Lions of Kandahar (21 page)

I watched small fires we had set and left behind burn brightly in the side mirror. Flares ignited large bundles of scrub brush, wood, and boxes left behind. From across the river, it would appear there were still soldiers on the ridge, and the Taliban might choose to hit the easier target instead of a heavily armed convoy. I have no idea if the ploy worked, but we didn’t get ambushed.

The jet blue sky was turning orange behind us and we made good time in the rocky river bottom. As we got closer to the mountains, we saw a massive caravan of jingle trucks, dusty cars, mules, buses, vans, and carts streaming out of the valley—a mass exodus of civilians from Panjwayi. It looked apocalyptic. Those without transport walked. It looked like a dark line of ants, each carrying his worldly possessions on his back or in his car toward Kandahar.

The day before, we had learned that Asadullah Khalid, the governor of Kandahar Province, had told the citizens of Panjwayi in a series of radio messages that a massive NATO operation was coming and that all civilians should leave the area. The spectacle was staggering. These people had lived under the Taliban for months and they wanted out bad, so bad they were willing to leave crops in the field and their houses and farms unattended.

Hodge led the convoy to the far right of the refugee caravans so as not to become engulfed in their moving quagmire. Once up into the mountain passes, I watched our vehicles peel off into their respective blocking positions. It was good to see things running as scheduled again.

Hodge’s team set up on the northern side of our sector, on a long peanut-shaped mountain called Kheybari Ghar. My team split into two groups and occupied two narrow passes between the mountains
to the south. Bruce’s team occupied a saddle between the mountains. We set up observation points and before sunset positioned the machine guns to cover the passes. That officially completed our final task for this phase of the operation. All we had to do now was keep the Taliban bottled in and send intelligence reports.

“I’m glad this nonsense is over,” Brian said.

“Get ready for some long, boring days,” I said, hoping and praying that the bad feeling buzzing in my head was just paranoia.

“SHOOT INTO THE
BUSHES, DADDY!”

M
y day started with a tug on my foot. It was Jude, waking me up for my guard shift. I hadn’t seen much of him on the road during his stint driving Jared’s truck. It was good to have him back in the fold.

“Nothing going on out there, Captain,” he said.

“I’ve gotta have a cup of coffee today or I’m gonna break something,” I said.

He shrugged and handed me the night-vision goggles. Before I could get out of the truck, he had disappeared into his sleeping bag for a few hours of sleep. I opened the door and pulled a bag of ground coffee and filters from a metal box.

It was just after four a.m., with the sun just below the horizon. While the coffee was brewing, I walked over to check on the ANA. Taz sat with his legs tucked under him, the American-made AK-47 magazine carrier I bought him on the last rotation strapped across
his chest, the small squad radio at his ear. He gave me a thumbs-up and grinned.

“Dodee wharlee, Turan?”
he asked. Do you want food, Captain?

“Walee na zma, malgaree,”
I said. Why not, my friend.

Coughing and a growl issued from a sleeping bag behind me.

“Roostie.” Shinsha jammed a cigarette in his mouth before completely sitting up. He slapped my leg, nearly knocking it out from under me.

“Sahar pakair, Komandan,”
I said in Pashto. Good morning, Commander.

We could still see torches flickering down in the valley as the long lines of civilians continued to flee Panjwayi. Taz and Shinsha were clearly disturbed by the refugees and the prospect of their country being torn apart, again.

Operation Medusa was set to kick off in just a few hours, and talk soon turned to the Canadian attack. Shinsha was sure he knew how the battle would turn out.

“This is same as with the Russies,” he said. “They attack and the Taliban will make defense and absorb attackers until they are too weak to go on.”

“This time, though, you’re rooting for the attackers,” I teased him.

By the time the sunrise sent streaks of brilliant gold light into the deep blue skies above the desert, I was nearly full of tea and bread.
I hope today is better than yesterday
, I thought.

A Canadian special operations unit had infiltrated onto Masum Ghar, five kilometers north of our position, under the noses of Taliban fighters during the night. We heard them on the radio for the first time that morning. Masum Ghar was the northernmost terrain feature, with commanding views of the Canadian objectives. The Canadian plan called for several days of bombing, targeted in part by the Canadian special operations team, followed by a ground attack across the Arghandab River.

The first dull gray A-10 streaked high across the desert overhead,
engines wide open. It climbed straight up for several thousand feet, banked hard left, went wings level, then dove like an arrow, belching fire. Like preying birds, bomber after bomber swooped in, pounding Taliban positions.

I stood on the hood of Ole Girl following the aerial assault with my binoculars, my adrenaline spiking. I felt like a Spartan captain watching the Persian navy smash into the Greek coastline.

“Ahhhhhh,” I bellowed, bringing Brian out of his sleeping bag, pistol in hand.

“Where, where, where?” he yelled.

“Be cool. The Canucks are crushing some nuts across the river,” I said, grinning.

The bombardment was the “softening,” or targeting of the objectives in the valley to destroy enemy communications, command positions, defenses, and logistical sites. I had never seen this much firepower from either side in all my tours in Afghanistan. Streams of anti-aircraft fire arched into the sky, trying to clip the fighters. The lofting wave of bullets coming out of the valley was as transfixing as the arsenal going in. This was not a collection of hillbillies. These were hardcore fighters.

Then word came that a general somewhere in the chain of command had moved up the attack without conducting a reconnaissance, or recce, of the target. Instead of following the plan, this general had received “intelligence” that the Taliban were breaking and made the change of plans to attack early. You never conduct a deliberate attack without conducting reconnaissance. It didn’t shock me, though. I am never amazed that certain generals, however far away they are, know more about the battlefield than those standing on it.

Jared and I studied the maps and the new timeline. Brian and Dave monitored the radios and called out friendly and enemy positions to the group in order to keep everyone informed. The aerial bombardment had just begun when we heard an unusual noise. I looked at Jared.

“What the hell is that?” I said.

South of Masum Ghar, one of the men attached to the Canadian recce company commanded by Major Andy Lussier pointed to the sky. Andy saw it immediately: a four-engine British Nimrod on fire and trailing thick black smoke. Seconds later, the plane disappeared in a massive fireball. Not waiting for orders, Andy and his men started for the crash site. The Canadians knew the unspoken code as well as we did. Andy could not, would not let the Taliban get there first.

The explosion reverberated deep in the ground. We felt it at our position, grabbed weapons, and scrambled to the top of the small ridge behind our vehicles. “Lord,” Dave mumbled, looking at the distant fiery debris. We said a prayer for those on board and their families.

As we watched, the radio announced what we already knew. “All Task Force 31 units, this is a net call. We have a coalition aircraft down. Aircraft is a British Nimrod. Can anyone identify?”

Andy’s team was having difficulty finding its way through the villages and around the irrigation ditches that crisscrossed the district. Finally, an American Apache helicopter guided the Canadians to the gruesome crash site. Parts of the aircraft were strewn everywhere across the scorched earth, but the plane had impacted with such force that there was little to recover. All fourteen British crew members died.

That night on duty, I listened to the coalition satellite radio transmission to help pass the time. Settling into the turret, I had the radio in my ear when I heard a transmission about the Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Mullah Dadullah Lang, commander of southern Afghanistan. Both men, according to the transmission, might be in Panjwayi. If they were down there, we would dearly want to be in on their demise. After my shift I found Smitty and we spent the next few hours drilling down on our hard intelligence and educated assumptions
about what we could expect to face in the valley. If there were senior-level Taliban commanders and foreign fighters in there, the resistance would be particularly stiff, Smitty insisted.

For the moment, there was little we could do but remain on station, ready to support the Canadians.

The next morning, our radios crackled to life. The main Canadian ground attack had started. Over the next few hours, as we listened intently, the situation deteriorated rapidly. Very soon, Charles Company was fighting for its life near Objective Rugby.

Rugby was a small white schoolhouse in the middle of Panjwayi. The array of irrigation ditches, bisecting tree lines, and dense marijuana fields, their plants taller than a man, made the schoolhouse the natural center of the Taliban’s defense. We could see the fight from nearly a mile away. It was vicious.

Charles Company of the Royal Canadian Regiment had come under lethal fire and taken heavy casualties almost immediately after crossing the river. General Fraser’s intelligence about a weak, broken Taliban was wrong. In minutes, several Canadian vehicles were destroyed and four soldiers dead.

We tracked the battle on our maps from our blocking position. The concept was to keep the enemy compressed in the meat grinder. “Battle tracking” was the only way to keep up with what was going on and pass the time. It also kept us abreast of where everyone was located on the battlefield. Midway through, my interpreter, Victor, raced to me, his eyes filled with tears. He held out his radio and I tried to make sense of what I heard. Taliban soldiers screaming. Gunfire, so dominant that I guessed the fighter was holding the radio against his weapon. He said the fighters were forcing the remaining civilians who hadn’t escaped into the open courtyards and streets at gunpoint as shields against air strikes. Fighters circled above but didn’t attack. Stalemate.

Establishing the Blocking Positions (August 31–September 1, 2006)

Ambush at Sperwan Ghar (September 3, 2006)

Mere spectators, we could only watch and listen to our comrades fight for their lives. After a few hours absorbing the panicked radio calls, I gazed out over Panjwayi. Dozens of thick black smoke plumes climbed into the blue sky as buildings and Canadian vehicles burned. Secondary explosions shook the ground. Each time the fighting spiked, Smitty raised his big bushy eyebrows at me as if to say, “I told you so.” The fierce resistance he had predicted earlier was playing out now in real time.