Author: Rick Leventhal

Dispatch from Forward Operating Base Payne in Southern Afghanistan:

Marines with the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (1st LAR) just assumed control of Helmand Province one week ago.

Now they’ve suffered their first casualty.

The 1000th U.S. Service member to die in Afghanistan (by AP’s count) was a Marine with the 1st LAR.  He was on foot patrol in the southern Helmand River Valley Thursday afternoon when he was killed by an IED.

Fox News is not releasing the Marine’s name, but can confirm his family has been notified and he is on his way home.

Two other marines on patrol with him were wounded.  The men were medivac’d from the scene and are being treated in a military hospital for schrapnel wounds.  Sources tell me there was no loss of limbs and they’re expected to survive.

The other Marines on the foot patrol assisted with the medivac and continued on their mission.

The mood on the base is somber but otherwise normal.  The Battalion Commander tells me the “battle rhythym has not been disrupted.”  We see it firsthand.  Marines are feeling the loss but remain focused.  This is an unfortunate part of the job, they tell me.  Everyone wants and hopes (and sometimes expects) wars to be fought without anyone dying but it’s just not possible.

This is the first casualty suffered by the 1st LAR since taking over this area of operations from the 4th LAR one week ago.

I spoke personally with the fallen Marine’s Company Commander, who I was embedded with during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.  He spoke very highly of his fallen brother, a man who’s bravery and valor is without question.  The Company Commander was calm.  His Marines understand the risk, he told me.  They will mourn the loss and never forget and they will continue to serve.

The Navy’s Construction Battalion is known as the SEABEES (C-B’s… get it?) and they are among the most appreciated troops on a base.  That’s because they make things more comfortable for the troops by building almost everything… and almost anything.

They often work “outside the wire”, constructing a Forward Operating Base or Combat Outpost from the ground up, laying the foundation, building the protective berms and walls, making wooden floors for the tents, hammering together structures for offices and chow halls and showers and bathrooms.

They build tables and chairs, bunks and doors, bomb shelters and even barbecue grills (by cutting a barrel in half).

Strangest request?  Petty Officer Jeff Conmy says “A dartboard.  In the shape of a human.”  And he arches an eyebrow.  Did he build it?  “No.  I said we can’t help you.  That’s what we told them.”  And he laughs.

Conmy, a 23 year old from Ventura California, says he grew up playing with legos and always liked building stuff, so when he decided to join the Navy fresh out of High School, becoming a SEABEE was a no-brainer.

He’s good with a torch and had welding experience so that’s his specialty here now.  He’s on his fourth deployment and 2nd tour of Afghanistan and when asked what he’s looking forward to most when he gets home, he says candidly “not taking showers with a bunch of men!’

Captain Jason Ford is on his fourth tour of duty with the U.S. Marines, his first in Afghanistan.  I met him in 2003 during the buildup to the invasion of Iraq and again on the march towards Baghdad while he was serving with the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, the same unit I embedded with.

Now he’s the Commanding Officer of Charlie Company with the 1st LAR, based in a Combat Outpost known as South Station in the Helmand River Valley.

We joined him on a four hour foot patrol into a neighboring village where we sat down cross legged on the floor in the open-air living room of a tribal elder’s home.  We drank the Chai tea they offered and I listened as the Captain worked to establish a relationship and trust with the elder and the large group of men and boys around him.

“We do these sit downs with them to try and let them know hey yes we’re here, we’re here to help, we’re the good guys and here’s why…” the Captain told me later, “but we’re not going to give you everything because we can’t be here forever.  This is your country, your problem, and you guys gotta start addressing those problems.”

“In order to win this war, in order to finally be successful over here, we have to win the people.”

Ford grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, attended the Naval Academy (when I asked how he finished there he laughed and said “I graduated!”) and now lives in Southern California with his new wife.

“Before, the Marine Corps was everything.  Now it’s the Marine Corps plus a wife so… “

So this may be his last tour of duty?

“When I do get home it will be time to go and start making babies and do that good stuff.”

“You got a new boss now?” I ask.  “Yeah, absolutely!”

If you’re wondering when the U.S. Military is beginning it’s surge in Afghanistan, wonder no more.  It’s on.

If you’re wondering why you haven’t heard more about battles with the Taliban, it’s complicated.

There are tens of thousands of Marines fresh on the ground in Afghanistan, including more than 13,000 in the Helmand River Valley, under the command of Brigadier General Joseph Osterman.  Many of these Marines are now laying the groundwork for future operations and establishing relationships with local tribal elders and government officials.

“A lot less kinetic activity (like gun battles)” says General Osterman, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Channel at Forward Operating Base Payne, “and much more on the non-kinetic side, which the Marines have been doing a great job with.  Very sophisticated in their approach.”

Like developing local governments and local economies.  “Not as glamorous or sensational as clearing operations..” the General says, but far more important long-term.

The Marines are working every angle.  They’re offering seed to farmers at a cut rate price and offering classes on how to better work their land.  They’re having sit-downs with tribal elders to establish trust and spread the word that they’re here to establish security and provide aid, asking in exchange that locals share information on Taliban insurgents.

And the Marines are spreading out across the blistering hot desert in Southern Afghanistan, on twice-daily foot patrols and in their imposing and lethal Light Armored Vehicles like the LAV-25’s, stop-checking people and traffic, disrupting insurgent supply lines and gathering intel that can help prevent future attacks.

“It’s a slow build of confidence… we’ll establish a security presence, patrolling, talking to people and it almost creates a security bubble.  Within that we find more and more people will talk to us and it gets harder and harder for the insurgents to work against us.”

So far there’s been very little push-back from the enemy in this region south and west of Kandahar, but the General expects it’s coming.

“The first thing they’ll do is try to stand up to us, do attacks and very rapidly realize that’s a losing proposition because we end capturing and killing quite a number of them and then what they generally do is move into a more indirect approach, use of the IED’s (improvised explosive devices, like roadside bombs), then they start to move into desperation mode… they get into a murder and intimidation campaign.”

That’s already happening further north in Marjah, but the General says this won’t last long.  “It’s a losing proposition.  They very quickly alienate the population…” and that’s when the Marines believe they can help the Afghanis stand up and reclaim their country for themselves.

To the critics who point to Marjah as a failure, the General shakes his head in surprise.  “My sense of Marjah is that it’s a success story.  We’re less than 90 days since we first started that assault.  Too often people forget where we started.  Marjah was a Taliban enclave.  Completely run by the Taliban, completely governed by the Taliban, completely involved in the opium trade and in less than 90 days we now have a functioning government… we’ve opened up a number of schools… all the bazaars are thriving… there’s two, three thousand people in there at a time.  Those are all the indicators that we had that things are moving positively.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he cautions, “there are insurgents out there that are trying to be disruptive, taking potshots here and there, but frankly the presence we have is continuing to build a very positive security situation.”

Counter-insurgency missions take time, the General says.  “How long does it take to gain a person’s confidence that things are now better and things will continue to be better?”

When the people are convinced, the General insists, they’ll be a giant step closer to establishing security, stability and peace.

Traditionally women have been kept at a distance from the front lines, but in Afghanistan there are no front lines.  The fight is everywhere… and it’s nowhere.  The combatants may be staying in the shadows or hiding in plain sight.  And since there’s no battlefield per se in Helmand Province, women are serving in the U.S. military here in a variety of roles.

One of those women is 21-year-old Da’Shonda Shedd, an Army Private First Class from Marieta, Georgia, on her first Tour of Duty.  She’s a Combat Engineer and her unit is working in support of the Marines 1^st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion at Forward Operating Base Payne in Southern Afghanistan.

Da’Shonda is a bridge crew member.  She and her fellow soldiers operate a ferry of sorts, moving troops, civilians and up to six huge armored vehicles at a time across the Helmand River between Payne and the wide open territory to the west.

She says she joined the Army for a change of pace and to prove people wrong, people who said she couldn’t do it.  She tried college but it didn’t work out and says she was sick of the party life back home.   She says she’s learned a lot since she’s been here and become a better person, less selfish and more appreciative of the little creature comforts we all take for granted.  She also admits she’s counting the days until she can go home, especially with the temperature topping 110 every day and headed for 130 in a month or two.

Da’Shonda Shedd is a soldier, and she’s as close to war as any female can be.

Even the toughest military vehicles break down in the harsh conditions of Southern Afghanistan.

Temperatures are topping 110 degrees daily.  There are almost no paved roads in Helmand Province and none in the 1^st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion’s area of operation, plus the sand and grit wreaks havoc with many of the moving parts on the LAV’s (light armored vehicles) and the bigger trucks and personnel carriers the Marines use.

That’s why Corporal Rhett Buford and his team are so busy.

The 21 year old from Charleston, South Carolina is known as a  “maintainer”, which is Marine-speak for mechanic.

In 14 days at Forward Operating Base Payne, he’d already fixed 12 engines.

“That’s all I’ve ever done my whole life…” he says during a short break on another blistering hot day.

“It’s what my dad and stepdad do, what my granddad did…

“It’s hard sometimes… it’ll test you, it’s a little stressful, but it’s what I signed up for.”

Buford, who enlisted when he was 18, also did a tour in Iraq, repairing the LAV’s Detroit Diesel 6-cylinder Turbos in Anbar Province.

He says he hasn’t decided if he’ll re-enlist next year.

When asked if his family is nervous about him being in a war zone, he says he tells them not to worry.

“I’m a mechanic!” he says, with a big grin.

A very busy mechanic for sure.

Trudging around in 100+ degree heat isn’t many people’s idea of fun.

But Lt. Charles Murray doesn’t mind.  He says that his twice-daily foot patrols to local Afghan villages in Helmand Province remind him of his time at Arizona State University.  He transferred there from Oral Robert University where he was on the golf team.

Murray traded in his golf clubs for a rifle to become a Marine platoon leader, taking his team to meet locals and trying to convince them that the Marine are here to help.

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commision (or EEOC) the number of men making sexual harassment claims against male supervisors has doubled in the past twenty years, from 8% to 16% of all cases filed.

In Michigan, the percentage of claims of male on male harassment in the workplace rose from 16.6% in 2007 to nearly 27% last year.  California saw a similar increase from 18% to nearly 24%.

Some men claim they were groped or otherwise molested.  Others endured slurs or other verbal abuse.  Many were demoted or fired when they resisted or complained.

Are more men really being harassed on the job?  Or are men simply more willing to come forward?

A comparison of unemployment figures to harassment claims raises another possibility: in states where unemployment is higher (nearly 15% in Michigan, for example) the share of claims filed by men saw a bigger spike.

Conversely, in states where unemployment actually dropped, like Nebraska with it’s 4.7% rate, the percentage of claims filed by men actually dropped by half between 2007 and 2009.

It may also be telling that more men lost jobs than women over the past couple years.  In the past, employment attorneys say if someone was being harassed at work they might have just left and found work elsewhere.  Now it’s much tougher to find that next job so more victims may be turning to the courts instead.

Mary Jo O’Neill, a lawyer with the EEOC, says the actual number of people being harassed at work is still much higher than the reported cases.

“Most sexual harassment victims don’t come forward and complain.  Most sexual harassment victims quit their jobs because it’s too much of a hassle and they are traumatized by it and frankly they’ve suffered.”

“It shocks me still what happens in work places, that this kind of egregious physical sexual assault… is going on.  Am I surprised? Unfortunately I’m not.  Am i shocked?  Yes, i’m shocked.  No employee should have to work in an environment where they have to tolerate this kind of conduct in order to support their families and support themselves.”

If you believe you’re a victim of unwanted sexual harassment, O’Neill recommends complaining in writing (and keeping a copy for yourself) if there’s a process for doing so at your place of employment and then filing a formal charge of discrimination with the local branch of the EEOC because if you don’t, the behavior is likely to continue.

Like many cities, Philadelphia is battling double-digit unemployment and rising poverty.  Many can only find part-time jobs which help put food on the table but may not  be enough to support families.

City leaders decided to address this problem in a very specific way with a program called “Philly Works: Growing Neighborhood Jobs”, which aims to help under-employed seasonal part-time workers learn the skills they need to find stable full-time work.

The pilot program is hiring and training 90-120 residents over the next 14 months, funded by $750,000 in mostly public money from grants and government programs including the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

The participants are described as motivated and hard working people who may be handicapped by literacy issues, lack of computer skills, lack of a resume or interview experience, a criminal record or challenges in their personal lives.

“Philly Works” pays them $12 an hour to sweep sidewalks on major city corridors, tidy up vacant lots, plant trees and do other “cleaning and greening” type jobs and spend 180 hours in the classroom learning computer programs, building resumes, tackling literacy issues and more.

The city works with local employers to insure when candidates finish the six-month program, there are real jobs waiting for them.

Mayor Michael Nutter says “Philly Works” cuts thru red tape and helps people who sometimes “cannot get out of their own way” and “get their life in order”.

“A lot of it comes down to the individual…” Nutter says.  “They have to decide ultimately that they are ready.  And we think by the response that there are a lot of people that are ready.”

The Mayor says “it’s a winner all around” and hopes to keep it going when the current program ends in 14 months.

Air Traffic Controllers are tested on the job almost every day, but we rarely hear about them unless something awful happens.

Monday night in Orlando, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association celebrated the best of the best, presenting Archie League Medal of Safety Awards to 17 men and women who performed gracefully under pressure, almost certainly saving lives in the process.

Jessica Hermsdorfer was honored for smoothly guiding an Airbus 319 to a safe landing in Kansas City after losing an engine to a bird strike (like the Miracle on the Hudson, bird strikes are unfortunately common and potentially terrifying for pilots, passengers and crew).

Louis Charles Ridley helped a pilot stuck above the clouds who couldn’t fly with instruments alone find a way to punch through and make it to another airfield, even sending his wife to pick the pilot up and drive him home.

Controller Troy Decker is also a pilot who was able to help another pilot with engine troubles find a way down.

And a total of 6 ATC’s helped coach a passenger fly and land a plane after the pilot DIED on takeoff.  Doug White had experience flying smaller planes but had never handled the controls of a two-engine King Air.  With the ATC’s guiding his every move, he managed to take the craft off auto-pilot, manuevering around the deceased pilot, safely landing in Fort Myers with his wife and daughters white-knuckling it in the back.

Paul Rinaldi, President of the organization, writes “The ability to think quickly and remain calm under pressure while maintaining situational awareness are all unique qualities that air traffic controllers and flight service station employees possess.  They all have a willingness to jump right in to resolve complex situations, offer a reassuring voice to those on the frequency and coordinate their efforts with other controllers.”

They may be modest, but their work, Paul writes, “is often viewed by others as remarkable and extrodinary.”

# # #

After pounding targets in the California desert Wednesday until almost midnight, Marines with the Marines’ 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion spent Thursday morning cleaning and reloading before heading north deeper into the Air Ground Combat Center at 29 Palms. By midday the massive 155mm Howitzer cannons were firing again, softening targets for three-companies-worth of tanks and LAV-25s to finish off.

Air support came in the form of Cobra Attack Helicopter gunships, raining missiles, cannon fire and TOW rockets on the desert floor while fixed wings dropped real 500-pound bombs on burned-out hulks of old tanks, vehicles and other designated targets.

“Pretty successful” is how the battalion commander summed up the overnight assault, admitting there were some timing issues with artillery that needed to be addressed.

Lt. Col. Scott Leonard seemed more pleased after the daytime ops, saying his Marines made great time and reached all their objectives, navigating remote sections of rugged terrain for the first time with maps and GPS.

Sunday they’ll move to a Forward Operating Base at 29 Palms and begin integrating with hundreds of Afghani actors living in a mock-up of a village nearby, learning how to interact with locals while searching for potential threats from insurgents within the community.

The commander says his men take the training very seriously, knowing full well when they get to Afghanistan, the targets and dangers will be real.

Marines with the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (1st LAR) out of Camp Pendleton, CA will soon be deploying to Afghanistan to join the surge in the fight against the Taliban (the details of their travel is classified).

Before they ship out, every Marine headed to a combat zone gets 30 days of live fire training at 29 Palms Air Ground Combat Center in the California desert, roughly 180 miles east of Los Angeles.  The “Mojave Viper Exercises” are a combined-arms dress rehearsal for war, involving all platforms of Marine assets.  In other words, they use infantry, Light Armored Vehicles, Tanks, Howitzer Cannons, attack helicopters and fixed wing fighters and bombers in offensive and defensive operations against an “enemy” (empty structures, vehicle hulks and other targets) in urban and rural environments in an expansive area closely resembling conditions in the middle east.

At 932 square miles, 29 Palms is the largest live-fire training base in the world.  It’s bigger than the state of Rhode Island.  It’s so large you could fit every other Marine base within it’s borders, yet only 7 of it’s square miles are built up so instructors say you could fire a 155mm Howitzer cannon in any direction and not hit anything besides desert.

The seats are still being bolted into Red Bull Arena, the first “soccer specific” stadium in the New York region. With the first game just five weeks away, the team still has to fill some 500 part time positions for jobs including box office workers, security personnel, concessions & retail workers, cleaners and others.

The job fair is being held at the stadium in Harrison, New Jersey on this snowy afternoon from 3-8 pm. About 1000 people are expected.  Pay will vary depending on the type of jobs, which are “event positions”, meaning hires will work only on the days/nights of games or other scheduled events.

The stadium itself cost in the neighborhood of 200 million dollars.  The team calls it “state of the art”, with an extended roof covering all 25,000 seats, 30 luxury suites, 1000 club seats with access to party suites and a real kentucky bluegrass field now covered with a tarp and a few inches of snow.

Tuesday a man trapped in the rubble of a building during an aftershock is pulled out alive 12 days later, dehydrated with a broken leg but expected to survive.  Wednesday a teenage girl is reportedly rescued from rubble 15 days after the quake.  Each new live find gives hope to relatives that their missing loved one might too be saved.

Tent camps are now being planned for at least 400,000 of Port-au-Prince’s newly homeless.  They’ll be built outside the city but construction on at least one of them is barely underway and most likely won’t be finished until sometime next week.

In the meantime conditions in the temporary camps that have sprouted up across the Capitol are increasingly awful and unsanitary, with trash and human waste piling up.  In some cases dead bodies lie rotting in close proximity to where people are living outside.

Obstacles continue to slow aid deliveries.  There is a backlog of 800 to 1000 planes waiting to land, loaded with relief supplies.  The airport can only handle about 130 flights a day.  The U-N is asking for small trucks to be brought in to help move the food, water, medicine and other supplies from the airport to distribution points because the streets are extremely difficult to navigate.  They’re not wide, traffic is thick and many roads are still blocked by boulders and debris.  It can take an hour to drive a few miles.  Estimates are two million people need food but only about 500,000 have gotten any, some of which was daily rations.

Haitian-American troops with a U.S. Military Joint Task Force Civil Affairs Team are now going into some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods to help assess needs.  The troops with roots here say they have greater access to the people who trust them more and give them a better understanding of what the most pressing issues are.  The Team is identifying local leaders who can help insure when aid finally arrives it’s distributed fairly and not just grabbed by the strongest in the crowd.

Meanwhile there are reports of children disappearing from hospitals where many have no ID and no one to claim them.  Haiti had 380,000 orphans before the quake.  By some estimates the number has tripled because of parents killed in the disaster.  Charitable groups including “Save the Children” are trying to establish safe havens for some of the kids but can’t handle or account for them all.