Unfortunately, I think the matting was still being finished up from being washed out when I went down there pre-Moshtarak, so I had to ride on a 53. Which isn't all that bad, except for the buckets of hyd fluid that gets dumped on you, and watching the occasional hole appear in the fuselage from Shithead X with AK. But thanks for the ride back to Bastion/Leatherneck.
You're right about it just being a snapshot of a much, much bigger deal. The planning alone for the op was so utterly painful, usually made so by some jackass from ISAF interjecting himself into things at inappropriate junctures. Not anyone in particular, just too many asshole staff bitches trying to stick their noses in where it didn't belong. And don't even get me started on the damn CAOC.
I know it was hard for 1/6 to deal with, having just returned from Helmand in 2008, when we rolled through Garmsir like a sledgehammer. Their OpsO (a friend from our previous deployment there) and I had a long conversation when they got into AFG about how things had changed, and I know for a fact that he took a couple of deaths related to their hands being tied pretty hard. You'll notice a couple times in the show that Marines kept saying things like, "Last year..." or, "We didn't do things like this last year..." Who said that war never changes?
One thing that I absolutely loved about Moshtarak, though, was being able to use the Harriers for more than 45 minutes at a stretch, thanks to the runway at Dwyer. Who knew that things work really, really well, when you USE THE AIRPLANE LIKE IT WAS DESIGNED TO BE USED?