firebase

In 1970, it was decided — “by vainglorious minds, smaller than mine,” Tim wrote — to reopen a long abandoned Marine firebase in the heart of the A Shau Valley, near the border with Laos.

The choppers often touched down in firebases, where the soldiers were isolated and weary.

An end, even if long overdue and perhaps contrived, can still have real power, said Thomas Burke, who was 20 and a lance corporal at a firebase in a small Afghan village in 2009.

I had gotten the job after my predecessor, Capt. Milt Freeman, and 50 of his men were killed or seriously wounded on a neighboring firebase.

In June of last year, an Afghan special operations forces commando opened fire on American troops, killing three and wounding one, at a firebase in the Achin district of Nangahar province.