NOTES
PROLOGUE
Overall, this section derives from a variety of sources, including interviews with Slab, Smucker's “Al-Qaeda's Great Escape,” contemporary published press accounts in Time, Newsweek, New York Times; Austin Bay's interview with Col. Frank Weircinski; CENTCOM CINC briefing on Takur Ghar by Tommy Franks, May 24, 2002. The Afghans' abandonment of the valley in the first ten minutes of the operation was originally ascribed to a fierce opposition, when the expectation was that the enemy in the valley would flee; instead, friendly Afghans, under General Zia Lodin, fled the field mainly due to a series of mishaps, including fratricide from a C-130U Spooky gunship, GRIM-31, that fired on the friendly Afghanis and their 5th SOG mentors, killing two and wounding fourteen. Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field chose not to respond to inquiries about the incident, while acknowledging the incident itself. As Milani put it in PITFALLS, “Heavy and sustained enemy resistance, coupled with an AC-130 friendly fire incident, halted the advance of Afghan military forces and caused a withdrawal to Gardez.” “The highest mountain . . . amounts of ordnance”: In PITFALLS, Milani wrote, “A 10,000-foot, snow-capped mountain, named Takur Ghar, appeared as the perfect location for such an observation post. That mountain dominated the southern approaches to the valley and offered excellent visibility into Marzak, two kilometers to its west. It also provided an unobstructed view of the ‘Whale,' on the other side of the valley. . . . Takur Ghar was a perfect site for an observation post but unfortunately, the enemy thought so too.”
1: “SLICKER'N SNOT”
Sections 1 & 2 Mack, Slab, Madden, JAARSO, PITFALLS; “Over all the hours . . . helos could not”: At the time of Takur Ghar, the U.S. military services owned 24 MH-47Es, bought from the manufacturer, Boeing Helicopters, at a cost of nearly $40 million a copy, and since that time, three E models have been taken out of service. The MH-47E comes equipped with a midair refueling boom, larger long-range fuel tanks, and among other specifications, the most advanced avionics system of its kind ever installed in a U.S. Army helicopter that includes forward-looking infrared (FLIR) and multimode radar for nap-of-the-earth and low-level flight operations in conditions of extremely poor visibility and adverse weather. Special Operations uses MH-47E helicopters for overt and covert infiltrations, exfiltrations, air assault, resupply, and sling operations over a wide range of environmental conditions. They are used for shipboard operations, platform operations, urban operations, water operations, parachute operations, forward aerial refueling point (FARP) operations, mass casualty, and combat search and rescue operations. With the use of special mission equipment and night vision devices, the aircrews can operate in hostile mission environments over all types of terrain at low altitudes during periods of low visibility and low ambient lighting conditions with pinpoint navigation accuracy. “‘I can't look at your LZ' . . . in less than an hour”: The dimensions of the Shah-i-Kot battlespace were so tight—approximately 9 miles by 9 miles—that the air overhead was crowded with aircraft and every move required “deconflicting” of the space, which caused inevitable delays, required aircraft to move off station even when they were covering troops in contact, and the need to line up to deliver ordnance on targets. Thus being the choreography of Operation Anaconda, any interruption or disruption of the scenario, like Takur Ghar, had multiple adverse consequences, like ripples on a pond. “His first option was to push . . . 2,000 feet higher than the valley”: Slab, Mack, JAARSO, TF Blue commander. I have given a shorthand of this complicated back-and-forth discussion concerning the decision to go. Complicated and important, with conflicting memories, everything that followed stemmed from this one decision. Slab did not want to go, and his commanders wanted him to. “In no time . . . you are clear in”: The central question why NAIL-22 failed to see the obvious signs of human presence on the peak of Takur Ghar remains a mystery, even to those who were involved, and no investigation that I am aware of was undertaken to determine an answer. The enemy had camouflaged their outpost on the peak in the most low-tech of manners (to defeat the most high-tech of detection systems). Snow-covered trees made the bunkers unrecognizable from the air, and tarps covered other signs, like a cooking area, a heavy machine-gun emplacement, etc. When I requested an interview with the crew of NAIL-22 to find out what they saw and did not see that night, and why, I was informed in an e-mail from AFSOC, “[The wing] said they don't have records demonstrating who flew that particular flight, so are unable to assist you.” No one knowledgeable about those events will rule out that by mistake NAIL-22 had “swept” the wrong LZ. The dynamics of that night created confusion that men in aircraft and on the ground tried and failed to reconcile. In PITFALLS, Milani writes, I believe somewhat with tongue in cheek, “This fact that the team was relying more on the AC-130's optics than on its ability to provide immediate and accurate fire support is consistent with the high regard with which the special operations community have held AC-130 optics.” These optics consist of a suite of television and infrared sensors, and radar. Milani writes, “These sensors enable the gunship to identify friendly ground forces and enemy targets visually or electronically during the day or night and in virtually any weather conditions.” “The original timeline . . . or, frankly, wanted to do”: SEAL Team 6, referred to throughout, changed to its present official name, “Naval Special Warfare Development Group” or just “Dev Group,” and is also known as “Dam Neck” for its home base location near Virginia Beach, Virginia. In addition to Team 6, its lesser known names, MOB 6 or MARESFAC, are also, like SEAL Team 6, not in current official use. I chose to use Team 6, despite its datedness, because it is better known to the general public and is not such a mouthful as Naval Special Warfare Development Group. As for Task Force 11, during Operation Enduring Freedom, military public affairs officers warned journalists not to refer to this task force in print on pain of having press credentials pulled, such was its secret nature. As for JSOC, this is a CINC every bit as independent as every other CINC—CENTCOM, for instance or USSOCOM. Commanded by U.S. Army General Dell Dailey, a Army helo pilot, from behind imposing walls in a special compound at Pope AFB, on the grounds of Ft. Bragg, NC, JSOC controls operations for DELTA, the SEALs' Dev Group, the AF's 24th STS, and components of the 160th SOAR. It is small in manpower, decidedly secret by its nature, and rich in resources. During Takur Ghar, JSOC set up a staging base on Masirah Island, off Oman, near the Straits of Hormuz, at least a thousand miles from eastern Afghanistan. At the request of SOCOM and to ensure their safety, I chose not to use the full names of the surviving men of MAKO 30 but refer to them by their nicknames. Given the nature of their work, these men feel that knowledge of their names and the publication of their photos could well threaten the lives of them and their families. “By now low on fuel . . . up in the air”: A source in the Pentagon, when asked how these operations' names and call sign names are created, scratched his head and then made a concerted effort to find an answer; there is no single source, nor is there, as I had suspected, a creative wordmeister hidden in a basement office who generates these words. A computer does. The names and words are also drawn from call sign books and something called “communication electronic generating instructions,” and as for Just Cause and Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, Desert Storm and Desert Shield and such, these are the work of the CINCs and the Pentagon's public affairs mills. “Slab may not have . . . success”: Comes from a reading of Luttwak's Strategy, in which he concentrates on the dynamics of reversal—if you want peace, prepare for war; a buildup of offensive weapons can be purely defensive; the worst road may be the best route to battle, etc. Luttwak shows that strategy is made of such seemingly self-contradictory propositions. One in play at Takur Ghar was the paradox of Slab's trust in the success of the AC-130s' abilities without questioning the limits of those abilities. “Despite the clearance . . . We're going”: CO of TF Blue, JAARSO, PITFALLS, Mack. In PITFALLS, Milani writes, “The MAKO 30 team leader became concerned that he would not have sufficient darkness to walk from his insertion point to his observation post. He radioed his parent headquarters, Task Force BLUE (instead of the DELTA commander running the Advance Force Operation from Gardez), seeking a twenty-four hour delay. . . . Although neither approving nor denying the request, TF BLUE reminded the team leader of the observation post's significance to the overall Anaconda operation.” The ground rules for my interview with the CO of TF BLUE included anonymity. The CO of the Advance Force Operation (AFO), the group of the special operations teams setting up observation posts in the Kush mountains to the east of the valley and on the Whale to the west, including MAKO 30, was a DELTA Lt. Colonel named Pete Blaber who that night was in the mountains in a radio-equipped Toyota. In his absence, Slab contacted the CO of TF Blue, who had no direct responsibility for the AFO; Blaber was soon taken out of the C2 loop and C2 then was assumed by JSOC at Masirah Island and by JSOC's on-the-ground commander at Bagram, AF General Greg Trebon; I do not pretend to know how Masirah and Trebon split the C2 responsibilities, except to say that Trebon was command and Masirah was control. Trebon alone was responsible for the decision to wait until after dark to extract the QRF from the peak. It was not a unanimous decision, by the way, but it was an unenviable choice, and his alone to make. Trebon retired as the CO of the Pacific Special Operations Command in Hawaii in early 2005; he declined my request for an interview, stating in an e-mail, “In response to your phone call and in consideration of another phone call I received this morning from a respected friend and teammate may I offer the following: The Operation in question was and remains appropriately classified at the secret level. Our Nation, and the families who lost their loved ones, should be exceptionally proud of how all of the men involved performed that day. It is my long standing view however, that any accurate account of the events (by me or others) would require a fairly detailed description of the Tactics, Techniques, Procedures and C2 methods used which, if further revealed at the unclassified level, would only serve to enlighten and advantage our terrorist adversaries in our current and future efforts and, as a direct result, would avoidably increase risks to our people and their future missions.” (See Acknowledgments.) “Snowy summit . . . these ruts in the snow too?”: Mack, Madden, Slab, PITFALLS. Moonrise that night was at 1802Zulu at 114-degree azimuth 09-degrees elevation, at 72% illumination. In PITFALLS, Milani writes, “The helicopter crew passed the coordinates of the new landing zone to the AC-130U, NAIL-22, and asked them to look it over. NAIL-22 overflew both MAKO 21 and 30's landing zones. Its fire control officer and navigator, using onboard sensors, scanned both areas. It then reported both locations secure.” “Weapons hold . . . only if fired upon”; The three levels of weapons status for the 160th SOAR's gunners are weapons hold, weapons tight, and weapons free. Hold is the most restricted status, in which the gunner can only fire if the helo is being fired on or if there is hostile intent; for the entire time that Mack and his crew had flown in Afghanistan, they had operated on the basis of weapons tight, requiring the identification of a target. The consequence of the friendly fire incident involving the AC-130 was every pilot flying the operation, including Mack, was hyperaware of the presence of friendly Afghans without knowing where they might appear, and thus the change from the usual weapons tight to the more restrictive weapons hold that night. “Mack looked up through . . . Glare blinded him”: Mack, Slab, Madden, Luttwak; although he does not mention hollow-charge RPGs specifically, Luttwak discusses the “fundamental innovation” of RPG-like weapons when he writes, “Instead of depending on kinetic energy to penetrate armor by brute force, which requires high-velocity guns of great weight and cost, hollow-charge warheads function by projecting a high-speed stream of vaporized metal. . . . Any means at all of conveying charge to target will do, whether by rockets light enough to be hand-launched as in the original bazooka and the German Panzerschrek, or cheap low-velocity recoilless guns, or even by hand in the form of satchel charges simply thrown at tanks.”
3 Madden, Slab, Tyler, Mack, who gave me a tour at Ft. Campbell of an MH-47E, stem to stern, which helped with an understanding of the dimensions and forces involved when Roberts fell off the helo, and time in a MH-47E simulator, simulating the angle at which Razor 03 went off the peak of Takur Ghar.
4 Mack, Slab, Madden, JAARSO; “He envisioned him . . . his despair”: Madden alone saw Roberts on the ground as the helo went over the crest and into the valley, and he swears by his observation. He is haunted by the memory; he says he sees him without being able to help him nearly every night in his dreams.
5 This entire section was sourced from clippings from the Sacramento Bee newspaper, Internet searches, and reminiscences in interviews with a former high school teacher, Slab, and three active-duty SEALs from SEAL Team 8 in Virginia Beach who knew and worked with Roberts and whom I afforded anonymity; the Roberts family members, including his wife Patricia, have spoken to no one in the media about Neil since his death, for reasons of their own choosing. “He earned his Trident . . . watchful manner”: the reference to the Budweiser escutcheon derives to the similar superficial appearance between the SEALs' Trident symbol and the beer company's and often is referred to as “the Budweiser.”
6 Mack, Katana. The description does not approach the measure of what Mack achieved. In the middle of a moonlit night against a veritable two-dimensional moonscape, he had jockeyed a mechanical beast 3,500 feet, two-thirds of a mile, at a 35-degree nose-down angle with intermittent controls in an amazing display of piloting skill and sheer sang-froid that had saved the lives of every soul aboard Razor 03.
7 Madden. Madden later complained to Mack about the crash landing and Mack told him, “Hey, it was your fault.”
“My fault?” Madden replied.
“If you hadn't pumped the fluid, you could have died in one big smoking hole.” Mack was telling Madden, in other words, that he'd saved their lives. If the two bullets that struck Madden's crew helmet had hit two inches lower, they would all be dead no matter what the quality of Mack's flying skills.
8 JAARSO, PITFALLS, Slab, Mack; “He thought, That's my mountain . . . ass up there,” NODs are night observation devices, the same as NVGs.
9 Mack, Slab, Madden, JAARSO. As Razor 03 sat on the valley floor, confusion reached a very high level. Orders were being issued to the men at the crash site even as the nets lit up with questions aimed at providing commanders in the rear with “situational awareness,” to give them a picture of events: Where had Roberts fallen off the aircraft? Where had Razor 03 landed in relation to where Roberts fell? Where was the helo shot up, on the valley or the mountain peak or the original offset LZ? Were enemy troops closing on the downed helicopter now? Who if anyone was picking up the downed team and the helo's crew? Rank was thrown around, voices were raised, tempers flared. Ignorance of the situation created different layers of confusion and, of importance to the men at the crash site, wasted valuable time when they could have been returning to Roberts. Slab had no problem with going back to Gardez, before returning for Roberts. But while he was still at the crash site, he wanted first to determine whether another, better option was open to him. Always warning him was the thought Solve one problem first, then go on to the next, and he was afraid that he might otherwise create cascading problems. As he was in charge of everybody while the helo was on the ground, he had to ensure the safety of the helo crews before returning for Roberts.
10 Marr, Mack, Calvert, JAARSO.
2: “WE ARE NOT GOING TO LEAVE HIM”
1 Turner, Marr, C-130 Hercules Headquarters (web).
2 Davis, Milani in PITFALLS: “As each command and control node learned of the incident, increasingly frantic calls cluttered the radio net with requests for information. GRIM-32 reported seeing an IR strobe light on Takur Ghar, surrounded by eight to ten personnel. This report quickly became confused with the situation on the ground at Razor 03's location, where the same number of personnel gathered around that IR strobe light. . . . Within ten minutes of its sighting, the IR strobe-light on Takur Ghar disappeared.” As for the agreement to go back from Gardez, rumors at the time circulated that Slab argued with Friel, even threatening him with a gun if he did not go back. Slab denies any of this happened. Friel was set to go back from the start, answering him with a simple, “OK.”
3 Slab, JAARSO. “No one commander . . . a fuzzy Predator feed,” Davis writes in his analysis of Operation Anaconda, “The DOD failed to establish proper command structures and relationships needed for integration among the services.” Grossman writes in “Inside the Pentagon,” “The top commander [Hagenbeck]—attempting to adapt to a new brand of warfare in which special operations forces, supported by air power, would take the lead role in the Afghan war—created an ad hoc command system that was destined to become dysfunctional, Davis argues. ‘[General Tommy] Franks designated himself as the unified commander for Afghanistan and established numerous subordinate [joint task forces] and functional commands. By mixing options rather than simply choosing one approach, he continued a long and problematic tradition' in which an overly complex command chair can lead to chaos in battle.” Hagenbeck told Grossman that “in the case of the ‘black' special operations forces [in Anaconda] ‘they had a distinct, different authority to report to, which went back through [another] general officer, and directly to Gen. Franks.'” Federation of American Scientists, Intelligence Resource Program, RQ-1 Predator MAE UAV; Sierra Pacific Inc Web site, “Library/thermal IR/How IR Imagers work, at www.x20.org; PITFALLS, “The fidelity of video feeds from the RQ-1A/B Predator is nowhere near that of cable television. Nighttime Predator surveillance imagery comes from a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) turret mounted on the undercarriage of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). FLIR images, by their nature, are distorted before a satellite link digitally processes them. The FLIR translates the thermal energy transmitted by infrared wavelength into data that is processed into a visible light spectrum video display. Visible light depends on a light source, e.g., the sun reflecting off an object. Objects above 0 degrees Kelvin emit thermal infrared energy, so thermal imagers can passively see all such objects regardless of ambient light. But they are seeing the differential emissions of heat from those objects, not reflected light. The images captured during the battle at Takur Ghar were fed through a Ku-band satellite link to produce a continuous, secure signal video. This secure-link process further degrades the image. The Predator orbiting Takur Ghar was at 17,000 feet Mean Sea Level (MSL)—more than a mile above the 10,200' mountaintop. Although the FLIR was at its highest magnification level for most of the battle, the images left much to be desired. Consequently, one can describe the video taken of the battle at Takur Ghar as nearing only 20/200 visual acuity. Regardless, even with improved acuity, it would have been difficult to ascertain exactly what was transpiring below.”
4 JAARSO, Self. This section derives from the best interpretation of the Predator feeds, later confirmed by identifying where Roberts' body was found on the peak, as explained in JAARSO (see Sources—Articles); the human image on the feeds, later thought to be Roberts' according to where his body lay; after he died, his body lay cooling (his infrared signature faded) and remained where it was, unmoved, until the Rangers found him. However, no one really knows Roberts' exact movements. Most observers of the feeds at SOCOM now believe that Roberts was caught and killed quickly, if he did not die of his wounds, and his “execution” was a “security round.” “Watching the Predator feeds . . . control of Takur Ghar.” The Predator did not come on station over Takur Ghar, according to PITFALLS, until 90 minutes after Roberts fell; the IR videos that were being watched came from GRIM-32, which shared similar optical qualities with the Predator. To reduce the possibility of confusion in the readers' minds, I have characterized the videos as coming from Predator.
5 Terry Giaccone, Tammy Klein, Kenny Longfritz, Lori McQueeney, David Klein, David Rabel, Brian Torpor, Dave Allen, Mike West, Valerie Chapman.
3: “HE'S IN A HURT LOCKER”
1 Turner, Davis, Marr, Slab. The debate over preassault fires has equally strong arguments on both sides, I feel; it is hard to make judgments, because both sides were doing exactly what they thought was right and, indeed, needed to do in the circumstances. There are so many judgment calls in an action like Roberts Ridge, taking place in real time, that to criticize, in my judgment, months or years afterward, seems facile.
2 Smucker, Roland Jacquard, Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal, Steven Pifer, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs: Statement Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Washington, D.C., May 9, 2002; Council on Foreign Relations: Chechnya-based Terrorists, 2004. TF Blue CO, JAARSO, Milani.
3 Slab. The information in the footnote derives from PITFALLS. Slab was utterly convinced that he had not left Chapman on the mountain alive. As he and his teammate Kyle were the last to see Chapman, it is hard to disagree with them on the basis of what Milani later discovered. No one knows what happened. The scenarios are just that. Interestingly, Slab told Milani that he found Chapman's body 12 feet from bunker #1, according to Milani, but he told me and pointed out on photos where Chapman's body was lying when he left him, on the very lip of bunker #1, making it feasible for him to have been blown by one of the Hellfire missiles into the bunker where he was found. The Predator feeds offer nothing to close this matter. However, as Chapman carried an M-4 with a flash suppressor, it is unlikely that he would have been seen on the feeds firing from the bunker.
4 Slab.
5 Turner, Marr, Davis. In most of his actions that day, Turner could not win for losing.
6 Slab.
4: “TALK TO ME, BUDDY”
1 Self, Brown.
2 & 3 Calvert. Calvert cannot explain how the radios in Razor 01 failed; he calls the failure a mystery. But a suspicion lingers that jamming of enemy radio signals in the valley was interrupting some transmissions and unintentionally blanking out Razor 01's radios altogether. Problems with both SATCOM and line-of-sight radios bedeviled the Razor helos all day long, leading them into ultimately fatal consequences. SATCOM radio communication is notoriously fragile and unreliable with heavy use on the nets and over some long distances; line-of-sight communication is what it says and has only limited applicability, certainly not the strength to stretch from Takur Ghar to Bagram or Masirah Island.
4 Calvert.
5 Lamereaux.
6 DePouli, Totten-Lancaster.
7 Self, Totten-Lancaster, Miceli, DePouli, Vance, Walker, Brown.
8 Lamereaux, Burlingame, Jackie and Red Cunningham, Miller.
9 Tabron, Self, DePouli.
10 Gabe Brown, Gloria Brown, Marie Thompson.
11 Bartley, Lipina.
12 Self, Totten-Lancaster, Brown, DePouli, Tabron, Lamereaux.
5: “DUDE, WHAT THE FUCK?”
1 JAARSO, Canon, Stebner, Vela, Slab, Self, Polson, Miceli, DePouli. When Milani retraced the steps of Chalk 2, climbing up the side of Takur Ghar weeks after the fight was over, the steepness of the climb surprised and impressed him. This was no “walk in the sun,” and its success was a tribute to the discipline and conditioning of the Rangers of that chalk.
2 Stebner, Canon, DePouli, Self, Vela, Polson, Walker, Sheila Maghuhn, Dave and Judy Anderson, Roseann Svitak, Pat and Greg Marek.
3 Hotaling.
4 Slab, JAARSO.
5 Calvert, Lamereaux, Stebner, Totten-Lancaster, Miller, Polson, Self, Wilmoth, Vela, Calvert, Pazder.
6 Calvert, Lamereaux, Self, DePouli, Canon.
7 Brown, JAARSO, Vance (from interview March 25, 2002, Bagram, before Capt. Erin Bree Wirtanen), DePouli, Canon, Walker, Totten-Lancaster, Acosta. “On the peak, Stebner was smoked”: While observing that Anaconda (and thus Takur Ghar) was the “highest battlefield” in U.S. history, Acosta concludes, “Revolutions in technology drive tactical change. Yet certain regions of the world remain largely unaffected by the full reach of advances in military technology. Thin air, cold weather, and mountainous terrain combine to create a uniquely inhospitable battlefield at high altitude. . . . The emergence of precision warfare has yet to dominate combat in the timeless environs of the world's highest mountains.” Acosta also notes, quoting a finding of the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (February 1994), “Medical Problems in High Mountain Environments,” “High altitude is generally defined as those areas 8,000 to 14,000 feet above sea level where a reduction in human performance is common.” The altitude at which the men fought on Takur Ghar (10,240 feet) thus created “a unique and unforgiving battlefield, in which the altitude can prove as deadly as the enemy. . . . Reduced oxygen causes a wide range of physiological effects and illnesses. The atmosphere inflicts casualties and degrades soldiers' abilities to carry out and sustain military operations.” Acosta goes on to detail how “rapid ascent to elevations beyond 8,000 feet above sea level generally causes Acute Mountain Sickness. Headaches and nausea are the most common symptoms. . . . High altitude pulmonary edema and cerebral edema are more severe syndromes that occur when soldiers rapidly ascend beyond 8,000 feet above sea level. High altitude pulmonary edema, fluid accumulation in the lungs, is the most common cause of death among altitude illnesses.”
6: “I HAVEN'T STOPPED BLEEDING YET”
1 Self, JAARSO, CO TF Blue.
2 Canon, Polson, Wilmoth.
3 Stebner, Wilmoth, Totten-Lancaster, Miller, Brown.
4 Canon, Polson, Miceli, Walker, Self, Brown, Tabron.
5 JAARSO, Miceli, Calvert, Milani, Wilmoth, Brown.
6 Miceli, Walker.
7 Slab, JAARSO, CO TF Blue.
8 Turner.
9 Polson, DePouli, Brown, Self, Burlingame.
10 Valerie Chapman.
7: “PHWOWW!”
1 Slab, CO TF BLUE.
AFTERWORD
Milani, PITFALLS.
Bay-Weircinski, Milani, Kozaryn. “General Hagenbeck . . . historic victory”: Grossman, “Inside the Pentagon.”