All the Ways We Kill and Die

by Brian Castner

  PKM—a common 7.62mm machine gun developed by the Soviets in the 1960s and used around the world

  PX—post exchange, the military’s department store

  qalat (Pashto)—the standard multifamily housing unit in Afghanistan. Often made of mud. Originally from the Arabic, for castle.

  queep—fighter pilot slang for paperwork and other bureaucratic trivialities

  Raptor—slang for F-22 fighter jet

  RG-31—a type of MRAP

  ROZ—restricted operating zone. The airspace around the target of an operation, where all aircraft must check in for clearance by a JTAC or the air warden.

  RPA—remotely piloted aircraft, the military’s preferred term for Predators and other similar airframes

  RTB—return to base

  salaam (Arabic)—peace, a typical greeting, shortened from the more traditional as-salaam-alaikum, meaning “peace unto you”

  salat (Arabic)—the obligation to pray five times a day, and one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith

  SAM—surface-to-air missile

  SEEK—secure electronic enrollment kit, a device that acquires a variety of biometric data. The replacement for the HIIDES.

  shaheed (Arabic)—a martyr

  shalwar kameez (Pashto)—the traditional dress of south Asia, baggy shirt and pants

  shura (Arabic)—a council or consultation

  SIGINT—signals intelligence

  SITREP—situation report

  SIM—subscriber identity module, the card in the back of a cell phone that uniquely identifies the phone number and account

  snake eater—slang for anyone in special operations

  SOCOM—Special Operations Command

  Strike Eagle—call sign for F-15E fighter-bombers

  T-38—a supersonic aircraft used to train fighter pilots

  takfir (Arabic)—the process of excommunication, by declaring another Muslim to be kafir, an apostate

  TAI—tactical area of interest

  talib (Arabic)—a student. The Taliban movement identify themselves first as students of the Koran.

  TECHDIV—the Navy’s Technical EOD Division at Indian Head, Maryland

  TEDAC—the FBI’s Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center

  terp—slang for interpreter

  TIC—troops in contact, a popular term for a firefight

  TOC—tactical operations center

  toshak (Pashto)—sleeping mattress, placed directly on the floor

  TOT—time on target

  Troy—the counter-IED task force for Iraq

  UAV—unmanned aerial vehicle, an older term for an RPA or drone

  ummah (Arabic)—the congregation of all Muslims

  UPT—undergraduate pilot training

  Viper—slang for F-16 fighter jets

  VOIP—voice over Internet protocol, a way to make voice phone calls using an Internet connection

  NOTES

  THIS BOOK IS PRIMARILY BASED on hundreds of hours of interviews with the principle characters. The names (and only the names) of Hayes, Gene Rich, and M——have been changed, to protect their privacy. Notes listed below reference outside sources or background interviews with others.

  PROLOGUE

  1 In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious: Nearly all correspondence, field reports, fatwas, and other communication among high-ranking jihadists begin with a prayer and invocation to Allah, to put the content of the message in context.

  1 fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem: The Sword Verse, Koran 9:5.

  1 fight them until there is no more oppression and all submission is made to Allah alone: Koran 8:39.

  1 all who are able must kill them in every country upon the earth until all Muslims are free: Fatwa by Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, dated February 23, 1998.

  1 thin wire leads: All descriptions of physical IED evidence in the prologue is based on the Air Force report given to the family of Matt Schwartz.

  1 albuyah nasiffah: The most common Arabic term for IED, based upon background interview with Arab linguist.

  3 I want to hear, he said: In a dozen years of doing demolitions all over the world, every explosives professional I have ever worked with gets quiet right before triggering the shot, in order to listen for fragments that may be hurtling toward your position.

  3 hump and flukes of Yunus’s whale: In Islam, Jonah (of the biblical story Jonah and the Whale) is known as the Prophet Yunus.

  CHAPTER 1

  12 Fifteen of my fellow EOD brothers had died in the previous twelve months: All EOD killed-in-action statistics are available at the EOD Memorial Foundation webpage (www.eodwarriorfoundation.org).

  12 a killed-in-action rate of 5 percent: Based upon ten operational companies of approximately thirty EOD techs each, the in-country manning at the time, according to background interview with an EOD staff officer.

  12 over ten times the average for American soldiers at the time: One-half percent killed in action rate based upon 418 killed (per iCasulaties.org) and a 2012 average of 90,000 troops, per the Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-troops-inafghanistan/2014/09/30/45477364–490d-11e4-b72e-d60a9229cc10_graphic.html (retrieved on September 21, 2015).

  CHAPTER 2

  18 he was off to Camp Snoopy: A conversation with Dee Downing, who deployed with Schwartz at the time.

  22 one can read the Wikipedia article: LAW 80: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAW_80 (retrieved on September 26, 2015).

  24 “They also serve, who only stand and wait”: John Milton, “On His Blindness.”

  25 bloodiest province in Afghanistan by a two-to-one margin: See iCasulaties.org: http://icasualties.org/oef/ByProvince.aspx.

  28 The average age of a US soldier killed in Vietnam was twenty-three: According to the Department of Defense’s Combat Area Casualty File, the basis for the Vietnam Memorial wall, average age was 23.11 years.

  28 The average in Iraq and Afghanistan was twenty-six: For Afghanistan figure, see James Dao and Andrew W. Lehren, “In Toll of 2,000, New Portrait of Afghan War,” New York Times, August 21, 2012. For the Iraq figure, see Don Babwin and Tom Breen, “NC Soldier, 23, Was Last US Troop Killed in Iraq,” Associated Press, December 18, 2011.

  29 Department of Defense’s only port mortuary: Air Force Port Mortuary Fact Sheet: http://www.mortuary.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=15361 (retrieved on September 21, 2015).

  30 A bum leg kept Zachary Fisher: Biographic information via the Fisher House website: https://www.fisherhouse.org/about/our-history/zachary-fisher-builder-philanthropist-patriot/ (retrieved on September 21, 2015).

  30 There are now sixty-five such houses: As per the Fisher House website: https://www.fisherhouse.org/programs/houses/ (retrieved on September 21, 2015).

  CHAPTER 3

  33 On April 6, 2007, a 107-millimeter rocket: Dates and basic information are found on the EOD Warrior Foundation website. Incident information via an interview with Josh Tyler, their tactical commander at the time.

  37 over two hundred thousand total at last count: As per David Hood, “Patriot Guard Riders’ Mission Expands,” Press-Enterprise, March 31, 2014.

  43 Matt is the fourth of five: CNN’s interactive casualty website provides comprehensive geographical data (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/war.casualties/).

  46 Lieutenant General James Kowalski: Full biography available at the Air Force website: http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/Biographies/Display/tabid/225/Article/107901/lieutenant-general-james-m-kowalski.aspx (retrieved on September 22, 2015).

  49 The dead included three Arab operatives: The full story on the drone strikes by Mark Hosenball and Chris Allbritton, “Exclusive: Senior Al Qaeda Figure Killed in Drone Strike,” Reuters, January 19, 2012.

  CHAPTER 4

  51 The Bomber is not the one wearing the suicide vest: For two even-handed accounts of suicide bombers, see Robert Worth, “Mad Bombers,” New York Times Magazi
ne, June 16, 2013, and Adam Lankford, The Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

  51 Hassan Ghul: Ghul’s presence in Iraq was seen as the indicator of much scheming and planning. For example, Andrea Mitchell, “Al Qaeda Captive in Iraq Talking,” NBC Nightly News, January 29, 2004.

  52 Invoking a hadith, a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammed, Al Qaeda proscribed: For essential background on Al Qaeda’s application of hadiths, see the prologue of Ali H. Soufan, The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011).

  52 al-Walid and al-Khattab: See Brian Williams, “Unraveling the Links between the Middle East and Islamic Militants in Chechnya,” Central Asia–Caucus Institute Analyst, February 12, 2003.

  53 We send them straight to Supermax: See Mark Binelli, “Inside America’s Toughest Prison,” New York Times Magazine, March 26, 2015.

  53 Yahya Ayyash: Ayyash took the al-Muhandis honorific himself and graduated from Birzeit University with an electrical engineering degree, fitting the profile well (as we’ll see later in the book).

  53 for crafting shoe bombs and underwear bombs: The previously mentioned al-Asiri, the maker of the underwear bomb, was named “The World’s Most Dangerous Man” in the August 5, 2013, issue of Time magazine. I would beg to differ.

  54 The Washington Post says the first IED: See Rick Atkinson, “The Single Most Effective Weapon Against Our Deployed Forces,” The Washington Post, September 30, 2007.

  54 the greatest casualty-maker of the last fifteen years: See the Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom data at the Defense Casualty Analysis System at the Defense Manpower Data Center (www.dmdc.osd.mil).

  55 Yet as late as December of 2004: Personal experience at Combat Skills Training at Fort Carson, Colorado.

  55 Warlock, Channel: See Noah Shachtman, “The Secret History of Iraq’s Invisible War,” Wired, June 14, 2011. Also, good background at GlobalSecurity.org: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/an-vlq-9.htm (retrieved on September 22, 2015).

  58 At that time there were 25,000 US troops in Afghanistan: As per the Washington Post chart: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/us-troops-in-afghanistan/2014/09/30/45477364–490d-11e4-b72e-d60a9229cc10_graphic.html (retrieved on September 25, 2015).

  58 Meanwhile, in the real state of Texas, there were over 54,000 police officers: 2009 Crime in Texas Report, see Chapter 7 (https://www.dps.texas.gov/crimereports/09/citCh7.pdf) (retrieved on September 25, 2015).

  58 The Engineer was back, and the IED-lite days were over: The Taliban themselves indicate that IED knowledge was transferred between theaters after the Iraq War. “Arab and Iraqi mujahedin began visiting us, transferring the latest IED technology and suicide-bomber tactics they had learned in the Iraqi resistance during combat with US forces.” (Sami Yousafzai, “The Taliban’s Oral History of the Afghanistan War,” Newsweek, September 25, 2009.)

  58 The total number of IEDs in Afghanistan doubled: The best data come from JIEDDO, which can be found here: Anthony H. Cordesman and Jason Lemieux, “IED Metrics for Afghanistan January 2004–May 2010,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, July 21, 2010 (http://csis.org/files/publication/100722_IED_INCIDENTS_IN_AFGHANISTAN.pdf) (retrieved on September 25, 2015).

  60 slowly from the center to the periphery, according to the method of the oil slick: Joseph-Simon Gallieni, Neuf ans à Madagascar (Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1908). See also Thomas Rid, “The Nineteenth Century Origins of Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 33, no. 5, 727–58, October 2010.

  60 Victor Krulak called for ink blots: Frank Everson Vandiver, Shadows of Vietnam: Lyndon Johnson’s Wars (College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 1997), 187.

  62 any public policy debate about the relative efficacy: For a well-considered opposing view that highlights the failures of COIN throughout recent history, see Gian Gentile, Wrong Turn: America’s Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency (New York: New Press, 2013).

  62 “The people are the prize.”: See General Stanley McChrystal’s November 2009 COIN Training Guidance (http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/AIWFC/COIN/repository/COMISAF_COIN_Training_Guidance.pdf) (retrieved on September 25, 2015).

  64 904 US soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines died: Consistently, the best casualty data is found at iCasulaties.org (http://icasualties.org/IRAQ/index.aspx) (retrieved on September 25, 2015).

  64 By mid-July 2008: Again, see James Dao and Andrew W. Lehren.

  65 The killed-in-action rate, per capita: See R. Lechner, G. Achatz, T. Hauer, H. G. Palm, A. Lieber, and C. Willy, “Patterns and Causes of Injuries in a Contemporary Combat Environment,” Unfallchirurg, February 2010, 113(2):106–13. For an update that includes the Afghanistan Surge, this rate can be calculated by dividing the total number killed by the number deployed in theater. Using the Defense Casualty Analysis System, there were 4,411 American deaths in Iraq among 1.5 million who served in theater, for a rate of 0.3 percent. During the Afghanistan Surge, there were 1,500 deaths among 240,000 who served there, a rate of 0.625 percent.

  65 Left of Boom: This language was so ubiquitous, Rick Atkinson used it as the title for his special report for the Washington Post, published September 30, 2007.

  66 We loved them like a gambler: Researchers have theorized that we grew much more attached to our robots, to the point of not sending them into harm’s way. See Julie Carpenter, “The Quiet Professional: An Investigation of U.S. Military Explosive Ordnance Disposal Personnel Interactions with Everyday Field Robots,” PhD diss., University of Washington, Seattle, 2013. I would respectfully disagree.

  66 each of us sent our anointed surrogate into the arena to fight in single combat: In The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe reminds us that in the 1950s, single combat involved fighter pilots, astronauts, and Sputnik. See Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff (New York: Picador, 1979), 97.

  66 We didn’t lose a Marine EOD technician until 2004: Again, see EOD Warrior Foundation (www.eodwarriorfoundation.com).

  69 mentioned only a handful of times in The Black Banners: See Soufan, pages 77, 112, 264, 327, 455, and 481.

  69 Early in The Outpost: See Jake Tapper, The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor (New York: Little, Brown, 2012), 42 and 48.

  70 The 2004 Duelfer Report on Weapons of Mass Destruction: See volume 1, page 81.

  70 Gopal mentions the Engineer only once: See Anand Gopal, No Good Men Among the Living (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2014), 207.

  70 Omar Yousef Hussein: See Mark Kukis, Voice from Iraq: A People’s History, 2003–2009 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 40.

  70 accumulation of information on the Internet: While Al Qaeda did compile an Encyclopedia of Jihad, they did not believe in creating “virtual training camps” online. As a matter of educational philosophy, they preferred that skills be acquired through experience via hands-on training in each jihadist’s home country. See Anne Stenersen, “‘Bomb-making for Beginners’: Inside an Al-Qaeda E-Learning Course,” Perspectives on Terrorism, 2013, vol. 7, no. 1.

  CHAPTER 5

  79 His Arabic was barely passable: Interviews with Hayes and others on background, on the prevalence of Arabic among the Pashto speakers of Afghanistan.

  79 shabby box of Chinese batteries: Personal experience collecting evidence and examining reports on completed Afghan IEDs.

  79 Sunlight streamed in the open windows: To get a sense of the atmospherics of daily life in Afghanistan, see Ben Anderson’s films The Battle for Marjah and This Is What Winning Looks Like.

  80 a small round container, plastic and rubber: A PMN landmine, found throughout the Panjwe and Arghandab Districts. For more information, see page 20 of the Afghanistan Unexploded Ordnance Identification Guide given to US soldiers (http://www.jmu.edu/cisr/research/OIG/Afghanistan/low%20res/08-Landmine.pdf) (retrieved on September 25, 2015).

  81 T
he Great Satan is always searching for a new land of the ummah to invade: For an example of this perspective, see Osama Bin Laden’s November 2002 open letter to America (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver) (retrieved on September 25, 2015).

  84 Solesbee and Hamski and six Pathfinders from Fox Company: The six soldiers are First Lieutenant Runkle, Staff Sergeant Mills, Staff Sergeant Osman, Sergeant Ramosvelazquez, Sergeant Bohall, and Specialist Patton (http://www.clarksvilleonline.com/2011/05/29/six-101st-airborne-division-soldiers-killed-in-afghanistan/) (retrieved on September 25, 2015).

  91 an expandable metal detector called a MIMID: The MIMID is made by the Schiebel company: https://www.schiebel.net/Products/Mine-Detection-Systems/MIMID/Introduction.aspx (retrieved on September 25, 2015).

  CHAPTER 6

  102 The NATO Role 3 hospital at the Kandahar Airfield: The hospital was famous throughout Afghanistan for having an extremely high survival rate; between 95 percent and 98 percent of all soldiers who arrived with a pulse lived. For an excellent report on the hospital at the time Fye was treated, see Corinne Reilly, “A Chance in Hell,” The Virginian Pilot, July 31, 2011 (http://hamptonroads.com/2011/07/chance-hell-part-one-inside-combat-hospital-afghanistan) (retrieved on September 25, 2015).

  CHAPTER 7

  108 The calibration knobs on the pins could be subtly adjusted: This process is known as the Ilizarov Technique. For a more in-depth discussion of the method and its challenges, see D. Paley, “Problems, Obstacles, and Complications of Limb Lengthening by the Ilizarov Technique,” Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, 1990 Jan (250): 81–104.

  108 only 5.6 centimeters: Ibid.

  108 a number of medical complications to the frame’s use: For infection complications, see Aik Saw, Yp Chua, Golam Hossain, and Subir Sengupta, “Rates of Pin Site Infection During Distraction Osteogenesis Based on Monthly Observations: A Pilot Study,” Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery, 2012; 20(2):181–4.

  109 Surgeons were so inundated with patients that: See Chad Krueger, Joseph Wenke, and James Ficke, “Ten Years at War: Comprehensive Analysis of Amputation Trends,” Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, December 2012; 73(6 Suppl 5):S438–44.