Star Of ‘Restrepo’ Returns To Afghanistan

Photo: Specialist Misha Pemble-Belkin (left) and fellow soldiers from Battle Company, 173rd Airborne Division are shown here during a firefight at now-defunct Outpost Restrepo in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley in 2008. Courtesty photo/Tim Hetherington

Unintended Star Of ‘Restrepo’ Returns To Afghanistan -- Stars and Stripes

ASMAR, Afghanistan -- Sebastian Junger’s best-selling book “War” reconstructs in visceral detail a day in 2007 when Taliban insurgents ambushed a U.S. platoon in the Korengal Valley of eastern Afghanistan. In one scene, then-Pvt. Misha Pemble-Belkin runs through sheets of gunfire to aid Spc. Carl Vandenberge, who is bleeding out after a bullet has severed the brachial artery in his left arm.

Pemble-Belkin starts stuffing the wound with Kerlix bandages until he’s knuckle-deep in Vandenberge’s huge arm. Vandenberge is soaked with blood from his boots to his collar, and soon Pemble-Belkin is, too. When he cuts the sleeve off Vandenberge’s uniform, two or three more cups of blood spill out.

“You could see it in his face that he’s slowly dying,” Pemble-Belkin said.

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My Comment: I commented on Restropo last year, the link is here. Special note, Restropo director Tim Hetherington was killed in Libya earlier this year.