Excellent article. The first time my boots hit the ground in A-Stan in 2002, we were doing exactly what the article was talking about. Even conducting recons in not-so-conventional clothing. Patrols with donkeys and camels (not me but a 3rd grp team we took a base over from), 2 man H/K teams hunting rocket man at night, armed with suppressed M4's and highly zeroed PEQs, establishing no-mans-lands on the AFG/PAK border and warning locals not to leave their houses at night, dropping thousands of pounds of ordinance with our TACPs or CCTs if it even looked like there would be a fight.
Then "Mother-Army" came in and took over. Infidel tabs were scorned. Wearing of Afghan flags on the opposite arm as the US flag was frowned upon even though the Militia (and later the ANA) loved that we were so involved in their struggle. Drive only at night not in the day (because we "own the night"; so you can't see where there is sign of IED activity; our AO facilitated day driving, x-country, never on roads, but you can't do it at night).
Oh, and don't get me started on the whole "Night Raid" thing..... Why don't they want us doing those raids? Because the FREAKING WORK!!! Because we were catching the "somebodies", inside their homes with NO shootouts because they knew they had been caught and decided to live and try to use the "I'm just a goat herder" excuse, which probably got them released, later down the line, even though they were ALL vetted bad guys!!!
I will defer back to this to explain it all. (extracted from a PS forum)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X6HnOA88vw
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