by Ben Anderson
A chaplain and two female marines arrived, carrying a guitar. Seventeen marines joined them in a corner, next to a metal container. In high tones, they sang ‘Shining in the light of your glory’. ‘Pour out your power of love, as we sing holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy, I want to see-ee you.’ It was surreal, although probably only to my godless English eyes. The song was upbeat and full of joy, the kind you hear on American tele-evangelist shows where the people raise their hands in the air and collapse in tears of happiness. This happy-clappy music was completely at odds with the grim task ahead. The deathly, dour hymns I might hear if I ever went into an English church felt more apt. The chaplain led a prayer: ‘Lord, we thank you for the beauty of this day. We thank you for every day of life that you give to us. We thank you that we have bright sunshine and warm temperatures. Lord, we thank you for the chance to step aside from all the preparation and all the busy-ness so we can focus on you for a minute just to listen to your voice and just to feel your presence. So Lord, I pray that you’ll come to us in this time.’ The prayer was followed by a reading from Joshua, on being strong and courageous not because ‘we are anything special’ but because ‘our Father is there, he’s holding on to us and he’s never going to let go’.
‘Isn’t that good news?’ he asked the marines rhetorically, then led another prayer.
‘Lord, whatever it is that we face in life, whether we’re trying to help a buddy or whether we’re trying to kill an evil person. Lord, I pray that we would know your presence is with us through all of those things and all of those struggles that we face. Lord, I pray that you would fill us with your strength and courage so that we can fulfil the work that you’ve set out for us. We just trust these things and we pray in your name. Amen.’
About midnight, we assembled at the spot where Captain Sparks had given his pep talk. There was no moon, so even when our eyes had adjusted to the dark, it was impossible to make out faces. Most people hadn’t slept. The marines were tense, fuelled by caffeinated drinks, cigarettes, chewing tobacco and most of all, fear and excitement.
An hour or so later, in the freezing cold, we lifted our bags and marched in single file to the huge landing strip where CH 53E Sea Stallion helicopters waited to take us into Marjah. The roaring sounds of the machines’ twin blades and engines made conversation impossible, so as we climbed on board and the helicopters took off, we had half an hour alone with our thoughts. I pictured the morbidly determined faces around me wailing in pain from gunshot wounds or looking down in horror and suddenly realizing that the future without legs that they’d imagined was now real. Everyone had visualised that life. I’d joked about it with my football team the week before, asking to play up front so that I might score a goal in my last game with legs.
The Taliban were rumoured to have three anti-aircraft guns in Marjah, so simply landing was a relief. As I walked down the ramp, the deafening blast of the engine was quickly swallowed by the ferocious whipping sound of the rotating blades. Dust and heat hit my face as I staggered under the helicopter’s exhaust, then the freezing night air bit every piece of flesh that wasn’t under several layers of clothing.
There were so many different sensations, sounds and forces that it was impossible to tell which way you were being pushed and whether the pain was burning or freezing. I waded forwards, half-blind. Through one barely-open eye I caught glimpses of camouflage uniforms, hands gripping rifles, shuttered eyes, straining legs and arched backs, sharply-drawn muscles where clothes were blown tight against skin. Over it all, debris and dirt whipped up from the ground lashed against our faces and bodies. It was a relief to have landed without setting off any IEDs. But it was a struggle to stay upright, let alone tread carefully; every step was filled with dread.
Marines shouted each other’s names or grabbed limbs blindly, shouting: ‘who’s this?’ Then I was suddenly aware of marines falling around me. They fell sharply, sideways and backwards. They didn’t get up but writhed around on the ground, like flipped woodlice. Suddenly, the choppers were gone and I could hear again. The falling marines had slipped in the mud and because they were carrying so much on their backs, they couldn’t get up without help. There had been no shots and no IEDs. There was only silence, freezing wind and an impenetrable blanket of darkness.
After unfolding a temporary bridge and crossing a canal, everything calmed down. The squad leaders got their men together and by about 4.30 a.m., everyone had started moving in the same direction. Then, the buildings around us suddenly awoke. Cockerels started crowing and dogs barked. Was this when they normally started? Or had we set them off early? Did everyone in Marjah now know exactly where we were? Were they watching us? I could hear every noise the marines made: boots being pulled from the icy mud, rifle metal hitting the equipment attached to almost every part of their bodies, deep breathing and whispered radio conversations. Then, in concert, a mad, rhythmic chant, fast, repetitive and threatening, blared from the speakers of the local mosque. It was a disturbing sound, nothing like the call to prayer. The speaker seemed to be working himself up into a frenzy. I was later told the message was: ‘The Infidels have landed, get your guns’.
As the light strengthened, I saw marine snipers climbing on to a nearby roof, looking through the sights of their rifles. There was an almost constant metallic hum from jets high overhead. I found myself kneeling next to Wesley Hillis, a lean, skull-faced young corporal with a cold, quiet authority.
‘Right now we’re sweeping for IEDs, hoping we don’t step on anything’, he said quietly. ‘It’s a very slow process with this many guys. Everyone’s aggressive and wanting to move fast, so they’re forgetting the basics. But everything will straighten itself out. The light’s coming up and we’ll get more comfortable and this terrain won’t be whipping us so bad. We just sit and wait.’
He took off his anti-ballistic visor, wiped it clean and seemed to think, I’ll be honest with the reporter. ‘This is really fucked up right now. I wish the sun would come up, people would start shooting and then we’d fix ourselves. Most fucking grunts don’t understand slow and methodical. That’s what these IEDs do, they take us away from our game plan. We have to swap up our tactics and play a chess game. It’s not chequers now.’ He stood up and walked off.
In the gathering light, I saw we were spread across an open field. If Taliban fighters were waiting, we were completely exposed. Some squads went down on one knee while others moved slowly forwards. If they had radios, they talked to each other constantly. If they only had rifles, they constantly looked through their sights, scanning every inch of ground for movement.
‘Hey, Morrison. You see that bright flashing light at your two o’clock?’ whispered Corporal Hillis. We could see a long straight road ahead, lined by trees on one side. Hillis could see two men moving along the road. ‘They definitely know we’re here now. They’re just walking around watching us, like we’re the zoo. But they know where the bombs are and we don’t, so we still have to take our time.’ He looked again. ‘I don’t know if the people are going to help us or if they’re still on the side of the Taliban. They could be onlookers, they could be forward observers for mortars. It’s an uncomfortable situation.’
I asked him what kind of reaction he was expecting. ‘From what I’ve got it’s kind of mixed. The people don’t know any better, so they’ve been on the side of the Taliban, under that iron fist. We’re just trying to show them the right way and hopefully they’ll choose sides. But we can’t have this being a safe haven for any type of fighters or terrorists.’
Most of the marines’ legs, arms and backpacks were soaked through with the cold dark mud we’d lain in. As everyone started to spread out, I followed Hillis, who’d become a reassuring presence. Hillis was in charge of a four-man machine-gun team, following 1st Squad, led by Sergeant Matthew Black, one of the few marines who didn’t look at all nervous, didn’t try to look tough, but wore an almost cheeky grin. Soon it was just me and about twenty marines, walking to the long straight r
oad up ahead.
Hillis said he saw two more men at one end of the road, which had a huge ditch, about twenty feet wide and twelve feet deep, running alongside. The ditch would have been a perfect trench if there hadn’t been a filthy stream running along the bottom. The marines struggled to jump the stream, climbed up the other side, then lay down and scanned the horizon through their sights. ‘Where are these motherfuckers at, man?’ said one.
We had two Afghan soldiers with us. One, nicknamed Rambo, had the Afghan flag draped over his shoulders, with the bright red part covering his left arm. ‘Look at the fucking asshole’, said one of the marines. They told Rambo to lie down, like they were doing. The ANA had issued green camouflage, rather than desert, so the red flag only made him stand out a little more than he would have anyway. The other Afghan soldier was digging into the road with a knife, at what looked like an IED.
The road and ditch were perfectly straight. In one direction was a petrol station, in another, several compounds surrounded by high walls. The marines saw men moving around outside. Lying side by side and looking through their rifle sights, they described what they could see.
‘There’s a possible IED up there.’
‘Who’s this guy on the right?’
‘See the one closer to us on the right?’
‘He’s got something on his side, like something slung.’
‘A rifle?’
‘I don’t know, he’s leaving.’
‘There’s three people now.’
‘Man this sucks.’
Another group of marines looked in the opposite direction. ‘He’s looking awfully suspicious, just standing there looking at us.’ The men they were talking about were fewer than two hundred metres away. They took a few steps towards us, then turned back and walked quickly away.
‘If they pop up and start firing, lay into ’em.’
I sat next to Doc Morrison, one of the corpsmen, or medics. He lay on his stomach with the men in his sights. He was chewing such a big lump of tobacco that his jaw looked broken. He spat out some tobacco juice, looked at me and back at the men. In the distance we heard the dull thuds of exploding IEDs.
‘That’s three in the last ten minutes’, said one, ‘and it’s still early.’
Sergeant Black stood up to point out another group of men he’d seen moving around behind a wall. ‘They’re just doing their thing, you know? Being shit-heads. See where that black cloud is at? There’s a wall. I guess one of them is just chilling behind the wall. Then there’s that tree line and they keep moving back and forth between there and that wall.’
There were at least four groups of about five men each: one at either end of the road and two on the other side of the field in front. A few men drove around on scooters, some with passengers, some carrying long objects wrapped in blankets. Another explosion sounded in the distance.
The rules of engagement meant the marines couldn’t fire on anyone unless they saw an undeniably hostile act being committed. General McChrystal had made the prevention of civilian casualties the top priority, even if it meant the marines took more casualties themselves. He called it ‘courageous restraint’. The Taliban had already worked out how to use it to their advantage, moving around without revealing weapons, mobile phones or radios. They knew that as long as it stayed that way, they wouldn’t be shot at. The marines knew they were watching a perfect ambush being set and there was nothing they could do about it.
Hillis walked over to Sergeant Black. ‘You can see a lot of people over here.’
‘All they’re doing is probing our lines without shooting, to see how far we’re stretched out.’
A man on a scooter, carrying a propane tank, drove slowly towards us, then turned around.
‘They’re just trying to see how we’ll react to a suspicious vehicle. Who straps a fucking oxygen tank to a moped?’ asked Sergeant Black.
‘Someone that wants to go scuba diving, probably’, said Hillis.
Hillis and Black shared some chewing tobacco and made jokes about what the Taliban might be saying to each other, giving them redneck accents. I wondered what kind of a person thought this was a situation normal enough to make jokes about. ‘I’m really not too thrilled about my feet’, said Sergeant Black, looking at his boots, which were just lumps of wet mud at the bottom of his legs. Then he saw that mine weren’t as high as the marines’ and laughed. ‘Look at yours, you must be soaked.’
Hillis thought we were almost surrounded by at least forty Taliban fighters. Unless we walked back in the direction from which we had come, we would walk right into them whichever way we went. Sergeant Black decided to take his men across the field. There, they’d have no cover at all, and would be completely surrounded.
‘Do you want some ass?’ said Hillis, offering some of his machine-gunners. Black said no, he wanted to leave them in the ditch.
Walking behind five other marines, I followed Doc Morrison into the field. I asked him what had happened to the advice we’d been given about not walking anywhere that hadn’t been swept for IEDs. ‘I guess that don’t fly here’, he replied.
We weren’t fifty metres into the field when a burst of three shots crackled over our heads. Everyone fell to their knees and tried to work out where it had come from. Then came a much longer burst of fire. We ran back to the ditch. Suddenly, dozens of bullets fizzed past us. I scrambled into the ditch and tumbled down towards the putrid stream; Doc Morrison screamed at the last man left in the field to ‘get back’.
Bursts of gunfire came from all sides. Some bullets passed so close over Doc Morrison’s head that he ducked and slipped down into the ditch for a second. The firing filled the air above us. Bullets hit the mud where we lay, so close that some marines flinched as they felt them. But they got straight back into position, trying to find something they could shoot at. I caught glimpses of facial expressions, sometimes from great distances and only for fractions of a second. They were as vivid and readable as a photograph: terrified and confused, panicked and lost, making me realise how bad the situation was.
For the first time in Afghanistan, I felt I was not on the strongest side and I’d finally pushed my luck too far. The feeling of fragility you get from so many bullets passing so close is almost impossible to describe. Imagine a snowman in the rain, a spider in a toilet or a piece of bread floating along a river that has miles of falls and rocks ahead. I thought that there was nothing I could do except lie down and wait for the bullets to enter my body. It seemed inevitable, and the way I accepted it made me wonder if I’d discovered I was a coward, after all. I remember hoping meekly that I might wake up in a few days and see doctors. Then I imagined waking and looking at the feet of our attackers. A rocket whooshed over my shoulder and exploded against the small wall that ran alongside the ditch, filling the air with dust and shrapnel.
‘AW FUCK, I’M HIT, I’M HIT’, screamed Morrison, next to me in the ditch. His right leg was covered in bright red blood that gushed from beneath his knee.
‘WHAT THE FUCK’, he moaned.
‘I’m hit too’, screamed the marine on the other side of me, holding the back of his left leg.
‘Am I bleeding?’ he asked, moving his hand away briefly.
‘No, you’re good’, I said, sounding calm for a second. I rolled on to my back, expecting to feel pain or a warm wet patch somewhere. The bullets clattered above us and the screams around me seemed to be saying the same thing. We don’t know where it’s coming from and we’re all going to die.
Sergeant Black ran along the bottom of the ditch towards Morrison.
‘Come here, come here, GET DOWN’, screamed Black. Morrison sat upright, groaning in pain.
‘Where you hit at?’
‘In my fucking leg, dude.’ He looked down at his right leg, still gushing bright red blood. He rolled backwards. ‘AAAAGH I’m hit, what the fuck?’
Someone else screamed he’d seen one of our attackers. ‘I GOT EYES ON, I GOT EYES ON.’
Sergeant B
lack got out a tourniquet and screamed at the other marines. ‘HEY WE NEED TO GET EYES UP AND START CLEARING THIS SHIT’, pointing to the top of the ditch. Bullets cracked over our heads from all directions and another awful clatter broke right above us.
‘WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT COMING FROM?’ screamed a marine, just in front of me. They still weren’t shooting back, still didn’t know where the fire was coming from. One of Hillis’s machine-gunners started firing but that only seemed to encourage the enemy. More bullets fizzed over us.
Sergeant Black put two tourniquets on Doc Morrison’s leg. ‘I got you bud, I got you’, he said, looking up to see what his men were doing. Morrison apologised. Black told him he had nothing to apologise for. Bullets kept landing on the mud, chopping through the dry grass at the top of the ditch. Occasionally, one zipped past so crisply I was sure it was just inches away. I imagined the first one entering me, then the second, then slowly fading away as the third, fourth and fifth sank in. Someone screamed at everyone to get their heads up and start firing back.
Slowly, the frantic movements and flinches, the panic and the confusion ebbed away. Marines started to fire steady bursts down the ditch or across the field. The marine next to me shouted instructions and started firing single shots, slowly and methodically, just like Hillis had said grunts couldn’t do when things weren’t going to plan.
Soon, more fire came from the marines than from the Taliban. I thought I was witnessing a miracle; survival suddenly seemed possible. I swore that if I did survive, I’d never go out with these guys again, and never come back to Helmand.
Three or four men ran across the road and hid in the buildings near us.