It WAS THE 4TH of December, and John and I were sitting in the compound courtyard on director-style camp chairs, basking in the late afternoon sunshine. John was on a satellite phone talking to Headquarters, while I was taking the opportunity to relax. It was such pleasant weather and the thought occurred to me that if this was a “normal country,” people might come stay here for a winter haven. The thought quickly passed as the sounds of more bombing of the airport intruded on my musings.
As John continued his phone conversation, I noticed an unusual little hissing noise mixed in with the sounds of the distant bomb explosions. Hmm, I’ve never heard that before. Then KABOOM! A powerful explosion erupted a couple hundred meters outside the south side of the compound wall. Several other equally powerful explosions followed in rapid succession. John and I jumped up out of our chairs and looked at each other, eyes wide. Like a scene from a movie, John yelled into the phone, “Got to go. We’ve got incoming! . . . Yeah, really, incoming!”
“Those were rockets, six in total,” he said to me.
With 20 years in Delta Force behind him, plus his having been rocketed once during the first Gulf War, I took his word for it. I was amazed that he had kept count.
A few seconds later, we heard the now not-so-funny hissing noise again. We had no foxholes to dive into and the mud house we lived in wasn’t going to provide any protection either, even if we could get there in time—which we couldn’t. So we just stood there, looking at each other, and I wondered if John’s face would be the last thing I would see on this earth. For a lot of reasons, I hoped not.
Once again a volley of six jolting explosions rocked the compound in rapid succession. This time the rockets had flown over us hitting a couple hundred meters to the east, indicating the gunners were adjusting their fire as they tried to bracket our position.
As we waited to see if there would be any more rounds, across the compound Mark stepped out from Shirzai’s headquarters building, stood at the top of the concrete steps, and shouted to no one in particular.
“I’ve been shot at and missed, and I am not putting up with any more bullshit for the rest of my life!” He then turned and walked back inside the building.
Mark’s outburst was reminiscent of Churchill’s statement that “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” If “exhilarating” included learning precisely where the pit of your stomach was located, then Churchill and I were in complete agreement.
But I had another insight on the failed attempt on our lives: Total strangers have just tried to kill me. Twice. They don’t even know me, that I’m really a good guy, and that I have friends and family who love me. It doesn’t matter to them. They just want me dead.
Up to that moment I thought I already understood that about the enemy, but the rockets had taken that abstract thinking and made it concrete and tangible. A moment of clarity had come. Their trying to kill me wasn’t personal. It was the opposite: it was completely impersonal.
The artillery rockets also taught me something else: that my equating those rockets with lightning was an accurate analogy, though with one major difference. They don’t come out of nowhere—they have a return address.
Almost immediately after the second round of rockets, a report came in from a perimeter lookout who saw the rocket launch site in a small valley. The ODA called for an immediate air strike. As chance would have it, a B-52 was already inbound for a bombing run on Kandahar, and it was only a couple of minutes out. It was diverted and dropped its payload on the rocket launcher. The entire area was turned upside down by the strike. They had fired 12 rockets at us, and we almost instantaneously hit them with an arc light strike. That had to be demoralizing for the enemy.
Before dark a detail went out and searched the area where the rockets hit. They found the motors for the rockets, which enabled us to identify them as 122mm caliber. It was also discovered that the ordnance that had been taken out of our compound and moved to a “safer” place when we first moved in had actually been stacked up against the back wall of the house Foxtrot occupied. Had one of the rockets impacted the pile of ordnance, it would not have gone well for any of us.
We thought we were done with the rocket attacks but the next morning a single rocket struck at us. It impacted 800 to 1,000 meters to the north, kicking up a plume of dust. We learned later that a patrolling jet had spotted the offending mobile rocket launcher and destroyed it with a missile strike.