Eagle Down

by Jessica Donati

  The team had been reprimanded earlier in the night for blowing up a building containing one cache of weapons. When the battalion complained that they weren’t allowed to demolish structures, based on new rules introduced after the hospital bombing in Kunduz, the team blamed the Afghan commandos for blowing it up. The Afghans didn’t have to follow the US rules.

  Caleb was assigned to work with his warrant. When they came to a compound marked with white rocks several hours into the operation, Dan sent the bomb disposal unit to help them clear it.

  Kevin, the bomb disposal technician, was on his third day in Helmand. A deputy sheriff in Alabama before joining the military, he was rapidly adjusting to the realities of the field. He didn’t have a translator, and his Afghan partner with the civilian mine removal group spoke no English. They communicated with hand signals. They liked each other immediately. The Afghan disarmed the first bomb. Kevin had trained for this moment a thousand times, but he was still nervous. He disarmed his first bomb just inside the entrance to the compound, where two were buried in the ground. The explosive ordnance disposal units had a motto: “Initial success or total failure.”

  The first building inside the compound contained a stash of artillery rounds and pressure plates of all sizes, used to make the bombs that were buried in roads. Kevin heard Caleb call the dog handler over.

  “Hey, send that dog down there,” Caleb said, pointing to an escape tunnel he’d discovered just outside one of the larger rooms.

  “I’m not sending the dog without me,” the handler replied.

  The warrant handed Caleb his rifle, dropped onto his hands and knees, and crawled inside. Caleb saw his feet disappear into the darkness several yards away. He emerged after a few moments, unscathed, giving the handler a look of contempt.

  “Clear,” he said.

  That guy is extremely ballsy and kind of fucking stupid, Caleb thought. There was a fine line between the two. If an ordnance had gone off, it would have put everyone else in danger, as they’d be left to deal with the warrant’s injuries and the medevac.

  They still hadn’t found any explosives, so they continued to search the compound for the last components of the bomb-making factory. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were made of three parts: the explosive charge, the outer casings that contained the explosives and fragmented into shrapnel, and an initiating system that could be made from a range of household devices like radios, switches, and timers.

  Just before sunrise they found the stash of explosives in a small shack at the edge of the compound. Caleb sent the handler with the dog to check it out, along with the Afghan bomb disposal team. After the area was clear, he stepped in to survey the contents. The explosives were homemade.

  Great, he thought, we’re done here. He stepped back out of the doorway, placed a foot by the entrance, and heard a tremendous explosion. A powerful force swept through his body and lifted him into the air. He sailed for several feet and landed hard on the ground, unconscious. He woke up as the dust was settling and tried to grasp what had happened. He realized he had triggered a pressure plate bomb near the entrance of the shack. There were screams from the Afghans inside who had been wounded by shrapnel. He was covered in dirt, and his eyes and throat burned. He looked down to check for injuries.

  Oh my god, he thought, momentarily horrified. I’m going to die.

  There was almost nothing left of his right leg. His left foot was gone too, and the rest of the limb up to his knee was a mass of white, shredded bone, tissue, and dust.

  I’m going to die, he thought again, reflexively grabbing the tourniquets from his belt to stop the loss of blood.

  In the initial aftermath of an explosion, muscle spasms shut off any bleeding, but once the bleeding started, every second counted. Caleb managed to slip the tourniquets over the remains of his legs, but they had to be yanked tight to prevent the flow of blood. He was in shock and his strength was sapping. He battled the feelings of horror and fear, trying to twist the tourniquets tighter.

  Within moments, two of his teammates were at his side and grimly tightened both tourniquets as far as they’d go, heaving to shut off the circulation in his thick, muscular thighs. Caleb howled in pain. They dragged him several meters away from the blast site without checking for other bombs buried around them. A medic appeared with an injection of ketamine, and the world went blurry.

  “Was that you guys?” Andy called over the radio. Silence.

  He tried again. He was hoping they had blown up a second cache and forgotten to warn the others over the radio, but he knew deep down they would never make that mistake.

  “Was that you guys?” he said again, with a sinking feeling.

  The warrant came on the line.

  “It was us,” he responded.

  Caleb felt the world starting to fade away.

  Andy left his element behind and sprinted toward the sound of the explosion, forgetting everything else. When he reached the compound, he saw the explosives technician, Kevin, dazed and covered in dust. On the ground, safe paths were mapped out with chalk, and glow sticks indicated buried bombs. He stopped at the entrance, trying to see through the smoke and dust. There was a metallic smell in the air.

  “Kevin!” he shouted. “Where can I walk?”

  Kevin seemed concussed. He eventually gestured at a route in the dirt.

  Andy followed his directions, turned the corner, and ran straight into a scene of chaos. It was his worst nightmare. The ground was covered in men who were coated in dust and stained with blood, screaming. One of the Afghans was blinded. He found Caleb, pale and unmoving on the ground, and saw his injuries with horror. At first he thought Caleb was dead. A couple of teammates were working on him. The dog handler was losing blood from a wound on his backside. The blast had partially exposed a huge, 155mm artillery round buried outside the shack and a stack of 140mm rockets.

  “Need some guys over here right now,” Andy yelled into the radio. “One of our guys has lost his legs, and others are badly wounded.”

  He was appalled. He had trained for a mass casualty in a minefield scenario but had never seen one of this magnitude. He dropped to a knee and started to pack the dog handler’s wound. It occurred to him that he was supposed to be running the show, not down in the weeds. He turned the handler’s injuries over to one of the others, had Ski, the combat controller, call for medevac, and then went to work on a landing zone for the medevac. About two hundred meters away from the blast site, he found an open field that was large enough to land a helicopter. It was going to be extremely tight because of the mass of power lines running along the sides, but it was freshly tilled, which meant it was unlikely to be mined.

  The rest of the team secured the perimeter, positioning a sniper on the rooftop and the Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle, an 84mm antitank weapon, on one of the corners, meanwhile taking cover from the shots that zinged across the field. They tried to shoot two gunmen who ran across the landing zone, but the runners were too fast. Across the compound, the soldiers working on the casualties found Taliban stretchers, loaded the wounded, and made a dash through the soft, muddy field designated as the landing zone.

  Out of nowhere, another man in local civilian clothes and carrying an automatic rifle broke into the field and sprayed a volley of fire in the direction of the American soldiers, somehow missing everyone and then vanishing into a compound. Mick and two other teammates leapt up with several commandos and tore after him into the mud-brick settlement. Inside, there was a courtyard and three rooms, but there was no sign of the shooter, who had evidently fled.

  It was hard to see how the helicopter could land under fire in the narrow field without hitting a wall or getting caught in the lines. The sun was already up and the blue sky was streaked with clouds. The Black Hawks came in incredibly fast and low over the surrounding farmland. Andy was impressed by how expertly the pilots maneuvered the aircraft to the ground, kicking up a storm of dust while taking fire. In minutes, they loaded the casualties and
the helicopters were gone.

  The team sat against the walls of the compound, taking a moment to rest and process what had just happened. Andy wondered if they’d see Caleb alive again.

  Col. Johnston told them to call him using Iridium, a private satellite network, to discuss the mission, rather than the countrywide SATCOM. He asked what they wanted to do. Andy consulted with the team sergeant. A couple of the guys urged them to stay and find whoever had done this. They agreed to continue the mission as planned and exfil (extract from enemy territory) at night. It would be bad for morale to cut and run now, Andy thought, and it was safer to leave in the dark anyway.

  The next job was to clear up the compound where Caleb had been wounded. Any bandages, blood, or equipment left behind could be used by the insurgents as propaganda. They found all his gear, except for his night vision goggles, which they suspected might be buried inside the shack with the explosives. They called Col. Johnston back to ask him to request an airstrike. Gen. Swindell gave approval to strike the cache on the condition that they clear an area of one hundred meters around the site.

  It was impossible; every time the area was clear and the team pulled back, villagers emerged to see what had happened. The aircraft would radio back to say that the area still wasn’t clear. Kevin stepped forward with an alternative plan. He carried explosives with him and could blow it up in place instead. Andy was reluctant.

  “The risk is too high, and I’m not getting anyone else hurt in that compound,” he told Kevin.

  Kevin insisted, and got the job done. The blast flattened the shack. An officer from the battalion came on the radio with a complaint from Gen. Swindell, who was still watching the mission from the operations center.

  “The general wants to know why you blew up the structure,” the officer said.

  “What? You just told me I could drop a missile on it, and we decided we could take care of it ourselves, with less risk to civilians,” Andy said.

  “Well you’re not allowed to blow up structures,” the officer said. “We’re going to have to talk about this later.”

  Andy was irate, but said nothing. It was a shack that had just injured a group of guys, and it had been half destroyed anyway. Goddamn political bullshit. The team huddled with the Afghans and continued the clearing operation until the following night.

  At Camp Antonik, surgeons battled to save Caleb. In addition to blood loss and bacterial infections caused by the soil, the explosion had caused a swelling in his brain that could be deadly. The surgeons also tried to preserve what remained of his left leg, to avoid a second amputation.

  Once the rest of the team had returned to Camp Antonik and things had quieted down, Andy talked with the team sergeant, Dan, about how the mission had gone down. He was still processing everything that had happened and was glad to have the company. The events replayed in his mind like a scene from a movie. It was sheer luck that they hadn’t detonated any other explosives in the effort to evacuate the casualties.

  “Be careful on the radio,” Dan told him, as they sat outside under the stars.

  Dan explained that the graphic description of Caleb’s injuries over the radio could have upset the team. In the future, you need to project calm, he told Andy. Not just for the rest of the ODA, but for all the attached specialists and infantry personnel as well.

  “You’re the captain, Andy,” he said. “When shit hits the fan, the team looks to you. They’ll key in on even the smallest inflection in your voice. Make sure you always broadcast calm.”

  Andy would never forget the lesson.

  Mick called Alexandra to let her know he was safe. She was starting to recover from her postpartum depression. She liked her therapist and expected to complete her course of treatment by the time he came home. She was hoping to be well enough by the time Mick got back to take baby Declan to New Mexico to meet Mick’s family and spend a few weeks with them. She was shocked to hear about Caleb but was determined not to worry about her husband. She knew he was good at his job and would be home soon. She focused on getting better in time for his return.

  IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT in Arizona when the first call came in. Ashley, exhausted, was in bed and drifting off when her phone rang. It was a Utah number. She half opened her eyes. It was probably Caleb. She moved to answer it, but felt a crushing tiredness overwhelm her. Caleb would forgive her. She had to be up in a few hours to get the children ready for preschool and day care, and then go to work. She really needed to sleep. The same number rang again. This time, she answered.

  “This is Major Sam Campbell, from 19th Special Forces Group,” the officer on the line said. “Can I speak with Ashley Brewer?”

  “Speaking,” she said, dreading what was to come next.

  “There’s been an accident,” he said. “I called to tell you this: Caleb’s heart is pumping and he’s breathing.”

  She paused. A million different possible outcomes raced through her mind. She had known Caleb would be different when he came back because it had been a tough deployment. But she hadn’t prepared for the possibility that he might not come back.

  “What happened?” she asked weakly.

  The officer told her that Caleb had stepped on an IED during an operation. At this stage, he’d lost his right leg. It wasn’t clear if it was above or below the knee. A team of surgeons was working to save the left one. He promised to call her back with an update as soon as he heard more.

  Ashley hung up, in shock. She called her mom, who came immediately. She waited for the officer’s follow-up call while falling asleep on the couch, phone in hand.

  The surgeons gave up on Caleb’s left leg after about sixty blood transfusions. That number was far beyond the recommended, but they had lived with him on the base and didn’t want to fail him. The transport plane loaded him for the flight to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. The medical team on board had an action plan to keep him alive during the long journey. The aircraft would stop in Germany to refuel.

  Ashley’s phone rang the next morning. It was her mother-in-law, who was beside herself. She was in a panic after having missed a call overnight. When she checked the number on Google, what came up was a Utah National Guard suicide prevention line for veterans. She was in disbelief. Caleb wouldn’t commit suicide. She called, and it turned out to be a multiuse number. Eventually someone told her that Caleb had possibly become a double amputee in Afghanistan and was on his way to Germany.

  Ashley hadn’t heard that Caleb had lost his second leg. She helped calm his mother, who had already suffered more than her share of tragedy after losing one of her three sons to the opioid epidemic. Caleb’s mother agreed to make calls while Ashley packed for Walter Reed. Ashley got up from the sofa and operated as though it were a regular day. She took her daughter Evelyn to preschool, where she asked the teacher how to explain what had happened. She had no idea how to break news like this to a five-year-old.

  The teacher said to give Evelyn two pieces of information and let her absorb them. “Answer questions if she asks, but don’t give her more than that,” she explained. “Let her five-year-old brain process the information.”

  Ashley called her boss, who promised to help in any way she needed. The last step was to figure out where to go: the army had provided conflicting messages about whether Caleb was going to Walter Reed in Maryland or Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas.

  After picking up Evelyn from preschool, Ashley told her what had happened. “There’s been an accident. Your father has been injured.”

  Evelyn looked upset.

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did the accident happen?”

  “Well, he stepped on a pressure plate, and it caused an explosion.”

  “Did someone put the explosives there?”

  “Yes.”

  Evelyn had no more questions after that.

  Caleb’s kidneys failed on the journey to the United States, and he was u
nable to breathe on his own because blood clots had formed in his lungs. The medical team kept him alive on a respirator and a dialysis machine. They suspected he had multiple pulmonary embolisms in his lungs—it turned out to be five—likely resulting from the high number of blood transfusions. He had moments of wakefulness in which he was aware of doctors moving him and prodding him. The blurry figures seemed to be part of a dream, or very far away. Caleb was irritated. He just wanted to sleep.

  The doctors scrapped the plan to take him all the way to Texas and decided to keep him at Walter Reed until his condition was under control. The infection from bacteria in the dirt was fast becoming the greatest threat to his life after the loss of his legs. One of Caleb’s teammates was waiting for Ashley at Dulles International Airport. It was an hour’s drive to Walter Reed, and he tried to prepare her for what she would see when they got there.

  “He is super swollen,” he told her, “and hooked up to a ton of different tubes. He’s heavily sedated.”

  Ashley nodded.

  “His legs are both in bandages,” he said. “One of his arms is also wrapped up because of a shrapnel wound to his hand.”

  He paused, waiting for her to process the information.

  “But,” he said, trying to sound brighter, “he’ll know it’s you.”

  They arrived at almost two a.m. He led her to Caleb’s room and left them alone. Ashley stood there in shock, absorbing the sight of her husband and what had happened to him. She didn’t know what to say. She touched his hair, which was still the same, and took his unbandaged hand in hers. He didn’t move. A nurse eventually came in and gave her permission to stay the night. The nurse returned with a warmed blanket. Ashley wrapped herself up and slept next to her husband.

  CHAPTER 17

  Eagle Down

  ANDY

  DAN GHOLSTON fit the stereotype of the grizzled team sergeant. He was fair with a ginger beard and a sometimes dark sense of humor. He ran a tight ship but believed respect should be earned regardless of rank. He’d spent almost fifteen years in the military, with three previous tours in Iraq, and had moved to the National Guard from 5th Group. The truth was, seeing Caleb lying in the dirt in Sangin had shaken him.