Walding leaped off the helicopter and tried to take a knee in the rock-strewn wadi. As the rest of his element scrambled to join him, he scanned the high mountains that seemed to box in the valley floor.
Well, this is going to suck, he thought.
The valley cut a sharp V in the direction of the villages of Shok and Kendal. The mountains rose high into the sky, almost cutting off the sun, and the sheer rock faces offered no cover.
The massive green Chinook helicopters and their smaller, faster Black Hawk cousins dropped off their “chalks” of Special Forces soldiers and commandos and soared back into the safety of the sky. Walding looked at the ground trying to cover his face as the dirt swirled around him. Once the echoes of the beating rotors faded, a silence fell like a blanket over the valley. It was almost spooky, Walding thought. He could hear murmurs from the others. The quiet was unnerving. But it was soon replaced by the command to move out.
“Let’s go,” Walding yelled to his commandos.
Walding, Morales, and Sanders led assault one forward. Behind them were Walton, Behr, Carter, Rhyner, and CK. They were the command and control element, essentially the brain, and Ford, Howard, Williams, and the others were in the last group.
For the next several minutes, groups of American soldiers and their Afghan counterparts formed up into groups and began looking for a path up the mountain and into the villages. Overhead, Apache helicopters and F-15 jets were talking to the soldiers, trying to find them the best route up the mountain. As they crisscrossed the sky, the pilots searched for enemy fighters, waiting to pounce at the first sign of trouble.
The walk from the landing zone to the path leading to the village took about thirty minutes. They moved forward in a line—commandos in their green uniforms were separated every few men by a tan-clad Special Forces soldier. ODA 3336 was in the lead. Farther down was ODA 3312, led by Lodyga. Their mission was to cover ODA 3336 as they scaled the mountain into the village where Ghafour was supposed to be hiding.
The wadi looked more like a rock quarry than a place where people lived. If that wasn’t bad enough, Walding and his group ran up on a river of icy white water. Moving down the bank, they found a narrow two-by-four that offered the only dry way across. Walding stepped on it, testing to make sure it could hold him. But halfway across, he realized he wasn’t going to make it, and fell in the river. The water engulfed him all the way up to his chest, soaking his uniform and equipment and sending a chill through his entire body.
Slapping the water in anger, he scrambled up the other side and waited for the others. Like ants marching, the other soldiers and commandos crossed one by one. Many were already wet and cold, and they didn’t want to risk hypothermia. But all knew that one well-placed machine gun would wipe them out. So they hurried across. Walding felt uneasy when they passed a building—more like a big goat barn—near the base of the hill under the village. It was empty.
They took a few more steps and the blocking positions broke off, with Wurzbach leading one and Staff Sergeant Sean Mason the other.
Sanders, Walding, and Morales stood at the base of the cliff, staring up. On top of towering cliffs overlooking the valley stood stout buildings made of rock, mud, and logs. More like castles than houses, some of the buildings were built straight into the cliff face.
Morales glimpsed some people running with guns at the lip of the cliff. They wore the long shirt and baggy pants of the region and soon disappeared behind some rocks. Sanders and Walding pressed their scopes to their faces and scanned, in vain, hoping to spot the gunmen.
“I can’t see anybody,” Walding said. Neither could Sanders.
Not wanting to be stuck in the wadi, Walding led the first group up the trail. Sanders was at the rear as they started up the path—a switchback—that zigzagged up the mountain. This was their second attempt. The first route had been too steep. The second wasn’t much better. It was more like erosion levels than an actual trail. But it was the only way up to the compound. Wald-ing’s hands hurt, and he cut them on the jagged edges as he hoisted himself up with all his equipment. Shit. If we meet any resistance, we’re fucked. There’s no cover, he thought.
As he climbed, Walding used his scope to peer at the compound. He hoped to get his bearings before he reached the outskirts of the village. He wanted to see what they were facing. But from his current angle, it was impossible to see all the buildings. There were just too many of them—and some were hidden by layers of ridgelines that jutted out of the mountain.
When he finally reached the top, he spotted a rock wall at the bank of a ditch on the edge of the village. Racing over to it, he and Sanders set up behind it and tried to catch their breath. The commandos fanned out around the Americans. Everybody was tired and wet. It had taken about an hour. It was grueling. But they had made it to the top.