If there's a sign a war is ending, closing a mega FOB is it. The LNK. Camp Pleasure-neck.
Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion are gone. The nerve centers for the counterinsurgency in Helmand have been handed over to the Afghans. At the height of the war nearly 40,000 troopers and civilians lived and operated out of those camps. Out in the middle of the desert, it was austere but comfortable. I liked it. Maybe because I wasn't stuck there like most. I got out. Spent maybe half my time outside the wire in Lashkar Gah, or Now Zad or Khanisan. I always returned to my hooch on The LNK, as the Brits called it. To my room. With the slower-than-dial up wifi. The coffee places. The decent PX (sorry, Marines, I'll never call it an "exchange"). Sorry, gang, I turned into a POG.
Like I said, life was comfortable. I enjoyed my time there. But there was always this sense of ending. Like when Kilgore just randomly says "someday this war's gonna end" and walks away. That "someday" wasn't in the distant future. The good times were ending. Units were headed home without replacement. Units like mine were getting cut. Lines in the mess halls were getting longer because they were consolidating. The air and momentum were getting sucked out of the place. Or at it least it felt that way to me.
Now, that someday is here. Bastion and Leatherneck are gone. I feel a bit melancholy. It was my home. I made some tremendously strong friendships. I learned a lot about myself. The place and my time there had a great impact on me.
I have no idea if this is a sign of anything but progress. Nothing positive. Nothing negative. The closure and handover and donation of kit is just progress. Whether that's good or bad progress is entirely up to the Afghans. Here's to hoping the ANA's 215th Maiwand Corps can hack it.
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