Tiny Estonia keen to make large contribution in Afghanistan fight

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Tiny Estonia keen to make large contribution in Afghanistan fight
By Heath Druzin, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, December 26, 2009

NAD ALI DISTRICT, Afghanistan — An hour earlier, the tiny patrol base had been rocked by the low thud to which the soldiers here have become grimly accustomed. It was the fatal sound of a comrade tripping an insurgent bomb. Silence hung over the normally chatty platoon.

But there was little time for reflection in this opium- and Taliban-rich part of central Helmand province. The soldiers, 2,500 miles from their homes in tiny Estonia, clipped their chin straps, readied their rifles, and walked out the front gate just a few hundred yards from where their friend’s body had been carried off the battlefield.

"We do what we have to do — we are soldiers," said Lt. Tanel Rattiste, 24.

While other larger European countries have limited how and where their soldiers can operate, Estonia has been keen to prove itself to its NATO allies, maintaining a combat force of about 150 soldiers in some of Afghanistan’s most dangerous areas and doubling that briefly during the country’s elections in August.

Estonia’s combat contingent is spread across two rough-hewn compounds in a rural valley that alternates between lush green and tan-gray desert, where farming is the main source of livelihood and many of the roads are riddled with mines.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=66876