Shah Wali Kot has only three exits. One team blocked the exit in the north, another team blocked the second exit, and the rest of us moved up with two hundred Canadians in six Leopard tanks, thirteen light armored vehicles, and thirteen support vehicles. The plan was to assault up a mountain against dug-in Taliban positions. “This is some straight-up World War Two shit,” Ocho told me excitedly. We weren’t all as giddy, but it was pretty fucking cool. After our time as professionals in Colombia—all training, no fun—here was our chance for a mission that was no training, all fun.
By this point we’d also had enough time with the Canadians and ANA to feel comfortable working together. Especially to feel comfortable with Azad Khan, who’d lived up to his reputation and then some. Not long before Adalat we’d set up a traffic checkpoint north of Sangin to try to snag roadside bomb makers. It was the sort of thankless mission where you didn’t expect to snag much—the people pretty reliably reported all our movements to the local Taliban, but midway through a beat-up Toyota appeared around the bend, then suddenly stopped, and went screaming into reverse. Since Azad Khan had hidden himself in a security position up ahead in an irrigation ditch, he was able to jump out and fire a burst directly into the car’s engine block as it passed him, sending it to a rolling stop. I watched as Azad put his rifle to the ready and approached the car, which had three passengers. Then I heard the driver yelling, cursing Azad Khan, calling him a dog. Our pint-sized Afghan Rambo roared and dove into the car.
“Shit!” Jefe shouted, and we raced over. Two muffled cracks went off, and we stopped and aimed in on the vehicle, waiting for movement. Azad Khan slowly wiggled himself back out of the car’s window and turned toward us, his face covered in blood and bits of brain. He was beaming. The driver had tried to pull a gun, his third mistake of the day, and Azad Khan had wrestled it from him, driven it under his chin, and pulled the trigger twice.
The other passengers were very compliant after that, and in the trunk we found an RPK, ball bearings, wiring, mines, and blasting caps. So we went into the Shah Wali Kot feeling very confident about Azad Khan.
The op started with the Canadians calling in artillery strikes in the fields and mountains around the villages to warn local civilians to leave the planned engagement area. So we sat on our asses while we made empty fields explode, and then we waited as a mass of Afghans started trickling past us.
They came not in ones and twos, but as whole families. The first one, a tall, older man, walked with a stoop and held hands with a little boy of eight or nine, who in turn was holding hands with a little girl of seven or eight, and she was holding hands with an even littler girl, and behind the two of them, two women in beautiful, flowing robes that covered them head to toe, even their faces. It was strange to see women, and I was struck with the bizarre desire to walk up and smell them. Azad Khan nudged Jefe and jerked his head toward the women, grinning, then said, “Hubba-hubba.” You couldn’t see a single, solitary inch of their skin, but I knew exactly what he meant.
More and more people flowed out of the valley. “No young men,” Jefe said to me. It was true. There were a few old men, men on crutches. And many, many children, followed by those flowing, mysterious and arousing robes—but almost none of what the army calls “military-age males.” All these families, their young men were waiting for us. And as I watched them pass, my excitement about the coming fight curdled into rage. I wanted to grab one of the old men, and shout at them, “We are the best fighters in the best army in the world! We have heavy machine guns and Mark-19s and LAWs and snipers and artillery and close air support and tanks and light armored vehicles and a bunch of surprisingly badass Canadians and a crazy Afghan named Azad Khan and we are going to kill everybody! We are going to slaughter your young men, your boys, your children, and their deaths will mean nothing!” Getting angry can be good preparation for a fight.
Ocho scooped some Copenhagen into his mouth, a clear sign he was feeling jittery, anxious for the damn thing to start. Carlos racked the charging handle on his Browning. Benjy smiled up at me. Diego and Jason bullshitted. Jefe checked and rechecked his kit. I cradled a machine gun, tapped the rifle I had slung over my back, checked my magazines, rockets, water bottles. Touched them all again. Then looked out at the civilians trickling to the district center, and the ANP directing them. Things would kick off in an hour and everybody knew it—no surprises for us, no surprises for the Taliban. Everybody in the valley knew what was about to happen. And then we moved.
Those of us in the gun trucks were supposed to assault uphill, through enemy lines, then turn and assault again, pinning the insurgents while the armored force hammered them from the south with tank and artillery fire, eventually pushing them into the blocking forces. This is, more or less, what happened, with the main assault force of our unit putting up an awesome amount of firepower. Far up ahead, I saw one of the Canadian tanks disappear an enemy position in a mud hut, just totally obliterate it.
Diego raised his arms, delighted. “Are you not entertained!”
“I’m entertained,” Benjy said.
“Motherfucking tanks!” Ocho shouted. “Those things are useful.”
Early stages went pretty much according to plan. Worst moment for us came a few hours in as we spread out up the valley to clear a few buildings and irrigation
