by Ray Wiss
The other soldiers came boiling out of the building and fanned out to their assigned defensive positions. The hilltop observation post located the source of the enemy fire and began hammering back with heavy and medium machine gun fire. Now that I was outside, I could tell that the incoming and outgoing fire was taking place on the west side of the FOB. The UMS is close to the northeast side, and there did not seem to be anything coming from that direction. Nonetheless, Sergeant Dominic Labelle, one of the infantry section commanders, and I went to the perimeter wall to check things out. The other men in his section are on leave, so there was no one else available on this side of the FOB to back him up.
We observed the ground to our front for several minutes through our rifle scopes. Although the people here were only a few hundred metres away from the fire being traded between Taliban and Canadian soldiers, their “pattern of life” seemed unaffected. Women and children were walking around in all directions, farmers were tending their crops. This made it less likely that there were any Taliban on our side of the FOB. When the Taliban attack us, these people know our retaliation will inevitably follow. As we have seen, we sometimes hurt people despite our best efforts. The Taliban, for their part, regularly use civilians as human shields. If at all possible, the civilians clear out before the Taliban launch an attack from their vicinity.
The machine gunners on the hilltop continued firing for a few more minutes, stopping when the enemy had withdrawn. I returned to the UMS and carefully arranged my gear on a chair in case I needed it again.
0830—“Operation Election” is starting in earnest. Despite all the combat activity, some polling stations are opening in Zhari-Panjwayi.
0900—IED strike on Ring Road South against an ANA vehicle. No casualties, no damage. The trigger man is detected and killed.
A lot of shooting is going on but, thus far, no attacks on electoral facilities, voters, candidates or observers. The Taliban are targeting our FOBs and other outposts, but not doing any damage. No casualties on our side.
0930—One of our outposts farther west has called in artillery support. Our cannons are firing over the UMS. The building shakes with every round.
First attack reported on a polling station, a high school on the outskirts of Kandahar City. It seems to have been an RPG. Some shattered windows, one door blown off its hinges. The principal of the high school states that the voting station will reopen shortly.
Taliban mortar attack on FOB Ma’Sum Ghar falls short. A six-year-old child is wounded in his left leg. “Bed” Bedard uses his ultrasound skills to locate a shrapnel fragment. The child is evacuated to KAF.
Nearly all polling stations are open in Zhari-Panjwayi, even in areas with very strong Taliban support. Voter turnout is minimal so far.
1000—Captain Normand Cholette, the padre, brings me one of the infantry troopers. The soldier has learned that his mother is in the ICU. She had been quite ill before he left, but it is still hard to take. The soldier asks me to contact the hospital in Canada because he has received only second-hand information from his girlfriend. I reach out to one of my emergency medicine buddies, who vouches for me to the ICU staff. “Yes, he really is calling from Afghanistan.”
Things are not looking good. No aggressive measures are planned and the patient will be transferred out of the ICU and into a private room within twelve hours, if she has not expired by then. I send a quick e-mail to the battle group commander, Lieutenant Colonel Paul, recommending immediate repatriation. He replies within minutes, giving his approval. I hope this lad gets back to Canada in time to talk to his mother at least once more. I am very happy that Captain Cholette will be by his side till he leaves. If anyone can give the trooper comfort at a time like this, it’s him.
Ma’Sum Ghar hit by a rocket. No injuries.
1040—Four Taliban are caught in the open by one of our choppers and killed.
1110—Election employees at a polling centre in Zhari district are caught stuffing ballot boxes. They are arrested.
1130—Two of our guys are on the edge of the FOB when a couple of mortar bombs are fired at us. One of the bombs lands well short, but the other one lands right behind them. They hear the bang, turn around and see the smoke . . . and get the hell out of there. I had been checking in with the command post when they arrived. They are in control, but are almost vibrating from the tension.
Major Jourdain is unruffled. He looks like a maestro conducting an orchestra as he uses various radios and land lines to determine where the mortars were fired from and to organize retaliatory fire. He spins up our own mortars to fire a “counter-battery” mission, our artillery attacking their artillery. Our observers have triangulated the launch site of the enemy mortars. It is out in the open desert. No “collateral damage” is possible, so we will blanket the area with high explosive.
Our mortars are on the verge of firing when one of our observers calls out that . . . what the fuck? . . . women and children have suddenly appeared right beside the launch site we have targeted. These are open fields. There are no buildings or crops anywhere near there. Major Jourdain snatches up one of the radio handsets. “Mortars! This is the commander! Check fire! Check fire!” The mortars, who were about to fire, reply that they are standing down.
If anyone reading this is not convinced of the thoroughly evil nature of the Taliban, let me spell out what just happened. The Taliban forced a group of women and children, who were certainly not members of their own families, to accompany them into the desert. Then they fired at us with a mortar. The launch site of this weapon is something we can easily detect, and the Taliban know this.
For them, there was no downside. If we fired too quickly, they would lambaste us for having killed innocent women and children. If we held our fire, their gunners would get away. Major Jourdain has lived through similar events before.
1200—One of the ANA infantry units based at FOB Ma’Sum Ghar, along with their Canadian mentors, has been in contact with the enemy for half an hour. The enemy has broken off and withdrawn. At least eight Taliban have been killed, the ANA and Canadians are all right.
1230—Multiple Taliban attacks throughout Zhari-Panjwayi over the past three hours. Still no casualties on our side, and only the child mentioned earlier among the civilians.
The Taliban are throwing a lot of stuff at us. They have evidently been husbanding their heavier weapons for some time to be able to mount a major offensive today. I note that about half of the Taliban weapons fail to detonate on impact or miss their targets. This suggests that the Taliban are even using ordnance they know is no longer effective militarily. I don’t think this concerns them. It is effective in scaring the population so that they do not vote. That is the Taliban’s goal.
1240—Spoke too soon. A Taliban rocket in the Arghandab district has killed one child, badly wounded two others.
1 250—Spoke way too soon. Two Afghan policemen have been wounded. One of them has been shot in the head. His pupil on the affected side is fixed and dilated. At best, he will be paralyzed on one side. We evacuate him to KAF.
1300—The FOB is attacked once more, again from the west. Less automatic weapons fire than last time, more RPGs. Once again, Sergeant Labelle and I head for the northeast wall. This time, there is a single woman in one of the fields. She runs into a building and disappears. Otherwise, there is nobody to be seen. As clear a “combat indicator” as you will ever see. Trouble’s coming.
A stray bullet goes through the command post of the engineer troop. It passes right beside Warrant Officer Stéphane “Fuse” Pelletier, the troop warrant officer, and lands beside Lieutenant Jonathan Mar-tineau, the troop commander. They label the entry hole with today’s date and go back to work.
1315—Another successful air strike kills five Taliban in the Arghandab district.
1320—Voting is finished at the Sarposa prison in Kandahar City.
The criminals locked up there have nothing to fear. They all vote.
1 400—Multiple rock
et and mortar attacks on various coalition locations. One of them gives an American soldier a concussion.
1 430—A series of mortar rounds impact the west side of the FOB. Then, the “combat indicator” proves its worth: sustained rifle fire comes at us from right outside the FOB walls. And this time it is coming from the east, the side closest to the UMS. Sergeant Labelle and I run over to our previous positions. We peek over the Hesco Bastions . . . and four shots go right over our heads. We eat gravel. For the next several minutes, we move around, always looking over the wall from a different place. We can only look for a few seconds each time before another volley of shots sends us back down. The shooter is zeroed in on our part of the wall. As soon as our heads pop up, we have to assume the sniper has detected the movement and is lining up his gunsight on our helmets.
As long as he stays hidden and does not move, the sniper has the advantage. He knows roughly where we are going to come out, but it is extraordinarily difficult for us to detect where the sniper is firing from. There is a loud “crack” as the supersonic projectile passes over us, then the distant “thump” of the gun firing. The direction of the source can only be guessed at (within an arc of thirty degrees or so). Unless we are looking right at the sniper’s location when he fires, we will not see the puff of smoke from the rifle barrel.
Faced with this, undisciplined soldiers often stick their rifles above the wall and spray bullets downrange. This is out of the question for us. If we do not have a target, we do not shoot.
After about ten minutes of this, Major Jourdain sends one of the few L AVs (light amoured vehicles) remaining on the camp to help us out. It drives into position and starts tracking its 25 mm gun across the eastern side of the FOB. No further shots are fired at us. The LAV’s big gun and its invulnerability to rifle fire have turned the tables. The enemy sniper no longer has the advantage. To open fire from close range now would be suicidal.
Nothing further happens for the next hour and a half, so we assume the sniper has decided to crawl away.
1500—The number of attacks on Afghan, Canadian and other Coalition outposts in Zhari-Panjwayi is unprecedented. The Taliban are doing their best to tie us down close to our FOBs and to intimidate the voters. They are succeeding on both counts. There are several reports of Taliban soldiers threatening potential voters, and two more reports of ballot-box stuffing.
One of the children wounded in the earlier rocket attack in the Arghandab has died.
1530—A Taliban soldier fires an RPG at an American convoy departing FOB Ma’Sum Ghar. He is killed by a single shot from a Canadian Leopard tank.
1540—“Bed” Bedard is busy again! It looks like the tankers fired a bit too quickly. The recoil of that last tank shot has given one of their men a lacerated and possibly broken leg. Off he goes to the KAF.
1630—Voting to the east of our line of FOBs has been going well. To the west, it has been dismal. In Howz-e-Madad, only two people have come to vote. One was an interpreter working with Combat Team Bastard. The other was a Taliban scout, who was arrested by the ANA. I wonder who he voted for?
1800—The polling stations all closed at 1700, but it seems that the Taliban are intent on going out with a flourish. All our FOBs have been attacked again in the last hour: mortars and RPGs here, rockets at Wilson and Ma’Sum Ghar.
There was also a gigantic blast southwest of here a little after 1700. Initial reports indicated that an ANA vehicle had been nearby. We got everything ready for a MasCal: all the TCCCs came to the UMS, we laid out all the gear the way we had discussed yesterday, I assigned specific tasks to some of them (triage assistant, gear quartermaster) and Master Corporal Charles Cloutier, my last remaining medic on the FOB, organized resuscitation gear in the UMS.
I am happy to report that all the Afghan soldiers near the blast were unhurt. It turned out only to have been a good practice run for my team.
1900—The day’s toll. Headquarters has released the total damage for the day in Zhari-Panjwayi:
ANA Killed: 0
ANA Wounded: 6
Police Killed: 0
Police Wounded: 2
Taliban Killed:
22 Taliban Wounded:
Taliban Wounded: 10?
Civilians Killed: 3
Civilians Wounded: 10
Coalition Killed: 0
Coalition Wounded: 1
IEDs found and defused: 14
IEDs detonated:
8 Total rocket/mortar attacks: 112
1915—We get hit three more times. Make that 115 rockets.
With everything that was going on, I missed calling Michelle for the second day in a row. To make things worse, she went to sleep last night saying “I have tears in my eyes because I miss my daddy.” I had sworn to myself I would call her this afternoon (her morning, before she went to daycare). I tried to call her before going to bed, but Claude and I got our wires crossed and were not able to connect.
I know this seems trivial compared with the death and destruction all around me, but I am sick at heart . . .
COMBAT
I had been in war zones before coming to Afghanistan, but always as an unarmed medic. During these missions, I had been in situations where people were trying to kill me.
Today, for the first time in my life, I was trying to kill the person who was trying to kill me. I have reflected on this experience and drawn some conclusions.
1. Winston Churchill was only partly right (see the addendum to my June 29 entry).
Even though I have been “fired upon without any effect,” I do not feel particularly elated. The feeling at the end of my combat patrol on August 4 was a hundred times more powerful, probably due to my anticipation of the event. Before going on patrol, I had spent twelve hours dreading what was coming. As we left the FOB, I was as frightened as I had ever been in my life. When I came back unhurt from that mission, I had the feeling that I had escaped some horrible fate.
The attacks we were subjected to today started suddenly and ended quickly. Each time, my attention was focused on what to do in response to the attack. I had no time to consider what would happen if I was hit. This was particularly true when I was ducking bullets at the east wall. Someone was shooting up my FOB; I wanted to stop them. All I thought about were angles, distances and hit probabilities. I considered the possibility of getting shot, but only in the sense that that was something to be avoided if I wanted to complete my mission.
The speed at which events unfolded made it impossible to spend much time being scared. It seems that what Churchill was describing was mostly relief. Since I was not scared for very long today, I am not very relieved this evening.
2. I am capable of killing another human being.
As I tried to detect where the rifle fire was coming from, there was no question that I would fire back if I could locate my target. Although an enemy soldier was likely looking right at me and doing his best to end my life at that moment, I felt no anger towards this individual. He was doing his soldier job, and I was doing mine. But if I had been able to figure out where he was, I would have put a bullet in his brain without hesitation.
I would have reflected on it afterwards and perhaps felt regret, but only in the sense that it was unfortunate that my enemy’s beliefs were so aberrant that it was necessary to kill him to stop him from doing what he wanted to do. I doubt I would have lost a moment’s sleep over it.
3 . I am a soldier.
It would have been hugely satisfying to shoot back, even without a target, on a number of levels. There is a strong urge to do something proactive when one is under fire, to strike back at the enemy even if the method chosen is not very effective. But that is not what disciplined soldiers do. We fire at clearly identified targets and nothing else.
My finger was always along the trigger guard, never on the trigger.
Like Muslims, the Vietnamese use a lunar calendar. The celebration of the lunar New Year is a big deal in Vietnam. It is properly called Tet Nguyen Dan (New Year’s
Day), but this is commonly shortened to “Tet.”
In 1968, that day fell on January 31. The American forces in South Vietnam at that time were in a relaxed posture. They were therefore caught off guard when the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launched their largest offensive of the war in the early morning hours of Tet. In a masterful feat of concealment they managed to place sizable units near every major city and base in the country. These units attacked simultaneously. The Tet Offensive, as it came to be known, was the turning point of the Vietnam War, but in a way that neither of the belligerents could have predicted.
The military and political situation in South Vietnam in early 1968 has numerous parallels with the situation in Afghanistan today. The war had been raging for a generation. A land that had never known democracy was struggling to develop this system. Corruption was rife. The Americans, with a bit of help from a smattering of other countries, were attempting to help the government contain a violent insurgency. While some of the insurgents were ideologically motivated, a large number were nationalists who were often uncomfortable with the dyed-in-the-wool communists among them.
The fighting in South Vietnam before Tet was similar to what is going on in Zhari-Panjwayi. The insurgency relied heavily on booby-traps and small-unit ambushes in which they used rockets and small arms virtually identical to those used by the Taliban. The Americans, who had over half a million soldiers in the country, were supported by the most modern artillery and aircraft available.