The area around the base was a large open bowl. To the north and east, the Hindu Kush mountains rose toward the sky. The range drained to the city’s basin through a watershed of rivers and streams that had carved canyons into stone. Upstream from the base, smaller cities straddled the valley floors. Farther up, ancient villages clung to mountain walls. Throughout the rural zone, Afghan farmers diverted water to irrigate hand-fashioned terraces dense with crops. Shepherds roamed the hills. Hunters and woodcutters worked the mountains, harvesting old-growth trees, some with stumps as thick as cars. Together it formed a tableau that seemed to many Westerners to be from another time, green agrarian lowlands beneath ancient forests that gave way to snowcapped stone peaks—a harsh, gorgeous, and primeval landscape, thoroughly claimed by its own people, who knew its ways better than any outsider ever could.
The American and Afghan governments were extending their influence up the rivers to patches of Nuristan, Nangarhar, Kunar, and Laghman Provinces, an area of operations the military dubbed N2KL. They held a string of outposts in valleys few Americans had heard of before: Kunar, Alishang, Alingar, Pech, Watapur, Waygal, Korengal. Senior officers who organized the Army’s day-to-day called the arrangement a defense-in-depth intended to force the Taliban to fight away from population centers. The new war was to be fought around tiny villages—Kamdesh, Ganjgal, Najil, and Kamu, to name a few—where American troops and Afghan soldiers and police officers now lived. “Taliban magnets,” one colonel called them. The troops sometimes used another name: “bullet sponges.” The Americans could reach their bases in the lower valleys over land. But as distances stretched, roads grew worse and dangers climbed. For the air cavalry, the result was a demanding set of missions in a complicated airspace. Many outposts were resupplied almost solely by helicopter. Apache attack helicopters and Kiowas watched over patrols and helped troops fight off ambushes or coordinated attacks. Medevac aircraft were always on call, crisscrossing the airspace to pick up the wounded and the dead. In some valleys—so narrow that helicopters were imperiled by gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades from their sides, or even from above—the Army dispatched routine flights only by night, to reduce the likelihood of aircraft being shot down.
Charlie Troop started its tour in winter, when days were short, the weather was cold, and rivers were prone to flooding. The first weeks were slow, allowing pilots a chance to learn the valleys before the fighting picked up, and adjust to the Army’s frustrating rules. Jalalabad was about 2,000 feet above sea level. The terrain where American troops roamed climbed to several times that. Since the Kiowa struggled for power at high elevations, the Army issued a guideline: Kiowas could not fly above 6,000 feet. The ceiling excluded Charlie Troop from many of the most menaced outposts and areas into which American soldiers hoped to push. It struck some of the pilots as arbitrary, a restriction that overreached. The frustration was compounded by more math: Task Force Out Front had only six Apaches to cover four provinces. With crew rest requirements, and maintenance, and two Apaches being held on call around the clock for quick-reaction-force duty, it felt as if there were too few helicopters to red-line the Kiowa fleet from some of the most dangerous turf. Why have us here, pilots asked, to hold us back?
* * *
On January 31, Slebodnik led one of the first Kiowa flights up the Kunar Valley. It was a two-aircraft reconnaissance mission to check out new ground. The aircraft flew to Asadabad, the capital of Kunar Province, took on fuel, and continued upstream. Slebodnik piloted the lead helicopter, making note of firebases and outposts, and examining roads, including stretches where the intelligence briefings had noted that the Taliban repeatedly ambushed patrols. Just north of Asadabad the confluence of valleys required a choice. They could turn northwest and head up the Pech Valley or continue following the Kunar River to the northeast. Slebodnik chose northeast.
They were overflying farmland when Slebodnik spotted a jumble of mud and stone ruins.
He turned for a closer look. Woehlert, in the second Kiowa, followed behind.
As Slebodnik circled about 150 or 200 feet above the site, Woehlert saw an explosion on the ground, just behind where the first aircraft had been.
“Hey, something just blew up,” he said by radio to Slebodnik.
None of the pilots had seen the incoming shot. Slebodnik flew a low pass over the impact crater and told Woehlert that a rocket-propelled grenade had hit there.
Weapons ready, the pilots scanned ridges and fields. There was nothing to fire back at. They resumed their reconnaissance. The landscape was beautiful. It looked pastoral and peaceful. Their welcome had been an RPG.
* * *
The schedule became busy at once. Kiowas fanned out for four- to six-hour flights. Their mission was a cavalry standard: support ground commanders with reconnaissance information and provide firepower when needed. They often escorted convoys and protected patrols by flying tens of feet above the ground, searching for fighting positions and signs of improvised explosive devices. When patrols entered villages, they watched over surrounding terrain, trying to prevent fighters from maneuvering against the Americans. Left-seat pilots carried digital cameras and took photographs of anything potentially interesting to the grunts. They often found themselves looking directly into the faces of startled Afghans, especially in the first weeks, when many Afghans had never seen a Kiowa before. Some of them stopped to stare, registering in their minds another new sight in the Pentagon’s rollout.
Slebodnik established a regimen. When he was not flying, he worked out in the base’s gym or ran the trail around the airfield perimeter, retracing routes that might have been run by Soviet helicopter crews a quarter century before. He was turning forty that fall and in impressive condition, perhaps the best shape of his life. He was eligible for retirement, a pension, and lifetime health care, but had opted to remain in the Army for another combat tour. He told his peers that he needed to support his family, including helping his children through college, but also was in Afghanistan because he believed in the cavalry’s mission. What kind of cavalry soldier would pass up America’s bid to prevail in the Afghan war?
Still, in quieter moments, Slebodnik spoke of retiring to his family’s hometown in Western Pennsylvania, where he might take over his father’s asphalt paving business. Often he called Fort Campbell to talk with Tanja and their children. Her friends and coworkers considered her a lucky wife: She had a husband who regularly checked in. She sent him packets of dried lemons for his tea. He sent flowers back, arranging delivery over the Internet and never missing a significant date. He was not of the common Army cut. In a culture of profligate swearing, where profanity passed as punctuation, Slebodnik rarely cursed, even mildly, and almost never resorted to the harsher forms. He swapped in folksy substitutions. “Goshdarnit,” he would say, or “G-zip.”
Among the troops he was seen as a leader who had not forgotten his own first enlistment. He expected no special treatment or privilege, and was approachable and interested in young enlisted soldiers. The word around the brigade was that Charlie Troop was professional and well run, aggressive on mission but under control. Much of the credit, thought the task force commander, Colonel Lynch, went to Slebodnik, who had transferred to the unit from Alpha Troop after a successful tour during some of the worst of the violence in Iraq. He had also flown previously in Afghanistan, with the 160th. The experience showed.
Not all was serious—at least, not all the time. To escape the cramped quarters, Slebodnik would turn up in a B-hut used as a small chapel, where he made music. Several musical instruments were stored there, including a mandolin. Slebodnik played well, and became an instructor for Jonathan Miller, a specialist who worked in the operations center, helping to track and direct aircraft around the valleys.
Miller was having an unhappy deployment. He felt depressed, worn down, and not his best self. He had an acoustic guitar that he was just learning to play. After a few jam sessions in which he hung back, watching and listening as Slebodnik w
orked through gospel songs and Johnny Cash, Slebodnik asked him to play with him. Across the rank boundaries mandated by the Army, the two formed a connection that felt like friendship. Slebodnik taught Miller twelve-bar blues, and had Miller accompany him in a gospel standby about ascending to heaven, “I’ll Fly Away.”
He and Miller played it again and again, getting it right.
Just a few more weary days and then, I’ll fly away
To a land where joys will never end, I’ll fly away
Slebodnik had never trained to sing. He barely carried a tune. Miller was impressed that a senior soldier in such a high-pressure job, closely watched by younger soldiers, was so visibly at ease with himself. Here was a pilot with combat experience and stature but who was not tightly wound. He was a boss to whom a regular soldier could relate.
* * *
As the weather warmed, enemy action increased. The Americans became more aggressive, too. In April a joint Special Forces and Afghan National Army (ANA) force raided one of the region’s no-go zones: the Shok Valley, the stronghold of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, the militant group he led. Hekmatyar had been a prominent commander against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, only to be marginalized in the 1990s by the Taliban. He emerged locally as a powerful force against the Afghan government and its American and NATO sponsors. His valley redoubt, more than 8,000 feet above sea level, remained beyond American ambitions for years. But in early April a Special Forces team and Afghan commandos flew to the canyon and tried to capture the elusive leader. A battle erupted. The Americans, protected by fighter jets and repeated runs of Apaches, withdrew under fire. The lesson was inescapable: As Americans stepped up their side of the war, many militias were not yielding.
The pace of fighting quickened. Hot spots made themselves known. Among them was the small Watapur Valley. The upper reaches of the valley exceeded 6,000 feet above sea level, which restricted Kiowas to working in the valley’s mouth, where it opened to the Pech Valley. American patrols often faced gunfire here, which made it a regular area for Kiowa reconnaissance.
In June, Slebodnik was flying in the valley with Jonathan Cooney, a pilot on his first tour. A rocket-propelled grenade exploded just behind the aircraft. The Kiowa shook from the blast.
“Fuck!” shouted Slebodnik, the man who almost never swore.
He broke right and down, into a dive.
The shot had been close, almost close enough to knock the helicopter from the air.
Woehlert was in the trail aircraft. He climbed and nosed over for an attack, plunging toward the ridge from where the projectile had been fired.
Slebodnik made a tight turn. The valley filled with the noise of rotor blades chopping hard.
“Let’s go back in and see if we can draw fire,” he said.
Flying headlong toward the ridge, he changed his axis and pitch erratically, making the aircraft unpredictable. The Kiowa reentered the range of a rocket-propelled grenade.
He rushed the ridge, ready to fire, looking for a kill. Whoever fired did not try again.
Slebodnik broke right and continued the patrol, having survived another near miss.
The next day Slebodnik was headed back to Watapur Valley with Jason Sharp, another young pilot, in the left seat. Sharp knew of the close call the day before. He was curious why Slebodnik was still flying when he was past retirement age.
“How many years you been in the Army?” he asked.
“Twenty-two,” Slebodnik said.
“Man, don’t you ever worry about something happening?”
Slebodnik shrugged. “Not really,” he said. “I don’t think like that.”
Sharp wondered how that could be. The more hours, the more combat flights—the more risks added up. The math demanded acknowledgment. It merited respect. “If I make it to the twenty-year mark as a helicopter pilot, that’s it,” he said. “I’m done.”
Slebodnik was the air mission commander that day, the second aircraft in the flight, following the other Kiowa’s tail, ready to cover if it was attacked—just as Woehlert had done for him the previous day. It was the hottest mission Sharp had flown: about 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside at 4,000 feet, conditions that reduce air density and helicopter performance.
The two Kiowas flew up the Kunar River to Asadabad, turned along the Pech River toward Watapur, and were called to help a ground unit taking fire from one of the ridges.
They rushed to the fight, climbing to 6,000 feet as they moved up the valley.
The lead aircraft attacked first and came under fire. Slebodnik hurried to cover the first Kiowa’s break, the moment when it would turn and be at risk. Rising over the ridge, he entered a 20-degree dive, oriented at the target as he dropped, and opened fire. The Kiowa’s tracers slammed into a group of trees.
Slebodnik kept firing until he was about 300 feet above the ridge. Then he broke. Terrain limited his choices. Instead of breaking right and pulling out and up as he usually did, he turned hard left, rolling the aircraft over with Sharp below him. He pulled back to power the climb.
Sharp waited to feel the aircraft rise.
The Kiowa kept sinking.
He looked to the right seat. Slebodnik was fighting the controls, pulling the cyclic back between his legs with his right hand and raising the collective with his left, trying to marshal all of its power, trying to get lift, or at least to stop the dive.
The aircraft continued to fall. It was mushing and not fully responding to controls. Cockpit alarms sounded in multiple tones, a series of warnings in loud bongs and whoops.
Slebodnik and Sharp were about to hit the mountain, loaded with fuel, at about 100 miles an hour.
Sharp looked down. The ground was rising to meet them. He heard his own voice talking to himself, urging the aircraft to react. Only three words came out.
“Come on, baby, come on, baby, come on, baby, come on, baby,” he said.
He couldn’t stop.
“Come on, baby.”
He grabbed his seat and braced for impact. Slebodnik still worked the controls.
“Come on, baby.”
The radar altimeter indicated they were below 100 feet, with a second or two left to live. The Kiowa’s skids brushed a tree. Sharp heard a sickening, rasping sound and waited to die. Only a few more feet to the ground.
The descent stopped.
The aircraft stabilized. The helicopter began to rise, pulling up and away from the tree. Sharp took his eyes off the rocks and spun his head to his right.
They were straight and level. Slebodnik had found just enough power. The Kiowa was responding to his controls.
Sharp’s heart pounded.
“Did we overtorque?” he asked, wondering if Slebodnik had strained the engine. This could make the aircraft unsafe.
“Are you kidding me?” Slebodnik said. “You didn’t hear all the bells and whistles going off?”
Sharp had been watching death rushing up for them in the shape of tree branches and boulders on which the Kiowa had almost broken and burned.
“I didn’t hear shit,” he said.
Slebodnik flew the aircraft down the valley, out of the Watapur, for the brief flight to Asadabad, where they could land and wait for the mechanic. He emanated calm.
Sharp remained in a state of disbelief. “That was a close one, wasn’t it?” he said.
“Yeah,” Slebodnik said. “We almost died.”
* * *
By midsummer Slebodnik was having premonitions of his own death, which put him in an awkward state of mind. He did not want to spook younger pilots who looked up to him. He had few people to confide in, but at last, while walking across the runway with Woehlert, in a place where they could not be overheard, he opened up.
“I’m having these dreams that I don’t make it back,” he said.
Woehlert chuckled. “We all have those dreams,” he said.
The violence in the valleys was unrelenting. All of the pilots of Charlie Troop had seen the grunts’ fire
fights beneath them, the daily medevac runs, the bodies of soldiers passing through Jalalabad, the medevac crews rinsing away the blood. Almost everyone had had close calls. Danger amped and warped emotions. Even the most hardened pilots, who remained composed around others, could find fear stalking them when they slept. Woehlert was haunted, too, visited by dreams of gunfire, crashes, and crippled aircraft out of control. His dreams were starkly realistic, gripping, and recurring. Sometimes, in his tiny room in the B-hut, he woke suddenly, drenched in sweat.
He told Slebodnik not to put stock in nightmares. They were natural, part of the price. “Everybody gets them,” he said.
Slebodnik did not want to hear it. He wanted to talk. The dreams contained visions of his end. He asked Woehlert to tell him who he was.
“What do the younger pilots think of me?” he said. “I know I am a stick pig and always fly right seat.”
“They love you, man,” Woehlert said.
This was true. Woehlert did not share the rest. Everybody loves Mike, he thought, but nobody likes to fly with him.
It was not that Slebodnik was not trusted. He was alert to everything around him and capable as each situation unfolded, a brave and savvy pilot. In Slebodnik, Woehlert saw the quintessential manifestation of the air cavalry, the Army’s update on a species of soldier who rode horses into battle, leaning into incoming fire. And in the era of militants with shoulder-fired rockets and machine guns hidden along flight paths, Slebodnik’s manner of flying was safe. He flew so aggressively, was so exuberant at the stick, that a Kiowa under his control was hard to hit.
But Slebodnik’s skill came with another effect. To sit in Slebodnik’s left seat was often to feel queasy. He made fellow aviators airsick. Woehlert heard the talk. Some of the left-seaters took Dramamine when they flew with Slebodnik, to keep their equilibrium in check and avoid being ill. Woehlert had flown with him once and not taken a pill. He had managed not to vomit, but barely. He remembered the flight as miserable. He knew the troop’s fuller view: Riding left seat with Slebodnik, trying to hold down a meal, was a feature of service in their unit, further ingrained because Slebodnik was known to find reasons not to let another pilot into the right seat. The right seat was his. He was a stick pig, the pilot who did not give up the primary chair.
The Fighters Page 19