— § —
PB DAGGER, Sangin, Afghanistan
Monday 3 Apr 06 0322 hrs AFT
Black.
Nights in Afghanistan were always dark but right here and right now it was as black as Tom Price had ever seen it. The moon wasn’t scheduled to rise until a few hours after dawn and while the stars arced across the sky above him, they cast no discernible light on the land.
Disembodied sounds drifted randomly across the field: over there a squawk from a radio set’s speaker; over here a vehicle’s hydraulics cycling; and there the low voices of the medics working frantically on a casualty.
The site was relatively secure now; as secure as it could be in the circumstances. The Canadians had the perimeter locked down and the massive hulls of their four LAV IIIs provided a significant comfort factor. Occasionally there was a whine as a LAVs’ turret mechanisms traversed its 25mm chaingun to scan up and down the riverbeds and ridgelines with its thermal imagery gunsight.
Several kilometers behind them a pair of Canadian M777 howitzers was trained on defensive fire tasks to cut down any Talibs that might try to take advantage of the situation.
Price stood close to the center of the position. His attention was not dwelling on the perimeter which was the Canadians’ platoon commander’s responsibility.
Price’s focus was on the dead and wounded and arranging a landing zone for the incoming MEDEVACs.
The platoon was in an open field half a klick north of Price’s patrol base which lay just on the opposite bank of the Helmand River from where they were now. Another platoon, this one an Afghan National Army one, which Price’s half of ODA 053 was supporting, had remained behind at the PB to secure it. He’d left Walt Schroeder and Fred Young with them. Both were weapons specialists with the team: Master Sergeant Schroeder was also the team’s operations sergeant.
Taking a knee to his right was Ed Moore, a new member to the ODA and Price’s communication sergeant.
“MUSTANG 53 ECHO, Roger, Out,” Ed’s voice was slightly muffled, his head down as he spoke into his radio’s mic. His head then came up looking towards Price’s shadowy figure. “Five minutes out, Tom,”
“Roger,” acknowledged Price. “The choppers are five minutes out!” he called out to the men around him. Sound discipline was a minor matter now that they were within the perimeter of the steel LAVs.
“Dave!” he called over in the direction of the HLZ. “You guys ready?”
“Yeah. The pad’s swept and the glow sticks are all laid out.” Dave was Sergeant Dave Creasy, the team’s engineer sergeant who, together with a Canadian engineer had laid out the HLZ and checked it over for any mines or IEDs.
Price flipped down his night vision goggles and could now see the green glow of the IR glowsticks that had been thrown around the perimeter of the HLZ.
“Let the choppers know the HLZ is marked and swept, Ed,” said Price. “I’m going over to see how Raul’s doing.”
“Roger, boss.”
With his NVGs still flipped down, Price easily made his way over the twenty meters to where Raul Rodriguez, the team’s medical sergeant together with the Canadian Platoon’s medic and two of their Tactical Combat Casualty Care trained soldiers were managing the wounded. The platoon’s warrant officer and three other troopers were there as well to lend a hand with the casualty evacuation. Also there were a British paratrooper and an American National Guard captain standing beside a land rover and an up-armored HMMWV, all of whom Price ignored as he made his way to the medics.
Rodriguez had his hands full, literally. On the ground in front of him lay another Brit para stripped to the waist with a large abdominal gash spilling intestines. Another Brit kneeled next to his comrade holding an IV fluid bag attached to the casualty’s right arm, the left arm being immobilized and its upper portion wrapped tightly with two Israeli bandages.
“Hold it right here, Chuck” Rodriguez directed the Canadian medic. “If I can get this last bit back in I can get enough stitches in to hold the thing together and seal it.” The Canadian already had his left hand busy ventilating the para through an oral airway and reached over with his right.
“Chopper in five, Raul. How are you doing?”
“Just about got this one stable, Boss,” he replied without looking up. “Those three are ready to go. Two ambulatory and light; the third a litter and stable. The three VSAs are bagged up and ready as well.”
“Warrant!” Chuck, the Canadian medic called over to where the other casualties were grouped.
One figure turned and took a step over. Price recognized him as the Canadians’ platoon warrant officer. “What’s up?” he asked.
“The choppers are five minutes out. Can you get the other wounded and VSAs over to it and loaded when they’re down. Tell the crew chief we’ll be right there. We’re still stabilizing the line 3 BRAVO?”
“No sweat,” the platoon warrant said and returned to the small group huddling nearby.
Price turned back to the Brit and the American captain standing by their trucks. “The platoon warrant could use a couple of extra hands loading the casualties. Once you’re done with that I’ll be over at the platoon commander’s LAV.”
In the distance he could hear the air being beaten by the blades of the MEDEVAC and its Apache attack helicopter escort.
Time to organize the trip home.
— § —
Home at this point was the patrol base.
Their PB was a smallish municipal compound, about fifty meters square sandwiched hard up against the eastern bank of the Helmand River at the very edge of the bazaar of the town of Sangin. The town was a hardscrabble cluster of fourteen thousand farmers and merchants settled in a line maybe two kilometers deep and seven kilometers long on the eastern side of the river.
Helmand’s rivers were few and far between and meant life in this part of the world. As they meandered through the province they laid down narrow green ribbons—the green zones—on what was otherwise a bare, gravel wasteland of ridges, plateaus and mountain ranges. To the far south it was pure desert.
Along the rivers, even the ones that just ran seasonally, towns, villages and individual farms sprang up. Their waters were the life blood for the green zones’ abundant crops. Of all the crops here, the annual opium harvest in the springtime was the most lucrative. Later in the season would come corn, wheat and watermelon. However, right now the poppies were up and therein lay the problem.
Price had been in Sangin for only two days and he’d already come to hate the town and everything it represented. Irrigation canals and drainage ditches filled with raw sewage meandered everywhere. The roads were dirt; easily mined. Electricity ran only intermittently and at night not a glimmer could be seen of the family compounds behind their two to five meter high walls often a meter or more thick; everyone of them a potential fortress. Everything here was built of the mud and stone that lay everywhere in abundance and which gave the entire area and its buildings a uniform ochre tinge.
Operational Detachment Alpha 053 had come to the PB early yesterday morning. The ODA, ordinarily belonging to 10th Special Forces Group out of Fort Carson on the south side of Colorado Springs had been mobilized three months ago to augment the Special Operations Task Force based on the 3rd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group in Kandahar. A Special Forces battalion headquarters better known as an Operational Detachment Charlie, was designated a Forward Operating Base when deployed on operations. Its designator was formed using the number of the group the battalion was from and its battalion number within the group, hence FOB 73. A name that was a frequent point of confusion for non-Special Forces troops for whom FOB was used to describe a place on the ground rather than an entity. Hence FOB 73 was frequently also called TF 73.
FOB 73 had an area of operations that extended throughout southern Afghanistan, from around Kandahar all the way over to Herat in the west. A second SOTF covered the east and north of the country.
Towards the end of February a major operation had started spinning up. The 3rd Kandak of the 1st Brigade of the 207th Corps of the Afghan National Army together with their American Embedded Training Teams and ODA 2062 had been sent down from Herat to develop a Forward Operating Base—FOB WOLF—at the southern edge of Sangin.
FOB WOLF had become a cluster of camps; one each for the ANA, the ETT, the ODA and a small platoon of Afghan security guards. Since the day they started the heavy duty construction work they had become the subject of daily and ever more complex attacks by the Taliban. Somebody wasn’t happy with the improvements FOB WOLF was contributing to their neighborhood.
The action had risen to a crescendo on the 28th of March when another incoming ANA convoy with its own ETTs had come under attack while driving up to the FOB. The result was the death of eight ANA soldiers. A Canadian platoon-strength Quick Reaction Force was dispatched by helicopter from Kandahar to reinforce the FOB and that night, when the base was hit again, an American ETT and a Canadian were killed and three Canadians and an American wounded.
Since then, further forces had been arriving in the area: yet another ANA Kandak with an ETT from Kandahar, a Canadian mechanized infantry company combat team from the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, and last, but not least, a further ANA infantry company supported by Price’s ODA 053.
Not to be left out of the action, a British battle group from their 16th Air Assault Brigade was arriving in Kandahar and bit by bit moving on to assemble at a new camp designated Camp BASTION, some sixty kilometers to the west-southwest of FOB WOLF. The British Brigade’s main combat element would be the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment which was only just starting to arrive. Earlier in the week Price had seen their reconnaissance element, the Pathfinder Platoon, leaving the Kandahar Airfield in a small convoy of WMIK Land Rovers and Pinzgauer light trucks.
The Brits were to take over responsibility for all of the province of Helmand in much the same way that the Canadians were on the ground and already responsible for all of the province of Kandahar. The Dutch, in conjunction with the Australians, were also in the process of starting their deployment to take over the adjoining province of Urozgan in the north. One last element, the fledgling brigades of the ANA, was being fleshed out just as quickly as the national training centers in Afghanistan were able to turn out qualified and equipped soldiers. All in all it was a period of change. The bulk of the American forces still in the country were currently redeploying to the northeastern part of the country.
On the down side, the changeover was creating issues. The current operation for Helmand had been spun up well before the Canadians had assumed command. The planning for it had been controlled more by political directives from Kabul rather than military planning in Kandahar. As a result the troops converging on Helmand from numerous directions were reacting more to the situation there than carrying out anything resembling a deliberate coordinated effort.
A case in point was the deployment of the 2nd Coy of the 1st Kandak of the 205th Hero Corps’ 1st Brigade from Camp SHIR ZAI just outside KAF.
With only twelve hours notice, the company had been ordered to deploy to augment FOB WOLF.
ODA 053 had been given even less notice since whoever had decided to send the 2nd of the 1st Kandak had overlooked advising FOB 73 that the company that usually worked together with the ODA was deploying. The ODA’s commander, Captain Derek Goddard, Warrant Officer Price and Master Sergeant Walt Schroeder had been dragged out of a deep sleep, hustled into FOB 73’s TOC and given frag orders which basically said get your trucks, get your gear, don’t forget to take lots of ammo and water, meet up with your ANA and get on the road to Sangin RFN. The implication was that ODA 2062 would provide them with better orders on arrival. This was not an optimal deployment and the battle rhythm was screwed up from the get go.
By the time they had reached Sangin late in the evening of the 1st of April someone had in fact drawn up a plan whereby Price with half of ODA 053 and a platoon of the ANA would deploy to PB DAGGER the next day while Goddard, with the rest of the ODA and the bulk of the ANA’s company, deployed to another PB. This one was located a further six kilometers north on Highway 611 the main road running up alongside the south side of the river.
By that evening Price and his ANA partners had their position defensible and ready for the construction crews to come up the next day.
That night the Taliban had decided to welcome them to the neighborhood with a lively fireworks display of mortars, rocket propelled grenades and PK machine guns.
After that things had started to go downhill.