“Hot Rod drives like he’s in a rodeo,” I said. “He can get up that wash. If shit happens, be ready to move.”
We were heading toward Little Big Horn.
Chapter 8
INTO THE VALLEY
With lights off, we drove slowly a mile and a half up the dirt track into the valley—half a league, in British military parlance. From there, it would be that distance again, but on foot.
The jumping-off point was called the ORP, or the objective release point. Our convoy consisted of three passenger trucks, six Ford Ranger pickups with open backs, and four armored Humvees. The soldiers hopped out, leaving the thirteen vehicles parked in a long row on the narrow road. It would be hard to get those vehicles out of the way in a hurry, I thought, and hard to get anyone out for medical help. Not a great place to stop, considering there were plenty of wide spots in the dry riverbed.
“Lieutenant,” I said to Lt. Johnson, “if we have an emergency medevac, this will be a cluster fuck.”
He took Fabayo aside, and a few minutes later we moved the trucks off the track. While the vehicles were repositioned, Staff Sgt. Kenefick took me aside.
“Make sure you monitor the net,” he said. “I want you listening up.”
“If the shit hits the fan,” I replied, “get down to the wash. We’ll pick you up.”
The patrol formed up single file. Capt. Kaplan, the intelligence officer, took off separately with a small group to set up an observation post on the southern ridge, to our right. Higher up on the same ridge an Army scout-sniper team had already settled in. A third observation team cut left across the rocky wash to establish a post on the northern ridge, a half-mile away.
Gunny Johnson walked up to join my team. It was still dark, but we could see each other under the stars and moon. He knew how I was feeling. He was carrying our 240. Well, the machine gun wasn’t complicated to use. Besides, he’d never have to fire it.
Team Monti and our Afghan platoon—the best of them—set off in the lead. Dodd Ali scrambled by me to take point ahead of Gunny. He grinned and gave me a little wave. When Lt. Johnson walked by, he gave me a fist pump. Hafez, busy adjusting his pair of radios, ignored me.
Maj. Williams then joined the column with his Command Group, which included 2nd Lt. Fabayo, First Sgt. Garza, Maj. Talib, and an American reporter I hadn’t met. The tactical command party (TCP) was the mobile headquarters for the operation. In this instance, it was a few men on foot. Capt. Swenson and his SNCO, Sgt. Ken Westbrook, walked behind the Command Group. Lights in the village more than a mile uphill to the east were still twinkling from the power of the little hamlet’s diesel generator.
The Askars remaining with the trucks lit up cigarettes and drank some water. It was Ramadan, so there’d be no eating or drinking once the sun came up. Most were fairly religious, praying five times a day. The night before, I had urged them to hydrate by drinking at least five bottles of water. By noon, some would be sucking pebbles to take their minds off their thirst.
Staff Sgt. Rodriguez-Chavez and I sat on the hood of my Humvee, listening as the last gravel crunch of the column’s march faded out. A few minutes later, all the lights in the village went out at the same time. Someone had pulled the switch.
Swenson’s border police turned to Hafez when the lights went out.
“Dushmen!” they said. “We must turn back!”
I listened as Johnson sent a warning over the advisor radio net, while the platoon stopped briefly for morning prayers.
“Get ready to roll, Rod,” I said.
But no, the patrol proceeded toward the village, with some of the border police drifting back to the rear of the column. They weren’t trained or equipped for firefights.
A few minutes later, the advisors climbing to the northern overlook radioed that flashlights were winking on and off in the hills to their east, closer to Ganjigal.
Just before five in the morning, Rod and I heard gravel crunching on the trail: men, women, children, sheep, and goats suddenly hurried by our trucks, heading out of the valley. Pre-dawn always brought the first singsong call to prayer, followed by people scurrying about. This morning, I had heard no high-pitched mullah, and these people were not heading to market, they were running away.
I stood in the middle of the path and blocked the departure of a teenager and a tall, older man with a full beard, wearing the cleanest white man-dress I had ever seen.
Refusing to look at me, the man clicked away at the string of worry beads in his hands. When I tried to shake hands, he ignored me. I was surprised by the open insult. Even when they don’t like you, Afghans shake hands, just as Americans do. The teenager smirked. I stepped aside and they strode past.
“What you think, Homey?” Rod asked.
“This sucks,” I replied.
Team Monti and the lead platoon had climbed up a series of terrace walls and were entering the outskirts of South Ganjigal as dawn broke. They spread widely apart in the open terrain. Behind them came Majors Talib and Williams, 1st Sgt. Garza, and 2nd Lt. Fabayo. A bit farther back, Swenson was walking with some police, keeping within shouting distance of the others.
As Lt. Johnson approached the first row of houses, he radioed back to Garza that he and Lt. Rhula were heading toward the house of an imam, one of the village elders. Seconds later, an RPG streaked in from the east, followed by a burst from a PKM, the Russian-made machine gun that shoots a hefty 7.62-millimeter cartridge. It started tearing up the ground and the adobe walls. As the men took cover among the terrace walls, more PKM fire came from the northeast, joined by AKs at closer range.
Enemy fighters were crouched inside the houses and below the windows of the schoolhouse on the southern ridge. They were hiding in the alleyways and dug in behind the stone terrace walls to the east. They had a dozen fixed positions and were shooting downhill with the sun behind them.
I heard the shooting echoing through the valley, ragged at first and subsiding momentarily while magazines were reloaded. Then the volume increased, with mortar and RPG explosions mixed in. The advisor net crackled with voices stepping over each other. Fifteen Marines sharing one frequency were trying to radio their positions and the locations of the enemy.
Bedlam isn’t unusual in the first seconds of an attack. When dushmen open fire, they usually rip through several magazines while our guys go flat and scramble for position. Within minutes, the troops normally settle down, the senior man controls radio traffic, the forward observer calls in artillery and helicopters, and the enemy rate of fire slackens. The dushmen then scamper over the ridges and, ten minutes later, quiet descends.
Not this time. I waited for the firing to die down, but it didn’t. The staccato chaos of RPG explosions, PKM machine guns, AKs, and M16s increased. I heard the report of a recoilless rifle—basically, a 100-pound, shoulder- or tripod-mounted cannon and a sure sign of a planned ambush, as the dushmen don’t lug that over the hills for exercise. Then I heard the crump-crump of their mortar shells.
There was a wild babble of voices on the command radio—advisors yelling at each other to clear the net. No one was taking charge. There was no central command. I was pacing around, frustrated at being out of the fight and not being able to help.
