From Guantanamo to the Islamic State, the Pech serves as a proxy for the broader American invasion, occupation, and slow, painful withdrawal. Conventional Army troops followed in their wake. They quickly found — or created — new enemies.
Once it began in earnest, the campaign in the Pech became self-defeating. Morgan describes how U. An AC gunship annihilated seven children in a streambed, having mistaken them for insurgents. A nervous American machine gunner killed three local policemen in their car.
Four months later, an errant mortar round hit a little girl. The elite raiders of special operations units, regularly sent into the valleys after high value targets, also did their part. The Pech, Morgan discovered, had actually been relatively inhospitable to the Taliban before the Americans arrived.
Despite the formidable terrain, the endless supply of enemy fighters, and the Sisyphean nature of the security and governance challenge, the Army chose to double down. If it is impossible, we will do it. Like virtually every other prestigious guild in modern American life, the U. That its merit badges are often actual badges does not erase their salience.
It becomes clear who the front row kids are. But unlike his star-bound peers who passed through the Pech, Jenkinson asked himself, and, more importantly, his superiors, a first-order question: What are we accomplishing here? Tortured by the mounting deaths of his men and increasingly convinced that the U.
Counter-insurgency doctrine died slowly in the Pech. Early Army units, and their superiors in Kabul, had embraced roadbuilding as the spearhead of development in the valley. But American infantry units repeatedly defaulted to their ingrained tactics. They found insurgents to kill, sometimes by the hundreds.
The Hardest Place is fundamentally about the U. Army, not Afghanistan. Logan Nye. Nestled between high mountains on the Afghan side of the border with Pakistan, the Korengal Valley has been one of the hardest fought over patches of ground in the War on Terror.
One was that of the first living recipient of the award since Vietnam: Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta. Today, the American military rarely moves into the valley, but handpicked Afghan commandos, some trained by the CIA, fight constantly with militants there. Their police execute raids and patrols in a continuing attempt to shut down or limit the shadow government operating there. When the American military was there, they faced the same challenges the Afghan forces do today.
Some of these dangers are common across Afghanistan, while some only existed in Korengal Valley and the other branches of the Pech River Valley. Steep mountains, loose shale, thick forests, and open patches of land made the area a nightmare for an occupying force. Combat outposts were built in relatively open areas so that defenders could see approaching militants.
However, this meant patrols returning to the base had to cross the open ground, sometimes under heavy small arms fire from nearby wooded areas and houses. The thick trees in the area allowed fighters to attack U. The attackers would then hide their weapons in the forests and return to the civilian population. The steep hillsides allowed snipers to climb above outposts and fire into the bases as soldiers slept.
Loose rock on the steep land led to injuries from trips and falls. Tied to the problem of the terrain, engineering in the valley has historically been difficult. Although not shown in the film, the U. As many women in Afghanistan are not allowed to be seen by unrelated men, female soldiers are tasked with searching houses and Afghan women, as well as assessing their need for aid and gathering intelligence from them.
Human geography instruction at West Point provides cadets with more perceptive views of other countries and the complex problems they face. Military geography analyzes urban and natural environments, as well as related interactions, such as the impact of population dynamics and nature resources on military operations.
Land-use planning and management addresses conflicts over land use and environmental strategies. Other opportunities, such as study-abroad programs and interactions with foreign cadets , increase our exposure to other cultures and geographies.
Through my study of human geography, I have gained a much greater understanding of the people and countries where I travel and work today — and where I will go in the future as a commissioned officer in the U. Topics: Afghanistan , Asia , development , foreign policy , humanitarian , livelihoods , military , security.
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