Our first large-scale, deliberate operation came just two days after the transfer of authority. It was called Operation Able Reach—an air assault with Brett Jenkinson’s Task Force Spader—designed to “disrupt the enemy’s pattern of life” in the village of Aybot, on the high eastern ridgeline in the Shuryak Valley, an ancillary valley near the mouth of the Pech River Valley as it winds westward from the Kunar River Valley. Simply conducting an operation in the village would disturb the enemy’s normal activities. No roads accessed the village, so the enemy operated freely without fear of being attacked.
We planned to insert Able Company into a landing zone on the ridgeline about eight hundred meters above the village. Brett’s men would set up several positions on the high ground so they could cover the main force as they walked down a small, steep trail to the village.
I learned an important lesson about Chinooks and landing zones that day. In Iraq most every landing zone (LZ) was on the flat desert floor, but in Afghanistan it was difficult to find a flat place anywhere to land. Every helicopter has a slope limitation, except the Chinook. A Black Hawk, for example, cannot land on a surface with a slope greater than fifteen degrees. For Operation Able Reach we selected an LZ in the back of the Shuryak based on imagery, but we had not put eyes on the actual LZ. A couple of days prior to the mission I decided to fly over the area to take a look. When I saw the proposed LZ, I did not believe that any helicopter could land there. It was a steep slope covered with scrub bushes. Jay Vollmer, our Chinook instructor pilot, was with me: “No problem, sir. We can get it in there.”
At first I thought he was kidding. “Are you being serious?” I asked.
“Sir, you can land a Chinook almost anywhere.”
“Yes, but I’m going to be on this Chinook with you, so I want to know we can land there.”
“Trust me, sir,” he said and smiled.
Landing zones aside, it was a pretty straightforward mission—a daytime operation—and we did not expect to meet significant enemy resistance. It was the perfect mission for us to cut our teeth on—a gentle start to what would become a very challenging year.
Able Reach allowed us to plan, brief, rehearse, and execute our first large-scale combat operation in tough conditions. It enabled us finally to execute the tactics, techniques, and procedures we had spent so much time training for back at Fort Campbell.
As a part of our preparation for Afghanistan we had reflected on eight years of combat experience gained in both Iraq and Afghanistan to determine what we felt would be the optimal way to operate in such challenging terrain. The mechanics of an air assault were relatively straightforward; nothing really changed in that regard. What was more difficult—a topic we spent a great deal of time discussing—was the effects of aviation on the Afghan population.
I felt that it was critical that our crews fully understood that their actions would have a profound impact on the local populace we sought to support. As we discussed the effects of aviation operations back at Fort Campbell, prior to deploying, Colonel Lewis had coined the phrase “COIN at altitude,” which was a way of noting that aviation units played a significant role in the counterinsurgency fight. COIN at altitude ultimately made its way into both Colonel Lewis’s and my commander’s intent for our enduring operational plan in Afghanistan. Too many times in both Iraq and Afghanistan our aviators’ actions, often in ignorance, infuriated the local populace, thus damaging the objectives of our counterinsurgency strategy. While not commonly discussed within aviation units at that time, our objective was to ensure that our pilots knew that their actions in the air had a direct impact on the ground. A pilot who scattered a shepherd’s sheep by flying right over the top of them made enemies, not friends. Blowing over clotheslines or scaring farm animals with our helicopters was obviously rude and did not advance the ground commander’s counterinsurgency objectives. Civilian casualties and inconsiderate flying would not help our cause in any way.
The Afghans who had lived through the Soviet occupation vividly remembered the destruction Soviet gunships left in their wake. Their humble homes were destroyed, and countless women and children were killed in their attacks. We did not want to repeat the mistakes of the Soviets. To that end, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) published a tactical directive. The tactical directive was a document that provided guidance and intent for the employment of force. While not inhibiting a soldier’s right to self-defense, it provided guidance for shooting artillery and air-to-ground munitions from helicopters and jets. It addressed proportionality and consideration of collateral damage. It drove the methodology for our direct fire engagements, but in no way did the tactical directive avert inconsiderate flying in the midst of people who were previously terrorized by Russian helicopters. That would require education and understanding on our part.
We made it clear to our crews that it was better to let one bad guy get away rather than shoot a missile into a building, killing the enemy, but also wounding a dozen women and children in the process. We had to know when to shoot and when to break contact with the enemy. All of these things—considerate flying, proportionality, and noise abatement—contributed positively or negatively to the counterinsurgency fight writ large.
It was a fact that our actions would have an impact on the local populace. What we had to do was to make choices that would minimize the negative impacts. It was critical that all of our crews had a firm understanding of the overall counterinsurgency strategy, and that we operated within the intent of that strategy. Being careless in the air could destroy any progress made on the ground in a matter of seconds. We felt that our pilots would make better decisions if they at least had a base understanding of the culture and tribes in Afghanistan.
There were numerous tribes throughout Afghanistan, including: Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Aimaq, Turkmen, Baloch, and Nuristani, to name only the largest tribes. The majority of the people in our area of operations were the Nuristanis and the Pashtuns. Pashtunwali would play a large role in how the Pashtun tribes in our area would react to our operations. Pashtunwali is an “alternative form of social organization,”1 that is to say, the “keystone of the Pashtuns’ identity and social structure, and it shapes all forms of behavior from the cradle to the grave.”2 It is a very powerful, self-enforcing code that is so religiously adhered to that, once truly understood by our soldiers, it enabled us to be predictive in our operations.
For example, when the local leaders invited us into their village or agreed to a meeting, we could rest assured that our forces would not be attacked while in the village. Hospitality, even to the enemy, was a social requirement. That did not mean that enemy forces, including men from the very village we were visiting, would not position themselves to ambush our soldiers as they departed the village. In fact that was normally the case, but they would not attack us in the village—a custom that had not changed since at least the 1830s. In his account of Sale’s Brigade in Afghanistan, Chaplain G. R. Gleig noted, “If you throw yourself upon them in their own homes, you may almost always assure yourself of protection; but it does not by any means follow that, having escorted you to the extreme limits of their territory, and seen you fairly across the line, they shall not fall upon you in the next minute and plunder you of every article of value that you possess.”3
Or in our case ambush or blow us up.
This knowledge enabled us to focus our attack helicopters on the areas where our forces would most likely be attacked as they departed the villages. As ground force commanders met with locals inside the village, our helicopters paid close attention to signal intercepts and searched for potential enemy activity in the terrain that the enemy would most likely use to try and attack our soldiers as they departed. It also enabled us to conduct refuel operations and team sequencing, which ensured that our air assets were at the right place with a full load of ammunition and fuel when enemy contact was most likely to occur.
Another important element of the Pashtun code is vengeance. Revenge for the killing of an Afghan is essential. Even Afghan mothers will insist that their children avenge their fathers if they are murdered. “Hence revenge becomes, among the Afghans, a point of honour which no man may waive except with disgrace.”4 Failure to avenge a family member can result in being cast out from the village—a shameful penalty. To lose one’s honor is a disgrace. A family without honor is “unable to compete for advantageous marriages or economic opportunities, and is shunned by the other families as a disgrace to the clan.”5 This knowledge helped us educate our crews about the significance of collateral damage. We could not afford to inflict civilian casualties on the battlefield, even if it meant letting an enemy fighter escape into a village.
The greater question was how we could apply the counterinsurgency tenets of clear-hold-build in Afghanistan. The terrain made engaging the local populace painfully difficult. First, there were no roads to the remote mountain villages, only trails. Access to the villages would, in the remote mountains and valleys, require either an air assault to access them, which we could not feasibly accomplish on a daily basis, or dismounting our vehicles and walking in. The latter forced our ground forces to assume unreasonable risk since most foot marches took all day and the enemy would certainly attack our forces from the dominant high ground as they moved back to their vehicles.
Second, the population in N2KL, outside of the major river valleys such as the Kunar, was dispersed across a very large area. Villages literally dotted every remote ridge, mountain, and valley in our area of operations. It was nearly impossible for us to interact with them on a regular basis, much less live among them as we had in Iraq. As we would later see, it was all too easy for the local insurgent leaders to order their fighters to observe our movements into local villages and then attack us all the way back to our bases. Furthermore, the enemy could move through the villages and influence the Afghans without us being able to interdict their actions.
Finally, we did not have the troop strength or an adequate number of helicopters to live among the populace. Unlike Iraq, where established road systems gave access to large population bases, Afghanistan was difficult to navigate. If effective counterinsurgency meant routine contact with the local populace and earning their trust, I did not see how we could do it outside of the major cities—not with the troop strength we had. I certainly didn’t have the answers, but I knew that it was critical that we, as an aviation force, avoid negatively affecting the hard-earned progress made by our brothers and sisters on the ground. We had to enhance their operations on the ground and protect them from the enemy when necessary, and it would require discipline in our cockpits.
We made several decisions with regard to tactics before deploying to Afghanistan. We decided to fly transient flights at altitude (1,500 to 2,000 feet above ground level) in order to mitigate the effectiveness of small-arms and RPG attacks on our aircraft. We flew low to the ground only when landing, or when our Kiowas and Apaches were conducting reconnaissance operations.
Since we were task organized with both Apaches and Kiowas in Pale Horse, we trained to conduct team “pure” missions (two Kiowas or two Apaches) and mixed teaming (one Kiowa and one Apache), which we called “Pink Teams.” This was a throwback to the days of Kiowas and AH-1 Cobras. The scout (Kiowa) would conduct reconnaissance and the gun (Cobra) would do the shooting. It was a very effective way to operate; however, I found that using a “high team” of two Apaches and a “low team” of two Kiowas together worked best for us in N2KL. Our Apaches were equipped with the newly fielded Modernized Target Acquisition Designation Sight (M-TADS). The resolution of the new sight gave the pilots incredible visual fidelity. In order to maximize the sight during deliberate air assault missions, we generally put the Apaches at a higher altitude and tasked them to maintain contact with any suspected enemy fleeing the objective. We also tasked them to isolate the target areas, thus ensuring that no enemy reinforcements showed up unexpectedly. Due to the high elevation of the terrain in RC-East this often put the Apaches at ten thousand feet or higher.
We used the Kiowa team in close, over the objective. They flew directly over the ground forces as they performed their mission. A Pink Team concept would have forced the Apache to cover his wingman (the Kiowa over the objective), thus preventing the Apache from being able to utilize his sight to its full potential. Having a team of Kiowas gave the ground forces a sense of security in a close fight and early warning from the Apaches, which closely observed all of the terrain surrounding the objective. It was the best of both worlds. If the Kiowas made contact they could engage with their own weapon systems or, preferably, conduct a target handover with the Apache team.
One of the things we didn’t rehearse prior to arriving in RC-East was how to operate with an extremely dispersed ground force. Back at Fort Campbell we were able to pick the entire ground force up at a single pickup zone and then fly to the objective. But due to the ground force’s geographically dispersed basing in Afghanistan, they could not assemble at one location, nor could all the forces come from a single outpost. Many combat outposts housed a large platoon or small company (eighty personnel). They had to maintain a minimum force at the outpost in order to protect themselves, should they be attacked while a large portion of their men were executing operations away from the base. Also, because they conducted daily patrols in the countryside, it was common for the staff or select individuals to plan an entire operation for their company. They would brief the leaders on the plan and we would fly to their location for a rehearsal. Again, due to dispersion, we often picked up numerous elements from several outposts before finally flying to the objective to conduct a mission.
Initially, the aforementioned process seemed cumbersome, with the planning and rehearsing being less than ideal; but after a few iterations we established a comfortable routine. The key to success was that we reached out with our planners and did as much of the work as possible for our ground brethren. We had the luxury of living on an airfield with a large force of soldiers securing us. We had time and manpower to plan. We also had helicopters, which made mobility easy. We commonly flew one of our planners out to COPs to plan with the infantry. The relationships we built with our brothers on the ground were absolutely critical to our success on the battlefield.
The one thing I knew for certain was that I didn’t have all the answers to the tactical problems we would face in Afghanistan. I desperately desired to create a climate where everyone felt free to think creatively. For the team to be successful we needed problem solvers, soldiers who were constantly coming up with new and innovative ways of doing things better, smarter. They had to feel free to live in a world with fewer fences, run free like a horse in the open prairie, in a time before barbwire. When they encountered the occasional fence I wanted them to press against it. I was ever-mindful that it was my responsibility to serve as the governor of the engine I was creating, but I was careful not to let them feel the bits in their mouths unless the reins were in my hands.
* * *
I was reminded of my first National Training Center rotation as a second lieutenant and how that experience shaped my approach to creative problem-solving for years to come. I had been sent to a cavalry troop just weeks prior to our rotation. I was excited to get to play war against a living, breathing opposing enemy force—the Crasnovians, as we called them, an army built around the Soviet doctrine.
I had not yet taken over as the scout platoon leader, so I served as the troop executive officer for that particular rotation. I was amazed that we applied our army doctrine, and the Crasnovians applied Soviet doctrine, yet they kicked the living crap out of us every day. The Crasnovians were just another army unit that used Soviet weaponry and played the role of trainer for our units, but they were excellent at what they did.
Each day they would punch a hole in our lines, then race to our command posts and logistics support bases. By noon the Crasnovians were driving victory laps around our tactical operations centers, and helicopters littered the battlefield—victims of their surface-to-air weapon systems.
To make matters worse, the Crasnovians were horrible sports. Back then we set up tactical assembly areas. Our perimeter was about a half a mile across. The troops formed a circle, and the squadron headquarters was set up in the command post in the center. To communicate with the command post we used TA-312 radios. The squadron ran a switchboard. The troops had to run wire from their troop command post to the squadron command post in order to connect to the switch.
When you wanted to talk you cranked the dial sending electricity through the wire to the switchboard. The electricity lit up a light and buzzed the switchboard operator. He’d pick up and ask who you wanted to talk to. Then he’d connect you, physically, by wire.
Laying wire was laborious, and we only had a limited supply. When the Crasnovians penetrated our perimeter their favorite little trick was to drive their tracked vehicles in a circle around our command post, cutting all of our wire, a subtle way of shooting us the bird. Yet the next day we would valiantly repeat the same thing all over again. I recall thinking, isn’t this Einstein’s definition of insanity? We do the same thing over and over, yet expect a different result.
After we returned home from that humbling experience I spoke to my troop commander, a larger-than-life Texan named Karl Kearney, who was an incredible leader and athlete. Karl was well known throughout the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment as a charismatic team builder who was once the quarterback at Oklahoma Panhandle State University. Possessing a cannon for an arm, he was the natural choice as the quarterback and captain of our officer football team for the annual Regimental Turkey Bowl.
Karl Kearney was a winner. It didn’t matter what the challenge was, he was as serious as a heart attack on Sunday morning about winning. I told him that in order to figure out how to win next fall at the National Training Center we had to be creative, find a way to gain an advantage. Each month a new unit arrived in town to play on the Crasnovians’ home turf, and every month the visitor received a thorough butt kicking. The Crasnovians knew every goat trail, hiding place, and secret path on the battlefield. We had to find a way to level the playing field. Karl and I brainstormed for weeks, and one day one of us, I do not recall which, came up with an idea.
We decided to buy forty power telescopes. We could land our helicopters on the mountaintops, where ground forces could not get to us and they could not shoot us down. The scopes would allow us to spot the enemy and call for artillery on them.
We flew with enlisted aerial observers back then. I was flying with Staff Sergeant Henson. As soon as the observer controllers said we could begin movement Staff Sergeant Henson and I flew forward, under the cover of darkness, and landed just on the back side of a mountain peak overlooking the enormous valley known as the central corridor. Staff Sergeant Henson and I shut the helicopter down, set up our FM radio, and called our squadron headquarters to tell them we were in position. I couldn’t wait for the enemy to arrive.
As the sun rose we had a perfect view of the entire central corridor. We would be able to see the Crasnovian tanks and armored personnel carriers as soon as they began to move into the valley, and that’s exactly what happened. Just after daylight we began to see them line up to move forward. Staff Sergeant Henson and I reported everything we saw. Our ground forces knew exactly where the enemy was and how many vehicles were coming. From our vantage point we could literally read the bumper numbers on the vehicles.
There was a narrow gap, a pass, which the enemy would have to travel through. We knew that if we destroyed their vehicles at that location it would take them a while to figure out a way to get through the pass. While they were trying to figure it out, we would rain steel down on them from above.
We called for artillery and began to pound them. We called artillery on every formation that tried to move forward that morning and reported their every move to our squadron headquarters. We had perfect situational awareness. Sergeant Henson and I were as giddy as schoolkids.
I had not flown more than fifteen minutes in my helicopter that morning, but I had found a way to win, and that is exactly what I wanted in Pale Horse.