“I deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 to Mazar-i-Sharif as a rifleman. Swedish troops were supposed to have it pretty easy in Afghanistan, and generally the news in Sweden quite seldomly would report on us getting into contact with the Taliban.

So we were out rolling in our CV90s and we got pretty close to a village that was quite ambiguous towards us. The vehicle commander reported to our squad leader that they say women and children leaving the village, and we knew that shit was about to hit the fan. It sure did. We had two guys standing up in the fighting compartment, hatches open, and an RPG came spiraling towards us from behind a stone wall. The rocket landed about 10 meters away from our vehicle’s broadside. Me and another guy leapt to our feet, stuck our heads up and we just unloaded on that guy. One of our machine gunners sprayed a full cassette, 200 rounds, before our squad leader told us to close the hatches. The vehicle pivoted and we heard the thick bass of the 40mm and several long bursts of machine gun fire from the co-ax.

Our squad leader listened into his com helmet. He turned to us and grinned, and said ‘They got his ass.’ We cheered, and we decided to return to base (RTB) shortly after. I was elated, but most of all maybe excited.

Looking back, with everything that happened to Afghanistan, I can’t help but feeling rather feeble, and that I in hindsight probably would have not done it again. Knowing that it was essentially all a waste.”
– Anonymous Swedish Soldier. Afghanistan, west of Mazar-i-Sharif, 2010
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