Lions of Kandahar (35 page)

Ron looked upset in the back. “Damn it,” he said. The bomb had fallen two hundred meters short, but it was still in the ditch.

“How did you miss with the biggest bullets on the battlefield?” Brian asked.

Our ribbing was cut short by the blood-curdling screams coming over Victor’s radio.

“They have killed us! Nine brothers are sleeping! Everyone is hurt. Come quickly. We are dying!”

“Zack, the impact site is your target. One can of forty mike mike grenades, if you please. All guns converge on the tree line. Fire.”

The bomb had fallen directly on top of the enemy position. Ron smirked. We had guessed the enemy position incorrectly, but Ron had put the pilot and the bomb in the right spot. “Guess I didn’t miss, did I?”

THE DRAGON’S BACK

T
he midday sun beat down on Bruce’s team as they walked cautiously, weapons at the ready, toward the Arghandab River. Jared had sent them down to the river that morning to check out the rock formation known as Zangabar Ghar. From the top of Sperwan Ghar, the jagged mountain poking out of the thick green fields looked like the scales on the back of a dragon. A few days before, a Taliban radio transmission had identified the Zangabar hills as a meeting point for fighters coming across the river.

The team tried to get to Zangabar Ghar in their trucks, but they couldn’t get through the tangle of irrigation ditches. Bruce and two of his teammates took twenty Afghan soldiers to investigate. J.D., one of Bruce’s medics, had an uneasy feeling moving through the open. Fighters had to be in the area; the team had uncovered a massive irrigation ditch that the Taliban used to move supplies and fighters to their fighting positions near Sperwan Ghar and the river. It was so big, they could have driven a five-ton truck through it, but most of
it was covered by trees, rendering it invisible to pilots circling overhead.

Pushing all the way to the banks of the chocolate-milk-colored riverbed, Bruce and Ben talked about laying ambushes in the irrigation ditches. They scouted out several locations, but none offered a big enough field of view. Hiking back to a compound they had identified on the way in, they noticed that it sat in the middle of the several trails the Taliban used to get to Sperwan Ghar. It was the only place where they could see the whole area.

A typical Afghan square house, it had high, thick mud walls. Its main door was on the west side; there was also a side door on the south side. The compound looked abandoned. Stacking on the door, the ANA soldiers under Pete’s and Ben’s leadership burst through. Pete was an ETT assigned to Bruce’s team. Chickens and goats scattered into the courtyard. The compound was in disarray, clothes and food spilled on the floor. Whoever lived there had left in a hurry. The only resistance was a growling, snapping dog. When it finally attacked, they shot it.

Fanning out, they opened each room, searching for Taliban fighters. Pete and Ben told the Afghan soldiers to be careful and not to break anything, and to be respectful. This was someone’s house. With the compound secure, Ben arrayed the ANA soldiers on the roof, setting two machine-gun teams to cover the paths leading to Sperwan Ghar. Nearby, two teams of Afghans armed with RPGs stood ready. Ben set up five more soldiers with AK-47s on the roof, making sure their sectors of fire overlapped with the machine guns.

In the courtyard below, Bruce set up the radio and listened to reports of a firefight between Taliban fighters and 10th Mountain Division soldiers north of Sperwan Ghar. Jared came over the radio and ordered Bruce’s trucks to go pick up an Air Force controller and another soldier. As the trucks sped off, Bruce knew he was now without any heavy weapons. He and his men were alone.

Ben, crouched on the roof next to a machine gunner, saw eight Taliban fighters moving down one of the irrigation trenches toward the fighting. He let the fighters close to one hundred meters and opened fire, cutting them down almost instantly. Alerted to their presence, other Taliban fighters began to converge on the compound from the north and southwest. A Taliban machine gun on a nearby grape hut started raking the rooftop, sending mud and wood splinters into the air. Volleys of RPGs smashed into the walls and showered the soldiers with shrapnel.

J.D. watched a tree line near the compound erupt. Then the RPGs started coming down. They hit the walls and sent shock waves through the compound. The level of fire and the growing swarm of fighters were completely unexpected, and J.D. knew they couldn’t keep the Taliban at bay for long. He could see machine-gun tracers and RPGs coming from three sides.

Bruce called “troops in contact” over the radio. Ben yelled down that Taliban fighters had surrounded the compound.

“We need air ASAP,” Ben yelled. “We are going to get overrun unless we get some help.”

Standing on top of the school near Sperwan Ghar, I could hear Bruce’s calls over the radio. He could see the enemy racing toward him across the river in groups of four to six vehicles, which were crowded with fighters carrying PKM machine guns and RPGs. I dropped my MRE and climbed to the top of the hill. When I got there, I could see the Hilux dust trails coming from the dry Arghandab River.

“Where are they going?” I asked one of the soldiers at the summit.

“Toward Bruce’s team.”

I marked the grid on the map and tried to call Jared. No response.

I ran down the slope of the hill and burst into the operations center. Jared and Hodge stood near the radio, listening to Bruce calling for assistance. Bill and Shinsha were standing nearby. Jared had the handset pressed to his ear and was staring at the speaker box. We
could barely hear Bruce over the roar of the guns. Hodge, scowling, shook his head.

I heard Bruce call for the trucks that had inserted his team, but Jared had already ordered them to go pick up the critical new Air Force combat controller. “CAS is on the way,” Jared radioed back calmly. “It will be there shortly. We’ll send help.” Back at Kandahar Airfield, a runner monitoring the transmissions found Bolduc, who then listened in from the operations center.

“I am in contact with a couple of enemy platoons. One element has closed to fifty meters. We are taking accurate small arms fire. I have two WIA [wounded in action]. I am going to need a medevac, but no LZ set,” Bruce said tensely. “We are going to fucking die if you don’t get in here. Do you understand? We are going to fucking die if they do not get us some air.” He wasn’t buying the lip-service, “help is coming” line.

Bolduc knew that Bruce had to stay calm. Close air support was on the way and if his soldiers panicked before it arrived, he’d lose a team. Soldiers packed the operations center. All were there to help, but Bolduc knew they were also watching for his reaction. Sometimes just hearing a commander’s voice helps.

Bolduc took the mike. He wanted Bruce to know that the aircraft were on the way and that he was working to get more help. “This is Desert Eagle 6. You are doing a great job out there. You’ve got the enemy right where you want them. Keep the pressure on. It is coming. Hang in there.”

It worked. Bolduc’s calm, professional manner reassured Bruce. Coming from the Indian Ocean, the Navy F-18s needed fuel, but they were only ten minutes out.

Now fully surrounded, Ben ignored the Taliban gunners as they tried to draw a bead on him. Walking uncovered on the roof, he directed the Afghan soldiers to fire back at the ever-growing number of fighters. Within ten minutes, a third group of Taliban had arrived. Bullets smashed into the roof and wounded three more Afghan soldiers.
Ben continued to rally his Afghans, once stepping out in the open to kill two Taliban fighters who got close enough to throw grenades over the wall. Rounds impacted all around him, but the move rallied the Afghans and prevented the Taliban from overrunning the compound.

Between radio calls, Bruce protected the southern side of the compound. Huddled in a doorway, he knew that the only way out was to the south. He stationed several Afghan fighters on the wall, but when the RPGs hit, the Afghans lost their will and left it to Allah. If he willed it, they wouldn’t get overrun.

Another RPG slammed into the compound, piercing the mud wall and exploding inside.

The next call sent chills down my spine. Bruce was no longer on the radio. A new voice, J.D., the medic, came over the radio.

“The captain is down. Six of the ANA are wounded. Ben and I are the only ones left,” he said.

I turned to Hodge. He’d been in the area before and knew where Bruce had gotten out of his truck.

“We’ve got to do something.”

He had made his decision already and was moving toward the door. “I’m going to go down there and try and get them out,” he said.

“You knock a wedge in. See if you can get some close support,” I said as we left the operations center. “I’m going to bring everything up onto this hill and support you.”

As Hodge and his team ran to their trucks, I called Bill over. “Collapse the perimeter!” I barked. “Bill, get me everyone that can fire a weapon on top of the hill NOW!”

The Taliban commanders smelled blood in the water. They knew the small unit was surrounded and cut off. We heard them calling for reinforcements from the north side of the river, elated at the thought of killing or capturing Americans.

I could see the plumes of dust as Hodge and his team sped toward the Dragon’s Back. He knew the clock was ticking on Bruce and any
hesitation would cost lives. If we took a minute too long, there would be nothing left for his team to bring back.

Shaking off the RPG blast, Ben called out twice before climbing down the wooden ladder. He found Bruce lying facedown on the ground. Bruce had a blank stare when Ben propped him up.

“Hey, Captain, you okay?” Ben asked.

Slowly, Bruce started to come back, and with Ben’s help, he again took up a position in the doorway. Shouldering his rifle, he fired at the fighters in the grape huts and irrigation ditches on the south side of the compound.

J.D. continued to go back and forth between Bruce in the courtyard and Ben on the roof. That meant scrambling up a rickety ladder that led from the courtyard and exposing himself to Taliban fire, but he had no choice. He had to get up and down to treat the wounded. After climbing up and dodging rounds, he saw a Taliban round slice through an Afghan machine gunner’s foot. J.D. watched as the soldier stoically looked at the wound, shrugged it off, and continued to fire back. Staying covered, J.D. tried to get the Afghan to crawl to him. If he got shot he’d be useless to the rest of the team. The soldier finally stopped shooting long enough to move to J.D. and have his foot bandaged. It wasn’t a life-threatening wound, and in minutes the gunner was back firing at the Taliban fighters surrounding the compound.

I dropped four cans of ammunition where we could use them and turned to Bill.

“Do not let a single soul make it across the river.”

The array Bill had created was fearsome. We had five .50-caliber machine guns, three grenade launchers, more than a dozen American and Soviet medium machine guns, and four Gustav recoilless rifles. Ammo bearers set up an assembly line so that the guns could keep up a constant rate of fire. It was a killing machine set on destroying everything between the Dragon’s Back and the river. We had to keep up a level of fire so hellish that the Taliban would retreat and
never return. If they wanted blood today, it would be theirs, and it would flow like a river.

I watched a group of trucks drop off about two dozen fighters and drive back across the riverbed to get more. Marking the drop-off point on the map, we waited anxiously for the trucks to return.

I stared intently through my binoculars. Bill focused on the vehicles. When they came within range we’d cut loose. “Now,” I said. “Open fire!” Bill screamed, and every weapon system belched fire and rounds. The machine guns and grenade launchers raked the irrigation ditches and roads hiding the newly arrived enemy. We cut an alley of death nearly half a mile wide through the northern half of Panjwayi. A constant roar thundered down the valley. Every gun went full auto for thirty seconds. After that, we went to firing six- to nine-round bursts. The only lull came when we changed the white-hot barrels.

Wailing cries pierced the airwaves as Taliban soldiers clutched radios and cried for help. I wondered if they asked for forgiveness before they died for disemboweling my interpreters a few months ago and torturing innocent civilians in Panjwayi. This was a dish best served cold.

The first two Taliban trucks caught fire immediately and exploded. Another spun hard right and flipped, sending its passengers flying. We allowed four farm tractors coming from the northwest to make it halfway across the riverbed before we decimated them and the other vehicles with them. Some caught fire and burned. Others turned around and headed for the safety of the far side of the river before being destroyed. The rest were abandoned and continued to roll forward into the riverbed. Their drivers ran furiously back and forth until they, too, were finally killed.