by Mitch Weiss
But just when he was ready to stay down, his will to survive kicked in. He wanted to get out of this place alive. He didn’t want to die on the side of a mountain so far from home. He wanted to see his family and friends. And he was so close to escaping. He was already halfway down the mountain. I’m going to get out of here. I’m not throwing in the towel. Dying is not an option, he said to himself.
The soldiers resumed moving Behr and he promised himself to drill deeper and muster enough strength to make it to the bottom. With the guns blaring in the background and Apaches buzzing overhead, the soldiers gingerly lowered him from ledge to ledge. He didn’t know how long it took, but he finally reached a slope at the base of the mountain where SF soldiers and Afghan commandos were waiting. They quickly moved him to a casualty collection point. But shortly after he was placed on a Skedco, a softball-size rock rolled off the hill and bounced off his side.
“Are you fucking kidding me!”
58
Howard
Sliding behind his sniper rifle, Howard started to scan windows again for gunmen. He had to buy time for the others to get off the mountain. The soldiers on the ledge were still taking pretty regular fire.
Between bullets impacting the rocks in front of him, Howard shot into the windows of the buildings above him. He started picking spots where he would hide. A crack in the wall. A clump of bushes. He never saw anyone. It wasn’t like they were fixing bayonets in preparation for a charge. He made steady work of shooting into every dark space in hopes of stemming the fire.
Howard was shooting his SR-25 inches over the top of CK and the dead Afghan commando they had dragged over for cover.
“Hey, Kyle, they’re both dead, right?” he asked.
Each round skimmed inches over their bodies about ten feet away. If they weren’t dead, a sudden move by one of them would change that.
“They’re both dead,” Walton said.
Rhyner was next to Howard, firing in between calling in air strikes. Every time he shot, shards of rock would cascade down on Howard. Howard figured Rhyner wasn’t elevating his barrel enough and was burying rounds into the ledge in front of them. It happens when the shooter doesn’t adjust for the sight on the rifle, which sits above the barrel. After several repetitions of this, Howard had had enough.
“Zach, what the fuck, man? You’re shooting the wall. Stop shooting the fucking wall.”
Rhyner turned to him. “No, I’m not.”
Just as Rhyner said it, more rocks hit Howard in the face.
“Never mind. It wasn’t you.”
A few shots later, the sniper missed short. The bullet hit a few feet in front of Howard. When a bullet hits at a shallow angle, it will cut a line down and then ricochet up and over. The shallow shot gave Howard a line pointing directly to where this asshole was hiding.
Before the mission, the team had rolled an RG-31, a massive armored truck, on the way from Kabul to Jalalabad. The trucks are equipped with a Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS) that allows the gunner to sit inside the truck and work the machine gun on the roof.
The remote system means gunners don’t have to stick their heads outside of the armored hull. On the outside, the machine gun sits on a motorized mount with a large camera underneath it.
The gun is controlled by a joystick that resembles a helicopter pilot’s controls with a target and toggle switches that allow the gunner to zoom in on targets. The camera has a laser finder to measure ranges, and night vision, which allow the gunners to pinpoint targets and zoom in close enough to see the enemy’s face, even at night.
When the team crashed the truck, Howard picked through the wreckage and snagged the laser range finder with a small LCD screen. He put a button on it to activate the laser and mounted it on his sniper rifle.
Now, up on the ledge, Howard lined up the shot with the range finder, following it up to a stable built into the side of the mountain next to a massive house the team had been trying to blow up since the start of the battle. From his scope, Howard could see two tiny windows facing the wadi.
It was 217 meters away.
Adjusting his scope, he emptied half of his twenty-round magazine through each one of the windows. He couldn’t go up and check to see if he had hit the sniper, but the shooting dropped off significantly.
Seeing an opening, one of the team’s interpreters, Max, raced to retrieve CK’s body. Walton had told the Afghan that they might have to roll CK off the side of the cliff to get him down. No one wanted to leave CK there, but it seemed to be the only option at the time.
“You have to move CK out of here. I don’t care how you do it,” Howard told Max. “You have to do it and you have to do it right now.”
While Howard covered him, Max dragged CK under the sloping rock. It was a sad scene. Max and a few of the terps slowly removed all his equipment and left it at the edge of the cliff. They tied CK’s shoes together and did the same with his hands, making it easier to carry him.
As soon as CK’s body was dragged away, the commando who had been shot in the head popped up and stumbled off the cliff to escape. Howard was stunned. A few minutes ago, he was firing bullets inches above the Afghan’s body. Now watching him rise was like watching a scene from The Night of the Living Dead.
I guess he wasn’t dead after all, Howard thought.
59
Walton
Now that the wounded had been evacuated, it was time for the rest of the soldiers to leave.
Walton glanced at the ledge and saw that there were only a few team members and Afghan commandos up there.
The terps had already left to carry CK’s body down the mountain. The wounded commando—the one they feared was dead—followed close behind. Walton knew there was no tactical reason to stay on that ledge. For all intents and purposes, Commando Wrath was over. At one point in the firefight, he had requested a “sizable QRF [quick reaction force]” with the “intent of reorganizing and reattacking after [they] evacuated the casualties.” He knew they didn’t have enough Special Forces advisers or terps to get the commandos to do what they needed them to do. In his view, the commandos—the celebrated fighting unit—were “completely ineffective in turning the tide of the situation.”
Walton was angry that they didn’t accomplish their goals—that Haji Ghafour, one of the top terrorists in the world, probably escaped. But Walton was pragmatic. He realized they had to get off the mountain and get out of the valley. Now it was all about saving lives.
“It’s time to go,” he shouted at Howard. “I need you to hold the ground.”
Howard understood; he would keep firing while the others tried to escape.
One by one the remaining commandos and team members began leaving, disappearing over the edge of the cliff while Howard provided cover. Williams started his descent, followed by Rhyner and Walton.
It was treacherous.
Walton was in top physical shape. But he was having a difficult time climbing down. Maybe it was because he had watched his fellow soldiers getting blown apart. Or that CK’s blood and brains were splattered on his uniform. Maybe it was because he came face-to-face with his own mortality. Whatever the reason, the battle had taken a toll. The West Point graduate who prided himself on setting and reaching lofty goals was physically and emotionally drained.
So as he climbed down, he slipped and fell twice, at least twenty feet. At one point, he was holding on to no more than a tree root. He used every last bit of strength to pull himself up. As he sat there, he realized that without that root, he would have fallen to his death. Rhyner had also slipped and tumbled and used the same tree root to save his life.
With all the slipping and sliding, rocks became loose and rolled down the mountain. Walton watched as some of the rocks hit soldiers in the wadi.
And he also noticed that the terps were having trouble carrying CK. They had been slipping, too, and near the bottom, they were forced to drop him the remaining distance. That was hard for Walton to watch. CK was a
terp, but he was also brother.
He had to stop thinking about CK. Even though the captain was close to the bottom, the mission was far from over. They were still under fire. And now that they were off the ledge, he knew the insurgents would focus their full attention on the wadi.
60
Howard
The ledge was littered with equipment.
Howard was the last American on the mountain and quickly started to toss the gear over the side.
A squad automatic weapon.
CK’s body armor and rifle.
Handfuls of M203 grenade rounds.
Even his own assault backpack.
The gear landed in the wadi below with a thud, much to the chagrin of the wounded soldiers. But there was no way Howard could carry it all down, and he didn’t want to leave it for the insurgents.
With the ledge clean, he began his descent with another commando who had stayed behind. Before that, Howard had handed the SR-25 to commandos scaling down the mountain. The rifle passed from commando to commando all the way to the wadi. Howard didn’t want to mess it up while he climbed down.
Armed only with a pistol, he quickly ran into trouble. He knew the route was steep, but he had trouble keeping his footing. At one point, he lost his grip in the dirt and the soil gave way. Grasping for anything, he latched onto a root that stuck out of the mountain, the same one that had saved Walton and Rhyner. It looked like something Wile E. Coyote would use to steady himself.
When Howard was about halfway down, Rhyner, unknown to Howard, had called in a two-thousand-pound bomb strike. Howard could hear the bomb whistling in and then his world went black.
The bomb hit the building directly above him—the one that he had been trying to hit with the Carl G. The structure was less than sixty feet away, but because it was up and over the ledge, there wasn’t a direct line to Howard. The angle of the cliff protected him from the pressure, but not from the debris, dust, and smoke that covered the cliff face. The entire mountain shook. Pressed as he was against the cliff, huge boulders bounced over him.
He couldn’t help but think how ironic it would be if, after everything he had been through this day, he died because of an American bomb—not an insurgent’s bullet.
Howard finally made it to the bottom. After he checked on the conditions of the wounded soldiers, he searched for his sniper rifle. But when he found it, he noticed that the LCD screen was cracked. The range finder was broken, but he wasn’t too upset. He’d stolen it, and the jerry-rigged device had served its purpose.
61
Sergeant First Class Sergio Martinez
The bottom of the hill looked like a triage ward.
Rhyner was crawling down the last steep incline of the hill, when Martinez arrived with his aid bag. As he approached, Martinez could see the interpreters rolling CK off the mountain. He watched as the terp’s body fell the last few feet to the wadi below.
While Lodyga met with Walton to coordinate the medevacs, McGarry set up a security perimeter around the bottom of the hill to ward off any attacks. Positioned near the goat barn where Ford waited, Martin was on the satellite radio calling in the medevac helicopters. They had gone to refuel and it would take a few minutes for them to return.
Martinez went straight to the wounded. They were laid out at the bottom of the cliff. He asked Shurer what he could do. The medic was focusing on Behr because he appeared to be in the worst shape. Nearby, Carter was tending to Morales.
“Help John,” Shurer said.
Kneeling at Walding’s side, Martinez broke open his medical bag.
“You’re going to be okay.”
Walding was scuffed up. His teeth were covered in dirt. Martinez could see his lips were dry from being dehydrated. Walding had a little smile and he kept asking for morphine. He was complaining about the pain and that he was having problems breathing. Martinez didn’t give him any because morphine depresses a patient’s respiratory drive.
He started an IV on Walding and then helped Carter start one on Morales. Since Shurer was short on medical supplies, Martinez’s aid bag became the only means of treating the wounded until the helicopters arrived.
We’ve got to get these guys out of here, he thought.
The shooting had slacked off a little, but Martinez knew they weren’t safe yet. He was amazed that the wounded were still alive, but the clock was ticking. When are the medevac helicopters going to show up?
62
Walton
When he reached the wadi, Walton consolidated his team and rushed to the goat shed. The captain’s goal was to “reestablish communications and control.” He wanted to know how the other ODAs were doing, and how close the medevac birds were to the valley. More importantly, he wanted to check on Ford’s condition. He was worried because the last time he saw Ford, his arm was ripped apart. Outside of Shurer briefly helping Ford tighten his tourniquet, no medic had checked on his wound. Walton was afraid that his condition had deteriorated. Shurer was busy tending to the wounded at the casualty collection point at the base of the mountain. So Walton knew he would have to use his medic skills to treat Ford.
When he entered the shed, Wallen was still in charge. Despite being wounded, he had kept control of the commandos around him and held the house. Walton was impressed. He knew Wallen had been injured early in the battle. Yet he stepped up and kept things under control.
Walton glanced at Ford, who was propped up against the wall.
“Kyle, you got to help me, man,” Ford said. “The pain. I need morphine.”
Kneeling down, Walton checked the tourniquet and Ford’s vital signs. He was stable, but had lost a lot of blood. He had already had three hits of morphine, and Walton was about to give him another, but stopped. He was afraid that another shot would decrease his respiratory drive. But Ford was still in pain.
Looking around, he noticed commandos on the other side of the stable.
“Get the fuck out there,” he furiously shouted, kicking them out the door. “Quit pussying out. Get back in the fight. This is where the casualties go. Not where you go.”
Walton turned his attention back to Ford, who looked tired. Ford was the backbone of the unit. He’d helped shape it. If they performed well under fire, he deserved much of the credit. He worked their asses off. Walton wanted Ford to stay in the shed—he didn’t want him moving around. That would only make things worse.
“You’re going to be okay,” Walton said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. The medevac birds will be here in two minutes and we’re going to get everyone out of here.”
Walton walked outside the building and found Mateen, the commando company commander.
“We’re going to bound back,” Walton told him. “Your next priority is getting accountability of your men.”
And he warned him: If Mateen didn’t have everybody accounted for, the commandos would go back up the mountain.
Walton hurried to the radio and reestablished communication with the other ODAs. He discovered that Mason’s unit was still holding its ground and fighting off the insurgents from its blocking position to the northwest of the casualty collection point. Wurzbach was also holding his ground to the southwest, and his unit was fighting a battle of its own against snipers and HIG fighters armed with AK-47s and RPGs on the western side of the objective area.
Up on the mountain, Walton had been so focused on finding a way off that he didn’t know the full extent of the enemy attack in the valley. Now he did, and he realized that this was a well-coordinated attack—and not just a defensive reaction to the American soldiers’ presence in the valley. The insurgents were too well prepared.
63
Wurzbach
Wurzbach was anxious to rejoin Walton’s team.
He knew the helicopters were headed to the valley to evacuate the soldiers. Besides, it was too dangerous at his team’s position. The enemy had a bead on them. His team had been dodging rounds and RPGs. But he also was worried about friend
ly fire. Helicopters and planes were flying over them, dropping bombs and strafing HIG positions. Every time one of the big bombs exploded, debris rained down on his men. It was just a matter of time before a bomb missed its target and hit too close to them.
Wurzbach called Plants on the radio and told him to bring everybody back to his position. After running across the open field with Noodles, Wurzbach had been sitting there scanning the objective area, trying to catch a glimpse of the assault team.
“We’re consolidating our location. If nothing else, it’s for friendly force identification. I don’t need the air crews dropping bombs on us, or strafing at us. We have enough shit going on. I don’t need them shooting at us,” he shouted.
When the commandos joined him, Wurzbach told them the plan. Through his interpreter, he said they were going to take a different path from the one they had climbed to get to the blocking position. Maybe that would catch the HIG fighters off guard. He wasn’t sure. He only knew that they had to leave—and sneak away.
Wurzbach and his men headed northeast toward the wadi. They moved slowly and carefully, and surprisingly, they received little fire. They managed to make it down from their position unscathed.
As his team neared the wadi, they reached members of the B team. They had been the air reaction force, dropped off by a helicopter earlier in the battle to help. Wurzbach began pumping one of the soldiers for information, trying to find out as much as he could about the assault force. What did they know? What was going on?