Not a Good Day to Die (38 page)

THE
events surrounding the air strikes that were supposed to hit the valley prior to H-Hour remained clouded in mystery two years after the operation. The plan called for thirteen preplanned targets to be struck by a B-1B bomber, a B-52 bomber, and two F-15E Strike Eagle fighter-bombers in the hour prior to H-Hour. Some of these bombs went in as planned, including a thermobaric bomb that struck the cave complex that Juliet had identified two days previously and the JDAMs dropped on the Whale. But others—the exact number and location of the targets involved is still debated, but there is general agreement that they included targets in the southeast of the valley—did not.

Two factors lay behind the failure to drop these bombs. The first is that the B-1B had a bomb get stuck in its bomb bay. It requested permission from the Combined Air Operations Center in Saudi Arabia to jettison the bomb over the target area and then waited for several minutes for permission to be granted. Meanwhile, the B-52, which had three bombs left to drop (fewer than the B-1B), waited for the B-1B to finish its bombing run. Before the CAOC could come back with an answer for the B-1B, the aircraft all heard what they interpreted as a “knock it off” call from a special operations reconnaissance team—presumably one of the AFO teams, as these were the only teams in the valley at the time—that felt the bombs were falling too close to its position. This was reported by the crews of one of the F-15Es and the B-52, but without any specifics as to the call sign or location of the recce team. Blaber, who was monitoring all three teams’ radio transmissions, said that he was unaware of any of his teams making such a call. It is possible that the air crews misinterpreted a radio call from the ground, or even that they had heard the “Cease fire!” calls directed at Grim 31 by Blaber and Glenn P. in Gardez. (Major Richard Coe, the weapons systems officer on the lead F-15E, acknowledged that it might have been the “Cease fire!” calls from Gardez that he heard.) Whatever the source of the “knock it off” call, the result was that no more bombs fell before the Chinooks entered the valley.

WITH
Task Force Hammer stalled in the sand west of the Whale and the Chinooks carrying the first wave of Rakkasan infantry already skimming the mountaintops en route to the Shahikot, Hagenbeck faced a critical decision: Should he abort the mission? If he did, surprise would have been lost, and the episode would doubtless be portrayed by the press as a significant military setback. But if he continued with the air assault, he ran the risk of having his supporting effort land in Shahikot with no main effort to support. The Rakkasans could occupy their blocking positions, but with no Task Force Hammer to drive the enemy into those positions, the Rakkasans would be nothing but static targets for enemy gunners. But Hagenbeck was not concerned with the delay to Hammer’s movement, which he considered temporary, and he thought the notion of turning the air assault force around to try again later was unrealistic. “We can get ’em moving again,” the Dagger leaders in Bagram told Hagenbeck and his staff concerned about Hammer’s lack of progress. “Colonel Mulholland and Colonel Rosengard were very confident that they could get the Zia forces to move,” said Bentley, Hagenbeck’s senior fires officer. “It was just as much a surprise to them as to anybody that they were not moving.” However, among the Mountain leaders in Bagram, there was a determination to put Task Force Rakkasan into the Shahikot, even if the main effort failed to show up for the fight. “We weren’t going to wait on Zia to dictate to us what the plan was going to be,” Bello said.

WHEN
Ballard reached the site of the friendly-fire incident, he found the vehicles and the casualties in a streambed that was seeded with six rows of mines. The AMF fighters were hiding behind rocks looking very scared. Casenhiser, suffering from significant wounds himself, was still working urgently on Harriman. Wadsworth brought Ballard quickly up to speed on what had happened. The warrant officer directed that an HLZ be marked out so that one of the inbound TF Rakkasan Chinooks could pick up the casualties after dropping off the infantry and take them back to Bagram. The Chinooks were supposedly already inbound, but Ballard couldn’t raise them yet on his radio.

THE
helicopters’ flight south to the Shahikot was difficult. Low clouds hid the moon and pockets of fog obscured the ground. Dawn was almost an hour away when the Apaches took off, so the pilots used their helmet-mounted thermal night-vision sights to penetrate the haze as they flew between the snowcapped peaks. Chenault and Hurley kept an altitude of at least 150 feet above ground level for most of the flight down. But after an hour, as they were closing on the Shahikot, they hit a cloud bank that forced them to rise to over 500 feet above ground level—far higher than they would usually fly on the approach to an engagement area. Behind them, Team 2’s pilots dealt with the fog differently as they raced toward the Shahikot, preferring to hug the earth. The three helicopters bounced and swerved over and around the ridgelines at 125 miles per hour, sometimes just a couple of dozen feet above the ground. The Team 2 aircraft lost visual contact with each other several times. An Apache’s instruments did not allow for easy flight through clouds, and the pilots discussed turning around. But in their hearts they knew that wasn’t an option. Their colleagues in Team 1 were already over the Shahikot, having taken a different route. More important, the infantry-laden Chinooks ahead of them had avoided the worst of the weather and were nearing the Shahikot. The plan called for the second flight of Apaches to arrive on station just as the 10
^th
Mountain troops were establishing their blocking positions. If Team 2 turned around now, the infantry would land and move to their positions, only to find themselves bereft of their primary means of fire support. Peering into the gloom, the pilots flew on.

IN
fact, the weather had already played havoc with the aviation plan. Somehow the first three Chinooks, carrying the 2-187 troops, had gotten ahead of the Apaches and were already turning into the valley. The two Apaches of Team 1 followed hard on their heels, but they couldn’t catch them in time. The Chinooks would have to do without the benefit of the “cherry/ice” call.

The smoke from the air strikes had barely dissipated as the Chinooks swooped into the valley. The three helicopters spread out as they selected their individual landing zones along the foot of the eastern ridge. At the controls of chalk number three were Chief Warrant Officer 3 Loyd Blayne Anderson and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jeff Fichter. Anderson was the more experienced and higher-ranking pilot, but was acting as copilot that morning. “I told Fichter I’d fly with him that day,’ cause he’s got a little girl coming in May, and so my job was to keep him alive,” Anderson said. About fifty miles north of the Shahikot they and the other first serial Chinooks had received a call from the Air Force E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft that was controlling the airspace for Anaconda. The AWACS—call sign Bossman—needed them to divert from their flight path home to pick up the casualties taken in Harriman’s column and fly them back to Bagram. Now, as they lowered themselves to the valley floor to deposit their precious cargo of soldiers, the two pilots were already making the mental adjustments to their flight plan. Within two minutes they were airborne again.

THE
medevac mission interfered with Apache Team 2’s flight. The second serial of Chinooks was due soon, carrying the 1-87 troops whose establishment of blocking positions was to coincide with Team 2’s arrival. But as the three Apaches in Team 2 approached the Shahikot, they were forced to slow down to allow the first serial of Chinooks that had just dropped off the 101
^st
troops to divert from their flight path in order to land and pick up the casualties. The delay put Team 2 several minutes behind schedule, but otherwise the bad news caused remarkably little alarm among the pilots. “We still weren’t expecting much resistance when we got there,” Hardy said. “There wasn’t a lot of adrenaline pumping.”

By the time Team 2 got to the release point, the weather had improved slightly. As the second serial of Chinooks flew into the Shahikot, the three Apaches turned north and tucked in behind them. The attack helicopters circled as the three Chinooks landed and disgorged their infantry without incident.

Once all five Apaches were on station, each team began flying “racetrack” patterns in its half of the valley, using Serkhankhel as the north-south dividing line. For Team 2, this meant flying clockwise in an oval no more than two kilometers long and one kilometer wide. The idea was to keep at least one aircraft with an eye on the infantry and Serkhankhel at all times. They flew in this pattern for several uneventful minutes, watching the infantry gather themselves on the ground.
Okay, here we go again, nothing’s going on,
Chenault thought. “Then all hell broke loose.”

BY
the time Schwartz arrived at the site of the attack on Harriman’s column, all three Chinooks in the first serial were attempting to land at the landing zone that had been marked out. Schwartz told his radio-telephone operator (RTO), Sergeant First Class Eric Navarro, to get on the radio and help the Chinooks land, then opened his door to step out. As he did, someone yelled to him to watch out, the creek bed was mined. Looking down, Schwartz saw an antipersonnel mine right where he was about to put his foot. Sidestepping the mine and breathing a sigh of relief, he walked carefully up to where he could see several personnel performing CPR on Harriman. As soon as the Chinooks landed, Schwartz helped carry Harriman to the nearest helicopter, which was the one piloted by Anderson and Fichter. Looking at Harriman’s glazed eyes and ghostly pallor, Ballard thought it was already too late for his counterpart from 372.

Once Harriman had been lifted aboard, Casenhiser, Wadsworth, and Nelson climbed in, along with several of the more badly wounded AMF soldiers, two of whom had taken shrapnel to the head. (Ziabdullah told Ballard that all his wounded had been taken care of, but that wasn’t the case. Some had been too scared to get on the helicopters, while others who had jumped on the Chinook were not wounded, but were looking for a way to get out of the fight.) Fully aware that a fellow soldier’s life hung in the balance, Fichter and Anderson wasted no time on the ground. By 6:47 a.m. they were in the air again, en route back to Bagram.

After the helicopters took off, Ballard set about “sterilizing” the site, recovering sensitive items—especially cryptographic gear—and placing them in his vehicle. But some equipment wouldn’t fit on the remaining trucks and had to be left behind. About fifteen minutes after Anderson’s Chinook had left, half a dozen rounds variously assessed as RPGs, mortars or recoilless rifle rounds whistled over the heads of the troops who remained at the site. The fire, which caused no casualties, was probably aimed at the Apaches flying about 500 meters in front of the U.S. and AMF troops, but it served to focus the Americans’ minds on the task in hand. Nevertheless, it still took them almost an hour to recover all the mission-essential equipment and bandage up the AMF walking wounded.

John B. and Isaac H., the AFO personnel who had accompanied the quick reaction force, stayed behind to establish an observation post on a hillock just to the north of the Guppy. Ziabdullah moved his forces south to link up with Haas and the main convoy just west of Carwazi, while Schwartz, Ballard, and about twenty of Engineer’s fighters remained at the site and established a hasty defensive position, waiting for Afghan reinforcements to be sent up to provide security for the AFO observation post. Upon their arrival, Schwartz moved them forward and told their leader where to position his forces. As he was driving back to the main convoy, Schwartz got a call from Ballard saying that the AFO guys had left some “mission essential equipment” in their vehicle at the base of the Guppy, and they wanted the AMF troops to bring it up to them. The major returned to their vehicle, secured the equipment, and told a pair of AMF fighters to bring it up to the observation post. Then Schwartz went back to the hasty defensive perimeter, gathered all the U.S. and AMF forces, and proceeded to link up with Haas and the main body.

ONBOARD
Anderson’s Chinook, Casenhiser ignored his own wounds, which were soaking his pants leg in blood, and worked frantically to keep his buddy alive. Blood slickened the floor as he knelt over Harriman. “Go faster! Go faster!” he yelled desperately at the pilots. Fichter and Anderson were already pushing the helicopter as hard as they could, squeezing every last knot of speed from the shuddering airframe as the Afghan landscape flashed below them. They received permission to break formation, leaving the other two Chinooks in their wake as they made a beeline back to Bagram, flying far closer to the ground than they had on the way down. “I didn’t want to waste the time pulling up to gain altitude,” Anderson said. “We didn’t care if we got shot at or not.” The pilots threw all caution to the wind in their efforts to deliver Harriman alive. “We decided to pull everything we had and see what she would do,” Anderson said. They watched the air speed indicator creep up from 130 knots per hour, past 140, 150, 160, then 165, the equivalent of about 190 miles per hour. Fichter had 1500 hours flight time under his belt, while Anderson had 2600. Neither had ever flown a helicopter this fast before. “We just decided we were going to tear it apart to get him there,” Anderson said. The airframe was shaking so violently they couldn’t read some of the instruments. “We were sucking the guts out of the aircraft to get back,” recalled Fichter. As they roared over Kabul less than 100 feet above the ground, the two bubble-shaped windows in the cabin popped out and sailed to the ground. “Somebody in Kabul got a new salad bowl,” Fichter remarked dryly.

With Casenhiser working full-time on Harriman, Sergeant Jonathan Gurgel, the flight engineer, passed out blankets and used the aircraft’s medical supplies to dress the wounds on the walking wounded, some of whom were going into shock. About ten miles from Bagram, the pilots radioed the airfield tower with the message that they were inbound carrying a litter-urgent American casualty receiving CPR. Only thirty minutes after they had taken off, Fichter and Anderson brought their Chinook hurtling over the mountains surrounding Bagram airfield at 170 knots. With Anderson at the controls, they tore up another page from the rule book by using a banned maneuver called an “Australian decel” to land the aircraft at high speed. Anderson barely slowed the aircraft before suddenly tilting it on its side, pivoting, and almost slamming it to the ground in a move that took no more than a couple of seconds. A small convoy of cargo Humvees that served as ambulances for the elite medical professionals of the 274
^th
Forward Surgical Team raced out to meet the helicopter and unloaded Harriman immediately.

As the Humvee with Harriman in the back sped away, Casenhiser, at last relieved of his medical duties, turned to one of the Chinook crew and asked casually, “Is there blood on my leg?” There was. “He had blood all over his thighs,” said Anderson, who marveled at the SF medic’s ability to put his own pain out of his mind in order to focus on treating Harriman.

Once the casualties were unloaded, the crew realized how much blood there was on the floor. Knowing they were due to fly another load of infantrymen—” Joes”—down to the Shahikot soon, they started throwing dirt on the seats and the floor to soak it up. “Nothing will degrade morale more than to have blood on the floor and seats when you’re picking up forty-three Joes,” Fichter said.

Later that day Anderson walked over to some Special Forces soldiers and asked how Harriman was doing. A warrant officer told him Harriman had died. The news hit Anderson and his crewmates hard. They rehashed the flight, trying to figure out if they could have saved an extra few seconds anywhere along the route. Anderson was so troubled by these thoughts that he went back to the forward surgical team’s doctors in the medical center that they had established in the airfield tower building. They told him Harriman had been beyond help, and that a few minutes here or there wouldn’t have made any difference. It was cold comfort to the air crew. “We wanted to tell his wife we did it as fast as we could,” Anderson said. “I don’t think any other helicopter or any other crew could have done it any quicker…. We just wanted to make a difference.”

MCHALE’S
ragged formation of seven or eight vehicles, including three jinga trucks, an armored SUV, AFO’s Sergeant Major Al Y. in his truck, an AMF Toyota pickup, and McHale in his pickup, continued south to Gwad Kala. (When Thomas came through the defile believing he was at the front of the column and then caught sight of McHale’s element up ahead, he was confused, but did not fire at them.) McHale halted and dismounted the troops at Gwad Kala with the intention of sending the trucks back to the main body of the convoy, which was still north of the defile. He needed to do this because so many trucks had broken down, rolled over, become stuck or been dispatched north with the quick reaction force that, despite starting the night with three spare trucks, Task Force Hammer was now running out of vehicles, so there were more fighters back west of Carwazi than the vehicles there could accommodate. The steady attrition of the convoy’s trucks also caused the system of squads, platoons and companies into which the A-teams had carefully formed their 400 Afghan allies to completely break down. This became clear to McHale the moment he alighted from his truck at Gwad Kala and watched the Afghans dismounting. “They were looking at each other like ‘Who are you?’” The Afghan “platoon leader” McHale had placed in charge of the three AMF trucks in his advance force was nowhere to be seen. “It became apparent that their command and control was lost,” McHale recalled. It was now daylight, and the Al Qaida fighters on the Whale had a clear view of the straggling column. McHale and the other SF soldiers pointed to a nearby wadi and motioned for their Afghan colleagues to seek cover there. As the Afghans walked over, the Al Qaida mortar crews nestled in the Whale’s rocks let fly. With a
boom!
the first round landed among the one-story adobe ruins about 200 meters from the column. McHale, under indirect fire for the first time in his life, thought briefly that it wasn’t as loud as he expected. He didn’t have much time to chew on that thought, however, because a few seconds later another round exploded, this time about 150 meters on the other side of the column.

As mortar rounds bracketed their vehicles, the Afghans’ nerve broke. “They started scattering like cats,” McHale said. Now the disruptive effect of the cross-loading of personnel precipitated by the earlier truck accidents came into play. Task Force Hammer might have stood a chance if the Afghans had retained unit integrity, with each Afghan platoon grouped together under its original platoon leader. But that was not the case. The Afghan force had become hopelessly mixed up, and under the stress of sustained incoming mortar fire, it broke. McHale looked in vain for an Afghan commander of any rank that he recognized. But because the column had become so intermingled and Engineer’s platoon—the best of the Afghan fighters—had been dispatched with the quick reaction force, the ODA 372 team leader recognized none of the Afghans around him.

To McHale’s horror, not only were the Afghans running away, but they were running straight toward the ruins where the first round had landed, and which the mortar teams on the Whale had obviously used as a target to register their tubes. McHale ran to the three AMF trucks, only to find that their drivers had abandoned them and taken the keys with them. The A-team leader jumped back into his truck with his commo NCO, Sergeant Bill Guthrie, and an American Pushto interpreter, then raced after the fleeing Afghans. With mortar rounds raining down, he tried to rally the Afghans and persuade them to get back on the trucks so that they could withdraw in good order. It was a hopeless task. “They were more in the self-preservation mode at this point,” McHale said. But although the incoming fire had spooked the Afghans, it wasn’t effective enough to inflict any casualties. “If you were organized you could have sustained and continued the maneuver under it,” McHale said. “The difficulty being you can’t just stand there and continue to have those guys running around like chickens in an open valley where you’re clearly being observed.”

McHale realized quickly that the mortar rounds seemed to follow his truck. The guerrillas on the Whale were obviously more interested in killing U.S. troops than they were in killing the Americans’ local allies, and it didn’t take long for them to zero in on him. When a round landed close enough to shower him with dirt, he knew it was time to beat a retreat. But for the first time Task Force Hammer’s men had “eyes on” their enemy. Staff Sergeant Christopher Grooms of Texas 14, who had been a mortarman in the regular Army before joining Special Forces, spotted the puffs of smoke from the tube firing at them. Meanwhile, Sergeant Major Al Y. and a Special Forces medic attached to the CIA were taking shelter in a ditch and thought they could see the Al Qaida mortar crew’s observer popping up from behind cover. Guthrie and Sergeant First Class John Southworth (Texas 14’s commo sergeant) raised the Apaches on the radio, hoping they could take care of the problem.