The Battle for Salerno

I guess we are more famous than ever, now. If you read the news online, you’ll see many stories about “Camp Salerno” as they call it, and the events that unfolded starting Monday night. As you recall in my last post, which I just put up, it talked about the car bombing at Salerno. As it turns out, the Taliban were not finished with us. The commanding general warned of increased activity due to it being Afghanistan’s Independence day; yesterday, August 18.

Probably around 200 meters to the south from where I sit now, a group of Taliban suicide bombers made their way through the small village there, where they gathered for an attack. Their plan was simple; infiltrate the perimeter and detonate within the vicinity of a target. When their attack began, all hell broke loose.

We were fortunate that they did not come through the perimeter, because all that stands between them and us is some c-wire and a chain link fence. There are guard towers around the perimeter as you might think, each housing a number of weapons, including the 240B machine gun. I awoke from a deep sleep when the attack commenced, as I am on shift during the day, and it began at night. From the rooftops you could see a spectacular show not unlike the 4th of July; tracer rounds going in every direction, small arms fire, large arms fire, and several of our aircraft made for a melee straight from hell. An air force bomber prowled the skies above, waiting to drop a five-hundred pounder.

Surprisingly, the Taliban attack group was taking ground, and we were getting nervous, but were finally driven back by barrage after barrage of helicopter munitions, as well as a ground force headed up by the Afghan National Army. The force included U.S. soldiers as well, none of which were harmed in the ensuing battle.

With the sounds and the sights it was if we were in the middle of some great war movie, but the surreal feeling that there were people trying to kill us with rockets and people took all of the glamour out of it. Finally, after an intense night of fighting, the remaining Taliban abandoned their plan and began to flee. All friendly forces converged to chase them out of Dodge. Our guys had to stay a great distance from the enemy, because when they were finally surrounded they simply blew themselves up. No value for life whatsoever.

Apaches and Kiowas continued to pick off stragglers well into the morning, when finally it seemed that the battle had ceased. This afternoon when I was helping ready an aircraft for a test flight for our company commander, a couple of Kiowas began doing strafing runs with rockets and .50 cal guns. Luckily I had my video camera so I recorded what I could. We later found out that there were several dead bodies left behind with vests that had not detonated, and the Kiowas were simply trying to “detonate” the vests in the safest way possible. One of the Kiowa pilots had taken enemy fire earlier in the fight; a bullet entered his flight helmet and exited the other side without touching his head. He was heard over the radio saying he was alright. A couple of aircraft took some potshots, too.

At the end of the day, FOB Salerno still stands, relentless and strong. Its soldiers tried and true in combat and hardship. We take their rockets, bullets, IEDs, and suicide bombers, yet here we are. Even though this is the last place we all probably want to be, we’ll be damned if some terrorist bums are going to piss in our Cheerios. Strike up another victory for the U S of A. Until next time…

Cheers,

-J