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Going home face. The Brits just had their worst month ever here, and it's getting rougher for the Americans too
Bags packed waiting for the chopper out of here
Same
Sleeping Marines, not body bags
Even tougher than a prison gym pt.II
Even tougher than a prison gym
We come in peace
Office
Long patrols, in temperatures that often reach 130. There are few firefights now, just roadside bombs
Huge pile of opium poppies, a makeshift guntower and another huge pile of huge harvested opium poppies
This Marine drank too much warm water and puked it all up
Same again
Another exhausted Marine. They can fall asleep within a minute of a battle ending, anywhere
Exhausted Marine after a firefight and long patrol
On the Walls inside children's drawings showed an AK47 shooting at a helicopter
Exhausted Marines rest in a family compound after s firefight and long patrol
The roads now have IEDs every km, so we have to go through the desert, past the nomad goatherders. But the trucks are so heavy they get stuck in the sand. It took us 13 hours to travel 16km
The 20 yr old gunner who pokes out the roof of the Humvee
A huge pile of harvested opium poppies, which the soldiers don't even seem to notice.
Harvested opium poppy, Helmand province. The lines are from farmers scoring the poppy, so the opium oozes out.
Improvised armchair
Afghan National Army soldier on guard
The lump of earth in the distance, beyond the bridge, is an old British fort, over 100 years old. We've been defeated here twice before
The Americans have arrived and everything is bigger and angrier. But also much safer, when the Taliban are laying IEDs every kilometre
Boarding pass for miltary chopper to southern Helmand
Luxury accomodation for journalists and interpreters + sandstorm
View from the guntower. It's beautiful here when you're not getting shot at
US Marine on guard
Toilet graffiti in Garmsir. I'd attribute this to the Brits who have now left. The Americans aren't miserable enough to write it. Not yet anyway
Monument for massoud, kabul
Adjusting from London to Helmand is made even more surreal by the fact you have to go via dubai
Just two days to go
Test