No sooner than we get done banging on the San Diego Union-Tribune for getting skinny on us, they go and do something of journalistic merit like embedding a reporter with some of our hometown Marines in Afghanistan.
“Why are we in the crops?” McFadden hollered to his Marines. “Go to the grass instead of the crops if you can!”
One of the daily frustrations the Marines encounter is the bombs versus corn equation of risk. Trampling crops is a major affront and a common gripe elders raise at weekly shuras the Marines helped organize. But insurgents plant bombs in the raised berms separating paddies.
“If we’re tearing up the crops, then we are no different than the Taliban taxing them. On the other hand, people I know have died out here and are quadriplegics,” McFadden said. “So I’m not going to walk on roads the whole time either.”
Asked to perform minor miracles on a daily basis, our Marines are wearing many hats over there for merely straight-time pay. Check out the rest of the story, here.
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