The Tragic Story Of Outpost Restrepo Sums Up The Whole Afghan War

Troops nicknamed Afghanistan's Korengal Valley "Death Valley" for a reason.

If it wasn't the sheer amount of bombs dropped (more than in the rest of Afghanistan combined at one point), it was the number of American lives consumed during brutal, most often daily fire fights — usually for a matter of feet and inches.

The hard-fought swath of ground in this instance was Combat Outpost Restrepo, an offshoot of a bigger outpost, and more importantly, an offshoot won following a brutal fight in the wake of Juan "Doc" Restrepo's death in combat.

Sadly, troops left Restrepo and the Korengal Valley without accomplishing much of anything. From a New York Times report:

Closing Korengal Outpost in Kunar Province, a powerful symbol of some of the Afghan war’s most ferocious fights, and a potential harbinger of America’s retreat, is a tacit admission that putting the base there in the first place was a costly mistake.

It cost 37 soldiers to be exact. Afghanistan has cost more than 2,100, and now America's gearing up to leave, while citizens begin to openly wonder: was that a costly mistake as well?

Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington spent several months filming the soldiers at Restrepo. What follows is a visceral take on combat in Afghanistan's most dangerous strip of land.