A DEEP IED crater encircled the truck, which belched gun smoke; a can of MK19 rounds had cooked off inside. Dog Company’s dismounts fell out and formed a perimeter. Hill and some RCP soldiers carefully advanced, Sammy in trail. Hill could see the disabled truck’s rear passenger, strapped into his seat, head resting on the seat in front of him. If he hadn’t been charred completely black, he might have been only sleeping. Hill ducked to look inside the vehicle. The charcoaled head retained vague suggestions of facial features. A scorching fire had burned the hands and feet down to nubs.
Emotion welled up inside Hill. Sadness and empathy as he flashed to the moment of this man’s death. Had he been knocked unconscious by the IED blast, only to wake up cloaked in flames, in terrified agony but unable to escape the inferno? As quickly as the image entered his mind, Hill shut it down. Compartmentalized it. Now was the time to focus on his job. The manner of the man’s death could be examined later.
Using only his aviator gloves, Hill began to sift around the body for ID. The remains were still very hot and pieces of charred flesh fell off as Hill carefully tipped the man from side to side, searching. Between the body and the nearly fire-consumed seat, he spotted a wallet and carefully extracted it. It contained a few Afghani, the paper currency of Afghanistan, oddly intact, and a few bits of charred paper with handwritten notes clearly not in English. This was likely the team’s interpreter, Hill realized. He was sitting where Sammy always sat, behind the driver and diagonal to the right front seat so that he could maintain eye contact with the TC.
Sammy was unable to make out the scribble other than to say an Afghan had written it. Hill saw worry lines crease his translator’s brow, sensed his fear. The incinerated Afghan had awakened this morning doing the same job Sammy did. He had chosen to risk the Taliban’s wrath by working with the Coalition and had paid the ultimate price. Now, if a strong wind came, he would be scattered across the Tangi like winter leaves. Sammy turned away.
Other than the terp’s wallet, there was no way to ID this truck or its occupants. Hill marshaled what little info he had and sent it up to higher via Carwile and Dudley at the retrans site.
Carwile came back over the net. “There’s another disabled gun truck a little over a click to the east. Battalion says we’re missing soldiers. We have at least two if not more MIAs.”
What the hell? Hill thought. How did two trucks get separated by nearly a mile in these badlands? How do multiple soldiers in gun trucks go missing?
Soon after, a Special Forces team from Logar Province, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX brought Hill a set of color printouts showing the possible identities of the missing crew members. There were three names.
Hill looked again at the truck, which contained only the terp. That meant at least three men were missing. His stomach rolled.
Hill remembered his early enthusiasm for combat, for leading an infantry unit. The latter was still there, soldiery as a calling. In a violent world, violence is necessary work. But thinking of the missing men, who were his brothers, Hill could form only one thought: Waste. Waste on every side.
The last vestiges of the hooah mentality instilled at West Point and Ranger school drained completely away. He did not let go of big ideas like freedom and democracy. But when he thought about these men’s families, their worlds colliding and crumbling under such loss, he wondered if this particular war was worth the cost. If his commanders weren’t even going to take prisoners but instead allow the same zealots—armed with increasing intel and experience after each catch-and-release—to target American soldiers over and over again, how did guys like these have a fair chance of getting home?
He watched for a moment as the RCP crew gently, very gently, removed the remains of the charred Humvee passenger and laid him in a body bag. Amid a sacred hush, they covered his face. Today, they weren’t cowboys, just young men struck speechless by a gruesome and very personal war.