by Flo Groberg
About a minute or so later, Martinez hurried into the gym.
“Lieutenant . . . Thompson and the CO are waiting for you in the TOC,” he said.
Saul and our commanding officer told me that a patrol that included our battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Pearl, was on its way to the city of Asadabad—the capital of Kunar Province—when it was attacked. The explosions that rang through the gym were echoing from an area close to COP Able Main, along the Pech River, but about a mile to our west.
“Get out there and help,” my CO said. “Make sure the BC is good to go.”
My platoon’s role as Quick Reaction Force was to handle the rapid response of the developing situation.
We were on high alert as our trucks carefully plodded along the river toward the village of Mulkhana, near COP Able Main. Though we had passed by this village many times before, we had never taken enemy fire. We assumed that was because the village was right next to a relatively large Afghan police station. A few guys inside our two platoons actually referred to Mulkhana as Shangri-La since it was one of the few relatively safe places in the valley.
We were driving on an unsteady road about five minutes from the village when I noticed something in the distance.
“Stop here,” I told my driver, Sergeant Mauldin. “Look up toward that ridgeline. What do you see?”
The sky was blue that day and the glistening sun was reflecting off the Pech River and straight into my eyes. Fortunately, my sunglasses and a lot of squinting helped me identify what I thought was a bunch of Taliban fighters with their weapons pointed downward.
“Ten-Four, L-T,” Mauldin said after a few seconds. “I see them.”
As I decided what to do next, we heard sounds of return fire, presumably from the BC’s boxed-in platoon.
“Go,” I told Mauldin while pointing in the other platoon’s direction.
About a minute later, we heard a series of booms that sounded as if they were coming from Able Main.
By the time we reached the ambushed patrol, the exchange of fire had stopped. We made a beeline toward the battalion commander, who was sitting inside a military vehicle riddled with bullet holes.
“Sir, Dagger Four-Six is here to support you,” I said to LTC Pearl.
“Ten-Four, Lieutenant . . . thanks for getting out here so fast,” he said. “We got into a good firefight with those dudes on the ridgeline before we called for a fire artillery mission.”
He then pointed toward Mulkhana’s All-Girls School, which was similar to the one I previously visited in Andersille.
“Mortars were fired at the enemy from your COP,” the battalion commander continued. “Unfortunately, one of them came up short.”
I didn’t even need to ask my boss what he meant before my heart sank. If school had just let out and the mortar came up short, then it almost certainly landed among the young girls departing to their homes.
“I know this is going to be tough, Lieutenant, but I need you to take your men into the village and take pictures of any civilian casualties, and then bring back the elder,” he said with his head down. “We’ll need all of this for the investigation.”
Was he serious? While I understood why the Army needed to document such a tragic event, I was nevertheless shocked that I’d just been ordered to take my men into a hostile village, take photographs of dead children, and bring the village elder back to where we were.
Approaching the school, I felt worse than I had ever felt. To my horror, I found two dead bodies upon my arrival. They were covered with dirt and blood-soaked shrouds.
I felt convulsions in my neck and chest as I saw the bodies and heard the sounds of devastated villagers. Dozens of people were crying, but many more were pointing and yelling in my platoon’s direction. That’s when Sergeant Dement, a young NCO in my platoon who had served in Iraq and always managed to stay composed during the worst possible situations, went to work on easing the tensions between the locals and my soldiers.
“Please step back so my leader can talk to yours,” he said while gently waving his arms. “We are here to help and to find out what happened.”
As the elder approached a minute later, I told my soldiers—who were also deeply affected by what they had seen but also on guard for possible reprisal attacks—to temporarily lower their weapons.
“I am terribly sorry for your loss,” I told this quiet village elder—whom I had never met—through Shams. “My men and I just got here, but we want to give you our deepest condolences after this tragic accident.”
He didn’t say anything in response. Recognizing the delicacy of a sad but also potentially dangerous situation for my men, I carefully explained that I needed to take photographs of both bodies in order to ensure that my government could properly investigate the matter and compensate the families of both little girls.
The elder, who seemed strangely unmoved by the dreadful scene, obliged.
As the bodies were uncovered, blood rushed from my face and left me pale. One girl had a perfect face, untouched by the carnage, but her body no longer resembled that of a human being. The second child’s body was intact and looked unharmed, but her face had been scarred by war.
In a sickening, surreal moment that blurred the lines between humanity and civil duty, I began to snap pictures. As I documented the horrendous images that the Army ordered me to capture, I felt like I had failed every innocent child living in this vicious hellhole.
“Hey American,” the elder said in Pashto while interrupting my mind-numbing task. “You also killed one of my cows.”
After my eyes met with my translator’s, I couldn’t really figure out what to say in response. Instead, I shrugged my shoulders as if to say “so what?”
“You need to pay me for the cow,” the elder said.
I tightened my lips and shook my head. Did he just say what I thought he said?
“Who cares about the cow?” I said to Shams, not understanding the animal’s significance. “What about the two girls?”
“One of them is my granddaughter,” the elder said, to my complete astonishment. “You need to give me one thousand dollars for my girl and ten thousand dollars for my cow.”
In that moment, all the goodwill from the recent Shuras and school visits evaporated into thin air. The elder was asking for ten times more in compensation for the cow’s death than his granddaughter’s.
I wanted to punch him in the face, but instead I just walked away. I told Shams to have the elder follow us back to the vehicle so he could negotiate with my battalion commander instead of me. There was no way I was going to put the lives of my men in further peril in order to debate how much a farm animal was worth versus the life of a child.
As we drove back to Honaker-Miracle, I removed my helmet and bowed my head into my sweaty hands. When I slumped down in my truck’s passenger seat, I saw the dead child’s mutilated face. Her face would return to haunt me many times.
5 HONAKER-MIRACLE
I should have died several times in Afghanistan, but one day in 2010 in particular stands out.
It was springtime and the Taliban “A team,” led by Dairon, was back. Instead of enjoying the gradually warming temperatures, the soldiers at COP Honaker-Miracle were rewarded by daily increases in rocket-propelled grenade attacks, which were getting more and more accurate as the enemy regained its rhythm. As sure as the sun rose over the lofty mountains, whatever semblance of peace our small base enjoyed in the winter was now officially over.
My platoon was on its way back from Shege village on an otherwise pleasant afternoon when my CO contacted our M-ATV over the radio.
“Dagger-Four-Six, I need you to escort a clip to COP Michigan and then FOB Blessing,” he said while adding that Afghan soldiers were on their way to “help” us.
Receiving this order sucked on multiple levels. “Clip” was the nickname for a convoy of fuel trucks, which would make us sitting ducks for the Taliban and their RPGs. Going to Blessing also meant that our large veh
icles would have to lumber almost six miles along the river and through the lethal valley just to deliver some fuel. To make things even more complicated, we would have to escort a convoy of Afghan National Army vehicles along with us.
When the ANA convoy arrived, I stopped them and began embedding each vehicle into our patrol: first, an American truck, then two Afghan vehicles, a fuel truck, and two more Afghan vehicles, then my truck, then the second fuel truck, and so on. In total, there were three fuel trucks, four American vehicles, and six Afghan trucks.
Before we set out on a perilous journey, I confronted the ANA commander.
“Look, we have three fuel trucks in this patrol that are essentially powder kegs waiting to blow us all up,” I said to him through Shams. “That means we have to push through no matter what happens.
“My soldiers and I will come back to fight these guys later,” I continued. “But whatever happens out there: do not stop.”
As my translator relayed the message, the Afghan commander nodded his head and insisted that he understood.
“Okay, no problem, very good, very good,” he continually repeated.
We were slowly passing a dangerous area along the Pech river we called Turali when three consecutive RPGs—aimed straight at the fuel trucks—roared down from the mountains. All we could do for the next few seconds was hold our breath.
“They missed!” yelled one of my gunners, Richardson.
“Speed up and let’s get out of here,” I said while breathing a quick sigh of relief.
As soon as Mauldin’s foot hit the gas pedal, the two Afghan vehicles in front of ours stopped dead.
It took only a split second—which is all the time you have in a firefight—for my confusion to morph into unbridled rage. Adrenaline helped me push open my M-ATV’s heavy door as the Afghan commander ran up alongside our vehicle and started banging on it.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, DUDE?” I yelled as he stared at me in shock. “I TOLD YOU NOT TO STOP!”
I then yelled toward Shams.
“Tell him to get back in his damn truck and to stop being scared,” I screamed loud enough to ensure that Shams would hear me amid the chaos. “GO!”
Shams translated, but the Afghan commander kept standing still, paralyzed by fear.
With the likelihood of a follow-up RPG attack increasing by the second, I had no choice but to act. As all four American vehicles blasted the mountain with a massive amount of return fire, I dismounted from my truck and grabbed the ANA commander’s left arm. I tried to stay calm as I looked him in the eyes.
“You have to trust me,” I said. “If we stay here, we are going to lose people.”
I then pointed toward his truck.
“Go back!” I said while raising my voice.
There was still no response. With a duty to protect my men, I dragged the commander through the crossfire and threw him back into his truck. My actions surprised his fellow Afghan soldiers, who were sitting there doing nothing.
“We’ve got to go!” I said to the ANA commander before ducking behind his truck to avoid getting shot.
Following a sprint back to my M-ATV, I ordered my men to quickly light up the mountain with missiles and MK 19 grenades, which would complement their already furious .50 caliber machine gun fire. Suddenly, the ridgeline submerged in gigantic mushroom clouds of smoke.
Moments later, the enemy stopped returning fire. We weren’t sure if our foes were alive or dead, but either way we had to get the heck out of there before they hit one of those fuel trucks and turned all of us into a Fourth of July barbecue. About a minute later, the Afghan trucks ahead of us finally started to move.
When we arrived to drop off fuel at our first stop, COP Michigan, I got out of the truck. I was still very angry with the Afghan soldier, who was probably given his command because of his stature in a local clan, which was often the case in the Afghan National Army. Unlike Americans, ANA soldiers almost never receive proper training unless we give it to them.
“Commander, I need you to understand that you simply cannot stop when you get scared,” I said as SFC Staley lurked nearby to make sure I didn’t lose my temper. “That’s how people die. Let’s not do that on the way to Blessing, okay?”
A few minutes later, we proceeded with our patrol and dropped off the ANA convoy safely at FOB Blessing. Then we had to turn right back around and—once again—push through Turali.
As we approached this dangerous area for a second time, the warm afternoon sun was glistening off the Pech River.
“Coming up on Turali,” I said over the radio. “We don’t know how many of these guys we got last time, so be ready for anything.”
That was one of the biggest challenges about serving in this part of Afghanistan. Even after unloading hundreds upon hundreds of missiles, bombs, and bullets in a given hotspot, you usually wouldn’t know whether you actually took out the enemy.
Things were unusually quiet as Richardson scanned Turali using his joystick-controlled viewer, which I could also see on my separate command screen. After finding nothing, my eyes wandered toward the passenger’s window and beyond a nearby police station to the seemingly endless mountain scenery. In an attempt to calm my racing heartbeat, I took a deep breath while adjusting my perpetually uncomfortable heavy body armor.
Another soldier named Moffett, who was also scanning Turali, then broke my stare with six emphatic words.
“We are about to get hit,” he yelled.
While zooming in on the police station, Moffett had seen an Afghan policeman looking at the ridgeline to our north with binoculars while talking on his phone. As was all too common with the Afghan police force, he was probably working (or being forced to work) with the Taliban, and was therefore relaying our precise position to the enemy.
I was frantically scanning the riverbank for threats when a terrifying shadow appeared less than fifty feet from my window. I will never forget the sight of the rugged, bearded Taliban fighter popping up from behind a rock while holding a rocket launcher on his shoulder. It was aimed squarely at my face.
This was the moment of my death. I was sure of it.
I was just starting to warn my men of the looming rocket when I heard the unmistakable scream of an RPG being fired. As the terrible sound echoed through my ears, there was nothing left to do except shut my eyes.
My limbs tensed and my mind went blank. My heart rate slowed as I recognized that it was neither fight nor flight. All that was left for my men and me was to be at peace with our demise.
I thought of my Uncle Abdou. Even though I was about to be killed in Afghanistan at a young age, I thought, at least I had done everything in my power to avenge his death, as well as the deaths of many innocent Americans who lost their lives on 9/11. I saw the RPG coming directly at me.
Just as it was about to make contact, I blacked out.
• • •
A miracle occurred that day on the banks of the Pech River when the Taliban fighter’s RPG faltered.
Instead of crashing through our vehicle and blowing up four American soldiers, the RPG instead hit the top of the frame of the very window I was looking out of. It then bounced straight up in the air, detonating above us.
I was jolted back to consciousness when our vehicle shook from the explosion.
“Holy shit!” my driver yelled as the detonation rattled the M-ATV’s windows and the pits of our stomachs. “Smoke that guy, Richardson!”
Staying as calm as he could in a life-or-death moment, Richardson quickly found the enemy fighter, who was running away, on his screen. After adjusting his joystick, he pressed the red button and fired.
Just as the lethal .50 cal rounds were about to hit him in the back, the Taliban fighter turned around—seemingly on cue—and looked at us. The rounds struck him in the chest and blew his body apart.
As pieces of this man’s body flew in the air, I heard cheering. I recognize that it must be strange and rather sickening to read about a bunch of guys celebrating a m
an’s gruesome death, but having just survived a terrifying attack, we cheered.
The near-death experience shook me up, and both Moffett and Richardson knew it. After we were in the clear, they started reminding me over the radio that the threat had been eliminated.
“We got him, sir,” Richardson said.
“Thanks for saving our asses,” I said. Those were the only words I could muster while my mind came to grips with the fact that I wasn’t dreaming. Somehow, we had all made it out of Turali without suffering a single scratch.
By the grace of the same God who spared our lives, the rest of the drive back to Honaker-Miracle was uneventful. As we ate dinner together on the base, I realized that all of my men—not just me—were at a loss for words.
“Close call out there today,” Staley said in a monotone voice accompanied by a wry smirk.
Honestly, what else was there to say? For some reason, we had escaped an insane situation that should have put us all inside flag-draped caskets on a C-130 bound for Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
For the next five minutes, I enjoyed the hot dog I was eating in our tiny chow hall. The cliché of feeling “lucky to be alive” was more real than ever as my soldiers and I shared that moment as friends and brothers. We had all been given a second chance.
• • •
By the first night of April, my vivid nightmares about the dead Afghan girls were getting worse. In one particular dream, I was kneeling over one of the girls’ bodies when she woke up, grabbed my body armor, and asked why I didn’t keep my promise to help the innocent children of Afghanistan.
Just as I was about to tell the little girl that I was sorry, a jarring knock on the door jolted me out of my sleep.
“Sir, permission to enter?” the voice on the other side of the door requested.
I was upset, confused, and half asleep when I trudged through the dust, answered the door, and saw the face of one of my platoon’s youngest soldiers.