for fixed-wing attack aircraft, or CAS—close air support.
Again, Shadow 4 relayed the message to Joyce.
“Highlander 5,” Sgt. Summers radioed to Swenson, “be advised the TOC says CCA will be at your pos in fifteen mikes [minutes].”
Fifteen minutes is a very, very long time when machine guns, rifles, RPGs, and mortars are firing at you. The fifteen minutes passed without any helicopters. Sgt. Summers kept requesting air. Down in the wash, Swenson was effectively in charge. Everyone was trying to talk to him, asking for guidance. Sgt. Summers kept telling him that the TOC was requesting trivial data, such as battle roster numbers and the last four Social Security digits of each American in the valley. For Swenson, it felt like asking for money from a bank where he didn’t have an account.
I could finally hear the thumping echo of the heavy 155-millimeter shells exploding in the upper valley. This had to be KE 3070, the KE Undo, that Swenson had called for twenty-three minutes earlier. At last, my team would be concealed by smoke. Then I heard Swenson saying he had asked for smoke, not high explosives. Negative, came the relayed reply from Joyce—no smoke rounds available. None, in fact, anywhere in theater.
Fox 3-1—Lt. Johnson—finally came up on the radio.
“We’re pinned down in a house,” he said. “Receiving accurate fire from the next house. We have to get out of here.”
He was cut off by others pushing to use the same frequency. Three or four advisors were trying to talk, stepping on each other. I could hear the strain in their voices, the lack of crisp orders, the frantic yelling of men who were pinned down.
A few minutes later, Fox 3-2—Staff Sgt. Kenefick—tried to pass his location on the grid to Fabayo.
“I can’t shoot back,” Aaron said, “because I’m pinned down. They’re shootin’ at me from the house, and it’s so close. Grid…”
“Three-2, this is 3-3,” I radioed to Staff Sgt. Kenefick. “Repeat your grid. Repeat grid.”
Nothing after that but static and garbled voices. That broke it for me. I had promised my team I would be there. As far as I was concerned, my command element wasn’t in command.
Chapter 10
LOST
Until I heard those radio calls, I assumed Team Monti was on its way out. I figured things would unscrew themselves, that Maj. Williams would take charge and artillery and helicopters would roll in, allowing my team to link up with the Command Group. The fight had been raging for over half an hour.
Up on the north lookout, Gunny Miller was directing his RPG gunner in a duel with the Russian DSHKA antiaircraft gun. Several feet below him, Staff Sgt. Valadez—Fox 7—had been listening to my shouts over the radio. He relayed my message to Fabayo. Overwhelmed with his own problems, Fabayo told Valadez to stay off the net.
“Fox 3-3, this is Fox 7,” Valadez radioed to me. “Fox 3-2 [Staff Sgt. Kenefick] told me he’s in a house. I don’t have a grid. You’re supposed to stay where you are.”
Twice I had heard Shadow say that air would be on station in fifteen minutes. Nothing had happened. How long do you do nothing while your friends are fighting for their lives?
“Fox 7, this is 3-3. Sitting here is stupid. We’re going in.”
Rod and I were on the net with Valadez. There was no dispute among us. It was about 0600—time to move. I was the vehicle commander, so the fault lay with me for disobeying orders if I arrived in the valley and discovered that the Command Group had the situation under control. I knew there was a good chance I’d be sent back to the States in disgrace. When I shouted to the Askars to follow us, they looked confused. Up on the north outpost, Valadez grabbed a senior Afghan sergeant. The sergeant radioed to the Afghan drivers clustered around our truck, urging them in Pashto to follow me.
Mortar shells were falling a football field away, to our west. The enemy knew our trucks were somewhere on the path but uncertain just where. The explosions made the Askars jumpy. Just the same, some of them jumped into the two Humvees and roared into position behind us.
“Rod, let’s go,” I said. He put it in gear.
We headed slowly east on the narrow path that twisted among the uneven farming terraces, looking for a trail down to the wash off to our left. We were driving blind toward the sound of the guns. We hadn’t gone two hundred meters when PKM rounds started striking around us. They were coming from a ridge to our east, near Capt. Kaplan’s observation post.
For a minute, I was confused. There was a torrent of firing a kilometer to our northeast, where the command group was pinned down. But we hadn’t yet reached the wash, off to our left. So why were we under fire?
Then the light clicked on. I was too accustomed to the dushmen being on the defense, shooting and falling back. These pricks were on the offense, with separate packs moving west along the ridges on both sides of us. One group had skirted around Kaplan’s strong point. Shooting from higher ground, our truck looked to them like easy prey.
I pivoted the Mark 19 and looked for muzzle flashes. None. The dushmen weren’t firing from exposed positions along the lip of the ridges; they were hunkering back in fixed positions. I watched for dust curls. Water was so scarce that the dushmen usually didn’t wet down the ground in front of the guns to help conceal their positions. When I saw a few wisps about five hundred meters away, I pumped out three-round bursts of explosive 40-millimeter shells, using the quick flashes of their detonations to adjust my aim. The PKM, however, continued shooting.
We drove east another hundred meters when the Mark 19 jammed. I hadn’t fired more than 30 bursts and I always kept a clean, well-oiled gun. I worked the breach but the shell refused to eject, as if it had been welded into place. I switched to the 240 machine gun I kept in the turret as a backup. It wasn’t attached, so every time we hit a rut or bounced over a rock, which was about constantly, I’d throw a burst of fire in some crazy direction.
“Rod, I need a stable gun,” I called down the turret to him. “We gotta go back and get another truck.”
Rod had to move back and forth five or six times to turn us around, while I waved at the Afghan Humvees to follow us—I didn’t want them going in alone, and I didn’t want them parked in the line of fire. Back at the operational release point, we ran to another truck, threw extra cans of ammo into the back, and I climbed up into the turret behind a fresh .50-cal.
By that time, several Askars were stumbling out of the battlefield, some bleeding, a few without their rifles, all exhausted.
“Where Americani?” I yelled. “Dost? Dost?”
The Askars pointed up toward the village.
Again we started forward, passing more exhausted Askars as I threw them a few bottles of water. From his northern outpost, Valadez could see our truck.
“Fox 7, this is 3-3,” I radioed to Valadez, “we’re lost down here. I don’t know how to get up to the village.”
“Fox 3-3, roll to the Monti net,” Valadez said. “I’ll guide you in.”
I switched to the alternative frequency and looked up at the huge ridge to my left.
“Fox 7, I have no idea where you are,” I radioed. “I can’t follow your directions.”
Valadez, with the enemy shooting at him, draped a bright orange air panel over a big rock. When he said “go right” or “go left,” I used the panel to orient myself and shout the direction down to Rod. About 150 meters down the trace, Valadez told me to take a sharp turn to the left.
We went down into a draw. When we popped out the other side, a volley of RPGs hit us, one exploding so close to our left side that Miller, who was on the ledge above Valadez, thought we had been hit dead center.
“Fox 3-3,” he radioed to me, “you have enemy at your nine o’clock, driver’s side.”
That dushmen pack off to our east had been waiting for us. We took some PKM bursts, followed by a few mortar shells to our left front. I blindly fired the .50-cal while Rod kept the truck moving forward. We passed a
