{"id":118224,"date":"2021-10-07T12:46:54","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T16:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=118224"},"modified":"2021-10-07T12:46:54","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T16:46:54","slug":"more-on-the-82nd-airbornes-taliban-war-trophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=118224","title":{"rendered":"More on the 82nd Airborne’s Taliban war trophy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Taliban Toyota Hilux w\/ AAA gun<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jeff LPH 3 forwards to us this Task & Purpose report on MG Donahue’s war trophy we talked about earlier this week<\/a>. According to the report, the 82nd Airborne’s spokesman says that nobody was ordered off an aircraft to load the truck. From the article;<\/p>\n

Col. Brett Lea, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne Division, said that\u2019s not even close to the truth.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo personnel were removed from any aircraft departing HKIA to make room for the Taliban Hilux,\u201d Lea said in a statement to Task & Purpose. \u201cIn fact, aircraft space was not an issue at all in terms of getting American citizens, Afghan SIVs, or at-risk Afghans out of HKIA in the final days of the evacuation mission.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m sure that’s comforting to the hundreds of Americans and allies we left behind. There was\u00a0plenty<\/em> of room on all those planes. As for how the 82nd Paratroopers came to acquire the Taliban gun truck, well that’s a story any resourceful frontline soldier will be familiar with. They bartered for it. Got the keys for two cans of chew.<\/p>\n

When U.S. forces arrived at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, in August, they had their work cut out for them: A tidal wave of people, Americans and Afghans alike, were rushing to the airport to flee as the Taliban regained control of the country.<\/p>\n

Most of the security posts around the perimeter of the airport had been abandoned, said Lt. Col. Andy Harris, commander of the 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Soldiers with the battalion quickly set about bolstering the airport\u2019s defenses, yet the situation remained volatile \u2014 Taliban fighters were just meters away, outside the airport\u2019s gates \u2014 and much of the equipment they\u2019d typically use, like heavy vehicles and machine guns, had yet to arrive at the airport.<\/p>\n

What they did have, however, was a green pickup truck outfitted with an anti-aircraft gun. The paratroopers had traded two cans of dipping tobacco for it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Great story. Great trophy actually. That we had enough space in a C-17 to bring it with in the mad scramble to get as many people out of the collapsing Afghanistan is concerning. With the people left behind, there shouldn’t have been any room. Unless it was the last plane and we were sure we had everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff LPH 3 forwards to us this Task & Purpose report on MG Donahue’s war trophy … More on the 82nd Airborne’s Taliban war trophy<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,301,359,458],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-afghanistan","category-army","category-taliban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118226,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118224\/revisions\/118226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}