Where is camp leatherneck afghanistan map

Crinkled bottles were discarded everywhere, half full of water or dip spit. The Washington Post reported that , of these bottles were left behind, enough to form a mile line of flimsy plastic. Keep this site free and open for all to read We were leaving the base to the Afghan National Army to continue fighting the Taliban, who were waiting for us to leave.

It was widely understood the Taliban would ramp up their operations and take Leatherneck for themselves as soon as we departed. Locals who had allied with us feared for their lives. The offensive patrols outside the perimeter were routinely engaged in combat until our withdrawal, but the last attack on the base entailed an inconsequential shipping container blown up by a rocket, in early summer of Afghan soldiers were hastily trained, but top Marines said they would be incapable of even maintaining generators or fueling heavy armored vehicles.

We left them instead with a fleet of John Deere Gators, outfitting them with the tactical equivalent of golf carts. Despite leaving them desperately unprepared to face the Taliban, pointless tasks were prioritized. The ranking supply officer catalogued hundreds of desks and chairs in the remaining buildings, not a single one of which would have a computer.

Being on the periphery of the base, it was a security vulnerability, as Afghans would sneak over the dirt embankments to salvage the useful items.

They did the same with the on-base ranges, collecting the brass for scrap. Once a building was demolished, its materials were thrown out or sold as scrap to the locals in dusty Helmand Province. Other trash was cremated by two school bus—sized incinerators that worked through an ever-growing pile as tall as a house in a gymnasium-sized pavilion.

One of the biggest orders the incinerators faced was the burning of over 10, expired meals, ready-to-eat. Not everything we deemed the Afghans unable to manage could be burned, sold, shipped back to the United States, or discarded in the open landfill. Weather and sloppy storage had deteriorated its packaging to the point where sending it anywhere would have been cost-prohibitive. Civilian contractors had been burning the excess , pounds of ammo in amounts small enough to dispose of on base, but once they departed Leatherneck, it fell to the explosive ordnance disposal EOD company attached to CLB Armored vehicles and trucks that get single-digit mileage to the gallon trundled out into the open desert, forklifts and diggers in tow, where a huge security perimeter would be established to prevent locals from rushing the site following the explosion to salvage the scrap.

Each controlled detonation involved 7, to 11, pounds of explosives. Forklifts lowered pallets of it into a hole 15 feet deep and 30 to 40 feet across.

The first detonation startled me awake in the early-morning hours. It shook the building and the boom rippled through the air from miles away. This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Marine Corps. Military Wiki Explore. Popular pages. Project maintenance. Register Don't have an account? Camp Leatherneck. Edit source History Talk 0. Cancel Save. Approximately 1, Dutch and Australian personnel are stationed at Kamp Holland.

Only six Americans operate this facility as Embedded Training Team members. They train and fight with soldiers from the Afghan National Army and their base frequently comes under fire from Taliban forces. Press Info Subscriptions Give. Comments: 0 You can leave your commment:. Name required. E-Mail will not be published required. Comments are limited to less than characters.

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