Walk in My Combat Boots

by James Patterson

  One morning, at around six, I come awake to one of the loudest, biggest explosions and shock waves I’ve ever experienced. As I hop out of bed, I know the building right next to me was destroyed. I just know it in my heart.

  I quickly find out what happened: a vehicle-borne IED drove up to the front gate. The explosion, about three-quarters of a mile from where I was sleeping, was powerful enough for me to feel it.

  We end up with sixteen casualties. About six were KIA, all Afghans who were on the outskirts of the gate. The injured American soldiers, fortunately, were farther inside, away from the gate, when the explosion happened.

  I’m not good at keeping in touch with people back home, including my wife. Sometimes—long periods of time, actually—when I get so caught up in what I’m doing, I don’t notice I haven’t called or emailed. It creates some problems with my wife and family.

  It’s difficult for me to maintain my family life while maintaining my deployment life. Maybe it’s because I’m trying to keep them separate. Or maybe it’s because since I don’t connect emotionally when I see people dead, burned, or being blown up, I can’t then go connect emotionally with my family.

  But as tough as it is overseas, the Army, as much as it takes from me, has also given me everything. It’s given me my wife, and it’s given me my children. The medical support has been really fantastic. My wife’s second pregnancy was more complicated, and we had to see a specialist every week. I would never have been able to pay for that stuff—or my degree. And I’ve met a lot of great people and made a lot of great friends along the way. If I had never joined the Army, I couldn’t tell you where I would be today. I have no idea.

  JEDDAH DELORIA

  Jeddah Deloria was born in the Philippines. When he was three months old, he immigrated with his parents to Southern California. As he was pursuing a nursing degree at a community college, his older brother urged him to join the Army. Jeddah went to the recruiter’s office at the mall and joined that day. He was a sergeant and his MOS was 11 Bravo. He served with an airborne infantry unit. Before dawn on August 22, 2007, nearly eighty Taliban tried to overrun the forward operating base called Ranch House, in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan. On December 20, 2007, while Jeddah was recovering at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, President George W. Bush presented him with the Purple Heart.

  The problem,” the Army recruiter tells me, “is you’re way too big.”

  He’s right. At five eight and 280 pounds, I’m definitely a chunker. Just a big round ball.

  “For me to even take you,” he says, “you’ve got to be no more than 240.”

  For the next five months, I work out, trying to drop the weight. I want to be a soldier like my friend Mike, who is a Marine infantryman. He was part of the Fallujah invasion, and when he came home, we had a big party for him.

  Mike and the movies are my only frames of reference when it comes to soldiers. In every movie you see soldiers going in and kicking ass, doing really cool shit. In real life, Mike did the same thing—flew in and killed the bad guys—but I’m also fascinated by all the other stuff he did in between his moments of glory.

  I manage to drop the weight. I skirt through and go to basic, where I’m immediately put on the fat boy diet: cottage cheese and hard-boiled egg whites twice a day.

  The Army has us run a mile out and then run back. I can’t keep up with anyone. The guys make it back before I do. A couple of my battle buddies are sent out to retrieve me. They walk next to me while I try to run. It’s so frustrating. When I finally get back, a drill sergeant says, “Deloria, you are the slowest person we’ve ever had here.”

  I feel horrible.

  When basic is over, I weigh 175. In less than a year, I’ve dropped a hundred pounds.

  Next stop: Airborne School. After that, I’ll be going to war.

  In May of 2007, I fly out of Aviano, the air base in Italy, on a C-17 cargo plane going directly to Bagram, Afghanistan.

  A C-17 isn’t like a commercial plane: it’s loud, cold, and bumpy. I don’t have a window. I can hear the pilot talking to someone up front: “It sounds like they’re getting rocketed down there, so we’re going to do a combat drop for you guys. We’ll drop the tailgate, and you guys run off.”

  Wait, the plane isn’t going to stop? We’re going to have to run—

  The plane goes nose down.

  In my mind, I’m thinking Rockets. I don’t have a gun or ammo, and I’m just supposed to run off the plane into combat? At least we’ll be in the shit.

  The plane lands and drops the tailgate. We all run into…nothing.

  It’s the most anticlimactic moment ever.

  We’re taken to a collection area where we wait for some other guys to show up. When they do, we’ll all fly together to Camp Blessing. From there, we’ll be flown north by helicopter to our final destination, Ranch House, which is about an hour away.

  Bagram is massive. The place has got actual street signs. I can’t see the wires, so I have no idea where the perimeters are. My battle buddy and I walk past a Dairy Queen. I see a billboard advertising Salsa Night at the base. Salsa Night?

  There’s a busy shopping area on Main Street. You can get your hair cut and you can buy books, magazines, and Cuban cigars. I pass by souvenir shops selling jewelry. There’s a place where you can buy Harley-Davidson bikes and other luxury vehicles and have them delivered back home. The base even has a food hall that’s open twenty-four hours. It has Burger King, Popeyes, Pizza Hut, and more, and it’s all right here in the middle of Afghanistan.

  I turn to my battle buddy and say, “What is going on here?”

  Later in the day, we board a Black Hawk and fly to Blessing. As we approach, I hear guns going off—big guns, like howitzers. A mountainside is on fire.

  Blessing has refrigerators and electricity. I have no idea that this is the last time I’ll ever have a cold drink in Afghanistan.

  This is also my last opportunity to make a phone call. There’s a big line, and I don’t feel like waiting in it.

  There’s no need to call my parents, I tell myself. I’ll be fine.

  Ranch House is a remote outpost located in the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan’s Nuristan Province. The building looks like something from a Western—small, the front half made of wood, its backside built into the mountain. The ground is rock and smaller rocks. No dirt. I have no idea how trees can grow out here, but they do.

  A guy named Baldwin says, “Deloria, you and Dell are at Post Three. That’s up at the top, about three hundred meters away.” He points to a trail. “You can go straight up this way or you can do the switchbacks. I suggest you use the switchbacks.”

  We head up the steep mountain, following the switchback trail as we lug our heavy bags and equipment. The higher altitude starts to get to us. Dell starts throwing up. This is going to be way different from what I had planned in my mind, I think.

  Post Three faces the top of the mountain. It consists of a guard tower, and underneath it is our fifteen by fifteen sleeping quarters. The front half of the guard shack looks up the mountain and is level to the ground. The back half provides a small lookout to the north. Two other guys, Dogs and Tennon, who are new to the platoon, will also be sleeping here with us.

  There are twenty-two of us here at Ranch House. One squad stays behind while the other goes out on patrol.

  The nearby village has no electricity, just donkeys and women slaves. I don’t know what else to call them. Women do all the work while the men sit with each other and smoke what I’m pretty sure is opium.

  Before our platoon arrived, some Army engineers built a hydroelectric dam, but it doesn’t power anything because there’s nothing here to power. Besides, these people don’t want or care about electricity or our money or equality. The men are in charge, and they don’t want equal rights because they don’t want to ruin the lives they already have.

  It’s our job to persuade everyone we encounter, using our interpreters, to not support the Taliban
and to help us. We promise to give them safety. Their question to us is always the same: Are you guys going to be here for the long haul? This is Afghanistan. War is constant, and people are constantly at war.

  Over the next two months, I feel like we’re making strides. The village elders are starting to warm up to us. Still, there’s no way to know if they’re telling us the truth or feeding us bullshit.

  Everything changes the following month, when propaganda leaflets produced by Hazrat Umar, the one-eyed head of the Taliban, the man who sheltered Osama bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks, flood the village. Al-Qaeda promises to kill anyone in the village seen talking to us.

  We go to the village and put on a show to convince everyone that we’ll protect them, keep everyone safe. Kids are walking around grabbing at our shit and asking for stuff. I’m trying to deal with them while paying attention to my sectors of fire when an explosion pops off. I get covered in sand and dirt.

  Did we almost get hit by an RPG? What happened?

  Our battle damage assessment crew figures out that the explosion was caused by what appears to be a timed explosive device. We soon discover that it was planted the day before by Al-Qaeda—and the entire village was purposely holding us here so this bomb could target somebody.

  They refuse to answer our questions.

  ASG, the Afghan Security Group, is a local security militia. “This is getting bad,” they tell us. “All the intel we’re getting says there’s a huge Taliban crew coming this way, and they’re going to attack.”

  He’s referring to Hazrat Umar’s guys.

  The Afghanis in the ASG and the ANA, the Afghan National Army, are used to dealing with primarily white American soldiers. I don’t know if they’re racist or not, but over the past three months I’ve discovered that, because I’m a brown guy, they often open up to me.

  One day on a patrol, the ASG commander says to me, “Look, our guys want to leave. I want to leave, too. I want to get my family out of here.”

  He’s made it crystal clear he’s not going to fight for this village.

  “This is my job. I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “You guys do whatever you gotta do.”

  The next day, half of the ASG is gone. The guys who have stayed behind are from the village—and the worst of their fighters.

  That leaves us with the ANA. The problem is, those guys aren’t from this area. They don’t give a fuck about the village at all.

  Whatever. When the bad guys come, I’m going to shoot them all down. I feel invincible.

  We work in four-guard shifts. I take the 2:00 to 6:00 a.m. shift at Post Three while the two other guys sleep. Normally, there are four of us here, but yesterday we had an opportunity to send some guys back to base. Tennon didn’t want to go do laundry—no one does; everyone wants to stay here and be a part of whatever is about to go down—so Tennon and I rolled the dice. I won and Tennon had to go.

  I’m sitting by myself, on top of some ammo cans, in the middle of the guard shack, my back up against a wooden pole. I’m wearing my NVG—night vision goggles. I can see, to my left, our Mark 19. It’s a big, big weapon—a grenade-launching automatic machine gun. My favorite weapon is on the right side of the tower: the M240, a belt-fed machine gun. It’s mounted on a heavy metal tripod. It has a traversing and elevation mechanism, or T&E, which allows you to raise or lower the barrel, move it left and right. My assault weapon, an M4 carbine, is behind me.

  Dawn breaks, the light glaring across my night vision. I remove my NVG and put them back into my rack—the vest where you carry all your gear—and I hear what I’m pretty sure is a gunshot.

  It’s just the locals, I tell myself, getting up early to work. They are trying to build a road around us, so the sound I heard was probably from their digging equipment.

  I turn around and face the mountain, hear two more shots.

  The sandbags in front of me burst open.

  Oh, shit.

  I grab the mic. “Ranch House, Post Three making contact. Brigade, get us on the map.”

  Brigade is one of our staff sergeants. He replies, “Say again, Post Three.”

  “Ranch House, Post Three is making contact.”

  “Roger, over.”

  I clip the mic onto my Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) and start shooting.

  Post Two starts engaging the enemy. I can hear the SAW machine gun going off, and then I hear the 240 roaring from Post Four.

  I spot a couple of Taliban guys about fifty feet away—half the length of a football field. I hold down the trigger of the 240 and let it rock. The great thing about the 240 is that you don’t need to be super accurate; all you have to do is keep the shooting tight and you’ll hit them with a wall of lead, keep them pinned down.

  I’m shifting the gun to my right, laughing and yelling at them, firing and thinking I’m going to kill them all, I’m going to—

  The next thing I know I’m on my back and somehow the roof of the guard shack has collapsed and, instead of crushing me to death, is now hovering eight inches above my face.

  What the fuck? What just happened? I didn’t even hear a bang, an explosion—nothing.

  I can’t hear, but I can move my hands and feet. I look down at my right hand, and in the early morning light I can see it’s torn to shit. I can see the white meat when I move my fingers. Oh, shit. This is not good. I see white meat on either side of my right arm. This is not what I thought was going to happen. I wiggle a little bit and manage to catch a peek at what happened to the guard shack.

  When I was on the 240, the wood post to my right that was holding up the roof—it’s now gone. They must have hit it with an RPG. Maybe even more than one.

  The post gets slammed by two more RPGs.

  When my hearing finally comes back, I can make out gunshots. They’re getting louder, closer, which means the Taliban is moving closer. I’m thinking about the guys here with me at Post Three. Where are they?

  They must be at the regress position we made. They’re probably there right now, fighting—

  “Deloria, are you alive?”

  I recognize the voice: it’s Sullivan, one of my guys. I can’t see him—he’s somewhere on the other side of the roof.

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  “I need the radio.”

  “The radio? Help me get out of here.”

  “I need the radio.”

  “Okay, fine.” I remove the mic from my vest. My feet are hanging outside the roof; it’s the only space available—my only way out of here. Using my boots, I try to kick the radio off to the left because there’s some light on that side. Maybe there’s a spot there where he can grab it.

  “The radio’s not working,” Sullivan says.

  “Dude, you need to help—”

  “Shit, they’re coming through the wire. I’ve gotta go.”

  “What?”

  “The enemy’s come through the wire. I gotta go.”

  In movies and on TV, you see soldiers risking their lives to help a fallen brother or sister. In real life, when you’re in the fight—when you’re in the thick of it—you’re on the objective until the enemy is either dead or pushed out. Then you go back and mop up the pieces. I don’t want Sullivan to leave, but I understand why he does.

  Now it’s just me up here.

  At least you’re not dead, an inner voice says. Now find a way out of this.

  Bullets splinter the plywood roof above me and skip off the plate armor just below my chin. The Taliban is shooting down at me from the mountain.

  The floor of the post is covered with sandbags, which isn’t the smoothest surface. When I try to slide forward, my armor gets stuck on something and I can’t move.

  I get shot in the shoulder.

  Well, shit. I guess the vest isn’t doing its job anymore.

  My armor is useless. If I keep it on, it’s going to weigh me down, so I decide to take it off. I need to get out of here. Now.

  After I undo the Velcro straps and slip out of the armor,
I shimmy toward my only escape route: the small hole where my feet are.

  I take a grazing wound on my ass.

  I wiggle out from underneath the roof. I move toward the left side of the post.

  Take a round to my thigh.

  The bullets don’t hurt, but as I crouch in the corner and watch the bad guys shoot my vest, rounds pelting off my armor and ricocheting off the ammo cans, I’m aware that I have holes in my body, that I’m bleeding.

  I see my M4. It’s nearly buried in rubble. I go to it and pull it out.

  Can’t.

  It’s stuck.

  I touch the places where I’ve been shot. They’re wet. My hands come back covered in blood. It triggers a memory of something my squad leader once told me: If you get shot in the arm, you have another arm. If you get shot in the leg, you’ve got another leg. Don’t stop because you’re hurt, because the enemy is not going to stop until you’re dead.

  I’ve got to keep moving forward. I’ve got to keep doing shit.

  I find the radio I gave to Sullivan. As I try to fix it, I can hear the enemy behind me and in front of me. The bullets keep on coming. If I don’t get this radio up and running, these guys will take me, bring me in, and torture me—or just kill me if I piss them off enough.

  I can’t get the radio to work. It’s useless, and my right arm is useless. I’ve got holes in me and I’m bleeding, and I don’t have my first aid kit.

  My arm is clearly the worst. There’s meat flapping everywhere. I take off my jacket and wrap up my arm and, with gunshots and explosions going off all around me, I wait to bleed out.

  They say your whole life flashes before your eyes. I don’t have any of that. I see more of a slideshow of things I’ll never be able to do and things I’ll never be able to do again because I’m going to die.

  And I am going to die, right here. I’m bleeding out pretty good.

  I’m not religious, but I was raised Catholic. I don’t have anything more to do at this point, so I begin to say some Hail Marys.