Not a Good Day to Die

by Sean Naylor

  However, the night was not to be wasted. Juliet Team decided to take advantage of the ISR aircraft assembled in the sky for India’s mission and instead embark on their environmental recce. Joining Juliet’s three Delta operators in two Toyota pickups were Jason, the Gray Fox SIGINT NCO, and Jay, the Air Force combat controller. Driving and riding shotgun were four other Delta operators: Sergeant Major Al Y., a laid-back Alabaman and the senior NCO in B Squadron’s recce troop, who had traveled from Bragg with India and Juliet; Captain John B., the northern AFO setup’s impressive commander; and Nelson, a SEAL Team 6 NCO. Nelson and Hans made up Northern AFO Team Two. The plan was for Juliet’s five men to jump off at a predetermined drop-off point in the mountains and trek to their observation post on foot. They picked a spot on Serawray, a mountain five miles southwest of the safe house that overlooked the Gardez to Zermat road. Once ensconced there, Juliet’s mission was to keep an eye on several “named areas of interest” (as the military refers to spots on the map that require particular attention), monitor the Zermat road and other trails, creek beds, and draws north of the Shahikot for patterns of enemy movement, and collect “technical information,” or signals intelligence—all while surviving the elements and staying out of sight of the hundreds of enemy fighters thought to be in the area.

  The small convoy pulled out of the compound and headed southeast toward the Sate Kandow. Driving with night-vision goggles instead of headlights, the operators coaxed the pickups off road and into the mountains. When they reached the drop-off point, Juliet’s five men jumped out and said their goodbyes. As the trucks turned around, the handful of Americans slung their rucks over their backs and began climbing south up the mountain, their M4 carbines in their hands. They started at 7,733 feet, just below the snowline, and climbed steadily upward. The weather worsened by the hour. A blizzard engulfed them as they labored through the thick snow and thin air. Now their endurance—and their gear—would be put to the test.

  The tough terrain, deep snow, and blinding storm eventually forced them away from their planned route. They descended to 8,300 feet to look for another path, but the steep slopes and awful weather persuaded them that the smartest course of action was to rest until daylight. While at least one man kept watch, the others huddled on the mountainside and tried to sleep. It wasn’t easy. They had packed with survival, not comfort, in mind.

  By daybreak almost twelve inches of snow had fallen. But the weather had cleared enough that they could plan another route to their desired observation post. They began their ascent. As they crept forward, Juliet saw no enemy guards. They concluded that the enemy’s positions were oriented on the roads that led toward the Shahikot. The Arabs and Uzbeks apparently did not anticipate anyone—least of all the soft, decadent Americans—would hike in along the snowbound ridgelines. “They really didn’t expect us to be walking anywhere,” said an operator. “They all expected the helo, which is what the whole world expects America to come in on.” Moving steadily, Juliet team reached its goal before sundown. The spot they picked faced southwest at 8,700 feet, just below Serawray’s peak. From this vantage point, looking through their high-powered scopes, Juliet could see people on the streets of Jannekhel, a town six kilometers to the southwest on the Gardez to Zermat road. Turning south, they could see the western slopes of snow-covered ridgelines flattening out into a valley of terraced fields and mud-brick houses about eight miles (14 kilometers) away. They were finally gazing upon the Shahikot.

  SHAHIKOT means “Place of the Kings” in Pushto, and the valley had a long history as a place of refuge, if not for kings, then certainly for warlords. It had been a stronghold for Pushtun guerrilla commander Jalalluddin Haqqani during the 1980s. A glance at the map made it easy to see why. The Shahikot’s terrain strongly favored the defender. It was riddled with natural and man-made caves. Criss-crossing the valley floor were dry creek beds that doubled as trails into the mountains. The key terrain—that which, when held by either side, will provide a decisive advantage—was in the ridgelines: the Whale, the eastern ridge, and the Finger. From the Whale, the enemy enjoyed a commanding view of the approach from Gardez, and could see any vehicle approaching from several miles away. “You don’t really have to do too much to get yourself seen,” said a Dagger NCO. “It’s a difficult area to get into without being observed…. You’re only going to get so close before you either one, get seen, or two, start getting engaged. And once you’ve been observed and engaged, then the cat’s out of the bag.”

  JULIET spotted little of note, observing only three vehicles, all traveling along the Gardez to Zermat road. They spent their second night in the mountains. They were at the limits of even their endurance, shivering on the edge of hypothermia. Their superior fitness and cold weather equipment saved them.

  The next morning the team retraced their steps to where they had begun their trek into the mountains. The same operators who had driven them out the previous evening picked them up. When they had returned to the safe house and warmed up, they gave their report. The 1:100,000 maps they had been using were not good enough for navigation and planning, due to the fifty-meter contour level. This observation made the Juliet members the first—but by no means the last—U.S. soldiers to complain that their maps of the Shahikot did not match reality. Better resolution was offered by Soviet 1:50,000 maps that AFO had, as well as the FalconView computerized mapping program. Jason, the Gray Fox NCO, said he had been able to communicate well with the Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft that was supporting Juliet’s mission. (The Rivet Joint is an extensively modified C-135 whose crew of thirty-two can detect, identify, and geolocate almost any electronic or communications broadcasts across the electromagnetic spectrum, and then forward that information in real time to intelligence consumers, be they national-level decision-makers in Washington or NCOs shivering on the side of an Afghan mountain.) The team also discovered to their dismay that batteries died very quickly in the mountains. This was a serious problem. The green, brick-sized BA5590 batteries powered their radios and laptop computers—their lifeline to Gardez and beyond. Under normal conditions two batteries would run a PRC-117 satellite radio nonstop for forty-eight hours, but the cold cut this time in half. This meant that when the teams returned to the Shahikot before D-Day, they would have to strike a balance between increasing their overall loads and sacrificing food and cold-weather gear in order to carry more batteries.

  WHILE Juliet shivered on Serawray on February 21, India Team prepared for its long-delayed mission to reconnoiter the southern approaches to the Shahikot. The area around the valley was increasingly popping up in human, signals, and imagery intelligence reports, but at only five places did two of the intelligence disciplines indicate enemy activity. These were: a pair of DShK heavy machine gun positions on the Whale, where man-made structures had shown up in overhead imagery; the Ewadzkhal cave area, where human intelligence and the Predator had identified enemy activity; a spot in the middle of the Upper Shahikot Valley where signals and imagery indicated activity; and at Jahangir Kot, six kilometers south of the Shahikot, where human intelligence and signals intelligence came together. There were only two locations where all three intelligence disciplines coalesced. The first was a cave along the Sorbuchi Khwar, a stream that ran south from the Shahikot to the east of the Finger. An overhead system had photographed a vehicle with personnel standing nearby on a road beside the stream. The CIA’s agents reported a cave near there with many Al Qaida and Taliban forces. Intercepted transmissions also suggested this was an enemy hideout. The second location was an Al Qaida headquarters that spies said was just south of Celam Kac, a hamlet about five kilometers south of the Shahikot. The AFO troops got their hands on overhead photos that indicated three buildings at the location of the supposed headquarters. Signals intercepts supported this conclusion. All this information was fed to India Team to help focus their reconnaissance.

  But time was running out. Anaconda was scheduled to kick off in less than a week. If India’s m
ission was to be a “go,” it had to be tonight. The plan was still to infiltrate the team by helicopter onto the southern slopes of the Zawar Ghar range about a dozen kilometers south of the Shahikot. The team was to move immediately to an observation post where they would spend the day watching a spot where the Arme Khwar stream that ran east to west met a trail leading south from the tiny village of Celam Kac. The AFO commandos thought that trail was the most likely escape route for Al Qaida forces in the Shahikot. From there the team was to move north to other observation posts from which they would be able to spy on the two locations where human, imagery and signals intelligence all came together to indicate an Al Qaida presence. The team’s northernmost observation post would be on the Pecawul Ghar ridgeline, just four kilometers south of the Shahikot itself. The operators had chosen their route after intensive study of maps and overhead photos. But they weren’t looking for the most navigable path. On the contrary, they chose their route precisely for its treacherous terrain and high elevation. It would be where the enemy least expected to find Americans.

  That afternoon a new weather forecast predicted snow and high winds for the next three nights. This raised the stakes. If any team member fell victim to enemy attack, hypothermia, altitude sickness, or even a simple climbing accident, there would be no chance of a medevac helicopter or a quick reaction force coming to their aid. The operators would be on their own with just their weapons and their wits to protect them. For many commanders, whether ornot to send the team on such a perilous mission would have been a tough call. But it was a no-brainer to Blaber. He had full faith and confidence in his troops’ ability. Speedy and Bob had spent their lives stalking game in some of the most isolated parts of the United States. In Blaber’s view they were uniquely qualified for the mission. He was taking a calculated risk, but the potential payoff in information was worth it. The mission was a go.

  Four men would brave the mountains. The original India Team members—Speedy and Bob—were again joined by Hans the SEAL. Added to the mix was a quiet, black-haired NCO of medium build called Dan, a Gray Fox linguist in his mid-twenties whose job would be to intercept and monitor communications using a small piece of equipment that resembled a police radio scanner. In the darkness a pair of the 160th’s MH-47E Chinooks landed outside the safe house. The four operators climbed aboard and the helicopters flew south into the night. But again, the preferred landing zone on the south side of Zawar Ghar was obscured by clouds. This time the operators decided to take a chance. They had the helicopters fly about ten kilometers west along the southern slopes of Zawar Ghar to a break in the mountains. There, the two Chinooks banked right and then right again, heading north and then east along the mountain range’s northern face until they reached an alternate landing zone in Zawar Ghar’s northern foothills. The four passengers jumped out at the bottom of a small mountain Speedy judged to be “Hill 2835” (so named because that was its height in meters), on top of which he planned to establish their first observation post. But as they clambered toward this initial destination, they realized, as Juliet had several days before, that the maps did not do the terrain justice. It was far more uneven and tougher to traverse than the team had anticipated. Again and again they had to descend into steep ravines and then attempt the backbreaking climb back out the other side. When they reached the peak, Speedy saw another small mountain about a kilometer to the northeast. It could only be Hill 2835. They had just spent hours climbing the wrong mountain. Speedy broke the bad news to his colleagues and they set off again, slipping and sliding in single file over a seemingly endless series of ridges and humps.

  Delta’s extensive mountain training in Montana and elsewhere had taught the AFO troops what equipment was needed to endure such a harsh environment. They would be walking for miles on end at high altitude, so their clothing and sleeping gear had to be warm enough to keep them alive and ready to fight, but not so bulky or heavy that it slowed them down. They wore black thermal underwear for warmth under desert camouflage Gore-Tex jackets and pants that kept them dry in the snow. Waterproof gloves protected their hands. Each team member wore his favorite brand of cold-weather combat boots. On their heads the operators wore Pro-Tek foam-lined plastic sports helmets that they modified by cutting off the earpieces and adding chinstraps and mounts for their night-vision goggles. The helmets offered no ballistic protection but weighed less than a pound and allowed the operators to avoid wearing the awkward face mounts for night-vision goggles. They also wore Peltor earmuff-style radio headphones, which blocked out loud noises like close-in gunfire while enhancing distant sounds like footsteps. The operators also carried Afghan scarves and blankets, so that if seen from afar as they picked their way along the ridgelines, they wouldn’t stand out immediately as Americans. None of them wore body armor. Too heavy and bulky for their mission, it also prevented snipers from lying fully prone. In an effort to save weight, the operators carried just one cold-weather sleeping bag between them, to be used only in emergencies. “If a guy went hypothermic, we could at least stuff him in a bag and warm him back up,” an operator said. Otherwise, they slept in “Norwegian sleeping bags” they had bought on a mission in Bosnia. These were little thicker than military poncho liners and could be rolled into tiny packages and stuffed in rucks. When bedding down, an operator would slip the Norwegian sleeping bag into a “bivvy sack,” a Gore-Tex shell that kept the sleeping bag—and the soldier inside it—dry. Before moving out, the operators packed the sleeping gear, food, water, and communications equipment into civilian long-range mountaineering and hunting rucks designed to distribute weight evenly. The commandos spraypainted these in khaki and tan camouflage patterns, except for a couple that came with a preprinted camouflage design for civilian hunters.

  Bob the “pack mule” broke the trail. As they ascended the real Hill 2835, this meant creating a path through thigh-deep snow that sucked energy from them at every step. The conditions were brutal. The effort required to hump eighty-pound rucksacks uphill through thick snow at high altitude forced the team to pause every half-dozen steps. It was a cloudless night. The temperature hovered around 20 degrees Fahrenheit, but the cold didn’t bother the operators as long as they were moving. “You’d be sweating while you were climbing, and as soon as you sat down to rest, in about three or four minutes you’d be cold because the wind was blowing and you’d start to chill instantly,” an operator recalled. “As soon as we started getting cold, we’d get up and start moving again.” The slope became so steep that the operators were crawling up on their hands and knees. Dan, the linguist whose day-to-day job gave him the least preparation for such exertions and who might reasonably have been expected to complain or quit, just kept putting one foot in front of the other. Hans, the SEAL Team 6 operator, was a different story, especially as he realized how far Speedy expected the team to hike over the next several days. “This is bullshit,” he complained. “We’re never going to make it.” It was a refrain he would keep up for the rest of the mission, but Speedy ignored him. The team leader was determined to gain the high ground, even if their calves, thighs, and lungs had to pay a terrible price to reach it. If the enemy spotted them, Speedy wanted to be on a ridgeline or a mountaintop, not down in a valley. He was sure that even though they were only four men armed with rifles, once on the high ground they could hold off any attack until close air support jets arrived.

  The team reached the summit thoroughly spent and with daylight less than an hour away. From their perch they had a clear view down the northeast slope of Hill 2835 to the confluence of the Arme Khwar and the trail from Celam Kac about 1500 meters to the northeast, where signals intelligence had indicated some activity. The operators spent the rest of February 22 holed up behind some rocks watching the spot, taking turns to try to sleep. Using a small Panasonic laptop, Speedy wrote a report and sent it back to Gardez as a document over the satellite radio. The team saw nothing moving. When darkness fell, they pulled their rucksacks over their shoulders and set out again, heading fo
r the slopes of Pecawul Ghar, the peak of which rose six kilometers to the northeast. They left Hill 2835 via a draw on its eastern side. Compared to the climb up, it was easy movement despite the sharp incline, because the waist-deep snow prevented them from falling when they lost their balance. Once at the bottom of the mountain the snow only came up to their knees, and they reached the Arme Khwar stream within two hours of setting off. It was a bright, moonlit night. While Dan and Hans rested, Speedy and Bob spent an hour reconnoitering farther upstream to the east. They saw nothing out of the ordinary, and, after locating a spot that could be used for an emergency helicopter landing zone, they rejoined the others. The team began climbing the southern slopes of Pecawul Ghar, which lay just across the creek from Hill 2835. Here the sun had melted the snow, but this actually made the ground more difficult and dangerous to cross. The loose shale underneath frequently gave way as the operators’ feet searched for purchase on the steepest slopes. At one point their path was blocked by a sheer-sided 100-meter-deep ravine they knew they could not traverse, so they had to double back and around. The thin atmosphere again slowed the team’s movement, and they had to stop to catch their breath every minute or two. They would start to climb again as soon as the wind chilled the sweat on their bodies to the point where they were shivering uncontrollably. This usually took no more than two minutes. Few words were spoken. They were too busy gasping for air. Only the sounds of their boots slipping on the rocks and their labored breathing broke the silence of the Afghan night. When they finally stopped before dawn, they had climbed to about 3,000 meters. They settled in for the day on the eastern side of Pecawul Ghar’s long southern ridgeline. They had only traveled about three kilometers as the crow flies, but to their aching muscles and burning lungs it might have been thirty.