IN EARLY MARCH, the balance of Dog Company streamed into Afghanistan via Bagram Airfield, Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan, and FOB Sharana in Paktika Province. Hill and another Dog Company element were transitioning through Bagram, sleeping in a tent next door to some soldiers from the 82nd who had just flown out of Wardak. One evening, Hill, Mo, and a couple of other soldiers wanted to get the lowdown on Airborne, so they visited the next tent.
“We were running the FOB on a skeleton crew,” a sergeant said to the D Co delegation, who sat on cots around him. “The ANP in Maidan Shar are dirty. That’s the best-case scenario—that all they do is take bribes and shit. The worst-case scenario is that they’re working with the Taliban.”
Several times the 82nd had run missions that were supposed to include the ANP, the sergeant said. The ANP wouldn’t show up, but the Taliban would be there, lying in wait. The worst was that firefight in October in Jalrez, when the Taliban shredded an 82nd platoon using small arms and armor-piercing RPGs.9 It was the firefight Hill had heard about at the October rotation at JRTC.
“After that, we didn’t go in there,” the sergeant said, his face grim. “Into the valley, I mean.”
Hill had been listening quietly. Part of him was anxious to leave the tent and get back to work. He had business to attend to: inventories, even training. Air Force Major Dave Rayman and some A-10 pilots on the other side of Bagram had agreed to talk Hill’s men through some CAS drills from their perspective. Hill was eager to capitalize on this rare opportunity for his soldiers to interact with the pilots who might someday come to their rescue. Still, what the sergeant said concerned him.
Before he took command of D Co, LTC DeMartino had briefed him on what to expect. He told Hill that one reason he’d selected him to take command of Dog Company was his counterinsurgency experience while serving in Iraq. Hill’s successful tour there had led to a follow-on assignment at Fort Benning, where he rewrote the counterinsurgency module for the Infantry Officers Basic Course.
Ramadi had been about destroying the enemy, DeMartino said. Afghanistan was about winning the confidence of the people. Ramadi had been about body bags. Afghanistan was about hearts and minds. The entire battalion needed to be “reprogrammed,” DeMartino said, Hill’s Delta Company most of all.
Although he had not seen it in writing, Hill had heard that D Co had had the most kills of any company in Ramadi. In Wardak, though, they would be working primarily to build schools and improve on the already peaceful security situation in the province—a completely different mission.
“More than any other company commander,” DeMartino told him, “you’ve got a tough bunch of guys to reprogram for hearts and minds.”
Hill had developed a respect for his CO by then. Looking at DeMartino’s career, it seemed as though he’d checked all the right boxes, been in all the right billets. Platoon leader, Desert Storm; Multinational Force and Observers, Sinai, Egypt; Battalion operations officer, and later assistant chief of staff in the 82nd Airborne. DeMartino had also served in the office of the deputy secretary of defense. And to be placed in command of a battalion in a storied regiment like the 506th was no small accomplishment.
His insight about the temperament of Dog Company seemed to prove true at the October 2007 JRTC rotation. At JRTC, exercise scenarios simulate conditions units will face in actual combat. Units under training are deployed to “the Box,” where they face realistic battles against the OPFOR. Usually, the OPFOR kills everybody in the training unit—just lays absolute waste.
SFC Kris Wilson had gotten some advance intel about the October operational order, or official scenario script for culminating the exercise.
“All right, listen up,” Wilson said after rounding up his guys. “This isn’t official, but I heard we’re supposed to go out to some crappy little FOB on Peason Ridge, where the OPFOR is supposed to overrun us so that Charlie Company can air-assault in and save our sorry asses.”
“Sounds like a good time,” Mike Judd said.
Wilson had lost count of the number of times he’d been blown up, a fact he avoided sharing with his wife. In Ramadi, he’d been winged in the head with flying hunks of asphalt, peppered with scalding shrapnel, and had his legs nearly crushed between two Humvees. The latter resulted in his only stay at an aid station. But Ramadi was a boiling hell, and he had known he needed to get back to his men. After a couple of days, Wilson faked being able to walk. An Army doc eyed Wilson’s painful stagger with a wry smile but released him.
After all that, Wilson didn’t really feel like being overrun in a training scenario, no matter what the exercise observers had planned. Neither did the rest of Dog Company. And so, within twenty-four hours of the Box going hot for the final scenario, D Co had either killed or captured all the OPFOR in their sector, grabbed valuable intel that disrupted further attacks, and gone to the aid of one of their sister companies during a critical juncture in the operation.
That had been Hill’s first chance to watch his future company in action. Two months later, the 1-506th returned to JRTC, this time with Hill in command of Dog Company. Once again, the unit excelled. Near the end of the rotation, Hill was leaving a briefing at a large complex of tents when LTC DeMartino walked up and tapped him on the shoulder. “Roger, let’s go for a walk.”
“Yes, sir.” Hill zipped his jacket against the chill and followed him outside. The two walked into a wide field ringed with old-growth trees stripped bare by winter. A low overcast dulled the sky.
“What do you think of First Sergeant Scott?” DeMartino said. His words made puffs of white that slipped into his wake as he walked.
“I think he’s great,” Hill said, puzzled by the question.
“Well, I’m not sure about him. He doesn’t seem to command the respect that we need him to, and I’m not sure if he’s that strong a leader.” DeMartino paused. “And he doesn’t have his tab.”
His Ranger tab, Hill thought. Tommy hadn’t been to Ranger school. Hill wanted to say, No, but he’s been in combat in three different countries.
The Ranger obsession was beginning to frustrate him. It wasn’t that Ranger school wasn’t important—it was, especially as a soldier ascends in the Army’s hierarchy. There’s a camaraderie and level of understanding that passes unspoken between men who have marched and starved and sweated and bled through the school’s punishing weeks.
But one thing Hill had learned from Dog Company, beginning with reading those awards packets from the file cabinet, and continuing through both JRTC rotations, was that Ranger school did not necessarily determine how a man will perform in combat. It’s certainly a true test of a man’s mettle, of what he’s willing to endure on behalf of other soldiers. But this company of all companies, this battalion of all battalions, had already been tested. Hill knew that tab or no tab, that special blend of competence, experience, and heart was what mattered most. And he saw that in Scott.
Even apart from combat or tabs, Hill wanted to ask DeMartino if he’d noticed the difference in the company since Tommy took over. Their PT scores. Their rifle scores. Their morale. The fact that disciplinary problems had utterly vanished.
But Hill didn’t ask. DeMartino was his commander, and Hill wasn’t going to question his judgment. They continued striding across the field, weeds crunching under their feet. Ahead, a flock of crows scattered.
DeMartino glanced his way. “I’ve got somebody in mind as a replacement for Scott. He’s another first sergeant I’d like to have come to our brigade. If you’re interested in switching Scott out, we can probably make that happen.”
It wasn’t the first time that DeMartino had tried to swap out Hill’s men. About a month before, he’d tried to replace Larry Kay, referring to him as “a box of rocks.” Hill had refused.
Now he walked a few more steps before speaking. Then Hill said, “Sir, I appreciate that, but I’m really happy with First Sergeant Scott. I think he’s a fantastic leader and, more importantly, the guys really respect him. I don’t think there could be a better fit for the company than Tommy Scott.”
And so Hill had held on to Scott as first sergeant. Now, in the tent at Bagram, Hill measured DeMartino’s hearts and minds speech against what this sergeant from the 82nd Airborne was saying—that in Wardak, his unit had been up to its eyeballs in Taliban.
The sergeant’s assessment aligned closely with the Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB) that Larry Kay had put together since landing in Afghanistan. At the northeastern end of the Jalrez Valley, insurgents under the command of the warlord Razak were using “rat lines,” little-traveled routes through the mountains, to rally at the outskirts of Kabul and plan attacks on the city.
East of Highway 1, in the district of Sayed Abad, were the Taliban’s less ideological players. These criminal types were not so much into IEDs as robbing Afghan supply convoys and selling the spoils.
South of Jalrez was Nerkh, another valley run by higher-level Taliban who were essentially interchangeable with Razak and the Jalrez crew. Moving south to Route Georgia was the Tangi Valley, run by a different Taliban cell. The key feature of the Tangi was its sheer roadside cliffs and general self-containment. The terrain put the bad guys in a position not to be messed with, while allowing them to mess with anyone who encroached on their turf.
The 82nd, Kay had learned, suspected that Taliban fighters were stealing police cars, taking them back to a chop shop in Jalrez, and converting them into Trojan horse VBIEDs intended for Kabul. Kay’s IPB reports dovetailed with open-source intel that Hill had tasked his platoon leaders with gathering. In tandem, the open-source and IPB intel planted red flags all over the rosy “model province” picture coming out of the 1-506th intel shop.
Before leaving Fort Campbell, Hill had approached the 1-506th intel officer with this information, but was told flatly, “Kabul is not your focus.”
Hill argued that since the Taliban had to drive their suicide bombs right past FOB Airborne’s gates to detonate them in Kabul, it should be. Not only that, but the IED makers working in Jalrez directly affected the security of Highway 1, the crown jewel of the RC East counterinsurgency, and that was Dog Company’s primary focus.
The intel officer downplayed Hill’s argument, as well as the IPB Kay had built. His basic message, as Hill took it, was: Don’t try to make this assignment a bigger deal than it is.
Now, Hill sat in the tent at Bagram wishing he had pressed harder. He did not comment on the sergeant’s revelations, just thanked him and walked out of the tent. He had things to do. Still, he let the NCO’s assessment simmer on the back burner of his mind.
DeMartino had implied that Dog Company would be handing out bouquets of number two pencils. Instead, it seemed to Hill that they were walking into a knife fight.