Within A COUPLE OF days of Karzai’s extraction, three paramilitary officers, Don, Will, and Ron, as well as Dave, a CIA Office of Medical Services physician assistant, arrived from Washington. At this point, Echo Team came fully into existence. Greg and Jimmy knew most, if not all, of the new team members. I knew none of them. They were a tight group, and I assumed that since I was not a paramilitary officer, it would take a while to gain their acceptance. The truth was, despite my own background as a former Green Beret and Ranger, I felt a little insecure about not being a member of their elite group. But that didn’t last long, as I very quickly came to feel like part of the team.
Shortly after the paramilitary team arrived, we were all issued weapons and other equipment. Ron, a former Force Recon Marine who hailed from New York, was the team armorer and he handed out the weaponry. I signed for an AK-47 and a Glock 19. The AK was a new lightweight model made out of a type of wood I had never seen used before. Despite its light weight, I didn’t like it. I was not used to the kind of fixed vertical fore grip carved into the stock, and the rear stock didn’t fold. For practical reasons, like climbing in and out of vehicles and living in confined spaces, I wanted a rifle that could be made smaller when needed, and a solid stock wouldn’t give me that option. I decided that once I was inside Afghanistan, at my first opportunity I would trade it for another one. I didn’t tell Ron about my plan, however, as he seemed pretty proprietary about his weapons.
In addition to the AK’s, we were issued magazines for them. Unfortunately, the team hadn’t brought an extra tactical vest for me, so I had no way to carry the magazines other than stuffing them into my cargo pants pockets. Eventually I met an Air Force Sergeant who said he could lay his hands on a flight vest if I was willing to part company with the black Spyderco folding knife I wore on my belt. I had another knife so the deal was a no-brainer, and both of us walked away happy. The flight vest really wasn’t designed for the purpose I had in mind, but it worked well enough. It also drew attention from the other team members; one said he thought it looked “sporty” and he even offered to trade his tactical vest for it. Realizing that my mates were envious of my warzone chic, vanity got the best of me and I decided that I liked the vest and hung onto it.
Other gear was issued as well, to include communications equipment, both radio frequency and satellite based, and Iridium phones. The robust commo suite would allow us to communicate with just about anybody we wanted—from aircraft providing close air support to wives talking about kids running fevers back home. For record traffic, there was also a team commo system used to communicate with CIA Headquarters and stations and bases around the world.
Soon after the arrival of the PM’ers, Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha 574, consisting of 10 men from 5th Special Forces group, joined us in Jacobabad. Normally, an ODA has 12 men, but the ODA was short one soldier and the team sergeant was delayed and would join us at a later date. The ODA’s main role would be to call in air strikes in support of Karzai’s forces. Additionally, they would advise the Afghans on tactics to use against the Taliban and al-Qa’ida. Special Forces ODA’s were also capable of providing training to indigenous forces, but because Echo team and the ODA would be joining with Karzai’s fighters already engaged in combat, deep inside enemy-held territory, there would be little time for training.
With the ODA’s arrival, all the players were now in place to move the plan forward, and Karzai was anxious to get back with his fighters in Afghanistan. He was worried that his absence and that of his tribal elders would undermine the morale of his supporters and lead to their abandoning the fight against the Taliban. This was a concern that we all shared. We also recognized that Karzai’s return to Afghanistan with Americans in tow would demonstrate America’s commitment to their cause, and the sooner we could make that happen the better.
Planning sessions began immediately, and over the course of a few days a campaign plan was developed. It called for a helicopter insertion into the area of Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan province located in south-central Afghanistan, just north of Kandahar province. Tarin Kowt was chosen because it was where Karzai came from and he had many supporters there. The hope was that those supporters would swell the ranks of Karzai’s fighters. Once a capable force was raised and equipped, the campaign to capture Kandahar would begin.
Kandahar was ground zero for the Taliban. It was the birthplace of the movement, as well as the political center of gravity for the Afghan Pashtuns. From a Taliban psychological perspective, when that city fell, even more so than Kabul, it would signal the end of any hope that they could continue as the ruling power in Afghanistan.
Aware of the importance of this effort, I found it extraordinary that the decisions on how to achieve this goal were being made by this small group of Americans working in concert with Karzai, and without interference from Washington.
During those days of planning at Jacobabad, I got to know the members of the ODA, some more than others. The two I spent the most time with were the team leader, a captain named Jason Amerine, and “Mag,” the team Intel Sergeant. Interestingly, Jason at some point mentioned to me that he had applied and been accepted for employment with the CIA, but because the Army had instituted a “stop loss” policy after 9/11 he could not leave to take the job. If he was upset about that, I could not tell. Mag was a big, tough-looking guy. He had only recently taken on the role of the intelligence specialist on the team. He wanted to do a good job for the team, and he was interested in learning everything he could about intelligence. Aside from my time in Special Forces, my basic Army branch had been Military Intelligence, so I felt a connection with Mag and tried to serve as a mentor of sorts.
Sometimes, in the early morning, Mag and I would take our exercise together jogging around the airbase. As we ran along the sun-baked roads we would talk about the upcoming mission. Although he looked forward to it, his eagerness was tempered by a realistic and mature outlook about the dangers he and the team would face, an attitude I thought appropriate for someone serving in the role of the team’s intel sergeant.
Another critical partner in our planning for the infiltration was the Air Force 20th Special Operations Squadron that would have the mission of inserting the combined CIA-Special Forces team into Afghanistan. The Squadron had ample capability and expertise for this kind of operation. Of particular importance from a planning perspective was the squadron’s all-source intelligence section which brought to bear an impressive array of capabilities to include near real-time imagery, weather data, battlefield and threat analysis, and customized map products—all of which were used in the planning.
The intelligence section also was responsible for providing the pre-infiltration briefing to Echo Team and the ODA. The “enemy threat” portion of this briefing was particularly sobering. Up until the time of the briefing we had been focused on what we needed to do to get ready to deploy, and we had not focused heavily on what awaited us, although we certainly had a general idea. The threat briefing not only reminded us we were headed straight into “Indian country,” it also provided details on the lethal capabilities the enemy possessed. By this time, Taliban and al-Qa’ida forces were largely being routed in the north, but in the South the situation was much different. With the exception of Karzai’s fledgling armed-efforts and a couple of quick raids by U.S. special operations elements, no ground combat had taken place. Well-armed enemy forces numbering in the thousands still operated there.
About the only good news to come out of the briefing was that the area where we were going was not believed to have land mines left over from the days of the Soviet occupation, unlike some areas of Afghanistan which were saturated with them. Two things that I had always had an elevated fear of were snakes and lightning, both of which were hidden threats that could seemingly come out of nowhere and snuff you out. Putting those fears in a military context, land mines equaled snakes and artillery equaled lightning. So when the briefer said there were no land mines, this translated to me as “no snakes.” That just left the lightning.