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Because he’s opinionated and myopic.  He has no understanding of the footprint CAS requires, no appreciation of “theater asset”, and wants the Army to get what they want, when they want it, and theater priorities be damned.

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16 years in Afghanistan and we are losing.  Streets i walked withe a squad can't be driven down with a platoon now.

Must be our inability to gain air superiority.

I guess from a TOC in Bagram Afghanistan looks like success.

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And how would organic, rotary wing support change any of that?

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That’s the story you need to write. It’s a lot more realistic. Army unit gets wiped out, last man standing tries desperately to get some ordnance dropped. The zoomies won’t because reasons and he gets wounded but can hide and waits till nightfall. Gets out strips his uniform and tries to gray man it to base.
He gets found out by a family on the road, panics and shoots the Dad, eldest son attacks and he shoots him and one of the others on accident. Now he’s got to drive the bloody shot up car to base. Almost gets killed by the gate guards and gets detained.

Then you can write the whole story about his physical recovery from the wounds, the CID investigation into the firefight, the AF not dropping bombs, the family he killed and if they’re going to prosecute him for war crimes. Then he goes home and his wife/girlfriend leaves him because he’s still learning to walk or whatever and she fucked Jody and is pregnant. Now he’s drinking and taking opioids cuz of the pain and VA is fucked up and won’t help. Poor guy couch surfs and then has to live in a shelter before eventually becoming flat out homeless.

It’s not long until he gets in mix up with the cops where he’s mistaken for a car jacker that a fellow vet and current cop helps him out. Tells him his story and holy shit it’s the damn battle NCO that denied his original fire mission years ago! They fight and argue then cry and eventually our hero sees the pain it caused the cop and sees that he can heal and they can both help each other.

He moves in with the cop and his family. Goes cold turkey and starts doing CrossFit. Next thing you know he’s working at the local grocery store and helping out at the VFW and doing speech’s for at risk youth. He eventually moves out and finds a girl that lost her leg in a car accident while on her way to the funeral of her marine Corp boyfriend that died in a helicopter crash on its way to recover some army guys after the whole unit was wiped out.

They fall in love, get married and the son grows up. And joins the army like his old man. And just before he ships off to Afghanistan to fight the same goddamn war Dad whispers some advice into his ear that we as the reader never get to hear but understand as something like, “just come home son.”

You can call it “Clipped Wings” the story of the last survivor from the flafal battle of the 101st in bumfuck Afghanistan.

Fill it with all kinds of stereotypes and shit because there’s just too many real accounts of the war. What we really need are fictional stories from people that didn’t serve about a war that is still happening.  

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Is it popcorn time with the great cas debate?

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Wat? Isnt it 24hr.

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Did you hear that Sylvan thinks we should go from a 72 hour to a 96 hour ATO cycle?

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I'm working on a story right now, the scene in question is the introduction of two characters who wouldn't have met under any other circumstances. It would take a long time to explain what they are but they met in a firefight in Afghanistan where one saved the other.

One of the characters is a US Army sergeant. Everyone else on his side is dead and his position is about to be overrun by Taliban when he calls in an air strike on his own coordinates.

The bomb bursts very close to him, he survives the initial blast, the Taliban fighters don't. The "other character" arrives and keeps him alive long enough for rescue to arrive.

I'm imagining this scenario, but there's two things that I can't quite see on my minds eye. What would he be shouting into the radio before the bombs fall and where in Afghanistan could such a thing conceivably happen.

Any other thoughts and stories are welcome.

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Probably need to change your setting to Vietnam.

I don’t think we have lost an entire platoon in Afghanistan...

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I don't care what your ATO cycle is.

72 or 96.  Air support shouldn't be on the ATO.

You know why SOCOM has AC-130s that aren't on the ATO.

Take a tool designed to bomb schweifurt with 1000 planes.  Use it to send a single plane against 2 guys on a motorcycle.  then be confused when we lose against goat herders.  Berate those on the ground who suffer.  buy F35s.  Profit.

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We lost a complete 2 X 2 back in 08.  When we were tiny ops, we had some bad shit happen.

Friend of mine was 3 of 4 kia in 07 in Kunar.

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I know of the Seals getting blown up in their helicopter...

and there are several examples of Squads getting pretty messed up...

What is the 2x2 you are talking about? Did it make the news?

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My first response was going to be “ATO?  We don’t need ATOs!  We don’t have to get on any steekin’ ATOs! but I was beaten.

My updated response re:  CAS not on the ATO:  [USAF] “But how can we possibly organize air support to best suit our needs w/o ATOs?” [/USAF]

Third:  R/W and ACs seem to do OK w/o ATOs.

And Sylvan, your eloquent description makes me chuckle at an otherwise tearfully sad reality.

Imagine everyone’s horror when the folly of eliminating R/W air support and all manned CAS aircraft becomes apparent.  Maybe by that time the infantry as well will no longer be manned and no one will care.

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Army Sgt calling in air strikes? What MOS is that? I'm sure there are some SF guys with the training but I thought that's why JTACs usually were attached to Army.

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ATO’s help with deconfliction and who is on station and what they are armed with.  And also who gets the priority of support. Its not perfect, but thats what we got with limited resources ( air). Troops on the ground dont know what assets are available could be air or indirect fires. They just send the request on the net and the CoC determines what they get- depending on whats available. Sucks to be the guys on the ground taking fire.

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Manned and unmanned ISR will be all over it , don’t need a JTAC on the ground , you can do type 2 from the JOC.

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Dropped thousands of pounds in that shithole.

Everyday same shit different shithead