4 March
LATE AFTERNOON
Combat Controller Jeff George had just arrived in Bagram at the TF-Blue JOC. He and his SEAL troop had finished conducting blocking point operations and were standing by as additional QRF in support of other operations underway in Kandahar, several hundred miles to the south. The missions weren’t particularly fruitful, and the men had returned to base looking for more work.
As he rolled into the SEAL operations center on 4 March, it was clear something big was going down. Outside, Captain Kernan, the SEAL Team Six commander, was on an Iridium satellite phone talking with Vic, who was by then on the lower slopes of Takur Ghar with Slab and the other surviving members of Mako-30. “You could see the stress he was under in his face and posture. He was clearly out of his element but trying to make sound decisions. The guy was maxed out,” Jeff recalls.
Inside was charged pandemonium. Brigadier General Trebon was technically in charge, but the TF-Blue TOC was wholly a SEAL Team Six affair. It was the general’s presence that made it a higher headquarters—TF-11, but the SEALs were running the show.
Jeff and his teammates were put on notice for the possibility of being the QRF to the QRF on Takur Ghar. He recalls, “We’re waiting for word that we’re going to go or for the situation to sort itself out. As the day went on, information began to trickle in. Then word comes that there’s casualties and some KIAs, but we’re not going anywhere.”
He wandered in and out of the TF-Blue TOC as day turned to dusk and then into evening. “Meanwhile, we’re waiting for helos to bring the guys back.” Finally, word came that the first helo was inbound. Jeff was helping with the transloading of wounded when the second helicopter landed carrying Gabe and the bodies of those killed in action. The deceased were collected by some of the 24 and 23rd STS PJs in Bagram for forward movement to Germany and then Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, where all KIA US service members are received and prepped before being released to their families.
Ross, one of the SEALs and a friend of Jeff’s from mobility troop, approached the twenty-seven-year-old Controller and cut right to the heart of the matter. “Sorry, man. Chappy’s one of the guys.”
“I was the first Air Force guy to learn,” he recalls of hearing about his friend and fellow 24 CCT. Shortly afterward, the Rangers were looking for someone from the 24. Jeff was the only one nearby when one asked him, “Who’s taking care of this?” The Ranger was holding a green aviator’s kit bag, the ubiquitous military two-foot-square canvas carryall, which held all of Chapman’s gear. Everything had been stripped from his body by medical personnel, with the exception of his uniform. Jeff took the kit bag and headed toward the 24 “hooch” area, where John’s cot and personal items remained, just as he’d left them forty-eight hours before. Unlike most operators’ living areas, Chapman’s—a cot with a low row of unfinished wood shelves and a small card table for a nightstand/desk—was neatly arranged. On the stand were several pictures of Madison and Brianna.
Inside the bag, Jeff looked at the final artifacts of the Controller’s life. His weapon, which had absorbed multiple rounds, was junked. His Rhodesian vest was shredded, clear signs of struggle, and was covered in blood. Inside the vest was a full magazine, useless. It had been shot through by one of the AK rounds that killed or wounded his friend. He set the bag down with the rest of his friend’s belongings and, with nothing more to do, left the muddied and bloodied vestiges of John Chapman, the photos of his daughters standing sentinel over them.
* * *
At home in North Carolina, Valerie and John’s tiny sentinels are settling in for the evening on 5 March. Outside, she checks her mailbox and encounters her neighbors, Laverne and Roger. “They were this older couple, a sort of mom and pop we were very close to, and Laverne said, ‘You have this different aura about you,’ and I’m thinking, Okay, not sure what that means. But I didn’t feel anything was ‘different.’” Infinitely practical and not prone to superstition, she bids farewell and sets about her evening. The nearly complete family has an ordinary dinner, and by 9:00 p.m. the girls are in bed, when the doorbell rings. Both of them, excited by the distraction and the possibility of putting sleep off a bit, rush to the door, shouting, “Who’s that?”
“Daddy’s friends,” calls their mother, stepping in from another room. But Valerie can see blue uniforms through the sidelight window, and she knows what’s coming. “Go back to bed, girls,” she tells them, and the two scamper off in knee-length nightgowns, trailing blond and brown curls.
At the door, she braces herself, opens it, and steps outside so the girls won’t hear. On the doorstep stood Lieutenant Colonel Ken Rodriguez, the 24 commander, Master Sergeant Kenny Longfritz, the unit’s first sergeant (whose job is the welfare of and assistance to unit members and their families), and an Air Force chaplain.
“Please tell me he’s just hurt badly,” she implores. But Rodriguez shakes his head and asks if they can come inside. Valerie tells them to wait on the porch while she calls the neighbor to have them collect the girls first. They stand uncomfortably over the prolonging of their grim task.
When the girls had been spirited away, the three men step inside and everyone sits down. Without preamble, Rodriguez speaks the words every wife dreads: “Valerie, I’m sorry, John’s been killed in combat.” This is not the Air Force–approved script, which is explicit in its delivery and simplicity, but on the way to the house, Rodriguez had been hit by a realization that directed how he would proceed. “This news was going to change the lives of all three girls irrevocably, and the process, starting with the news, was about helping Val and the girls as best I can…if at all. The last thing I was going to do was deliver some bureaucratic bullshit.”
Sitting on her couch, leaning toward Rodriguez and looking directly at him, she asks, “What happened? I want to know.” She knows his answer will avow that life as she knows it is over…forever.
Rodriguez, a deeply religious and emotional man, said, “I’ll tell you everything I know, including classified information. What I know so far is John’s actions were very selfless and likely saved the lives of members of his team,” and went on to recount what he knew at the time, which wasn’t everything—not yet.
Valerie, alone in her own home with three messengers of death, absorbs the information and asks a few more questions as they wait for another member of the 24 to arrive. Alex Johns was John’s friend and fellow Controller, and would serve as Valerie’s family liaison officer, whose job was to see to the widow’s needs throughout the repatriation, funeral, and subsequent memorials. Alex would virtually live with Valerie and the girls for the next few weeks, only going home for the occasional shower and change of clothes.
Before Rodriguez and Longfritz depart, the commander asks, “Is it okay if we pray together?” The compassionate gesture is completely outside notification protocol, but in that moment and without reservation, Rodriguez felt it was exactly what to do. His instincts proved correct when the two of them, one burdened with immense loss, the other with the obligation to deliver the message, dropped to their knees in prayer. In that moment, Valerie and Rodriguez, two people, relative strangers bonded by death, began an unlikely and lifelong friendship.
* * *
Back in Bagram, Gabe Brown arrived at the 23rd STS area on a different part of the former Soviet airbase from the 24 and TF-Blue forces. His first thought was to place a call to his wife, Gloria. “It was a quick call. I told her I was in a series of bad situations that were significant events for me, but that I was okay,” he recalls with understatement. His deployed commander, Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Pihana, managed to produce a bottle of whiskey and waited to have shots with Gabe and Keary. Gabe did a single shot and went to bed, exhausted. The next day, he recalled a conversation he’d had with Jason Cunningham in the week leading up to Takur Ghar. “We were walking, bored one day, throwing rocks toward this minefield and joking about how maybe we could set one off,” when the PJ mentioned, almost in passing, “My daughter [four-year-old Kyla] had a dream and told me, ‘Daddy, Daddy, you’re going to get shot and die.’” Even as Cunningham lay bleeding out and dying, Gabe recalls, “I still believed he’d pull through. I’m a hopelessly optimistic guy.” The entire experience—the mission, Jason’s death, and his little girl’s dream—left Gabe feeling “ready to go home and see my family. I’d had a part to play; did it well. Could have done better. But feel I was the right guy at the right time. I was glad I was there. It all goes back to how I grew up and became a part of this thing [CCT].”
Operation Anaconda was considered to be a failure by most measures. No fleeing masses of Al Qaeda fighters were smashed by the hammer of Commander Zia’s ATF against the 10th Mountain and 101st Airborne anvil. For the men of AFO, though, it was a solid success. In the end, they were responsible for the majority of the killing. The Pentagon estimated the number of enemy killed was upwards of 800. This figure is almost certainly spurious. Based on captured documents, enemy intercepts, and physical evidence, a more likely figure is between 150 and 300. In General Trebon’s estimation, the thirteen men of Blaber’s AFO were responsible for 60 percent of enemy casualties, but the TF-11 commander’s estimation leaves out an important calculus: The vast majority of those enemy numbers can be attributed to five men—Jay Hill, Andy Martin, and, once the battle for the summit of Takur Ghar is included, Jim Hotaling, Gabe Brown, and John Chapman.
The travesty at the end of the operation is the loss of the seven men on Takur Ghar. Those deaths—SEAL Neil Roberts, CCT John Chapman, PJ Jason Cunningham, air crewman Phil Svitak, and the three Rangers, Marc Anderson, Bradley Crose, and Matthew Commons—do not lie at the feet of Delta’s Pete Blaber and AFO, but the leaders of SEAL Team Six, specifically Joe Kernan and Tim Szymanski, and their rush to push men into the battle and take over operations from Blaber. But to Blaber, Vic (the SEAL officer in Gardez) abandoning the safe house without coordinating was tantamount to dereliction, and the confusion it caused on the mountain directly resulted in Jason Cunningham’s death.
But the losses to Al Qaeda were also significant. There is strong evidence that al-Zawahiri, the number-two AQ leader, was present in the valley, perhaps even wounded with a head injury, but escaped. Tohir Yuldashev, leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, also escaped. One other was not so lucky: Saif-ur-Rahman Mansoor, the symbolic guidon–wielding fighter who led his men bravely from the front, was killed. Their failed last effort to stand ground and combat the allied troops en masse did cause an exodus, though the allied victory may have been pyrrhic. Many would return in future battles in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
* * *
From the enemy:
We begged our commander, Saif-ur-Rahman Mansoor, to allow the brothers to leave the valley. This was the way of the Mujahideen, move away from an enemy that outnumbers and possesses superior weapons. We had no water, my mouth was bleeding, and the sores prevented me from eating my bread. All the Uzbeks were now martyred; the Afghans were all gone.
Then I received word that our commander was martyred and I began to cry. We tried to get to his body to carry him away but the bombs were too many and the enemy were now everywhere.
I asked all our brothers to retreat, except the ones manning the PK machine gun and RPG-7 rocket launcher. Brother Abu Talib As-Saudi insisted upon staying and said to me, “I feel ashamed in front of Allah to retreat from the Americans.” Due to the heavy bombardment, a large portion of his head was missing, but he joined us as we began our retreat.
The brothers all dispersed in different directions. I traveled with ten Arab brothers. Due to the increased numbers of Coalition forces blocking the area, as well as the aerial channels the enemy had, we were forced to travel for three days and nights in conditions that were extremely harsh. We had nothing to eat with us, except a case of green tea and a pot in which to boil snow. After this long journey, enduring the cold and the snow, and traveling over mountain peaks and through valleys, we finally reached a village where we received a great welcome, such that it made us forget all that we had suffered and endured, and All Praise belongs to Allah Alone.
Mansoor was killed by Jay Hill in a B-1 bomb strike. J Team had watched the leader through their optics. Recalls Kris, “He was short (5′4″–5′8″), stocky-strong, wore a medium length beard, black hair, carried the banner/flag when it was taken down, and gave hand and arm signals. [Jay] was finally handed a B-1 and ordered a bomb box with 6 JDAMs set on airburst. The bombs scored one direct hit, one near direct hit.” They watched the site for signs of follow-up activity, and the next day, “seven enemy in white turbans moved to the destroyed fighting positions and attempted to remove the leader from the wreckage.”
AFO had accomplished its mission better than anyone could have expected. For Blaber, it was validation of his method, his men, and their mission. Andy Martin and Mako-31 had slipped out, passing through friendly 10th Mountain force lines and back to Gardez at the very time Chapman was fighting for his life. They woke the next morning to the news of Chapman’s and Roberts’s deaths.
Two days later, J Team crept off the mountain to end its mission. Jay had called in his last airstrike only an hour or so before they mounted their trusty ATVs and started down the mountainside, now purged of Al Qaeda. Along the way the team paused to examine the cave complex they’d bombed the first morning, from which the Al Qaeda fighters nearly ambushed them. They found two Soviet D-30 artillery pieces, a destroyed 37mm antiaircraft gun, and fire pits inside the surrounding buildings, which were accented with planted trees and rock curbs along the road—signs of a senior AQ leader. In the buildings, they found discarded sleeping bags, fruit juice boxes with Arabic writing, and well-established fighting positions surrounding the compound. Tire tracks led away from the complex, heading east…toward Pakistan.
Having witnessed some of the near-fratricide incidents firsthand, they left in daylight so as to pass through the 101st lines before dark. Jay had secured a P-3 escort, just in case. After dark and their safe passage through friendly lines, they were met by two MH-47s. The exhausted men sat silently on their ATVs, watching the helicopters as they made their way across the valley toward their extraction HLZ. The team loaded onto the helicopters, blades spinning, and were carried above the devastation they’d wrought throughout the valley. They could see the destruction on the features below as they passed on their way back to Gardez, the last of the original AFO teams. All of J Team faced the risks and challenges of Blaber’s AFO missions, but only one carried the burden of precision and “no fail” aspects of the destruction of the enemy they faced—Jay Hill, the lone Combat Controller.
For Combat Control, Anaconda exemplified the maturation of a nearly forty-year evolution beginning in the jungles of Laos. Without direction or pre-planning, individual Controllers, some of whom didn’t even know one another, established a self-organizing and -directing network that destroyed the most organized and effective force Al Qaeda and the Taliban would ever muster on a field of battle. In all, there were fourteen CCT involved in the operation.
Of the role of CCT in Anaconda and elsewhere, Jay Hill states, “We [Combat Controllers] were the most technically savvy guys out there. We pull our experience from the best in the world: Aussie SAS, British SBS, Delta, ST6, all of them. Nobody else, nobody [emphasis added], has that exposure and experience. None of the units we work with work with each other like that, aside from an occasional bilateral op [operation]. Sometimes, when you raise your hand [during operational briefings], younger SEALs or Delta operators roll their eyes, ‘What’s the Air Force guy got to say?’ But older guys know.”