Marines, journalists caught in Afghanistan firefight

MARJAH, Afghanistan — The bullets snapped overhead angrily, and all I could feel were the insects crawling up and down my legs and the sludgy water seeping into my boots.

That’s how I’ll remember an ambush on a Marine patrol today, in which I saw my first warzone firefight.

It began at about 12:30 p.m., as 10 members of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, and six Afghan National Army soldiers pushed east on a dirt trail splitting two agricultural canals in central Marjah. The sky was clear and the air temperature had crept into the 90s, as the hot Afghan sun punished everything below.

Video: Marines, journalists caught in Afghanistan firefight