Far, far away…

Observation Post Mace, a peak-crowning outpost with a couple of platoons of US troops, Afghan National Army and ASG guards, is about as far from civilisation as the war has cared to touch. With no running water and supplies brought in but once a week via Chinook helicopter (save a daily donkey convoy carting non-potable water), Mace is about as remote as the battle gets.

Discretion and the better part of valour.

Lt Colonel Robert B. Brown, head of operations at FOB Bostick, presents Purple Hearts and other awards of valour to soldiers on base. Many of the soldiers pictured were involved (and injured) in heavy fighting in the area last year before all outposts, save Bostick, were abandoned.

After the ceremony, the Lt Colonel reprimanded the soldiers present for a growing number of drug-related incidents. A soldier was caught the prior evening smoking hash , a readily available drug that is sold locally and allegedly used by some of the Afghan soldiers on base.

Winter wonderland.

“… in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer.”

Forward Operating Base Bostick is ISAF’s farthest camp in Afghanistan’s North-East provinces. A snowball’s throw from Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province and a solstice stroll to neighbouring Nuristan, Bostick is the last of a once-mighty scattering of US-led military stations in the area – a forgotten front on an ever-changing battleground.

Around base.

Two soldiers from nearby COP Michigan relax in FOB Blessing’s ‘Lethal Lounge’, a den of solitude for soldiers on short-term leave.

Members of ASG, a private security company staffed by local Afghans, watch over FOB Blessing.

Bannerama.

Various battalion emblems, notes and graffiti around Forward Operating Base Blessing.

Light in the dark.

A mortar crew at Forward Operating Base Blessing fires phosphorous illumination shells to aid ISAF soldiers on a night-time mission in a neighbouring valley.

Pinned and wriggling.

While escorting contractors to rebuild a road destroyed by Taliban fighters, soldiers of Gator Company, 2-12 Infantry Battalion came under sniper fire from a nearby ridge. Forced behind limited coverage, the troops set up defensive positions along the sheer valley wall. Intercepted communications between militants alluded to an imminent two-sided attack on the dismounted patrol team, but no further assault was launched. Apache helicopters arrived shortly on scene, delivering a demigod’s fury upon the mountainside.