Members of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, encounter an IED somewhere inside of Nowzad during the 2009 surge into Afghanistan.

2009 was both the worst and best time for a Marine in Afghanistan. It was the best time because you were often doing your job as an infantryman. Closing with and destroying the enemy through close combat and fire and maneuver was a nearly every day occurrence. It was one of the worst times however due to the high number of improvised explosive devices the Marines were encountering every day.

If you've never been in an IED strike, this video is about as close as you can ever come to experiencing it first hand. One minute, you're rolling down the road towards your mission objective, the next, you're surrounded in a cloud of Afghan dirt that was just kicked up by some homemade explosives. The explosion however is a truly visceral experience that words will struggle to explain.

No Marines were seriously injured during this IED strike.