Afghanistan casualties mount for Fort Campbell's 101st Airborne

[Soldiering4U]

Nine months into its deployment to Afghanistan, the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, Ky., is enduring a steady rise in casualties as it continues to shoulder a large portion of America's combat surge in the insurgent-riddled country.

The division's deaths have nearly tripled since early summer, with 103 soldiers killed last year in Afghanistan, including six who died when a van packed with explosives detonated last month at an outpost in Kandahar province.

Most casualties have come in skirmishes and ambushes and from bombs buried under dirt roads and footpaths, 101st Airborne officials said.

“Counterinsurgency is a tough fight,” the division's commander, Maj. Gen. John Campbell, said in a recent e-mail to The Courier-Journal from Afghanistan. He said Afghanistan's complexities make it “much more difficult than what I faced in Baghdad during the surge.”

It's a sobering reminder of the difficulty the United States has faced in its attempts to achieve victory in what has become its longest war, stretching more than nine years.

A year after President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, the White House has claimed some progress against the Taliban and in training the Afghan military.

But aid groups and other U.S. intelligence reports have painted a bleaker picture, saying the Taliban were still strong and citing insurgent havens in Pakistan. In 2010, U.S. forces saw their bloodiest year yet, with 498 Ainmerican deaths.

The 101st Airborne has been at the forefront of that battle, fighting a strong insurgent network that has a sanctuary in Pakistan; training a fledgling Afghan police force; and helping residents govern towns where support for U.S. forces is unpredictable, Campbell said.

But the division's soldiers have also “removed” about 3,500 insurgents from the battlefield, he said, including many of its experienced fighters, while making it safer in some areas so that “there are more kids in school; there are more people with jobs; there are more people living without the threat of being terrorized.”

Two More Pages: http://www.courier-j...EWS01/301030005

These are my brothers and sisters and some guys I went to basic training with from this unit. Please Remember them and say Prayers for their families because they are not able to, remember they are Soldiering4U...

Edited January 3, 2011 by Soldiering4U

[littlesam]

I ll pray for your soldier family everyday...thanks for the post.

[Soldiering4U]

thx man... at least one person gets it...