captain mel porter outpost keatingcaptain mel porter outpost keating

The Allies hoped that extending these bases into Nuristan, one of the most remote and isolated eastern provinces in Afghanistan, they could demonstrate to the entire Afghan population the government's credibility and power. The rock could not be demolished without raining fragments into the town of Urmul across the Landay-Sin river. [7]:12930 1345,156. Joshua Hardt, who until this time had been MIA. Those guys were amazing. Rather off-topic but wasn't Poe at that moment demoted by Leia beforehand? As a result, the depot was looted by the Taliban. I was not on the outpost when the battle kicked off. Keating died while serving at the base in 2006 and it was . Area of Operations. Several of the dogs that hung around the camp were with them, one of which supposedly bit an old woman working in a field. The Allies stopped using the Kamdesh-Naray road. The entire Outpost Keating was recreated. The first didn't take place at the camp. On that day, then-1LT Bundermann's leadership and heroic actions in orchestrating the defense of Combat Outpost Keating, helped prevent it from falling into the hands of a Taliban force of more than 400 fighters. The report said that there were as many as 47 attacks in the five months prior to the deadly assault, 10 in the 30 days prior to the mass attack. Not exactly, but in researching The Outpost's historical accuracy, we learned that a similar incident happened the year prior, in 2008, involving more than just one dog. As I neared the camp that evening, Cordovas voice crackled through my radio and asked for more blood donors. They were eventually repelled from the small base through the actions of what the investigation's report said were the camp soldiers who "fought heroically" and counterattacks by Apache helicopters and attack jets. MAJ Porter talks about his first couple of days into country as he was getting set up and received direct attack resulting . Such attacks are not news to men like Capt. It occurred on October 3, 2009, when a force of 400 Taliban assaulted the American Combat Outpost ("COP") Keating near the town of Kamdesh in Nuristan Province in eastern Afghanistan. [7]:334,501,92,98. Without air support, I dont think we would have made it, considering the number against us and the area we were in, McMurtrey said. On the whole the AAF was a broader based and more formidable force in 2007 than before the American invasion, and represented a significant escalation. Rob Yllescas of Nebraska, in "The Outpost," which tells the story of real-life combat events from the War in Afghanistan. When Captain Aaron Swain of Cherokee Co. had sounded out Afghan Border Police Commander Ahmed Shah about setting up near Kamdesh, he was told that HIG insurgents tried to blow up Shah's jeep on his last trip there and it was a bad place. October 03, 2019. As it became obvious that COP Keating was too isolated, indefensible, and impossible to supply, plans were made to close it beginning in December 2008. [2] Combat Outpost Keating is best known as the setting of the Battle of Kamdesh which occurred on October 3rd, 2009. Through the summer and fall of 2008, Captain Joey Hutto, COP Keating's new commander, expanded this initiative. That doesnt mean anything should be taken from the guys on the ground. They should had just followed their fucking orders. COP Keating, which was established in the summer of 2006, was put in the valley for the simple reason that it's where the roads are. Clint Romesha rallied his fellow soldiers by telling them, "We're taking this bitch back. Loss of life was inevitable and the government. This letter was written in Pashto and signed "Mujahideen". Was the mortars limited supplies or an ROE thing? In real life, Keating had served with the 3/71 CAV, not the 3/61 CAV (the unit he's part of in The Outpost movie). The PRT site resembled the bottom of a funnel. Christopher Cordova, the squadrons physician assistant, was manning the aid station where there was no power. Seven other Americans and one ANA soldier were wounded. Mace survived long enough to be evacuated to a nearby medical facility. Between each take, the director and actors paused and turned to Cordova, who offered feedback to make the scene match his memory. American forces had already planned to pull out of the area as part of a plan to move forces to more densely populated areas, so closure of the base was imminent when the attack occurred. The transfusion was a radical move that brought Mace back to consciousness. I am almost 100% certain it was deliberately placed in a shitty location to goad locals into attacking the base, allowing the US to attack the enemy directly. As a result of the battle, COP Keating was partially overrun and nearly destroyed. Captain Broward is a fictional character likely based on Captain Melvin Porter, the officer who commanded COP Keating before it was attacked and was reprimanded for its lack of preparedness. At one point, he and his men came under heavy sniper fire. Soldiers with 1st Plt., B Trp., 3rd Sqdn., 61st Cav Regt., 4th BCT, 4th Inf. [7]:229,256,26380[12], The Battle of Saret Koheh made good on the threats of the "Night Letter". [7]:803,945,11620, After marching into the proposed site for the Kamdesh provincial outpost, Captain Michael and Cherokee Company's second platoon were confronted by a large boulder in the middle of the site that made landing a helicopter in the PRT site impossible. He saw service in the First Barbary War, the War of 1812 and in the West Indies.On July 2, 1812, Porter hoisted the banner "Free trade and sailors' rights" as captain of USS Essex. I only watched the trailer. Omar was the top Taliban leader, but U.S. Intelligence stated that HIG had done the killing, crediting Omar to instil more fear due to Omar's greater reputation. After an attack on October 3, 2009, where the base was nearly overrun, and 8 Americans and 4 Afghan defenders were killed, the base was abandoned and demolished by a bombing from an American B-1 bomber on the night of October 6th, 2009. I witnessed the making of The Outpost, a film about the day my unit fought off 300 Taliban fighters who tried to overrun our camp in Afghanistan. Cordova continued to treat the wounded even after flames were within 10 feet of his location. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor. [7]:1238,1368,18191,407, Despite recommendations not to drive the large supply vehicle, First Lieutenant Ben Keating took the wheel while returning an armored supply truck to the Naray FOB. [35] Capt. By now, Porter had strained relations with nearly all of his subordinate leaders. Additionally, 20 Afghan troops, two Latvian soldiers and a dozen Afghan security guards were at Keating. The Outpost true story reveals that the soldiers were surrounded by more than 300 Taliban fighters, many of whom were rushing in from Pakistan, which was only 14 miles from COP Keating. A new counter-insurgency strategy seemed to offer a way around these problems. Nicholson and officers of his command believed that much of the flow of weapons and troops from Pakistan could be stopped at Kamdesh. [14] At the time, Afghan national forces were supervised and trained by members of the Latvian Operational Mentor Liaison Teams. The punishments reflect a recent trend in Afghanistan to hold military commanders accountable for battlefield failures. Jake Tapper, author of the bookThe Outpost, wondered the same thing when he embarked on his research. [10], OP Fritsche was established to provide overwatch for COP Keating and was manned by a mix of US and Afghan national forces. He died when his truck fell off the cliff, and the outpost was later named Combat Outpost Keating in his honor. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Died of his wounds after his legs were hit by RPG shrapnel. JT: First Lieutenant Ben Keating, who is the namesake of the camp, he was, he had Pressfield's book with him, and he was reading it, and it was a lesson to him. Roller attended his next meeting with village leaders dressed in a T-shirt and shorts. [2], The attackers overran Keating's perimeter defenses about 48 minutes into the battle. AAF would disguise themselves in ANA uniforms and set up fake checkpoints to extract taxes and tolls from local contractors, and allied themselves with smugglers transporting illegal timber and gems into Pakistan. These groups could clash violently over water rights, pasture, and religious beliefs. It is a story about the battle to defend against a coordinated Taliban attack that later came to be known as The Battle of Kamdesh. So first and foremost: The movie is based off the book of the same name. Youre reading this weeks At War newsletter. [7]:28,41,908,123, The Nuristan provincial reconstruction team base was strongly recommended by Nuristani Province Governor Tamim Nuristani. The outpost was renamed Camp Keating in December 2006 (not in 2009). The Soviets had to contend with a rebel group known as the Dawlet of eastern Nuristan. A base at the bottom of a valley surrounded by hills which are. [9] The Americans "declared the outpost closed and departedso quickly that they did not carry out all of their stored ammunition. The following day, insurgents kidnapped and murdered Fazal Ahad, an elder from Badmuk who was attempting to end the Kom/Kata tribal disagreements by arranging a meeting in Kamdesh. One of the casualties was a bright young specialist named Stephan Mace, whom Cordova kept alive for nine hours by transfusing fresh blood from other soldiers, himself included. Basically, the air support was leaving and coming back. Stoney Portis, an officer in the Army and a Ph.D. candidate at Duke University, is a guest contributor to the At War newsletter. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/magazine/the-outpost-afghanistan-movie.html. It also showed Lieutenant Colonel Chris Kolenda (commander of American forces in Naray) with a crisis. On July 20, 2006, 2:00 a. m. all of Cherokee Company and one platoon from Able Troop, 3-71 Cavalry Squadron dropped in two Chinooks on Landing Zone Warheit, a cornfield on a ridge near Kamdesh, under command of Lieutenant Colonel Howard to garrison the area. This separation of the landing zone, and the fact that the site was surrounded by mountains on three sides made the site unappealing because of the difficulty of mounting an effective defense. He decided that American soldiers' "battle rattle" war gear gave the impression of soulless killing machines. There was an element of ABLE Troop 3-71 CAV 2nd Platoon still left on the PZ after the crash that worked relentlessly to recover the bodies of their 10 comrades and destroy sensitive equipment in the wreckage. A note was attached to his body which said: "Don't work with coalition forces. Many of the Afghan troops, however, were a different story. Fallen Heroes 3-61 Cavalry, 4th BCT, 4th ID. According to one account, Hill without hesitation picked up a Latvian sniper rifle and eliminated the target at a distance of over 300 meters., 1st Lt. Andrew Bundermann, de facto ground commander, worked to slow the fire in the operations center and salvage equipment. He later set up the tactical satellite radio to coordinate air support and medevac. After assisting with securing the OP from potential follow on attacks, members of the Quick Reaction Force descended from the mountain's peak to COP Keating on foot. Despite overwhelming odds and volume of injuries, MAJ (R) Cordova was able to . Need to know. [7]:21530, The closeness of the action, and coordinated fire from both sides of the valley indicated that the attackers in this ambush were different from the groups that had been using sporadic, long range, harassing fire. prosthetic makeup effects sculptor: Millennium FX. The second incident happened in 2008 at Observation Post Fritsche. Located near the border with Pakistan in the Afghan province of Nuristan, COP Keating was the scene of a coordinated attack by as many as 300 Taliban fighters who stormed the exposed base. The Distinguished Flying Cross was given to 7 aviators who assisted in defending the base. Captain Sylvanius Broward (Kwame Patterson), whom the men refer to as "Broward the Coward," shoots the dog to appease the elder and calm the situation. Years later, I still feel guilty for not getting there until nightfall, even if the circumstances were out of my control. It also said the commanders had become "desensitized" to reports of imminent large scale attacks because previous warnings had turned out to be on a much smaller scale. The camp was originally constructed to be a PRT (i.e., Provincial Reconstruction Team), called PRT Kamdesh, but due to extremely high levels of fighting in the area it remained a fire base instead of a PRT. JavaScript is disabled. From left, Martin Malchev as Specialist Cody Floyd; Jack Kalian as Staff Sgt. [23], Once inside, the attackers set fire to the base, burning down most of the barracks. Yes. Benjamin D. Keating was born in Sanford, Maine on 31 May 1979, and he served as Chair of the Young Republicans at the . This includes Scott Eastwood's character, Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha, telling the men, "We're taking this bitch back," after the camp is partially overrun by Taliban fighters. [9], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}352523N 711944E / 35.4231N 71.3289E / 35.4231; 71.3289 (Location of Combat Outpost Keating). (U.S. Army) The Counterattack: "We're Taking this Bitch Back" With more and more Taliban soldiers now inside the base, an important decision was needed. The battle is also the main focal point of the 2020 film The Outpost, which was in-turn based on the book The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor by Jake Tapper. Justin Gallegos' Silver Star was later upgraded to a Distinguished Service Cross. Served with United States Army since 2008. Tiller was also thrown from the truck but his injuries weren't nearly as severe. Ground resupply became almost impossible due to the area's limited roads and the threat of insurgent attacks. Capt. Within the first hour, the American and Latvian defenders had collapsed to a tight internal perimeter, centered on the two buildings that were not burning. This article is featured in the 2019 October issue of VFW magazine, and was written by Janie Dyhouse, senior editor for VFW magazine. A United States Special Operations forces soldier on the Syria-Turkey border in September 2019. The camp was defended by a combined force of 140 U.S. and Afghan soldiers. Many of the Afghan National Army members there in support of the coalition troops fled. It looked just like our outpost on the day of the battle. Dozen Afghan security guards were at Keating that doesnt mean anything should be taken from the guys on the of... 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Security guards were at Keating tactical satellite radio to coordinate air support was leaving coming... Was leaving and coming back best known as the setting of the flow of weapons and from... And received direct attack resulting was written in Pashto and signed `` Mujahideen '' by telling them ``... Like our outpost on the ground scene match his memory thrown from the truck but his injuries n't. Command believed that much of the flow of weapons and troops from Pakistan could stopped... There was no power was the mortars limited supplies or an ROE?... And the outpost closed and departedso quickly that they did not carry out all his... Camp that evening, Cordovas voice crackled through my radio and asked for more blood donors like our on... Happened in 2008 at Observation Post Fritsche groups could clash violently over water rights, pasture, religious...

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