Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, And The Brotherhood Of War In Afghanistan Quotes
"In Afghanistan, we Americans have to adjust our transportation expectations. We are used to traveling fast."
"The road bisected a broad valley six hours’ drive south of our base at Bermel."
"Steep ridges defined the valley’s boundaries."
"This was our area of operations, a harsh and barren land whose people had known nothing but violence for decades."
"The government’s violating the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890."
"The post office is a huge drain on the taxpayers!"
"I’ll lay off when you give me my MREs back."
"The late-afternoon sun perched atop the ridgelines, spilling red-gold light across the valley."
"The mountain caves around here were the insurgents’ equivalent of forward operating bases."
"The violence that flowed from the ratlines was threatening to destabilize the government."
"No doubt Lieutenant Colonel Toner had known that, which is why he’d sent us down here."
"For a young leader like myself, it was a beautiful thing to see."
"He was a broad-chested twenty-year-old with earnest good looks and an engaging smile."
"He was a Texas native who spoke without an accent."
"Even with all those advantages the post office is a huge drain on the budget!"
"There’s no stigma to it; it is expected. Don’t trust Ghul, and be careful what you give him."
"Major Ghul says that he uses the radio to stay in constant contact with his men."
"They have been attacked many times recently."
"He says his men have little supplies, almost no ammunition."
"Major Ghul checked the cauldron. 'Our food is ready,' he told Abdul."
"Our biggest concern was the Afghan Border Police. How loyal were they?"
"I thought about how we could mitigate them without offending the Afghans."
"Sometime before midnight, we finally managed to extricate ourselves."
"The next morning, Outlaw Platoon rose early to prepare for another long patrol mission."
"The men stood guard around Abdul’s family’s home, their eyes cold and filled with anger."
"The infantryman’s way of life has a knack for distilling a man’s character down to its most essential elements."
"The grief I’d felt as I stood in the ditch next to his body had given way to a slow burning rage."
"You have to look. If it is Abdul, at the very least you owe him that."
"The enemy had struck out of the darkness."
"The ground quaked again. The water bottle shifted, fell over my left thigh, and spilled down my pant leg."
"Suppressing fire, the purpose of which is to pin you down, sounds undisciplined; it wanders back and forth over you without much aim."
"Gunfire can also telegraph the trigger puller’s emotional response to a firefight."
"There are the pros, men who have waited with cold calculation for other men to venture into their sights."
"And then there are the haters, men brimming with passion, controlled only by long-instilled discipline."
"The enemy machine gunners hammered at us with accurate bursts."
"I reached for my radio handset, remembering that the radio is a lieutenant’s best weapon."
"Fear assailed me. We were in a kill zone perhaps 350 meters long."
"The cold, flat ring of lead on armor filled the air."
"Sean, it’s time to prove yourself. You have to lead."
"In combat, men measure up. Or don’t. There are no second chances."
"I grasped the Humvee’s door handle. Pinholt noticed the movement."
"My head swam. I kept running, carrying my rifle by its ACOG scope as if it were a briefcase."
"A king does not require service of those he leads but provides it to them."
"Through the smoke and spinning cloudlets of moondust, I saw the Illinois father of three racing toward me."
"I bounded the final meters to the nearest Afghan truck, which had been abandoned a short distance below the knoll’s crest."
"The sight shattered all self-doubt and sent bolts of pure energy through my system."
"We needed to find that guy and kill him. Snipers are significant force multipliers."
"The Dragunov barked. AKs rattled, the machine guns poured cold fury."
"I bounded the final meters to cover, I burned with self-doubt."
"To my surprise, we were not fighting the Taliban alone."
"The Taliban was the main group aligned against us,"
"To my surprise, we were not fighting the Taliban alone... Known as the Haqqani Network, it had first taken shape during the Afghan-Soviet War in the 1980s."
"The network recruited its foot soldiers mainly from Pakistan... Over the years, young men inspired by their mullahs to fight infidels had become the key source of manpower for the network."
"It took some time for us to understand how the foreign fighters we had killed on the mountaintop on May 8 fit into this equation."
"If we had any lingering doubts as to Galang’s skill on the battlefield, they were shattered on May 17, when he and his men ambushed our Second Platoon behind Rakhah Ridge."
"I watched them and realized I’d never seen a more shaken group of U.S. soldiers. The ambush had been brutal: May 7 on steroids."
"The mission or the men you love? Mission first. Little by little, the reality of combat stole portions of my humanity."
"The great thing about small-unit leadership is the enormous bond so easily shared between the leader and his young warriors."
"They’ve been doing this all their lives. When I was playing ice hockey in school, these guys were fieldstripping their AKs."
"We Americans hate to admit that anyone has an edge over us. But I wanted to be straight. I had to be; there were a lot of lives at stake."
"Baldwin’s smooth voice cut into the conversation. 'You know—I—am—a—firm believer that everything that comes out of my mouth is the truth.'"
"Americans of a different generation might not have"
"I loved Chris Brown too much to let him burden his conscience with this man’s foul soul."
"We don’t have yellow smoke. This guy’s losing it."
"Back and forth, back and forth, we eased around even as the enemy hammered away at us."