, Fox-3 would know well the enemy’s vehemence, mastery of the terrain, and brazen war-fighting tactics . . .
     
     
     
    By the time the grunts of Fox-3 took their rest under the penetrating glare of the staff sergeant that August morning, ⅔’s Marines had lived, worked, and fought in the mountainous eastern Afghan provinces of Laghman, Nangarhar, and Kunar for over two full months. Before their arrival in-country, they’d trained hard for the rigors of mountain warfare. They’d diligently studied the cultures and customs of the people who eked out their livelihoods on the slopes and shoulders of these hidden peaks. And once in-country, ⅔’s grunts had built and bulked their “Afghan mountain legs” through all types of