William Christie 03 - The Blood We Shed

by William Christie

  I had the radio to my ear, and the pilot was yelling at me to get going. That was about as effective as my signaling him to cut his power down. They were going to have to wait, because we couldn't let our stretchers fly away. Or just dump the casualties out of them.

  Corporal Asuego and squad finally emerged from the '53's belly, carrying one of the Stokes Stretchers filled with ammo.

  The crew chief must have told the pilot, because they were in the air before I could raise my hands to signal take-off. Not very high, though, before sliding down the ridge and following the slope down into the valley to join the other helo.

  "Get your squad spread out," I told Corporal Asuego. "Leave a team here to move your ammo." I radioed down the ridge for Sergeants Turner and Eberhardt to do the same.

  Vincent and I helped Staff Sergeant Frederick break down the ammo. A wooden case of frag grenades. The 40mm high explosive dual-purpose grenades for the M-203, that look like bullets the size of juice cans. Belted 7.62mm and 5.56mm for the machine-guns and squad automatic weapons. And 5.56mm in 10-round stripper clips pocketed in 140-round cloth bandoleers. All these in green metal ammo cans we left littering the ridge.

  A few minutes after the teams staggered away under their burdens, there were three crisp, spread-out booms down on the valley floor.

  The Staff Sergeant and I ran to the edge of the ridge. The mortar was in action again. With no observer to adjust the fire, they were traversing along the valley, hoping to get lucky.

  They almost did. One round exploded about 50 yards away from one of the '53's. I held my breath—I think everyone else did too, waiting to see how the mortar crew would twirl the dials. The next round dropped about 100 yards farther away.

  The tube kept firing even though the Cobras were furiously hunting it.

  It definitely speeded things up on the ground. Paul Federico boarded his platoon and his wounded. The helos took off one after the other, and the valley was empty except for the smoking skeleton of the '53 whose destruction had brought us back from the ship.

  The two helos had taken off in the opposite direction from the mortar's path, toward the open end of the valley.

  Sand sprayed up along the ridge, followed closely by a rapid string of deep hard pops. I was back down on my face, along with the rest of the platoon. Heavy machine-gun. Probably a Russian 12.7mm, the equivalent of our .50 caliber Browning.

  We weren't pinned down, but we were under cover. "Hold fire, hold fire," I said into the intra-squad radio. Just in case they were trying to get me to open up and reveal the location of my machine-guns. Our snipers would have been ideal in this situation. Too bad we hadn't brought them along.

  I'd leave it to the Cobras, who were already lunging toward the source of the fire.

  In combat everything happens so fast you almost never see the action, only the results. I heard at least two more 12.7's open up, followed by a thump, and only then saw one of the '53's fighting for altitude, belching smoke and trailed by two strings of tracers.

  I had to give them credit, they'd played it perfectly. Flushed the '53's with the mortar, distracted us and the Cobras with the one 12.7, then ambushed the '53's with two more while they were still low and slow.

  But the '53 was still flying. And the Cobras were firing rockets down into the origin of the tracers.

  There was no more heavy machine-gun fire, though that didn't mean anything. If any of the guns had survived, they wouldn't give away their location unless they had another good target. Like more '53's coming to fly us out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  With that in mind, Captain Zimmerman called me over for a face-to-face meeting on the short connecting ridge. I took Vincent along. We walked along the interior slope, since we were still taking sporadic, though poorly aimed, long-range sniper fire from the adjacent hills.

  "How are your Marines, Mike?" was Captain Z's first question.

  "Running on adrenaline, sir. But still good to go."

  "What's your estimate of the situation?"

  "Well, sir, now that Federico's out I don't see any reason to hang around here. But if we give up the high ground and go down into the valley to extract we're going to end up like Paul. Seems to me we've got to land a '53 on each ridge. Get all the Harriers back and time the extracts with airstrikes on the surrounding hills."

  "That's what Jack and I think," the Captain said. "But there's no place to land a '53 on Jack's ridge."

  "My ridge is higher anyway, sir. Even if they get back up on the other, they're still firing up at us. We can hit them with air as we pull out."

  "The longer we wait," said O'Brien, "the more neighborhood minutemen are going to be showing up."

  "The timing'll be crucial," said Captain Z. "I want to hold both ridges until I know exactly when this is going to happen. We'll have to do it right the first time—we're running out of '53's."

  "Did the one that got hit make it back to the ship, sir?" I asked.

  The Captain nodded. "But I don't know about any additional wounded. Sorry, Mike."

  I really didn't want to know anyway. Not when I couldn't do anything about it.

  Captain Z sent the mortar section back with me. Sergeant Lenoir picked a spot on the edge of my prospective landing zone. With him barking at them, his section broke out their entrenching tools and started digging three mortar pits like rabid badgers.

  I took advantage of the interval to get together with the squad leaders and platoon sergeant and let them know what was in store. We worked out what we wanted to do, knowing of course that all of it could be instantly overruled by what Captain Z decided to do.

  When they got the order to move, 1st platoon very slowly crawled back onto the reverse slope of their ridge so as not to be observed. Then they trudged around to us on the interior slope, again to keep out of sight. My platoon was in a semicircle half-perimeter on one side of the open landing zone area, and O'Brien's was arrayed the same way on the other side.

  To have the maximum number of Cobras overhead at the extraction, Captain Z decided to send our overhead pair back to the ship to refuel. A few minutes after they left, the Yemenis started moving around openly on the surrounding hills.

  This was when the Marines came into their own, because the one thing the Corps did better than anything else was teach you how to shoot a rifle. The machine-guns and squad automatic weapons stayed quiet, and the rifles went to work.

  Over the sound of the shots I could hear the Marines calling back and forth, telling each other what range they were using on their sights, and how many clicks of windage.

  It's incredibly difficult to hit a moving man-sized target with a rifle at any range, but particularly so at the 500-700 yards we were shooting at. And with "iron" instead of telescopic sights. The average man could move five yards in the time lag between the trigger squeeze and the bullet reaching 500 yards. But we were hitting close enough to make that movement much more hesitant. An occasional figure dropped. Then more as the Marines got the idea for a fire team to all concentrate on one target, and word of the technique passed around the perimeter.

  Captain Z and his command group of Jimmy Nichols, Gunny Harris, Captain Donohoe the forward air controller, and their radio operators stationed themselves close to me. It eliminated the disadvantage of not having a radio, though I'd grown fond of not being supervised. And I didn't much care for the antenna farm of radio operators following the command group around. They seemed bound to draw fire.

  Nichols had Sergeant Lenoir training his binoculars on the ridge 1st platoon had just evacuated. The mortars would open up on the first signs of life over there.

  Word came over the radio that the air was on the way.

  Jack O'Brien and I had bucked up. He'd lost, so he was going out first. We had our extraction order arranged, boarding the helo a squad at a time, the platoon sergeants counting each man in.

  However, the only constant in the history of warfare was that no operation ever went down the way it was planned.<
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  We saw the helos coming in. Being much faster, the Harriers had taken off from the ship at the last possible moment. Everything happening at the right time was going to be critical.

  It didn't start off well. One desert hill looked like another from the air. I guess the lead '53 got confused and didn't make the approach Captain Donohoe had told them to.

  Captain Donohoe was yelling into his radio. It was that helpless 'watching the car crash' sensation. Amazing how far a helo could fly in the time it took to make a radio transmission.

  Those big 12.7mm tracers sprouted up again, one stream right under the descending '53. It shuddered and veered, two more streams reaching out for it. The Cobras dove, firing rockets. One stream of tracer shut off, but another continued.

  The wrong approach screwed up the Harriers, who were coming in on their own heading and on a time hack. Fearing a collision, Captain Donohoe had to abort the run, which packed on yet another layer of complication. Things began to snowball.

  Our mortars began their hollow metallic banging. Sergeant Lenoir must have seen some movement on the opposite ridge.

  My eyes went back to the sky, and the' 53 was veering away. Smaller green AK tracers were going up now. They were a hell of a lot closer to us than we wanted them to be. The Yemenis must have found a concealed avenue of approach to our ridge.

  Over the noise I heard Captain Donohoe say to Captain Z, "They're losing hydraulics. They've got to head back while they still have them."

  How quickly could things fall apart? That quickly. All we had left were two '53's. And one of them was filled with our reserve, Frank Milburn's 3rd platoon with Dick Herkimer and the First Sergeant.

  So we would have to put two platoons, the mortar section, and the command group on one '53. I did the math, and for the first and only time was happy about the number of casualties we'd already evacuated.

  I heard Captain Z say to Captain Donohoe, very calmly, "We've got only one more chance to do this right. So get on the radio, make sure everyone is on board, with their shit together, and then let's fucking do it."

  A sentiment I echoed.

  Captain Donohoe said, "Squadron commander and battalion commander were on the lead '53."

  "Maybe that'll cut down on the general confusion," Captain Z said. Then, louder, "You didn't hear that, Mike."

  "Hear what, sir?" I called back. Wish I had a buck for every deaf ear and blind eye I've turned in the Corps.

  The next '53 came in, on the right approach this time. The first pair of Harriers streaked across our front, firing 5 inch white phosphorus rockets into the hills. Someone had made a good call on the weapons load. A bomb could hit or miss, but you couldn't see through white smoke.

  The incoming '53 began popping flares. The flares acted like pointers, making the helo easier to see in the sky, but I guess they were more worried about another SAM.

  The next pair of Harriers came in with unguided 500-pound bombs. The shockwaves rattled my teeth. I hoped the 12.7 gunners were eating some dirt.

  The Cobras flitted around firing their own rockets. Some at the end of the ridge. It made me even more uneasy, since they had to be firing at something.

  The '53 rotors blew up another sandstorm. Despite the danger the pilot landed gingerly, as if walking through an unfamiliar pitch dark room.

  He was cool. He cut back on the power, and the sandstorm dissipated. The rear ramp dropped, as did the starboard side hatch near the nose.

  I signaled 1st squad to board. This was a dicey moment. Nothing in this world is more disciplined than a Marine, but there was still human psychology to contend with. One unit pulls back, and a guy in an adjacent unit thinks that maybe someone forgot to give him the word, so he pulls out too. Soon there's a stampede for the helo, and no protective perimeter left.

  I needed a clear signal. The intra-squad radio might not cut through all the noise. My solution was a good old fashioned police whistle, whose use was still encouraged in officer training in defiance of technology. Its sound rose above everything. One whistle blast and Corporal Asuego and 1st squad handed over their claymore clackers, rose up, and fell back to the helo.

  Our mortar section fired their last rounds, grabbed the hot tubes with asbestos gloves, levered the base plates out of the sand, and followed Corporal Asuego into the helicopter.

  O'Brien's lead squad was boarding the front side hatch on the other end of the'53.

  A mortar round detonated on the slope leading down into the valley. A stroke of luck that meant the Yemenis couldn't observe its fall and adjust the next rounds onto the '53.

  By now we were doing the combat spaz. Every loud noise had us all flinching and ducking in unison. Every close loud noise had us instinctively throwing ourselves onto the ground.

  Bullets were passing overhead and kicking up the sand. We were taking plunging fire from farther up the ridge.

  Another mortar landed, this time on the forward slope. Not good. A couple more adjustments and they'd be right on us.

  Two whistle blasts and Sergeant Eberhardt's squad passed their clackers to Sergeant Turner and pulled back to the helo.

  A surge of fire from Sergeant Turner's squad. Holy shit, had the Yemenis gotten that close?

  I rushed up to them but the sonic cracks soon had me crawling. This was why lieutenants were always getting killed out of proportion to their numbers: always rushing back and forth making themselves inviting targets.

  The Yemenis weren't assaulting us, they were pressing us. I had to give it to them again, almost anyone else would have bugged out of the neighborhood long before. Cannon shells from a Cobra were sparking among the rocks.

  I threw myself down next to Sergeant Turner and screamed into his ear, "We can't bolt for the helo. We have to pull back bit by bit."

  He nodded, and as he turned to signal his fire team leaders a figure rose up in front of us. A Yemeni had one of our claymores in his hand; I could see the firing wire draping down. He reared back to throw it at us.

  I brought up my M-16 at the same time Sergeant Turner mashed the clacker and the Yemeni disappeared in a thunderclap of rolling black cloud.

  "Blow the claymores!" I yelled, pantomiming the motion. Seconds later they all went off in ragged succession.

  Taking advantage of the shock value of the explosions, we pulled back. It was like firing and moving in reverse, bounding back ten yards at a time.

  On one bound I threw my last frag grenade. I was getting rid of everything. A yellow smoke went next.

  A massive blast behind us. We all threw ourselves onto the ground. The mortar had gotten the range. Through the smoke I could see the '53 still intact, rotors turning.

  We had to be gone before the mortar fired for effect.

  The smoke cleared enough to see the havoc the round had wreaked with the command group. They were sprawled over the rocks, but there was no time to see who was wounded and who was only stunned.

  Sergeant Turner and I laid down fire while his squad dragged the command group to the helo. A machine-gunner fired his last belt but pulled out his pistol and kept firing until I grabbed his shoulder and spun him toward the helo.

  More rifle shots barked at my other side, which I thought was open. Jack O'Brien had tucked his platoon away on the helo and rushed back out to stay in the fight.

  We gave ground a step at a time, keeping ourselves between the Yemenis and 2nd squad dragging the casualties.

  A Yemeni popped up from the rocks and in the same motion fired his RPG. Perfectly silhouetted against the billowing blue-gray backblast smoke, we shot him down. Only after he'd fallen did I look back. He'd rushed his aim. The rocket had sailed right over the '53 and landed in front of the nose.

  Almost at the ramp, and rounds flying everywhere. Jack and I were firing and changing magazines so fast we let our empties drop to the ground.

  Sergeant Turner snatched at his hip and went down. O'Brien and I grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him up the ramp, ducking under the howling
tail rotor.

  Staff Sergeant Frederick was there, signaling me that we had everyone. "Fucking go!" I screamed at the crew chief.

  He was screaming into his microphone and slapping at the switch to raise the ramp. The '53 lurched up, spilling us onto the deck atop the command group.

  Rounds zipping through the fuselage. Explosions on the ground as the Cobras covered our takeoff.

  The '53 fought for speed and altitude. Something nicked me on the helmet as it went by. Everyone who was ambulatory began untangling themselves from the pile of bodies on the deck.

  Still climbing, and still taking fire. Both doorguns blasting forward. Only ground visible through the opening between the top of the ramp and the top of the cabin. The crew chief was braced against the frame, one foot on the ramp.

  Then he was gone. A round through the wiring must have caused the ramp to drop. All I could see was the green nylon strap of the gunner's safety belt, taut as a bowstring against the ramp.

  And Jack O'Brien throwing himself onto the ramp. Christ, we were climbing and he didn't have a safety belt. I sprang onto his legs, getting both hands on his belt. Now we were both sliding down the slick oily metal.

  I decided in less than an instant that I'd rather take the ride down with Jack than let him go and have to live with the fact that I'd let him go.

  Someone thudded onto my legs, and we stopped sliding. This only solved our most immediate problem. I wasn't what you'd call fresh, and my arms were getting tired.

  Jack's chest was over the ramp. Then he hiked himself back, and a sand-colored flight-suited leg swung up and over.

  "Back, back!" O'Brien was yelling.

  I took up that call, trying to shimmy back, but it was easier said than done.

  We were gradually pulled back, inch by inch, for what seemed like an hour. Somewhere in this process the helo leveled out, making our job easier.