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COMBAT GENERATION
COMBAT GENERATION
UNDERSTANDING THE ENEMY
PAKISTAN
UNDERSTANDING THE ENEMY
P A K I S T A N
Salang Tunnel
Salang Tunnel
Battle of Kamdesh at Outpost Keating Oct. 3, 2009
Bagram Air Base
Kabul Kabul
0 MILES MILES
Bagram Air Base
A F G H A N I S T A N
Wanat
Kabul R Kabul R.
F.A.T.A. F.A.T.A.
50
JalalabadJalalabad
Tora
Tora Bora
Bora
Khyber Pass
Khyber Pass
AFGHANISTAN
Wanat
Asadabad Asadabad
Naray Naray
FRONT. PROV.
FRONT. PROV.
N.W. N.W.
ABCDE
Uncertainty in an unseen world
SUNDAY, MAY 16, 2010
by Joel Achenbach
In total darkness at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico lives a creature with many scuttling legs and two wig- gling antennae that jut from a pinched, space-alien face. It is the iso- pod, Bathynomus giganteus, a scaven- ger of dead and rotten flesh on the mud floor of the gulf.
Soldier, diplomat
and tribal anthropologist: The modern U.S. officer emerges in Afghanistan
WAR
L
by Greg Jaffe
in naray, afghanistan
t. Col. Robert B. Brown could hear the fear in his 24-year-old lieuten- ant’s voice on the patchy radio. “We have enemy inside the wire. It is really bad here,” 1st Lt. Andrew Bun-
dermann said. “We need those [expletive] birds now.” Just before 6 a.m., more than 300 in-
surgents launched a massive attack on Bun- dermann’s remote outpost in the Kamdesh district of northeastern Afghanistan. By 6:30 three of Bundermann’s soldiers were dead, and the Apache attack helicopters he desper- ately wanted weren’t going to arrive for an- other half hour. Brown, who was at his base about 30 miles
away, grabbed the radio handset from one of his sergeants. “You are going to be all right,” the 41-year-old officer told his young lieuten- ant. “We are going to get you as much help as possible.”
Bundermann made a wrenching decision.
Unable to control the entire outpost, he or- dered his remaining troops to collapse around a small cluster of its 23 buildings. Twelve of his 53 soldiers, pinned down by heavy enemy fire beyond those inner defens- es, would have to fight on their own until the attack helicopters arrived. One was a 21-year-old soldier from Lou- doun County, who had been wounded in his leg and hip. Bleeding, he crawled on his el- bows behind the base’s latrine for protection. “Help me,” Spec. Stephan L. Mace called out to his fellow soldiers. “Help me, please.” Eight U.S. troops were killed in the Oct. 3, 2009, battle at Combat Outpost Keating, making it one of the deadliest fights for Americans of the Afghan war. For soldiers, the harsh reality of combat has scarcely changed in the decades since Vietnam. To survive, the outnumbered Keating grunts re- lied on their mutual devotion and marks- manship. What makes Keating different from past
battles is what happened afterward. A decade of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq has forced battlefield commanders to accept that victory in today’s wars is less a matter of destroying enemies than of knowing how and when to make them allies. This new kind of war has
war continued on A8
Primaries may reveal level of anti-incumbent anger, strength of ‘tea parties’
by Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza
An angry electorate, which already has delivered a series of shocks to the political system, will render a fresh verdict on Washington, incumbency and both party establishments in a slate of high-stakes contests Tuesday that are shaping up to form one of the most important voting days of the year.
Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) could be
BY JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST
Lookin At Lucky, right, ridden by Martin Garcia, holds off Yawanna Twist, left, Jackson Bend, middle, and long shot First Dude to win the 135th Preakness Stakes in Baltimore. Kentucky Derby winner Super Saver faded to an eighth-place finish, ending his bid to be horse racing’s first Triple Crown winner since 1978. Meanwhile, on the infield of Pimlico Race Course, huge crowds return for unlimited beer sold by the racetrack, but the rowdiness and occasional violence of years past appear to be tamed.
STORY, D1 K ANDREW BEYER, D1 K ROBERT McCARTNEY, C1
2First Dude
3
1 Lookin At Lucky
⁄4
1:55.47 length back
3Jackson Bend
1 length back
the next incumbent to fall, but by late Tuesday night, everyone from Presi- dent Obama to Senate Minority Lead- er Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) could feel the sting of voter anger that has shaped the election climate and that could produce a dramatic upheaval in Congress by November. Everyone has a different definition of the anger: anti-incumbent; anti- Obama; anti-establishment; anti- Washington. But the expressions of displeasure are everywhere. Some voters think Washington is spending too much and is infringing on their rights. Others say Washington is not doing enough — to penalize bankers or to oversee the cleanup of the Gulf of Mexico as oil gushes from a broken well.
Democratic pollster Peter Hart said
anyone searching for meaning from Tuesday’s races need only look to grievances that have been building for months. “How many times do we
primaries continued on A5
“If you think of a giant roach, put it on steroids,” said Thomas Shirley, a marine biologist at Texas A&M Uni- versity. “They can be scary big.” There is beauty in the lightless deep
as well. Fan corals, lacylike doilies, form gardens on the seafloor and on sunken ships. The deep is full of crabs, sponges, sea anemones. Sharks hunt in the dark depths, as do sperm whales that feed on giant squid. The sperm whales have formed a year- round colony near the mouth of the Mississippi River, and have been known to rub themselves on oil pipes just like grizzlies rubbing against pine trees. This is the unseen world imperiled by the uncapped oil well a mile below the surface of the gulf. The millions of gallons of crude, and the introduction
BP’s cleanup efforts
Company fails in attempt to use mile-long tube to capture oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. A6
6
gulf, go to
washingtonpost.com.
of chemicals to disperse it, have thrown this underwater ecosystem into chaos, and scientists have no an- swer to the question of how this unin- tended and uncontrolled experiment
Lookin’ at the winner of the Preakness
For the latest updates about the endeavors to cap the well in the
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Scientists fear the long-term effects of oil spill on ecosystem at the bottom of the gulf
Another setback for
in marine biology and chemistry will ultimately play out. The leaking gulf well, drilled by the now-sunken rig Deepwater Horizon, has cast a light on a part of the planet usually out of sight, out of mind, be- low the horizon, and beyond our ken. The well is surrounded by a complex ecosystem that only in recent years has been explored by scientists. Be- tween the uncapped well and the sur- face is a mile of water that riots with life, and now contains a vast cloud of oil, gas and chemical dispersants.
gulf continued on A6
OF PERSUASION
A ‘Super Tuesday’ for both parties
With city’s baby boom, parental guidance suggested
‘I find people with children to be tyrants.’ A frustrated Capitol Hill resident
‘I remember really hating people with kids before I had kids.’ Tim Krepps, father of two
by Annys Shin
PHOTO BY GREG JAFFE/MAP BY GENE THORP
Sgt. Bradley Larson survived the attack on Outpost Keating, where 8 U.S. troops died.
Mel Antonen and his 3-year-old son, Emmett, were walking in Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill one morning when a chocolate Labrador puppy named Wilson jumped at the toddler and wouldn’t go away — even after Antonen lifted his boy out of the dog’s reach, yelling at the owner, “Get him off! Get him off!” Owner and father exchanged words. Wilson’s owner, a journalist
BUSINESS..........................G1 CLASSIFIEDS.....................K1 EDITORIALS/LETTERS...A16
GOING OUT GUIDE.Magazine HOME SALES......................J1 LOTTERIES.........................C3
MOVIES ..............................E9 OBITUARIES...................C6-9 OMBUDSMAN..................A15
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who has lived on Capitol Hill for 15 years and identified herself only as Linda because she didn’t want to be seen as hostile to children, said later that she wished parents would keep their children inside the park’s fenced-in play area. “I find people with children to be tyrants,” she said. “As someone who doesn’t have chil- dren, I think children are fine. I don’t think they own everything.” Politicians and planners have her- alded the return of young families to such areas as Washington, Boston
Printed using recycled fiber
and New York as a sign of resurgence. But as the ranks of parents and their tykes have swelled, so, too, has resent- ment over having to accommodate them in public places. Skirmishes have erupted on buses, in parks, on playing fields and in bars. Often, the conflicts pit parents against childless adults who, after decades of middle- class flight, have gotten used to the sense that they have the city to them- selves. Through the first eight years of this century, according to District offi-
DAILY CODE
Details, C2
665 4
cials, children under 5 have made up a growing proportion of the city’s population. (The pre-kindergarten set has expanded in the city’s wealthi- est and poorest sections: Ward 3 in upper Northwest and Ward 8 east of the Anacostia River, as well as in mid- dle-class Ward 5 in Northeast. Over the same period, the proportion of children younger than 5 in Wards 1 and 2, stretching from Georgetown east to Logan Circle and Shaw, de-
7
parents continued on A4
The Washington Post Year 133, No. 162
CONTENTS© 2010
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