Marines from Company B, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, discover a massive cache of opium hidden inside of an indoor well in the Sangin region of the Helmand Province.

This is some of the non-sexy work that went into Operation Enduring Freedom. There's a ton of cool-guy footage out there. It usually features FLIR footage captured by an AC-130 and the devastation of platoon sized-elements of Taliban fighters setting up ambushes and improvised explosive devices. There's a ton of helmet-mounted camera footage featuring all of the exciting bits of an hours-long gunfight. What's more rare however, is the actual grunt work that went into diminishing the Taliban's ability to wage their guerrilla war.

This is some of that non-sexy footage. It shows Recon Marines from Company B, 1st Recon Battalion discovering a hidden cache of opium inside of a well in the Sangin district of the Helmand Province. It then follows those Marines as they rappel down the well, just to see how deep the cache goes, and then continues to follow them as they dig down to the cache site from the inside of the compound above.

It may not be cool-guy stuff. It might not be FLIR footage of Army Rangers tossing hand grenades on top of Taliban fighters. It might not be AT-4s getting slammed into Taliban caves. But, it's still an important part of the conflict that should be recognized. Just about every ground-pounder who spent time outside of the wire knows exactly how hard and physically taxing a day like this can be, and every single one of those ground-pounders knows just how much impact a find like this has against the Taliban's ability to purchase more arms and ammo to wage war.

Strong work boys.