In early spring, Colonel Randy George, the commander of 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division “Mountain Warrior,” conducted his site survey. His brigade would be replacing Task Force Duke in the summer. I’d known Colonel George for several years. He had commanded an infantry battalion in the 101st Airborne Division during our 2005 to 2006 deployment to Iraq. Standing six-three, weighing two hundred pounds, and sporting a perfectly level, tightly cut flattop, the square-jawed infantryman was an imposing figure in full combat equipment, but he had a warm smile. Randy George was a caring leader who was unflappable under pressure—a quality I appreciated. He would face some incredibly challenging situations—stress beyond measure—in 2009, yet I never once saw him lose his cool. He was a genuinely positive leader whom I was very excited to serve with again.
George had established a reputation as a fierce war-fighter in Iraq, but he was revered as a man who passionately cared for his soldiers and their families. There are leaders in our army who venture down into their soldiers’ workplace, shake their hands, and ask them how they are doing. Genuine, authentic leaders truly want to know the answer to that question. But there are some leaders who seem to feel an obligation to go pat a few backs, shake a few hands, and ask, “How you doing, soldier?” I suppose circulating among soldiers and asking how they are doing makes them feel somewhat better about themselves, as if they are doing what they know is expected of them. Yet what they don’t seem to understand is that the second they ask the question—How are you doing?—their soldiers know if they really want to know the answer to the question, if they genuinely care what the answer is. “He knew his soldiers by name, and always took the time to learn something about their lives,”1 Maj. Rodney Dycus, George’s battalion doctor, told me.
Randy George was a leader who looked his soldiers in the eye, and asked them with complete sincerity how they were doing, and cared what the answer was. I admired Randy George.
During his visit to FOB Fenty, Colonel George and I had dinner together. We caught up on old times, then we moved to my office to discuss his vision for N2KL in the coming year. He spoke with visible excitement about realigning the region. The primary mission for the soldiers in N2KL was to provide security within the major population bases—the cities (Jalalabad, Asadabad, and Mehtar Lam)—and to ensure the security of Highway 7, which was the primary road traveling from Peshawar, Pakistan, northwest through the Khyber Pass, and through Nangarhar and Laghman provinces, before exiting our area of responsibility on its way to Kabul.
Task Force Mountain Warrior’s mission in N2KL was a supporting effort within Afghanistan, just as TF Duke’s had been. It was not the main effort. The main effort was RC-South (Kandahar and the surrounding area), a difficult dose of medicine for our soldiers to swallow, in light of the fact that they were engaged in more deadly fighting than anyone else in Afghanistan. That fact alone supported Colonel George’s campaign plan for N2KL.
His plan was to close the combat outposts in the Kamdesh Valley, which included OP Fritsche, COP Keating, and COP Lowell. We literally fought the enemy every day in those locations, assumed tremendous risk, and the gains were negligible at best. Colonel George felt that the soldiers living and operating out of those outposts would be better employed in Nari District, thus focusing our manpower on the larger Afghan population base in the central Kunar River Valley. Once the outposts in the Kamdesh were closed, we would close all of the outposts in the Korengal Valley as well. Those forces would be transferred to the central Pech River Valley. The shift in forces would also allow us to put more troops in the vicinity of Torkham Gate, where Highway 7 enters Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass.
No one was more excited about Colonel George’s plan than my soldiers. We had believed all along that we were assuming too much risk in Nuristan and in the Korengal Valley for the very limited progress we were making. I told Colonel George about Flex 6-4 getting shot down in the Korengal and explained how that event drove us to conduct resupply missions only during “red illumination” periods. Moving all of the men, equipment, and infrastructure out of the Kamdesh Valley would be an extensive operation. It would require our Chinooks to make multiple turns throughout the night for at least a week. A high-risk and complex mission to be sure, but if we were given the priority for close air support, artillery, and UAVs, we felt that we would be able to mitigate the risk. Colonel George acknowledged my concerns, sort of smiled, then told me to begin planning.
I called Jack over, and we looked at the moon cycles for the remainder of the year. Colonel George pointed to July. “Our transfer of authority is June twenty-sixth. I want to begin coming out of the Kamdesh during the first red-illumination cycle after we take over. Plan for July,” he said.
Colonel George had already presented his plan to Major General Curtis Scaparrotti, who would be deploying with the 82nd Airborne Division to assume command of RC-East on June 3. Major General Scaparrotti had agreed with his plan, so it would be up to us to figure out how to most effectively and efficiently execute the mission. Planning began that night.
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By early June the snow line had crept high up on the mountaintops, leaving only the peaks capped in white. The sun bore down on us, forcing our crew chiefs to build makeshift shade to work under. Ponchos stretched overhead with bungee cords gave some relief, but the humidity penetrated the shade. Wrenches were so hot crewchiefs had to douse them in water in order to pick them up. Yet soldiers flew in from Bagram still bundled up in thick clothes, only to find us in short sleeves. Nangarhar, sitting at only 1,800 feet above sea level, never got overly cold. We ran in shorts and T-shirts most days throughout the winter, but when our missions took us up the Kunar or into Nuristan, we’d learned from painful experience to bundle up before departing.
The nights remained much cooler than the days, but the heat in the asphalt runway lingered for hours after sundown. That’s when I ran across my first cobra, warming on the asphalt after dark. The Kiowas were parked on the east side of the runway. My headquarters was on the west side. We used a red light, operated by the air traffic controllers in the control tower, to cross the runway.
I wore a Petzl headlamp to see at night. That Petzl had been with me in the Balkans, two tours in Iraq, and then Afghanistan, and on that cool June night it probably saved my life. I waited for a green light, flight gear draped over my shoulder, at midfield. Finally, the light turned green and I began to cross. I just happened to have my eyes down looking at the ground when I saw a long, green cobra. It was about five feet long and was stretched out and lying flat, absorbing warmth from the asphalt, which had not yet cooled.
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In June, Randy George’s Mountain Warriors began flowing into Afghanistan. Like all units in RC-East they initially flew into Bagram Airbase. Some of them were then flown to FOB Fenty by fixed-wing airplanes (C-130), but we flew the majority of their soldiers to the FOBs and COPs using our Chinooks and Black Hawks. Our focus throughout June was to move Mountain Warrior into FOBs and COPs and transport TF Duke soldiers out.
My old friend Lieutenant Colonel Brian Pearl commanded 2-12 Infantry, the battalion replacing Brett Jenkinson’s Blue Spaders in the Pech and Korengal valleys. Brian and I had served as operations officers together during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Following that job, Brian became the secretary of the general staff (SGS) of the 101st Airborne Division. I followed Brian as the SGS. Brian and I were close friends, had been for years, and it was good to be fighting with someone I knew personally.
An incredibly talented armor officer, Lieutenant Colonel Brad Brown, commanded 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment. Brad and I shared a cavalry background—his on the ground and mine in the air. We had both served in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment “Brave Rifles.” Brad’s squadron would replace Jim Markert’s team in northern Kunar and Nuristan, with his headquarters based at FOB Bostic.
During the first week of July, all of the battalion commanders serving under Colonel George met at FOB Fenty. We discussed the plan for the future, then we flew them back to their headquarters locations. Both Brian and Brad departed FOB Fenty excited to begin the work of shaping the environment for closing outposts and realigning forces—or so they thought they would be doing.