Red Platoon

by Clinton Romesha

  At the end of the Hescos was the Haji Shop, the small five-by-eight-foot room that doubled as both the living quarters for John Deere, the commander of Keating’s Afghan Security Guards, and also the place where he sold cigarettes, chewing tobacco, pirated DVDs, and other items. As we got to the corner, I peered around and saw that the plywood door to the shop was closed.

  That wasn’t good.

  If anyone was in the room, they would be able to shoot all six of us in the back as we were setting up our security. That threat had to be eliminated.

  The best tool for the job, by far, was hand grenades. Unfortunately, we’d used up all of ours, and the only way to get more was by reaching the ammo depot. So the Haji Shop would have to be neutralized by hand—a task that fell to me and Dulaney.

  Though I couldn’t see inside, I was familiar with the interior layout. I knew that the ceiling was low and made of plywood, and that the walls were covered with blankets. I also knew that John’s bed was on the right side of the room, and that most of his stock was on a set of shelves to left, along with his TV set, which sat in the corner. Finally, I knew there was a cubbyhole directly behind the bed with a couch inside it. That cubbyhole was my biggest concern. As Dannelley and I posted up on either side of the door, I gave him the plan.

  “Look, I don’t want to see any fancy double-tap stuff,” I said. “Raz is gonna take care of the door, then you and me are gonna spray and clear. We both start in the center. Keep your M-4 on a three-round burst and work to your right while I go left. Anybody who’s inside dies. Got it?”

  He nodded.

  With that, Raz kicked in the door, then me and Dannelley entered and dropped to waist level, kneeling shoulder-to-shoulder.

  I took the center left, he took the center right. We opened up and took the room apart with our guns, destroying everything, including the TV.

  There was no one inside.

  “Clear!” yelled Dannelley.

  Phase one of our assault was in the bag.

  • • •

  BEFORE TURNING to phase two, we needed to set up a security team by placing our two machine-gunners in positions that would enable them to cover as many sectors of fire as possible.

  I immediately put Dulaney on the corner of the Hescos that made up the west wall of the Haji Shop. By kneeling down on one leg and using the corner of that wall to steady his SAW, he could fire uphill toward the mechanics’ bay, the laundry trailer, the Waterfall area, part of the Switchbacks, and, off to his far right, a portion of the trench that led to the east door of the Shura Building. This would enable him to shoot anybody who tried to move through the open area in the western side of the outpost.

  Directly behind Dulaney, less than ten feet away, there was an eight-by-eight-foot window in the Hesco wall that formed the northern perimeter of the outpost. This opening, which offered just enough room for a machine-gunner and his assistant, and which was normally manned by the Afghan Security Guards, was known as the Northern Fighting Position. It commanded a view that included our helicopter landing zone, the rickety footbridge leading to the shoreline at the bottom of the North Face, part of the Afghan Security Guards’ checkpoint, and a good stretch of the road leading to Urmul, along with the north side of the Putting Green. That’s where I ordered Jones to set up.

  Jones and Dulaney were now posted back-to-back and facing in opposite directions so that their combined sectors of fire covered both the north and the south. When they were in position and ready to fire, they both called, “Set!” That was the signal for me and the rest of the guys to secure the ammo supply depot, just ten feet away.

  The doors to the ASP were partly open, and one of them still had a lock dangling from a broken clasp. Miller seized hold of the closest door and swung it all the way open, enabling me to step in with my weapon raised and ensure that no one was inside.

  “Clear!” I said.

  Time to reload.

  We started by plucking out a crate of fragmentation grenades and setting it beside Jones. Then we started grabbing whatever we thought we needed in order to beef up for our next move. This included linked machine-gun ammo for the 240s, the Mark 48s, and the SAWs, as well as loose rounds for the assault rifles, snub-nosed .203 rounds for the grenade launchers, linked grenades for the Mark 19, and a bunch of claymore mines, plus a couple of choice items like a pair of AT4s, which Raz eagerly seized—and which would come in handy shortly.

  As we were getting our stash together, a line of guys from all three platoons suddenly showed up—courtesy of Bundermann, who had ordered everyone to hustle out of their barracks—and we started handing bullets and ordnance out in bulk:

  Here’s two thousand rounds of 7.62 for the Mark 48 machine gun . . .

  Here’s a crate of linked 5.56 to the SAWs . . .

  Here’s a case of Mark 19 ammo. Get this to Koppes now!

  They disappeared into the enemy fire to make their deliveries, then swiftly came back for more. On his return trip, one of the ammo runners brought up a 240B machine gun, which we immediately swapped out for Jones’s SAW.

  Within a few minutes, we were feeling pretty solid. We had a medium-range light machine gun and a long-range heavy machine gun. We had as much ammo as we could possibly wish for, along with a couple of other items that could wreak some serious havoc. All we needed now was for Hill to finish getting his machine gun team in place up by the chow hall, and we’d be ready to make our next move.

  Suddenly, we heard a burst of fire followed by a warning shout:

  “We got guys! WE GOT GUYS!” yelled Dulaney as he opened up with the SAW.

  Three Taliban carrying AK-47s were making a rush from the area where the front gate was located—a kill zone that was invisible to us, but from which they should have been destroyed by Hill’s machine-gun team—and racing toward the mechanics’ bay.

  They ran as fast as they could while Dulaney chased them with the tracer rounds from his gun. As the trio of gunmen disappeared behind the building, which was basically a large garage made of plywood, four more insurgents popped up from behind the laundry trailer and the latrines, which was another area that should have been covered by Hill’s team. It was clear that they were intending to set up their own support by fire so that their comrades would be able to assault directly into us.

  My gaze snapped back to the mechanics’ bay, where I could now see two of the three gunmen peeking their heads around the corner. Just then, Lakis, the Latvian first sergeant, showed up to see if there was anything he could do to lend us a hand. Once again, he was carrying his grenade launcher.

  “Lakis, it’s just plywood,” I barked. “Hit ’em with your .203!”

  Without hesitating, he launched the first in a series of grenades into the mechanics’ bay. He didn’t bother taking careful aim, preferring instead to start blowing holes through the walls. As each grenade penetrated the cheap plywood sheeting, we could hear the explosions inside.

  Pfffft . . . buh-wham!

  Pfffft . . . buh-wham!

  Pfffft . . . buh-wham!

  While Lakis sent out one grenade after another, Dulaney started stitching a ragged line down the entire length of the building at waist height with his SAW.

  The combined fire was so murderous that the insurgents on the other side of the structure flung themselves inside a pickup truck parked behind the building, but it did them no good. Although the truck was invisible to Lakis and Dulaney, the rounds they were putting out went straight through the mechanics’ bay and shot the truck to pieces. Later on, we would discover the interior and the sides of the truck smeared thickly with blood.

  All of this should have been satisfying, but I was appalled that the enemy was moving so freely through the sectors of camp that were invisible to us. The crossfire that should have cut them to ribbons, hadn’t materialized.

  Where the hell was Hill’s team?

&nb
sp; • • •

  AS IT TURNED OUT, instead of getting his machine gun in place up by the chow hall to cover our assault, Hill had been focusing most of his attention on securing the eastern side of the outpost.

  In some ways, this made sense. The Afghan National Army compound was now a raging inferno, and if that fire was not brought under control, it threatened to breach our final defensive perimeter and engulf the buildings inside the Alamo Position. Hill was also concerned that Taliban fighters might be moving into that side of camp by using the smoke and flames as cover. Finally, he was worried that the Afghan Army’s ammunition stash, which abutted two of our barracks buildings, would cook off and blow up.

  To deal with all of this, Hill had sent Sergeant Eric Harder and a handful of Blue Platoon’s senior-ranking soldiers toward the eastern part of camp with orders to fight the flames and shoot any Taliban fighters they might see. Unfortunately, that plan had started to unravel when Harder and his team opened the door to the first building they needed to clear—the barracks for HQ Platoon—and were greeted with thick clouds of smoke indicating that the structure was already on fire.

  Finding no one inside, they’d moved through a narrow alleyway to the northeast, where they’d posted up and started shooting at shadowy figures inside the burning Afghan barracks, whom they’d assumed to be enemy fighters. When the flames became too intense, they rushed over to the adjacent building, where they feverishly gathered up whatever material they could get their hands on—bullets, radios, first-aid supplies—and began ferrying those items back toward the center of camp.

  This might have been a good strategy if me and my guys weren’t attempting to launch a counterattack in the opposite direction, the success or failure of which would determine whether we were able to retake Keating or got wiped out. Under the circumstances, however, putting out flames and preventing our valuables from getting torched was of secondary importance—a fact that Harder fully grasped, even if his boss didn’t.

  “Hey, let me get that machine gun in place for Ro and his team,” Harder was now radioing to Hill. “We need to move up to the chow hall!”

  Each request was met by the same reply from Hill: “No, you need to stay where you’re at.”

  Harder was clearly frustrated. He knew that we desperately needed some machine-gun support to complete the next phase of our assault. Without effective cover fire from the chow hall, my own team would be dangerously exposed as we made our run toward the Shura Building. Getting that gun in place was absolutely critical, and in Harder’s view, the breakdown in communication between himself and Hill had now put me and my squad in peril.

  As if to underscore Harder’s assessment, a group of Taliban attackers just outside Keating’s northern perimeter were already running past the Afghan Security Guard checkpoint toward the front gate with the clear intention of setting up a flanking maneuver that would destroy any attempt we made to retake the Shura Building.

  Unfortunately for those enemy fighters, however, Jones had spotted their move and knew exactly what they were trying to do.

  • • •

  BY NOW, JONES had his machine gun poised inside the window that looked out from the Northern Fighting Position. Scanning down the barrel of the Mark M240B, he had a commanding view of the entire North Face, our helicopter landing zone at the confluence of the Landay-Sin and Darreh-ye Kushtāz Rivers, and the Afghan National Police station. He couldn’t see the front gate or the village of Urmul, which were both blocked by the Shura Building. But he was in a superb position to observe the open ground that the enemy fighters would have to cover if they wanted to send reinforcements through our front gate. So when he realized that a cluster of insurgents lay partially concealed in a variety of spots spread across his sector of fire, he started laying down the law.

  At the base of the Putting Green, roughly two hundred yards away, was a large egg-shaped rock, behind which five enemy fighters were attempting to hide. When they realized that Jones had them in his sights, they broke cover and tried to sprint over a low hill that was strewn with small bits of shale in order to take shelter inside Urmul.

  Showing no mercy whatsoever, Jones ruthlessly picked those men off, directing an accurate five-round burst into each fighter before moving on to the next, and dropping all of them in their tracks. It was impressive and devastating to watch—although the spectacle wound up creating an unexpected problem.

  In the process of getting Jones set up inside his Hesco window, I had ordered Dannelley to drop down beside Jones’s shoulder and serve as his assistant gunner, which meant that he’d be feeding belts of ammo into the M240 to ensure that the gun didn’t jam. Even more important, Dannelley was also supposed to be compensating for the fact that Jones had a dangerous blind spot.

  Thanks to the thickness and height of the Hesco barrier on which his gun was set up, Jones could see only the far side of the road directly below him. The near side of that road, which ran along the outside of Keating, was invisible to Jones. Thanks to this dead space, any enemy fighters who skirted along the Hescos could sneak up directly beneath the window where Jones was set up and kill him. So Dannelley’s primary duty was to prevent that from happening by peering over the edge and monitoring the dead space.

  Unfortunately, Dannelley quickly forgot all about this part of his job because it was so much more exciting to watch Jones’s shooting and act as his cheerleader.

  “Oh yeah, dude, get them fuckers!” he exclaimed as Jones started obliterating the insurgents. “Right on—open that shit up!”

  Jones, who was focused on shooting, had no idea that his assistant was paying zero attention to the dead space directly below him. Cool—me and Dannelley got a pretty good thing going right now, he thought to himself as he finished off the last fighter, scanned for another target, and caught sight of another Taliban team attempting to work its way toward the front gate.

  That comradely vibe was rudely shattered when Dannelley abruptly started calling out in a high-pitched voice, “Hey, you there—stop!” he cried. “Stop right there!”

  What the fuck is he talking about? Jones wondered as he squeezed the trigger and started hammering down on the men in the distance.

  Jones wasn’t the only one baffled that Dannelley, in the middle of a firefight, had suddenly started sounding like a security guard at a Costco parking lot. Right along the edge of the Hescos, where we were kneeling next to the doorway to John Deere’s room, Raz and I shot each other a look of total bewilderment—and then we both rushed over and peered down into the dead space.

  Less than ten feet away, a Taliban fighter wearing a camouflage uniform was staring straight up at Jones with a wolfish grin as he unslung his AK-47 and took aim.

  “KILL HIM—KILL HIM—KILL HIM—KILL HIM—KILL HIM!!!!!!” Raz and I screamed at the top of our lungs as Jones, who now realized what was happening, struggled to muscle his machine gun over the edge of the parapet and lower the barrel far enough to shoot the man below while yelling at Dannelley to get out of the way.

  Meanwhile, Dannelley, who should have spotted this dude long before he’d gotten in position to waste Jones but was still in the best spot to take care of the problem, stood up, aimed, pulled the trigger—and realized, too late, that he still had his safety engaged.

  In the half second that it took for Dannelley to click the safety off, the Taliban flicked his eyes away from Jones and snapped off a crisp burst. One of his bullets drilled Dannelley in the left arm, splitting open his triceps and shoulder like a ripe tomato, while another buried itself in Jones’s helmet and snapped the Kevlar band on which his blood type and roster number were displayed.

  As Dannelley dropped to the ground crying, “I’m shot—I’m shot!” Raz and I both reached into our racks, pulled out a grenade, and pulled the pin. Without needing to say a word, Raz dropped his straight over the wall. I tossed mine slightly farther out.

  Two seconds
later, when they both detonated at virtually the same instant, shreds of camouflage clothing flew into the air, surrounded by a pinkish mist.

  “Holy crap, did that just happen?!” exclaimed Raz.

  We looked at each other in astonishment—and then we both started laughing.

  By this point, Jones had confirmed that his head hadn’t been blown off, but Dannelley was writhing with pain and covered with blood. Crouching next to him, I unzipped his aid pouch and reached in to pull out a pressure dressing that would stop the bleeding, but my fingers closed around something crinkly.

  When I withdrew my hand, I was looking at a packet of peanut butter crackers.

  In further confirmation of the fact that Dannelley was not our platoon’s number one draft pick, he’d discarded his first-aid kit to make room for snacks to munch on when he was on guard duty.

  It was one thing to pull this kind of stunt in training back in Colorado. It was something else entirely to do it in a war zone. Yanking a spare pressure dressing from my own pouch, I bound it tightly around his arm without caring how much it hurt, then stood him up and gave him a hard stare. He’d come within a frog’s hair of getting Jones killed. Almost as bad, he’d allowed himself to get shot.

  “See the aid station over there?” I said, pointing east and giving him a shove. “Get moving.”

  Then, out of sheer disgust, I planted my boot as far up his backside as I could before turning around to deal with the business at hand.

  • • •

  DESPITE DANNELLEY’S INCOMPETENCY, we seemed to be holding our own, at least for the moment. Dulaney and Lakis were still going to town on the plywood-sided mechanics’ bay, while Jones was now back on his machine gun and concentrating on a pair of fighters whom he had driven from their cover near the Afghan Police checkpoint, almost two hundred yards away, and were now racing up the road to the north.

  Those guys had to cover about five hundred yards before the road started to bend with the river and curved out of sight. Jones smoked the second runner in his tracks, but the fighter in the lead was quite a bit faster. He was just a few steps from getting away, running at a dead sprint, when Raz got him in the crosshairs of the scope on his M4.