One Million Steps: A Marine Platoon at War

by West, Bing

  The platoon was fortunate in having firm commanders. Colonel Kennedy and Lieutenant Colonel Morris supported the platoon. Lieutenant Garcia received no cautionary “guidance” from above. It remained the judgment call of those on the patrol when to shoot and when to refrain. The squad leaders were mature; all had combat experience. All also had a wife and children waiting back home. They weren’t cowboys, but they didn’t want to place the pieces of their Marines in body bags.

  Day 33. 198,000 Steps

  On patrol in sector Q1C, 1st Squad hacked through heavy vines for two hours to approach a mosque from a safe direction. Inside the small building, the Afghan soldiers found two shovel heads, three illumination flares, six mortar rounds, two Icom battery chargers, one kilo of opium tar, a small bag of blue powder, electric wires, cleaning gear for an AK, and vials of animal medicine. While they were searching, a man drove up on a motorcycle, watched them for a few minutes, and drove away. As they were leaving an hour later, he drove up again. When the askaris yelled at him to come over, he hastily drove away.

  A Marine shot at him and he leaped off his bike, disappearing into the undergrowth. The patrol pursued, bursting into a nearby compound and finding blood splatters. The owner dragged out a slaughtered sheep. He said he locked his gate at sunset and minded his own business. He added that since he was poor, the Marines should give him money.

  Whatever the man knew, he wasn’t divulging. The Marines weren’t detectives and the translator, Rocky, had no interrogation training. Insisting he was lying, the askaris wanted to beat him until he talked. The Marines vetoed that, but saw no sense in dragging him back with them, since the district governor was sure to release him. Lacking any better option, the Marines left the compound. This was typical. Unless they had absolute physical evidence, the Marines did not make an arrest.

  Day 34. 204,000 Steps

  On November 15, LCpl. Clay Cook of 1st Squad shot a man talking on an Icom. Some farmers brought his body to Fires. Since he wasn’t from the area, they wanted the askaris to bury him. The askaris jeered and yelled at them to leave. The farmers walked a short distance back down the road, dug a grave, dumped in the body, stuck a piece of cloth atop a pole, and went back to their fields.

  Day 36. 216,000 Steps

  Thoman was leading 3rd Squad through the P8S sector, HiMars, where Marine artillery had wrecked several compounds. A few families were scraping by, too poor or outcast to leave the ruins. When a poor farmer held out his hand, Thoman took out a piece of waterproof paper and scribbled a note saying damages should be paid. The interpreter, Stevie, told the farmer to take it to the district governor.

  At another farm, women and children huddled in a corner. Their father had been killed; they had been bombed a week ago and were afraid the Marines had come to kill them. Thoman signed another chit, requesting payment for fourteen pomegranate trees. Next to the children, the Marines found two car batteries with wires attached, wrapped in plastic. They threw them into the canal, but did not take back the chit.

  The Marines knew they were dealing with a miserable situation. One entry in the platoon log for mid-November read, “At bldg 23, family came out. Took pictures of man, of house, his kids and elderly woman. Claimed to be his mother who[se] husband had been killed several months ago. Elderly woman acted unhappy with our presence. All lns [local nationals] saying they were afraid we would kill them. Also a woman at bldg 18 with no husband and young kids said she had to move there because her house had been bombed 10 days ago and the kid’s father had been killed. She was their grandmother.”

  The Marines were neither friendly nor hostile to the farmers. The grunts were focused on the fight and detached from the people. The poverty was stark and most farmers asked for something. The violence was also as pervasive as it was hidden. You could get blown up anywhere, but you couldn’t blame the farmers for staying silent or fearing the Marines. The grunts gave candy to children, returned grins if farmers smiled, and walked past those who didn’t.

  Capt. Tim Nogalski, 3/5’s intelligence officer, treated Afghan professions of loyalty with skepticism. Government officials, tribal sheiks, merchants, drug dealers, mullahs, Taliban, and farmers had four years to perfect their lines with the British before the Marines arrived. No promise, oath, or pledge of allegiance could be taken at face value.

  “It’s impossible to assess the number of enemy,” Nogalski said. “The Taliban can’t coordinate enough fighters to attack a single Marine platoon. But on the video screen, I watch whole neighborhoods evacuate enemy casualties and carry away the weapons. I can’t differentiate the people from the Taliban.”

  The intelligence of real use to Nogalski were target packages compiled from informants and electronic intercepts. In the past month, Objective White had been killed. Objective Black was a psycho who had killed his own father. Objective Kassidy was a traitor inside the Alakozai tribe who was trying to assassinate the top sheiks. Objective Wondra was the shadow district chief who had captured three sheiks last summer. In return, the Alakozai had kidnapped Wondra and released him in return for their sheiks. The score was one enemy leader down, and three to go (unless others replaced them).

  Day 38. 228,000 Steps

  Lantznester, the SAW gunner, and LCpl. John Payne were covering the rear of a patrol, watching an old man who had walked outside his compound wall, followed by several boys. After the Marines filed by, he gestured to the boys, who scampered out into the field, yelling back and forth and looking at the ground. When one boy shouted and pointed at the scuff marks left where the Marines had passed over an irrigation ditch, the old man grabbed a shovel. From several hundred meters away, Lantznester watched him through his telescopic sight.

  “Sergeant Dy,” he called over his mike, “that farmer looks shady. He’s digging an IED hole on our back trail.”

  “Light him up.”

  Several Marines opened fire. The man collapsed and the boys ran inside the compound wall. The patrol continued on.

  “Our counterinsurgency training in the States was good,” Lantznester said. “We were taught to help the people. But it didn’t work out at Fires. The farmers didn’t like us foreigners. Our terp, Stevie, was great. He’d kick the Afghan soldiers in the ass when they needed it. He warned us when atmospherics in the fields were turning bad and he’d argue with the farmers.”

  Every American platoon had a Stevie, an Afghan youth with quick intelligence and determination who taught himself English watching TV soaps, signed on with a contractor, and was sent to the grunts, the bottom of the translator totem pole. After a few months or years eating, sleeping, fighting, and straining to improve his pidgin English, Stevie employed fuck as adjective, verb, and noun with the same facility as any grunt. The Stevies became Americans. They thought like the grunts, swaggered like them, looked askance at Afghans, and desperately hoped to earn a Green Card. Without Stevie, 3rd Platoon was deaf and dumb. With Stevie, well, at least somebody yelled back over the captured Icoms at the Taliban.

  Day 39. 234,000 Steps

  At mid-morning on November 20, 3rd Squad was patrolling in Sector P8Q, always dangerous. The point man, LCpl. Carlos Garcia, stepped on a pressure plate that shredded both his legs. Ignoring the danger, LCpl. Kyle Doyle and others ran forward to strap on tourniquets. Doyle, twenty-one, from California, had joined the Marines after reading that they were a brotherhood. Now his close comrade had been struck down.

  “Carlos was praying as we were running with him,” Doyle said. “Time was going slow and fast for me.”

  The immensely popular engineer was carried back to Fires and medevaced as a double amputee.

  Second Squad returned to P8Q and found another IED. The squad also destroyed a cache of ammonium nitrate. A man riding by on a moped paused to shoot at the patrol, and then drove off. The squad found a second IED, with wires to a battery. Getting another hit on the Vallon, the Marines probed with their knives, digging up the head of a dog with a metal collar.

  Banshee 3, a sniper
keeping overwatch with the squad, saw a man with an Icom pop his head out of a compound. A few minutes later, he reappeared with a shovel, dug cursorily for a few seconds, looked at the Marines, and ducked back inside. After he repeated this twice, Banshee 3 put a round into his chest. Before leaving P8Q, 2d Squad uncovered and destroyed a third IED.

  Several hundred meters to the west, Lance Corporal Gorcie, walking point with 3rd Squad, stepped on an IED and was evacuated.

  Day 40. 240,000 Steps

  The next day, 1st Squad attempted to conduct a census. The war in Afghanistan would have ended in a few months had the Taliban worn uniforms. Instead, by posing as civilians they walked right by American soldiers. Biometric tracking and databases were standard in the States; anytime a car is stopped, the police run an immediate check. The Chicago police carry handheld devices that send fingerprints over the airwaves and get a response in minutes.

  To do the same in Sangin, 3rd Platoon was given a brick-sized computer called HIDE. The idea was to enter the names, photos, eye iris, thumbprint, location, tribe, and family members living in every compound. While the concept made sense, the HIDE was clunky and poorly designed, requiring twenty minutes to enter too much data about each person. The Marines considered biometric patrols worthless, because HIDE never provided them with a positive hit. Worse, spending an hour at one compound gave the Taliban time to set up an ambush.

  Sure enough, after 1st Squad lingered at a compound, they received harassing fire from a tree line to the east. A fire mission was called in. In an adjacent field, three small children were standing rigidly next to two adults. Suddenly a man ran out from the trees, ducked behind the kids, and backed across the field, keeping the children between him and the Marines, who canceled the fire mission.

  Through their high-power scopes, Banshee—the snipers—had watched similar scenes. When a man walked among those working in the fields but stopped to shake hands or exchange greetings, the snipers knew he was not a local. If he became uneasy, he moved closer to the farming families. Browning saw one man balance a child on the handlebars and another on the backseat as he drove away on his motorcycle.

  First Squad continued northeast, passing through the P8S sector where sheep the size of ponies were grazing. In P8S there were compounds with steel doors on sliding tracks and black-and-white TVs in the living rooms. The Taliban shadow district governor lived in a house in P8S, decorated with bright Persian rugs on wooden rather than dirt floors. But he was never home when the Marines came calling.

  Day 41. 246,000 Steps

  First Squad “got PID on 2 MAMs with ICOM,” meaning positive identification of two military-age males. Both men were killed. They were wearing green chest rigs containing AK-47 magazines. It took twenty minutes to sweep a clear lane 300 meters to the bodies. During that time, someone had made off with the Icom and the rifles, leaving behind only a radio antenna. The Taliban had scant equipment, and they hoarded every scrap.

  The squad found nothing of value on the bodies. That was typical. Garcia sometimes noticed a new stick figure scratched on the snipers’ wall, but the patrol had not reported searching a body as required by the rules. He didn’t bring it up. He let the squad leaders decide when to risk the IED threat by going forward to search a body, and when to move on.

  Later that day, Garcia was accompanying 3rd Squad north of Fires when they were pinned down by accurate fire. Garcia called a mortar mission and the 60mm shells hit the compound after two quick adjustments. The Marines blew a hole in the compound wall and Cpl. Kameron Delany pitched a grenade into each room before entering. But the enemy had already fled.

  Corporal Delany, twenty, from Texas, had been promoted early for his aggressiveness. He consistently took chances at point. He modestly allowed that the state of Texas was the most patriotic, free-spirited, brave, wholesome, individualistic, God-fearing, and God-blessed state, to say nothing of the Dallas Cowboys, otherwise known as America’s Team. He planned to return to his humble state and join the police department.

  “I respect life,” he said. “But somebody has to do the ass kicking.”

  It took repeated patrolling to find an ass to kick. The Taliban used compounds as protected firing positions. Fifteen minutes usually went by before a squad had identified which compounds the shooters were in. It took another fifteen minutes or more to set up a base of return fire and send an enveloping team behind a point man with a Vallon. Before the Marines were in a position to assault, the Taliban ran out the rear. Most compounds had an outside ditch used as a latrine that ran down to a canal. The ditches and irrigation streams allowed the Taliban to avoid enfilade fire as they escaped. Their sneakers would stink, but they were still walking upright.

  Third Platoon continued to rely upon close air support for cover. Each squad informed Inkerman of its intended route, and in the ops center Spokes Beardsley put a tic on his photomap as the squad called in each checkpoint. First Squad was midway across sector P8T when it was pinned down by fire from Compound 38. The Taliban were shooting through murder holes and the return fire of the squad bounced harmlessly off the thick walls.

  Beardsley called for the two F-18s he was tracking on the daily air chart. The lead pilot, Capt. Scott “Lumpy” Foster from Marine Squadron 232, scanned sector P8T with his video pod.

  “Driftwood, this is Maker. I see no movement below me. Nothing.”

  Lumpy asked his wing mate, Canadian Capt. Chris “Chester” Horch, to take a look. Horch agreed. It looked normal to him. The Taliban and 1st Squad were both under overhead cover.

  On the ground, Sgt. Joe “Mad Dog” Myers, twenty-four, from Ohio, was the forward observer with the squad. However, the final decision for an aircraft to fire was reserved for Beardsley. An avid reader and gifted storyteller, Myers had joined the Marines in 2000 after reading books like E. B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed. Sangin was his last tour before getting out and going to college.

  Myers radioed the compound number (#38) and GPS grid location of the target to Spokes, who was watching the video from the F-18 pods on a small screen called a Rover. He gave directions to each pilot until the pod on each aircraft was aligned on compound #38. Lumpy then rolled in first with a 500-pound bomb, crushing the compound. Twenty seconds later, Chester followed with another bomb that burst in the air—the now standard shake-and-bake tactic. Enemy firing ceased. Myers notified Beardsley, who thanked the pilots, who flew back to Kandahar airbase while 1st Squad walked back to Fires.

  Beardsley had linked the air to the ground with a precision unmatched in history, a combination of amazing technologies—video cameras, digital downlinks, exact telemetry—and common procedures developed over decades between Marines in the air and on the ground.

  Back at the hospital, LCpl. Jeff Sibley, the sniper, had recovered from his bullet wound. Once he had mended, he felt embarrassed being in the same ward with Sergeant Humphries, another member of 3/5, who had suffered an amputated leg.

  “This Afghan,” Sibley said, “we had shot a few weeks earlier was also on the ward. He should have been in prison.”

  Although desperate to return to Fires, Sibley wasn’t allowed on board a helicopter because he didn’t have a helmet and flak jacket. When a clerk in the supply building refused to give him the gear, Sibley demanded to see the senior NCO.

  “You a HOG?” asked the master gunnery sergeant in charge.

  Upon graduating from sniper school, a Marine is presented a bullet on a thin chain. He is officially a HOG, Hunter of Gunmen. When Sibley nodded yes, the master gunnery sergeant turned to his staff.

  “Give this lance corporal,” he said, “whatever he wants.”

  Sibley flew into Fires with a box stuffed with knives, gloves, boots, and Mitch helmets—the small, black helmets worn by Special Operations commandos.

  “I brought back Christmas early,” Sibley said.

  Chapter 6

  THANKSGIVING

  “I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens … to set apart a Day of Thank
sgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father.… To these bounties, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.”

  —PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 1863

  Day 43. 258,000 Steps

  A mullah came to Inkerman on the 24th of November, complaining that the doorway to his one-room mosque in sector P8Q was booby-trapped. Lt. Tom Schueman gathered a handful of Marines from 1st Platoon to investigate. Because the company had lost thirty-five killed or wounded in seven weeks, there weren’t enough grunts for such unscheduled patrols. So Gunny Carlisle and Sgt. Jason Peto from the headquarters section volunteered to assist as two riflemen. Carlisle was a force of nature, overburdened with muscles and testosterone and unaffected by his senior rank. There was no chore he would not undertake.

  Once at the mosque, an engineer disarmed an 82mm mortar shell lying in the doorway. In case more IEDs were found, 1st Squad came forward from Fires with extra demolitions. Schueman climbed on top of a roof to look out for trouble. As the squad approached, two men on a motorcycle scooted out of a compound to his right. One was shouting into an Icom and Schueman shot him at a hundred meters. When the driver accelerated, the wounded man fell off. He lay still for a few seconds, then pushed himself up and staggered into an adjacent compound.

  Gunny Carlisle, who had seen the man go down, shouted up to Schueman.

  “Hey, we’ll cut across the field and pick up the blood trail.”

  Carlisle and Peto set out and minutes later Schueman saw them enter a compound Marines had previously used as an overnight outpost.

  “There’s IEDs here,” Carlisle radioed minutes later.