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AP Report With the 5/2 SBCT in Afghanistan

Feb-15-2010 » Filed Under: 5/2 SBCT

Associated Press reporter Christopher Torchia is embedded with the 5/2 SBCT in Afghanistan near Marjah.

BADULA QULP, Afghanistan — They call themselves gypsies, the men of Bravo Company.

Right now, the 140 American soldiers are living out of their Stryker infantry carriers, part of a force assisting a U.S. Marine offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marjah by blocking any insurgent movement near a canal to the northeast. They sleep up to six to a vehicle, crammed into a metal shell with hatches and only narrow windows in the "Hellhole" — the driver's compartment.

Living in these machines is like living in a can. In the morning, the soldiers pop their heads out of the hatches like moles emerging from the earth. By day, they wait, patrol, scan compounds with the sights of their rifles and engage in firefights with insurgents.

Such is U.S. Army life in a theater of war, a lot of the time. But this company from the 5th Stryker Brigade has been on the move more than most since it deployed in Afghanistan in July, and they joke about it. They are the "Bedouin Company" — after the Arab desert nomads — or the "Bravo Bastards."


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