What became known as the Soviet-Afghan War developed into a stalemate, with the Soviets controlling major cities, and the mujahedeen moving with relative ease throughout the remaining 80 percent of the country.
Seeing an opportunity to punish the Soviets by bogging them down in an unwinnable war, the Carter administration launched a top secret CIA program known as Operation Cyclone, which eventually funneled over $3 billion in weapons and training to the mujahedeen using Pakistan’s intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), as an intermediary.
Together with similar programs by Saudi Arabia, British MI6, Egypt, Iran, and the People’s Republic of China, the arms provided included Chinese and Soviet AK-47s and RPGs, and FIM-43 Redeye shoulder-fired antiaircraft weapons that were used to disable Soviet helicopters.
Despite the assertion from Pakistani General Mohammad Yousaf that “no American ever trained or had direct contact with the mujahedeen, and no American official ever went inside Afghanistan,” I can tell you that’s inaccurate.
In August 1980, my ODA 561 team sergeant informed me that I had been selected to go on a top secret mission to Pakistan and Afghanistan. The good news was that, since I would be traveling on an “official” red passport, which could only be issued to US citizens, my paperwork had been expedited and I would become a citizen immediately. I was thrilled. Also, I was to begin three months of language training in a special facility at Fort Bragg to help me transition from my native language, Farsi, to Dari, which is spoken in much of Afghanistan.
In November 1980, some of my ODA 561 teammates and I dressed in civilian clothes and boarded a commercial flight that took us to New York, London, and eventually Islamabad, Pakistan. There we joined members of another SF ODA team and bused to the city of Chaman, near the Afghan border.
Housed in a secret CIA-ISI compound in barren land outside Chaman, we spent the next two months training roughly 500 mujahedeen. All of them were Afghan tribesmen—hard dudes in good physical shape who had been fighting all their lives for basic survival. They seemed highly motivated to liberate their country.
We trained them in reconnaissance, patrol drills, linear and area ambushes, leapfrogging, shout-and-scout, and other small unit tactics. As the weapons man my job was to teach them how to fire and maintain Chinese-made AK-47s, mortars, RPGs, and the Russian-made DShK 1938 heavy machine gun. The mujahedeen picked up everything quickly.
Ranging in age from nineteen to fifty, they were divided between Pashtun tribesmen from southern Afghanistan and Tajiks from the center and north of the country. I spent most of my time with Tajiks because they spoke Dari, which was close to my native Farsi. Not only could I communicate with them easily, but with my dark features and black beard grown out I fit right in.
In nightly talks after dinner that usually included some variation of grilled lamb or goat, they expressed their appreciation for our help. Because the US wasn’t able to resupply the mujahedeen from the air once they entered Afghanistan, we built and stocked arms caches inside the country.
We did this late at night, slipping across the border in trucks with the lights off. We’d either identify pre-existing caves or dig them near the tops of hills, at least 2,000 meters apart. Some caves had to be shored up with beams and boulders. We’d mark each cave on a map and indicate its location with stakes, a pile of rocks, or a felled tree tagged with camouflage paint 100 feet from the entrance so the mujahedeen could find it. A night or so later, we’d return with a dozen mujahedeen to lug boxes of AKs, hand grenades, mortars, and ammo from the road to the caves, while four of us SF guys kept watch with M16s.
This was before NVGs—night vision goggles—or body armor, and we were in enemy territory, so tensions ran high. We stocked dozens of caves in southeastern Afghanistan during our stay at Chaman.
Halfway through our month at the CIA compound, our team was given a few days off. I told the team captain that I was using it to accompany some of the mujahedeen to recon along the border.
“How long will you be gone?” he asked.
“A couple days. Maybe more. If I run into trouble, I’ll send word back with one of the locals.”
“Be safe,” was the captain’s response.
I didn’t tell him that I planned to recon as far north as Kabul. I had noticed that the Tajik fighters in our group moved with relative ease and frequency from our location near southeast Afghanistan to their compound and headquarters in the rocky Panjshir Valley north of Kabul.
Being a curious type, I asked to accompany them on one of their trips in early December. Dressed in a local knee-length shirt (perahon) and baggy trousers (tunban) with a thick robe (pato) over it and wearing a flat wool cap (pakol), I rode with five mujahedeen divided between two pickups. One old guy spoke decent Russian, enough he said to talk us through any Soviet roadblock. I armed myself with an automatic pistol, which I hid under the robe, just in case.
We drove through spectacular countryside and past mountains covered with snow, stopping at the occasional Taliban roadblock. Even then, Taliban militants—Pashtun tribesmen and Islamic fundamentalists armed and trained by Pakistan’s ISI—controlled much of southern Afghanistan.
The Pakistanis did this, officers in their intelligence service explained, because they wanted the Taliban to act as a militia buffer should their longtime hated rival India attack them through Afghanistan. And they still do, despite the fact that Pakistan professes to be our ally in the fight against Islamic terrorism.
As we proceeded north, I understood why Afghanistan would never submit to foreign domination. Not only were the people fiercely independent, they were tough as hell and lived in conditions that could best be described as medieval. Their distrust of outsiders, especially from the West, was strong.
Also, the terrain of much of the country was mountainous and difficult. Aside from a few roads that connected a handful of major cities, the only way to get around—except by air—was via dirt paths that were often only passable by donkey or by foot.
Another thing that struck me was that, in general, all Afghans looked alike. Men and women, young and old, poor and rich, for the most part, dressed as humble farmers. With no national system of documentation or database to speak of, how was a foreign occupier supposed to separate a bus driver from a mujahedeen?
Not well, I found out a day and a half later when we stopped at a Russian checkpoint outside the capital city of Kabul. As I waited nervously, my Russian-speaking travel-mate explained that we were peasants on our way to help a friend north of the city build a wall around his house.
The extent of the damage I saw when we entered Kabul shocked me. Piles of bricks and other rubble clogged many streets, bridges were badly damaged, many structures were completely uninhabitable, and I didn’t see a building that wasn’t pockmarked with bullet holes. We spotted grim-faced Russian soldiers standing guard at intersections and armored vehicles on patrol. The locals went about their business of shopping or walking from one place to another looking bedraggled and unhappy. I got the strong impression that the Soviet occupation wasn’t going well.
As we drove past the US Embassy, I saw a sad, unattractive, yellowing building boarded up with sheets of plywood. The big brass US seal over the entrance was dirty, but intact.
We moved without interference, the mujahedeen showing no fear. I tried not to show mine as well, but was absolutely scared to death. After a day scouting the city and airport, we turned around and returned to Chaman. My captain stood waiting for me when we returned, arms crossed against his chest, looking pissed.
“You’ve been away five days. Where the hell have you been? We were worried.”
“Sir, the mujahedeen offered to take me to Kabul.”
“You went to Kabul? Are you crazy?”
“It’s okay, Captain. I’m back and I got some good intel.”
Fortunately, I wasn’t disciplined. Since I had already traveled into Afghanistan, the captain tasked me and five other SF operators to accompany a half-
dozen Tajik mujahedeen to their camp in the Panjshir Valley directly north of Kabul. Again we passed through Taliban and Russian roadblocks without a problem, and after a day and a half of traversing difficult roads entered a large compound occupied by around 2,000 anti-Soviet fighters.
As we’d done in the south, my teammates and I spent a month running courses in reconnaissance, guerrilla tactics, and weapons training.
The mountainous terrain we patrolled daily was extremely tough, but the militiamen were used to it and scaled it like mountain goats. Upon hearing the roar of approaching Soviet Mi23 and Mi31 helicopters, they didn’t panic, but quickly sought cover. Curiously, the Soviets never did engage us, or assault the compound—which was too big to conceal—while we were there.
The leader of the Tajiks, the legendary Ahmad Shah Massoud, affectionately known as the “Lion of the Panjshir,” came and went during our stay. He was around thirty at the time and highly respected as a brilliant military strategist and humanist whose goal was an independent, progressive Afghanistan where women enjoyed equal rights to men.
A tough, charming man with tremendous magnetism, he dressed only slightly better than his men with a Western shirt, military jacket, and pakol cap. The first time I introduced myself to him as Changiz, he sat beside me and asked me to recite some poetry.
“I’m sorry, Shah. I don’t know any poems,” I responded in Dari, addressing him as “Shah,” meaning leader or king, to show respect.
“You’re not the Urdu poet Muhammad Changiz Khan Tariqui?”
“No, Shah,” I said. “My name is Changiz, and I’m Iranian by birth. Now I’m a member of US Special Forces. I’ve come to help train your men.”
He stood and wrapped me in a warm hug. “Thank you, Changiz. Thank you for traveling here, and God bless America for its help.”
Massoud went on to become a hero of anti-Soviet resistance and later fought against the Taliban regime that took power after the Soviets withdrew, objecting to their strict interpretation of Islam and treatment of women. On September 9, 2001, two days before Al Qaeda terrorists launched their attack on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, Massoud was assassinated by Al Qaeda operatives disguised as TV journalists. Today, he’s considered a national hero.
* * *
I left Afghanistan in January 1981, sensing that the Soviets would fail. What I didn’t anticipate was how the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan would contribute to the dissolution of the entire Soviet Union. Or how Afghanistan would occupy the world stage for the next thirty-five years, or how Afghanistan under the Soviets would develop into a breeding ground for foreign jihadists, who would go on to wreak havoc throughout the world.
One of them, a tall soft-spoken Saudi from a wealthy family named Osama bin Laden, helped funnel arms, money, and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan while I was there. He became so enamored with the concept of jihad (or war against the enemies of Islam) that he would later found the terrorist group Al Qaeda, whose goal was “to lift the word of Allah, and make his religion victorious.”
Interestingly, our paths would cross again in, of all places, Afghanistan.
4
BEIRUT
As the threat of terrorism increased in the early 1970s, commander of Special Forces 5th Group Col. Robert A. Mountel was tasked by the Department of Defense (DOD) to create a specially designated hostage rescue team called Blue Light, or B500, that could deploy in a matter of hours. According to one of its founding members, those who qualified for the team “had to be so nasty that when released from duty you should be put in jail to be kept off the streets of America!”
I’m not sure I want to admit to fulfilling those requirements, but upon my return to Fort Bragg in January 1981, I volunteered for Blue Light Team and was selected. I like to think it was because of my language and combat skills, and the fact that I was highly motivated.
The formation of Blue Light followed the failure of Operation Eagle Claw, and happened during a period when the US government was reassessing its counterterrorist capabilities. In addition to Blue Light, several other new special quick-response units were created, including the Navy’s SEAL Team Six, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) (SOAR), also known as the Night Stalkers, and Delta Forces. And the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) was established to control and oversee joint training between the counterterrorist assets of the various branches of the US military.
At the start of 1981, 5th Group’s Blue Light Team fulfilled the quick-response, antiterrorism role while the new units got up to speed. Housed at the Mott Lake compound fifteen miles from Fort Bragg that had been used during the Vietnam War and by FBI SWAT, we trained constantly and maintained a high state of readiness. Since our primary mission was hostage rescue, we spent a lot of time fast roping, rappelling, and practicing close quarters combat (CQC).
As part of Blue Light training, I attended HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) jump school, which was a blast until the third to last of the twenty-seven jumps needed to graduate, when I landed funny and broke my left leg. This was a whole higher echelon of pain than what I’d experienced when spraining my ankle during Ranger training. But again, being hardheaded, I wanted no part of being held back.
So I wrapped that baby tight with bandages, downed some aspirin, and sucked it up. We had two more jumps to complete from 12,500 feet with rucksack, weapons, and full combat gear. I managed to stick the second-to-last jump, but when I got to my feet I was limping badly.
I begged our instructor, Paul Ford, to let me stay and finish the course. Last jump, after prebreathing oxygen, he pushed me to the front of the line, and we jumped together. I opened my chute at 4,000 feet feeling free as a bird and shot a thumbs-up gesture to Ford. Everything was copacetic. At 200 meters (600 feet) I released my rucksack and controlled fine, landing on my good leg (my right). But when I tried to get up, my left couldn’t support my weight.
Ford radioed for a deuce and a half (a 2.5 ton truck), and he and the other instructors loaded me in and placed my helmet under my left foot. Every bounce to Womack Hospital was like driving an ice pick into my spine. At Womack, the Army doc stuck a wad of gauze in my mouth, had two orderlies hold my hands, and then yanked my left foot to straighten the leg out. I screamed so loud people said they heard me on the other side of the hospital.
A few days later, I was back at Mott Lake struggling up and down three flights of stairs to my room in 5th Group barracks. Rehabilitation was greatly aided by a sweet brunette from the NCO club. Bless her heart. Soon after the cast came off, I was back training and doing PT.
* * *
Toward the end of ’81, Delta became operational, and all of us on Blue Light were invited to join. I was one of the few men who accepted the invitation. On a cold morning in late October, Sergeant Jack Joplin—sergeant major of 5th Group—told me to report to the old MP Station off Riley Road for the Delta PT test. Having always taken pride in my fitness, and knowing I was in excellent shape, I expected to pass. But after waiting two hours, no one from Delta came to pick me up.
I figured it must have been an oversight. The next day, I went back, and waited two more hours with the same result. The third day Sergeant Joplin took me directly to Delta headquarters and addressed the sergeant in charge.
“You see this guy,” he said, pointing in my direction. “He speaks three languages, is highly trained, and as skilled and as tough as anyone I know. You need him. So why are you fucking with him?”
“Sergeant, it was a simple misunderstanding,” the Delta sergeant responded. “We don’t seem to have his paperwork.”
“Bullshit. You do have his paperwork. It was sent three times!”
“I’m sorry, Sergeant. There must be some misunderstanding.”
“No, I’m sorry,” 5th Group Sergeant Joplin responded. “Fuck you guys! You’ve lost a good candidate.”
Delta had a snotty attitude from the beginning. Fine with me. When Blue Light disbanded, I didn’t hear the team menti
oned again until 1990 and the movie Die Hard 2, when one of the characters was referred to as a former member of the “Blue Light counterterrorism unit.”
From Blue Light, I went to ODA 562 and was immediately thrown in the water, so to speak. Combat driver’s school involved three weeks pre-scuba training at Fort Bragg and then three grueling weeks in Key West. Up every morning at 0430, we jogged five miles, then ran another thirty minutes in the steamy heat with RB-15 boats over our heads, and did push-ups, crunches—all before breakfast at 0730. Then it was into the pool. Laps, crossover kicks, learning to tie a rope underwater. First week: 500 meters on the surface; 500 underwater.
By the third week we were doing that times six. The instructors took us 100 meters out into the ocean and told us to swim to shore underwater without coming up more than twice. I thought my lungs were going to explode, but I made it.
The night after graduation I was sitting in a bar on Duval Street relaxing and drinking beers with a couple of my SF teammates when I started chatting up a dark-haired Russian girl named Anya. One thing led to another, and she invited me to her apartment.
She led me into her bedroom, where a ceiling fan stirred the moist hot air, and she started to slip out of her dress. It wasn’t the lacy black bra and panties she wore underneath that caught my attention. It was the chains, whips, clamps, handcuffs, and other S&M paraphernalia I saw hanging from the walls.
What the hell is this? I thought to myself. Is she gonna torture me to death?
Anya was so beautiful and sexy, and I was willing to take that chance. I figured, if she killed me, at least I’d go out with a smile on my face.
Thankfully, I survived her very skilled and passionate lovemaking. Afterward, the two of us were cooling off on her balcony when I heard two of my SF buddies walking up the street and singing off-key.
Full Battle Rattle Page 5