Well, sort of...
Kit Up! has been taking a dive through the 91,000 pages of documents released by the watchdog site WikiLeaks this morning and found an interesting entry that pertains to yours truly.
In April and May of 2004, well before I even knew what Kit Up! was, I was embedded with the Blackfoot Company of the 1st of the 501st in Khost province Afghanistan. I spent more than two weeks with this hard charging Joes and had an awesome time with them out on patrol on the mountains bordering some of the most volatile al Qaeda havens in Pakistan.
On the afternoon of April 9, 2004 -- which was actually Good Friday that year -- an element from our patrol was ambushed in a wadi below the rock outpost of Border Checkpoint 4. I and the photographer traveling with me at the time sped down with the command element to support the Soldiers in the wadi and help maneuver Afghan Border Police troops into the enemy position. Pretty routine for a days work for the 1-501st, but for me it was my first significant enemy contact.
Well, lo and behold, our friends from WikiLeaks provide rock solid proof of my "war stories" with this AAR from the incident.
TF 1-501 REPORTS TIC IVO BCP4. S: UNK, A: DIRECT FIRE, L: WB 841 749, U: B/1-501, T: 1150Z, E: UNK, REQUEST AH QRF FROM SALERNO. 11:47Z FIRES ARE FROM SOUTH OF B/1-501 ELEMENT, 11:47Z TF-180 GRANTS LAUNCH FOR SAL QRF ISO TF 1/501, TF FALCON GRANTS LAUNCH APPROVAL 11:50Z. USE OF A10S IN B/C AND/OR B1B WILL BE SENT TO COVER UNTIL SALERNO QRF GETS ON STATION. 11:59Z CONTACT HAS CEASED, TF GERONIMO REPORTS NO DAMAGE TO EQUIPMENT, NO CASUALTIES. RECEIVED SMALL ARMS FIRES FROM RPK, AK-47, AND 4 X RPGS, CURRENLTY MANEUVERING ON ENEMY LOCATION W/ AH SUPPORT AND A10S ON STATION.
It's funny what you can turn up from a document dump like this. All the entries we've seen so for tend to be like this -- run of the mill AARs or CONOPs that don't break any news. But...
Kit Up! as well as the rest of the team at Military.com are scanning through the docs and will post interesting nuggets as we find them (which we have, read Greg Grant's debunking the New York Times allegation that insurgents are using old US Stingers). Stay tuned for more...
