I headed for the huts and found Bill waiting for me. My face gave away my skepticism. “Well, boys, wait until you hear this,” I said as I pulled out the map and showed the team the basic concept of the operation. No one liked the operation, but they were professionals, so they grumbled under their breath and got to work pulling together all the equipment. We didn’t have much time.
My team would depart in twenty-four hours with Jared’s command team and Hodge’s team. Bruce, who was still missing some of his teammates, would be the quick reaction force. They’d link up with us later. Paul, the intelligence sergeant from Bruce’s team, came up with the idea of driving to our target area through the Red Desert. He had the infiltration route mapped in his head and knew the Taliban would never expect us to come across that forbidding terrain.
Our route would take us southeast, away from KAF toward the Pakistan border. Then we’d turn due west and cut into the Red Desert. From the desert we would head north and come out in the underbelly of southern Panjwayi. Once we got there, we’d recon our areas of interest, probe enemy positions, link up with the quick reaction force coming in a more direct route from Kandahar, and occupy blocking positions on the southern border of Panjwayi while the Canadians cleared the valley. To meet our deadline, we had to cross the entire red sand desert in four or five days. The desert had an area of several thousand square kilometers. That was a big challenge, but with air-dropped supplies and some luck we could do it.
Our planning meeting broke around lunch. Jared asked for a driver and communications guy for his truck because he didn’t have enough men. I reluctantly gave up Jude, our junior communications sergeant, who had worked closely with Brian.
Jude had joined the team the previous year and immediately immersed himself in Brian’s tutelage. I knew he couldn’t be in better hands as he learned the team’s ropes and would hit the ground running with us. He was a quick study, and while he lacked Brian’s tenure, he shared his deep familiarity with a wide array of radios, antennas, and encryption devices, and he did his job with the same precision. Quiet, unassuming, well educated, Jude came from a middle-income midwestern family and had chosen the military over the family business. Average in stature, with clean-cut hair, he reminded me of a banker or a Wall Street broker—someone who could easily blend into the urban business world making the type of salary we all dreamed of. The convertible sports car he drove stood out like a beacon amid the rows of 4×4 pickup trucks, Jeeps, and Harleys in the unit parking lot. I hadn’t been sure at first what to make of him or how he’d be accepted by the other team members. Once again, I would be humbled to learn that all green hatters were chameleons and that Jude could be counted on as a willing participant when so-called better men faltered.
On the rare occasions when Jude said something, it was either really funny or really profound, usually the latter. You never saw him coming, but when he did it was good, and I admired not only his reserved attitude, but also his precise, logical judgment and clear vision—he could always size up a situation and know where it was going. He was selfless, and he was a good teammate because he took care of himself as well as he looked after the team. He maintained a rigorously healthy diet and usually drank V8 or some fruity, juiced-grass concoction, which was an ongoing source of concern for those of us desperately trying to destroy our livers. We voted him the guy most likely to order a drink with an umbrella in it.
In his own unique way, Jude was different from everyone else and yet the same. He was himself and that was his strength—he was as vibrant an individual as you will ever meet and, to his credit, just as humble. He always saw the good in others and never took credit for himself, nor did he feel the need to compete with other teammates over things he considered childish. He didn’t have to. Within weeks he would display superhuman courage and strength that came from a hero’s heart—the stuff legends were made of. But I had no doubt even at the outset of our mission that Jude—and all of us—would be deadly effective on this rotation.
Jude shared that he and his girlfriend had gotten engaged before our departure from Bragg. He was clearly excited, although he tried to restrain himself. I could only smile. The team had relentlessly aggravated him about not getting married. I congratulated him and truly meant it, but the leader in me wanted to make sure he had covered all his bases.
“Do you have your insurance up to date, and is your fiancée on it?” I asked. Several friends of mine had been killed without having updated their paperwork to include their fiancées or wives.
“I have all the proper documentation, Captain,” Jude said, sounding like a good banker. “Bill has the copies.”
He was on top of it, as always. I was reminded again of what a superior addition to the team he was going to be on this deployment, and I hated to let him go to Jared’s team.
Bill and I headed straight back to the hut to iron out details with the team before we had to brief back the whole plan to Bolduc. Smitty, the team’s intelligence sergeant, gave us a detailed brief on what to expect. We weren’t going up against your average Taliban. These groups had been taught in Pakistani madrassas, probably by Al Qaeda or foreign-trained fighters, and would not flee the valley at the sight of NATO armored vehicles.
I never said so, but if Smitty had an idea, it was going to get serious consideration. In addition to his intelligence expertise, he was the team’s ad hoc psychologist. He would often answer a question with a question, irritating some and perplexing others: “So, you say you’re angry. What do you think makes you angry? Is it your fault? What could you do to not be angry?” He was the devil’s advocate in desert camouflage. There was a greater goal behind his approach, though. Like a big brother, Smitty always discussed the pros and cons of every detail with the team in order to come to a collective decision, and there was invariably a lightbulb moment when the questions sank in and the rest of the team got it. He could gently make the team see their own shortcomings and motivate them to retrain or fix the problems internally. He was my greatest force for team cohesion. His comfortable, easy demeanor around fellow team members was based on a deep foundation of trust, and we all took pleasure in his friendship.
Born in the mountains of Virginia, Smitty had a southern drawl that poured smoothly across the ears like fine bourbon across the palate. When I wanted a reminder of home I’d go talk to Smitty. Growing up in a small town meant a life where everyone knew everyone, and their business. Four days after graduating from high school, Smitty walked into the recruiter’s station with his diploma in hand and joined the Army. He was a master of field craft, having grown up with little and spending much of his youth in the woods. Smitty had a public education but was Army trained and it showed—he had been collecting experience for sixteen years and shared it generously with others. His quick common sense propelled him to the top, above the typical bravado exhibited by other SF operators. He did not talk crap (unless he had seen it or done it), and he had a nose for bullshit like a Tennessee bloodhound, detecting it or matching it like no one else, as the situation required, character traits he valued and honed from the example of earlier, more experienced warriors. Very few lies slipped past this supremely experienced SF soldier. Fun-loving, with a zest for life and a sense of humor that defused the worst situations, Smitty had the air of a latter-day pirate, which his dirt-red hair and suitably menacing beard only amplified. Never one to go without a Jedi mind trick, and unpredictable at best, Smitty was the type of guy who would shave his head and grow his beard extra long, imitating the Taliban just enough to get in the head of prisoners and make them wonder just who in the hell they were up against. He was perfectly suited to his role as our intelligence expert, and I couldn’t imagine the team without him.
The team rounded out the rest of the plan—how and when we’d get supplies, the radio frequencies and call signs we’d use. Next, we prepared contingency plans. This was the real meat and potatoes of planning. As we broke up into groups, Riley and Steve, the team’s medics, pulled me aside.
“Sir,” said Riley, “we have a recommendation. We know of a soldier who would be perfect for this mission.” His name was Greg, and he was attached to a civil affairs unit, but he was Special Forces qualified and in fact had been one of their instructors at the Special Forces medical school. That got my attention. “No one knows trauma better than he does. If this thing gets messy that far away, he’ll come in handy,” Riley said. I agreed to talk with him.
The groups continued to drill down on every detail. What was our route? How long would it take to get there? How much fuel would we consume if the trucks carried double the basic load of ammunition, three additional passengers, and three times the amount of fuel we needed? How much fuel would the ANA require? How would we evacuate casualties?
We’d been working for about an hour when there was a knock at the door.
“We’re busy. Go away,” Bill said.
“It’s Greg,” the visitor said.
I folded over the maps and documents; there was no sense divulging classified information if he didn’t end up going with us. Greg came in and stuck out his hand. He had a strong handshake and a humble demeanor. In this business, humility is usually accompanied by confidence and focus. I liked him. But I waited for Bill’s response.
“Where have you been, and what have you done?” Bill asked.
Greg had spent nearly two decades with Special Forces teams and had taught at the renowned Special Forces medical school. Bill was impressed, nodded yes, and walked out of the hut. I told Greg to sit down and opened the map. He was a true country boy from Tennessee but clearly far from naive. Just past his middle thirties, he was in excellent shape. He reminded me of most of the people I grew up with.
“I’ll tell you up front, I have concerns about this operation. I don’t have a good feeling about it at all. I would prefer that you not go,” I told him. Greg hadn’t trained with the team. I didn’t know his strengths and weaknesses. He didn’t know our operating procedures and had never worked with our Afghans. We didn’t have a chance to do detailed planning, didn’t have time for rehearsals with the Afghans, and we hadn’t discussed what would happen if the Canadian operation didn’t go as planned.
“This could get bloody,” I told him, “although it appears as if our part of the mission is going to be a cakewalk.”
“There’s no such thing as a cakewalk,” Greg said. “Unless you tell me otherwise, you couldn’t keep me from going.”
That was the right response.
“Can you handle a .50-cal heavy machine gun?” I asked.
He grinned. “Like a broom.” I had to smile.
I told him to get his kit and see Bill for his truck assignment. Normally teams don’t accept any latecomers, but Greg knew what I knew—you can never have too many Special Forces medics on an operation. Plus, Bill approved, and Greg came highly recommended from operators. Finally, he had the experience, and we could use his expertise in case this thing got ugly.
We continued to plan for the next four hours and met again with the other teams to confirm everything. With the detailed planning done, we had about sixteen hours to get ready to leave. While Bolduc and Jared briefed Fraser’s staff, we concentrated on the vehicles, radios, and weapons. We packed and repacked our kits. We configured the trucks and loaded them with as much ammo and fuel as we could fit.
Dave, our engineer, ranted and raved about the weight in the trucks, his “girls,” as he always called them.
“Captain, the girls are too heavy. We need them to be lighter,” he protested. “At this rate, we’ll be out of fuel way before our first scheduled resupply.”
“What’s your solution, then?” I asked.
“Strip off any excess armor plating and equipment,” he replied. We’d gotten only a few of the air-conditioned and fully armored trucks that the units in Iraq had, so we’d made our own modifications. After five years of war, many of the trucks had Mad Max style armor and plating to protect against roadside bombs. Dave didn’t care if he looked stupid; he just wanted to be right.
Dave had been quickly promoted to senior engineer, and with his sharp tongue and quick wit he made fast work of senior operators looking for an easy score. A midwesterner from Ohio who knew how to handle himself in every situation, he was a chameleon in human skin, a wild card—the joker in the pack. A century ago, he would have been a gambler in the Wild West. He could charm the pants off a woman and win all your money while making you feel good about losing it. He knew how to play the game and had the cynical attitude of one who has seen much and keeps it to himself, unless you are foolish enough to say something he disagrees with. Dave did his job because he loved it, not because he owed the Army an obligation. He was the guy every team hopes to have. At barely six feet, he wasn’t all that imposing, yet he was solidly built. Some men are connoisseurs of wine, art, cars. Dave was a connoisseur of pizza. He’d eat pizza that was two days old before he would eat regular food, and he had even attempted to make pizza out of military rations—Meals, Ready-to-Eat, or MREs—or the local Afghan food, which had prompted whispered discussions at tribal meetings.
Dave came to the team at the beginning of the last rotation and had combat tenure. He was young, smart, and a fast learner; he didn’t have to be told something twice to know it and put it to use. Before a patrol in 2005, he asked the interpreters to teach him some simple commands—stop, get out of the way—and he practiced them in the turret as we drove. Later on, I heard him screaming the same commands at nearby drivers as we made our way down the street in Kandahar.
As an engineer, he was an artist and would spend endless hours working feverishly on a structural project. He loved details. What kind of materials to use, the length, width, the temperature, density, humidity, barometric pressure, weight, etc. It didn’t matter if it was a dog house or a bridge, Dave could build it. It didn’t take long to figure out why he loved building so much. His real passion was demolition.
“You can’t enjoy destroying things if you don’t know how to make them,” he would say.
Dave absolutely, positively, with all his heart loved to blow things up. A massive explosion or complete destruction was not his forte. No, not Dave; that would be too easy. Too crude. A good partial destruction was usually his goal. It denied use of the object to the enemy, then, later, Dave could rebuild it again and put it to some other use.
When Dave was finished with the trucks, the plates and excess parts were piled in a heap in the motor pool. He’d managed to remove hundreds of pounds of armor that would have bogged us down in the sand as well as burned excessive fuel. Now we could meet our scheduled resupplies. It made me a little nervous to see even the smallest piece of protection lying in the dust, but we had no choice. We needed the trucks and the guns they carried into the fight more than the little bit of armor we were leaving behind.
That night, we lay in the hut drenched in sweat, wide awake. After a while, Bill started quizzing us about the mission.
“Greg, what’s the distance from the entry point to the exit point of the desert?”
“Two hundred seventy-five, two hundred eighty-five kilometers.”
“Steve, how far to the first turn off of Highway 4?”
Silence for several seconds, then Steve said, “Did you forget already, Bill?”
The hut erupted with laughter. I tried to hold back, but couldn’t. The tension broken, Bill continued to question the team until a few drifted off to sleep.
Bill and I remained awake.
“What do you think?” I asked.
Bill sighed. “I don’t like it, any of it. There are too many things that can go wrong. ISAF will get mauled in their armored vehicles because they can’t maneuver. There’s too much cover and concealment for the enemy in an urban fight.”
Bill had fought in Iraq and knew urban combat very well.
“Okay, sir, check this out,” he went on. “The intelligence said that there were probably four hundred Taliban fighters in that valley, right? Intelligenc
e is close, but never spot on. What if there are more? Four hundred fighters, that’s a lot, and I mean a lot, of people trying to kill you. We will have to be on our A game for this. Besides, what if we run into a fight way out there in the middle of that godforsaken desert? No cover. We could keep the Taliban at bay for a while with our heavy machine guns and grenade launchers. But we can’t move at night. The Afghans don’t have night vision. If we move during the day, we’ll slow-roast in those vehicles and be exhausted by nightfall, losing our edge.”
He wasn’t even convinced that we’d stay in our blocking positions.
“I’ll bet you a case of beer the Canadians get into trouble and we have to go in there to help. The boys will be exhausted by the time the fight starts and when it starts, it will go on for a while. I mean weeks,” he said. “ISAF is not planning on taking enough dismounted infantry to clear that huge valley. Somebody is gonna have to do it. Who do you think is gonna get volunteered?”
I dredged up the old adage, “There is a Thai proverb that goes like this: How do you eat an elephant?” I asked Bill.
“How the hell would I know?” Bill said. “I wouldn’t eat that nasty thing.”
“One bite at a time,” I said, smiling. We both laughed and got about an hour’s worth of sleep.
The whole hut rattled when the guard pounded on the door. Bill shot straight up. “Get up,” he bellowed. “The sooner we get this started, the sooner it will be over.”
Then he cut on the overhead lights, blinding everyone in the room. I felt for my boots and we all shook off the grogginess. Most of us headed to the chow hall to grab some Red Bull energy drinks or coffee. I found Bolduc and Jared pacing around the assembly area, talking.
With caffeine under their belts, the team started to check their equipment again. I went over to the ANA huts to wake them up so they would have time to make some chai and get ready to leave. But by the time I got there, the Afghans were up and moving and the chai kettles were on the blue, red, and gold propane tanks.
Jerry Bradley & Kevin Maurer Page 8