Battle Company

Did anyone see Elizabeth Rubin’s wonderful, heartbreaking article in this week’s New York Times Magazine?

It deals with the Airborne fighting in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, trying to do a job that has already defeated the Marines and the 10th Mountain Division.

It’s got every element of military tragedy you can imagine. A poorly conceived mission. A company trying to do a brigade’s work. The US military being sucked into a local feud. An enemy that hides behind the civilian population. Officers in distant bunkers who have the power to veto air support called in by troops on the ground and under fire. Heavily medicated soldiers kept from total breakdown by an onslaught of pills.

An intractible enemy that hasn’t lost a war in 2300 years.

Noble soldiers suffer. Noble soldiers die.

Christ, it’s sad.