Seth William Bell Folsom - Where Youth and Laughter Go: With The Cutting Edge in Afghanistan

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

2015 by Seth W. B. Folsom

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-61251-872-5 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First printing

Maps created by Charles Grear.

The opinions or assertions contained in this work are those of the author and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the U.S. Marine Corps, the Department of the Navy, or the Department of Defense.

For the fallen... and the survivors

sang: [s] French, noun

1. blood: en sang (covered in blood)

: [sung-geen] Persian, adjective

1. heavy, burdensome, or cumbersome

sanguine: [sang-gwin] English, adjective

1. cheerfully optimistic, hopeful, or confident: a sanguine disposition; sanguine expectations.

2. reddish; ruddy: a sanguine complexion.

3. (in old physiology) having blood as the predominating humor and consequently being ruddy-faced, cheerful, etc.

4. bloody; sanguinary.

5. blood-red; red.

Contents

HELMAND PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN

SANGIN DISTRICT MAP

E very now and then one of my Marine Corps colleagues approaches me in a mild state of shock and says, I didnt know you wrote a book. I never know how to react. After the publication of my first book my responses to such challenges were generally sheepish, almost apologetic. It was as if Ian active-duty infantry officerhad committed some grave sin by putting pen to paper. After my second book was published, similar feelings of latent ostracism by my fellow service members returned. By recounting my experiences in command, by including my foibles as well as my successes, by telling my story, I had somehow crossed an invisible threshold past the point of no returnI was now a published author, a title frequently underscored with overdramatic verbal emphasis or the employment of air quotes. My online audience was frequently less kind. One angry pipe-hitter, who refused to identify himself by his real name, said my first book was a creative work of fiction from an author and a legend in his own mind. Something tells me the dude didnt actually read the thing. Another anonymous blogger even accused me from the virtual safety of the Internet of being a writer, NOT a Marine. I am actually both. Trust me, its quite possible to be a Marine who also writes; neither profession is mutually exclusive.

Not long after I assumed command of 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines (3/7), one of the first rumblings I heard in the unit was the whispered caution, He writes books. Once my men warmed up to me, some even flat-out asked, Are you going to write a book about the Cutting Edge? Others asked cautiously, What are you going to write about me? I answered questions regarding a potential book with Well seean evil phrase I gleaned from my parents, one my two daughters have similarly come to loatheor, more simply, I dont knowbecause I honestly didnt know. If I had assumed command with the intention of writing a book about my exploits, my entire tenure as a battalion commander would have been a fraud, a fabricationsomething it will no doubt be characterized as anyway by the same nameless dude on the Internet who insisted I was a writer and NOT a Marine. Had I begun command with plans to write a book, subconscious decisions might have been made and actions might have been taken based on how I thought they would look in print. So I pushed the idea of writing a story about my Marines from my mind as far as I could. And, truth be told, once I found myself in the canals and alleys of Sangin with my men there was little consideration on my part for what lay ahead in the future. Simply put, I wasnt altogether sure I would survive to tell the tale.

So, contrary to popular belief, I have never reported to a new unit in the Marine Corps with the goal of writing a book about it. For me, writing is a way to reconcile my experiences, to make sense of the senseless, to find answers to difficult questions. Most important, though, is that writing has been a way to tell the story of the Marines who have served alongside me. But to tell their story, I must tell my own first. And so, as with my two previous works, the primary source of my writing for this book was my daily journal. Journaling has been a hobby for much of my life, and the times I have been most diligent about maintaining the practice have been during the most stressful periods of my life. As it so happens, the most stressful timeswhich have also been among the most rewardinghave been during combat deployments with my fellow Marines. My research for this work also drew heavily from a notebook I carried that contained details about every single patrol I conducted with my Marines, as well as a copy of 3/7s command chronology of the deployment. I drew biographical and unit information about my Marines from a combination of my personal interaction with them, administrative rosters, and the mens own brief autobiographies, which they were required to write before deploying to Afghanistan.

At the height of 3/7s deployment to Afghanistan the battalions rosters included more than twelve hundred Marines, Sailors, soldiers, contractors, and government civilians. It is impossible for me to tell the story of every single man and woman who served under my command, and yet I believe this story captures a broad section of our reinforced infantry battalion as we struggled together in that miserable place. This is not a work of fiction, but rather my recall of events as they happened. Accordingly, my recollections of incidents and conversations are only as accurate as I could record them in my journal and my patrol book. Im sure some people who were there with me will say I got it all wrong; Im also sure quite a few who werent there will scream it as well.

And so, with more than twelve hundred versions of the truth about the Cutting Edges 201112 deployment to Sangin, the story contained in these pages is but one of those versions. As with my previous books, I have sought to preserve as many actual names as possible. To do otherwise would be a disservice to the ordinary young men and women who were thrust into remarkable circumstances and performed even more remarkably. The task of keeping all names intact, however, inevitably proved impossible. I mention more than one hundred Marines and Sailors in this book. Even in the age of the Internet and social media, contacting each and every one of them proved to be a futile task. Obtaining permission from all of them was similarly frustrating. And so, in keeping with the wishes of someand using my better discretion with othersI have changed or removed certain names to protect the privacy of those individuals. Others were unfortunatelybut unavoidablyomitted in the final editing of this book.