Victory Point (34 page)

Topographic map of the upper Chowkay Valley

“Cherry ice,” the lead Shock AH-64 called, indicating that the landing zone was cold, that is, ready to safely accept the unarmed Dustoffs. The AH-64s continued to reconnoiter throughout other parts of the valley. But Shah’s skilled, motivated men were still feeling bolstered by their successful ambush of the Navy special operations team and subsequent shoot-down of the MH-47 just weeks before. As the aviators of the lead Dustoff approached the designated landing zone, they hoped for a quick extraction. The Marines had chosen a good location—good cover from the ground troops, a relatively flat top to the hill, and no tall vegetation to threaten the spinning rotor blades. Pigeon ordered a green smoke flare popped to indicate the exact location on which to put down, as well as the direction and speed of any wind. The pilots rolled in hard, as usual for the Dustoffs, and pulled back steeply. The aviators could feel the ground effect cushioning their craft’s close approach to the deck. Instinctively, they scanned right, then left . . . okay.
Wait
. . .
What was that?
One of Shah’s men popped up from behind a refrigerator-size rock, toting a loaded RPG, high on the slopes of Hill 2510. Somehow, he’d hidden his position from the Marines, the Shocks, and the A-10s. Somehow, he knew that the wounded would be extracted from the hill to his north. But the Dustoff pilots already had their craft flaring hard. They couldn’t pull out; they’d fully committed.
Would this be a repeat of the special operations disaster?
the crew wondered, icy chills zipping up and down their spines. The Dustoffs had no choice but to continue on their path; they had no weapons onboard to defend themselves, and the Apaches were too far off to provide cover. They could only hope that the RPG gunner would miss.

But he probably wouldn’t. In fact, he was probably the same terrorist who had downed the MH-47, killing all on board. He, like others in Shah’s group, was probably one of the world’s most proficient, most determined extremist fighters. And after having sent the MH-47 to the ground in flames, he was confident that he could blow the Dustoff bird out of the sky. He rested the RPG launcher on his shoulder, dropped his right index finger onto the trigger, and buttressed his stance, preparing for the sharp blowback of the RPG launch to which he’d become so accustomed.

Seven hundred meters away, near Middendorf’s mortar line, Lance Corporal Lavon Pennington, a combat engineer attached to Fox-1, saw the terrorist spring forth, holding the RPG launcher. An image of a fiery explosion and senseless death flooded Pennington’s mind. He lifted his standard-issue M16, squeezed his eyes shut—knowing that he’d have only one chance, one shot. Pennington opened his eyes and positioned the insurgent in his iron sights. Then he squeezed the trigger.
Crack!

The eyes of the Dustoff aviator on the right seat of the Blackhawk were transfixed on the RPG gunner. He could have thought of his home, his family, his dog . . . his car. He knew he could do nothing, so he just continued to do his job. Life before him continued in real time—no slow motion; he didn’t even pray for survival. He just worked the tough machine through the wispy air, readying for a landing and to get wounded troops to safety. He ignored the fact that he was about to be blown out of the sky, that he was about to be incinerated on top of some forlorn peak deep in the hinterlands of Afghanistan, that he would never see his home again.

Puff!
And that was it. The end. The men in the second Dustoff saw it all: as the lead bird was in final flare, Shah’s RPG gunner locked onto the Blackhawk, clasped the trigger of the launcher, just as had been done before the MH-47 shoot-down . . . and then the RPG gunner’s head disappeared in a cloud of pink mist. Pennington’s 5.56 mm round had connected with his scalp just a neuron’s response time before he could squeeze the RPG trigger. The lead Dustoff swooshed down, cushioned by the craft’s ground effect, and landed on the small flat spot amid the steep terrain.

As Pigeon knelt under the rotors, barking orders into his radio, Konnie had his two “horses”—twenty-year-old Lance Corporal Albert Mendiola and twenty-three-year-old Lance Corporal Justin Monk—race down the hill to carry the casualties and their gear up to the aircraft. “So, sir,” the interpreter known as the Rock began before he was loaded into the medevac, “I am leaving. I will see you soon. Try to kill all of these Taliban fucks.”

“Will do, Rock,” Konnie replied.

“I wish I could stay and watch them all die!” the big terp finished.

“I think most of ’em are dead, after all that.” The lieutenant smiled.

“Look, sir.” Lance Corporal Jason Dunaway grabbed Konnie’s attention by holding up a carbon-scored piece of melded lead and copper. “The 7.62 round—we pulled it out of my SAPI.”

Konnie laughed at the sight, the round having gone through Dunaway’s left biceps before lodging into the front ceramic-plate insert on his flak jacket. “Now get on the bird with Einarson, Wilson, and the rest of ’em,” he ordered. All told, five Marines and the Rock had to be evacuated that morning, including Lance Corporal Anthony Adams, with shrapnel to his arms and legs, and Lance Corporal Dustin Epperly—one of Fox-3’s most proficient Marines—with shrapnel to one of his arms from an RPG burst.

Waving off the second Dustoff—the LZ didn’t have enough space for two birds at the same time—Konnie and Pigeon huddled as the pilots spun up the first Blackhawk’s engines, lifting the bird into the sky. The second craft landed, and Konnie and his Marines loaded it with gear from the wounded—which would get the lieutenant in a bit of trouble later on, as Air Ambulances adhere to strict rules forbidding the carrying of anything but wounded personnel.

 

 

 

The Marines had thwarted what Ahmad Shah surely felt was his destiny for that day. They dashed his goals through skill, through perseverance, through sheer will—and though some classic USMC improvisation as well. The grunts relied not just on their instincts, but on the lessons the Marine Corps had ingrained into them. Armageddon had descended upon the grunts. They fought hard. They fought harder than anyone could imagine. And they won. Armageddon had been denied.

But to what extent had they won? Had Ahmad Shah survived? Would he continue in his campaign of terror? Was he mortally wounded? Or dead? And what of his die-hard adherents? How many of them had fallen to the Marines’ trigger pulls, to the mortar teams’ 81s, to the A-10s’ 30 mm guns and the Apaches’ rockets? Only time would tell. And that time would come soon.

11

I
know the SEAD was a little rough. But the Dustoffs got everyone out—” Rob Scott was explaining to a senior member of Task Force Devil’s command, a very irate senior member, who cut the XO off mid-sentence. Shah’s force had come too close to downing another helicopter, and with Marines still operating deep in the Chowkay and other surrounding valleys, another Dustoff extraction might be necessary if the extremists attacked again. As he’d done through the entire operation, Major Scott continued to battle to keep the grunts of ⅔ fighting the enemy, and the critical date of 19 August, when CJTF-76 mandated that
Whalers
draw to a close, loomed larger with each passing hour. As much heat the XO took from the Devil staff, however, Devil took tenfold from CJTF-76, who, after the battle on the morning of the fourteenth, wanted to pull the Marines out entirely. And while tensions flared between Rob Scott and TF Devil, Rob knew that the task force had fought just as hard as he and other senior members of ⅔ to keep the Marines on track—the way they’d vowed upon arriving in Afghanistan—regardless of vexing Army-Marine Corps cultural differences.

With Shah’s force in tatters and on the run, with untold numbers of dead and wounded, Fox Company worked to hold security of the area after the Dustoffs lifted the injured to the safety of Bagram. “Konnie, find me an LZ large enough for Chinooks to come in and extract us,” Grissom instructed the lieutenant.

“Roger that, sir,” responded Konnie, who assumed from these words that CH-47s, if not already en route, would soon arrive. After he and some of the Fox-3 Marines found and then secured a plot of level ground large enough to accommodate two Chinooks, however, the bad news arrived.

“I don’t think they’re comin’ to get us,” Grissom informed him.

“Sir, I want to be very clear when I tell you that I think we
need
an extract,” the lieutenant replied, with a serious, almost solemn tone. “We’re red on ammo, water, medical supplies, and with five Marines and the Rock now gone, we have a serious force-strength issue.” Konnie explained Fox-3’s situation, the term
red
referencing near total depletion of supplies.

“Yeah, Konstant. I understand what’s goin’ on,” the captain replied, frustrated. “But from what I’m hearin’ on the net, we’re not gettin’ outta here—not by helicopter, at least. They just now almost lost another helicopter. They’re gonna do everything they can to avoid another shoot-down, meaning that when we leave this place, we leave it on foot.” Although Shah’s army, what was left of it, had scattered, solid intel on the enemy’s strength at that point, or about whether Shah was regrouping, had yet to roll in. With the area’s greatest threat diminished, and the clock loudly ticking toward the nineteenth, the grunts would continue to press onward with
Whalers
.

As their conversation continued, Konstant and Grissom each killed a Marlboro. “So then we consolidate—Middendorf and his mortars moving to our position?” Konnie asked.

“Everything’s evolving, every minute,” Grissom responded as he took a drag off his cigarette. “But that’s what I’d prefer at this point.”

“You know, sir,” Konnie told him, “we’re also red on cigarettes.”

“I know. We’re smokin’ like champs up here. Be bad if we ran out.”

“Well, don’t worry. Middendorf’s got more. We’ll consolidate forces, and then we’ll raid Dorf’s smokes.” Konnie shot the captain a wry, conspiratorial grin.

Grissom just shook his head, trying to hide his laughter. “I guess this is what they mean when they say ‘alone and unafraid,’ ” he stated.

“Sir . . .” Konnie paused, holding back laughter. “At least we have each other.”

“Go lead Marines, Konstant.”

With that, Konnie set about reinforcing the camp’s defense, sending the two scout/snipers attached to Fox-3 and five other Marines to an observation point to the west of the patrol base. Pigeon, wanting to know how things in the area looked from up high, kept radio contact with two A-10s flying above the Chowkay. With a variety of targeting sensors, the A-10s would be able to pass information to the FAC while he directed them to sweep the area. When the seven Marines Konnie had sent out established a firm position, a sergeant in the group radioed a grid of their exact location, which Konnie passed on to Pigeon. But the seven were looking to find an even better location, so they set out to reconnoiter ground a few hundred yards to their north. Realizing that their initial location gave them a better view of the surrounding area, they turned back.

“Konnie,” Pigeon said, “A-10s reporting personnel moving toward the snipers’ grid they just occupied.”

“Movers, huh?” Pigeon gave Konnie the location at which the A-10 pilots had reported seeing the suspected bad guys; they’d approached from north of the snipers’ grid. “If they’re heading south to the snipers’ grid, then there’s about to be an ambush.” Konnie paused for a moment. “Tell the A-10s to take them out, sir. Tell them to take them out now!” he exclaimed.

“Okay. That’ll be danger-close” (a situation where friendlies lie close enough to a target to risk getting hit). But Pigeon, studying his map and the terrain before him, had doubts about the accuracy of the grid. “I want you to do a show-of-force run. I
repeat
—show-of-force run.” Pigeon directed the A-10 to essentially perform just a flyby, without releasing any ordnance—showing, but not applying, force. He then contacted the sniper team; “One of the A-10s will be coming in—if he’s aimed at you, let me know. Let me know
immediately
.” The burly Warthog banked hard and put its nose toward the ground, the barrel assembly of the 30 mm rotary gun protruding from the craft like a blunt stinger.

“He’s pointed right at us.
Right at us!
” came the call from the snipers as they eyed the fast-approaching bulk of a huge gun framed by a gray fuselage, wings, engines, and tail fins.

“ABORT—ABORT—ABORT,” Pigeon boomed over the radio to the A-10, instinctively calling for the aircraft to break off its attack vector, even though the pilot had no clearance—or intention—to release ordnance. The pilot rolled out of the dry run, spewing flares on his egress.

“Holy shit, Pigeon. I almost smoke-checked seven of our own guys,” Konnie remarked as his face turned ashen. “Man. You saved eight lives just now.” He paused. “Those seven—and me . . . from drinking myself to death before I reached thirty.”

“Just doin’ my job, Konnie,” the FAC calmly replied.

And with Fox-3 red on everything essential, Pigeon would continue to work his job at a feverish pace that morning—Jeremy Whitlock and his staff already had Fox’s vital supplies roaring toward the Chowkay. Cruising at more than a mile above the Hindu Kush, the crew of an Air Force C-130E Hercules gently pushed the big craft lower in altitude as they equalized the pressure inside the airplane with that of the outside air. On cue from the pilot, one of the Hercules’ loadmasters released the rear doors on the craft at ten thousand feet above sea level. The upper door hydraulically tucked inside the bird as the lower ramp folded and locked flat, revealing a roughly ten-by-seven-foot open-air “window” to eastern Afghanistan. The four powerful turboprops echoed throughout the Chowkay in a dull hum, announcing the approach of the Marines’ resupply. “Eyes on!” a parched, exhausted lance corporal announced as he thrust his index finger into the sky at the fast-approaching bird.