Some trees about twenty metres away had been blocking our view to the west and northwest, but as we came even with them, I could make out a large, two-storey compound about two hundred metres away to the northwest, and what I saw there made my heart start pounding. I didn't want to waste time asking Longview and the snipers, so I radioed the snipers only, knowing the Wizard would hear me over his radio. Ah, this is not good . . .
“Six Six, Seven Two Alpha—do you see a kite flying from the top of a two-storey compound, approximately figures two zero zero metres, at five eight zero zero mils [on the compass] from my position? Over.” I looked through my scope toward the compound, knowing the warrant would be doing the same thing. “Fourneau, follow my rifle barrel and check out that compound, two hundred metres away to our northwest. Do you see a kite, and a FAM wearing a white shemag over his head and face?”
This was going from bad to worse. People in Afghanistan, at least in the villages away from Kabul, didn't fly kites. The Taliban still considered it one of their deadly sins, and if they got word that someone was flying a kite, they'd come and pay him a visit. And wearing a shemag over his face? Dodgy as hell.
“Yeah, sir, a white kite . . . can't see who's holding it.” (The sniper started talking loudly into the radio earpiece in my left ear as I tried to listen to Fourneau with my uncovered right ear. “Seven Two Alpha, Six Six, roger, white kite and single FAM on rooftop wearing a shemag, no weapons seen, will observe and advise, over.”) Fourneau was still talking—“. . . and a FAM with a shemag, ducking behind the top of the wall on the compound. No weapons yet.”
I spoke to Fourneau. “Okay, thanks. Keep your eye on them, all right?”
“Six, Alpha, roger, that's what we've got too. Keep us posted. Out.”
I knew the CP would be tracking the new information. I called Ali closer to me and asked, “Ali, young guys wearing shemags—is that normal for around here, covering their faces like that?”
Ali looked very grave. “No, sir, that is not normal. That is not good.” He quickly turned and started speaking with Lieutenant Aziz, who looked equally disturbed by what Ali had just told him. Aziz started speaking quickly over his American radio to Lieutenant Azmar, back at Sper (Sperwhan).
Longview's voice came over the PRR. “Sir, Warrant, yeah, we got 'em too. We'll keep eyes on 'em from over here.”
“Thanks, Warrant. You ready to set the new 72A sniping record?”
“Do you really need to ask? Born ready!”
“Sir, it looks like they found a wire,” Fourneau said, bringing my attention back to the ANA on our side of the ditch. Fourneau and I quickly walked up to the two soldiers and saw one of them holding a thin black string in his hand. He dropped the string and they walked a few paces down the trench, toward the west.
I quickly realized it wasn't an electrical wire that could carry a signal to the IED howitzer shell to make it detonate, so whoever planted the device must've attached the string to a rudimentary pull switch, and they would likely detonate it by giving it a big tug. I called over Aziz, who walked up, clocked what I was talking about, nodded a few times, and then (before I could say or do anything to stop him) quickly pulled out his combat knife and deftly cut the string. GEEEWWWW!
I involuntarily flinched, knowing that we were still danger close to the IED, but more importantly, I also knew that many IEDs had an anti-handling device that would detonate the explosives the moment some jackass cut the cord attached to it! Again, this wasn't quite how we were supposed to deal with these sorts of things (those actions were the sole domain of trained coalition engineers), but I secretly thanked Aziz for doing what he did when, after a few seconds, nothing happened. Complete silence.
I followed the string to the west, from where it seemed to originate. The Taliban hadn't even tried to bury it, and in their haste to plant the bomb, they left the string lying out in the open, resting on the dirt trail. The string ran through the middle of a steep V-shaped ditch, between two high grape-field walls. I followed the string toward a high wall that ran perpendicular to us, fifty metres away, where it seemed to run up to a man-sized hole in the wall. The two ANA soldiers facing the wall shouted something in Pashto toward the wall, and then time slowed down, stroboscopic style, as we all began turning around to see what he was shouting about.
CRACK CRACK!
We all flinched and spun around, bringing our weapons to bear as the ANA soldier cracked off two rounds. Are we in contact? Why was he shooting? Who was he shooting at? I followed the direction of the soldier's barrel and saw what looked like a wisp of cloth as it disappeared out of sight behind the wall. Fourneau and I found the nearest cover, out of the firing line of the trench, as I shouted at Ali, “Get behind me,” because he hadn't budged, he was still out in the open. He slammed into the wall next to me.
“Ali, ask them what they were shooting at.” We weren't receiving any incoming fire, yet.
They had a quick talk and Ali said, “He says they saw two FAMs standing in the hole in the wall, holding the string. They ordered them to come and talk to us, but they turned and ran away. They were not wearing shoes, so he shot at them.”
“What's not wearing shoes have to do with it?” I had to hurry. When shots were fired, you had to let everyone know what was going on, ASAP. Rightly so, folk tended to get a wee bit interested.
“Sometimes the Taliban do not wear shoes, because shoes are expensive, so if they do not wear shoes, it is because they are going to run away. It is a . . . suspicious thing, sir. So that is how the ANA knew they were Taliban,” Ali explained.
“Okay, Ali, tell them good job and to get into cover.”
Shots being fired—incoming or outgoing—were an attention-seeker's dream, because suddenly the spotlight was all on you, but I couldn't send up the proper radio contact report, because technically, we weren't in contact—the ANA had only fired warning shots. Technically.
I had enough TI (time in) to know that if I said contact on the radio, the whole coalition world would suddenly get very interested. Then one of our soldiers who was fighting farther down the road, who really was in a full-blown contact, would watch impotently as his desperately needed assets (like unmanned aerial vehicles—UAVs) got rerouted to me. And so far, no one had shot back at us. How do I play this out on the radio?
I took a deep breath, so I wouldn't sound panicky, and calmly said, “Charlie Charlie,” over the radio, using the call sign for every friendly in the area to listen in. “Seven Two Alpha, two times FAMs holding IED initiating wire have fled to the west. The ANA have fired warning shots, only warning shots, we are NOT in contact at this time, I say again, we are NOT in contact at this time. Six Six, do you see any FAMs fleeing to the west? Over.”
“Six, negative, the grape-field walls are obstructing our view, will continue to observe, over.”
“Alpha, roger, any activity in the compound? Over.”
“Six, roger, now figures three FAMs on the compound roof, one wearing a shemag, over.”
“Alpha, roger, out.”
Just then, the two ANA nearest me, the shooter and his surprised friend, got their blood up and decided to charge down the “V” trench, following the string to the hole in the wall where Nice-Shootin' Rasputin had just tried to perforate the triggermen.
My “Sergeant Rock combat antenna” went off big time and began screaming a warning klaxon in my head. This isn't right, they're setting us up. They wanted us to find the wire, that's why it's black and not buried, they wanted us to see the three scrotes, they turned and burned, hoping we'd give chase!
Am I getting gun-shy in my old age, or am I right? I looked at the end of the trench, at the hole in the wall, and saw a head peeking up over the berm at us. Someone was still there, waiting. But waiting for what?
Waiting for us, dickhead! To give chase, and then once we're all running down the trench toward him, he can swing a PKM (Russian light machine gun) over the wall and perforate us!
My brain raced. If he opene
d up on us, we couldn't escape over the walls—they were too high. He'd have us in perfect enfilade, firing bursts down the entire length of us, and we'd be helpless. The only place we could run would be either toward him, but he'd still be over fifty metres away, or back the way we came, and he'd shoot us all in the back.
They launched the kite as a signal, to tell the three guys at the wall that we're coming and to get into position, to let themselves be seen. Admiral Ackbar's accented voice shouted in my head, It's a trap!
Oh, no . . . “Stop, Stop! Ali, tell them to stop!”
Ali shouted at them and they came to a screeching halt, looking back at him to explain.
“Ali, tell them to get out of the ditch and over to the sides. Someone is still there, waiting on them to give chase. Tell Lieutenant Aziz that I've seen a guy on the other side of the wall, waiting for us. Why would someone be waiting there? Why didn't they bury the string? When do they ever make it that easy for us, unless they want us to find it and give chase!” Ali quickly translated for the ANA soldiers and Aziz.
Aziz quickly spoke to Ali, who said, “He agrees with you, and thinks that you are right. Thank you for stopping his men; surely it is an ambush. We will wait here, for now.”
“Tell him thank you, and I think he's doing the right thing—we should wait here for a few minutes. The LAVs will be here soon; they can cover us as we take a different route toward the wall.”
I pressed the PRR pressel, “Warrant, Red five. We just found a Taliban come-on, but we didn't buy what they were selling.” I explained over our team net what had just happened and the warrant said he wasn't sure if I was right.
“You forget, Warrant, the Force is unusually strong with this one! I'll tells ya what. If the 'geers come and dig out the howitzer shell, and it's a dud, or a smoke shell, I'm totally right, and you owe me fifty bucks! The Taliban aren't going to set up a come-on by using a real IED—they wouldn't waste it. No, it'll be smoke or inert. Stand by to eat some crow hair pie! Fifty bucks!”
“We'll see. Here come the cavalry,” he said. I looked toward Sper to see four LAVs and a Bison armoured vehicle racing our way.
“Seven Two Alpha, Two. Four times LAVs and engineer Bison on Route Brown now, coming to you, over.”
“Alpha, seen, over.”
“Two, roger, out.”
I walked out of the ditch and up onto the road where they could see me, crossed my arms in front of my face, signalling a stop so we could talk face to face. I really didn't have much time on the LAVs; I had only been in the armoured behemoth two or three times since my phase four officer training. Was that the right signal? Or was I telling him to speed up? Maybe I'll just step over to the side a bit. . . .
As effing always, they raced right up to me and then came to a grinding halt, burying me head-to-toe in a tidal wave of dust. Assholes!
One of the platoon commanders I'd met the day before at Major Bane's BUB, a guy called Reggie, hopped out of the LAV turret and clambered down toward me. I saw an engineer sergeant walking toward us from the Bison at the rear of the convoy. “Hey Rob, whaddya got?” he asked, noting the new coating of dust I'd just received, as he tried (unsuccessfully) not to smile.
Everyone's got a limit, and I had reached mine. “First off, tell your driver if he ever does that again, I'll kick his fucking teeth in!” I wasn't laughing. The old leave-'em-covered-in-dust PPCLI routine was getting a bit old.
“Sorry about that. So, what's going on?”
I waited a few seconds until the sergeant joined us and then suggested we move behind the LAV so that it could serve as a shield between us and the suspected IED. We shifted behind the steel cover and I briefed them on the last ten minutes of my life. Suddenly artillery fired over our heads, making all of us violently flinch. I looked over Reggie's shoulder at Sperwhan, but couldn't see the guns. It sounded like a freight train going “mach chicken” only five hundred metres over our heads to the north. Clearly, someone was about to get the good news.
“TIC [troops in contact] near FOB Wilson,” Reggie said, with the same bored look most of the outgoing guys carried on their faces. “Some of our guys just got ambushed. Choppers are en route. They're in the shit, big time.”
“Well, our light fandango is nothing compared to that,” I said, and then pointed out where I thought we still had a dicker/shooter watching us from behind the wall to the west. Then I briefed them on the string and pointed out where the snipers thought the IED was buried.
“Holy shit, who cut it?!” the engineer angrily asked, holding up the severed string.
“Take a SWAG [scientific wild-ass guess], Sergeant. I know better than that. My friends over here,” I nodded toward the Afghans, “not so much.”
“Well . . . um . . . see that they don't do it again!” was all he could muster.
“How do you say ‘no promises’ in Pashto? Well, do your thing, we'll plug our ears and cover you . . . from over here. Break a femur!” I said, slapping him on the back. I had nothing but respect for IED/UXO bomb-disposal guys. They were batshit crazy, no two ways about it. I'd only ever de-mined a culvert once as an assault pioneer in Kabul, and I never wanted to do it again. Longest hour of my entire life!
I looked over at Fourneau and shouted, “Anything going on?”
“Negative, sir,” he shouted back. “No movement by the wall or at the compound. But the kite has been lowered.”
“Figures. Thanks, Fourneau. Stay frosty!”
The engineer sergeant went back to his Bison and started collecting his gear. Warrant Longview and Hetsa walked over to our group, and the Wizard gave me a big smile.
“Fifty bucks, eh? You sure you can afford it, what with your new baby and all?” he asked.
“You know me, Warrant, I'm like Fred Flintstone—bet . . . bet . . . bet, BET, BET, BET !” I said as I shook him by the shoulders.
We had a good laugh as the tension of the last few minutes slowly bled out of our systems. I asked Hetsa to go keep Fourneau company as he covered our western flank.
“Thank God they stopped,” I told the warrant and Reg, meaning the ANA, who had been about to give chase down ambush alley.
Before they could say anything, we heard a Ranger truck horn blaring angrily behind the Bison at the back of the convoy. Reg, the Wizard, and I peeked around the LAV to see what was going on. I grabbed Lieutenant Aziz and Ali and started to walk past the row of LAVs toward six or seven ANA Ranger trucks, with the lead vehicle's horn blaring away. How terribly rude.
Aziz walked up to the lead truck and gave the driver a blast of crap. The driver quickly pulled his hand away from the horn, but beyond that, seemed fairly unrepentant.
Aziz spoke with Ali, who then turned to me saying, “He says they must get by. They have to be in Masum Ghar before night. They must pass. We must move out of the way to let them pass.”
“I take it these are the outgoing guys?” I asked Ali, as the ANA driver shot me a stinkeye from hell.
“Yes, sir, they are Captain Stephens's ANA, and they really want to leave.”
“Yeah, I gathered that. Please ask them to stop honking, and to sit there for a minute. I'll be right back.”
The engineer was standing next to us at his Bison, getting his kit all laid out, ready to do his job. “Hey, Sarge,” I said. “I know you just got here, and I don't want to rush you, but how long do ya figure?”
“Shit, sir, no way of knowing that. Screw 'em, they'll just have to wait like everybody else!”
“Okay.” I looked over at the ANA convoy. It would soon be last light, so they really did have to get going soon. What to do . . .
I realized that we couldn't move the Canadian vehicles into the ditch so that the ANA could pass; if they rolled over, everyone inside would be crushed. Besides, there was a reason the Canadians were on the road. They had an elevated position so they could engage the enemy from farther out and hopefully kill him long before he could get close enough to kill us. And if they moved, the ANA in the trucks would dr
ive right over top of the IED.
This would make a good training scenario for back home.
Reggie walked over and said, “Hey, just tell them to hold it. Just order them to sit still and wait!”
I looked around to make sure he was saying order them to me, and not to Aziz. Nope, he meant me. I leaned over and whispered to Ali, “Don't translate this for Lieutenant Aziz.” Ali quickly nodded, smart enough to know this wasn't a conversation we wanted Aziz privy to.
“Reggie,” I sighed, “I can't order them to do jack shit. OMLT doesn't give them orders.”
“Why not?” He asked incredulously, “Since when? Stephens always told them what to do—all the time! It was like they were his company. Just order them to . . .”
“We advise them, Reggie, we don't order them to do anything. If we always took over and told them what to do, we'd be here for the next hundred years. Besides, it's their country, not ours. They're going to do whatever they want.”
“Yeah, but just tell them this is a Canadian operation, so this is a little piece of Canada and they have to do what they're told.” Reg was starting to get a bit choked up by my apparently negative attitude.
I had always been told back in Canada that a huge part of the OMLT job was having to explain to the battle group types what the ANA could and couldn't do, and more importantly, that the OMLT wasn't meant to be bossing them around. Their own officer corps and NCOs (non-commissioned officers) did that. We advised. We mentored. Period.
I ignored Reggie and asked Ali to please tell the outgoing ANA to sit tight for a minute, as I walked back to join the Wizard next to the lead LAV.
“What was that all about?” the Wizard asked, as Apache helicopter gunships screamed over Route Kelowna on their way to the firefight in the north.
“Holy . . .” I said, looking at the choppers going balls out to get into the fight, probably trying to save our fellow Canadians. “We're in the war now, aren't we?”
“No doubt. What did those guys want?” he asked, nodding toward the Afghans.
The Taliban Don't Wave Page 9