Troops Honor Fallen Comrades

In a brief but solemn display of respect, Marines at their desert base here received the bodies Wednesday night of two American service personnel killed on the ground during a B-52 bombing run.

As Marines stood with their M-4 assault rifles at “present arms” position, the bodies were taken by stretcher from a cargo plane to the morgue at the base, dubbed Camp Rhino by the Marines.

A third American later died of injuries from the blast that occurred when a U.S. bomb struck about 100 yards from an anti-Taliban position north of Kandahar. The blast also killed five Pushtun opposition fighters. Officials said 20 Americans and 20 Afghan opposition soldiers wounded by the bomb also were brought here.

The wounded Americans were airlifted out of Afghanistan, the officials said. Some of the Afghans were treated here and some were transferred to other facilities.

Troops from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Pendleton, seized this former Taliban airport facility near Kandahar on Nov. 26. One of their first tasks was to create a morgue and field hospital. Until Wednesday, the facilities had not been used for serious casualties.

The Marines have noted the similarity between the dusty, rutted terrain and chilly weather here and their desert warfare training center at Twentynine Palms, Calif.

But the arrival of the dead and injured dispelled any notion of a true similarity, said Capt. Stewart T. Upton of Task Force 58, which captured the facility.

Although the unloading of the bodies took only a few minutes, and activity at the base barely slowed, the impact on the troops reportedly was profound.

“A lot of people have described this in terms of being a big game, but seeing the dead and wounded come in on stretchers shows it’s not a game,” Upton said. “It’s life and death.”

The Marines have placed restrictions on what reporters, who were airlifted here on an Air Force C-17, can report about the nature of the Marines’ mission.

But officials have noted that the base is meant to provide personnel and firepower to disrupt the communications and movement of Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. A steady stream of cargo planes has been unloading personnel and equipment.

“This place is getting very busy,” Upton said.