Some time ago I was sitting in an office with a friend when we heard the siren. About 2 second later we hear ka-boom in the distance; 5 seconds after that: KA-BLAM!! Too close. Turns out one mortar had hit one of the service facilities. We heard sirens and helicopters and found that two workers had been injured. Pick-up services were unavailable for a few days due to "incident" and part of the building was missing, but when I was finally able to collect my clothes I found that my jeans, T-shirts, underwear and socks were clean and unharmed.
USO Kandahar's recent Movie Night was interrupted by rocket attacks and the first ground assault in anyone's memory. About eight of us are watching "The Blind Side" when the alarm went off. We didn't stop the movie, but we did slither off of the chairs and couches, down to the floor. We hear ka-boom in the distance, wait two minutes and then get back onto our seats. A couple of minutes later the alarm goes off again, so we glide back down to flat on the ground. We watch the movie from the prone position for two minutes then crawl back up to our seats. About 15 seconds later we hear KA-BLAM!!! (very close). I yelled "GOLLY DARN!!" (or something similar) and we all slide back onto the floor. That was about as loud as I've heard. Turns out the mortar landed in a public place, across the street, about 150 yards away. The structure was damaged, there were quite a few injured parties, and worse.
The rockets and ground fire continued for at least 5 hours, with us sliding from our chairs to the floor and back up, several times. There were garbled announcements every ten minutes, including parts or all of:
KAF is being attacked from the north.
Seek shelter indoors.
Force Protection is monitoring the situation.
Stay away from the perimeter.
After the end of the movie we stayed where we were for awhile, then decided to make a dash for our MODs (bed, computers, restrooms) just 200 yards away. On the first try we stepped out and were met by a car of MPs who told us to GET BACK INSIDE! For our second attempt we walked very quickly and made it about 90% of the way before we were stopped short in our tracks (and I mean STOPPED) by troops with guns aimed at our heads, shining bright lights in our faces. When we identified ourselves as USO they became much more friendly and directed us to the nearest bunker.
After about 30 minutes in the bunker the announcement came that everyone (except Force Protection and Marines with weapons) were allowed to go back to their housing units. The broadcasts continued all night. The next couple of days there were troops guarding the fences and scores of helicopters and drones in the sky. We had to wear our battle gear twice for 12 hours at a time. The "All Clear" finally came in the middle of the night (at 0300), 55 hours after the attack had begun.
Since then we've had about six attacks a week. People tend to take the alarms seriously after they've seen a missile flying 30 feet above their heads. It's not unusual to find everyone on base hitting the gravel, street or floor, lying in the rocks with our hands over our heads, then running for the bunkers or a protected area. Unfortuantely, we know from recent experience that the mortars can penetrate the tents and modular units.
I'm intentinally omitting a lot of specific events and numerous details due to OPSEC, but I think you get the picture.
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