I started writing a book a couple of years ago when I first got out of the Army, after serving 15 years, active duty. This is the story of my last combat deployment to Afghanistan in 2011-12, and the resulting aftermath when I put the uniform down, and reentered civilian life. I will be posting a section of the writing every day, so please follow me, or follow the links to find the rest of the series.
(Part 1)(Part 2)(Part 3)(Part 4)(Part 5)
The War Within Me (Part 6)
I immediately took action, and instead of sending my guys out in danger, I ran out on my own to retrieve a litter. A litter is a foldable cot that is used to transport wounded troops. It has four handles to allow for four people to carry a human body without too much effort. There is a process to this as well as the front right person on the carry team being in charge and giving the commands to keep everyone else in unison.
At the time, I did not pay attention to what was going on around me in regards to danger. All I knew is that my guys were wounded, and instead of sending one of my soldiers back out into the open, I did it myself. I sprinted the 50 or so meters, down a corridor of Hesco barriers, and picked up the first litter I came across. I only grabbed one litter as one of the wounded could walk with a little help from another soldier, and High-Speed was the only one needing to be carried. Just as fast as I was exposed, I was back in relative safety, with the litter in hand. The litter must have been exposed to the elements for too long, because it would not latch out to become rigid. It took me about 15 seconds of "dicking" around with it to realize this.
I looked up and all of my troops were staring at me. One in particular still haunts me to this day. He was a young troop who had joined right out of high school. The look on his face, when I looked up, was one of shock. The thousand yard stare was written all over his face. That is what detachment looks like in its primordial form. Those that have seen that look in combat know exactly what I am talking about. It is more of a plea than a look. I don’t expect you to understand what I mean by this, but if you have ever seen legitimate fear and shock manifest itself, that is what it looks like.
I picked the first two troops I saw and gave a thunderous order of, “You and you, run outside over to the wall of Hescos, and grab a litter that is already put together, NOW”! Without hesitation, off they went in a full-on sprint. Within what seemed like 10 seconds, they were back with a usable litter in hand. I then picked two others out of the group, there was around 16 of us in a small packed room. I instructed them to get High-Speed onto the litter. I looked over at the medic and said, “Let’s do this”! My four guys carrying the litter, along with myself and Captain Cross-fit “hauled-ass” with High-Speed in tow.
This right here was dangerous. We had a competent enemy which I called the "A-team" firing effective mortar rounds at us! Not the rest of the COP, but us! We were the intended target. All the rounds had landed near the gun pit to this point. Everything was coming back around, full-circle. A few weeks earlier, we had fired in support of a TIC (troops in contact). It was the first time that the enemy had shown their face en mass against the infantry company since the snow had melted off the mountains, leftover from the winter.
They had attacked a convoy with machine gun fire and our guys were just sitting in their armored trucks watching. Their guns could not penetrate the hull of the MRAP vehicles. MRAPs are massive trucks that are fully armored, and are the primary means of transportation for the infantry troops. They also walk a lot for certain missions, but traveling by truck is their primary means of transportation when they visit the small towns that dot the landscape of their area of operations to engage in Key Leader Engagements (KLE's).
It was almost dusk that day in early February. We had gotten a call for fire, and finally we had our chance to earn our worth after three months of being attacked on a regular basis without having the ability to attack back. Air support was still 15 minutes out, so we became the default support weapon for the troops on the ground. They called in a map grid, and we fired a total of four, 155mm, 100+ pound, rounds per gun at the target. The fighting went silent when the first round landed. It was not until a few days later that the area was able to be surveyed for a battle damage assessment or BDA.
That is when we got word from the Infantry Company Commander that we had killed an enemy squad of seven, and that the locals were preparing to carry the bodies down from the mountainside . It took a few days to get the BDA due to the typical way being ineffective, which was done by listening to chatter from their communications. The enemy used walkie-talkies to communicate, which were easily intercepted and translated.
Typically after an attack, we would get confirmation from the insurgents after they talked back and forth. This time, though, there was no chatter after that first round fell, just dead silence. So, a team had to be sent up to the hillside to assess the damage. I imagine it was a brutal sight. Our rounds are unforgiving, and if you are in the blast zone without any obstruction from terrain, things will not end well for you.
So, the way I saw it, this attack was payback from the enemy for us killing an entire squad of them. The sick part about war is that when we heard that we had killed some insurgents, we actually celebrated. I am not proud of any of this, and really, the act of writing this down brings me a mix of emotions. Our enemy was brutal, and the way in which they would surely have killed any of us, was our justification for the celebration. To us, we saved American lives, one artillery round at a time.
So, we sprinted as fast as we could with the litter in tow. We ran the litter the 100 or so meters, out in the open, to reach the aid station. Here the room had two beds right when you walked in. I looked at the four troops that had made the sprint with me and told them to seek shelter in one of the nearby bunkers. They scurried off in the direction of the nearest bunker. The building was made of plywood, and was not hardened. Almost all of the structures on the COP were made of cheap plywood.
I stayed and helped the medic dress some of High-Speed’s wounds. He put an IV into his arm and asked me to apply pressure to a quarter-sized wound he hand on his right, upper chest. That is the wound I was most worried about, and I could see he was in pain as I applied the pressure, but my only thought was to keep him alive as I did not know what damage he had internally. He was pretty pale at the time, and I was continually talking with him. I have no idea what I said to him, just that I was “shooting the shit” telling jokes.
That is me, I try to lighten the mood when it is needed. Right around here, the medic gave High-Speed some pain meds in his IV. Instant relief came across his face. It made me feel good to see him relieved of his pain. He can say what he wants, but he was in some serious pain after the initial adrenaline boost wore off. Adrenaline is an amazing drug that the human body develops on its own.
When your body goes into fight-or-flight, which I believe is the correct scientific term for that “ghost look” I saw on that troop’s face back at our makeshift bunker; adrenaline pumps. This is liken to getting into a fist fight in middle school. That initial shot of adrenaline is all the body needs if that person has picked fight over flight. No pain is felt in the short term. In fact, High-Speed had mentioned that he didn’t feel anything when I first saw him after being initially being wounded.
The Infantry 1SG showed up out of the blue while this was going on. He mentioned to us that both the soldiers would need their ID cards or identification tags. I know "dog tags" are supposed to be worn at all times for soldiers, but today caught us off guard. They had attacked when half of my guys were bedded down, and half were up. So, I called both of my Section Chiefs over the radio and told them to send someone to their rooms to grab either of them, or whatever they could find in their sleeping quarters, as well as uniforms, as theirs had been torn to shreds.
The call came over the radio, “Dust-off will touchdown in two mikes”! Dust-off was the codename for our medevac helicopters. Every 10 or so minutes another round would drop somewhere on the COP. The randomness of them impacting made it even more terrifying in retrospect, but right now, the focus was to get my wounded soldier onto that helicopter. If I did one thing that day, it was going to be to get him on that bird.
Right around that time, two of my soldiers showed up with two duffel bags full of clothes for each troop as well as their ID cards and dog tags. It was me, Captain Cross-fit, the Infantry First Sergeant. He looked at me and asked, “You got some guys to get the litter to the bird?” I quickly replied, “I think we have enough here to make that happen”! Shocked I had said that, he did not hesitate, “OK let’s do this”!
I took the front right of the litter as I was not as far removed as these guys from what commands to give. This was the first time Captain High Speed had carried a litter in combat, and I am sure that was his last as he is a Captain and that work is typically not in the Officer’s inventory of required skills. I gave the command of “UP”. The three of us Senior Leaders, and the medic simultaneously lifted the litter from all four corners to keep High Speed comfortably level.
I then gave the command of “Ready, forward”, and we all stepped in unison, albeit extremely fast! The other wounded troop was in tow as well. His injury was less severe so he used the other medic that was in the aid station as a walking stick balancing his weight on the shoulder of the other guy. We hit the landing zone or LZ at the same exact time the bird hit the deck. The crew chief met us as we were walking and the medic gave a run down to the crew chief as to the seriousness of the injuries.
Both were stable, and the last time I saw High Speed that day, he was safely on that bird. Immediately after we put him on the bird, we bolted in separate directions. I ran as fast as I could to where I left my troops in that makeshift bunker. I then asked all my guys to look themselves over, to ensure that they did not have any holes in them. All of us were in the impact area for this round.
Sure enough, my fears were confirmed, four more had small holes throughout their bodies. Some had small holes on their faces, while others had them on their legs. Immediately, in unison, they all started feeling the pain as they realized their wounds. I guess that is where their adrenaline-high ended. They were all walking wounded, and none had shown any signs of being wounded beforehand.
Still, me being the safe type, wanted all of them to get checked out just in case they had something serious that their body had not reacted to yet. I called up to the TOC to inform them that the count had changed and now we had six wounded. They called back and asked what the nature of wounds were and who was wounded. Just before I made that call for us all to move, I got another call over the radio,
“Bravo Two-Seven, this is Bravo Six, over”. I guess Captain Cross-fit had ran back to the TOC once we parted ways. I replied, “Bravo Six, this is Bravo Two-Seven, go ahead”. Then Captain Cross-fit began to tell me that we needed the battle roster numbers for the wounded. I had already made my mind to escort my guys to the aid station as at this point, I wanted to be wherever I was sending them. If I was going to send them in harm’s way, then I wanted to be there leading them through that.
So, I was pretty pissed as my mind had started looking back on how that day had started. I focused on the initial order he had given me, and how, in retrospect, could have ended in disaster had the enemy shot that lucky round when we were switching the direction of the gun. So, naturally, my mind went straight to “smart ass mode”. I replied back, “The list I have is in the Command Post (CP), can it wait, or is this something that is needed right now?” This must have struck a nerve with Captain Cross-fit, because his tone changed and he said, “I don’t give a fuck how you get it, I need it now”!
So, I complied and ran my ass over to the CP to get my list that was hanging on my wall. I was pissed, as the down time had given me time to think and the blame game started to play on my mind as I analyzed everything that had just transpired. I was pissed my guys got wounded. I was pissed that this Captain was sending them into danger when he was doing so from the safety of a hardened building. It took me a few days to get over this anger that had exploded out of me. I kept my cool though. As I ran to the CP, my four walking wounded ran to the aid station.
I instructed one non-wounded soldiers to escort each of the wounded, and I told them to stagger themselves. They were off in the opposite direction. I gave the battle roster numbers for each of the wounded and the enemy fire tapered off a few minutes later. The silence was upon us again.
All-in-all, we had six wounded soldiers from that one enemy round. I was now down six soldiers whose wounds limited their abilities to man one of our howitzers. So, I went through the process of switching duty positions for some of my support troops that had accompanied us on our trip. Immediately, I directed the train-up of three troops, two maintenance troops, and I would take the role of the three missing section members needed to man the howitzer that was hit, in the event that a fire mission came down. We wouldn't have to wait too long for that scenario to play out.
Busy, busy, busy is how combat is to the lower enlisted soldiers. The guard requirement was not the only requirement we contributed towards on the COP. We also had to give up a set of soldiers for Kitchen Police (KP) duty. We had a small mess hall on the base where we ate at, three times a day.
Balancing the logistics, and placing the right people in the right jobs to ensure you can accomplish your mission is an art in the military service for an enlisted leader. You have to be flexible, and plan for contingencies that are unforeseen. We train as we fight, or at least that is the mantra of the garrison force, but in combat, things can end badly, and you have to stay flexible to ensure that the mission never gets dropped.
Continue to Part 7...