Ford knew there wasn’t much he could do now except knuckle up and get ready to execute. As the commandos and his team filed into the helicopter, he began pounding on his chest. As they passed, he knocked knuckles with the Afghans, Shurer, Wurzbach, Staff Sergeant Ryan Wallen, a twenty-two-year-old communications sergeant from Palm Springs, California, and Sergeant Matthew Williams, of Texas, who’d arrived with Walding, another Texan, a few weeks before the team deployed. The twenty-seven-year-old was a weapons sergeant and Texas A&M Aggies fan. Ford used to tease the Texans since Walding was a burnt-orange-bleeding Texas fan—the Aggies chief rival.
“Listen up. You need to show the commandos we are ready to get this thing done. We’re going to do our jobs,” he shouted over the din of the whirling blades.
Ford and Wurzbach sat near the back so they could see off the back ramp. All doubts and concerns were gone as soon as Ford heard the engines start to power up.
Go time. Let’s get it done.
The wheels lifted off the ground, the nose of the Chinook dipped forward, and the aircraft seemed to leap into the air.
Ford understood how to lead foreign special operations troops. He was with the team that started the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Force team. His team selected the first ICTF troops, trained them in Jordan, and prepared them to combat Al Qaeda in Iraq.
In 2004, he led a team to the Shiite holy city of Najaf after Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s revolt. After the fall of the Saddam government in 2003, Muqtada al-Sadr organized thousands of his supporters into a political movement, which included a military wing known as the Jaysh al-Mahdi. In April 2004, fighting broke out in Najaf, Sadr City, and Basra. Sadr’s Mahdi Army took over several points and attacked Coalition soldiers.
Ford worked with the snipers. Soon after arriving, he and his Iraqi team were sent into the most dangerous parts of the town to conduct sniper missions. Moving into a valley controlled by the HIG would be even more dangerous.
The HIG was one of the three strongest terror groups in Afghanistan. Led by Hekmatyar, the HIG was one of the biggest insurgent factions against Soviet and Afghan Communist forces.
Hekmateyr’s group was focused on northeastern Afghanistan, with bases in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Attacks on security forces increased in 2005.
The “Nuristan-Kunar Corridor” is the gateway to Kabul, and Al Qaeda was making a major push to secure it. In response, the sector had become home to more than 3,500 members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. The paratroopers were spread out over at least twenty-two posts, many of which were built just months before by the 10th Mountain Division.
In Nuristan in August 2006, the United States set up FOB Kamdesh—now called Combat Outpost Keating—and several other outposts in towns like Urmul and Kamu; towns along the winding narrow road that runs next to the Kunar River toward Kunar Province, then Pakistan. It was this road—nicknamed “Ambush Alley”—that the United States wanted to control.
The flight took about an hour. The whole time, Ford kept his eyes fixed on the clouds until the armada made its turn into the valley. Then he was able to start seeing the mountains. The peaks towered above the helicopter. Each one was still covered in snow.
Ford hadn’t worn a T-shirt under his desert uniform top. He knew that in a little while he would be climbing a cliff and figured that with all the kit he would be hot. But glancing at the snow, he almost broke out his spare shirt rolled up in his three-day bag near his feet. Damn, I might have to use my bag today, he thought.
Each member of the team had one strapped to the floor. It contained extra clothes, food, and other gear that the team might need, but was too heavy to carry on the assault. The crew chiefs on the birds knew to be ready to kick the bags off if the team called for them.
As the helicopter dipped and turned around the peaks, Ford could hear the pilots on his headset calling off the checkpoints on the map. The helicopters flared out and started to settle near the wadi.
“Ice. Ice.”
“Ice” meant it was a cold landing zone. No enemy fire.
As the helicopter settled into a hover, Ford peeked out of the portal on the side of the Chinook. Streaked as it was with dirt and grime, it was difficult to see anything, but he could glimpse the steep hills surrounding him.
We have to get off of this thing. We’re in a huge bullet trap.
The helicopter was at a lower elevation than the village, which meant that Afghan fighters could easily look over the lip of the cliff and shoot down at the hovering Chinooks and Black Hawks.
“Thirty seconds,” the pilot said.
The Special Forces soldiers got the commandos up. Ford stood near the ramp and started to beat his chest. It was his war cry. With each thump, he sent a simple message: It was time to jump off this bird and kick some ass.
“Go! Go!” the crew chief yelled.
Ford looked over the ramp. The bird was still eight to ten feet off the ground. And the soldiers were jumping out with at least sixty extra pounds of equipment.
“Put it down. Put it down,” Ford yelled back.
“GO!”
Wurzbach and Ford looked at each other. They knew there was nothing they could do.
“It is go time,” Ford said.
He jumped off first. Holding the ramp with one arm, he still didn’t touch the ground. So he let go and landed with a thud, sliding off the basketball-size rocks covered in ice. Scrambling to his feet, he tried to set up security as the others made the same fall. He figured 10 percent of the force was going to be out with knee or ankle injuries. But as the last commando hit the rocks and the helicopter climbed into the air, Ford checked for injuries and only got thumbs-up and smiles. No casualties.
All that working out at Fort Bragg had paid off.