In the summer of 2008, Farah province was the wild west of the war-torn nation known as “the Graveyard of Empires.” The province borders Iran, spanning roughly 19,000 square miles in a mostly desert region, and is home to more than half a million Afghans spread across 11 districts. When Marines from Golf, 2/7, deployed to Farah and Helmand provinces from Twentynine Palms, California, the war in Afghanistan was an afterthought in America’s collective consciousness. The news cycle was consumed by a rapidly accelerating financial collapse and a race for the White House between John McCain and a junior senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.

Many of the 2/7 Marines had seen combat in Iraq, but when they arrived in Afghanistan in April 2008, they found themselves spread thin over a massive area of responsibility. The unforgiving topography of the desolate, landlocked region provided an endless stream of logistical and operational challenges. “We were drinking well water, eating fried potatoes and rice, and trying to find goats to eat,” recalls Steven Carper, a police officer in Greenville, Texas, who served as a corporal with Golf Company’s 2nd Platoon during the unit’s 2008 deployment. “We requested bullets and batteries, and they were sending us O’Doul’s and rotten fruit. There were points where we were carrying AK-47s and stuff because we could get them.”

Carper’s reinforced platoon of roughly 60 Marines was dispatched to a remote combat outpost in Farah’s Bala Buluk district. The small outpost marked the southwestern boundary of America’s conventional military presence in Afghanistan. The nearest friendly unit was another Golf Company platoon — nearly five hours by vehicle to the southeast …

Read the full, riveting story of the Battle for Shewan here.