My platoon was in the field with 1BCT 25ID learning them on their new Strykers on 9/11. We got yanked back to our company and a flurry of movement. Ft. Lewis didn’t have a secured contonment, lots of holes in some very old fences. Was put down to sleep when we got back after we were handed our combat loads, that’s when it clicked. Was on an OP watching a bridge that crossed the Nasqually River that night. Rotated back in morning of 9/12, up again at 1500 and rushed to the makeshift SRP to deploy to the MDW with our sister company that needed bodies. Was snapped up from the SRP at 2200 and told I was now in PSD for the BDE CDR. 9/13 I signed for my currier credentials and M11. From there till mid November was a whirlwind of TDY all over CONUS, LATAM, and Europe. At one point I did a circumnavigation of the globe. #itsround. I feel your pain.
I know what can burn. I’ve seen aluminum and kevlar burn to ashes. When I was a kid I watched a Beechcraft collide with a CH47 midair and watched the Beech burn in. I guided the first responders to the crash site, and being a dumb kid, took a bunch of pictures of the impact and minimal debris field And ball-o-airplane. Planes squish right up on impact. You could fit that whole plane in the back of my GTI.
So hole in ground and debris checks out with me. And that picture, that’s one hell of an impact to move that much earth.