6
WITH THE GUNSHIP A SPECK IN THE MORNING sky, Slab hunkered behind a cluster of boulders 120 feet down the side of the mountain. He could not get back on the peak now, with Turbo and Brett to keep alive. He had to wait for the arrival of the QRF. His team was in a hot spot, with enemy soldiers on the peak harassing them with rifle fire and terrain below them that was unknown and terrifying.
About fifteen minutes went by without the gunship to protect them. Then a pair of F-15 Eagles screamed past the mountain. Slab dialed the close air support frequency on his MBITR radio and asked the F-15 pilots what they had been told. “Nothing,” the lead pilot replied. Slab went through it with him. He could not remember the grid coordinates for the top of the mountain. He pulled out his GPS. On the LED was the grid for where he was sitting. He needed CAS quickly on the peak. He gave the pilot his grid, asking for the bombs to be dropped 200 feet to the west and north of his location.
“Roger that. Inbound those coordinates in thirty seconds.”
Slab thought, Why did I do that? Of many cardinal rules that ground troops follow, the first one is never to give their positions to fixed-wing aircraft. Slab called back and said, “Abort, abort, abort. Stand by.”
Slab took a breather. With his GPS in his palm, he calculated the grid for the top and passed it to the fast movers.
“Roger that.”
The F-15 came in and dropped a bomb that exploded more than 3 miles away in the valley to the northeast.
The pilot asked Slab, “Can you adjust for that?”
“How about four clicks out?” Slab was thinking, I'm done with grids. He said, “Look up. Can you see the tallest mountain out here?”
“Roger that.”
“It's the only one with a peak totally covered in snow. You got it?”
“Roger.”
“The ridge on top runs north to south.”
The pilot said, “Contact.” He saw it.
“I am on eastern edge of that slope, midway down the mountain.”
“Contact.”
“Enemy is on top in the trees.”
“Roger.”
“I want you to drop your bombs from the ridge line west and your final run in heading will be from your west.”
If the pilot missed, the bomb would go over MAKO 30's head, and if it fell short, it would not matter.
“Roger that.”
The F-15s dropped bombs and Slab heard them explode, but from his position, he could not know where they fell, or to what effect. The pilot asked him to correct.
Slab said, “I can't correct.” He relayed through the F-15 to an AWACS. “What's the status on that QRF?”
In reply, he was told that the QRF was two minutes out, then forty minutes out. He didn't know when they would reach the mountain. The F-15 pilot radioed to him that he had to leave for fuel.
A quarter hour later, Slab saw a Chinook with a refueling probe, a Special Operations MH-47E, fly straight up the valley and over the top of the mountain. He tried to call the helo, but his radio was on the CAS frequency, not the helo frequency. Slab had no idea what the helo was doing. It circled and came back around.
Sitting next to Slab, Kyle looked and said, “I hope they are not landing on top.”