Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.
—HERACLITUS
In 1898, Congress authorized the raising of the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry. Teddy Roosevelt was pivotal in securing the authorization; thus he was offered a commission and subsequent appointment to colonel in order to command one of the three regiments. Having no previous military experience he deferred the command to his friend Dr. Leonard Wood, who had gained a substantial amount of experience fighting the Apaches, during which time he earned the Medal of Honor. Roosevelt was appointed a lieutenant colonel and assigned under Wood’s command.
The cavalry force was to be raised from the “wild riders and riflemen of the Rockies and the Great Plains.”1 Roosevelt and Wood selected scholar-athletes from Yale, Princeton, and Harvard. They chose an adventuresome lot of Native Americans, riflemen, and cowboys, men who were shrewd tactically and fierce in battle. He wanted problem solvers who thrived in chaotic situations.
In present-day Afghanistan, those same qualities appealed to Colonel Ron Lewis, having served in numerous cavalry units himself. He commonly referred to our brigade as a “cavalry organization.” The only cavalry organization by lineage, of course, was our very own 7th Squadron, 17th U.S. Cavalry, but Colonel Lewis knew that. It was the character, the attitude, that he was after, that he wanted to permeate throughout the brigade. He wanted a cavalry state of mind. He knew that agile, flexible units that could rapidly respond to the ever-changing complexities and ambiguities of the modern battlefield would carry the day. He wanted tireless leaders who were tactically savvy yet fearless in battle. On one scorching hot mid-July morning, just five days after we began operations at Barg-e Matal, our cavalry agility was put to the test.
Our focus during the first half of July, particularly for the Chinooks, Apaches, and medevac, had been on Barg-e Matal. We still held out hope of closing the bases in the Kamdesh, but those operations were certainly on hold for the time being. Meanwhile, it was fighting season, and Brian Pearl’s men were finding themselves tangled up with the enemy left and right in the Pech River Valley—the enemy’s way of welcoming them to Kunar Province.
Sergeant First Class Henriques Ventura was the platoon sergeant, the senior noncommissioned officer, of 3rd Platoon, Charlie Company, 2-12 Infantry, located at FOB Honaker-Miracle. Early on Friday morning, July 17, he led a patrol into the Watapur Valley.2
As Sergeant First Class Ventura and his men stepped off on the small dusty trail leading into the Watapur on July 17, a fierce enemy, an enemy that had walked those mountains since birth, an enemy that was acclimated far better than any U.S. force could ever hope to be, watched and waited. Lean, bearded men with leathery, brown skin crawled slowly through the rocks and settled into crags and crevasses along the eastern wall of the Watapur. Once in place, only the muzzles of their rifles were visible. They knew the valley; they understood how to use the terrain. They knew that our helicopters would come, and within a matter of hours, they would try to kill Sergeant First Class Ventura and his men.
COP Honaker-Miracle sat in the Pech River Valley, at the mouth of the Watapur Valley. The Watapur marks the crossroads of enemy lines of communication from the north and east, supplying weapons and fighters to other infamous valleys in the area such as the Korengal, Waygal, and Shuryak. We had previously fought three significant battles in the Watapur. The battle of July 17 would dwarf all others.
Sergeant First Class Ventura departed the FOB with fifteen soldiers and an interpreter. Their mission was to conduct an area reconnaissance around the Pun Sahr peak on the eastern ridge of the Watapur. They wanted to find enemy mortar and fighting positions. In another time and place it could have been a walk in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. In fact, it looked like a Colorado summer day as they filed out of the gate at Honaker-Miracle, but it wasn’t, not even close. Enemy spotters, men who always watched our movements, began calling their leaders on handheld radios as Ventura and his men departed the gate and entered the valley. Ventura’s men moved with discipline. They were alert and maintained a good interval between them. If the enemy attacked, they wanted to be dispersed. If they were bunched up several could be killed or wounded with a single burst of machine gun fire.
From above, the men looked like ants on a brown path. They paralleled carefully tended farmers’ fields—a precious possession that sustained life in the valley. The men wiped sweat from their faces and swatted at flies as they pressed on into the valley.
High above them enemy fighters patiently observed. “They are coming. Move to your positions,” they chattered on their radios.
Most of the enemy fighters came from the houses high up on the ridge, well above the valley floor. Spider trails led from the heavily wooded ridge where the enemy fighters lived down to the valley floor. About two-thirds of the way down the ridge the trees ended abruptly, and the terrain turned to rock and dirt. Their fighting positions were in the rocks and cliffs. Boulders the size of VW Bugs protected them from machine gun and rocket fire. We were better trained, better equipped, and better led, but the terrain negated many of our advantages, and the enemy knew it. Pikes Peak was conveniently close to his home base at Fort Carson, Colorado, so Sergeant First Class Ventura had prepared his men for eastern Afghanistan by having them hike up and down the mountain countless times in the months prior to their deployment.
“We’re as fit and ready for these mountains as we can be,” Brian Pearl told me when he arrived in country. They had done everything humanly possible to replicate the environment in which they would fight. Truthfully, their work in the Colorado Rockies was valiant, but environmental training can take you only so far.
Less than a half mile into the valley, intelligence intercepts began to detect enemy conversations. Enemy fighters were watching the patrol, and they were discussing what to do. The thought of being watched, the anticipation of an attack, brought an uneasy, stressful feeling to all of Ventura’s men. In some respects it’s easier to be surprised and react rather than to know they are watching, planning to attack, yet not knowing where or when.
Most patrols in the Watapur traveled to the small village about halfway into the valley and conducted meetings with the local elders. Very few if any patrols ventured out of the valley, up onto the ridge, but that was where Ventura was headed.
Back at Honaker-Miracle the men had found the radio frequency the enemy was using to talk to each other. They used a simple two-way radio, so the men at the company command post sat with an interpreter listening and relaying what they were hearing to our helicopters and Sergeant First Class Ventura. The enemy forces soon came to a consensus.
“Get closer. Move down the hill and get one of them. Capture an American,” was the order, and it struck fear in every man listening to the radio. While relatively common, these intercepts were disturbing and increased the anxiety in the patrol. Having only arrived a few days prior, Ventura’s men were not yet used to these reports.
Sergeant First Class Ventura’s men had worked their way to the east side of the valley. Once they got to the finger that they planned to use to walk up the ridge, they turned east and began to climb using a small trail. “Stay alert. Keep your heads on a swivel,” Ventura told his men.
It was just a few minutes before 9:00 A.M. The men tried to remain ready for an attack as they labored to climb under the searing July sun. It was eerily quiet.
Then the world exploded.
As the enemy initiated the attack with RPGs, AK-47 machine guns, PKM and DShK machine guns, Ventura’s men dove for cover and immediately began returning fire into the rocks above them. It is difficult to figure out where the shots are coming from in the valleys of eastern Afghanistan. The rocky, mountainous terrain causes the sound to echo, and the enemy is very good at using the terrain. They are nearly impossible to find if they remain still and do not move. If you are lucky enough to see muzzle flashes or movement, then they can be targeted. Otherwise, the best course of action is to narrow down their location as best as you can, then overwhelm them with superior firepower. That is exactly what Sergeant First Class Ventura’s patrol did. Once they sensed a slight lull in the enemy fire, they increased their own rate of fire where they thought the enemy was hiding, and ran to the south in an attempt to get out of the enemy engagement area. The enemy had caught them in the open. They had to find better cover.
Private Joshua Dow had just joined Charlie Company that week; prior to that he had served on Colonel Randy George’s personal security detachment. Dow laid down suppressive fire with his rifle in an attempt to force the enemy to keep their heads down, then he got up and ran for cover, but before he could find it he was struck by a bullet that passed through his belly.
Private First Class Eli Casas also made a run for a better position, but before he got there he was hit in the right hip. Despite a perfect tactical movement while in contact with the enemy, the men were being accurately engaged from the high ground to their west. Staff Sergeant Jonathan Wedemeyer, a squad leader, fractured his ankle while running for cover. Three of Ventura’s men were quickly unable to move without assistance. It was clear that the patrol faced a significant enemy force. Walking out was no longer an option without help. They needed air support, quick. Sergeant First Class Ventura called COP Honaker-Miracle and asked for a medevac and close air support.
We numbered our scout weapons teams by their sequence of duty throughout the day. Our first up on that Friday morning was Scout Weapons Team 1 (SWT 1), a flight of two Kiowas. They responded first to Sergeant First Class Ventura’s request for help. Constantly manipulating the controls so as not to present an easy target, they entered the valley darting and diving at 9:20 A.M. Chief Warrant Officer 2 Don Cunningham and First Lieutenant Chad Marzec flew flight lead, with First Lieutenant Brandon Jackson and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Chuck Folk in trail. Folk served as the air mission commander.
Chuck Folk was what we referred to as a “high school to flight school pilot.” He had submitted a warrant officer packet when he was seventeen years old—a junior in high school. As a senior he was notified that he had been accepted. After graduation he would first attend basic training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and then travel to Fort Rucker, Alabama, where he would attend warrant officer candidate school and finally flight training.
Chuck’s grandfather had been career army, having fought in both Korea and Vietnam. His father retired from the air force after twenty years as an investigator in the Office of Special Investigations. Upon completion of the initial flight training phase, Chuck was selected to fly the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. Chuck’s tall, lean physique made him a natural athlete. He excelled at everything from horseshoes to football. He was smart and fit—an excellent soldier and aviator. He had earned the respect of his fellow warrants through his maturity and a natural affinity to fly the Kiowa. He had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions in a tough fight in Iraq. Chuck was only twenty-five years old in 2009, yet he was a mature air mission commander, who now led his team into a very complex and uncertain situation.
The team was originally tasked to conduct a routine reconnaissance mission in the Pech River Valley, so as soon as they heard the call for help over the radio, Folk told Marzec and Cunningham to lead the team into the Watapur.
When they arrived, enemy fighters were engaging the patrol with RPGs and machine guns from multiple locations. Two A-10s (call sign “Hawg”) had just completed a gun run with their 30-mm canons, which still echoed in the valley as the A-10s pulled up and climbed back into the blue summer sky. Marzec called the patrol to check in.
“Charlie 9-3, Pale 5-2, over.”
“Charlie 9-3, over.”
“Charlie 9-3, Pale 5-2, team of two Kiowas. I have six hundred rounds of fifty cal. and fourteen rockets on board, one and a half hours of station time. SITREP [Situation Report], over,” Marzec transmitted over the radio.
He spoke with Sergeant Claude Hodge (Charlie 9-3), the patrol’s forward observer, on the radio. Sergeant Hodge, who explained the patrol’s situation to Folk, would remain a very busy man throughout the rest of the day.
For obvious reasons, the most important thing attack helicopters must do before shooting at the enemy is to find all the friendly forces. Folk’s team located the patrol rather quickly and with the help of Hawg began trying to find the enemy. They marked several areas by shooting white phosphorous rockets while Hawg used their sensors to search for enemy movement in the rocks. Folk sensed that this might be a significant fight, so while Marzec spoke with Hawg and Charlie 9-3, Folk coordinated with SWT 2 and 3, both of whom were conducting other missions in a nearby area. He explained to them what was going on in the Watapur and told them to be prepared to come to the Watapur and join the fight if they were needed. Folk foresaw this as a protracted fight, and he didn’t want to have to leave Ventura’s men with no cover when his team eventually had to go to the FARP for gas and more bullets, so he wisely planned to rotate the other SWTs into the fight. They would then establish a cycle that would provide constant coverage for the patrol.
It was not the first time Folk had fought in the Watapur Valley, and he knew that if the fighting escalated it would take at least three teams, constantly rotating, to maintain pressure on the enemy.3 It would take approximately thirty-five minutes to fly from the Watapur to FOB Wright, fill up with gas, load more ammunition, and return to the fight. One team would not be enough if the fight progressed.
The battle did progress. The intelligence intercepts proved accurate. Enemy forces wanted to get close and capture an American soldier. Uncharacteristically, they maneuvered down the mountain, carefully using the terrain to mask their movement, and began trying to surround the patrol. It was extremely hard to see them as they blended into the terrain, but they spoke freely on their radios and that helped our pilots know what they were attempting to do.
As Ventura’s patrol took fire from the enemy they began telling Folk’s team where the enemy was located. After multiple engagements, Folk took a close look around Charlie 9-3’s position to ensure that no enemy forces were attempting to move around their flank. As they made a low pass, Marzec and Cunningham heard a “slow, low repetitive thud … a baritone thump”4 that seemed to be inside the cockpit with them.
“That’s a DShK,” Marzec said.
Both of the pilots recognized the frightful sound of the DShK, but before they had a chance to react to it, or feel that cold burning in their chest, Cunningham saw a puff of smoke at Marzec’s chest, and he was suddenly lifted up in his seat. He lurched up and forward until the shoulder restraint system locked and caught him. The first round entered the aircraft underneath Marzac’s seat and, fortunately, deflected forward into the flight controls, making the aircraft difficult to control but manageable. The second round entered the back of the fuselage and blew a hole the size of a grown man’s thumb clean through the aircraft.
“We’re hit!” Marzec announced on the team internal radio as he simultaneously dove the helicopter down and left to try and avoid being hit again with a sustained burst.
“Will it fly?” Folk asked.
“Yeah, but I’m getting a lot of feedback in the flight controls. We need to get to Abad now,”5 replied Marzec.
“Are you hit?” Cunningham asked Marzec, concerned that a bullet had actually hit him.
“I don’t think so, but I don’t know. It knocked the crap out of me.”
“I have the controls,” Cunningham said and began flying so Marzec could check himself out to make sure he wasn’t shot.6
Folk contacted SWT 2 and told them that his lead aircraft had been hit. “We need immediate relief on station,” he told Scott Stradley, the air mission commander of SWT 2.
Scott Stradley, who previously had flown lead for me into the Helgal Valley, answered with excitement in his voice, “We’re on the way!”
Chief Warrant Officers 2 Ryan Neal and Mike McClain flew lead in Stradley’s team. Chief Warrant Officer 3 Scott “Scotty” Hill, a maintenance test pilot who wore his cavalry Stetson like Gabby Hayes with the brim pinned straight up, flew with Stradley. Scotty Hill was born with a smile and lived in happiness. Never has there been a more pleasant maintenance pilot to hold a wrench in his hand. A constant cutup, Scotty Hill carried a big toothy smile with him everywhere he went. He was a small man with a big grin. What he lacked in stature, he made up for in personality. Easy to laugh and loud when he did it, Scotty never met a stranger, and I never met a man that knew him and did not like him.
Hill and Stradley had begun their day with somewhat of a religious debate. Stradley, a devout Catholic, had strapped into the Kiowa and opened his laminated checklist to a weathered, yellow card. He began to read.
“Oh, Saint Joseph, whose protection is so great—”
Scotty Hill interrupted, his brow furrowed. “What are you doing?”
“I’m praying. Now let me finish,” Stradley said.
“Praying? I’m Christian, and we don’t pray to a saint. We pray to God,” Hill said with his ever-present smile.
“Well, I’m Catholic, and we pray intercessory prayers. I always say this prayer before a fight,” Stradley said.
Hill considered it for a minute then spoke. “Well, if that’s how you vehicle your faith, okay, but I’ll pray to God,” Hill said, then paused again as he thought to himself. “You sure do get into a lot of bad fights to say that prayer every time,” he added.
“Yep. You’re right. I’ve been in a lot of bad fights. That’s a fact. But I’ve returned unharmed from every single one of them. Look, the pope gave this prayer to Emperor Charles when he was going into battle. It protects me in battle, protects me from drowning, keeps me from falling into the hands of the enemy, and protects me from fire, and you are flying with me today, so do you want to let me finish or not?” he asked.
Scotty Hill thought about it for a minute. “You’ve got a point,” he said. “Go ahead, and I’ll say mine too.”
“O, Saint Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God, I place in you all my interests and desires. O, Saint Joseph, do assist me by your powerful intercession, and obtain for me from your divine Son all spiritual blessings, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So that, having engaged here below your heavenly power, I may offer my thanksgiving and homage to the most loving of Fathers. O, Saint Joseph, I never weary contemplating you, and Jesus asleep in your arms; I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart. Press Him in my name and kiss His fine head for me and ask Him to return the Kiss when I draw my dying breath. Saint Joseph, patron of departing souls—pray for me.”7
When Folk asked Stradley to move his team to the Watapur they had already been on a mission with troops in contact [TIC] to the north. Their initial mission was in northern Kunar. It was supposed to be a mission to conduct reconnaissance around the outposts in that area, looking for enemy fighters, but after test-firing their weapons and entering the Kunar River Valley, they received an urgent text message in the cockpit: Change of mission. OP Bari Ali is in contact. They are receiving small arms fire, sniper fire, and B-10. Move there now, and contact them inbound for a situation report.
Stradley acknowledged the change of mission, and they flew their helicopters as fast as they could—ninety knots (approximately 104 mph). Due to the rising terrain they began climbing after passing FOB Monti. Once they made contact with the men at OP Bari Ali they asked them where the enemy was located. As previously mentioned, it is extremely difficult to locate the enemy in the rocky, cavernous Afghan terrain. Enemy fighters sneak undetected into fighting positions that have been used for years, in this case many of the same fighting positions they had used on May 1, when they overran Bari Ali.
The crevasses in the rocks provide terrific protection and concealment. Once in position they lie down and wait until they are ready to attack. One time I was fighting in the Watapur Valley, and one of the ground soldiers told me he had found the frequency the enemy was using to talk.
“You have their radio frequency?” I asked.
“Sure. My interpreter is listening to them and telling me what they are saying,” he replied. He had used a simple scanner to find their frequency and listen to them.
“What’s the frequency?” I asked him. It was a VHF frequency, which I quickly dialed up in my Kiowa. I could hear them talking. It sent chills up my spine, and a lump formed in my throat when I heard my own rotors in the background as they spoke. They were directly under me, in the rocks below, yet I could not see them. I had been flying over them for hours. They were disciplined. They only took the shots they wanted to take.
If signal intelligence was available, which was the case at Bari Ali that day with Stradley’s team, the enemy often provided good targeting information. They would check on each other, asking by name if each fighter was still alive. Sometimes the fighter would answer by saying that we had shot just below or above them, which was very useful information.
The soldiers at Bari Ali told Stradley’s team that the enemy was higher up the ridge that day. The team ultimately shot all of their ammunition, so they flew to FOB Bostic to get fuel and more ammunition.
Determining if we killed or injured the enemy in the Afghan mountains reminded me of stories I’d read about hunting grizzly bears in the western States. Even with a good blood trail you dare not follow a wounded bear too closely into thick cover. Stradley’s team, like all of our teams, wanted to know if they had been successful in killing the enemy, so after returning to Bari Ali they began carefully to look for bodies in the rocks. They didn’t want to leave the men at Bari Ali, only to get called back because the fighters had crawled out of their holes and resumed their attack.
Stradley’s team tried to remain outside of small-arms range and use the mast-mounted sight as much as possible. The sight gave them a day sensor and thermal capability, both of which could zoom in, but it was still very difficult. An enemy fighter, hidden in the rocks, with the discipline to remain perfectly still, was almost impossible to find. For Kiowa pilots, the best way to look was to move in closely. Like trailing the wounded bear, it was tempting but risky.
The team worked with the men at Bari Ali for another hour. While keeping their speed up they took a good look into every known and suspected enemy fighting position but didn’t find anything. Finally, they decided to go to the FARP again, but this time they flew south to FOB Wright to get fuel. As they passed the entrance to the Pech Valley, Folk contacted them on the radio to fill them in on the ongoing situation in the Watapur. Stradley acknowledged and continued to FOB Wright.
After taking on a full tank of gas, rockets, and .50-caliber ammunition, the team departed to the north with a plan to return back to OP Bari Ali. Then, suddenly, Marzec and Cunningham’s aircraft was hit.
“Pale 2-2, this is Pale 2-5, over,” Folk called to Stradley.
“This is Pale 2-2, go.”
“Roger, our lead aircraft has been hit. Charlie 9-3 is pinned down on the east side of the valley with three casualties. We need immediate relief-on-station.”
“Roger, we’re on our way,” Stradley replied, almost giddy.
After a quick battle handover in which Folk passed the most current information about friendly and enemy forces to Stradley, SWT 1 departed the valley. They then called the Pale Horse command post to request that a maintenance team meet them at FOB Wright, so they could try and get their aircraft fixed and back in the fight.8
Mike McClain sat in the left seat of the lead aircraft in Stradley’s team. It was Mike’s responsibility to talk to the ground unit, in this case Charlie 9-3, so while Stradley relayed information and coordinated with the higher headquarters, McClain contacted Charlie 9-3 and asked for a situation report.
Charlie 9-3 reported, “Pale 2-2, we are on the ridge to your twelve o’clock. Our position is marked by a VS-17 panel [large orange marking panel]. We have three men wounded. One has a gunshot wound to the abdomen, one is shot in the hip, and one of my men has a broken foot. Hawg is overhead. We are receiving accurate small-arms fire from the north, east, and west. Request you attack all locations beginning as close as you can to our location, over.”9
McClain acknowledged the information and identified the VS-17 panel marking the patrol’s location.
“Charlie 9-3, confirm that all of your men are within fifty meters of the VS-17 panel,” McClain asked, to ensure that he knew exactly where everyone in the patrol was located before the Kiowas began shooting in close proximity to the men on the ground.
“Roger that,” Charlie 9-3 confirmed.
With that, the team turned inbound and prepared to shoot where they thought the enemy was located. Then, suddenly, it felt as if every enemy weapon in the valley turned on the Kiowas and began shooting all at once. Bullets zinged by the aircraft, their pop breaking the squelch on the intercom system as they passed dangerously close. As bullets zinged by, Ryan Neal gripped the cyclic tight. Mike squinted his eyes and clenched his teeth as he prepared for Ryan to shoot. Ryan picked a spot and pressed down on the fire button with his thumb. Just thirty-six inches from Mike’s head, .50-caliber rounds began to spew from the gun’s barrel to the tune of nine hundred rounds per minute, sending a salvo of steel toward enemy fighters just a few hundred meters in front of Charlie 9-3 and his men. Just before he broke right, Ryan again used his thumb, this time to switch to rockets, and sent two 2.75-inch-high explosive rockets crashing into the mountainside. As he heard the whoosh of the rockets leaving the tubes on his side of the helicopter, he banked hard right, and Stradley went to work.
Stradley pressed the trigger on his gun, shooting the same location Ryan had shot. McClain told Hawg to use his sight to try and see if he could find any enemy fighters higher up on the ridge. Stradley knew they had to quickly find a suitable landing zone for the medevac. With three men wounded it would be impossible for Charlie 9-3 to move very far. They had to find a spot where the medevac could land close to their position. Ryan Neal flew the aircraft while McClain worked the radios. Ryan flew them right over Charlie 9-3 to try and find a spot. Suddenly, muzzle flashes erupted all over the ridge to their front.
“I think we’re hit,” Ryan said. He heard a distinct change in the sound of the rotors. He banked the aircraft and turned sharp, which caused the enemy to shift their focus to Stradley’s aircraft. Stradley immediately received a high volume of fire, so he broke off the attack. He had found what he needed anyway—a potential LZ for the medevac. Hawg asked if McClain could mark the spot where he thought the enemy forces were located. Charlie 9-3 also needed them to mark the LZ so he would know where to try to move.
Ryan and McClain were out of smoke grenades, but Stradley and Hill had several with them, so the team executed a quick lead change. With Stradley and Hill now in the lead, they turned back inbound. Scotty Hill took a smoke grenade in his hand and pulled the pin. They flew directly over the LZ, and he dropped it out of the door. Stradley then shot a single rocket to the area where he thought enemy fighters were located. He banked hard right and called Hawg on the radio. “You’re clear to drop,” he told him, and within seconds Hawg dropped two bombs and followed the bombs up with two 30-mm gun runs, silencing the enemy, at least for a few minutes.
Stradley’s team circled back around and prepared to shoot everything they had left to try and keep the enemy’s heads down while Sergeant Ventura moved his patrol to the LZ. With McClain and Neal back in the lead they turned in for a gun run. A plume of dust and smoke extended like a mushroom cloud above the impact points of Hawg’s bombs. Neal saw enemy fighters moving in the rocks. “I see them. I see them! Follow me in and shoot where I do!” he told Stradley as he flew directly at the enemy.
He fired at the fighters with his fifty-caliber and described to Stradley what he was seeing as he did it. Neal broke right and Stradley opened fire with his fifty-caliber. Hawg came over the radio and said he could see the enemy, who were shooting at Stradley. Stradley also saw them. He sprayed them with machine gun fire, but before Stradley broke off the engagement he and Hill felt a jolt in the helicopter, followed by a loud bang and the sudden rush of wind in the cockpit.
“Lead, this is trail. We’re hit!” Stradley reported.
“You okay?” Neal asked.
“I think so. Everything is still working, and we’re still flying,” Stradley said with a nervous laugh.
“We’re out of ammo,” Neal reported on the internal team radio.
“We’re not. I’ve got lead,” Stradley said, in typical Stradley fashion. With wind blowing through the huge hole at Hill’s feet, Stradley whipped the Kiowa around and flew straight back at the enemy. As Stradley engaged, Ventura’s patrol took up fighting positions near the LZ.
After Stradley had shot every bullet he had, he contacted SWT 3, who was holding south of COP Honaker-Miracle and escorting the medevac helicopter. They had been waiting for Stradley to bring them into the valley. He gave them a thorough battle handover, then he flew back over Charlie 9-3’s position one more time and marked the LZ again with a yellow smoke grenade so that SWT 3 and the medevac bird could clearly see it. With the battle handover complete, Stradley’s team headed to FOB Wright to rearm, refuel, and assess the damage to their aircraft.
When Operation Mountain Fire began at Barg-e Matal, we positioned an Apache team and a medevac helicopter forward at FOB Bostic so that they could respond as quickly as possible should they be needed at Barg-e Matal—a daily occurrence. We rotated the crews in shifts. Dustoff 2-4, which was our medevac bird, had just finished its shift at FOB Bostic. It had already been a very busy night with missions to Barg-e Matal. They were returning to FOB Fenty for a down day when the medevac request for the wounded men in the Watapur came into the Pale Horse command post. The battle captain immediately diverted Dustoff 2-4 to the Watapur to conduct the mission. The crew consisted of Chief Warrant Officer 4 Brandon Erdmann, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Scott St. Aubin, Staff Sergeant Tom Gifford, and Staff Sergeant Emmett Spraktes. They entered the Pech just as SWT 3 was preparing to take control of the fight from Stradley’s team.
SWT 3 was originally tasked to be the day quick-reaction force, but with Chuck Folk’s assessment that the fight in the Watapur would be an all-day affair, it was clear that we needed to move them forward to enter into the battle.
SWT 3 consisted of Captain Brian Patterson and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Adam Stead, in flight lead. Stead was a graduate of North Georgia College, my alma mater. He was commissioned as an infantry officer but later wanted to become a Kiowa Warrior pilot, so he applied for a branch transfer from infantry to aviation. His request was denied, so he resigned his commission and went to warrant officer candidate school, after which he attended flight school.
Adam had been married for less than a year when we deployed. He had met his wife, Carrie, through mutual friends. They were married in April 2008, Carrie became pregnant in October, and Adam deployed in December. For the birth of their son, Cohen, we had been able to time Adam’s midtour leave perfectly. He arrived home on May 16 and Carrie’s water broke that night. Adam got to spend two full weeks with his wife and son before returning to Afghanistan.
Adam Stead was an incredibly competent officer and pilot. He could have assumed command of a cavalry troop with ease. He was a quiet professional who was extremely mature and insanely fit. He had been selected to assess for a special mission unit in October, but, as we would later find out, that was not to be.
Flying trail in SWT 3 was Chief Warrant Officer 3 Henry Quiles, an outstanding maintenance test pilot, and Captain Tim Harloff. Tim was a gifted officer who served as the air mission commander of SWT 3.
As they flew north, up the Kunar, Harloff received a SATCOM (satellite communication) call from Pale Horse command post. “Fly to Asadabad and link up with Dustoff 2-4. They will be traveling south from Bostic. Escort them into the Watapur for a medevac mission in the valley,” the battle captain directed.
Harloff linked up with Dustoff 2-4 and led them to the Watapur, where they held, waiting for Stradley to rotate them into the fight. They flew lazy circles south of Honaker-Miracle. Looking in from the mouth of the valley, in all of its enormity—a snowcapped massif in the back, rock wall ridges running for five miles on either side of a green strip of a valley—the Kiowa team, already in the valley, flew in mad circles like tiny yellow jackets in the distance. Smoke trails emanated from their rocket pods and terminated with dust clouds in the mountainside. From time to time a jet would dart in from high above—heaven sent. From a brilliant blue sky the A-10 Thunderbolt would dive down with fury, unleashing its ordnance, until it was no more than a few hundred feet above the narrow valley floor, then level off for just a split second before pitching straight back up and climbing vertically, disappearing into the heavens from which it came. Lagging several seconds behind, racing to catch up, came the deafening sound of its jet engines, concluding with the distinctive GRRrrrrrrrrrr of its 20-mm cannon.
Then, once rearmed and refueled, the scout weapons team would swap out, putting a new team with a full load of gas and ammunition back into the fight while the other team raced back to the FARP for more gas and bullets. From that perspective, from afar, it was hard to imagine that a small group of men were sprawled behind rocks fighting for their lives. Back home, thousands of miles away from that place, their families watched television, read books, played video games, watched movies, and otherwise lived their lives, completely unaware that their father, brother, son, husband, lay in a valley battling to remain alive, praying to return home in one piece.
One of my son’s high school teachers would later tell him that the war we were fighting was not really a “big war” like World War I or II. Compared holistically, I guess he was right, but I can’t help wondering how his views on what counts as “big” or not might have changed had he been struggling to stay alive with Sergeant Ventura’s men in the Watapur Valley on that hot July day in 2009.
Brian Patterson was responsible for the air-to-ground communication, so once Harloff received the battle handover from Stradley, Brian contacted the ground patrol for an update. Sergeant First Class Ventura answered the radio.
“We need a medevac now,” Ventura said. “We can’t control the bleeding. Dow is not stable!” he reported.
Patterson called Dustoff 2-4 and spoke with Erdmann. “Their patient is bleeding out, but the LZ is hot,” he said.
As Patterson spoke, everyone on Dustoff 2-4 could hear the chaos, the cack cack cack of gunfire in the background. Erdmann told the medic, Staff Sergeant Emmett Spraktes, that he would most likely have to hoist in, so ultimately it was up to him. Spraktes felt the weight of the decision; he also felt a cold knot in his throat, a strange feeling. He was scared.
Emmett Spraktes was not your typical young army medic. Emmett was a forty-eight-year-old California National Guardsman who came to us as a part of C Company, 1-168th General Support Aviation Battalion. He had served for ten years with the Navy Reserves in a Special Boat Unit before joining the California National Guard as a flight medic. In civilian life he was a paramedic with a SWAT team in the California Highway Patrol. Emmett Spraktes was a technical expert as a paramedic. Strong as an ox, he was in better physical shape than most soldiers half his age.
Numerous mornings I’d walk out of my room onto the flight line and hear the pounding of feet and the quick, short breaths of Emmett Spraktes coming up the long stretch from the medevac birds to the Apaches. With a pained grimace on his face and sweat popping off his body, he’d fly down the flight line to end a morning run.
Often there would be a victim in tow, some soldier half his age whom he’d convinced to run the 3.4-mile loop around Fenty with him. “We’ll go easy,” he’d assure them. “You can set the pace.”
And then, when they were over halfway around the loop, and fully committed, he’d start cranking up the pace, hoping to hear that high-pitched grunt of pain. He fed off knowing that he still had it, that he could still make them hurt. “It builds character,” he’d say.
He’d run just fast enough to push them to the redline, but allow them to stay right off his shoulder until they entered the flight line, and then he’d kick for all he was worth.
“Pride is a terrible thing,” I’d tell him, laughing.
“I know, sir, but we’ve got to keep these young guys in their place.”
Passionate and fearless, Emmett found himself filled with strange emotions when Brandon Erdmann asked if he wanted to hoist in the middle of the fight. He had never truly felt fear like that before.
Emmett loved God but did not practice religion. He felt that as an adult you should pray for others, certainly not for yourself. To Emmett that was a selfish thing to do. He had uttered brief prayers here and there as he had worked on wounded soldiers, but they weren’t really for him. He had asked God to help guide him to help others, but he had never really prayed for himself.
“Ask them if there’s a place to land,” he told Erdmann.
After a short pause the answer came, “No, it has to be a hoist,” and Emmett Spraktes prayed. He asked God to help them find a place to land. He didn’t want to hoist into the jaws of hell. The air was filled with bullets, and despite how much he didn’t want to admit it to himself, there was no other way to explain it: he knew he was going to die on the cable, and he was not ready to die. The whole idea made him sick. He felt nauseated. He wanted to throw up.
“Well, Emmett, what do you think?” Erdmann asked again.
“Let’s do it!”10
The Lord didn’t provide an LZ that hot July day; He sent Kiowas instead. Emmett gained confidence as he listened to Tim Harloff orchestrate the fight, pounding the enemy with his own Kiowa team and directing Hawg where to conduct gun runs and drop bombs. He knew everything flying in that valley was going to unleash its fury on the enemy as he hoisted in.
Spraktes attached himself to the cable and began to lean out of the door. A thousand things were going through his mind. He could hear the horrendous amount of machine gun fire in the valley below, and he was certain, at that point, he would not live through this. He thought about his daughter, then his mind flashed to medical protocols, only to be interrupted by the sound of gunfire over the deafening rotors. Emmett Spraktes had been in tough spots before. He had been under fire many times, but at that time, in that valley, it took everything he had to focus on what he had to do, what he must do.
Gifford manned the hoist. Erdmann turned the helicopter toward the plume of yellow smoke marking the spot to which he was to deliver Spraktes. The Kiowas made two gun runs, then circled around and picked up Dustoff 2-4. With a Kiowa Warrior on either side they headed for the yellow smoke, and Spraktes began to descend below the helicopter on a wire the size of his pinky. Gifford watched Spraktes closely as he lowered him, calling his height above the ground over the headset to Erdmann, who flew the helicopter. Bullets flew all around them from the ridge to the east. Just prior to the LZ they slowed. For the first time Spraktes saw the men he was going to save. They were fighting but stopped and looked up to see him riding a cable into the fury. He saw their faces. Thirty feet to go and the cable stopped. He bounced a bit and just hung there.
“Several seconds went by and I thought Gifford must have been hit. I imagined that Gifford was up there on the deck of the bird with a big hole in him, his life leaking out of him. Shit! With all of the bullets striking the ground, the wall of the ravine looked like a range with a line of soldiers shooting all they had into the dirt,”11 Spraktes recalled. Finally, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He screamed into his radio, “Get me on the ground now! I’m like a freaking piñata down here!”12
Suddenly the descent continued, and he hit the ground hard. Dazed, he unhooked the cable and looked around to see all eyes on him. They are bewildered at how I made it to the ground alive, Spraktes thought, and that made him smile. He wondered the same thing: How did I make it to the ground alive?
Men were crammed into tiny cracks between small rocks trying to get any protection they could from the continuous fire from above. He asked who needed help, and they pointed to Dow. Emmett sprinted over to Joshua Dow just as a Kiowa flew over them and opened up on the ridge. Fifty-caliber casings rained down on them, making a tinkling sound as the expended rounds bounced off rocks.
Spraktes placed himself between the enemy fire and Dow while administering treatment to control the bleeding. Like heavy raindrops falling on calm water, dirt flew up all around Spraktes as he prepared Dow for extraction. Suddenly, Sergeant First Class Ventura called out to Spraktes, “I know you!”
“What’s your name?” Spraktes yelled back.
“Ventura.”
“I know you!” Spraktes yelled back over the sound of the Kiowas engaging the enemy right over their heads. Spraktes had medevaced Ventura himself on a previous mission.
“I was both relieved to see that Ventura was okay, but also pissed that I knew someone in that shit-storm,” Spraktes said.13
“This ain’t like our last one, is it?” Spraktes yelled to Ventura. Both men smiled at each other and went back to work.
RPGs exploded between each helicopter gun run. Spraktes realized that he couldn’t do much for Dow in that environment. Dow needed a surgeon, so Emmett stabilized him, strapped him to a litter, and called Erdmann in for the pickup. It would be a dangerous hoist, not only for the patient but also for Spraktes, who would have to expose himself while holding the tagline in order to reduce oscillation and spinning as Dow was winched up into the helicopter.
Gifford would lower the cable to the ground. Spraktes would attach Dow to the cable and hold on to a tagline as Gifford pulled Dow up to the helicopter using the hoist. Erdmann had to hold the helicopter steady, under enemy gunfire, while Gifford and Spraktes worked to get Dow into the medevac. The vulnerable helicopter, and Dow, would become a lucrative target. Erdmann acknowledged that Spraktes was ready, but Harloff’s team was on a gun run. The fighting was too intense for Erdmann to come in at that moment. They’d have to wait.
* * *
Back at the FARP, Stradley’s team shut down to inspect their helicopters. Chuck Folk’s team, SWT 1, stood around discussing the fight. Due to the damage to Marzec’s aircraft they were out of the fight. McClain and Neal examined their Kiowa closely but could not find any damage. Stradley and Hill’s left side chin bubble was shot completely out, but the bullet did not appear to have damaged any important systems. The only issue would be the difficulty communicating with the rushing wind blowing through the chin bubble, between Hill’s feet, and into the cockpit. Recognizing the dire situation on the ground they decided to rearm, refuel, and get back into the fight.
Stradley checked with Neal. “You good to go?” he asked.
“Yeah, we’re good,” Neal replied. “You gonna fly it with no chin bubble?” he asked with a cheesy smile on his face.
“Yeah, we’re good. Let’s get back in the fight. I’ll meet you on the radio,” Stradley said, and walked off toward his helicopter.
Ryan Neal, the little, tattooed man from the mountains of western Maine, took the last long drag of a Marlboro, flicked what was left into a butt can, and blew smoke out the side of his mouth as he turned and walked toward his own helicopter. Ryan Neal was one of those lucky few who get to see their childhood dreams come to fruition. He had always been fascinated with flight. As a child he’d lie in bed and stare at posters of airplanes taped to his bedroom walls. He’d stand under the stars at night and watch blinking lights cross the Maine sky. They were specks on a tapestry of black. They seemed so far away, so distant, like his dream, but that didn’t stop him from dreaming about what it would be like up there in the cockpit, flying to some exotic destination. When asked the age-old question, what do you want to be when you grow up? he never faltered. The answer was always emphatically “a pilot.” He recorded every episode of the hit TV show Wings, and watched them over and over until the VCR tape finally gave out. It was a pretty lofty goal for a kid who grew up in an old farmhouse in rural Maine, who spent his days fishing in creeks, hiking in the mountains, swimming in the Sandy River, and tending a farm full of chickens, pigs, and turkeys, but he was an American and becoming a pilot was his dream.
By the time Ryan was a senior in high school he had decided he wanted to fly the Apache helicopter instead of jets. He chose to write his final high school English paper on the Apache. His research led him to discover the army warrant officer program. He decided that would be the quickest way to fulfill his dream, to get into a cockpit. He visited the local army recruiter and explained what he wanted to do. The recruiter told him that the easiest way to get his foot in the door was to enlist as a Black Hawk crew chief, then apply for the warrant officer flight program. Ryan jumped at the opportunity.
Following basic and advanced individual training, Ryan was assigned to Aviano, Italy, and soon thereafter he deployed to Iraq. As a Black Hawk crew member Ryan spent over one thousand hours crewing in the back of the helicopter, but he still wanted to become a pilot. While in Iraq he saw the Kiowa Warriors out conducting reconnaissance and security missions. He was drawn to the cavalry mission, so while he was deployed he submitted his warrant officer application. Ryan Neal’s dream came true. He was selected for the program. He traveled to Fort Rucker, Alabama, where he completed warrant officer candidate school and flight school, and received his aircraft of choice, the Kiowa Warrior. In 2006, Ryan was assigned to 7th Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and we were lucky to have him.
Ryan’s childhood dream seemed a lifetime ago, a distant memory. He’d had so many experiences in such a short period of time. The little boy who once stood in awe watching jets paint the blue Maine sky with streaks of white pulled in power and departed FOB Wright. He led his flight back to the Watapur, where the enemy awaited them, not knowing if this would be just another hairy flight or perhaps his last flight.
As they entered the Pech River Valley, a team of Apaches—call sign “Overdrive”—arrived to join in the fight. The air mission commander of the Apaches was Chief Warrant Officer 5 John Jones, a maintenance examiner assigned to our aviation support battalion who flew with TF Eagle Lift out of Bagram. John had flown with our task force on numerous missions. He was not only a great maintenance test pilot but also a first-rate tactical pilot.
Stradley gave Jones his team-internal radio frequency and told him to fly his team at seven thousand feet and above. He told him that he would keep the Kiowas at five thousand feet and below. That would provide separation and keep them safe in the airspace. The last thing we needed was a midair collision. He told Dustoff 2-4 to tune to their FM radio to his team frequency as well, making it a common frequency for all helicopters operating in the valley.
Stradley called Harloff and conducted a battle handover. He told Harloff to fly west and circle around them on the way out. With Private Dow now ready for hoist, Stradley’s Kiowa team and the Apaches escorted Dustoff 2-4 back into the valley for the extraction.
Staff Sergeant Gifford lowered the cable as Erdmann flew inbound. As they slowed for the hookup, muzzle flashes erupted all over the ridgeline in front of them. Neal began engaging while Stradley identified targets for Overdrive to shoot.
“I’ve got muzzle flashes, two o’clock, and four hundred meters by that dark boulder!” Stradley reported.
“Tally [code word meaning target is visually sighted], engaging with thirty-millimeter,” replied Overdrive.
A young redheaded soldier, Sergeant Jensen, helped Spraktes prepare Dow for the hoist. Spraktes told Jensen not to touch the cable before it hit the ground: “It will shock the piss out of you if you grab it,” he screamed over the deafening sounds of the battle.
Nevertheless, when the cable was about head high, Sergeant Jensen reached up and grabbed it—static electricity shot through his body like a lightning bolt, but amazingly he held on. He did it for his buddy. He just wanted to get Dow out of trouble—to save him. Spraktes admired Jensen, he understood him.
Spraktes hooked Dow up to the cable and told Gifford to hoist him up at full speed. At full speed the tagline rope would rip through Spraktes’s gloved hands. It was certain to burn them, leave blisters, but it was the best bet at getting Dow out safely. Bullets filled the air as Dow ascended. Spraktes screamed out in pain as the tagline ripped through his hands, but Dow made it to the helicopter without getting hit. As Dow neared the helicopter, Gifford reached out and grabbed him. He spun the Skedco around and pulled him into the helicopter. With Dow safely on board, Erdmann banked hard left and sped out of the area. Erdmann flew as fast as he could to FOB Wright while Spraktes, remaining on the ground, went to work treating Private Casas and Staff Sergeant Wedemeyer. Meanwhile, SWT 2 and Overdrive engaged a seemingly endless number of enemy fighters who were inching closer and closer to the friendly position.
As Dustoff landed at FOB Wright, soldiers from the Forward Surgical Team (FST) swarmed the aircraft to offload Joshua Dow and begin critical care. The team bent over at the waist as they carried Dow clear of the medevac rotors, and Erdmann took off, headed back to the Watapur.
“Pale, Dustoff 2-4, over,” Erdmann called Stradley.
“Send it,” Stradley answered.
“Spraktes is ready with the next two patients. We are going to try and hoist all three of them out together,” said Erdmann.
“Roger, we’ll cover you. Overdrive, did you monitor?” Stradley asked, seeking confirmation that the Apaches were ready to suppress the enemy, as the medevac went in as well.
“Roger,” replied Overdrive.
Erdmann told Spraktes that he wanted him to come out with the two patients. That struck Spraktes as strange. It was too much weight, but he assumed that Erdmann knew something he didn’t. “I thought maybe the enemy was right on top of us,”14 Spraktes later recalled. In truth Erdmann didn’t want to have to risk another hoist. He wanted to get everyone out in one last hoist.
Again, Gifford lowered the cable so that it would be at ground level as they came to a hover. Spraktes was ready for the cable when it arrived. He quickly began attaching himself and both wounded men to the cable.
“I’ve got three enemy fighters running down the hill toward us and shooting. They are on a thirty-five-degree azimuth from my location. Can you get those guys?” Erdmann asked with a bit of urgency in his voice.
They were sitting ducks while they hovered, and it seemed that every enemy fighter in the valley was trying to shoot them down. Ryan Neal banked his Kiowa hard and took his team between the medevac and the enemy fighters. As soon as he passed the medevac, he began shooting rockets and .50-caliber. Scott St. Aubin saw the rounds impact right on the enemy. “I don’t know who that was, but that’s the spot,” he radioed.
Staff Sergeant Gifford turned the hoist on and began to pull Spraktes and the two wounded men up, but the hoist stalled with the three men dangling about twenty-five feet off the ground. “It’s stuck,” Gifford told Erdmann over the radio. “We’re going to have to lower them back down,” he added.
For just a second Erdmann considered flying them out, hanging from the cable, and trying to sit them down at COP Honaker-Miracle, but it was just too risky. There were three of them on the cable; if it broke they would plummet to their deaths.
You’ve got to be kidding. Come on! Spraktes thought, once again finding himself dangling twenty-five feet above the ground with bad guys shooting at him. Twice in one hour! What are the odds? If a round hits us I wonder if it will go through all three of us? At least I won’t die alone,15 he thought.
“Lower ’em down now!” Erdmann said.
The entire time he was on the cable, Spraktes was using his rifle to shoot at enemy fighters moving toward them in the rocks. Suddenly he saw a bright flash in the rocks directly in front of him. An RPG passed just meters away.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Spraktes said, knowing that if they didn’t get out of the valley quickly either the men on the cable, the medevac helo itself, or both were going to be shot.
They were descending, but it wasn’t fast enough for their liking. Finally, Spraktes’s feet landed on solid ground, and he frantically unhooked himself from the cable. He then told Gifford to hoist the two soldiers back up. As soon as they were off the ground Spraktes emptied a magazine of ammunition into the area where the enemy were to try and get their heads down as Erdmann flew away. He wasn’t waiting to get shot down. Gifford hoisted them up as they flew out of the valley.
At that moment, the complexity of the situation increased even more, if such a thing was possible. Hawg called Stradley on the radio and said that he had seen the enemy fighters who were continuously shooting at Stradley’s Kiowa. He wanted to drop his bombs, but his wingman was running low on fuel, so they needed to drop the bombs right away. Captain Conlin at COP Honaker-Miracle called Stradley as well. He said that he was currently watching four enemy fighters with weapons at the mouth of the valley. He could see them through his TOW missile system sight and wanted to shoot them with the missile.
TOW stands for “tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided missile.” The TOW has a range of approximately 3,750 meters and was designed as an anti-tank weapon, but it is very effective on hardened fighting positions such as the huge boulders in the Watapur.
Dustoff 2-4 had flown back to the mouth of the Watapur, just southwest of Honaker-Miracle. They were flying circles as they waited for Stradley to bring them back in to pick up Spraktes.
Just then Spraktes broke in on the radio.
“I’ve got two heat casualties down here. They won’t be able to walk out. We need to hoist them out too.”
“You saying we need to hoist two more out?” Erdmann asked, to make sure he understood.
“Roger that,” Spraktes replied, knowing what he was asking them to do.
As the on-scene commander, Stradley took control of the situation. “Honaker-Miracle, you’ve got one minute to shoot that TOW missile. Break. Charlie 9-3, pop smoke in front of your location. Hawg, when you see the smoke, let me know. Once you see the smoke and know exactly where they are you can drop your bombs,” he directed.
Seconds later Captain Conlin from Honaker-Miracle called, “Pale Horse, this is Honaker-Miracle, engagement complete. Four enemy fighters are no longer visible, over.”
“Roger, break. Hawg, do you see the smoke Charlie 9-3 threw?” asked Stradley.
“Roger, eyes on smoke and bombs will not be a danger close to their location,” confirmed Hawg.
“Okay, drop ’em,” Stradley replied.
Hawg’s bombs impacted with a huge explosion. Everyone in the valley felt the shockwave as it rippled across the valley. Stradley then told Dustoff to come in for the next hoist. As flight lead, Ryan Neal led the Kiowas to the mouth of the valley to meet Dustoff, and they flew inbound. John Jones and his team of Apaches traveled in with them as well. As they neared the LZ, all four aircraft lit up the ridge with suppressive fires. Thirty-millimeter, .50-caliber, and 2.75-inch rockets exploded off of rocks as they tried to force the enemy to seek cover.
Spraktes had begun to form up the remaining troops to break contact and get out of the valley. He wasn’t trying to take over the patrol, but the men were clearly battle-weary and he knew they had to move soon. What he hadn’t noticed was that a couple of the men were barely able to move at all. Did they get hit and I didn’t notice? he wondered. He quickly evaluated them and that’s when he realized that they were severely dehydrated. They began to dry-heave. They needed fluids, and they needed to cool off, but Spraktes did not want to have them remove their body armor. He thought about IVs, but decided that they would not stay in while the men continued to fight. Spraktes called Erdmann, and told him to fly to COP Honaker-Miracle to pick up water.
“Bring it on the next pass,” he said.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Scott St. Aubin, Erdmann’s copilot, called the command post at Honaker-Miracle and told Captain Shaun Conlin that he needed a case of water. Conlin was the Charlie Company commander. He had used the LRT1 camera system at the COP to watch in awe as Spraktes hoisted in to help his men. He told several of his soldiers to take water out to the helicopter. Tom Gifford loaded it up and they returned to the Watapur for a low pass during which Gifford kicked the water out, along with the jungle penetrator, which would allow them to extract two or more men at a time. Emmett Spraktes ran through a hail of bullets to recover the water. He then scavenged for the bottles, which flew in all directions upon impact with the ground, and started throwing them to the soldiers.
With the water distributed to the men, Spraktes prepared the two heat casualties for the hoist. He then called Erdmann, and let him know he was ready for pickup. It seemed to take forever so he poured water on the men and tried to encourage them. He made them take small sips of water as they fought. Once again, Dustoff 2-4 came in under intense fire for the pickup. Spraktes and the remaining patrol provided cover fire as the two heat casualties were hoisted out. Spraktes worried that they would get hit on the way up, but they made it out clean.
Brandon Erdmann radioed Spraktes, “We’re coming to get you.”
“No. I’m walking out with these guys. I’m in good company.” Spraktes did not want to leave the patrol.
“They were down five men and most of them were the age of my eldest son, William. I could see William in every one of them. I thought those boys needed me,” he later told me.
“No, we’re coming back to get you. We need you on board to treat these patients,” Erdmann ordered.
“Hell, I can walk out with my new friends. Why risk a Black Hawk and a medevac crew?” he asked Erdmann.
“Medevac is no good without a medic,” Erdmann answered. “We’re coming to get you.”
Once Gifford had the two heat casualties inside the helicopter Erdmann circled back around and headed back to pick up Spraktes. One final time the cable lowered. Spraktes attached himself to the cable and they began to reel him in. As Spraktes ascended he looked at the men below. They stared up at him, and he felt horrible, like he was abandoning them. He was almost ashamed to leave them, knowing that they still had to walk out of the valley. His mission was complete, he had done what he was supposed to do, but nothing about it felt good at that moment. On the way up he raised his rifle and shot several bursts into the rocks around the enemy. He felt anger—rage. Go ahead and shoot at me, he thought. Leave these boys alone.
Gifford pulled Spraktes into the Black Hawk and they flew out of the Watapur for good.16
Stradley’s Kiowa team was out of ammunition, and Tim Harloff’s team was holding at the mouth of the valley, ready to get back into the fight. Stradley gave Harloff a good battle handover, telling him exactly where Sergeant First Class Ventura’s men were located and where they had shot at the enemy. After he had passed all of the information that he thought was important, and was confident that Harloff fully understood the situation, Stradley’s team departed for the FARP with adrenaline still pumping through their veins.
With team after team joining the fight, the FARP had become very crowded. One of the ground units at FOB Wright had moved a large steel container onto one of the landing pads. Marzec’s damaged Kiowa was shut down, still awaiting a maintenance team. Dustoff was headed to the center pad to drop off patients. Stradley’s team needed to rearm and fuel up, so they squeezed in and waited for the fuelers and armament personnel.
Ryan Neal took a deep breath and began to relax for the first time that day. He actually wanted to smoke a cigarette. He was thinking about getting out when he looked over at Stradley’s helicopter to find Stradley waving madly at the FARP personnel to get out of the way. He was out of the aircraft and running toward them, screaming. Ryan had no idea what could be wrong. Once the FARP soldiers were out of the way, Stradley ran back to his aircraft, and flew off without buckling up and with his armor side panels flapping in the wind. Ryan then heard someone on the radio telling everyone to clear out of the way.
Chief Warrant Officer 5 John Jones was rapidly approaching the pad Stradley had been occupying. He literally missed Stradley and Hill’s Kiowa by a few yards. He hit the pad hard, bounced a little, then settled. He immediately shut the helicopter down. Meanwhile Stradley flew in a circle, then landed at another spot and ran over to the Apache, red-faced and screaming.
“You said stay put! You almost killed us all!” Stradley screamed. “Had I stayed put you’d have crashed on top of us!”
Jones, heart racing and almost in tears, said, “Thank you for moving. I couldn’t see you, and I had no hydraulics. You saved us all,” and with that he wrapped his arms around Stradley and gave him a big bear hug.
After Stradley’s team had left the valley for the FARP, Jones’s team had continued to fight, but on a gun run they were hit by the DShK that took Chad Marzec out of the fight earlier in the morning. Jones’s hydraulics had been shot out. It was all he could do to limp the Apache back to FOB Wright, but he had to get it on the ground quickly.
As he made the turn from the Pech River Valley out into the Kunar, Jones could see the FARP and thought he saw an open pad. He transmitted over the radio for everyone to stay put because he had an emergency, and he was coming in. Stradley had heard that over the radio, so he got out and told everyone to get out of the way so Jones could put it down; however, as Jones got closer Stradley realized that he was headed for the pad Stradley was parked on. He sprinted to his Kiowa and took off right as Jones plopped down where he had been parked. In reality Jones did not see Stradley’s helicopter sitting there.
Stradley smiled and hugged Jones back. “That was scarier than the fight,” Stradley said with a chuckle.
After refueling, and a couple Marlboros for Ryan Neal, Stradley’s team took off again, intent on returning to the fight, but before they rounded the turn to head back into the Pech they received a call on the radio. We had sent a fourth scout weapons team to the Watapur to join the fight. We also sent a Black Hawk with them. We told the new Kiowa team to begin rotating into the fight, and told Stradley to escort the Black Hawk up north to FOB Bostic, so they could pick up the Apache maintenance team and fly them back to FOB Wright in order to work on the damaged Apache. Reluctantly, Stradley told Ryan Neal to lead the way to Bostic.
Sergeant First Class Ventura’s patrol was still in desperate need of help. They had been fighting for hours in the sweltering July heat. Five of their men had been evacuated, and they were running low on ammunition and water. Jack Murphy had been in contact with TF Lethal, 3rd Platoon’s battalion headquarters, discussing options for how to reinforce them for over an hour. We had a Black Hawk that had originally accompanied the medevac aircraft to FOB Wright. It had been loitering most of the day at the mouth of the Pech, monitoring the fight.
“We can use that Black Hawk to fly in reinforcements,” Jack told TF Lethal’s command post. They agreed and began preparing men to fly into the valley.
Captain Joe McCarthy was the pilot in command of the Black Hawk, a second-generation Italian American. Joe’s parents had migrated to the coal mines of Pennsylvania. They later moved to New Jersey, where Joe was born and raised. A natural athlete, he grew up with dreams of playing Major League Baseball. Joe attended Rutgers University, where he received a degree in criminal justice. On September 11, 2001, Joe had been working as a police officer and substitute teacher as he prepared to begin law school at Rutgers the following semester. After watching the events of 9/11 unfold, Joe drove to the army recruiting office and signed an enlistment contract to become an airborne ranger.
When he reported to begin his army life, the sergeant reviewing his records told Joe that he met all the qualifications to go to officer candidate school. He instructed Joe to fill out the paperwork, and within months a board convened and selected him to become an officer. Joe first went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for basic training, where he became the honor graduate of his class. He then traveled to Fort Benning, Georgia, for officer candidate school, where once again he was named honor graduate of his class. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry and given orders for his first duty assignment at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. In very short order Joe was assigned as an infantry platoon leader and deployed to Zabul Province in Afghanistan, where he worked mostly in the Arghandab, Shinkay, and Atghar districts.
While on that deployment Joe kept in regular contact with a friend who was also deployed, as an army helicopter pilot. He told Joe about the branch transfer program, for which Joe decided to apply. Joe was selected to attend flight school with a follow-on assignment to the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
I had been serving as the deputy brigade commander when Joe first arrived to our unit. He impressed me from the start. Colonel Lewis selected him to serve as the brigade headquarters and headquarters company commander initially, but just prior to our deployment he moved to TF Pale Horse, where he assumed command of Black Widow Company, which included all of our Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.
Joe was a guy who had to invest a lot of energy in holding still. He wasn’t the guy who crossed his legs, sat back, and enjoyed a lazy conversation; instead, Joe McCarthy rubbed his hands together as he spoke, even got up and sat back down frequently. He didn’t mind hanging out and shooting the crap with you, but he’d rather throw darts while he did it. What you got from Joe McCarthy was the unvarnished, God’s honest truth. I didn’t always agree with Joe’s take on things, but I knew he would never tell me what he thought I wanted to hear. He told me the truth as he saw it, and that wasn’t the most common trait in a junior officer. Confident, fit, charismatic, and smart, Joe was a natural leader—he was exceptional.
He quickly progressed as a pilot and by July 2009 became a pilot in command. His infantry service in Afghanistan helped him to understand the needs of the infantry on the ground. Now, it was up to him to fly to FOB Blessing, deep in the Pech, pick up a ten-man infantry squad and speedball resupply, then fly them into hell to reinforce Sergeant Ventura and his men. Joe’s crew included Chief Warrant Officer 2 Ray Andrel, Specialist Chuck Darbyshire, and Specialist Travis Adkins.
Joe had anticipated the need for a speedball resupply much earlier in the day, so he had told the men at FOB Wright to prepare one and have it ready when needed. They packed two body bags full of ammunition and water. Joe and his crew landed and the crew chiefs loaded the speedballs into the aircraft. Joe got out of the helicopter and ran into the command post at Wright to call Jack Murphy. Jack had already coordinated with TF Lethal, so he told Joe to fly to FOB Blessing and pick up an infantry squad.
While John Jones’s Apache was shot up and unable to reenter the fight, his wingman had cycled through the FARP and was standing by, ready to get back into the fight. Jack told Joe to get with John Jones’s wingman and have him escort Joe to Blessing, then into the Watapur. Jack gave Joe a grid for an LZ close to Sergeant Ventura’s men that he thought might work. It would be close to the enemy, but there were not a lot of good options on the side of the ridge.
They decided to shoot artillery as they went in to try and keep the enemy’s head down while Joe landed. Jack called TF Lethal and arranged for the 105-mm howitzers to prepare to shoot the planned spots in the Watapur when he called for it. He wanted them to fire “at his command,” which meant that the guns would be loaded and aimed at the target. All Jack had to do was give the command to fire, and the artillerymen would pull the lanyards on the guns.
Simultaneously, Hawg would drop bombs on the locations where they thought the DShK was located. If timed perfectly the artillery and bombs would impact right in front of Joe McCarthy as he flew inbound, keeping the enemy’s heads down. With speedballs loaded and a plan in place, Joe headed for Blessing.
Throughout the battle the air mission commanders had been shooting mortars from COP Honaker-Miracle, 155-mm howitzers from FOB Wright, and 105-mm howitzers from FOB Blessing. By July our air mission commanders had become very skilled at orchestrating Apaches, Kiowas, jets, artillery, and mortars into the fight simultaneously. In a fight such as the one raging in the Watapur you could not sequence fires. We kept the Kiowas low, flying underneath the gun target lines. The key was to be able to visualize multiple gun target lines—the path the artillery or mortar rounds would travel from the gun itself to the target where it would impact—so that you knew where you could fly the Apaches and jets in order to laterally offset them.
For Joe McCarthy’s mission the 105’s would be loaded and ready to fire from FOB Blessing. Once Joe had the reinforcement squad on his aircraft he would take off from Blessing and give the command to begin firing the howitzers. They would continue firing until he was two minutes out from landing, at which time he would call, “Cease fire,” and they would stop. The idea was to force the enemy to crawl down into the rocks to seek cover, thus giving Joe a chance to get in without getting shot down.
Joe landed at FOB Blessing, and the infantry squad began loading the aircraft. The helicopter was on the ground less than a minute before the enemy responded. A mortar impacted about thirty meters off the nose of Joe’s helicopter. The explosion shook everyone, but they did not detect any damage to the helicopter—miraculously.
“Get these guys on the helicopter!” Joe told Specialist Darbyshire.
“We’re ready, sir,” Darbyshire reported, and they took off down the Pech.
“Pale Horse TOC, Flawless 7-7, over,” Joe called.
“Flawless 7-7, Pale Horse TOC, over,” the radio operator replied.
“Fire the artillery, over.”
“Roger,” the operator replied.
Jack Murphy, who was standing by the radio operator, listened to the calls. He picked up the phone and called his counterpart at TF Lethal. “Fire!” he said.
The 105’s at FOB Blessing went to work firing shell after shell up over the ridge that sat between them and the Watapur. Joe and his copilot, Ray Andrel, had agreed that Ray would fly while Joe coordinated everything on the radios.
Joe contacted Tim Harloff, whose Kiowa team was still in the Watapur at that time. Joe had already briefed Tim on the plan, so he moved his team back to the mouth of the valley to pick them up and escort them directly into the LZ. There was a very real chance that everything could go dreadfully wrong, but with the patrol pinned down and running out of ammo it was a risk everyone agreed must be taken. Specialist Darbyshire spoke over the internal radio system, “Sir, there is no way we cannot help these guys out,”17 meaning they had to go in and risk it.
It was obvious at that point that they were committed. They were going into the fight, and they were going to land right in front of the enemy, but hearing his young crew chief say it, and acknowledge that it was the right thing to do, made Joe very proud of his team. Having been on the receiving end of aviation support as an infantryman in combat, Joe knew that army aviators risked a great deal to help their brothers on the ground, but it was a different experience now being a part of that conversation as an aviator.
As they flew down the Pech River Valley, Joe called Jack over the radio.
“Pale Horse 3, this is Flawless 7-7. Cease fire, over,” he said.
“Flawless 7-7, Pale Horse 3. Roger, cease fire,” Jack repeated, and called TF Lethal with the command. The artillery stopped shooting. They were two minutes out.
Ray Andrel was flying the helicopter. Charlie 9-3 marked the LZ with a smoke grenade. Ray and Joe immediately saw the billowing green smoke.
“I see the LZ,” Ray said.
Suddenly, there was a flash on the ridge adjacent to them. An explosion erupted, and shock waves pierced the air in the valley. Hawg had dropped a bomb on the suspected DShK location. It was planned but still seemed to catch everyone by surprise. As they neared the LZ, Ray got a good look at where they were supposed to land.
“That LZ isn’t suitable,” Ray said. “It’s no good. I can’t get in there,” he said.
The entire crew began searching frantically for a spot to land. Machine gun rounds began to impact all around the helicopter and Sergeant First Class Ventura’s men. The enemy had climbed back out of their holes.
Tim Harloff came flying in, shooting the ridge with fifty-caliber. What may have been a few seconds seemed like minutes for the crew as they searched for a place to land the helicopter. Suddenly, Joe saw a spot. He took the controls from Ray and headed for it.
“I see a spot. It’s going to be a one-wheel landing, but I can get it in there,” he told the crew.
The infantrymen in the back, call sign “Gator 9-2,” felt like sitting ducks in the back of the helicopter, which had, by this time, become the sole attention of the enemy gunfire. The enemy began chattering on their radios, “Shoot the helicopter. Shoot the helicopter!” But every time they tried to engage the Black Hawk, Harloff’s Kiowa team came in with fifty-calibers and rockets.
Joe touched the left wheel down and held it steady. The squad bailed out of the helicopter, then Darbyshire and Adkins pushed the speedballs out behind them.
“Clear!” Darbyshire announced over the radio, and Joe pulled in power and headed south.18
It was midafternoon. The battle had been raging for hours with very few pauses. With Gator 9-2 now on the ground, the battle slowed a bit. They distributed the ammo and water from the speedball.
The fourth Kiowa team that we had sent up to join the fight had waited for Joe to get the reinforcements on the ground. They then conducted a battle handover with Tim Harloff’s team. With a fresh Kiowa team covering their movement, it was time to walk out of the Watapur Valley. Gator 9-2, along with Sergeant First Class Ventura and his men, received sporadic small-arms fire most of the way out of the valley. Rounds hit the dirt around them, they dove for cover, the Kiowas engaged the enemy, Hawg continued to drop bombs, and the Kiowas called for artillery. When the enemy stopped shooting to find cover, they’d move, until the sequence of events began all over again.
At 5:30 P.M., Charlie 9-3 and Gator 9-2 walked back into the gates at FOB Honaker-Miracle. They had first taken fire from the enemy at 9:00 A.M. They had been in Afghanistan less than a month, and for most of them, July 17 had been the longest day of their lives.
The TF Lethal and Pale Horse fight in the Watapur solidified a bond of trust between our two task forces, a trust that would endure throughout the rest of the deployment. Brian Pearl called me that night and asked what awards I planned to submit for my men. I told him I wasn’t sure yet, but I was thinking air medals for valor for several of the crews, and something significant for Staff Sergeant Emmett Spraktes.
“Silver Star,” he said. “And I’m putting him in for it.”
“I’ll do it, Brian. You’ve got a lot going on,” I said.
“Absolutely not. He put his life on the line for my men time and time again. I am submitting it,” he declared.
“Brian,” I said.
“Yes, Jimmy,” he replied.
“Before your boys walk into the Watapur again, please call me first,” I said.
“I will,” he assured me—and he did.
* * *
For over eight hours a life-and-death battle had raged against the most picturesque backdrop conceivable. When the sun rose on the Watapur that morning it had been peaceful and quiet, stunningly beautiful, then it had abruptly become hateful and ugly, terrifying. As the sun set, the only evidence of the battle was the bloodstains on the rocks, and the memories etched into our minds. I wonder if they will fade. I suppose only time will tell.
That night an exhausted group of cavalrymen sat back and took a deep breath after a long day of fighting. The Apache and medevac guys climbed up on their balcony and smoked cigars as they compared stories and laughed at each other. The Kiowa guys sat back in chairs and laughed at John Jones almost crash-landing on Stradley at the FARP.
Ryan Neal wore a T-shirt, shorts, and shower shoes. Tattoos cover almost all of his exposed skin. Ryan had added ink to his body in Italy, Greece, Florida, Kentucky, and even his buddy’s basement in Maine—an event that did not impress his mother. He told a story about a small plane almost crashing on him when he was just a little boy. He’d been scared that an airplane might crash on him ever since. Maybe Jones was actually headed for him at the FARP, but Stradley had gotten in the way.
Adrenaline-raged days like the one we experienced on July 17 almost always ended in laughing and stories, men coming together to talk and tell their version of what had happened, but that was because everyone had survived. In contrast, when someone died almost no one gathered together. Everyone seemed to want to be alone, to sort things out, and to grieve in their own way. It was a sickening feeling when we lost someone. Both outcomes changed us in some distinct way. Those were experiences that would never completely leave us.
As for me, I didn’t have time to take in everything that happened until later that night. As I lay in bed reflecting on the day, images of my favorite president returned to my thoughts. I recalled the qualities of the men Theodore Roosevelt had sought to fill the ranks of the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry. In his own words he sought after men “whose veins the blood stirred with the same impulse which once sent the Vikings over the sea,”19 men who endeavored “to show that no work could be too hard, too disagreeable, or too dangerous for them to perform,… they were men who had thoroughly counted the cost before entering, and who went into the regiment because they believed that this offered their best chance for seeing hard and dangerous service.”20 As I lay there, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Roosevelt’s words, I saw Stradley, McCarthy, Neal, Harloff, and certainly Spraktes. I thought that while the tools of war have changed somewhat, the fighting spirit of the cavalryman remains as strong as it ever was.
While the battle in the Watapur was certainly the most significant of the week, the tempo of fighting was intense every day in Kunar Province that summer. During the week of July 12 to 18, we flew a combined total of 823 hours. We flew twenty-four medevac missions, twenty-eight air movement and resupply missions, three air assaults, and fifty-five reconnaissance and surveillance missions. We were involved in sixty-six direct-fire contacts with the enemy, there were fourteen observed surface-to-air attacks against our helicopters, and we responded to twenty indirect-fire attacks on U.S. forces on the ground. While the fighting was incredibly intense it is impressive to note the maintenance, fuel, ammunition, and staff-planning support that made all of those missions possible. I can’t overstate the contributions of our support personnel. The remainder of the summer would closely mirror the events of that week.
* * *
Private Joshua Dow, Private First Class Eli Casas, and Staff Sergeant Jonathan Wedemeyer all recovered from their wounds. Sergeant First Class Ventura would later tell me that his men lived that day because of the heroic actions of TF Pale Horse.
The morning following the Watapur fight we received the following email from the command sergeant major of the soldiers in the battle.
Yesterday, in C Co’s TIC [Troops in Contact], we were supported by some absolutely GREAT aircraft crews. Both rotary and fixed-wing aircraft stayed in harm’s way throughout the fight, and I know several were effectively engaged by the enemy, but still fought on. The medevac crews risked their lives on a “hot” LZ to get three of my soldiers to safety, and I just wanted to thank all involved. It’s reassuring for the command and for the soldiers on the ground to know when trouble starts that we can count on such fine support from the air. Please let them know we appreciate all of their efforts.
Sincerely,
Lethal 7