I turned to look, but all I could see was two glowing green dots about the size of quarters floating toward me. I froze. It was one of our Special Forces team leaders, gliding over the rocks wearing his night-vision goggles. Behind him trailed more floating green globes as they marched single file through the night. They were utterly silent. It was both eerie and beautiful. They passed me without a sideways glance.
They were gone like wind across the desert, silent and powerful. I returned to the tent to monitor the intel reports, hoping with all my might that I would never see them again. If I did, it would mean that something had gone terribly wrong and I had to go out and rescue them.
We weren’t called out that night, but we also didn’t get bin Laden. The operation had afforded me the chance to hang out with my California buddies, and it made me feel like I was contributing to our military’s presence in the theater. Rescue was immensely fulfilling, but it also felt good to be so close to such a monumental event. Even if we didn’t succeed that night, I knew we would eventually.
—
During my first deployment two years earlier, we spent the majority of our time at KAF or forward deployed to TK. This time around, we would still be going back and forth between KAF and TK, but now we would be spending half our time at Camp Bastion. Bastion was in the heart of the Helmand River Valley, and our time there would present us with a much higher threat level than anything we experienced in 2007.
The Helmand River is one of the main irrigation sources for southern Afghanistan. In the 1950s and ’60s, America spent more than eighty million dollars to help develop the area, using the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Hoover Dam as benchmarks. Today, the presence of the irrigation infrastructure makes the area the perfect place to grow poppies for heroin, so it is fiercely defended by the Taliban. As of 2015, almost a third of all casualties from the war in Afghanistan have occurred in the Helmand province.
After a few weeks in Kandahar, we started rotating different crews through Bastion. I was happy to be on the first rotation, ready to get back into the action I had missed so much. It’s not that I enjoyed being shot at, but I preferred this type of flying to the more mundane, air-traffic-controlled flying back in the States. It’s like the difference between being a race car driver and a bus driver. No matter how much you love to drive, you still have to find something that goes your speed.
Bastion was kind of like Tarin Kowt in that there wasn’t a ton of administrative bullshit to deal with, and we didn’t have many of the comforts of Kandahar either. But Bastion was better than TK in another way—this time, there were enough of us to be split into two shifts—twelve hours on and twelve hours off. We spent some of our downtime playing video games and relaxing, but the tempo was still so high at Bastion that there was a lot less time for relaxation. We spent most of our time doing mission planning or getting ready for our next mission, as well as trying to cram gray food in brown sauce down our throats while keeping an ear out for the medevac mission alarm to sound.
Settling into our accommodations at Bastion wasn’t difficult. They weren’t much different from a lot of the places I had laid my head—dusty, bad food, tents, rocks, and long hours on shift. Bring it.
We slept in large tents, shared by a couple dozen people. Unfortunately, as a female, I wasn’t allowed to be housed with my crew this time. Other than a few miscommunications when it came to catching rides in to work, it wasn’t a big deal. On the flip side, though, the few times when I have been housed with men instead of just women, there have been absolutely no issues. After all, if teenage girls and boys can sleep together in a school gym during a lock-in, professional adult men and women should be able to share a giant tent with a few dozen of our fellow squadron members without us all making a bigger deal out of it than it has to be.
One afternoon, in June 2009, I was on shift, watching some of the PJs play Halo and waiting my turn, when I heard a 9-Line drop. I hopped up from my seat and looked over the shoulder of the intel troop to see if we were about to launch. It looked like the mission was a go, so I started heading out to the truck. At Kandahar and TK you could jog out to the aircraft, but at Bastion we were too far away from the flightline. At the sound of “REDCON ONE” on the radios, you would see a caravan of old pickups and golf carts kicking up dust behind them as they rushed out to the birds.
Moments later, just as I was starting the truck, I heard “REDCON ONE” over the radio. We were a go. Our Danish comrades were pinned down near the river and needed us to pull out some of their wounded. I pulled up to the driveway and waited as my crew shouted “Yee-haw” and jumped in. After a quick head count to make sure no one was left behind, we pulled away into the dusty afternoon heat, ready to save a few lives.
When we arrived on the flightline, I jumped out of the truck and started jogging to the aircraft. I knew that this would piss off Doug, who was always telling us not to run. But adrenaline was high when we were headed out on a mission, so most of us at least jogged. One of the Flight Engineers was jogging next to me and he started pulling ahead. So I picked up the pace. He grinned and looked sidelong at me and started sprinting. I kicked it into high gear and passed him, just as I heard Doug yell to us, “Slow is safe and safe is fast, douchers!”
Just as I felt on top of the world, I stepped on a patch of gravel on the cement pad next to the helicopter. In slow motion, my feet slipped out from under me and up over my head as my checklist exploded and a million pieces of paper flew everywhere.
My FE was right on my heels and almost stepped on me, but he thought fast and hurdled over me like an Olympic track star. He couldn’t stop laughing, hand to his chest as he struggled to catch his breath, but he managed to ask me if I was okay.
“Shit!” I exclaimed as I scrambled to gather my checklist. I looked up and saw Doug walking to his aircraft shaking his head. For some reason, every time I did something stupid, I would look up and see him watching.
Doug and Mat would be flying in flight lead in front of us, and I took a moment to wonder if they felt as secure on our wing as I did on theirs. Despite not being Doug’s favorite person, I knew he’d take a bullet for me. I only hoped he knew I would do the same for him.
I composed myself and got back into character as we spun up to launch. It was business time, and we fell into the checklist rhythm that was so familiar to us. We knew that this was just like any other mission, but we also knew we were twice as likely to see a hot landing zone out here in Helmand. We flew out to the south with our sister ship, test-fired our guns, and headed into the poppy fields. It wasn’t long before we made contact on the radio with someone with a Danish accent who directed us to the point-of-injury landing zone.
We looked below us and saw some one-story, mud-caked adobe houses about 150 feet from the north-south-running river parallel to it. Between the houses and the river, our allies popped green smoke, and we started our approach to the field as our sister ship circled above. We flew over the houses to land in a grassy area with the river around fifty feet off our nose. About ten feet from the ground, we heard four booms in succession, approximately one second apart. There was no way to know if it was friendly forces shooting outbound as opposed to the inbound impacts of enemy mortar rounds, but I crossed my fingers it was the good guys.
We landed and sent our PJs out to get the patients as fast as possible. I could hear the Danish soldiers talking excitedly on the radio, and although I couldn’t understand them, I had a good idea what they were saying. We were under attack. They knew they had to protect us long enough to get their buddies out of there if their injured comrades were going to survive the day. I searched the sky, looking for our sister ship. When I spotted her, I was relieved to see muzzle flashes coming from the .50-caliber machine guns, raining hate on whoever was trying to take us out.
In order to fire our weapons, a US aircraft has to have a positively identified enemy fire point of origin, eyes on their sist
er ship, eyes on all friendly forces in the area, and an understanding of what’s behind their target (to prevent civilian casualties). If they were lighting someone up behind us, then those guys were doing something to deserve it.
We were eager to get in, pick up our guy, and get the hell out, but we waited for what seemed like ages and our patient still didn’t appear. Our PJs showed up after about two minutes, fast-walking in with the stretcher. Once they were loaded up, I called up to Mat and Doug to tell them we were pulling pitch to take off. This is the phase of flight where we’re most vulnerable, and our sister ship needs to be ready to cover our takeoff. There is an art form to timing this perfectly. Ideally, the aircraft on the ground calls a thirty-second warning to let the cover ship get set up to make a run, but sometimes those thirty seconds can turn into ten seconds. We couldn’t wait any longer to pull out, so the cover ship had to bank around hard to lay enough lead to get the enemy to duck. If they do it right and you’re lucky, the enemy doesn’t even notice that you’re taking off.
We picked up and headed for the river. I heard the .50 cal of our sister ship laying down cover for us at about fourteen beautiful rounds per second. We banked left and headed north along the river before falling in behind our lead bird. Mat and Doug had just saved our asses, but we did this for each other all the time. We never thanked each other. We were just doing our jobs, sometimes four or five times a day.
Every mission was critical, each life precious. We would gladly lay down our lives for one another. Our mission statement, “These things we do that others may live,” was emblazoned on our walls, patches, T-shirts, and hats. However, there was one mission during that deployment that none of us was happy about.
In June 2009, a 9-Line dropped on us for a Marine in the southern part of the Helmand River Valley at a FOB called Dwyer. To get to Dwyer, we would have to fly through some of the most dangerous parts of the valley. Our route would take us past Lashkar Gah and Marjah. But it wasn’t the danger that bothered us. It was the injury.
Apparently this young Marine thought it would be a good idea to pleasure himself using the lubricant we used on our guns. The only problem with that was the compound we used to maintain our weapons wasn’t just a lubricant. It was also a chemical cleaner used to break down rust, carbon, and other buildup, and while it may not hurt to get some of it on your hands, it’s best to keep it away from your eyes, mouth, and well, other sensitive areas.
It would almost have been funny, if it hadn’t meant that two aircraft and fourteen people were risking their lives to evacuate this guy. There’s no such thing as a safe mission. Every time we launched, we flew over the wire and into possible enemy fire. Luckily, the mission was uneventful, and we returned our fallen comrade to the medical care he needed. I’m sure he got a great call sign out of it and learned a valuable lesson. Let’s just hope there wasn’t any permanent damage.
—
In addition to our TOC, there was an operations command for the entire base, where we would go once a shift to get a briefing on the current condition of the American, Brit, and Danish missions going on in the area. It was a good chance to get to know the folks we were supporting and find out how they felt their medevacs were going. There were several different groups responsible for medevac. In addition to the regular Dustoff Army Black Hawks, there were British Chinooks and others. We would keep an ear out for mention of Pedro to ensure we were supporting them to the best of our ability. This meeting was also where we could bring concerns about operations from our end or issues we were having on the base.
One day, the British sergeant major approached our first sergeant, Red, to talk to him about how cramped the US quarters were. He was part of the British 2nd Rifles Battle Group, a unit that had had a particularly rough summer and had lost a lot of good soldiers.
“Red, can I have a quick second? I know you lot are sleeping on top of each other in that tent of yours. As you know, we’ve got space and well . . . The lads took a vote, and we’d like you boys to come stay with us.”
Red wasn’t sure what to say to that. He knew it was an emotional decision for them to make, as it was almost a way of admitting that their comrades weren’t coming back. He couldn’t believe that they’d had so many casualties.
“Thank you. Thank you so much. We’d be honored to,” Red responded somberly.
With a serious nod, the sergeant major went back to work. Our willingness to fly into anything to pull out the wounded had gained the Pedros a reputation that garnered the respect and admiration of the ground forces we were supporting. That sort of relationship was the best compliment you could give to a rescue squadron.
The Danes were another group we grew close to. One of the missions that Mat Wenthe flew under the Pedro name ended up in the Danish documentary movie Armadillo and resulted in one of the more well-known radio exchanges of the whole deployment. The Danish Special Forces unit we were supporting had been kicking ass for about ten months until the summer of 2009. In June of that year, they were in the middle of one hell of a firefight and were taking some heavy casualties. Seeing their brothers take so many injuries had the unit pretty shaken up, but inspiration soon came from above.
Mat and Doug, along with their sister ship carrying a crew from Kadena, Japan, went in guns a-blazing and pulled out their wounded. Knowing that they weren’t in this battle alone reinvigorated the Danes to such an extent that it turned the tide of the battle and helped them overcome the insurgents they were fighting. On their way out, a Danish commander grabbed a ground controller’s radio and keyed the mic with a message.
“Pedros, you have given my Vikings brave inspirations today. Thank you.”
It was just about the coolest thing we had ever heard.
A few days later, one of the men who had been in that battle sent us a poem he had written about that portion of the fight. It translates as:
The angels who came from above
Even when the smoke from their rifles had not yet stopped
They took our wounded Viking and brought him to Valhalla.
Now stand by our side again, you angel, we owe everything.
We were so touched by this that our unofficial squadron motto became “Fortis Incito,” which is Latin for “incite bravery.” From then on out, we were determined to fly all of our missions in such a way that we could give the ground forces “brave inspirations.”
After a few weeks at Bastion, it was time for our crew to rotate back to KAF for somewhat of a break. We would still be flying medevac missions, and we’d still be getting shot at, but we’d be pulling two or three flights per shift as opposed to the four or five per shift at Bastion. Better yet, the enemy presence was much more scattered and less organized in Kandahar. I was looking forward to the break, but I would miss Bastion. I couldn’t help wanting to be in the middle of the action. I was addicted to the adrenaline of it. Every time I left, I felt like I was abandoning the incredible people we were supporting out there. But it was time. We had to load up the birds and head back to KAF.
—
We settled back in at KAF and began sitting alert the next day. At shift change, I went out to the aircraft to run it up and check the radios just like I had always done. Some sixth sense that gave me a good radar for bullshit made me look up and over my right shoulder. I could see some high-ranking brass heading my way, but I couldn’t make out who it was. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t really see him through the crowd of sycophants surrounding him. I went about my business, spinning up the navigation system and flipping through the radios. A few minutes later, when I looked up again, I could see the brass and his entourage were making a beeline for me. Great. I shut everything down and started climbing out of the bird.
“Lieutenant Jennings.”
I knew that old familiar bark anywhere. I had been a captain for years; there was only one person who would still call me by my old outdated rank. The ma
n towered over the rest of the group; I swear I could almost see the disdain he held for me dripping off of him. It was Major Johnson, my first commander from Japan, the one whose first conversation with me consisted of a discussion of my time of the month and the guy who’d let me stand in his office holding my salute as he refused to salute me back.
He was now a full-bird colonel. Not many officers attained the prestigious rank, but it didn’t surprise me he was one of them. He always did have a penchant for taking credit for the good stuff other people were responsible for and for stepping on the people who got in his way. I was a little surprised he hadn’t been prosecuted for discrimination by now, but I guess he still didn’t work with that many women.
“Hi,” I replied casually.
I refused to call him “sir.” I doubted very seriously he could make any trouble for me with my current chain of command. We didn’t take rank as seriously in the Guard; it was more about competence and credibility. Colonel Johnson had apparently recently taken over as the Maintenance Group Commander at Kandahar. I was so happy that we were on a rotation that would enable me to escape back to Bastion again soon and away from the likes of him.
“Hi? Is that all you have for me?” He turned back to his entourage. “Lieutenant Jennings always wanted to be a pilot, but you guys know how unlikely it is to get picked up off of active duty for a slot. I always knew she could do it, but I had to be really hard on her to toughen her up first.” He looked back at me with a creepy smile that I had never seen before. “She owes it all to me.”
Shoot Like a Girl Page 16