JULY 2008
I assumed command of the 7th Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment (Task Force Pale Horse) on a cool, rainy Fort Campbell, Kentucky, morning in May 2008. But the ride truly began when I traveled with First Lieutenant Jillian Wisniewski and Chief Warrant Officer 4 Mike Woodhouse to the sweltering July heat of Afghanistan for a reconnaissance of sorts, to prepare for our deployment the following winter.
A quirky, witty former navy corpsman who absolutely abhorred running but loved Star Wars, British humor, and restoring old cars, Mike Woodhouse brought color to an otherwise olive-drab world. Mike was rarely if ever in a foul mood and could always be counted on for a laugh. Despite trying to cover it up with a heavy dose of sarcasm, he was a sensitive guy who genuinely loved people, and that appealed to me. Mike and I had known each other and served together for thirteen years. Like me, he flew the Kiowa Warrior helicopter and served as our standardization instructor pilot, the senior instructor in the task force. We expect warrant officers to be masters of their craft—technical and tactical experts in their field. Mike certainly met those criteria, but what set him apart was how passionately he cared. Mike cared about the reputation of our unit as much as any soldier in it. He wanted us to contribute to the war in ways in which an aviation unit never had before—to make a quantifiable difference.
Jillian Wisniewski was a petite, blond-haired, blue-eyed intelligence officer from West Virginia who had graduated from West Point in 2006. Smart and athletic, yet quiet and unassuming, she had a degree in operations research and a natural affinity for data analysis, systems efficiency, and pattern development. Innately inquisitive, Jillian was a natural problem solver—ideal qualities for the challenges we would face in 2009. Academically she thrived in the hard sciences, yet she wrote poetry, ran cross-country, played volleyball, Ping-Pong, Scrabble, and Cornhole, and was a self-proclaimed connoisseur of hot tea, designer coffee, and food. She made daily trips to FOB Fenty’s Green Bean Coffee stand, where she would order a hot cappuccino, light on the milk and robust with espresso, no sugar, and then, after a few hot sips, she’d proclaim it “delectable!” She was the perfect lead for our intelligence team, upon which we would lean heavily in the following year.
After a painfully long flight around the globe, which seemed to grow exponentially more difficult for me with each passing year of my life, we finally landed at Bagram Airbase. The first few days in Afghanistan were spent with the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB). I made my way around Bagram to visit all of the senior leadership in CJTF-101 before moving on to Jalalabad Airfield to spend time with our sister unit, 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment (Task Force Out Front).
Our division headquarters, the 101st Airborne Division, was already in Afghanistan serving as the Regional Command East (RC-East) Headquarters, also known as Combined Joint Task Force 101—CJTF-101. The 101st CAB, the other aviation brigade in our division, was deployed as well, providing aviation support for all of the ground forces in Afghanistan. Both the CJTF-101 headquarters and the 101st CAB headquarters were located at Bagram Airbase. The 101st CAB’s subordinate aviation battalion task forces were strewn across Afghanistan, supporting infantry brigade combat teams in various provinces of the country. Task Force Out Front, which we would be replacing, was stationed at Jalalabad Airfield in Nangarhar Province. Due to the challenging terrain, weather, and vast distances that prevented the battalions from mutually supporting one another, each aviation task force had a complement of Kiowa, Apache, Chinook, Black Hawk, and medevac helicopters.
The site survey was our opportunity to gain firsthand insights into how TF Out Front was conducting operations within Nangarhar, Nuristan, Laghman, and Kunar (N2KL) provinces as we prepared to take over the mission from them in January 2009.
TF Out Front was responsible for rotary-wing aviation support to 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division—TF Duke, the brigade responsible for stability and security in N2KL. TF Duke was arrayed across N2KL with a battalion roughly responsible for each of the four provinces. Their brigade headquarters resided at FOB Fenty, at Jalalabad Airfield, where Task Force Out Front was also located.
As I had previously served as the unit’s operations officer in Iraq, and later as the squadron executive officer, 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry held a special place in my heart. I had many wonderful memories from my time in the unit. In fact, most of my insights for air cavalry capabilities in the counterinsurgency environment were shaped during my time with 2-17 while serving in Iraq. Many of the soldiers, noncommissioned officers, and warrant officers with whom I had previously served were still in the unit, so I looked forward to seeing a lot of familiar faces in Jalalabad.
Mike, Jillian, and I put our rucksacks on our backs and headed out to the flight line. Lieutenant Colonel John Lynch, the commander of Task Force Out Front, sent a Black Hawk to pick us up.
“What do you think?” I asked Mike, as we stood at the passenger terminal, looking out across the airfield.
“I think that’s a big friggin’ mountain is what I think,” he said.
Mike was referring to the massive mountains to our immediate north that peaked at fifteen thousand feet. It was July. Sweat ran down my nose and dripped onto the scorching tarmac, yet the gray massif towering over us was still covered in snow. Bagram sits in a huge bowl surrounded by the Hindu Kush mountains.
“Here they come,” Jillian said, nodding to the Black Hawks that were now ground-taxiing toward us.
The crew chief saluted as I approached the bird. I shook his hand, and he helped us get our gear settled in the helicopter. We were given headsets so we could speak with the crew.
“Welcome to Afghanistan,” a voice said over the headset. It was the senior pilot.
“Thanks. It’s good to finally be here,” I said, genuinely happy to be visiting.
“Sir, we’ll be flying you to JAF. We’ll leave the doors open so you’ll have a good view. It’s a pretty amazing flight,” he said.
“Roger that.”
Prior to our trip I had read countless books and articles in which authors attempted to describe the terrain of eastern Afghanistan. I had also spoken with other soldiers who had served there. From their descriptions I tried to picture the terrain. They really hyped it, saying, “You just have to see it to believe it.” Seeing it firsthand in the summer of 2008, I realized that they were absolutely right: It was simply impossible to articulate adequately the feeling of standing in the midst of the Hindu Kush mountains. The peaks were majestic from a purely observational perspective, yet it was humbling to consider a seasoned, indigenous enemy force that intimately knew how to use the terrain to their advantage in battle. This was the historic arena for numerous epic battles and home of America’s longest war. It was beautiful yet deadly.
At the time of our site survey nine Medals of Honor, our nation’s highest award in combat, had been earned since the global war on terrorism began in 2001. Four of those medals were earned in battles fought in N2KL; four more would be awarded for battles fought during our deployment to that area. Eight of the thirteen—over half—would be earned in Kunar and Nuristan provinces alone.
“Look at that lake,” Jillian said.
She pointed out the door at Sarobi Lake. The water was a beautiful emerald green. The earth rose quickly from the lake, forming mountainsides, until the brown dirt transformed into sheer gray rock. The terrain in N2KL climbs and plummets across 15,600 square miles of eastern Afghanistan. At its eastern extreme lies a roughly three-hundred-mile border—a porous, ill-defined, and largely ignored boundary between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Visualized on a map of the United States, the Afghanistan–Pakistan border, within our area of operations, would stretch from Washington, DC, to Raleigh, NC. The problem with the border was that it sliced through Pashtun tribal areas, thus separating them from one another by a Western-imposed international boundary. Very few roads crossed the border, but a web of trail systems crisscrossed back and forth across the boundary, making control of cross-border foot traffic nearly impossible—a reality exploited by enemy fighters.
In contrast to the lush mountains of northern Georgia, where I grew up, a place where massive oak trees sink their roots deep into the ground to secure the rich, fertile soil to the earth, everything in Afghanistan is hard as steel. From the granular moving sands of the desert region that blot out the sun in a storm to the sheer gray rock walls that disappear into the clouds, everything is hard, including the people who live there—life is hard in Afghanistan. The Hindu Kush mountains rose like the earth’s spine in the center of our area of operations, climbing higher and higher until peaking in Chitral, Pakistan, at 25,230 feet, and eventually anchoring itself on the Himalayas. Foreign soldiers had occupied the Hindu Kush since the time of Darius the Great. These rugged, rocky mountains had tasted the blood of countless soldiers from myriad ethnicities over the centuries. Persians, Greeks, Macedonians, Mongols, Brits, Russians, and then Americans, French, Poles, Germans, Australians, and many others had fought, bled, and died there.
The Spin Ghar mountains stood like a giant partition between Nangarhar Province and the Kurram and Khyber agencies of Pakistan, marking the southern boundary of our area of operations. Tora Bora, the mountains that caught America’s attention in 2001, anchored our southwestern boundary, while the historic Khyber Pass cut through the Spin Ghar mountains in the southeastern corner of Nangarhar Province. The Khyber Pass has always been an important trade route, linking southern and central Asia via the Silk Road. The pass is legendary as the route through which Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan marched their forces, bound for India. It was simply the most challenging and humbling terrain I’d ever seen, at once beautiful and ominous.
* * *
We followed the Kabul River to Jalalabad. As we flew into the Nangarhar bowl I saw Jalalabad sprawling to the south. “Sir, if you look to our ten o’clock you’ll see the mouth of the Kunar Valley. That’s where the real trouble lies,” the pilot said.
After we landed at Jalalabad Airfield, John Lynch met us with a smile and a firm handshake. “Welcome to Jalalabad,” he said.
“Thanks, John.”
“How was the trip?”
“Good. It actually went very smooth. I’m just all jacked up from the time zone changes.”
“Yep. I’m sure you are. We’ll get you settled and then we’ll eat some lunch. You hungry?”
“Starved.”
“Good. Let’s go,” and he showed us to our rooms.
Mike, Jillian, and I spent our first day with 2-17 Cavalry receiving briefings, and having passed through ten time zones, it was a challenge to remain awake—I stood through most of the meetings. By the third day it was time to get out and see the country firsthand. Our first flight was in a Black Hawk. The crew met us at the TOC,1 where we received a mission briefing from the battle captain and various other staff officers and noncommissioned officers. They discussed our flight route, told us what U.S. ground patrols would be out on the roads, told us where fighting had already occurred that day, and provided the status of all artillery and mortars in the area of operations. It was a thorough briefing intended to arm us with the most accurate picture of the battlefield before we left the base.
After the mission briefing we moved to the helicopter for a crew briefing delivered by those who would fly us on our battlefield tour. I noticed that the pilots walked with a certain swagger. You could sense both pride and confidence in their body language. It wasn’t a distasteful, cocky pride but rather a visible confidence earned through hardship and experience. They reminded me of cowboys I’d been around in the past. They were in their element and we were visitors on their ranch—the new guys. They had the advantage in every way. They knew where we were going. We didn’t. They knew where danger lurked, when and where to be concerned. We sensed danger everywhere. I wondered how long it would take our crews to gain their level of confidence. In many ways it’s good to remain cautious for as long as possible. Those who grow too comfortable too quickly assume too much risk too early.
Following the crew briefing, we departed Jalalabad Airfield and flew northeast, almost directly over the location of the first successful Stinger missile engagements of the Soviet–Afghan War.
“Right over there is where the first Stinger missiles were used in combat,” I told Mike and Jillian.
“On the Russians?” Mike asked.
“Yeah, on September twenty-fifth, 1986. Eight Soviet Hind helicopters were flying to Jalalabad Airfield when they were shot down.”
The contrast of the whole situation was fascinating to me. On that day several heavily bearded men who most likely could not read or write, men who lived in rock houses glued together by mud, pulled the trigger on the most sophisticated heat-seeking surface-to-air weapon on the planet and turned the tide of a war. Five missiles were fired that afternoon; three of them brought down helicopters, each in a ball of flame.
“I’m not too worried about Stinger missiles today,” Mike said. “I don’t think we’ve given any more out since then.”
“Me neither,” I said. “Thank goodness.”
While we were not concerned with Stinger missiles that day it was still unsettling to know that we could be engaged by an ever-present enemy at any moment. A very real, living, breathing enemy was trying to kill us every day in Afghanistan.
We flew northwest up the fertile green Kabul River Valley to Laghman Province, flew over the capital city of Mehtar Lam and then north, through the Alishang and Alingar valleys. The Alingar drew very narrow at the northern end. A strip of blue water and a dirt road all but disappeared into the wall of mountains that led into Nuristan.
“Sir, we don’t go any further north in the Alingar. That’s where Commando Wrath took place,” the pilot said as he pointed into the valley.
Commando Wrath was a Special Forces operation to kill or capture Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) leader Haji Ghafour in his Shok Valley lair. The operation had taken place in April and was still fresh in everyone’s mind for several reasons. The Shok Valley was essentially a giant slot canyon. Haji Ghafour’s compound was perched on the high ground overlooking the deep narrow valley below. TF Out Front was forced to insert two Special Forces detachments, along with their Afghan Commando partners, into the bottom of the valley because it was the only place to land.
The mission went wrong from the start. Bad weather had forced them to delay the operation a week, but even a week later the weather was far from ideal. The landing zones were expected to be in a dry wadi, but when they got there the “dry wadi” was a raging river. The helicopters could not even land, so the men had to jump off the ramp of the Chinooks while the pilots held steady at a hover. Ghafour’s fighters were hidden in cracks and crags of the rocky cliffs above, already in place when they arrived.
As the Green Berets attempted to climb the near-vertical switchback trails, Ghafour’s men ambushed them. They battled for six and a half hours before TF Out Front could get out of the valley. Every member of the team was injured to some degree, but the story they all so vividly remembered, and frequently recounted, was that of Sergeant John Wayne Walding. Who would expect anything less than gallantry in battle from a native Texan, born on the Fourth of July, named John Wayne? Near the top of a mountain, Sergeant Walding was shot in the knee, his leg all but severed. He self-injected morphine, folded the lower portion of his leg up, and tied his foot off to his thigh with his boot string. He then fought his way back down the mountain while scooting on his bottom.
Ten Green Berets were later awarded the Silver Star for their actions in the Shok Valley. John Lynch and one of his medics were awarded the Bronze Star for Valor for running throughout the valley, helping load and evacuate the wounded. Operation Commando Wrath further proved a lesson learned centuries prior and relearned countless times through the ages—in Afghanistan terrain means everything.
I stared out of the door like a kid on a school bus, taking in all the sights as we flew from Laghman to Kunar Province. The Kunar River winds and twists its way south from glaciers in Pakistan, warming itself with every mile it flows until finally it empties into the Kabul River just outside the gates of FOB Fenty. The Hindu Kush mountains rise abruptly on the northwest side of the valley. The Pakistan border sits atop the ridgeline only a few kilometers east of the river. As we traveled northeast up the Kunar, the valley grew considerably narrower and the river’s current significantly increased.
Our helicopter began to slow and descend as we prepared to land at the forward arming and refueling point (FARP) on FOB Wright, which sat just south of Asadabad—the Kunar Provincial capital. The FARP was manned with soldiers equipped to pump fuel and load ammunition on all types of helicopters operating in Afghanistan. A FARP is an aviation unit’s gas station on steroids, designed to execute its mission like a NASCAR pit crew. As the FARP personnel heard the distinct whap whap whap of rotors, they donned helmets and gloves and ran out to their assigned pads. The FARP provided fuel, bullets, water, and also a field-expedient latrine.
“Look, piss tubes,” Mike said, surprised that they still existed.
When the global war on terrorism first began we had no other alternative than to relieve ourselves wherever we could: behind a tree, a rock, or beside our own vehicles. Women held up ponchos for each other to provide a little privacy, guys just turned their backs. Once we settled into fixed bases in 2003, we built our own outhouses, which provided privacy and a place to sit—a hole in a piece of plywood over a fifty-five-gallon drum cut in half and filled with diesel fuel. We took shifts burning it every evening—a delightful duty. It wasn’t until the fall of 2003 that we celebrated the arrival of the Porta-Potty, or “blue canoe,” as we called them, but even then we held on to our piss tubes. Piss tubes were waist-high PVC pipes sunk several feet into the ground. In 2009, there were three tubes still in use at FOB Wright. Some things just seem to have sentimental value and ease of use.
We got off the Black Hawk and waited in a holding area as the helicopter was being fueled. The perimeter wall that surrounded FOB Wright was less than twenty yards from the fueling points. To the west the terrain climbed straight up, almost vertically. I watched heavily bearded men with turbans on their heads herding goats along switchback trails just outside the FOB. The men walked slowly with their hands clasped behind their backs. One old man squatted on a large rock. He stroked his long whiskers as he stared down at us. Another ancient-looking man with a long gray beard, who reminded me of Gandalf, sat on his haunches and thumbed through a string of prayer beads. I wondered what they thought about all of this, of our being there.
Afghanistan is a place where the people dream of a better life, but it’s just been so long since they’ve seen peace that they’ve forgotten what it looks like. They know what fear is. They have felt that. They know what death is. They’ve seen it, and they intimately understand war. Perhaps a better life would simply be the absence of the things they know so well, the things they’ve learned to live with, to endure.
Suddenly, soldiers scrambled out of a small block building, donning helmets as they ran toward two 155-mm howitzers, large artillery pieces that sat about fifty meters from the fueling pads. The guns were oriented northwest, over our aircraft. I figured out rather quickly that they were about to shoot, so I plugged my ears and braced myself as the massive barrels recoiled and a shock wave, visible in the dust, pulsed across the FOB.
Mike Woodhouse laughed out loud. “I love it!” he said, catching a glimpse of what we’d trained for, for so many years.
The crew chief signaled for us to get back into the aircraft so we strapped in and prepared for takeoff. With a roar the helicopter lifted off, and again I heard the loud concussion of the big guns. It was the first time I had flown underneath a gun target line—it would not be the last. We were finally about to enter the area we had heard and read so much about.
We flew to the north over Asadabad, where the Pech River empties into the Kunar. Then we turned west and followed the Pech River into the valley, at which time our flight profile noticeably changed. There were many places in Afghanistan where we did not fly without an armed escort. Two Apaches flanked our Black Hawk on either side. As we entered the Pech the Apaches began varying their airspeed and altitude. They were above us then below us, on the right and then the left, flying lazy S-turns. The Black Hawk pilots increased the speed of our helicopter as well. I looked over at Mike Woodhouse, who had his arms folded across his body armor and his feet kicked out on the seat in front of him. He looked back at me, gave me a thumbs-up and smiled, then said, “Here we go.”
Below us the Pech River flowed fast and strong. The Pech Valley ran from its mouth, where it joined the Kunar Valley, west into the heart of the Hindu Kush mountains. As the valley snaked its way into the Hindu Kush, other, smaller valleys branched off to the north and south, each presenting a uniquely different yet often linked enemy problem for coalition forces. Each valley displayed differences in terrain and enemy activity, and villages of varying personalities with diverse tribal and cultural customs.
Some valleys were more accessible by ground and air than others. Some had sheer rock walls that could not easily be traversed, even on foot. Others were laden with gentle wooded ridges and a web of trail systems, making it easy for the enemy to slip in and out of the valleys undetected. Some valleys were home to large populations that were willing to cooperate with coalition forces; others detested the U.S. presence and would fight to remove it. Some resisted extremist groups for various reasons; others were more than willing to accommodate them.
As we continued into the Pech, I saw a string of simple villages whose residents farmed the lush river valley. They lived in humble structures and carried out a straightforward existence, yet the complexity of the situation revolving around their villages could not be overstated. While many of the inhabitants lived in the valley with access to the river and the road, others lived in clusters of homes on the steep slopes of the mountains, clearly constructed with security in mind. Very few trails led to their mountain houses, which were built out of logs, rock, and mud. The roofs were flat, with the roof of one home often serving as a walkway or an open patio for the family living on the next layer of structures. In some cases trees growing out of the rocky slope served as ladders, enabling the villagers to climb from one level to the next.
It was baffling to look down on the area and realize that the attacks of September 11, 2001, were conceived in that environment. Somehow this extraordinarily primitive area had gained the attention of the world due to global attacks that had emanated from here. It was an extremely difficult concept to wrap my mind around.
Flying into the Korengal Valley for the first time, I was nervous yet curious, like I feel when I wade out into the ocean. Being in the water certainly appeals to me, but once I am waist deep I feel like I’ve entered the food chain. It didn’t help that the pilot climbed higher in the air and sped up, partly because the terrain had begun to rise, but more so due to the danger inherent to the valley. I had read a lot about the deadliest piece of terrain in Afghanistan since 9/11. The Korengal was hell with the lid off, but as scary as the place was, I figured that experiencing hell on earth would make me appreciate the good life in America a little bit more.
As we flew into the valley, Sawtalo Sar, the large ridge that separated the Korengal and Shuryak valleys, was out my door. It was where Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell’s reconnaissance team was compromised and subsequently ambushed, leaving him the lone survivor, during Operation Redwing in June 2005. It was where the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment’s (SOAR) Chinook was shot down trying to rescue Luttrell’s team, killing all nineteen servicemen on board. Just over the ridge, near the Chowkay Valley, was where Lieutenant Colonel Joe Fenty and nine others were killed in a Chinook crash as they attempted to depart the area after Operation Mountain Lion in May 2006. From the air, the place seemed benign, but in the coming months I would learn that seemingly benign places in Afghanistan could open a trapdoor to hell in seconds.
As we flew over the Korengal outpost, I saw the men of Viper Company, 1-26 Infantry. Several men manned machine guns on the perimeter, anticipating enemy contact—a daily occurrence. I wanted to get a good feel for the layout of the terrain and our U.S. outposts within the valley, so I asked the pilots to circle one more time so I could take a closer look at the KOP, OP Restrepo, OP Dallas, and Firebase Vegas. “Sir, we don’t spend too much time hanging out in the Korengal,” the pilot said, indicating his desire to depart the valley.
“Roger, just one more pass and I’ll be good.”
I knew why he said it. If we went down in that valley, help would never get to us in time, not before the enemy did. The lucky ones would die in the crash.
It wasn’t always like that. There was a time when the people of those mountains met strangers with smiles, extended hospitality, and shared what little food they had with Western travelers. In 1960 three diplomats, an American, a Brit, and a German, traveled up the Pech to Nangalam. They parked their vehicles and spent ten days walking through Chapa Dara, up the Wama Valley, across the ridge to Waygal, and back down to Nangalam. The setting of Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King was just up the valley in Nuristan, but war changes people. I suspect that many if not most of the people living in those isolated villages desperately miss the days when it was safe to welcome strangers into their villages. They didn’t change on their own. They had been acted upon by extremism. War and hatred found its way up the secluded valleys and left a stain. It altered people.
From the Korengal we flew to FOB Blessing to meet with Lieutenant Colonel Brett Jenkinson, who commanded all the soldiers in the Pech and Korengal valleys. We landed at the FARP, which sat about two hundred vertical feet below his headquarters. His executive officer met us with an outstretched hand and a smile. “Hey, sir! Welcome to Blessing.”
“It’s good to be here. Thanks for giving us a few minutes of your time. I know you’re busy,” I said.
“No problem, sir.”
I was amazed at how close they lived to the locals. I’m not sure why, since I had been in outposts in Iraq that were built in the center of cities like Mosul and Tikrit, but it seemed uncomfortably close here in the heart of bad-guy country. Afghan men with weathered, expressionless faces sat on walls outside the wire, staring at us as we climbed the hill to the command post. I noticed that a few of the men sported flaming red beards that had been dyed with henna—a tradition from the time of the prophet Mohammad. I even saw a red-haired goat with ruby eyes, bangs, and a bell around its neck. A lone donkey stood in the corner eating grass along the perimeter wall.
The TF Out Front executive officer accompanied us on the trip. He pointed to the donkey. “See that donkey, sir?”
“Yeah.”
“It used to be a marijuana-eating donkey,” he said.
“What?”
“They had a big patch of marijuana growing in the corner of the FOB and the donkey used to graze on it. It was the mellowest donkey in Afghanistan, but a sergeant major made them cut the marijuana down and burn it, so now the donkey is perpetually pissed off,” he said with a smile.
I laughed and shook my head.
I had been a long-distance runner my entire life. In fact, I had once run a marathon in two hours and thirty-three minutes, yet I was absolutely winded when I reached the top of the hill. Climbing the mountain at just under four thousand feet above sea level with full combat equipment was like trying to run uphill with a gas mask on, but I had no mask on at all. There simply wasn’t enough oxygen to breathe, even in the shadow of the valley. I could only imagine how tough it would be to fight in the mountains that towered over us.
Brett Jenkinson met me at the door.
“Brett Jenkinson,” he said with a smile, reaching to shake my hand.
“Jimmy Blackmon. Thanks for seeing us, Brett.”
“I’m glad you could stop by. Come on in,” he said as he turned and walked toward his conference room. Pointing at a cooler: “Can I get you something to drink? Soda, coffee, water?”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
Brett was a tall, lean, and lanky infantryman with a tightly cropped, high and tight haircut. He was full of energy and purpose. He and his operations officer, Major Tito Villanueva, briefed us on their area of operations with an enthusiasm we had not yet experienced on our visit. Having only recently arrived in theater, Brett’s unit had taken responsibility for the bloodiest piece of terrain in which our army was then engaged. It was not only an extremely complex area, but also home to a well-financed, disciplined, and determined enemy.
The depth of knowledge that Brett’s team demonstrated was impressive. He contended that “we can’t kill our way to victory in this war.” There were obviously areas in which he felt we could and would make progress, yet he made it abundantly clear that the blood feud with the Korengalis was irreconcilable.
“We’re fighting every day in the Korengal. We’ve talked to them. We’ve tried to repair the road going into the valley, tried to convince them that it’s for their benefit, but they don’t care. They attack the road crews. We’re never going to get anywhere in that valley.”
His demeanor visibly changed as we spoke about the Korengal. “We need to get the hell out of there now. I’d like to build a wall between them and the Pech,” he said.
His men were taking fire multiple times each day and he was acutely aware of how much blood had already been spilled in that valley. He did not want to shed another drop of American blood in the Korengal. He wanted out of the valley as soon as possible.
“We can’t sit in these outposts and just take their attacks. We’ve got to get out and patrol—kill these guys. We’ve got to pick up the pace offensively,” he said.
I just listened and wholeheartedly agreed. If you sit in a FOB or COP and wait, they will attack on their terms, but if you get out and disrupt the enemy, kill their leadership, keep them looking over their shoulder, then you create space to maneuver.
After the briefing, Brett walked me back down the hill to the helicopter. We had to meet the birds as they landed and depart the FOB immediately or the enemy would begin shooting mortars and rockets at us.
“Thanks again for taking the time to show us what’s going on in your AO,” I said.
“No problem.”
“I guess we’ll see you in about four months,” I said.
“We’ll be here.” Brett smiled warmly and shook my hand. He looked me in the eye and said, “So long.”
I left FOB Blessing with one certainty in my mind: We would be fighting alongside Brett Jenkinson and his men a lot in the coming months. It was clear to me that Brett wanted to increase the operational tempo as soon as possible—to take the fight to the enemy. Brett had no intention of letting his men sit in their outposts, wringing their hands, waiting for the next attack to occur. He wanted to put pressure on the enemy, and he wanted our support doing it. I planned right then and there to see that he got it.
We departed FOB Blessing and flew east. I looked out my door and saw the Waygal Valley running north. At that time some of the only remaining 173rd Airborne Brigade soldiers, having not yet been relieved by the unit replacing them, were beginning work on an outpost just up the valley near Wanat village. Soon they too would be heading home. As we continued down the Pech toward the Kunar, Mike Woodhouse keyed the mike on the internal communication system (ICS) and, referring to Brett, said, “He likes to fight.”
I looked over at Mike and smiled. “Yep. I’ve got a feeling we are going to be fighting a lot in this valley,” I said, and looked back out the door.
We exited the Pech River Valley and flew back out into the Kunar, then turned left and proceeded north. We followed the valley to FOB Bostic, near the city of Nari, where we landed to refuel and receive a briefing from Lieutenant Colonel Jim Markert, commander of 6th Squadron, 4th Cavalry (Task Force Raider). As I exited the helicopter I noticed that Bostic sat in a bowl. I felt vulnerable staring up at towering mountains on every side, but I had no idea how that would compare to what I would see in a few short hours.
One of Jim’s officers met us at the landing zone. After brief introductions he led us through a maze of plywood buildings to their command post. We met Jim, his executive officer, command sergeants major, and his operations officer, who presented their briefing on northern Kunar and Nuristan. Again, we witnessed an incredible depth of knowledge acquired in a very short period of time. Jillian was a bit overwhelmed at how well versed everyone was with regard to their operational environment. It seemed as if they could have spoken for days about the terrain and the enemy. Listening to their briefing put the weight of preparation into perspective—a common experience when you deploy into a combat theater of operations and meet the team already in place. They named every ridge, hilltop, valley, road, insurgent leader, financial backer, and bag boy in their area of responsibility. I too felt an overwhelming need to study, but I also had the benefit of having done this before. Being “in the fight” has a way of making you very smart, very fast. I knew that after about a month of being in the lead we would be just as well versed.
Jim Markert’s depiction of his area was much more somber than Brett Jenkinson’s. As Brett had described his area, he’d used a healthy portion of sarcasm, cracked a joke or two, and then got deathly serious. Brett’s briefing was a roller coaster ride with peaks and valleys, smiles and frowns. Jim Markert, on the other hand, presented the challenges he faced matter-of-factly. He genuinely looked forward to working with us and appreciated our visit so we’d better understand his team’s challenges. He knew that his men would depend on our ability to fight our way into his outposts and resupply his men. He knew our Apaches and Kiowas would respond when his men were in a fight and that our medevac helicopters would risk everything to save his wounded troopers. Jim had inherited the most challenging terrain in Afghanistan, with the highest elevations and most restrictive, canalized, isolated valleys in the country. His outposts sat primarily in these deep, narrow valleys, dominated by enormous mountain ridges, with only one way in and out.
The remote and challenging terrain made Jim’s area a natural haven for the enemy. They could move freely through the mountain trails and hide out in isolated villages. The terrain also isolated Jim’s forces. Five of his outposts were not accessible by ground vehicles, requiring our helicopters to resupply them. No one had driven a vehicle through the Kamdesh Valley since early 2008. The road simply couldn’t hold up under our heavy combat vehicles, and the mountains were crawling with enemy forces with itchy trigger fingers. Helicopters were essential to sustain Jim Market’s soldiers, and so anything that prevented their routine resupply meant they assumed much more risk to the force.
From FOB Bostic we flew north, up the Kunar River and into Nuristan. We passed over the village of Bati Kowt. Just past Bati Kowt the valley forked. The Kunar River itself angled to the northeast and crossed the border into Pakistan toward Drosh. We passed over the Gowerdesh Bridge and flew the crevasse that turned west—the Kamdesh Valley, along the Landay Sin River.
Again, the pilot accelerated, showing clear concern that we could be shot at any moment. He flew about one hundred feet above the river, which in retrospect probably wasn’t the safest choice. As I sat in the back of the Black Hawk, watching the rock walls speed by, it seemed that our rotors were less than a foot from the mountain at times. I was reminded of a story someone had once told me about the Russian experience in this area. Russian helicopters were allegedly taken down by fighters throwing rocks through the rotor blades from above. I don’t know if that story is true. I had never found any evidence to support it, but flying through the narrow valley made me realize that it was a real possibility.
Initially, the Russians had embraced the nap-of-the-earth (NOE) method of flying while they were in Afghanistan—flying low to the ground and conforming to the contours of the earth, thus minimizing exposure. They believed that flying low and fast gave them the advantage of surprise.2 While this is true, there is always a compromise associated with NOE flight. First, flying NOE puts the aircraft within the range of enemy machine guns. Until the mujahideen received American-made, heat-seeking Stinger missiles, the only significant threats to their helicopters were machine guns, RPGs, the terrain, and weather. Had they flown at higher altitudes they could have mitigated the risk of being shot down, but they would have lost the advantage of surprise. Once Stinger missiles were introduced into the war, limited exposure became the key to their survival, so NOE would have indeed been the best option. The Russian pilots had a choice—fly low and risk being shot with machine guns and RPGs, or fly high and risk being shot with a Stinger missile. Ultimately, most Russian pilots chose to fly high and trust their aircraft survivability equipment (flares) to defeat the heat-seeking missiles. “No longer did helicopters come cruising in on a straight, gradually descending flight path, but rather in a tight, twisting spiral from a great height and firing flares every few seconds.”3 The flares were designed to burn hotter than the helicopter engines, thus attracting the heat-seeking missiles.
Another key change following the Soviet war in Afghanistan was the proliferation of cell phones and handheld push-to-talk radios. By 2009, enemy fighters and their supporters carried a means to communicate easily with one another. Using cell phones and radios, the enemy reported our movements from the time we departed our FOBs until we disappeared from their sight. The only way to achieve surprise in 2009 was to fly on dark nights and to use deception as part of the mission plan. On that July day we flew NOE in the middle of the day down a very narrow and deep valley.
We passed over COP Lowell first, named for Private First Class Jacob Lowell, a soldier in 1-91 Cavalry who was killed only a couple of days after his unit assumed responsibility for the area in 2007. Formerly known as COP Kamu, COP Lowell was adjacent to the small mountain village of Kamu. The COP appeared to be extremely vulnerable, sitting in the bottom of the deep, narrow Kamdesh Valley, but nothing compared with COP Keating, which we saw next. I didn’t even notice it on the first pass because it was very small and I couldn’t believe it would be located in such a vulnerable place. The pilot brought us back around and pointed it out once again. It was hard to believe soldiers had survived so long in an outpost so clearly exposed, but when these outposts were built the threat was much different than in 2008. The leaders who chose to build them built them for a reason, and based their decision upon the threat assessment at that given time. In 2008, the environment had changed significantly, and it would be our responsibility to adjust accordingly.
Named for First Lieutenant Benjamin Keating, who was killed on November 26, 2006, when his military vehicle plummeted from the narrow rocky road into the river a short distance from the outpost, COP Keating was nothing more than a postage stamp in the bottom of a deep, narrow gorge adjacent to a tiny, isolated village. The road, which followed the river through the valley, seemed to disappear into the outpost then reemerge on the other side. In fact, the road squeezed between the outpost and the river on the north side. At that location sparse green trees somewhat hid the road from view from the air.
Outside the outpost, on what appeared to be a sandbar by the river, sat the landing zone and a small footbridge that crossed the river. Typically, a landing zone is built inside the COP, but there simply wasn’t room inside Keating. The south side of the outpost was pressed up against a mountain that climbed vertically for several thousand feet to a ridgeline above. A switchback trail zigzagged like a snake from the outpost up to the top of the ridge.
We climbed out of the valley from Keating to OP Fritsche, which sat atop the southern ridge, and it was like going from Dante’s Inferno to Paradise in a matter of seconds and a few thousand feet. We had been flying through a jagged slot in the earth. Suddenly, as we exited and looked out across the valley, into Nuristan, Himalayan images from the pages of National Geographic flashed into my mind. From the top of the ridge it looked and felt like we were in British Columbia. Huge timber-lined and snowcapped mountains surrounded us. A frigid wind filled the cockpit as we flew past small popcorn clouds that floated like cotton balls suspended in air. Jagged, snowy peaks pointed heavenward against a bright blue sky as far as the eye could see. Postcard perfect. From this perspective it was easy to imagine Afghanistan’s potential. With security and investment Afghanistan could be an outdoor paradise. I could easily envision whitewater rafting, snow skiing, mountain biking, adventure racing, hiking, fishing, and rock climbing as a booming industry. We slowly circled back to the south, where white slowly turned to green and then brown again.
As we flew back down the Kunar Valley no one spoke. I thought about Brett Jenkinson and Jim Markert. I wondered what the future held in store for us. In hindsight it seems surreal that on that day we had no knowledge of the events that would unfold in the coming months.