Monday, October 18, 2010

Iraq War

--------------------------Coming soon---------------------------

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Afghanistan War

afghanistan war
US Soldiers Returning to FOB after operations on Afghan/Pakistan border

Sniper_Sites_480_x_360_
The view of an Afghan man in the sights of a USMC Sniper. 



Canadian soldier Pte Chris Kezar from November Company 7th platoon of the NATO-led coalition rests after heavy fighting against insurgents in the Taliban stronghold of Zhari district in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, March 20, 2009.

U.S. Army soldiers with the 1-6 Field Artillery division patrol an area where there has been reported Taliban presence February 18, 2009 in Gandalabog, Afghanistan.



U.S. Marine Sgt. Nicholas Bender launches a Raven surveillance drone from Marine base perimeter on March 21, 2009 near the remote village of Baqwa, Afghanistan. Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment use the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to get real time intelligence on Taliban movements. The Marines are operating in Farah Province of southwest Afghanistan and are seeing a spike in Taliban attacks against American forces with the onset of the spring "fighting season





A U.S. Air Force C-17 flying overhead drops parachutes of military supplies - which blew off course, landing on an opium poppy field on March 22, 2009 next to a U.S. Marine base in remote Qalanderabad in southwest Afghanistan





An Afghan miner works inside the Karkar coal mine in Pul-i-Kumri, about 170km north of Kabul, March 7, 2009. Karkar mine, which hires 280 workers, produces about 100 tons of coal a day. The salary for a miner ranges from $70 to $110 per month.



The body of a suspected Taliban insurgent lies on the back of a police truck after he was killed in a battle outside Ghazni March 26, 2009. Four Taliban insurgents were killed, and seven policemen and two civilians were wounded during a battle just outside Ghazni city, some 200km (125 miles) southwest of Kabul, a spokesman for the provincial governor said



Sgt. Darin Hendricks with the U.S. Army 1-6 Field Artillery division looks into a small cave while searching for a Taliban rocket launching site in the vicinity of the remote village of Main February 19, 2009 in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan



A U.S. Marine and an Afghan national policeman pause while on a joint patrol March 26, 2009 near Bakwa in southwestern Afghanistan. Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment patrol daily in the area, often with Afghan police. Local opium poppy and wheat farmers say the presence of the Marines has improved security in the region, formerly controlled by the Taliban, although Taliban insurgents continue to creep into the area at night to plant IEDs on the road. 



Former Taliban militants hold their heavy and light weapons during a ceremony to hand over them to the Afghan government in the city of Herat province west of Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, March 10, 2009. Around 40 Taliban militants from Herat province handed their weapons to the Afghan government as part of a peace-reconciliation program. 



A U.S. Marine watches as lightning flashes on the horizon during a search operation for Taliban on March 25, 2009 near the village of Bakwa in remote southwestern Afghanistan. Marines from India Company of the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment were searching for insurgents after receiving information that a group of armed men were approaching their base through a hidden ravine. No one was found however.



Veteran soldiers salute through the window of a hearse as the funeral cortege carrying the coffins of British soldiers Corporal Dean John, Corporal Graeme Stiff and Lance Corporal Chris Harkett passes through Wootton Bassett, England, following their return to British soil from Aghanistan Saturday, March 21, 2009. Hundreds of people lined the street as the hearses passed carrying the Union Flag-draped coffins of Royal Engineers Corporal Dean John and Corporal Graeme Stiff, both attached to the 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards, and Lance Corporal Chris Harkett, of 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh, who were killed in Afghanistan.



Canadian soldiers from the NATO-led coalition check a dry river in the Taliban stronghold of Arghandab district in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, March 12, 2009



A Canadian soldier door gunner from NATO-led coalition opens fire with a machine gun from a CH-146 Griffon helicopter as it flies over neighbourhood in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, March 27, 2009.



Afghan horsemen play Afghanistan's national sport Buzkashi in the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, March 20, 2009. Buzkashi is the national sport of Afghanistan, which literally translated means "goat grabbing." In Buzkashi, a headless carcass is placed in the center of a circle and surrounded by the players of two opposing teams. The object of the game is to get control of the carcass and bring it to the scoring area



An Afghan National Policeman keeps watch as the burnt body of a suicide attacker is seen amid the wreckage of a vehicle near the U.S. base in Bagram, north of Kabul, Afghanistan on March 4, 2009. A blast from the explosives in the vehicle was followed seconds later by a suicide bomber on foot who, after running from the vehicle had detonated himself outside the main gate of Bagram air base. Several contractors were injured by the blasts



A pair of ISAF soldiers stand on a hillside overlooking Kabul, Afghanistan on the night of January 11, 2008



An ISAF Patria XA-188 GVV armored personnel carrier passes local Afghans while patrol mission around Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan on June 9, 2008. (Richard Frigge/SHAPE photos) #



A German Bundeswehr soldier with the ISAF monitors the area on a mountain during a sweep mission with an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team on the outskirts of Fayzabad, north of Kabul, Afghanistan on September 20, 2008



A Panzerhaubitze 2000 Armoured Howitzer of the 14th company field artillery (B-battery C-platoon) of the Royal Netherlands Army fires its 155mm canon from Camp Holland in Uruzgan at enemy positions in Chora, Afghanistan on February 18, 2008 (Gerben van Es/SHAPE photos) 





German Bundeswehr army soldiers of the ISAF monitor a valley during a mission near Kunduz, Afghanistan on September 26, 2008.

Vietnam War


The Vietnam War  was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam,Laos, and Cambodia from November 1, 1955 , to May 15, 1975 with the conclusion of the Mayaguez Incident. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other capitalist nations. The Viet Cong, a lightly-armed South Vietnamese communist-controlled common front, largely fought a guerrilla war against anti-communist forces in the region. TheNorth Vietnamese Army engaged in a more conventional war, at times committing large units into battle. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiorityand overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involvingground forcesartillery and airstrikes.
The United States government viewed involvement in the war as a way to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam and part of their wider strategy ofcontainment. The North Vietnamese government viewed the war as a colonial war, fought initially against France, backed by the United States, and later against South Vietnam, which it regarded as a US puppet state. United States military advisorsarrived beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with U.S. troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962. U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965. Operations spanned borders, with Laos and Cambodia heavily bombed. Involvement peaked in 1968 at the time of the Tet Offensive. After this, U.S. ground forces were withdrawn as part of a policy called Vietnamization. Despite the Paris Peace Accords, signed by all parties in January 1973, fighting continued. The Case-Church Amendment passed by the U.S. Congress prohibited use of American military after August 15, 1973 unless the president secured congressional approval in advance. The capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War. North and South Vietnam were reunified the following year.
The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities (See: Vietnam War casualties), including 3 to 4 million Vietnamese from both sides, between one point five to two million Laotians and Cambodians, and 58,159 U.S. soldiers


Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon

A U.S. B-52 stratofortress drops a load of 750-pounds bombs over a Vietnam coastal area during the Vietnam War, Nov. 5, 1965. (AP Photo/USAF
Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
College students carrying pro-American signs heckle anti-war student demonstrators protesting U.S. involvement in Vietnam at the Boston Common in Boston, Ma., Oct. 16, 1965. (AP Photo)
Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon

Paratroopers of the U.S. 2nd Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade hold their automatic weapons above water as they cross a river in the rain during a search for Viet Cong positions in the jungle area of Ben Cat, South Vietnam, Sept. 25,1965. The paratroopers had been searching the area for 12 days with no enemy contact. (AP Photo/Henri Huet)
Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
Elements of the U.S. First Cavalry Air Mobile division in a landing craft approach the beach at Qui Nhon, 260 miles northeast of Saigon, Vietnam, in Sept. 1965. Advance units of 20,000 new troops are being launched for a strike on the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. (AP Photo)
Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
The Associated Press photographer Huynh Thanh My covers a Vietnamese battalion pinned down in a Mekong Delta rice paddy about a month before he was killed in combat on Oct. 10, 1965. (AP PHOTO)
Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
The strain of battle for Dong Xoai is shown on the face of U.S. Army Sgt. Philip Fink, an advisor to the 52nd Vietnamese Ranger battalion, shown June 12, 1965. The unit bore the brunt of recapturing the jungle outpost from the Viet Cong. (AP Photo/Steve Stibbens)
Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon

U.S. soldiers are on the search for Viet Cong hideouts in a swampy jungle creek bed, June 6, 1965, at Chutes de Trian, some 40 miles northeast of Saigon, South Vietnam. (AP Photo/Horst Faas)
Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
Injured Vietnamese receive aid as they lie on the street after a bomb explosion outside the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, Vietnam, March 30, 1965. Smoke rises from wreckage in the background. At least two Americans and several Vietnamese were killed in the bombing. (AP Photo/Horst Faas)
Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon

Hovering U.S. Army helicopters pour machine gun fire into a tree line to cover the advance of South Vietnamese ground troops in an attack on a Viet Cong camp 18 miles north of Tay Ninh, northwest of Saigon near the Cambodian border, in Vietnam in March of 1965. (AP Photo/Horst Faas, File)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
South Vietnamese supply trucks take a detour around a destroyed bridge en route to Pleiku on Route 19, July 18, 1965. The original bridge, and a temporary bridge placed on top of it, were both destroyed by the Viet Cong. (AP Photo/Eddie Adams)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon


Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
A Napalm strike

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
Women and Children taking cover

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
US army helicopters preparing to embark on a ground troops support mission

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon


Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
US troops alongside a crashed helicopter

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
Water filled bomb craters after a B52 bombing near Saigon in 1966

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon



Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
President Lyndon Johnson speaks during a televised address from the White House, Jan. 31, 1966, announcing the resumption of bombing of targets in North Vietnam. The president, who was photographed from a television screen at the New York studios of NBC-TV, said he was requesting Amb. Arthur Goldberg to call for an immediate meeting of the U.N. Security Council. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
A helicopter lifts a wounded American soldier on a stretcher during Operation Silver City in Vietnam, March 13, 1966. (AP Photo)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division carry a wounded buddy through the jungle in May 1966. (AP Photo/Henri Huet)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
A helicopter hovers over the field, ready to load personnel and equipment during Operation Masher in the Vietnam War, May 7, 1966. (AP Photo)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
A U.S. Marine CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter comes down in flames after being hit by enemy ground fire during Operation Hastings, just south of the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Vietnam, July 15, 1966. The helicopter crashed and exploded on a hill, killing one crewman and 12 Marines. Three crewman escaped with serious burns. (AP Photo/Horst Faas)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
An American F-105 warplane is shot down and the pilot ejects and opens his parachute in this photo taken by North Vietnamese photograper Mai Nam on September 1966 near Vinh Phuc, north of Hanoi. This photo is one of the most recognized images taken by a North Vietnamese photographer during the war. The pilot of the aircraft was taken hostage and held in a Hanoi prison from 1966 to 1973. (AP Photo/Pioneer Newspaper/Mai Nam)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon

Paratroopers of the 173rd U.S. airborne brigade make their way across the Song Be River in South Vietnam en route to the jungle on the North Bank and into operation Sioux City in the D Zone on Oct. 4, 1966. Troopers and equipment were flown in by helicopter to the central highlands area, but the choppers couldn't land in the D zone jungles. The operation began late in the week of September 25. (AP Photo)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
U.S. President Lydon B. Johnson reviews troops assembled in honor of his visit to the U.S. base at Cam Ranh Bay in South Vietnam on Oct. 26, 1966 during the war. Beside the President is Gen. William Westmoreland, Commander of the U.S. Military forces in Vietnam. (AP Photo)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
Empty artillery cartridges pile up at the artillery base at Soui Da, some 60 miles northwest of Saigon, at the southern edge of War Zone C, on March 8, 1967. (AP Photo/Horst Faas)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., leads a crowd of 125,000 Vietnam War protesters in front of the United Nations in New York on April 15, 1967, as he voices a repeated demand to "Stop the bombing." (AP Photo)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
U.S. Marines of the 3rd Battallion, 4th Marines, crouch in the cover of a pagoda entrance as their patrol moves through a village along the Ben Hai river in the southern sector of the DMZ in South Vietnam, on May 22, 1967. The pagoda walls are richly decorated with images of dragons and snakes. (AP Photo/Kim Ki Sam)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara (second from left), and Gen Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, huddle in one corner while Ellsworth Bunker, U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam (second from right), and Gen. William C. Westmoreland, right, commander of U.S. Forces in Vietnam, go over a report at the beginning of briefings for the secretary at U.S. Army Headquarters on Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Friday, July 6, 1967 in Saigon. (AP Photo/Cung)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
Vietnamese Navy boats laden with Vietnamese Army infantrymen swing along the Bien Tre river to launch a search mission some 50 miles south of Saigon in the Meking Delta's Kien Hoa province, July 11, 1967. Viet cong guerrillas fired on the flotlla from the brushy shoreline, but no major contact was made. (AP Photo)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
This general view shows a direct hit with North Vietnam 122 mm shell explosion in a U.S. ammunition bunker of 175 mm cannon emplacements at Gio Linh, next to demilitarization zone between north and south Vietnam, Sept. 1967, during the Vietnam War. (AP Photo)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon

South Vietnamese Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of the national police, fires his pistol into the head of suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem, also known as Bay Lop, on a Saigon street, early in the Tet Offensive on Feb. 1, 1968. (AP Photo/Eddie Adams)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon

U.S. Air Force bombs create a curtain of flying shrapnel and debris barely 200 feet beyond the perimeter of South Vietnamese ranger positions defending Khe Sanh during the siege of the U.S. Marine base, March 1968. The photographer, a South Vietnamese officer, was badly injured when bombs fell even closer on a subsequent pass by U.S. planes. (AP Photo/ARVN, Maj. Nguyen Ngoc Hanh)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon

U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson addresses the nation in a radio and television broadcast from his desk at the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 31, 1968. In his speech the president talked about plans to de-escalate the war in North Vietnam and his plans not to run for re-election. (AP Photo)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
Anti-Vietnam war protesters march down Fifth Avenue near to 81st Street in New York City on April 27, 1968, in protest of the U.S. involvement in the Vietnamese war. The demonstrators were en route to nearby Central Park for mass "Stop the war" rally. (AP Photo)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
The flag comes down at the U.S. Army base at Long Binn, 12 miles Northeast of Saigon, as the base is turned over to the South Vietnamese Army, Nov. 11, 1972. It was at one time the largest American base in Vietnam with a peak of 60,000 personnel in 1969. (AP Photo)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
U.S. Navy personnel aboard the USS Blue Ridge push a helicopter into the sea off the coast of Vietnam in order to make room for more evacuation flights from Saigon, Tuesday, April 29, 1975. The helicopter had carried Vietnamese fleeing Saigon as North Vietnamese forces closed in on the capital. (AP Photo/jt)

Captured: Vietnam and the 35th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
Evacuees mount a staircase to board an American helicopter near the American Embasy in Saigon. (Hubert van Es/AFP/Getty Images)