Is 'firsthand' good enough for ya?

Boondocksaint and a couple of others over at the essential Army.ca are leading a discussion on lessons learned in Afghanistan - for anyone looking for a section commander's perspective, this is fantastic reading. A sampling:

yelling 'hey you' should not be used to initiate contact....

...

With a few fights under your belt you can sometimes get cocky, and think you can do more then you really should. In Hyderabad I was rounding a corner at the front of our stack figuring we'd cleared lots of compounds this one is no different---where there shoulda been 1 room and a hall, there were about 8 rooms and fire everywhere coming in. BACK DA FOOK UP, have a kit kat moment and evaluate things. It is a very liberating experience not having safety staff behind you monitoring every move.

...

...our W.O., he was fond of grabbing the C-6 from the poor gunner who humped it (sangin video) and fired it--you could hear them bickering and swearing at each other in the middle of a fight:

gunner-' feck you i humped it im shooting it'
WO-' dude come on just let me shoot it a little'
gunner-' did you carry it?'
WO-' i'll carry it next time i promise'
gunner-'you said that last time

For my money, though, the best line has to be yelling to the bad guys in the middle of a firefight - oops, a TIC (Troops In Contact), apparently 'firefight' is soooo 90's - "Where do you want your well?"

Priceless. Not just the humour, but the experience behind it that will undoubtedly make for better-prepared soldiers in the future.