Battle Ready: Memoir of a SEAL Warrior Medic (20 page)

Like the others I started going through my gear, ensuring everything was clean and fully operable. An odd feeling of uncertainty settled into my chest as I checked my weapon’s laser sight and my night-vision goggles, or NVGs. It wasn’t fear but rather a sense of internal compass recalibration as I shifted more and more from caregiver to frogman. For years, I’d been focused on healing the sick and injured, and thoughts of firefights were water under the bridge, and now I was reverting to the training I’d received as a young Recon Marine and SEAL. I felt no fear of the pending mission and knew I’d perform just as I had in Iraq and on other missions, but something felt different this time. Since returning to the spec ops community, I’d felt an internal conflict knotting up deep in my core. Once again I would carry my medical bag and M-4 with a good chance I’d need both. I was no longer a medical officer in San Diego, treating patients in a sterile clinic. I was once again a combat medic, and inside, caregiver and warrior were beginning to battle for my soul.

Wil called us together and announced the mission was a go. We all helped formulate the plan and then rehearsed day after day for the next three weeks until we knew our parts so well we could perform them in our sleep. On downtime, Big Tom, Vic, and I tuned the vehicles and augmented the armament on each. We placed ballistic blankets over the seats to add an additional layer of protection against incoming rounds and land mines buried in the road. Modifying the vehicle was a delicate balancing act. We needed protection, but we also needed power and speed. It didn’t matter how much armor the trucks had if they couldn’t get us off the
X
. We focused on weak points exposed from previous battles and added armor to fragile areas on the doors and along the floorboards.

I had become obsessed with vehicle maintenance, and the others knew it. It was as if each one had become a patient of mine. Even when they were completely tuned and tightened, I would spend hours going over them. I would perform a detailed physical exam, testing and refining every component. Just like any good medical provider, I greatly valued the tools of the trade. I kept my mechanic’s tools clean and organized like surgical instruments. I even made my own tool roll-up from an old blanket that resembled an oversized surgical instrument pack. If they weren’t in my hands, I hid them away from the others so I’d have them when I needed them.

In typical SOF fashion, my teammates quickly discovered one of the best ways to annoy me was to borrow a socket wrench and bring it back covered in axle grease or, worse, not return it at all. Since the dawn of special operations, teammates have used humor to lighten the stresses of the job or impending combat, and my colleagues were no exception.

Early one morning while I was at the clinic checking on one of our wounded Afghan soldiers, Chief crept over to my sleeping hooch and swiped my tools. He took them back to the comms hooch, where he posed with them stuffed down his pants. He then returned them exactly as he found them, careful not to reveal his shenanigans. Later that evening, when the team sat down to watch a movie, the “previews” were actually picture after picture of my tools going toward some very dark places. Although I wanted to laugh my ass off at the dastardly deeds, I knew any reaction would only fuel the fire, so I sat and viewed the movie’s preview stone-faced as the rest heehawed like jackasses. They had me and they knew it, and the next day Chief stopped by to “borrow tools” and have one last laugh as he watched me soak each one in chemical sterilizer. Needless to say, I kept them under lock and key for the rest of the deployment.

*   *   *

Once my tools were back in acceptable working order, I joined the Toms, along with a few of the ANA soldiers and our terp named Ali, and we prepared the vehicles for the mission to Khand Pass. We attached new equipment mounts on each of them, which would allow immediate release of the medical kits and stretchers yet still withstand the constant bouncing from the terrain. Then we moved the spare tires, replacement parts, tools, and even the five-gallon water cans into positions that would provide some protection against fragmentation or penetrating rounds. Ali was a Pashtun from Kabul who was a sociable man with a wiry build but a bit too skittish. It was obvious he was there for the extra money, which was much better than what he earned at his past job with the State Department in Kabul. I was unsure how he’d hold up under fire, and it concerned me. His English was good, however, and he had decent proficiency in Dari, which made him a valuable asset.

On the day before launch, we met with the leadership of the 10th Mountain and went over the basics of our mission. Operational security, or OPSEC, prevented us from telling them all the details, but they knew enough to assist us should it come to that. They were the closest ground troops available, and it was important we maintained communication with one another. We had our own QRF (quick reaction force) troops standing by at one of the major bases, but they were hundreds of miles away and relied on air support to get there. We needed a contingency plan, and 10th Mountain provided that for us. They would be traveling by ground, which also meant they would be bringing large-caliber machine guns and automatic grenade launchers to the fight. Initially, I had doubts when I heard the 10th Mountain had replaced the Rangers that helped establish this outpost, but it didn’t take long before I grew to respect the men of the 10th Mountain Division. Since my arrival I had watched them defend continual attacks against their patrols and the firebase with the same proficiency I was accustomed to within the special operations community. The 10th Mountain had lost three good soldiers in less than a month, which can shake any military unit, but their leadership was strong, and men followed suit. We supported them and they us, and each man on my team was confident they’d have our backs if things got heavy.

Chris had recently returned from the States and sat in on the briefings, providing valuable input to supplement the intel. He’d been in the target area several times over the last twelve months and gave critical advice about navigating through the rough terrain. After the meeting wrapped, Chris pulled me aside and wished me the best. He was clearly disappointed that I was going in his place. We all understood what he was feeling, especially since he’d spent so much time training the ANA soldiers from the initial stages of this program. However, there are golden rules in the special operations community that simply aren’t broken. Most notably, if you’re not part of the workup, you don’t go on the operation. It doesn’t matter how good an operator you are; if you don’t rehearse, you don’t go. Chris knew this but felt he was abandoning the very men he raised up from the ranks of ANA. He helped select the men, eliminated the weaker links, and trained the remaining few until they were a formidable fighting force. I believe he felt obligated to be by their sides, especially on the more dangerous operations. This one certainly fit into that category.

*   *   *

We launched at dusk and headed slowly east across the flat, rocky terrain. The unit was comprised of nine vehicles with roughly four men in each: four Americans traveling in swim pairs, a mechanic, two terps, the Afghan leader, who also worked as an interpreter, and twenty-four Afghan commandos. Each vehicle had a man designated as the vehicle commander, a driver, a machine gunner, and someone to work comms—except, of course, our vehicle, which held only the three of us and our terp. We all wore beards and dressed in patchwork uniforms and local dress with no indication of unit or even nationality. Most of the men wore manjams, free-flowing one-piece robes commonly worn by Middle-Eastern guerrilla fighters and Afghan tribesmen. If I didn’t know better I’d swear they were Taliban. The vehicles were two American Humvees and six Toyota Hiluxes, which looked exactly like those used by the enemy, and the mechanic’s truck. Each vehicle was fortified with ballistic armor and blankets, and carried a camo net that could be pulled over it to disguise it during our daytime lay-ups.

Our soldiers looked and traveled like the enemy, which was no accident. From a distance, we knew they resembled a ragged caravan of Taliban fighters or criminals, which gave us a small but critical advantage should we be observed from afar by a shepherd or farmer.

The plan called for us to travel for two consecutive nights and lay up at preplanned hides during the days. On the third day, we would break up into squads, move into our positions by foot to gather the intel, then quietly retreat back to the vehicles and later our firebase.

We had learned on earlier operations that helicopter insertion into those areas had its limitations, often precluding their use, especially if we wanted to get in undetected and remain there for a long period of time. It didn’t matter how many false insertions we did, the noise from the chopper blades was so distinct it always alerted the locals that coalition forces were afoot. Word of a possible American presence would eventually make its way to the Taliban, which inspired the enemy to fortify defenses and conduct widespread security searches across the area. Insertion by combat boot, or LPC (leather personnel carrier), as I jokingly referred to it, was far less obvious, but it took days or weeks to approach an objective, putting us all in danger for much longer periods of time. Our answer was a combination of vehicles and LPC. It wasn’t the preferred method, but it proved successful on similar operations in and around Orgun and Khowst, so we had good reason to believe it would be just as effective in this region as well. We also had a distinct advantage. Chief and Chris had been to the exact area we were going to, as had many of our Afghan soldiers, so we had a ground truth on which areas we needed to avoid in order to prevent early detection.

The target was located along a main road that led into the village. There were rough trails that flanked the town on three sides, and none were used by shepherds due to the lack of foliage for their flocks. We took the longest of the three flanking trails in order to avoid the main road.

The first two nights were uneventful. Our slow, deliberate pace allowed us to keep a watchful eye across the barren wilderness with our night-vision goggles and thermal scopes. We settled in remote areas during the day and evaded unwanted eyes by parking our vehicles in wadis or among large clusters of boulders. We placed each one in a position that would allow for immediate escape and covered them with camouflage netting, which rendered them nearly invisible from elevated positions. Half the team stood watch while the other half slept under the vehicles or in shady areas beside large rock formations. Everyone carried personal weapons, and each vehicle had a crew-served machine gun. While the terrain was flat and we could see for miles in every direction, the tension was always high.

The nights were cold, turning the water we carried in our canteens to ice. Before settling in, I would make my rounds and check the condition of each man and remind him to stay hydrated even though the water was difficult to drink. As I bounded from truck to truck I noticed our tribesmen turned warriors had adapted naturally to their ancestral surroundings, and I was confident we’d make it to the target without being seen.

The flat Mars-like terrain that we covered on the first two nights changed dramatically as we neared the target. Sharp, jagged rocks and sporadic trees sprang up across the hilly countryside, making it much more difficult to see an approaching vehicle or enemy ambush. To make up for the disadvantage, we pushed our reconnaissance vehicles much farther out with Ned, the Afghan leader, in charge. It wasn’t unusual to come around a sharp turn and find yourself at a Taliban checkpoint, so we needed a cool-headed decision maker leading a group of locals to get us past such situations.

*   *   *

We arrived at our last stop four hours before dawn on the third day. We pulled the vehicles into a narrow wadi sandwiched between two twenty-foot rock faces. We drove in minutes apart from one another to ensure we didn’t make a commotion as we positioned the vehicles. From there we would move out on foot, so we took extra precautions to conceal the vehicles. As I prepared my hide site, I noticed the southern cliffs in the moonlight. It looked just as Chris and Chief had described during our brief, which told me we were danger close. The village was less than half a night’s walk from our hide, and we had no new intel, which made me feel a bit uneasy. The only thing worse than no intel is old intel. You think you understand a situation when in reality everything might have changed. Our last update by any source was nearly two days old, which meant there was nothing to report or there was no longer a source left to report it. We situated our gear and began preparing the Afghan commandos for a hump to the objective, or an expeditious exit should things go bad quickly. While speaking to one of the terps I noticed Vic and Ned lying at the edge of the ridge and peering out at the southern cliff face through their binos. Several minutes later they slid down carefully and stood face-to-face, deep in conversation. Ned was gesturing toward the mountains, and Vic was taking it all in. They spoke for several intense minutes before Vic walked over to me.

“Doc, I need to speak with you and the rest of the boys,” he said solemnly. “Meet me at my vehicle in five.”

“Roger that,” I replied.

Five minutes later, we were gathered around a map spread on the hood of Vic and Muscle Tom’s vehicle. Chief was pointing at something on the map and talking to Vic and Tom when I approached.

“Doc. Chief and Tom saw movement on the peaks. Ned and I glassed it and definitely saw people up there, but impossible to tell from here who they are,” said Vic.

“Could be goatherds, but I doubt it,” Chief said. “There’s no reason to be up there except to set up an observation post. If they’re enemy, they certainly aren’t trying to stay along the military crest.” Chief was referring to the area just below the ridgeline that allows someone to see the surrounding area without silhouetting himself to their enemy.

“The moon definitely highlights two men. The question is, are they bad guys?” Vic asked. The distance was too far for our night vision to be any use, which left us to the mercy of the field glasses or binoculars.