U.S. Marines Take On the Taliban in Afghanistan

Marines at a forward outpost in Helmand province.

Eavesdropping. As it prepares to push out, Weapons Company 2nd Platoon builds a volleyball court-size topographic map in the sand, piling up stones for houses and shredding pieces of fabric to denote rivers and canals. The forward scouts have scoped out the route, and the MEU has been picking up radio transmissions indicating that some Taliban commanders are being reprimanded by their senior leaders for the marines' recent territorial gains. That hasn't stopped Taliban reinforcements from continuing to flow across the Pakistani border, some 75 miles to the south, in large numbers.

With news of the arrival of U.S. troops, many of the villagers loaded up tractors and cleared out. A number of families remain encamped on the outskirts of the hot desert town, many too frightened by Taliban threats to accept the food brought over by U.S. troops. "This could become a humanitarian crisis," says one marine.

An interpreter from Edgewater, N.J., has recently arrived at the outpost on the supply convoy, a bumpy six-hour stop-and-go ride over 7 miles of dirt road to deliver ammunition, food, and water to the company outposts. As he walks around the compound, he expresses concern about one of the "burn pits," an outdoor oven where the marines—with no toilets to use—have been disposing of bags of waste. "That's where the family bakes their bread," he says, noting that the compound owners might view the marines' unwitting act as a deliberate insult. He also worries about the embroidered bedding spread throughout the compound. "This is where families here put all of their wealth," he explains, to buy blankets and pillows to make guests more comfortable.

Some of the marines are fatalistic. "You know after we leave they're just going to come in here and [mess] up everything anyway," says one. "Blame it on us and try to get some money," in the form of compensation that NATO troops pay to locals for damaged property. Weapons Company suspects that the compound is the home of a drug lord. There are rooms filled with mementos, jewelry boxes, and even birth control pills from Iran. "They left in a hurry," says a marine known as Rock, a Weapons Company intelligence specialist and one of the few Afghan-Americans in the corps.

Rock is gibed by his fellow troops—one evening as the sun sets, they quiz him on American movies and music. When he doesn't know the answer, they deduct "patriotism points." They also come to him frequently with questions about locals they encounter. He keeps a picture of his mother in his wallet, a young woman wearing a miniskirt, taken while she was working as a professor of psychology in Kandahar. "They could wear miniskirts?" asked one young soldier, grabbing the picture for closer inspection. Many women did decades ago, Rock explains, but now the country is a different, more traditional place. Out on patrol, where he often encounters villagers impatient to return home, Rock has been surprised by their tolerance of the foreign troops. "These people say to us, 'I will leave my home for you. Thank God for you—we pray for you every day.' "

The chaplain, too, stops by to offer one last prayer for the troops before they leave.

As evening approaches, the marines nap on hospital stretchers in the shade. Gradually, though, Little begins relaying word that the operation has been delayed. Headquarters has found a roadside bomb that the mine-detection sweepers didn't recognize. For now, the batallion must figure out the problem, recalibrate, and resweep the dirt roads.

Some marines turn over and continue napping; others get up to clean their rifles again or do laundry in ammunition cans that they fill with well water. They are not sure now when they will push out. Some are frustrated, impatient to fight. Others are more subdued, aware of the enormity of the task ahead of them in the months to come.