Pedros - Michael Yon

14 September 2009
Helmand Province, Afghanistan

With the war increasing, Air Force Pararescue has been crisscrossing the skies picking up casualties.

That’s the Green Zone of Helmand Province, the opium capital of the world. Those fields are the great ATM of our enemies here. The fertilizer used to make those fields green is the same fertilizer used to make countless bombs.

We are flying in a special U.S. Air Force Blackhawk helicopter to fetch a seriously ill British soldier.

In Iraq, many of the casevacs were done by ground forces. In other words, if we hit a bomb or got shot, soldiers would load up the dead and wounded and rush them to the CSH (Combat Support Hospital or “cash”). But in Afghanistan most of the fighting occurs outside the cities and far away from the base hospitals. Rescue helicopters stationed at places like Bagram, Kandahar Airfield and Camp Bastion have been flying thousands of missions.

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