by Sean Parnell
The base seemed almost deserted. Canady’s company of airborne troops had already started to leave. Only a platoon remained on the base. A couple of dogs followed us at a distance. We later learned that the 173rd had turned them into pets after its medics had vaccinated them and given them clean bills of health. By general order, keeping pets on the FOBs was not allowed, but out here on the edge of civilization nobody seemed to care.
We walked past a line of beat-up, dirt-encrusted Humvees. Some of them were unarmored, and when I noticed that my heart sank. “Those belong to the marines,” Canady explained. “They have an embedded training team here working with the Afghan National Army unit on the other side of the FOB.
“Make no mistake, the enemy is very capable. They are cunning, well led, and well equipped. Do not underestimate them. You won’t be fighting goat herders. You’re going to be up against their first team.”
We returned to the concrete pad and our duffel bags. Our room assignments were handed out; then Canady continued his orientation. “The enemy leader is a legend in this part of Afghanistan. He’s elusive. He rarely talks on the radio, but we hear references to him all the time. Whenever he’s mentioned, it is with awe, almost reverence. He fought the Soviets for years. He knows what he’s doing.”
After a quick brief on the facilities available at Bermel, Canady turned to an important topic: interpreters. Every company received at least a couple of “ ’terps” so the platoons could patrol with somebody who spoke the language. Out here on the border, many different languages were spoken. A good ’terp could make a huge difference in daily operations.
“We have a couple of interpreters here. We inherited Abdul and Yusef. They both worked for the Special Forces teams that were here before us. Abdul’s the head ’terp. He’s quite good. Yusef—I can’t put my finger on it, but something about him bothers me. Keep an eye on him.”
I filed that away in the back of my mind. Watch Yusef.
An hour later found us just outside the Hesco bag walls on a rifle range, where we busied ourselves with resighting our weapons. Even though FOB Bermel sat in a narrow valley, it was still seven thousand feet above sea level. At that altitude, the thin air changes a bullet’s trajectory. Had we gotten into a fight before we’d had a chance to do this, we wouldn’t have been able to hit anything.
I was next to Lieutenant Taylor on the range when another Chinook overflew us. It had been buzzing in and out throughout the afternoon, dropping off supplies and taking more of Canady’s people out to Bagram. I watched this one touch down, kicking up another massive cloud of brown dust. Overhead, the Chinook’s wingman circled protectively.
As the Chinook lifted off to join its wingman, I heard a distant shriek. It grew in intensity, like an onrushing freight train. Whatever created the noise went right overhead. The shriek faded. A moment later, we heard a dull thud. The ground trembled. A small pall of smoke rose in the distance.
“What was that?” I asked Lieutenant Taylor.
“No clue,” he replied.
Another shriek grew in the distance. I could pinpoint it this time, coming from the east.
Rakhah Ridge. Whatever it was, it was coming from Rakhah Ridge.
The shriek grew to a wail, like a harpy screaming in agony. A moment later, the ground shook again.
“Are we under attack?” I asked. Logically, a greenhorn knows this can happen, but the reality of it creates shock and confusion the first time. We were new lieutenants just off the bird, and we stood in the open, unable to grasp the truth of the moment.
The Chinooks formed up and sped away; the sky was their refuge.
Taylor and I looked around, puzzled. Another distant whine began to the east. As it rose to a crescendo, several NCOs on the range began running for the FOB’s rear gate. Staff Sergeant Greg Greeson, Lieutenant Taylor’s weapons squad leader, shouted at us, “Incoming! Get inside the wire now!”
His words acted like ice water to the face. Lieutenant Taylor and I sprinted after our sergeants and back into the FOB. With our new home at seven thousand feet, it took only a few seconds before my lungs started to burn from lack of oxygen. I stopped at the concrete pad next to my gear and watched Greeson and the other sergeants dash off toward the battalion aide station. Taylor bolted into the operations center.
What the hell do I do?
I felt rooted in place, observing the action around me yet with no purpose of my own.
Captain Canady ran into view. “Some kids got hit with those rounds. They’re at the front gate.”
My legs started to move. I felt myself run after Canady, wanting to go faster but feeling an impenetrable wall between will and action.
We rounded a corner, and perhaps fifty yards away, I could see some of the 173rd Airborne soldiers opening the front gate. Crying, distraught Afghan civilians poured into the base. I kept running.
Then I saw the kids; I heard their screams. A few thrashed in agony; others lay still in their parents’ arms. I dropped my rifle, pulled my helmet off and dumped my body armor in the dirt, and sprinted the last stretch to the scene.
One of the interpreters was shouting at an angry father. Two more Afghan dads ganged up on him, yelling insistently. Finally, a soldier demanded, “Abdul—what the hell are they saying?”
Abdul, his face a mask of rage, replied, “They’re telling me to make sure the boys get treated before the girls.”
“Get them all to the battalion aid station.”
Abdul turned to the fathers and passed that order to them. They shook their heads and shouted again at him.
Abdul announced, “They refuse. They want the boys treated first.”
“Grab them all!” the soldier roared again.
The other men at the gate picked up some of the wounded kids. Perhaps seven were still alive. I scooped up the nearest child and turned to follow the other soldiers as they dashed for the aid station.
I’d taken a half-dozen steps before I realized I had a little girl in my arms. I looked down at her. She wore a tan dress that felt like burlap in my hands. The collar was ornate, red and green with little designs that converged in a V-neck. She felt so light.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I said to her. Her eyes were bright emerald green, deep and filled with pain. Her raven hair was splayed across her face and plastered to her skin by her tears.
She keened hysterically, pain-racked and panicked. Her pitch hurt my ears.
I kept running, her head and shoulders cradled in my left hand, her slight body pressed tight against my ribs, hip, and thigh by my right forearm. Her left hand flailed. She gasped, then screamed again. It seemed to never end.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” I began to wonder who I was talking to, the girl or myself.
My cousin Freddie, his eyes wide and full of anxiety, asked me, “Are you going to die over there?”
Freddie’s this girl’s age. Maybe a little older.
Keep running.
Her breathing grew ragged, her screams choppy. I glanced down at her. Her eyes were growing dull. She stared up at me, this stranger in uniform, and I could see the terror in those fading eyes.
With my right hand, I tried to brush her hair off her face. Instead, my fingers smeared blood across her cheek.
I sensed warmth on my thigh. What was that? I wanted to look down, but something stopped me. My legs carried us forward in autopilot mode as my eyes stayed fixed on hers.
She screamed again, hoarse and weak this time. The warmth spread to my hip and trickled past my knee.
I couldn’t bear not to look. When I did, my brain didn’t register what my eyes saw.
One bare foot, tiny, delicate toes, covered in brown dust. Crimson dots splattered her khaki dress, which now rode high above her knees. Tendrils of torn, burnt flesh tapered below the other knee to a bleeding stump. A white stripe of bone projected through the ruined skin and mu
scle.
I lost my stride and looked up to regain my balance. The little girl uttered a deep, guttural cry. One step. A second. Perhaps a third before I realized she wasn’t screaming anymore.
Aid station. We have to make it to the aid station.
“Itsokayitsokayitsokay.”
Her hand fell away. Her neck grew slack in my cradling hand.
This is not happening.
How long did it take me to look down at her again? Her breaths grew shallow. The warmth continued to spread.
I looked down. Her fear was gone, the spark in her eyes snuffed out.
The world around me went on. Soldiers ran. Parents cried. Abdul argued. Canady barked orders. I held a dead child in my arms.
I sleepwalked back to her parents. Her mother, clad in a black burka that covered her face, sobbed into her hands. Her father regarded me stoically. I realized that his little girl had inherited his green eyes. I handed him his daughter’s body. He turned and walked through the gate, her bare foot—those sculpted, tiny toes—dangled limply by his side. I watched them go, stripped of words.
Sometime later—how much later I have no idea—I found myself inside a hooch, staring at the bloodstains on my uniform.
How do you even process something like this?
I felt numb. Slowly, I began to take off my ruined uniform. I’d worn it since leaving the States. By now it felt almost like another layer of skin. I shed the pants, shucked off the shirt, and dropped them in a heap on the floor. I found a towel and forced myself to walk to the showers.
The water felt slick and warm, and my stomach turned.
Back at the hooch, I dressed slowly. New uniform. New skin. Combat leaders do not show weakness. They set the example for their men. And if the whole year was going to be anything like this first day, they were going to need me to be strong for them.
I walked across the hall and found Lieutenant Taylor in his room.
“Hey,” I said.
“So, you think we earned our CIBs today?” he asked in a flat voice.
The CIB is the coveted Combat Infantryman Badge, awarded to men who come under enemy fire. It is one of the most respected decorations an infantryman can wear.
“Don’t know. I guess so.”
“Check it out,” Taylor said, pointing into his room. “I’m going to put the TV right there on that desk.”
“Awesome.”
“We’ll be able to play Halo in our off-hours.”
I leaned against the doorjamb and nonchalantly said, “That’ll be cool.”
Inside, I was screaming.
He reached over and grabbed a pen. I watched him write something on the back of his door. When he was done, he backed up, and I peered around to see what it said.
There is no try. Only do, or do not.
“Yoda,” I said.
“The Master.”
I was a Star Wars fan. I knew the line well. It was from The Empire Strikes Back, but Taylor had quoted it wrong. I was debating whether to tell him when he asked, “Wanna grab dinner?”
I nodded.
We walked to the chow hall. Canady saw me and asked, “How you doing?”
I shrugged.
He understood. After a year here, how could he not? “Look, Bro, this is Afghanistan,” he said. “This kinda shit happens. These people . . . their goats mean more to them than their kids—especially their girls.” He paused, waiting for a response. When I didn’t reply, he added, “They can always have more kids.”
Inside the chow hall, Abdul sat alone at one table. The ’terp’s eyes were soft, and he was clearly absorbed in thought. A few tables over, Staff Sergeant Greeson, our company first sergeant, and a few other of our NCOs who had come out early with us were clustered together. I grabbed a tray and got in line with Taylor.
It was spaghetti night. I looked down at the noodles covered in red sauce, and all I could think of was the little girl’s face and how I had smeared it with blood while trying to brush the hair away from her eyes.
We sat down with a few other officers. Soon the conversation turned to the CIB again. I sat quietly and tried not to listen.
I overheard our company’s first sergeant say, “Well, this attack should get the locals moving after the insurgents, you know?”
My weapons squad leader, Staff Sergeant Jason Sabatke, said, “Yeah, I hope they whack all them fuckers.”
Sergeant Greeson grunted his agreement.
First Sergeant Christopher added, “Bet we don’t take another indirect-fire attack for a month.”
Somebody said, “This is a victory for us. Sucks to be Taliban right now after killing all those kids.”
Did these guys check their humanity at the door?
I stirred my plate with a plastic fork. Hunger eluded me. I sat as long as I could, then fled back to the silence of my hooch.
The bloody uniform still lay on the floor. I stepped around it as I entered my room.
I sat on the edge of my bed and forced myself to calm down. The girl’s face came back to me, and I saw those emerald eyes shining through her tears.
I reached under the neckline of my shirt and pulled free my St. Christopher medal. In my palm, it became a comfort. I held it tight and closed my eyes.
I feel like part of me is dying.
How could those men be so matter of fact after what we experienced today? Then the realization hit me. Everyone at the sergeants’ table had already seen combat. They’d already experienced a moment similar to this one. It had made them hard long ago, and now they wore their calluses like armor.
Is this the kind of man I am destined to become?
I regarded the bloody uniform at my feet. I’d never get the blood out. My stateside ACUs were a lost cause now. I didn’t want to even touch them.
Survival. That’s what they had already learned. Greeson, Sabatke, First Sergeant Christopher—they’d all learned how to navigate these psychological waters. This was my test.
I closed my eyes and forced the pain down into a deep and remote place.
I bent down, collected my bloody former skin, and walked into the cold Afghan night. The stars shone overhead, undimmed by the lights of civilization. Out here in this desolate place, the velvet beauty of the universe had no peer.
I made my way to the black scar of earth that served as our refuse dump. Salt-and-pepper-colored ashes coated its bottom. Charred bits of trash studded its walls. I stood beside the pit and let go of my bloodstained uniform.
Tomorrow my men would arrive, and I would be ready for them.
Part I
Outlaw Country
One
Game Faces
Speedometer needles touching fifty, Outlaw Platoon’s six armored Humvees blasted down the Afghan road, trailing plumes of dust that could be seen for miles. In an area that lacked even a single asphalt highway, this was the best dirt road we’d yet encountered. Smoothed and tempered by generations of passing travelers, it had no cart tracks to give our shock absorbers a workout, no drifts of desert dust to bog us down. After weeks of cross-country patrols so jarring they knocked fillings loose, our run south through the district of Gamal seemed as effortless as taking a lap at Daytona Speedway.
In Afghanistan, we Americans have to adjust our transportation expectations. We are used to traveling fast. The men of my platoon favored muscle cars such as GTOs and Mustangs, or suspension-lifted pickup trucks. Out here, the terrain rarely allowed us to go more than fifteen or twenty miles per hour. It was like being stuck in a perpetual school crossing zone.
Today, when we turned onto this unusual stretch of road, our drivers capitalized on the opportunity. They grew lead feet and poured on the coals. The speed felt glorious.
The road bisected a broad valley six hours’ drive south of our base at Bermel. In this flat, treeless area, the only
sign of life we’d seen for miles was patches of rugged plants that had somehow thrived in an environment of extremes: heat and cold, drought and floods. To our left, a wadi veined through the ancient landscape. Earlier, we had tried to use it to traverse the valley in the hope of avoiding roadside bombs. As our rigs splashed through the trickle of water at the bottom, Staff Sergeant Phil Baldwin’s Humvee sank to its doors in quicksand. So much for that idea.
Steep ridges defined the valley’s boundaries. Even without a tree or a bush to give color to their slopes, these spines of the Hindu Kush still gave refuge to our enemy. They ceded us the low ground while they hid out in well-stocked caves that had been in use since the Soviet war of the 1980s.
The signs of that war lingered. During this drive south, we’d seen the skeletal remains of villages cratered by Russian bombs. In the surviving towns, the locals told us horror stories of the Soviet occupation. One farmer spoke of watching his son be thrown to the ground and stomped to death by laughing Red Army troops. After that, his entire village had braved the harsh mountains to escape on foot to a refugee camp in Pakistan.
This was our area of operations, a harsh and barren land whose people had known nothing but violence for decades.
I glanced over at my driver and radioman, Specialist Robert Pinholt. We’d been on the road since dawn, and his face was striped with dirt and sweat. His helmet rode low over his brow, his uniform and body armor powdered with Afghan dust. The only time we were ever truly clean was in the shower. When he sensed my gaze, he tore his eyes from the road to steal a quick look at me.
“What, sir?” he asked. His piercing blue eyes stood in contrast to the dull grime on his face. He was a broad-chested twenty-year-old with earnest good looks and an engaging smile. If he’d been in overalls instead of ACUs, he’d have looked like an extra on the set of Green Acres.
He’d been railing about the U.S. Postal Service again, and I couldn’t help but laugh at his passionate hatred for this small section of our federal government.
“Pinholt,” I said, “I don’t understand where all this hostility comes from.”