Donations accepted to replace soldiers' lost gear

A national veterans group has stepped in to help dozens of Fort Carson GIs who lost all of their personal gear in heavy fighting during an attack earlier this month in Afghanistan that left eight dead.

The American Legion had raised $50,000 to assist the more than 70 soldiers who lost items from iPods to socks when they were forced to call in bombs and artillery on their own positions during the Oct. 3 attack that targeted soldiers from the 4th Brigade Combat Team at Combat Outpost Keating.

That money was backed up by a $50,000 matching grant from retailer Target Corp.

All that generosity, pouring in from several states, was driven by the hopelessness one soldier described in an e-mail, said Mark Seavey. The soldier wrote to Seavey, who writes a blog for the Legion, that he believed Americans don’t know about the war in Afghanistan and don’t care about the soldiers sent to fight there.

Seavey said the generosity sends a message to American servicemen and women:  “We all care and we want to do the best for them.”

The firefight in which the soldiers lost their gear was the bloodiest battle Fort Carson soldiers have seen in eight years of fighting. A single troop of about 100 soldiers from the brigade’s 3rd Squadron of the 61st Cavalry Regiment faced hundreds of Taliban militiamen at a remote outpost in Konar Province near the Pakistan border.

The soldiers were cut off from a helicopter landing zone by the Taliban and relied on their wits, air power and artillery to survive for six hours before reinforcements could be landed.

During the battle, the Americans and their Afghan allies lost part of their compound to the insurgents and had to form new lines while blasting away at their own outpost to oust the enemy.

Seavey learned that in the fighting, the Americans wound up destroying their own camp and the few possessions the soldiers brought with them from home.

The military is replacing issued equipment, but personal items from DVD players to video-game consoles were gone. Soldiers can be reimbursed for them later under the Army claims system, but immediate replacement is difficult.

All that will be replaced, though, by the Legion’s relief fund, and money is being saved to give the GIs a big welcome when they return to Colorado Springs, Seavey said.

Legionnaires will go shopping in Colorado Springs to pick up items to be sent to the soldiers.

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