4
AS THEY WAITED FOR DARKNESS, THE COLD, MISERY, and sadness numbed their bodies and dulled their emotions. All they could concentrate on was the cold. Miceli, who had come up earlier from below, talked with Polson and Josh Walker about the cold. They wrapped themselves in their survival maps, like homeless vagrants, against the wind. For a further shred of warmth, they sat “nut-to-butt,” spooning, and they munched MRE snacks and shivered.
The body of a dead enemy soldier lay near them. Pointing to him, Miceli said, “Pull his jacket off. He doesn't need that shit anymore.” His brains were spilled on the jacket and no one wanted to wear it. A 38 mm Chinese grenade launcher was beside him. The Rangers looked at him and cursed him. They were trying to talk about anything that would help them forget the cold. Polson was railing at the cold, the wet, the day, his dead friends, even his boots. His feet were wet and freezing. They shared stories about themselves that day, and one subject led to another as they tried to stay warm and help the time to pass quickly. The topic turned, as it often does even in the most unlikely settings, to girls and sex.
Canon told Polson to join Escano, Specialist Christopher M. Cunningham, himself, Stebner, and Pat George, who were sitting in each other's laps in a line, lying on their sides, half looking one way and half the other way, with guns pointed. They talked about whether they'd killed anybody that day. There were inevitable challenges to claims of derring-do. “If you shot him, where's he at?”
“Over there, if you want to go see him.”
“Naw, it's too cold to move, man.”
They talked about home, how they would tell their families.
“Are you going to tell anybody about this?” Polson asked.
“Naw, I don't want to,” Stebner said.
Interrupting their reveries, bombs dropped from B-52s and B-1s exploded around the peak from 800 yards out. “Hots” Hotaling on a distant southern ridge was working his kill cycle with a real vengeance, calling in targets around the peak. Hotaling, who had watched the enemy come up the valley before the counterattack, was ticked off. He'd lost his friends Chapman and Cunningham. As al-Qaeda exposed their positions on the mountain, he ordered destruction from the air.
Self, with Vance and Brown operating the radios, worked out a plan with Masirah to evacuate them off the peak. In his discussions, long and detailed schemes involved A-10 Warthogs that would be flown up from Kuwait to provide close air support, AC-130 gunships, and two Marine Corps AH-1 Cobra helicopters to protect five extraction Chinooks of the 160th SOAR. Self and Brown plotted the helo's approach headings, the landing heading, and the departure heading. Self was specific and insistent that the tail of the Chinook point toward the casualties to minimize the time and effort of loading them aboard. General Trebon, who was directing the rescue from Bagram, gave a team of SEALs the task of loading the casualties. The SEALs would switch out with the Rangers, setting up security, while the Rangers flew home to Bagram. Before the Chinook arrived for the wounded, a Predator would shine its IR spotlight on the landing zone, marking the grid for the helo. Self ordered DePouli to put out an IR strobe near the casualties. The Chinook was to use the strobe as a beacon, and in the final minute, the Predator would “burn” the LZ. The same aircraft and crew that had dropped off Canon's chalk on the mountainside was the lead aircraft for the extraction.