Military
John Nichols is going back to Afghanistan. So is Randy Ford. They’ve been there before — together. In 2006, a suicide car-bomber killed two of their comrades in a Taliban hot spot, Helmand province, where they were attached to a unit of British commandos.
The Army Reserve’s Delta Company, 405th Civil Affairs Battalion, gathered with their family and friends Sunday night at McCarran International Airport to depart from Las Vegas on a journey that will eventually lead to Afghanistan.
The Vegas Desert Rats were set to take off early this morning on their way to wage peace in Afghanistan.
Wearing camouflage uniforms, the 30 hand-picked soldiers from the Army Reserve’s Delta Company hugged their loved ones before boarding a jet at McCarran International Airport.
More than 30 soldiers from the Army Reserve’s Delta Company, 405th Civil Affairs Battalion will leave at the end of this month to wage peace, not war, as the U.S. troop presence dwindles in Afghanistan and the mission in the 10-year war focuses more on nation-building.
More than 300 Nevada National Guard soldiers returned to Las Vegas on Sunday, completing a yearlong deployment that sent them to Afghanistan where they built, installed and maintained the largest communication network in the war zone.
Suni Erlanger said when her son was in a foxhole getting shot at he’d be cracking jokes because he wanted to put his fellow soldiers at ease. “Everybody loved him,” the Las Vegas woman said about Army Spc. Douglas J. Green, who was killed Wednesday in Afghanistan.
