LOGAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- "Let's go get blown up," Staff Sgt. Ashley Hess quipped as he climbed into his armored vehicle on a hot, bright mid-October morning. Sgt. Hess and the rest of the U.S. Army's 2nd Platoon, Able Troop -- part of the 3rd Squadron of the 71st Cavalry regiment deployed to this fertile agricultural province south of Kabul -- steered their vehicles down a dirt road code-named Route New York.
The route is a favorite with insurgent bomb teams, who prefer burying their explosives directly under a vehicle's path -- something that's nearly impossible on paved roads. Many of 2nd Platoon's vehicles bear the dents and scars from near-misses accumulated since the unit arrived in Logar's Baraki Barak district in January as part of the Obama administration's initial wave of reinforcements for the eight-year-old Afghanistan war. ...
|