Not a Good Day to Die (44 page)

Unaware of how close they had just come to catastrophe, the pilots arrived back over the precarious LZ on the Finger and again attempted a nerve-jangling landing. This time they got it right, sliding the helicopter down perfectly between the rocks.

The first thing Murray did as he jumped off the helicopter was chamber a round in his M4. This was an altogether new experience for the Rakkasan air liaison officer, an F-16 pilot who had always imagined experiencing combat from behind a joystick, not dodging bullets with a rifle in his hand. The nine men who jumped from the aircraft (Marye’s role as air mission commander required that he stay airborne) realized they were being shot at even before the helicopters pulled away. Bullets cracked and popped over their heads. “Is that sound bullets going by?” Murray asked innocently, a comment that was to pass into legend in the Rakkasan headquarters. Assured that it was, the twenty-nine-year-old Air Force Academy graduate from Chicago’s South Side tensed up.
Man, what did I get myself into?
But Wiercinski had chosen the site well. The bullets that weren’t flying overhead were pinging off the boulders that lined the eastern edge of their position. Nevertheless, no one on the ridge was happy about being taken under fire. “Guys, I’ve heard this sound before. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now,” said Wiercinski, his mind flashing back to that dark night in Panama in December 1989.

Bullets or no bullets, there was work to be done. Moving north down the ridge a little way, Corkran and his scout platoon leader, 1
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Lieutenant Justin Overbaugh, established an observation post from which they saw about ten enemy fighters maneuvering toward them from the direction of Serkhankhel along a low ridge that ran east of and parallel to the Finger. After the Rakkassan TAC troops took them under fire, the enemy squad sought cover behind some rocks on a low ridgeline about 200 meters to the northeast. Those members of the TAC not consumed with command and control responsibilities on the radio then traded fire with the enemy squad for about thirty minutes, killing at least one of them with rifle fire. The fight ended when the TAC called in some help from a pair of Apaches, which fired several rockets and bursts of 30mm at the position, silencing it. Meanwhile, Wiercinski, Gibler, and Murray began to work the radios, talking to Preysler and LaCamera on the valley floor, the aircraft overhead, and the different headquarters at Bagram. The ferocity of the battle and the difficulty of landing at the LZ forced Wiercinski to postpone the TAC’s departure from the Finger. He sent the Black Hawks back to Bagram so they could refuel and return with the second lift of Chinooks. That would make them available to pick Wiercinski and the TAC up, but the Rakkasan commander only planned to use that option if he knew his forces and TF Hammer had total control of the valley. Otherwise, he would send the Black Hawks back empty.

Several hundred meters up the slope of the Finger, the TAC personnel could see the corpse of one of the guerrillas killed by Mako 31 and the AC-130 earlier that morning. The SEALs now occupied the DShK position and they signaled their presence by laying a brightly colored VS-17 panel on the ground. The Rakkasan TAC personnel signaled back using their own VS-17 panel. Having already been mistakenly engaged by LaCamera’s troops, Goody decided to link up with the TAC to reduce the risk of a more serious friendly-fire incident. He and his men walked down the slope, calmly introduced themselves to the soldiers as “recon and surveillance snipers,” and quickly went to work expanding the TAC perimeter and applying their expert skills to the job of killing the Al Qaida fighters maneuvering to gain positional advantage over Wiercinski’s tiny band. Savusa, who hadn’t even been aware of the DShK’s existence until he had landed, now realized the significance of what Goody’s men had accomplished. “I owe my life to those guys,” he said. “If it wasn’t for them taking out that machine gun, who knows what would have happened to us.”

In addition to beefing up the TAC’s security element, the arrival of Mako 31 also provided Murray with invaluable assistance in the shape of Andy, the combat controller from 24
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Special Tactics Squadron, the Air Force special ops outfit that worked most closely with Delta and SEAL Team 6 (and was known as Task Force White when it did). Andy and Murray quickly formed a team. Andy used his Viper laser rangefinder to get the precise coordinates for the targets that Murray then arranged to have bombed by talking directly to the pilots of the fast-movers. The young Air Force officer stayed glued to his radio throughout his time on what later became known as “Rak TAC Ridge,” so much so that he was the only man on the ridge who didn’t fire his weapon. So engrossed was he in his duty that he failed to notice when the enemy fire was creeping dangerously close to his location. “Dino, get down before you get your fucking head blown off!” Wiercinski yelled at him.

The TAC withstood three distinct mortar barrages consisting of three or four rounds. On each occasion the first round landed a safe distance away, but the subsequent rounds would walk closer and closer to the TAC, stretching nerves to breaking point. The next attack would begin closer than the previous one, but otherwise the pattern would be repeated, leading Murray to conclude that the Al Qaida mortar crews had at least one observer calling in the fires. There was little the Rakkasans could do about the attacks, because they had no idea where the enemy mortar positions were located. After one round landed less than fifty meters away, Wiercinski and Savusa looked at each other. “Okay boys, it’s time to pack,” Wiercinski said, and troops gathered up the radios and moved a short distance along the ridge in an attempt to escape the enemy mortar crew’s attentions. Back in the Rakkasan TOC in Bagram, Jim Larsen listened as his commander signed off with the words, “We’re in contact, we’re moving.” For an hour Larsen sat by the radio waiting nervously until the TAC reestablished communications. “There was a certain helpless feeling,” he said. “You couldn’t do anything about it, they were on their own.”

Murray’s own nerves were calmed somewhat by the coolness under fire of Wiercinski and Savusa. Not many colonels, even in the infantry, got to engage in direct firefights, and Murray speculated that the engagement “brought back some memories” for the brigade commander. “He was in his element,” the Air Force captain said. “He looked like an infantryman at some times and at others he looked like a guy in command of hundreds of men that were in a tough dogfight. He looked drained and stressed at times, but most of the time he looked like he was in his element. I’d go back on the mountain with the guy anytime.”

The sporadic small arms fire aimed at the TAC began to morph into a more concerted attack. “Whenever you want bombs, just let me know,” Murray told Wiercinski, aware that the situation was getting worse. A short while later there was a brief lull in the calls for fire from the valley floor, and Wiercinski took the opportunity. “Dino, let’s get some bombs in there,” the colonel told his air liaison officer. “What can you do for me?” Murray wished Wiercinski had asked a little earlier, as the enemy was now within “danger close” range of the TAC. Because of the guerrillas’ proximity, the captain issued a request for any aircraft equipped with laser-guided bombs. Two F-16s were vectored in. Murray crawled to a little ridgeline to get the coordinates for the target area. “We’ve got troops in contact,” he told the pilots. “We’re taking fire from the north.” He described where they were on the Finger, and used a mirror to try to signal his location to the pilots overhead. But the pilots couldn’t identify the Rakkasan TAC on the ground, which raised the tension level a notch or two. “When you’re dropping that close, you’d really like him to know where the friendlies are,” Murray said. So Murray first had one of the F-16s drop a bomb outside of the danger close range. The bomb hit exactly where Murray had asked for it. “You see where the bomb hit? Now I want you to come up that ridgeline about halfway and tell me what you see,” he said to the pilot. “I see some guys maybe running around in there, and certainly I see a little cave entrance and stuff like that,” the pilot replied. “That’s where I want the next bombs.” “All right, how close to the friendlies?” “Three hundred meters.” “All right.” Murray then passed the ground commander’s initials, in this case, “FW,” for Frank Wiercinski—a necessary step whenever a force on the ground asks an aircraft for a “danger close” air strike.

There was a brief pause as the bombs fell to earth, then an orange explosion was followed by an earsplitting boom as the bombs detonated right on target. “There’s nothing left down there,” one of the infantry officers told Murray. “Thanks, you guys saved us,” Murray told the F-16s as they prepared to leave. But he had no time to bask in the satisfaction of having solved the immediate problem to his north. The battle around the Halfpipe demanded his attention.

WITH
the departure of the two stricken Apaches, Ryan consolidated his remaining aircraft in a team of three helicopters. The fight in the south was becoming even more chaotic. Communications problems hindered the pilots’ ability to get a good read on the location of friendly and enemy forces at that end of the Shahikot. Having to fly straight into the early-morning sun didn’t help matters. The pilots knew that LaCamera’s troops had taken refuge in the hollow that became known as Hell’s Halfpipe, but they were having a hell of a hard time locating it on the ground. They had to take several turns on the racetrack pattern around the valley before they saw it, and every time they flew past the Whale, they would get shot at.

It was around this time that Chenault unleashed the only Hellfire missile the Apaches fired that day. His opportunity arose when an urgent call for help came over the radio from Chip Preysler, the 2-187 commander. He and several of his soldiers were still in the compound, but were pinned down by Kalashnikov and RPG fire raining down on them from an Al Qaida bunker only 150 meters to their west on a plateau a little to the north of Sherkhankhel, and just to the east of the Whale. Chenault was closest to the target, and responded immediately. First he located the 2-187 soldiers on the valley floor, picking out their VS-17 panel. Then they gave him the heading and the range from which they were taking the fire. Chenault flew off in that direction. Within a couple of seconds he and Herman spotted the bunker underneath them. It was no more than a hole in the ground, fortified by some loose rocks around the rim, with no overhead cover. Looking down, the pilots saw two enemy fighters. One was firing a Kalashnikov at the Apache, the other had an RPG launcher on his shoulder. Two backpacks lay beside them in the dirt—one blue, one orange. Realizing their peril, the guerrillas scrambled out of the bunker and sprinted for their lives as Chenault circled back around. As the fighters ran down the side plateau, he let loose with his last twenty cannon rounds. One fighter dropped, but the other survived, and decided his best hope lay in the bunker’s protection. He clambered back up the hill, perhaps hoping to get an RPG off before the Apache could attack again.

Out of rockets and 30mm rounds, Chenault’s only recourse was his Hellfires. He wheeled to face the bunker again. (Unlike the cannon, neither the rocket pods nor the Hellfire pylons are slaved to the pilot’s helmet, so Chenault had to point the helicopter toward the target in order to engage it with these weapons.) He could see the target clearly—too clearly. The Hellfire has a minimum range of 500 meters—if it is fired any closer to the target, it won’t arm in time, and will fail to detonate on impact. Chenault was too close, so he held fire. Wheeling around, he again lined up the Apache with the bunker. The Hellfire is not a true “fire-and-forget” missile—it is guided onto its target by a laser beam that must remain pointed at the target until impact. Rather than passing over the enemy again without firing, Chenault pulled the controls back and put the Apache into reverse. At 520 meters from the target, the laser rangefinder finally locked on. Herman fired immediately. The missile sped off the rail on a flat trajectory, its motor trailing smoke as it rode the laser down.

At the very moment that the Al Qaida fighter reached the top of the plateau and dived for cover into the bunker, the missile exploded dead on target with a white flash and a cloud of smoke and dust. It was a classic case of bad timing on the guerrilla’s part. Chenault and Herman flew over the position one last time. “It was gone,” said Chenault.

Still the remaining three Apaches wheeled and swooped around the valley, trying to be everywhere at once, keeping the enemy’s attention diverted from the infantry. Ryan and Kilburn were making an engagement run on an Al Qaida position just north of Ginger. They had just put a 30mm burst on the target, by now only 200-300 meters in front of them, and were about to break left when the captain was startled by a loud bang, as if a firecracker had exploded just outside the cockpit. Tiny pieces of Plexiglas showered him, collecting on his lap, on the radio console, and on the floor. With a sickening feeling, he noticed blood on his flak vest. “I’m hit!” he yelled to Kilburn, his heart racing as he checked himself for wounds. With relief he found that all his fingers and toes were still attached and intact, and he had no other obvious wounds on his arms, legs or torso. He turned his attention to his head, checking his face in the cockpit’s small mirror, which he usually used to observe his backseater. There was blood running from a small cut on his chin, where a bullet had nicked him after deflecting off the right door frame. After giving Ryan the closest of close shaves, the bullet had exited through the canopy. Al Qaida had come within a couple of inches of killing the commander of Task Force Rakkasan’s Apache force. It was another in the extraordinary series of close calls enjoyed by the task force’s soldiers. Ryan would later wryly refer to the incident as “a significant emotional event”—Army slang for something that scares you shitless.