Late IN THE AFTERNOON we pulled into a defensive perimeter for the night. Surrounded by low hills forming a bowl-like configuration, the spot for our bivouac was excellent. Shirzai’s fighters occupied the hills, which offered us views for miles around in any direction. Our command post, consisting of my pickup truck, Shirzai’s Land Cruiser, and Hank’s truck, was set up in the center of the bowl.
Shirzai immediately dispatched a reconnaissance element mounted in Toyota pickups to check out the route to Takhteh-Pol, now only several kilometers away. Several members of the ODA accompanied Shirzai’s recon element.
As the sun set and the shadows lengthened, wind gusts kicked up small eddies of dust that danced across the basin we occupied. At dusk the temperature began to fall and some of Shirzai’s fighters who had fallen behind earlier in the day straggled in. They reported that word was out among the local populace, which included the Taliban, that there was an anti-Taliban force in the area. Soon, our observation posts started reporting that there were convoys of vehicles headed toward us from three directions. As the temperature continued to drop and the darkness and winds increased, a general sense of foreboding set in.
I climbed up on a hill and through my binoculars saw headlights from two convoys in the distance. They were still many kilometers away, but they were a concern. The fact they were convoys pointed to them likely being Taliban. Coalition bombing policy was that if a convoy was on the road at night, unless identified otherwise, it could be considered a target. If the convoys continued to move once it was dark, they would be fair game.
Concern about the convoys coming our way grew as Shirzai was not expecting any volunteers. The light was all but gone when I heard a couple of shots out beyond our perimeter. It was not clear who fired them. A couple of minutes later something streaked overhead and impacted in the dry riverbed inside the perimeter.
“An RPG dud,” an American nearer to the riverbed called out.
A couple of other shots crackled in the distance, but it was impossible to determine what was going on. My guess was that some trigger-happy Shirzai fighter was responsible, but the RPG round coming into our perimeter gave me pause.
About this time, Hank walked over to me and said that he was taking one of Shirzai’s fighters and going up on the hillside. He took the SOFLAM laser designator with him. He looked completely relaxed and in his element. This guy knows what he’s doing, I thought. No more than 30 minutes later, Hank was at work as the sounds of distant explosions could be heard as fast-movers began to hit one of the convoys.
At about the same time, a radio call came in from the recon element. They had run into Taliban on the hills just outside Takhteh-Pol and were taking fire and had called in close air support. About 20 minutes later I spoke by radio to one of the ODA members with the recon element. He told me they had disengaged and were on their way back. They had a few wounded Afghans, but they didn’t appear to be in serious condition.
About 10 minutes later, a pickup with one of Shirzai’s commanders sped into the perimeter, sharply braking near our command post of trucks. He jumped out of his truck and began shouting. A group of Afghan fighters immediately gathered around him, agitated by what he was saying. I grabbed Khalil and we waded through the throng of fighters to the excited commander. Through Khalil I learned that the commander was saying that the Americans had dropped bombs on his men in the recon element, and they had been wiped out. I told Khalil to tell the commander that I had already spoken with the senior American with the recon element and his fighters had not been wiped out, but there were a few slightly wounded who were being brought back. Hearing this, the commander seemed to settle down, and the mob of fighters that had formed around him dispersed.
Afterward, I learned that bombs had indeed struck in the immediate vicinity of the fighters, as in the darkness they and the Taliban forces had gotten mixed in with one another. When the close air support was called in, the bombs fell among both Shirzai’s men and the Taliban.
A few minutes after the episode with Shirzai’s agitated commander, the recon element began to return to the bivouac. A nervous Afghan on the perimeter lit up the first pickup with AK fire. It was carrying the SF members, but fortunately no one was hit. A bullet did cut the hydraulic brake line for the right front wheel, however, and from that moment through the next couple of weeks every time the brakes were applied, the pickup would careen to the left. It provided some comic relief during our convoy movements.
The wounded arrived in the other pickups and were driven to our command post. The fighters lifted them out of the trucks and laid them at my feet like human offerings, which in a sense I suppose they were. The SF medic and another ODA member came over and started assessing the wounds. Strangely, not one of the men was bleeding. After questioning them through interpreters we learned they had been very close to where the bombs fell, and the concussive force of the explosions had blown them down a hill. The medic assessed that they were in psychological shock, but they did not appear to have any physical wounds. He told the Afghans to keep the casualties warm and lying down for the next few hours. They picked them up and carried them away.
Hank continued to work through the night with the SOFLAM, keeping approaching vehicles at bay. The temperature became very cold, and the wind continued to blow. It was the coldest night I would spend in Afghanistan, and one of the longest.
My communications window for submitting Foxtrot’s daily verbal situation reports to Headquarters was at 2:00 a.m. Gary set up the radio for me, and I made contact with a Headquarters officer who I let myself imagine was probably sitting comfortably in her chair in the middle of the afternoon back at Langley sipping on a soy latte from Starbucks. I didn’t recognize her voice and she told me she was new. We exchanged pleasantries and I started dictating my already prepared report. Normally this would be sent in written form, but I still didn’t have the gear I needed for that. She had just enough of an Asian accent that I was having difficulty understanding what she said to me over the less than optimal communications link. It was a frustrating situation. Then, right in the middle of my dictation—KABOOM!!! Hank had just called in the closest strike of the night, from the powerful sound of it, right on the other side of the hill where I was huddled with the radio.
“What was that? Did you drop your coffee cup or something?” she innocently asked.
After the call, I walked back to the command post to try to get some sleep. Several Americans were in the back of the pickups curled up in their sleeping bags. Others were inside the truck cabs. There was no room for me in either place. I rolled out my bag and a foam pad on the cold ground, crawled inside, and finally fell asleep to the sound of the howls of the wind.