"Where Eagles Dare"

My thanks to Hank for pointing me in the direction of this report by American correspondent, Michael Yon (whose title I have pinched!), which describes the recent operation in Afghanistan in which a gigantic new turbine had to be transported across miles of rough, jagged country which would have been taxing enough in peaceful times but was now hideously difficult because of the constant threat of attack by the Taliban through whose territory the convoy had to move.

"Of the seven critical trailers, four contained transformers, two held stators, and the last one carried the upper bracket assembly, which itself weighed about 15 metric tons.  The smallest transformer weighed about 25 metric tons, and the other three about 29 tons each."

The benefits to the Afghani people of this extra generator are all too obvious:

"If another turbine could be brought online, and power lines stretched from generator to consumer, wide swaths of the population would have electricity.  This would not only help the Afghan people, but also support the government, and spur the economy.  It was estimated that the new turbine could eventually double the amount of irrigation available to local farmers, allowing them to plant two wheat harvests per year.  With wheat prices on the rise, wheat might become more profitable than opium."

This was an operation planned and executed by the servicemen of several nations and I do not wish in any way to denigrate the efforts of others, but in the main, it was the soldiers of the 'Anglosphere' who carried it off to a successful conclusion.  As Michael Yon indicates, this will not win the war in Afghanistan but let us, just for a moment, pause and salute the courage, the ingenuity and the expertise of all those men.

Comments

[john]

Mike Yon is an American.

[David Duff]

Thanks, John, I assumed it from his story but I will correct my text.