The Silence of War

by Terry McGowan

  “Should we set off the claymores?” he asked.

  “Not NO—but HELL NO!” I told him. “Gimme those!”

  He was holding the clackers with the safety latches disengaged. Both claymores were ready to go.

  I put the safeties back on and told him, “These will be set off if and when I say. If I have to let the lead elements get past to inflict the most casualties, I will! Nobody sets these off except me!”

  I understood why Gunny Mendoza wanted me there. He and I had been trained in many of the tactics used in Vietnam, including the use of claymores. We knew what claymores were good for as well as what they weren’t. Although both Compton and Davidson were experienced combat Marines, having been in firefights in Iraq together, they had never used claymores. They thought setting them off would level the clinic and afford us clear fields of fire from that direction.

  Not so. Claymores would rip apart human flesh, but they wouldn’t have done more than chip away a few surface rocks from the wall of the clinic. If the enemy did assault from that direction, I planned on maximizing their effectiveness—if the wires from the detonators were still intact, that is. I asked where the case of fragmentation grenades was. I wanted to be ready to toss them like baseballs at the enemy, especially if shrapnel had cut the wires to the claymores.

  Our mortars were launching parachute flares in an arc from west to northwest. Combined with the night-vision goggles, it turned black night into bright, green day. I had a little difficulty getting my rifle into a good shooting position. The heavy bullet-stopping plate on the front of my vest was an impediment. I quickly decided I’d have to get creative and held the butt of my rifle dead center against my vest. It wasn’t easy to aim that way, but at least I could shoot back. Since I knew where our critical vulnerabilities lay, I grabbed the radio. I wanted to be able to alert Brewster immediately if I saw trouble developing.

  I explained to Compton and Davidson what to look for and why. Compton peered at me quizzically. This was a side of me he had never seen before. I was the wisecracking old man who joked around with him and the rest of the guys every day.

  He said, “You talk like a lance corporal, but you see with the eyes of a captain.”

  Inwardly I smiled. “Well, no big surprise there,” I thought.

  I stood outside the bunker on the unprotected portion of the shithouse roof. Compton asked me if I didn’t hear the shrapnel as it whizzed by. I did, but I felt I needed to be able to carefully watch an opening due west of us for any signs of movement to the south. It could signal a flanking maneuver by the Taliban. I couldn’t see it from inside the bunker. I also felt the need to keep a sharp eye on the clinic compound. Being so very near to us, it still caused me grave concern. My old law enforcement survival mechanism had kicked back in. I felt no emotion. Hence I could think clearly.

  Surveying our position, I reaffirmed my belief that if the worst should develop, the shithouse bunker was the place to be. We could shoot in any direction, and as we were atop a concrete building, all we had to do was duck—and cover would be available. Grenades could be tossed wherever they would do the most good. Close by to our right, Slocum had joined his Army comrades in the bed of an armored truck. He was in the fight. I was glad.

  I would have hated to wake him the next morning to tell him what he had slept through.

  Although ANCOP did not have night-vision goggles, the light from our flares—as in all night battles prior to the invention of night-vision goggles—would have to do. ANCOP were fighters. Combat veterans with a desire to defeat the enemies of their country, they fought courageously. The muzzle flashes from their compound never let up throughout the clash. If the Afghan Army and ANP fought half as well, there’d be no need for us in Afghanistan.

  I spotted three Taliban on a hill north of us and across the dry riverbed. I took aim—clumsily, thanks to the armor plate. I had barely squeezed off a shot when a blinding flash of light emanating from the middle of the trio blinked off my night-vision goggles. It was caused by an 81mm mortar round from one of our tubes. Our mortar forward observer, Sergeant Justin Gauthier, was a lot better at placing IDF than the enemy was. When my night-vision goggles came back on, only an instant later, the three Taliban were simply—gone. There is no way they could have run out of my field of vision fast enough even if they had survived the blast.

  They were atomized.

  Lance Corporal Alex “Little Red” Allman, a short, ginger-haired, freckle-faced, scrappy young Marine, looked up at me from ground level inside the FOB. For the past few days I had been teaching him how to say “Kiss my butt” in Irish Gaelic. There’s no use denying it: Red looked like a leprechaun.

  He yelled, “Hey, Terry!”

  “Yeah, Red?”

  “Pog mo thoin!” he called, grinning ear to ear.

  “Hey, good for you, Red, you finally got it!” I yelled back.

  Immediately after that verbal exchange, he moved to the northwest corner, where the incoming and outgoing fire were heaviest. Due to his lack of height he stood on a stack of cardboard-boxed rations so he could fire over the wall. I heard a loud BLAM BLAM! Red was blasted off his perch and launched backward. He was dragged off to the aid station semiconscious. I didn’t know how seriously he was hurt.

  Although medevaced to the hospital the following day suffering from a severe concussion, he ultimately returned. He was only eighteen or nineteen years old but he had just earned the Purple Heart along with the Combat Action Ribbon.

  To this day he has no recollection of the “kiss my butt” exchange between us.

  Realizing that our defenses were surrounded by razor wire, and remembering lessons taught by Vietnam vets, my immediate concern—upon hearing the explosions that rocked Red’s world—was that the enemy was blasting our wire so they could assault on through.

  I called Lieutenant Brewster on the radio and said, “Be advised possible sappers in the wire.”

  Brewster told me later that he smiled when he heard that. My age was showing.

  Compton turned to me and asked, “What’s a ‘sapper’?” My age really was showing. It turned out to be a one-two punch from RPGs. We weren’t in ’Nam without the jungle.

  Marines never lose their sense of humor no matter what the circumstances. Making the rounds of the fighting positions, one of the NCOs—I’m really not sure who in the dark—called up to us,

  “You guys need ammo?”

  “No, Sergeant,” Compton answered.

  “Got enough water?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Terry, you need batteries for your pacemaker?”

  “Naw, I brought extra, thanks!”

  “Is this ladder wheelchair-accessible?”

  “We’ll find out in a minute!”

  Camouflage netting had been set up around that corner of the FOB as shade from the wicked sun. Incoming was still whizzing about. The next day we could see the holes in the net the shrapnel had made. The net also caught all the ejected cartridges from when Compton and I were firing to the northwest. There was a lot of spent brass.

  Time dragged on and the fighting ebbed and flowed. This was no Iraqi hit-and-run raid. It was a different rodeo entirely. Battalion intelligence had been quite correct. The enemy came in force and intended to fight it out.

  The mortars kept the area around the FOB well lighted. As soon as one flare sputtered out, another would be launched. The light on the ground caused by parachute flares can be deceiving. As the flare slowly floats back to earth, it rocks back and forth. That can cause shadows on the ground to appear as if they are moving. Still watching the opening leading to the south, I thought I saw figures moving but I wasn’t certain. I turned to Compton and asked him, “Did you see that?”

  He said, “I sure as hell did!” and opened fire. Davidson let go with his machine gun.

  I called in the sighting to Lieutenan
t Brewster, who had ordered the mortars to be preregistered on that dangerous area. In nothing flat the 81s blasted the hell out of whoever might have been congregating down there. Brewster also ordered a mobile reserve to move toward the area. If the enemy had any intention of exploiting our weakness on the south side, it was thwarted.

  For the most part we fired at the tree line in general, and at muzzle flashes in particular. I have no idea if I hit anyone.

  During a lull in the incoming fire, Lieutenant Brewster boldly sent a squad outside the FOB and into the clinic’s compound. He needed to know what I was straining my eyes to see—if the enemy were massing there. If they were, Marines would be depending upon their ferocious “in your face” fighting style to survive the sudden encounter.

  One squad against an unknown number of Taliban. I held my breath.

  We all watched intently through our night-vision goggles. I don’t think I started breathing again until they reemerged from the interior buildings. It’s a wonder I didn’t pass out. There were no enemy in that compound; the squad returned to the relative safety of the FOB.

  —

  The eastern sky was showing the first hint of sunrise as the enemy’s fire slackened, then stopped. It was 4:00 a.m. The attack had lasted three hours. Brewster ordered his reserve to mount their up-armored Humvees and seek out the enemy before they could retreat to the safety of the mountains.

  “A counterattack,” I thought. “Perfect!” And the timing was ideal as well. It was inspiring.

  Throughout the entire three-hour engagement I held a radio. I listened to twenty-three-year-old Second Lieutenant Benjamin Brewster calmly and intelligently handle everything that came his way. His tone of voice never wavered; it remained even and calm. He must have instilled confidence in his subordinates.

  Frankly, I was amazed. Not that Brewster himself was that good, but that any twenty-three-year-old second lieutenant could be that professional their first time under fire. I was all the more impressed after the battle when I realized the first RPG rounds sailed right through the command post where he was standing. The antenna farm gave away its location. One RPG round passed right between Brewster and his radioman. Brewster never batted an eye. The radioman was still wide-eyed with the “deer in the headlights” look hours later.

  Another of the first of the incoming RPGs hit boxes of MREs, which had been piled high in the staff NCO tent—where I had been living only a few days prior. It splintered into metallic fragments. One piece hit the Kevlar (helmet) the platoon sergeant was wearing. It knocked him cold. Another round tore a hole in the canvas immediately over where my cot had been. It would have been interesting to have been lying on my cot when that thing ripped through a few feet above my face.

  Since those incoming rocket grenades were the very first to be fired at the FOB, the mortar crews were still asleep. That’s a good thing, because one of the rockets had passed straight through the mortar pit, struck a metal chair, and blasted a leg of the chair into an adobe wall with such force that we couldn’t pull it out. Somebody would’ve been KIA if they had been at their posts a moment sooner.

  Taking advantage of the letup, I scurried down the rickety wooden ladder and retrieved my boots. My bare feet were killing me.

  Back up at the shithouse bunker I watched as the eastern horizon began to lighten. The sun had not yet come up, but the outlines of our two flags could be dimly seen as dark banners against a darker background. I realized it was July 2. Two days before the Fourth of July. I got goose bumps as the sky slowly continued to lighten.

  “O say can you see by the dawn’s early light what so proudly we hailed at twilight’s last gleaming?”

  Yes. I could see the Star-Spangled Banner, and it was still waving proudly. The enemy had been planning our utter annihilation for weeks if not months. They had thrown what they had against us for three hours, commencing in the dead of night. But our flag was still there.

  The sun crested the mountain horizon, a blinding yellow-white orb casting gray shadows where its rays had not yet touched. And the vivid red, white, and blue colors seemed ablaze against a background of dull desert tan and brown. The wind kept the flags unfurled. They flew straight out—proudly—as if standing at attention.

  I can never listen to the national anthem again without remembering that moment.

  The Taliban were beginning to learn what enemies of the United States have always learned. Marines are not easy to defeat.

  The enemy had no better luck against the ANCOP. They also held.

  Some months later, one of the Taliban leaders who had been in on the attack was captured at another location. He revealed that upward of 250 men had been involved. That meant they outnumbered us by about five to one. He said the Marine response was so immediate and devastating that a proper attack could never be made.

  The enemy spent all their time dragging off their dead and wounded. Their losses were significant.

  He also revealed that they returned the following night with more men and a desire to redouble their efforts. They were determined to overrun the FOB and kill every last man. They wanted to demonstrate that the interior of the country could not be held. A drone was heard flying overhead. Believing that they had been spotted, and fearful of a devastating air strike, they pulled back.

  All we knew at the time was that we could hear a drone flying over our airspace and that no one had notified us—a breach of military etiquette. Much later I learned that it had been sent on the orders of Lieutenant Colonel Hall, our battalion commander.

  Having been informed of the attack, our colonel was still worried about his Marines at Golestan.

  —

  Gunny Mendoza was the first to point out two shrapnel holes in my USMC flag.

  I now have it framed with a plaque commemorating the accomplishments of a handful of Marines in an obscure part of the world. It’s mute testimony to the Marine Corps’ history of fighting in “every clime and place where we could take a gun.”

  Brewster’s counterattack came to naught. The enemy withdrew through the small—but densely populated—village of Golestan. Our vehicles had no business in the narrow alleyways, where the tactical advantage would shift to the enemy. Wisely, the NCO in charge returned to the FOB.

  Two squads went out on foot and covered the ground from which the enemy had mounted its attack. Naturally, I went with Sergeant Holter and Bravo Squad. We were amazed at the complete absence of dead or wounded. I, for one, was sure—even then—that the Taliban had suffered significant losses. Yet the only thing we found was an occasional pile of spent enemy brass.

  I looked carefully at the ground where I had observed the three Taliban disintegrated by the 81mm mortar round. The round had struck so precisely in the middle of the three, who were close together, that there wasn’t even blood on the ground. They really had been atomized.

  A vehicle patrol had swept the open country surrounding the town. Since the enemy was not spotted, they had to be inside the village. There is no way they could have made it back to the mountains before they were intercepted.

  Brewster was determined to give battle. He mustered every Marine that could be spared without leaving the FOB defenseless—about two- thirds of the available force—and personally led them into the village. As the second in command, Gunny Mendoza probably should have remained behind in command of the base. He wasn’t having any of that. We were expecting to come to blows. He accompanied Brewster.

  I went also. And since I had finally gotten fed up with the extraordinary weight a Marine has to carry these days, I stuffed my heavy, bullet-stopping front plate under my cot. It could keep the rear plate company. Since I couldn’t eat it, drink it, or shoot it, I left my Kevlar helmet behind as well. I was still intent on carrying as light a load as possible in that infernal heat. I trusted in God and my ability to move quickly—more quickly without all the weight—to keep me safe from bu
llets.

  —

  I wore my soft cover to shade my eyes from the sun; I never wore sunglasses outside the wire—I wanted to be able to discern the subtlest variations in shades of tan and brown. The gear vest was designed primarily to hold the armor, but I wore it anyway because most of my spare magazines were affixed to it. Besides, in that way no one but me would know I didn’t have the armor plates; the vest’s appearance didn’t change.

  There was a sense of expectancy in the air. We felt that the enemy was close by and probably in the town. We were primed and ready for a brawl. Although no one had gotten any real sleep in more than twenty-four hours, every one of us was as alert as men expecting combat around any corner could be. By leading Marines into a town the enemy had to have occupied, Brewster in effect threw down the gauntlet. Our presence there was a challenge.

  We tactically moved through the village, questioning anyone we met. We told them to get word to the Taliban that we were more than ready to meet them face-to-face. We deliberately remained for a long time, daring them to come out and fight. In retrospect, that might have had something to do with the Taliban’s decision to return to try again that very night. They had lost face in the eyes of the populace.

  I read the expressions of the people and heard the tone of their voices. They had only just come to realize that Marines were not like the soldiers of previous NATO countries that had been at Golestan. Marines didn’t stay hunkered down behind walls. Marines sallied forth in search of the enemy.

  The community was flabbergasted at our presence in the middle of the town in broad daylight, only a few short hours after a prolonged attack. It was a phenomenon that was being repeated all over the battalion’s thirty-seven-thousand-square-mile area of operations. Captured Taliban universally expressed amazement at the fighting spirit of Marines.

  We met more than a few men who quietly lavished thanks and praise on the Marines for not firing into the town the night before. The Taliban had told them that we would raze it to the ground with air strikes. Although we had taken sporadic fire from the enemy coming from the village, as evidenced by muzzle flashes seen during the battle, Brewster would not permit counterfire in that direction. Throughout the deployment, he was always solicitous not to cause civilian casualties.