Photos US Forces In Afghanistan

[BravoZulu]

4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division and 3rd Infantry Division Soldiers of Train Advise Assist Command East held a base defense drill at Tactical Base Gamberi, Afghanistan, Oct. 20, 2017.

 

[Chazman]

Sgt. David A. Leon and Farhad Mohammad with 1st Platoon, 1/5th Marines, RCT 8, assist Sgt. Andrew M. Metelski to a casualty collection point in Sangin, Afghanistan, June 12, 2011. Metelski’s squad hit an improvised explosive device while on patrol.

This seems like such an iconic picture of war. Any nation. Any generation.

 

[downsizer]

I had cause to visit Lash Kaghar on a work trip and met a colleague who was on his High Threat C-IED tour (1 of only 2 RAF to operate HT) and we were talking about the difference between Brit Mil and USMC....

I was astounded when he told me that USMC foot patrols had no C-IED TTP. They literally ploughed on through field. road, whatever and if they tripped one so be it. Obviously if they saw signs they stopped and acted accordingly but they weren't sweeping per se. Ballsy......

 

[BravoZulu]

On October 17,2010, Cpl. Tim Focken was leading a foot patrol in Qala-ye Zai, Afghanistan. They came under heavy fire and Cpl. Tim Focken received a shot to his shoulder. After being tended to by the German combat medics, an American Black Hawk performed a MEDEVAC with the firefight still going on and coming under fire themselves. The American medic team, including Staff Sgt. Peter Woken, all received the German Medal of Honor for Gallantry in Action.
https://www.army.mil/article/70640/soldier_earns_german_medal_for_saving_allys_life

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Peter Woken (right) after receiving the German Medal of Honor for Gallantry in Action for tending to German army Cpl. Tim Focken (left) during a medevac under fire in Afghanistan

 

[BravoZulu]

U.S. Army Green Beret embedded with an Afghan tribal militia

 

[BravoZulu]

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Derek Hemerick, 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron, 455 Air Expeditionary Wing pararescueman, watches out the door of an HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, May 5, 2014.

The squadron participated in a training scenario where a vehicle simulated striking an improvised explosive device. During the training, rescue crews flew on HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters to the simulated point of injury, provided security, treated patients, prepared them for travel, and safely departed the area. Hemerick is a native of San Clemente, Calif., and is deployed from Moody Air Force Base, Ga.

Photo by Staff Sgt. Evelyn Chavez.

Green Beret member keeps a watchful eye on for threats. Afghanistan

 

[BravoZulu]

A U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter with Alpha Company, 5th Battalion, 101st Combat Aviation Brigade conducts an engine run-up in the falling snow of a winter storm at Bagram Airfield on Dec. 27, 2012.

 

[BravoZulu]

A U.S. special operations forces member conducts combat operations in support of Operation Resolute Support in Southeast Afghanistan in March 2019. The ongoing U.S. military mission in Afghanistan will be a focus of Capitol Hill hearings this week. (Spc. Jonathan Bryson/Army)

DEVGRU operators in Helmand Province around 2005

 

[BravoZulu]

October 2018, Two members of the Operational Detachment Alpha watching the effects of a bomb from the roof of the team's main building at Combat Outpost Blackfish in Nangarhar Province. The Americans often call in strikes to keep the Islamic State fighters off high ground and to give new pilots target practice in a combat zone.

As team members made their way up the riverbed in the Takhto Valley in Nangarhar Province, Afghan units pushed ahead, one on each side of the valley. Operations are supposed to be led by Afghans.

Americans lunching on Meals Ready to Eat in their living quarters.

A view from the Special Forces base in Mohmand Valley.

An Air Force combat controller operating a smartphone-like device that allows him to map geography, historical target sites and potential targets.

An Operational Detachment Alpha member with a sniper rifle on the roof of the main living quarters of the camp. Below him, around the fire, are soldiers from a unit that provides support to the Special Forces.

Heading toward the Takhto Valley.

A team member trying to identify Islamic State fighters with the help of his rifle scope.

The building on the base that contains the main living quarters and the operations room.

More than 200 mortar rounds were fired one evening to prevent enemy fighters from occupying high ground.

Smoke from a bomb dropped on a presumed Islamic State position.Credit..

.Photographs by Andrew Quilty

 

[uktabber]

Anyone know what those 5 smaller vehicles are in the above camp pictures?? They are not Humvees they're something else, the two on the left are certainly odd and I'm intrigued by the covered three as well......Any definite ideas???

 

[RL64RL]

The Andrew Quilty photos are excellent -- thanks for posting them!

 

[Fluff]

Anyone know what those 5 smaller vehicles are in the above camp pictures?? They are not Humvees they're something else, the two on the left are certainly odd and I'm intrigued by the covered three as well......Any definite ideas???

General dynamics flyer, all of them.

 

[uktabber]

General dynamics flyer, all of them.

THANK YOU, that's a new one I've not hear of before, when did that one come along?

 

[Fluff]

2-

THANK YOU, that's a new one I've not hear of before, when did that one come along?

2012 -250K each.

 

[BravoZulu]

U.S. Special Forces soldier searches a tree line for insurgent activity during a night raid in Afghanistan on Oct. 30, 2010.

 

[BravoZulu]

Staff Sgt. Robert Gutierrez, USAF CCT

The situation was looking grim when a team of 30 U.S. Army Special Forces and Afghan commandos found themselves surrounded in a Taliban-sympathising village in Afghanistan’s Herat province on Oct. 5, 2009.

The team, which was tasked with targeting a Taliban commander, began taking small arms and sniper fire as enemy fighters closed in on nearby rooftops, some only 10 feet away. A four-hour firefight ensued.

Amidst the fury, the team’s sole joint terminal attack controller, then- Staff Sgt. Robert Gutierrez, an Air Force Special Operations Command combat controller, was shot in the left shoulder by an armour-piercing round. Gutierrez returned fire and killed the insurgent before collapsing and calling for a medic.

A sucking chest wound rapidly filled Gutierrez’s lungs with blood, collapsing his lung. Unable to breathe or speak, he remained on the ground as a medic jammed a needle and decompression tube into his chest to relieve the pressure.

The round tore through Gutierrez’s shoulder, triceps, chest and lateral muscles, breaking two ribs and a scapula, and leaving a softball-sized hole in his back. With time being of the essence, medics ordered Gutierrez to remove his body armour to treat the rest of his wounds. Gutierrez refused, recognising that doing so would also remove the radio he needed to coordinate air support.

“I thought — I have three minutes before I’m going to die. I’ve got to do something big. Based on that time frame, I’m going to change the world in three minutes.”

“Something big” came in the form of coordinating three danger close strafing runs with an A-10 Thunderbolt II pilot and calling in airstrikes from nearby F-16 Fighting Falcons, critical firepower that afforded the seriously wounded JTAC and others the opportunity to escape.

Despite losing five pints of blood and having to walk over a mile to an evacuation zone, Gutierrez remained on the hooks, coordinating the strikes along with his own medevac. His focus remained so precise that the A-10 pilot communicating with him couldn’t even tell he was wounded.

 

[uktabber]

Where is this guys Air Force Cross???

 

[BravoZulu]

Where is this guys Air Force Cross???

Air Force Special Operations Command combat controller Staff Sgt. Robert Gutierrez was awarded the Air Force Cross as announced by Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz Sept. 20, 2011.

 

[BravoZulu]

US Army 1st SFOD-Delta operators disguised as Afghans, hunting for Bin Laden in the Tora Bora Mountains, Afghanistan, 2001.

 

[BravoZulu]

2nd Infantry Division, Convoy Security Team, Southern Afghanistan, 2012-2013