A bombed-out hulk of a vehicle that carried ammo to the fortified gate of FOB Gardez at the onset of an attack by a band of insurgents Friday.Here's an expanded account of the attack:
It was a pretty harrowing day, I have to admit. I couldn't sleep for hours last night. My mind just wouldn't shut down. I was sitting in the chow hall when the attack started... Turned out it wasn't a vbied after all, but a car full of ammunition and various explosive items they were planning to use once they had breached the base. Someone hit that car with a mortar (don't know if it was us or them), and it exploded, and started burning. Some of the explosions we kept hearing that were scaring us so badly were items in that fire that kept cooking off. I got out of the chow hall -- our chow hall is just a big tent -- and couldn't find a bunker and was just desperately trying to find some sort of shelter. At one point, I ended up in a dogpile of DFAC workers, wedged between a giant forklift and a wall of hesco barriers. One of our PA SECFOR guys saw me and yelled out at me to follow him. I jumped up and we ran together to the next bit of shelter. Another PA guy caught up with us, and they both sort of adopted me and we all leapfrogged from shelter to shelter, running full-blast across open areas that were a little terrifying to be in, given the circumstances.
The sounds of explosions were seemingly all around us, and small arms fire was everywhere. At one point as we were running toward our PRT qalat, I looked over my shoulder and saw the huge white plume from where the car had blown up, but I didn't know what it was at the time. I hid again among some hesco barriers with ... several civilians, including Ian, the Scot who works for an NGO here -- a Reservist with the Black Watch. I saw him today and suddenly remembered I'd hidden with him briefly yesterday, but had forgotten it almost as soon as I'd run from that shelter. We finally made it back to the PRT area, and I ran into the bunker ... One of the guys in the bunker with me was at the Afghan shops when it happened. He was pretty pissed off, because he was talking with one of the shop owners when the guy got a phone call and suddenly started shutting everything down and told our guy he had to go to his other shop in town. He obviously got tipped off and didn't tell us that we were about to get attacked. Pretty sure that guy will be interrogated hard when he returns.
