me. Normally unflappable, his calm request for “assistance” was his way of telling me to send another team to help him-
In fact, at the time, he was locked in a hand-to-hand struggle with a pissed-off, twenty-something Afghan male. Grumpy was not in much danger, but his opponent believed that he was fighting for his life. Grumpy somehow had held the guy at bay with one hand, protecting both his M-4 assault rifle and his M-1911.45-caliber pistol from his opponent’s frantic grasping, and found a moment to squeeze the push-to-talk button on his radio. Nobody would have blamed Grumpy if he simply ended the fight with a single ball round to the man’s forehead. The rules of engagement clearly authorized lethal force in this situation, but the seasoned Delta sergeant knew this guy would be of no intelligence value dead. Besides, the loud report of a gunshot would attract unwanted visitors from around the neighborhood. So the wrestling match continued.
Two of Grumpy’s teammates charged up the outside wood and mud stairs toward their next breach point, moving fast toward their designated portion of the target area. They jumped over the two brawlers without breaking stride, confident that Grumpy, an expert in jujitsu, could handle one unruly Afghan who weighed maybe 150 pounds.
They kicked a dilapidated door to the right off its hinges. Grumpy was proud that his boys were acting like trained professionals. Sure, they cared about their team leader; they simply had assessed the situation and moved on to the next door, just what he had taught them to do.
All of the structures were clear and secure within five minutes without a shot being fired.
The incessant wailing and screaming of the twenty-five to thirty women and children in the small group of buildings woke up the neighbors. We didn’t expect so many women and kids. They outnumbered us. We collapsed our northern security team to help in calming and controlling them. From the south came the distinct rattle of an AK-47, but no shots landed near us.
From the north, two adult males slowly approached, apparently more out of curiosity about the screaming family members than with any idea that American commandos had caused the ruckus. One had a weapon slung over his shoulder, and with no northern security to intercept them, I leveled my M-4 at him and placed my infrared laser on his forehead. An instant decision was necessary:
In addition to Mr. Ahmed, four of his sons and brothers were found and secured. We had zero time for sorting out who was who, so they also would be taken with us and turned over to the Joint Interrogation Facility in Bagram. Even if some were completely innocent, they still had value, for their stories could be used to determine whether Ahmed was telling the truth or not during his own interrogation sessions. They could also be played one against the other or to corroborate each other’s stories.
Gadget relayed to the Delta commander. “Wrangler Zero-One, this is Rascal-One. One-One sends PC secure. No casualties. Request exfil in ten minutes. Leaving with PC plus four crows. Over.”
The JOC exploded in applause and high fives and smiles flowed around the tent. They all had worked many long hours to make this happen. But we were far from being mission complete-essentially with all friendly personnel safely back at our sleeping tents and the precious cargo turned over to competent authority.
As the troop sergeant major, Stormin’, prepped to get everyone out of Dodge, I moved down the ridge to our primary helicopter pickup zone with Jeff, the combat controller. The spot had been chosen from studying recent imagery and we knew it would be tight. Jeff stepped off the dimensions of the area until he reached the end of the terrace, where he was looking down a ten-foot drop to the next terrace. He shook his head, unhappy with what he saw. It was going to be extremely difficult to get the black MH-47 Chinook helicopter into such a tight spot, and he walked over and asked my opinion.
“Hey, brother, this is your ball game,” I replied. “Is it going to work or not? If you don’t think it is, we’ll move to the alternate. Trust your instincts.”
“Roger that,” Jeff coolly responded. “I’ll bring her in here.”
As we waited for the distinct thumping sound of double rotor blades, Stormin’ moved the teams down the hill, closer to the pickup zone, along with the five captives, who were barefooted and hooded, with their arms flex-tied behind their backs. A few were noncompliant, requiring the boys to use a few come-along techniques. A little well- placed pain goes a long way.
When they were seated on the ground, Crapshoot, our Alpha Team leader, approached Ahmed, grabbed a handful of the black cloth hood and raised it high enough to clear the eyes. Crapshoot leaned to within inches of the Afghan’s face and peered directly into his eyes.
“
Ahmed’s eyes went wide with astonishment and he protested, “
“Thank you. Just checking,” Crapshoot dropped the hood over the man’s face and grinned. Instant positive identification.
The big Chinook helicopter approached low toward the landing area with its big twin blades whoop-whooping in the night. The bird made a test pass to size up the tight space that we had designated for a landing. Jeff talked to the pilots, advising them to orient the ship’s nose to the valley floor and, from a hover, slowly descend roughly 150 feet to make a lip landing above the damp terrace. The maneuver required that the aircraft lower until the tail ramp kissed the ground and we would rush aboard as fast as possible.
Under the circumstances, it was a risky and difficult maneuver for any helicopter pilot and crew, and we wouldn’t have even considered asking anyone but our brothers from the 160th to attempt it. [4] The rotors would be spinning precariously close to one of Ahmed’s stone farm houses, and any blade strike would likely prevent our exfil and force the bird to limp back to Jalalabad. If it didn’t fall out of the sky first. In addition, two high wires drooped dangerously close, and the crew chief and door gunner had to ensure they could be cleared during the descent.
The MH-47 pilots did a super job, but the danger mounted by the second, and when the helicopter was actually lower than the high terrain on three sides, it is a wonder that it was not shot out of the sky as it held in a long hover. It would have been an easy shot into the cockpit for even a novice marksmen sitting on his back porch with a slingshot.
When the rear rotor blade actually came within inches of striking a rock wall, Jeff aborted the landing and narrowly diverted a catastrophe. The ship pulled up and out of the area to reposition and acquire the alternate pickup zone on the valley floor.
We breathed sighs of relief, probably never happier in our lives that a landing was called off. I keyed my radio mike to let Stormin’ know to shift the boys to the alternate pickup site, but he was way ahead of me and already had them moving.
There was no further need for stealth. If the earlier screaming by the women and children had not awakened everybody within a mile or so, the racket of the helicopter certainly had gotten their attention. Everybody knew we were there.
We took off for the alternate pickup zone, slipping and sliding down each terraced piece of terrain, happy to be going downhill and not up. Jeff still needed to look over the alternate site to be sure it was clear of all obstacles. Three terraces below the original site, the MH-47 slowly came over the ridgeline from above and behind us, and I winced as it slowly descended toward the alternate site. It seemed as big and slow as the Goodyear blimp above a Little League ball field. I couldn’t help but think that we were putting the aircraft and crew in great danger by asking them to come into pretty much a similar location twice. It was discussed during the planning, and although it was not smart tactics, in this case we didn’t have much choice. Our Trojan horse trucks would never have made it back on a return trip with five detainees through alert and insulted neighborhoods.
Then the MH-47 pilot noticed that one terrace seemed to be larger than the rest, and instead of going straight for the alternate site, which rested another two hundred meters below, in the middle of the valley floor, the pilot decided to try this new area.
The aircraft descended about one hundred meters, again with its tail to the ridgeline and made a textbook
