The Fighters

by C. J. Chivers

  When the rain let up, Viper Company gathered outside on the cold gravel and mud for a memorial. From the mortar pit, soldiers fired two 120-millimeter illumination rounds. Each was a bright white flare suspended beneath a fluttering parachute. They opened high overhead, ignited in a brilliant glow, and slowly descended, issuing a slight whistling sound and casting shadows that spun and danced. Each round burned for about a minute. The soldiers stood motionless, watching them drift down. In sequence they burned out. The valley was black again.

  Soto felt a heavy weight of gloom.

  Knight was a great soldier, he thought. What does this mean for the rest of us?

  * * *

  Not long after the two soldiers were killed, Soto learned that Third Squad was returning to Observation Post Dallas and that he would join them there again. He did not want to go. He was part of Second Squad and there was a major mission coming up—already the talk of the company. He hoped to be with Cox on it. But Sergeant First Class Wright would not change his mind. He, too, was going to Dallas, he said, and the soldiers there would need Soto as a provisional medic. “You’re coming with me,” Wright said.

  There was no point in resisting.

  On September 20, while Soto was on watch at Dallas, a counter-IED patrol from his platoon drove north from the Korengal Outpost toward Ambush Alley. As the day dragged, Soto intermittently heard the now-familiar sounds of violence. Occasional gunfire and a rocket-propelled grenade. A helicopter dropping supplies at Combat Outpost Vegas came under machine-gun fire. And he heard Sergeant Cox calmly leading the patrol on the road.

  The day quieted down. The patrol radioed that it had crossed safely through the most dangerous stretch of road, continued north, and turned back around. Soto spent the hours on radio watch.

  A loud explosion rocked the valley.

  It was a few kilometers away, to Dallas’s north. Soto knew where it was and guessed what it meant. A Humvee in the counter-IED patrol had hit an IED.

  Dallas was farther from Ambush Alley than any of Viper’s positions. Rushing to the struck soldiers would be another unit’s job. All Soto could do was listen.

  Multiple voices came up on the radio. Soto recognized them, one by one. At first the situation was uncertain. Soto waited for more information, and for Sergeant Cox’s voice to relay information and instructions. But Cox was absent. Ordinarily he would be calling in updates.

  Other soldiers in the patrol backtracked to the blast site and began describing what they saw.

  Two soldiers had been wounded, they said. Two others were dead.

  The triggerman who had detonated the IED—using a yellow wire that ran from the road downhill—had waited for the last truck, to make his escape easier. The IED exploded under Cox’s Humvee and heaved the truck off the road, throwing the gunner, Private Joseph F. Gonzales, from the turret and scattering the vehicle’s armor, roof, and doors down the slope.

  Gonzales and Cox were killed instantly. Private Keith Young and Private First Class Sean Hollins were wounded. Young was covered in oil, screaming that he had been blinded, and had a broken hand. Hollins was awake but dazed. The first soldiers to reach him feared he had a spinal injury.

  High on the mountain to the south, unable to see the blast site, Soto listened to the radio. When he heard the battle roster numbers of the dead, his eyes welled with tears.

  As Soto wept, the Army mobilized. The quick-reaction force arrived from the outpost, followed by an A-10 attack aircraft. Far overhead, a Predator looked down on Afghans its remote pilot thought were more militants, massing and watching the soldiers scrambling to give first aid to the wounded and recover the dead. The A-10 dropped a 500-pound bomb, then followed up with a strafe with its 30-millimeter cannon. A helicopter flew into the valley for the casualties.

  Soto remained at the radio. He was quietly despondent, and pensive. His mind had come to a soldier’s timeless realization: The battlefield did not care about reputations, appearances, or wishes. It simply snatched lives. Knight was gone, and now Cox and Gonzales. Knight and Cox had been the soldiers whom Soto had looked up to most; Gonzales was a friend. It made no sense that they had died. The best guys always seem to lose, he thought. The guys you think are equipped mentally and physically ready for war—the guys you think are going to come home—aren’t the guys to come home.

  Soto usually sat directly behind Cox in the Humvee, with the first-aid bag. If Sergeant Wright had not insisted on taking him to Dallas, he would have been in Cox’s truck. He had been saved by a personnel shuffle. His friends had died while he listened from afar.

  He was not sure what to feel.

  * * *

  The Taliban could fight as it pleased, but the Americans were bound by rules. There were rules limiting soldiers’ ability to enter Afghan homes, rules governing when they could use their weapons, and rules governing how firepower could be applied. The soldiers were drilled to be polite and show manners and restraint. All of this created circumstances Soto considered absurd.

  The only thing saving Viper Two, he thought, was that the Taliban were poor shots. Many of them carried Kalashnikov rifles and fired from hundreds of yards away, ranges at which such weapons are inaccurate. They did have other weapons, including at least one heavy machine gun, and they had weapons captured from previous American units, including an M14 that Battle Company had lost and a captured M240B machine gun. But they almost always missed. Why were they so hard to beat?

  Sometimes at night, Soto looked across the valley and saw flashlights bobbing and flickering in the forests and along the trails. He was sure these were Taliban moving ammunition and heavy weapons into position. The Americans did little about it. Soto found it maddening. The Taliban had developed such a finely tuned understanding of American behaviors that it flaunted its command of the gaps. As Soto saw it, the Army treated Viper like a boxer told not to use his fists. No wonder it was losing fights.

  * * *

  In December, Sergeant Wright pulled Soto aside and shared bad news: Soto’s half sister Ashley had died. She was fourteen and had suffered from ovarian cysts. Wright told Soto to pack and fly home. The Army was giving him emergency leave.

  Soto’s mother had had six children, two with his father, the others with other men. Soto knew Ashley but not well, and by the time word of her death reached the valley, her funeral had already been held. He did not want to go home. He told Wright his loyalty was to the platoon.

  “I can’t change anything there, but maybe I can change things in the Korengal,” he said.

  Wright was gentle. He told Soto he would not help him make decisions he would later regret. He ordered him to take the leave.

  The trip out was jarring. Soto was flown to Jalalabad, then to Bagram. The valley had changed him. As he traveled he absorbed the sights: the dining facilities heaped with food, the PXs stocked with sundries, soldiers in lines at beverage shops, no one waiting for the abundant showers. He saw neat uniforms and clean boots. These dudes throw away food, he thought.

  He passed his time in New York aimlessly, feeling guilty and out of place. He was relieved when it was time to return to the valley.

  He landed in Afghanistan for more bad news. Three soldiers in his platoon had been shot on a patrol. And a CH-47 helicopter carrying supplies for Restrepo had been hit by a rocket. The damaged aircraft lost control and crashed near Firebase Vegas.VII Most of the crew and passengers scrambled out before fire consumed the wreckage, but one soldier, Sergeant Ezra Dawson, had been killed.

  The downing of the CH-47 exposed another weakness in the American ambition for the valley, and for Afghanistan as a whole: the reluctance of the Afghan National Army. The helicopter was hit above Firebase Vimoto, over the heads of the Marines stationed there, who watched the crash. Vimoto was an Afghan National Army position. No distress could be more pressing than that of a downed aircraft. As the flames climbed, the Marines tried to rally the Afghans to go to the aid of the passengers and crew, and work alongside the soldiers fro
m Vegas.

  The Afghans refused.

  The patrol, they said, was not on the schedule.

  Soto had already taken his stock of the war. But as he heard more stories, and saw more missions, his views hardened. He did not consider himself a disrespectful person. He had volunteered for war, eager to serve, wanting a tangible role. He’d stayed out of trouble almost all of his life and kept a positive attitude as he trained. But he’d grown disillusioned and was unwilling to suppress what he knew. To him the Army’s counterinsurgency doctrine made no sense. Foreign soldiers were not going to win over the Korengalis with sweet talk and projects, and they were not going to defeat them by hanging around in outposts and trying to visit them by day. Viper Company’s missions seemed designed more to show activity for the bosses than to accomplish anything real, much less lasting. Soto had faith in many of the sergeants and officers in his company. They were as stuck as he was. He thought they did their best. But he had developed a deep distrust of the Army’s brass. They take care of themselves, he thought.

  When a colonel came to visit the Korengal Outpost and wanted to do a short foot patrol, the company assembled soldiers to take him out. They waited to leave until after attack helicopters arrived, to protect him.

  He’s afraid, Soto thought.

  Squads went out every day without air support. What’s so special about him?

  As spring arrived, Soto’s disappointment bordered upon disgust. He tried to contain his feelings. But he sensed that many senior officers had little idea what was going on. They said what they needed to say—about Americans coaching Afghan forces, about Americans winning over the Afghan population, about the Taliban losing ground. He read the optimistic prospects for an Afghan surge under President Obama. The official message was positive. What the brass didn’t mention, or tried explaining away, was what Soto saw: that most Afghans in the valley were not interested in getting along and that the Afghan National Army was a lackluster force that survived because it was under American protection. These twin factors ensured that their campaign would fail. And the Army offered no better ideas. We’re here because we’re here, he thought. We’re here because another unit came here and set up, and we replaced them, and no one knows what else to do.

  Soto saw his Army as a huge, self-administering organization, high on slogans and trafficking in talking points. The grunts lived the unforgiving details of a plan that would not work. I’ll never do twenty years in this organization, he thought. By April, when Lieutenant Smith checked in, Soto was the type of grunt that long wars make: the young enlisted soldier, sick of bullshit, who fought just to keep his friends alive.

  Then came the order for the ambush patrol high on the opposite ridge.

  Oh, great, Soto thought.

  * * *

  Soto kept climbing uphill, slipping on loose rocks, feeling his quadriceps and calves driving him on. Sweat soaked his limbs and back. He wore a helmet and a harness that held bulletproof plates tight over his chest and back, and he carried a first-aid kit and a small backpack loaded with extra machine-gun ammunition and everyday essentials of grunt field life: dry socks and T-shirt, bottles of water, a fleece skullcap, protein bars mailed to the platoon by appreciative American citizens back home. He carried a rifle, which from time to time he had to switch between hands so he could scale the slope. The load slowed him. He cursed. But for all of his sour attitude, he was acclimated, lean and taut, elastic with youth and in a functional state of mind. With almost nine months at the outpost, he was past struggling, and had become mechanism as much as man. He moved steadily and almost unceasingly, gaining altitude, sure of himself, pushing on—a creature of his place.

  Soon he would be carrying more weight. He had been selected as Second Platoon’s new radio operator. The soldier currently in the job, Steven Halase, was being promoted to fire team leader. This ambush patrol was to be Halase’s last turn with the radio. Soto was to take it when they got back in the morning.

  The squads climbed separately, making time.

  When Soto took the radio, he would be Smith’s right-hand man. He was glad to have more responsibility but not thrilled with the circumstance. Soto figured Smith was competent. Smith’s problem, in the eyes of a young enlisted soldier, was that he was a few notches too motivated. That gung-ho vibe and can-do attitude, that by-the-book faith that today was the day—Soto had seen this before. He had reason to doubt it. He’s like we were when we got here.

  Soto was interested in more important things than the plan: looking out for his buddies and leaving a strong personal record. The war was the slate upon which his reputation would be written. That much, at least, still mattered. It might even be achievable, unlike the Pentagon’s Afghan daydream. Second Platoon was living day by day. Now we’re tired, Soto thought. Now we’re hungry.

  Soto had watched Smith at the terrain model, issuing the operation order. It was done to the letter. He seems like a kid on Christmas morning, he thought. We already know how this shit goes down.

  He saw the real patrol ahead, not that sand-table version. We’ll set in, no one will come, and we’ll get hit on the way back. We’ll take cover, fire back, come home. If no one gets killed, we’ll catch up on sleep and get ready to go do it again.

  Smith kept the platoon moving.

  As far as Soto was concerned, the American hearts-and-minds campaign, the counterinsurgency campaign, had little chance. Pretending it did served up soldiers for ambushes, allowing their enemies to pick away at the platoons. The doctrine was a recipe for delivering American soldiers to Afghan traps. Why the fuck am I patrolling? Why am I going out to these villages in the middle of the day? Soto was a junior soldier. He had been in Afghanistan less than a year. He could see a better way. Why aren’t we doing more direct action? Leave at night, knock down doors, and be back before sunrise.

  Walking around by day like this is stupid.

  He had no say in such things. He was a rifleman and an ammunition bearer, a pack animal for the soldier beside him, Specialist Arturo Molano, who carried an M240 machine gun.

  Soto’s pack was heavy. It strained his legs and pulled at his shoulders. As the terrain grew steeper, he reached places where he had to strap his rifle to his back and struggle forward with all four limbs, using his hands to hold roots and boulders, and his quadriceps to force himself higher. Molano, with the machine gun, had it worse. The two men fell into a rhythm. One man would get over a particularly hard patch and turn around and extend a hand to the other.

  “Hey, man, you good?” Soto would ask.

  Molano would say he was fine.

  “You want me to carry the gun?” Soto would offer.

  Molano declined every time.

  Tough motherfucker, Soto thought. He’ll never let me carry it.

  Soto liked being partnered with someone like this. He expected to be attacked before Second Platoon made it back. He liked having a strong soldier nearby. He loathed the Taliban, saw them as punks, guys the platoon would tear apart in a head-to-head fight. But the platoon never got the chance. The Taliban fought on its terms, and would wait for an advantage before firing the first shot. Meanwhile its spotters observed the Americans’ movements, telling the valley where Viper roamed.

  These guys are watching us, Soto thought. They see us.

  * * *

  After a few hours, Second Platoon reached the crest. The soldiers stopped. They had not been harassed on the long climb. Soto inhaled deeply, taking in the thin air while a few soldiers went forward with Smith to check the trail. He had been on this ridge before, after being inserted by helicopter, but had never climbed to it from the riverbed. His muscles were flushed. The air tasted clean, away from the Korengal Outpost’s pits of burning trash and barrels of human waste.

  Smith returned. He had found a trail intersection and seen fresh tracks. This could mean everything or nothing. It might be a sign of militants. It might be a sign of loggers. But it meant Second Platoon was not alone up there after all.


  The soldiers rose. Smith led them toward the trail juncture, where they followed the plans rehearsed back on the landing zone. Almost without talking, they arranged themselves in a triangle astride the trail. In the infantry vernacular, this was known as a patrol base. After the soldiers settled in, Smith circulated along its inside edge, checking the position of each man and paying particular attention to the location and orientation of the machine guns. He put Molano at one end of the triangle, and Specialist Oxman at another, with their machine guns angled back toward each other. In this way, their fire would create an interlocking zone of flying lead across one side of the patrol base.

  Soto found a mound of dirt beside Molano and looked uphill over its top. A footpath came out of the trees and followed a course between rocks and trees straight to where Second Platoon had set up. The area was vegetated, but not heavily. If anyone came from above, he and Molano would have a clear shot for at least thirty yards. He neatly arranged belts of ammunition, then grabbed his night-vision device and fastened it to his helmet. A sergeant came through and double-checked Soto and Molano’s shooting sector, a cone extending uphill. This was their piece of the kill zone.

  The plan called for the scouts to find a protected position up the slope, alone, out of the way if Second Platoon opened up, and watch the trail, ready to give warning if anyone approached.

  Other soldiers set claymore mines on small stands. On command, their directional explosive charges could blast small steel balls to the platoon’s front. Smith took a spot in the center near Halase, who operated an encrypted radio on the company’s tactical net.