The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor (39 page)

By June, the younger Fritsche was in Afghanistan. He’d been deployed abroad once before, at a base in Djibouti, between Ethiopia and Somalia, as part of a U.S. effort to hunt terrorists in the Horn of Africa. Fritsche’s company had pulled security there for the members of the Army Corps of Engineers as they dug wells and built schools and orphanages. For the whole five years that Fritsche had been in the Army, the United States had been fighting at least one war, if not two, but he’d had yet to see any combat. He’d served as a member of the elite “Old Guard” unit stationed at Arlington National Cemetery. He’d escorted caskets at Dover. He’d marched in President George W. Bush’s second inaugural parade. He had never fired a gun at an enemy fighter, nor had one fired at him.

He was a textbook Hoosier, Fritsche—tall, good-looking, a bit meek in bearing, and possessed of a disarming simplicity. For his first ten days in Afghanistan, he’d been biding time at Forward Operating Base Naray, waiting for a slot to open up out in the field. Then, on June 19, two staff sergeants with 2nd Platoon suffered ankle injuries near Combat Outpost Kamu, and Captain Joey Hutto sent for Fritsche to replace Staff Sergeant Patrick Potts. Potts had been with his men in 2nd Platoon for half a year—working with them, bonding with them, developing close relationships with them.

“I’m nervous about going,” Fritsche wrote to his wife. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done any of that stuff. I’m worried I won’t remember things I need to. I’m sure I’ll be fine, but I’m worried anyway, it’s not something that you can get away with being bad at.” Since his deployment, he’d also been having dreams that bothered him, mostly about his late father.

Bulldog Troop had only just arrived in Kamdesh District, but the attack on Kamu was something of a last straw for Chris Kolenda. First there’d been the May 14 ambush on Aaron Pearsall of 3-71 Cav and the ANA troops, and then the June 6 attack at Combat Outpost Kamu—and on the latter occasion, according to informants, the fighters had come not just from the immediate area of Kamu but also from the Saret Koleh Valley, down the road to the east, and the Pitigal Valley, northeast toward the Pakistan border.

In the short time that 1-91 Cav had been in Nuristan, none of Kolenda’s men had yet ventured into Saret Koleh to reach out to the locals, build rapport, or gather information about the people and the enemy. Kolenda knew that 3-71 Cav hadn’t done any of those things, either. He had previously ordered Operation Ghar—
ghar
being Pashto for “mountain”—to develop relationships with the villagers of Gawardesh, a mission led by Captains Page of Legion Company and Springer of 1-91 Cav Headquarters Troop, and now it was time to do the same in Saret Koleh with Operation Ghar Dwa, or “Operation Mountain II.” The plan was fairly straightforward: Roller and 1st Platoon would briefly relocate from Combat Outpost Keating to Combat Outpost Kamu, then they’d move again toward Saret Koleh on July 26, splitting up and establishing two observation posts to watch over the area. Lieutenant John Meyer would lead 2nd Platoon and the ANA company as they escorted Bostick and some soldiers from Headquarters Troop to the hamlet. Newsom and 3rd Platoon would serve as the quick reaction force, ready to roll up from Kamu if needed.

After a strategy session at Forward Operating Base Naray, Bostick caught up with one of his closest friends, Joey Hutto. They were both “older captains” in their late thirties, having both worked their way up from the rank of private—a parallel history that had given them an instant rapport when they first met, in Germany. Their families had bonded as well.

Bostick and Hutto sat together for an hour, chugging coffee as if it were beer (since alcohol was prohibited in theater) and talking about their wives and children, and work, too. Hutto was slated to take Bostick’s place as commander of Bulldog Troop around New Year’s 2008—welcome news for Bostick, who wanted to be replaced by someone in whom he had confidence, someone he thought would be a competent combat leader in the pitiless terrain of northeastern Afghanistan.

On July 20, less than a week before Operation Ghar Dwa was scheduled to begin, Dave Roller was on the roof of the Kamu hunting lodge when two Black Hawks and an Apache gun team buzzed into the area. As was standard practice, the pilots radioed below to ask the troops if there was anything they could do for their comrades on the ground.

As Roller stood up there talking on the radio with the lead Apache pilot, one of the Black Hawks rolled so low through the valley that its pilot was at just about eye level with him, giving him an alarmingly clear view of what happened next: an RPG was fired out of the hills, missing the Black Hawk but exploding right next to it, propelling shrapnel that clipped the bird’s rotor. Flailing and plummeting, the bird landed hard about five hundred yards down the river, around a rocky spur off the mountain. Survivable. Maybe.

“Did you see that?” Roller asked the Apache pilot, who said he wasn’t sure. The 1st Platoon leader then alerted everyone else, yelling into the radio, “Guys, you’re not going to believe this, but we have a Black Hawk down! We have a Black Hawk down!”

It sounded weird to him even as he said it. Roller had turned eleven on October 3, 1993, the first day of the Battle of Mogadishu. He was sixteen when the definitive account of that battle—Mark Bowden’s
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War
—was published, and nineteen when the Ridley Scott film hit theaters. It was the kind of experience that those around him in Coral Gables, Florida, were perfectly content to keep on the page or on the DVD player. But now here he was, saying those same words and meaning them.

Fortunately, the pilots and crew were fine, and they flew off in the other Black Hawk, leaving the men of Bulldog Troop to guard the wounded bird until it could be airlifted to Forward Operating Base Naray. The squadron’s assignment to pull security on the helicopter, combined with the impending mission into Saret Koleh, meant that for the first time since the beginning of his deployment, Bostick had all three of his Bulldog Troop platoon lieutenants with him in once place—Roller, John Meyer, and Newsom—along with his fire-support officer, Kenny Johnson. Bostick wasn’t one to shower his lieutenants with praise, but he seemed content; his men appeared to be squared away. They all grabbed some MREs and headed to the river.

Lieutenant Dave Roller, Lieutenant John Meyer, Captain Tom Bostick, and Lieutenant Alex Newsom.
(Photo courtesy of Dave Roller)

For his part, when he heard about the attack on the Black Hawk, Kolenda was even more convinced that outreach to Saret Koleh was needed—both the kind of outreach consisting of money and development projects and the kind released by a metal trigger.

Fritsche did not fit seamlessly into the leadership role in his new platoon. Partly to better acclimate himself to his new troops, he led them on a patrol a couple of days before Operation Ghar Dwa was to begin. On one particularly steep incline, he tripped and stumbled.

“Don’t worry, I got you,” said Private First Class Alberto Barba, catching him. Barba was a short, likeable kid from South Central Los Angeles who always joked about having been shot at before he even joined the Army.

“You didn’t ‘get’ your last squad leader,” Fritsche noted, referring to the fall and ankle injury that had led to his replacing Staff Sergeant Potts. Surely Fritsche meant this as just a joke, a little macho wit, but no one found Potts’s mishap amusing.

Sergeant John Wilson didn’t care for that crack, that was for sure. In fact, he didn’t care much for Fritsche’s attitude in general. Wilson had developed a rapport with Potts, and he’d already attempted to do the same with the new guy. Preparing for the mission to Saret Koleh, Fritsche had been tinkering with his radio, taking extra precautions because equipment often broke down in the field. Wilson tried to help him out, but Fritsche didn’t seem to want his assistance. Wilson even offered to hook Fritsche up with a “trucker mike,” which would allow him to put the radio in his chest rig and hook the speaker—or trucker mike—onto the shoulder of his Kevlar vest, closer to his mouth, thus leaving his hands free to hold his gun. Wilson tracked down three possible trucker mikes and gave them to his new staff sergeant. A warm thank-you was not forthcoming.

Roller and 1st Platoon left on the mission the next day, heading for the observation post from which they would see the naked Afghan women romping in the stream. Back at Combat Outpost Kamu that night, Bostick, Meyer, and Newsom watched several episodes from the first season of the NBC TV show
Heroes
before crashing at around 1:00 a.m.

At 4:00 a.m., Bostick and the top officers and NCOs of Bulldog Troop accompanied Meyer and 2nd Platoon to Saret Koleh. A disappointed Newsom hung back; Bostick had explained to him that his platoon, which had the fewest soldiers, would be needed as a quick reaction force should there be any significant enemy contact—as Bostick was almost certain would be the case. He assured Newsom, in his calm yet focused way, “You
will
be a part of this fight.” He would be right.

Private First Class Jonathan Sultan had been on guard duty the night before and expected that as part of the operation, he would be tasked to guard Combat Outpost Kamu. But less than an hour after the assigned troops left the camp, Bostick’s radio transmission operator (RTO) said he’d hurt his ankle. Soon Staff Sergeant John Faulkenberry was shaking Sultan awake.

“We’ve got fifteen minutes to go, we’re rolling out, let’s go,” Faulkenberry told the private. “You’re going to be the CO’s RTO.”

Sultan griped, as was customary. He felt skeptical that the original RTO was really injured; more likely, he thought, he’d heard how dangerous this mission might be and figured out a way to get out of it. But Sultan threw on his gear anyway.

Sultan now caught up with the group at last and was directed to Bostick, Meyer, and Johnson. With them was Air Force Staff Sergeant Patrick Lape, there to coordinate with various combat aircraft should the need arise, including A-10 Warthogs, French Mirage 2000s, and an unmanned Predator drone.

Bostick looked at Sultan warily. “Every single RTO I’ve ever had has broken on me,” he said. “Are you going to break on me?”

“No, sir,” Sultan assured him. He didn’t know what else to say.

Typically, a “village assessment” would take four to six hours: while Bostick talked to the elders, the medic, Sergeant Rob Fortner, would set up a station directly behind him to care for sick and injured villagers. That morning, however, before they even entered Saret Koleh, Bostick told Fortner that the medic wouldn’t be coming along this time; he asked for a rifle team with a light machine gun to accompany him into the village instead.

At roughly 6:30 a.m., Meyer and his 2nd Platoon troops crossed the footbridge over the Landay-Sin River to Saret Koleh. They were followed by other Bulldog Troop soldiers who circled around the village, establishing security. Bostick walked to a spot at the edge of the hamlet by a large grove of trees, where he radioed to Roller. Roller and 1st Platoon were watching everything from above, and Bostick nonchalantly gazed up toward where he thought they were and asked if Roller could see him. Bostick didn’t want to wave for fear of giving away 1st Platoon’s position.

“Roger,” Roller told him.

“Sweet OP,” said Bostick, referring to the observation post.

Roller agreed. They had a great position, overlooking the entire valley.

Dave Roller’s view of Saret Koleh, the Landay-Sin River, and the road.
(Photo courtesy of Dave Roller)

With that piece of business done, Bostick sent the ANA troops into the hamlet to make the initial contact, then went in himself and approached a village elder. At thirty-seven, Bostick was considered aged for a captain in combat, but he had nothing on any of the Nuristani elders he’d met so far, with their decades-old white beards and craggy oaken faces. Bostick was fairly sure that neither this man nor any of the other residents of Saret Koleh had ever before met an American. He and the elder headed into a building for a shura while Fritsche, Wilson, and others from 2nd Platoon pulled security outside. Once again, Wilson made a suggestion to Fritsche, saying that he thought their position might be a tad too exposed, that maybe it would be better if they moved over and stood in the grove of trees instead. Fritsche rejected Wilson’s idea.