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Zeebrugge FOB

from Dust of Uruzgan by Fred Smith

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about

Helmand province has been the scene of some of the toughest fighting in the Afghanistan war. It is Taliban heartland and the source of an estimated 42% of the world’s opium supply. ISAF has devoted a lot of attention to the province. While the military aspects of the war get a lot of media coverage, part of what the Coalition is trying to do is help build the Afghan economy and state. A focus of these efforts in Helmand has been the Kajaki Dam, initially built by USAID in the early years of the Cold War.

In September 2008, more than 4,000 international and Afghan personnel took part in a five-day operation to transport a massive hydro-electricity turbine more than 100 miles through Taliban territory to Kajaki. The turbine is eventually expected to supply electricity to around 1.5 million people in Helmand and Kandahar provinces. The Taliban see any evolution away from subsistence agriculture and the narcotics economy as a threat, so British and American forces have been fiercely defending Kajaki ever since from a Forward Operating Base (FOB) called Zeebrugge.

lyrics

My name is Ryan Yeaton I’m from Maryland Heights. Born and raised in Missouri and I came out here to fight. With the India Battery, 3rd Battalion, 12th Marines. Now deployed here in Kajaki at Zeebrugge FOB.

This broken little province that I find I’m fighting for sends more opium than Burma to the ports of Baltimore and the Taliban and the drug lords keep the place a goddam mess. I swear I am a fighter but right now I must confess that

I’ve had enough I can’t take anymore, right now I just want to be home far away from this forsaken war, not fighting from Zeebrugge FOB

USAID built the dam here back in 1953 to tame the Helmand river for the electricity. We were sent to Kajaki and its here we take our stand to defend the plant and turbine from an angry Taliban.

But if we stayed inside the FOB we would become a sitting duck. So we get out on patrol and trust our mettle and our luck. I got a sweet little daughter to a woman that I love. When a man’s got a family feeling lucky ain’t enough

We were out there patrolling on October 19
When they killed Francisco Jackson with another IED. We sent his body back to Dover and the sacrificial flame. Man I knew him as a brother now I fight on in his name

So when I’ve had enough and can’t take anymore and home is where I want to be. I go clean my weapon and back up for more.
Still fighting from Zeebrugge FOB

credits

from Dust of Uruzgan, released August 30, 2020

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Fred Smith Canberra, Australia

“Fred Smith is simply the best folk/country musician working in this country in 2020. Beyond writing some of the finest songs about Australians at war, he has created a repertoire that is wry, literate, witty, powerfully emotional and insightful.”(Bruce Elder, Sydney Morning Herald). ... more

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