24

A Shared Struggle

Afghan and American fighting men here continue striving to accomplish the mission of peace in this land. The struggle in this valley is shared.

—from my remarks at the dedication of Camp Blessing, May 16, 2004

When the elders granted me leniency after the shooting accident, there was a pragmatic component to their decision. Since we had been at Camp Blessing, villages up and down the Pech Valley had seen a decrease in insurgent violence and an increase in prosperity. We hadn’t banished Thomas Hobbes’s famous “state of nature”—poverty and brutishness still stalked these hills—but we had made significant strides in security, health, education, intercultural understanding, and general welfare. Villagers saw that their lives were better with the new Afghan government and the Americans in the valley. Wells had been dug, girls had enrolled in school, arms had been decommissioned, hundreds had been treated in our clinic, and numerous mosques were sporting new mortar and paint. Killing me or driving my team out of the valley would put a stop to these improvements. It would also risk having us replaced by another force whose intentions toward the valley’s people might not be so benign. Concern over this possibility surely influenced the population as well as the elders who were their spokesmen.

That May, there was cause for such concern. Although the valley leadership hadn’t been informed of it, our deployment was soon to end. We had been in-country since September, in the Pech since December, and we were slated to be returned to the States before the end of the month. That was less than three weeks away. Courtney, on an Air Force time line rather than an SF one, had already left. The rest of us had begun to ship back to Bagram what we couldn’t fit in our duffels. While I was excited about seeing my family again, I also shared the elders’ apprehension about what would happen here when we were gone. Who would follow us? Would they understand what we had accomplished? Would they build on our foundation? Would they even want to?

These questions were very much on my mind as the “A” Camp we had built entered a transition phase. The first signs of the shift came on May 12, as a new Marine contingent arrived by helo and began the Relief in Place of our existing Marines. Slingloads of supplies were dropped by helicopter every couple of days at our three OPs, and the camp was a bustle of activity, with the “old” Marines (the nineteen-year-old veterans) packing up and the new ones receiving orders, supplies, and assignments. On the thirteenth I had a talk with the new kids on the block to be sure they understood the humanitarian as well as the military logic of an “A” Camp—something that doesn’t always come easy to these young fire-eaters.

I was wishing I had more time to pound home this message, but you work with what you have, and what I had wasn’t long. So I did the same thing I had done with the last platoon. I took all the NCOs and the platoon leader to the girls’ school and had them hand out candy and stuffed animals to the girls. I then explained our main role in the valley. “Guys,” I said, “we are here to provide security to these people. These are the innocents and the ones we need support from. When we identify our enemies, kill them without mercy, but know that the majority of Afghans here are our friends. We need to treat them as such or they will become the enemy.”

Meanwhile, the routine adventures of camp life rock ’n’ rolled onward. On the same day that I had my jarhead-recalibration talk, we heard a huge explosion just south of Nangalam. Within twenty minutes a tearful family carried into our clinic the badly mangled body of a small boy. He was gone by the time they arrived. That cut deep into our medics’ composure: all three of them had sons about the dead child’s age.

The night before the explosion, the Marines had been test-firing their new mortars, and at first we feared that a wayward shell had struck the child. On top of the dog-shooting accident, that would have been a tragedy we couldn’t recover from. But the district governor told us that the source of the explosion had been a mine or some other buried ordnance—one of the hundreds of thousands of such hazards left behind by the Russians. One of our ASF patrols confirmed this at the site of the explosion, so we were able to put out the correct story before the rumor mill got rolling and pinned it on us. We took some comfort in knowing that it wasn’t our fault.

The following day another victim arrived at the clinic—a young girl whose face had been lacerated when she fell off a roof. Mike worked on her for hours. It’s a testament to the grit of the Afghan people—and maybe especially the Afghan women—that this child never uttered a peep as Mike used more than two dozen stitches to close the gashes in her lips and chin. When he gave her a Beanie Baby and a little pink canteen as a reward for her toughness, you would have thought it was her best birthday present ever.

May 16 was a banner day on two fronts. First, villagers completed repairs on the main regional mosque, which stood just outside our front gate serving as the center of worship for a vast mountainous area. Work on this building—as much a community center as a church—had been going on all spring. Its reopening bore witness to a happy irony: we who had entered the valley identified as infidels ended up strengthening the religious community by offering it both respect and material sustenance.

At the same time, I was experiencing a deepening of my own beliefs. On the day that Mike stitched up the little girl, I started by reading scripture before my morning run, and Eric led a Christian service that was spiritually very rewarding. This took place not fifty feet from the mosque we had restored.

The second event of note on May 16 was the formal dedication of Camp Blessing, named in honor of Ranger sergeant Jay Blessing, who had been killed by an IED during Mountain Resolve. As the culmination of our military efforts, this was for us, and for our Afghan soldiers, a very big deal.

The day started for me with a personal surprise. Colonel Herd, after stepping off a CH-53 helicopter with a sizable entourage of VIPs, pulled me aside to tell me two things. One, the preliminary footage for the 60 Minutes II segment was great. Two, while we would discuss the Report of Survey back at Vance, the decision had been made not to charge me anything for the truck I had destroyed on December 11. I thanked the colonel as I wondered (silently) why it had taken the Army five months to reach that decision. I thought the shift in attitude had something to do with Lara Logan asking embarrassing questions about the incident back at Vance. Some of the team had mentioned the Report of Survey’s potential financial stress on me, and she had said she would assist if possible. No matter. I still didn’t understand the reasoning behind the Report of Survey in the first place, but the dropping of the matter renewed confidence in my chain of command and somewhat healed a strained relationship between Camp Blessing and the CJSOTF. The news was a perfect start to this momentous day.

Between the Afghan dignitaries and the American brass, there must have been two dozen VIPs gracing our camp that day, including the Combined Joint Task Force 76 commander, Maj. Gen. Eric Olson. With the exception of a Marine squad keeping watch on each of our three OPs, the entire camp contingent formed up for the dedication ceremony. The ASF looked crisp and proud in their Tiger Stripes, and the ODA donned Army uniforms instead of Tiger Stripes to avoid any confusion among the Americans.

The ceremony was held in front of a monument that had been Randy’s idea and that had been built up, stone by stone, over the previous few weeks. Facing the monument, on the left were the American VIPs, on the right the local shura and district leadership, and in the center the ASF, Marines, and ODA. On this blustery day, an American and an Afghan flag flapped wildly, looking like sentinels of peace against the winds of war.

As the soldiers came to attention, I started by welcoming the assembled bigwigs to “the beautiful Pech Valley” and announcing that we had come together to dedicate the camp “to not only the memory of Sgt. Jay Blessing but to the mission that he gave his life to accomplish.” Then I shared some comments that I’ll quote in full here because, more than a decade after we left the valley, they still seem to me an honest summary of what we did there.

This camp was begun last year and was manned by American forces working to bring peace to a war-torn area of Afghanistan and drive terrorists out. Since that time the camp has been built, strengthened, and run by an SF and Marine contingent and a company of Afghan patriots. Both Afghan and American fighting men here continue striving to accomplish the mission of peace in this land. The struggle in this valley is shared, and the gratitude for the sacrifice of men like Jay Blessing is deep and sincere. While the gratitude of American servicemen is based on shared beliefs, a creed that we believe in, and the freedoms that we enjoy, the Afghan patriots are living and willing to die so their families may enjoy the freedoms and opportunities that men like Sgt. Blessing have ensured for the American people. The Afghan soldiers here today would like their gratitude to be felt by the Ranger Regiment and the Blessing family.

The monument behind me, built of rock and mortar, is meant to last as a memorial for American and Afghan soldiers alike to remember Jay and others that have given the ultimate sacrifice; and to cause each of us to rededicate ourselves to the struggle for freedom and liberty.

The theme of this speech—a shared struggle of U.S. and Afghan soldiers—was central to my thinking about our mission, and about our responsibility, as far as it was within our power, to leave the valley in the capable stewardship of its own patriotic fighting men. Although none of the three media reports on Hammerhead Six had emphasized this, I felt then, and I feel now, that the most important thing we did in our time in Afghanistan was to prepare the Afghans to run things when we were gone. As far as I was concerned, that was our mission.

After my comments, an officer from the Ranger Regiment gave a short, moving eulogy and a Ranger unit recited (or rather yelled out) the Ranger Creed. There was a particularly emotional moment when a captain from Blessing’s unit accepted a folded flag of honor that had flown over our camp, and a particularly impressive few minutes when we offered Jay Blessing and others killed in action a twenty-one-gun salute. Usually such an honor is rendered in cannon or rifle fire at places like Arlington National Cemetery. We did it Pech Valley style, with three rounds each of six mortar firings followed by one rocket. This wasn’t Pentagon SOP, but it worked for us, and the VIPs seemed to agree it was an impressive display.

After the gun salute, Major General Olson and Colonel Herd did a ribbon cutting, closing the day’s ceremonial agenda. Olson was then pulled in various directions by VIPs who wanted a word or a photo op with him. He accommodated them, but he also took the time to deliver a brief congratulation to our Afghan troops.

The gesture of respect was not lost on them. Earlier in the day, some of them had wondered aloud “Who is that guy?” With his head as well as his face clean-shaven, Olson didn’t fit the picture of the Special Forces soldiers they had come to know, so you had to forgive them for asking about his status—and about why the Red-Bearded Commander was paying him such deference. Up to that point many of them seemed to assume that I reported directly to President Bush. When they learned that Olson was not only my superior but in charge of all U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, they were duly impressed. When he stood before them, ramrod tough in his battle dress uniform and flanked by a proud interpreter, it was an important official recognition of what they had achieved. In a brief address, this is what he said:

Today we honor a courageous American soldier and patriot who fought here. But we also honor American soldiers and Afghan soldiers who continue to fight. They fight together, shoulder to shoulder, against the threat to Afghanistan and against the threat to the entire world. You are the front line. You are the defense that the world has against a horrible terrorist threat. You are brave, you are courageous, and you are fighting for a noble cause. It is a great honor for me to fight side by side with you. Thank you very much. We will continue to fight, shoulder to shoulder together, until we win. Thank you for your service to your nation, and thank you for your service to the coalition.

Throughout this accolade, I was lined up with my team facing the men we had trained. I could see the pride and gratitude on their faces as Olson complimented them, and I felt enormous satisfaction myself, for what they and we had managed to accomplish together.

But I knew that our relationship was about to end. That gave a poignant twist to my feelings—a twist that, as Olson spoke, I actually felt physically. Standing behind the ODA at that point was a line of the village elders with whom we had tasted tea and empathy in so many councils. One of them, standing directly behind me, placed a hand on my shoulder and held it there through the general’s salute to the troops. This startled me for a second, until I recognized it as a sign of affection that was not out of place in a culture where grown men holding hands was a common practice.

In the few moments that the old man’s hand rested on my shoulder, my mind clicked through a litany of possible interpretations. Given the circumstances, with the valley seemingly at peace and ODA 936 on the way out, it could have been a sign of gratitude, such as a petitioner might give a prince; or of approval, such as a father might give his son. It might have indicated the elder’s appreciation for our having protected his people, or a reminder that they had also protected us. It might have been a plea for us not to abandon him: Was his touch a request for physical support, a symbolic act of holding us back, a way of saying, “You cannot go”? Or was it simply his way of saying good-bye? Maybe it was all of these things. That was what it felt like.

By the end of that windy spring day, our “A” Camp had received official recognition as Camp Blessing. We had been calling it that for months, so it was nice to have the name solidified in the eyes of command. But there was also, I have to admit, an unstated political purpose to the dedication ceremony. I wanted the military and policymakers to feel connected to Camp Blessing so they would be less likely to break our promises and frustrate the expectations of those in the valley who had, with some risk to themselves, thrown their lot in with us. After we left, I didn’t want our nation’s indigenous allies to be abandoned as they had been in Vietnam and in other places where Green Berets had died next to local fighters. Making a big deal of the dedication invited U.S. ownership of the “A” Camp model. It meant (I hoped) that support for our “Afghan patriots” wouldn’t evaporate when we were gone.

The people of the Pech Valley had risked a lot by partnering with us. I felt strongly that this merited a commitment from our military to insure continued support for the valley’s people until they were able to fend off extremists like Abu Ikhlas without our assistance. I was painfully aware that, although we may have made him irrelevant for the time being, he and his AQ followers had not been neutralized. We may have won our private war, but they were still in the game.

By dusk on the sixteenth, the dignitaries were back in their helos and the big day was over. We still had a week or so before our own exfil, though, and an officially surnamed “A” Camp to run in the interim. We got back to business, and things returned to what passed for normal. As the RIP continued and as we met some of the 3rd Special Forces Group Green Berets who were going to be our immediate replacements, there was still the close watch on the hills, and still the routine patrols, camp improvements, school visits, clinic visits—the standard mix.

On May 20, just a few days before we shipped out, we had a more exciting day than usual. In the field, our ASF guys were showing that they had earned their bragging rights as a security force. Two of their squads ran a CONOP in the northern valley, while another, platoon-sized force retrieved two separate arms caches near Kanday village. I wrote in my journal the following day that it was “satisfying to see the ASF receive intel from friends or relatives and then act on it to recover caches. We are sending them to do independent operations more and more.” Satisfying was an understatement. It felt fantastic to see the local indigs taking charge of their valley.

There was also some excitement back at camp that day. Around noon, Mike was in the clinic when a teenaged boy walked in with a clumsily bandaged hand that had been smashed, he said, by a boulder. This was another one of those cases where boulder might have been code for “botched IED,” but to our senior medic, that wasn’t relevant. He sat the boy down and, unwrapping the bandage, discovered that his middle two fingers had been “degloved,” that is, the skin had been peeled completely back to the knuckles, exposing the bone. The ends of the fingers were crushed, leaving only the metacarpals—the sections between the knuckles and the first joints—as salvageable bone.

“When I saw what had happened,” Mike recalls, “I knew I would have to amputate what was left of the digits and then try to fold the stripped skin back over the metacarpals. That would have been a tricky job for a Beverly Hills hand surgeon with a cabinet of surgical tools. Unfortunately, we were so near the end of the tour that I had already shipped most of my surgical kit forward to Bagram.”

What he hadn’t yet shipped forward was his Leatherman tool—that multiblade pocket device that is like a Swiss Army knife on steroids. So, assisted by his fellow medic Randy, our CA guy James Trusty, and a Navy corpsman, Mike got the kid sedated, sterilized the Leatherman tool, and began to do what Special Forces soldiers do best: improvise in unrehearsed situations.

Luckily, our pharmacy still had plenty of drugs. With the boy in dreamland thanks to a mixture of atropine, ketamine, valium, lidocaine, and morphine, Mike used the Leatherman to saw the shattered digits off and file the metacarpals down, then folded the flaps of skin over the stumps and sutured them closed. With James watching the patient’s airway and Randy monitoring painkiller and antibiotic levels, the operation lasted almost four hours. The kid woke up that evening groggy and a bit bewildered. He wouldn’t be making a living as a concert violinist, but thanks to Mike’s resourcefulness and surgical skills, he would have the use of a hand that might easily have been lost.

This was just days before our time in the Pech would end. We were short-timers for sure. But as Yogi Berra liked to say, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” Mike made us all proud that day, just as the ASF was making us proud. I wrote in my journal that night, “We have gotten good at conducting multiple operations, and we do it fairly well.” I was thinking of recon patrols as well as finger surgery, and I was hoping that after we were gone, whoever took our place would be half as good at improvising as Mike Montoya.