Interesting article on 1st Battalion, 5th Marines from the LA Times:
Reporting from Nawa, Afghanistan – It was at the end of a recent after-lunch meeting, with the two sides sitting cross-legged on a tattered rug, exchanging pleasantries and enjoying sweet tea and stone-baked bread.
Haji Mohammed Khan, district administrator for Nawa, a government bureaucrat with three decades’ experience in war and shaky peace, had something he wanted to ask the Marines, some of whom will soon return to bases in the United States.
“Please,” Khan said in a low voice, his sad eyes looking directly at his guests, “don’t let us be here alone. You used your young people, your vehicles, your helicopters to help us. Please don’t turn around and leave unfinished your business here.”
We’ve read it before and said it before– COIN is slow and painstaking, but it has to be given time. It looks like what we’re doing is having an effect, finally. Let’s finish it.
I got one problem with this otherwise good article. 1st Battalion, 5th Marines is properly rendered into shorthand as “1/5″ and said as “one five,” not “1-5″ and certainly not “the 1-5.”
That is all. Return to what you were doing. And Happy Thanksgiving.
