Fur months inside hell and back.. My trip to the devastated Afghanistan
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Kabul (Afghanistan) 1:07:09
After landing, the so-called "tactical", we step in the much discussed Afghanistan ...
Total desolation ... A bale of grass rolling across the track carried by the wind ... About 130 passengers are only three than for capital ... The rest stops here ...
I join in the characters EUPOL and the first thing that strikes me is that all of the square flags are hoisted at half-shaft ... An army sergeant He explains, as if nothing had happened, that someone dies there every day ... I shiver ... peacekeeping?
I have an army corporal who two days earlier with his jeep was blown up by a mine and an infinite number of combinations was still there and could tell even if half stunned and deaf ...
The sergeant who accompanied me on a visit I confess that until now there has always gone well, but sooner or later "5 or 6 we bring them home" (exact words).
With more of the Thunderbolt and a journalist (Andrea Angeli) we can embark on a U.S. C130 direct to our destination: Kabul.
An hour later my colleague embraces basic and replacement Angel!
Kabul (Afghanistan) 2:07:09
This morning I had my first real encounter with war. Receive a radio call, they need us to coordinate a MEDEVAC (Medical Evacuation); landing two U.S. Black Hawk from nowhere with two wounded Afghan serious edge ...
We escorted the two ambulances (one Belgian and Croatian) until they loaded the wounded .. made me feel to see those guys bloody and think that just before had been affected ...
I thought about all day ...
Kabul (Afghanistan) 3:07:09
The daily morning briefings will show all the current situation in this country forgotten by God or Allah, it depends on your point of view ...
Talk of attacks, suicide bombers, mines, our troops (ISAF) KIA or WIA (Wounded in Action or Killed in Action) alias injured or dead ...
There's a war here ...
Flags are hoisted at half ever auction ...
Kabul (Afghanistan) 4:07:09
Today was killed a former lieutenant colonel and a British soldier 18 years ...
Death does not see grades or age!
It 's so exciting to see the military in many different nations, different religions, different armed forces, a mix of camouflage, and desert uniforms, flags and other abbeys work together for one goal: to bring peace to this battered country.
See U.S. Marines to train Afghan soldiers, C130 military transport German Poles, Greeks together with Turks, French, Portuguese and Belgian cure us so. A single team.
I saw a group of children playing with kites handmade, forgot to be in the land of Housseini Khaled and his kite ...
Kabul (Afghanistan) 5:07:09
I was talking to Angel, was about midnight when we see a middle-aged gentleman with a long beard, wearing a jacket all ripped that suggests that anti-bullets below, helmet in hand, camera and video cameras dangling from shoulder, backpack all dirty and a little box with stickers airport of the most diverse and infamous the world ...
Was to go to the opposite side of our airport and did not know how to get ... We give him something to step ... we chatted in the car we discover that he was a photographer and worked for the London newspaper The Guardian, told us about adventures in Liberia, Benin, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Iraq ...
Interesting encounters that are made in places like ...
Kabul (Afghanistan) 6:07:09
Adrenalin is a thousand. We are waiting for the train that will take us to the British headquarters located in downtown Kabul.
They look like ninja turtles in our anti-shrapnel jackets and our helmets, but the procedure to get around town ...
The soldier of Fiji that we escort the briefing starts, shows the route decided for now, the various slogans and counter slogans, such as position ourselves in their tank so as to take up arms.
We board, the radio is off, the jammer on, start the coil between the steel horses ... we pass through several checkpoints on the road ... we ...
Now we and them ... I can see through the tinted windows and armored fragments of their everyday life, barefoot children running along the rubble, donkey-carts carrying brushwood, bearded people discussing animatedly in a circle, men with giant posters turbaned and bearded calling the general election ... sometimes a scooter or car approached a bit 'too instinctively and review images of suicide blasts that had so impressed me during the preparation for this mission to one of the soldiers promptly Villafranca ... opened the door and motioning to leave him pointing the gun ... The nervousness and the tension is sky ... The heart begins to pump stronger ...
Kabul (Afghanistan) 9:07:09
Today for the first time I managed to connect to facebook ... I read the messages that so many of my friends have left me for an hour and I was completely abstracted from the world ...
It seemed to be in my room ... And in Cesena 'was strange when I was coming out again swallowed up by sand and dust, dozens of armed soldiers were moving, black hawk I went over my head, a C130 took off ... I had my laundry bag in hand and my way to the laundry ... they are still in Afghanistan
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