Weighing Afghan War Options; U.S. Troops Face Hidden Dangers
LEMON: The political battle lines are being drawn over the future of the war in Afghanistan. Many Republicans and Democrats are at odds, and there's even some in-party disagreements as President Barack Obama prepares to discuss a possible shift in strategy with his top advisers. He'll do that on Wednesday. But behind all of the political what-ifs of war, there are real men and women putting their lives on the line every day in Afghanistan. Just ask the troops who were serving in the remote Nuristan region last weekend. A brutal Taliban attack left eight soldiers dead, and now the surviving troops are opening up about how they held their ground.</s>ST LT. CASON SHRODE, U.S. ARMY: Probably 90 seconds into the fight, they ended up hitting one of our generators so we lost all power. At that point, I made a call up to -- to Paul Bostick (ph), and I basically just said, you know, we're taking heavy, heavy contact. At that point, I knew that this was something bigger than normal.</s>SGT. JAYSON SOUTER, U.S. ARMY: We found out that our mortar systems were unable to fire at that time. So, me, I started working on the fire assets with nearby OPs and cops to see exactly what fire support assets we can use.</s>SHRODE: I think the numbers were so more significant than 25 to 30 that we got -- they got 25 to 30 without initial push but because we were basically surrounded 360 degrees, I think they have significant numbers that allowed them to continue to fight throughout the day.</s>ROSS LEWALLEN, APACHE PILOT, U.S. ARMY: My initial impressions were unfortunately we came over the hill, I first tried to call them and we get no response, that everybody was gone. We could tell that everything around them was going to hell and we could hear in the microphones, we could hear the guns going off. So we knew that it was a -- it was a pretty intense situation that they were facing.</s>SOUTER: After the aftermath, Camp Keating was completely changed. Like he said, almost all of the buildings had burned down. There were trees that were cut down trying to save other buildings from catching fire, and then just remnants of a mass attack afterwards.</s>LEMON: Strong words about heroic deeds from the survivors, but eight U.S. troops didn't live to tell their stories. And tonight we're remembering the fallen -- Sergeant Justin Gallegos, Specialist Christopher Griffin, Private First Class Kevin Thompson, Specialist Michael Scusa and Sergeant Joshua Hardt, Sergeant Joshua Kirk, Specialist Stephen Mace, Staff Sergeant Vernon Martin.