It wasn’t getting any easier. The fire continued to rain from the high ground. They were pinned on the ledge against the rock wall. An Afghan commando on another part of the ledge had just been hit in the head with a round and wasn’t moving. With blood gushing from his skull, he was probably dead. And at this point, it was unclear how they would even attempt to get off the mountain.
This was no time for reflection, but Morales couldn’t help but think about his wife and his family. He wanted to survive so he could hug her. Tell her and his family how much he cared about them. The battle was a disaster, but he wasn’t giving up hope—that wasn’t in his DNA. He would keep fighting. But the reality was, if things didn’t improve soon, there was a chance that the insurgents would overrun their position.
In all the confusion, he didn’t have time to think about CK. When he saw the Afghan’s lifeless body, he was startled. Then angry. CK was his little brother. They had spent so much time together during the deployment. They watched endless episodes of Friends and spent countless hours talking about their lives. Morales knew everything about CK. How he wanted so badly to be an American. How he dreamed of joining Special Forces. And like a big brother, Morales was always giving CK advice. He told CK that Special Forces really needed interpreters and he should focus on that. He remembered the days when they went to bazaars and how CK had looked out for his friend. He would barter with the merchants every time Morales picked up a trinket for Katherine. He would make sure he didn’t get ripped off, and the two of them would laugh about it later.
Morales truly cared about CK. Now he was dead.
When Shurer arrived, Morales waved him off and told him to work on Behr first. No question Behr was in worse shape than he was, Morales told the medic. He’d been shot first and needed immediate help. Behr was only a few feet from Morales, who had been watching the events unfold. He tried to help, firing his weapon, pointing out enemy positions. But it reached a point where the pain was just too great to do anything.
Morales didn’t know how many insurgents were above them, but he estimated that there had to be at least a hundred, probably more. They had been entrenched in that village for who knows how long. This was their turf. They knew every cave and every hiding spot for snipers. They had the weapons. He could tell. The only hope was to bomb the shit out of their positions. But his team was so close they might be injured in any bombing run. It was a conundrum for sure. Bomb the enemy and run the risk of taking friendly fire. Or do nothing and run the risk of an entire Special Forces team being massacred in a remote valley. Not much of a choice. And something must have happened to the other ODAs and those commandos. Were they pinned down, too? Why aren’t they here? Morales thought.
When Walding was shot, it was like Morales was hit again. Being wounded was one thing. Morales could handle that. But watching his friends—especially Walding—in agony was another. Walding was his best friend in the unit. There was nothing physical that Walding couldn’t do, and they pushed each other in the gym, or when they ran on the airfield. And when it was time to unwind, they would download TV shows and movies on their iPhones and stream them on the big screen TV in the recreation room. Big Brother was their favorite. They loved the intrigue and backstabbing and strategy as contestants brokered deals in order to last to the end of the show and possibly win $250,000. It was like real life. So many hours in the last few months were spent laughing their asses off watching back-to-back-to-back episodes of Big Brother. They even joked about trying out for the show when they returned home.
Morales smiled for a moment when he recalled how Walding had reenlisted just a few weeks earlier during a routine border patrol mission. The goal of that operation was to protect a remote outpost, which had been attacked a few times at night. The Army had information that it was going to be hit again, and they needed soldiers to help reinforce the outpost. So Morales’s team and the commandos, along with an Army National Guard unit, rolled out of Jalalabad and headed east to the outpost in the desert.
It was a huge convoy. His team drove to a small wadi and parked. They waited there all night while the National Guard trekked two more miles to the outpost with supplies. Morales’s team had to stay in position and wait just in case of an attack. They couldn’t leave their vehicles. Morales didn’t mind. The night before the trip, he had been promoted to staff sergeant, which meant he had his own vehicle and driver. For the longest time, he had been chauffeuring Wurzbach.
And on the trip, they rolled past amazing scenery—like they were in some kind of travelogue.
In one spot, they saw a tent with two hundred camels standing outside with one leg tied to another. That was the way to prevent the camels from walking off. Or as Morales put it, they had on their parking brakes. During the trip, they traveled on a mountain pass that doubled as a superhighway for donkeys and camels headed back and forth from Pakistan to Afghanistan. He knew the Pashtun people don’t recognize that Pakistan-Afghanistan border. To them, it didn’t make sense. They were all Pashtun people on both sides anyway.
The next morning, the team had to go to a base near the Torkham Gate on the famed Khyber Pass. As they were driving down an asphalt road close to Pakistan, they reached a checkpoint near the base that looked like a tollbooth on the New Jersey Turnpike. When the U.S. troops peeked inside Walding and Ford’s vehicle, they asked, “Hey, what unit are you guys in?”
Walding, who was Ford’s driver, looked over at him. Without blinking, Ford responded, “We’re in the 201st [Afghan] Commandos.” They all started laughing, and when they neared the Pakistan border, Morales heard Walton ask Walding if he wanted to reenlist. Right there. In the middle of traffic. “Fuck yeah. I want to do it,” Walding said.
So Walding exited the vehicle and Walton left his Humvee. Someone held up an American flag as a backdrop and Walton read him the enlistment oath. It was cool as shit, Morales thought.
But now Walding was in the dirt, and there was nothing Morales could do to help him. He would do anything to just summon the strength to run over to his friend and help him put on the tourniquet, or sprinkle QuikClot or something on his wound. Just tell him he would be okay. But at this point, all he could do was watch.
And pray.