Not a Good Day to Die (62 page)

Don and Brian were multitasking: covering the left side of the aircraft, occasionally firing when enemy fighters showed themselves, helping the medics and collecting ammo from the wounded and the dead. The two aviators piled most of the ammo by the ramp, but on several occasions they ran through the snow across the open ground ferrying belts of 7.62mm rounds from the miniguns to the Rangers, who needed it for the 240. “We tried to free up the Rangers to do other things,” Don said. He also tried to raise help using the PRC-112 survival radios, but with no success. After trying several, he threw one to the floor. “What’s the point of carrying these things if they don’t work?” he asked angrily.

INSIDE
the helicopter Cory had set up a casualty collection point, where he treated the wounded with Miller and Cunningham, the two PJs. Shawn, the right rear crew chief who hurt his knee in the hard landing, also stayed inside to help the medics. It wasn’t a perfect location to be making life-and-death medical decisions. The enemy in the bunker under the tree could see through the right door into the helicopter and would shoot anytime they noticed movement inside. But if the men inside stayed less than two feet off the floor, the armor protection provided by the bulletproof fuel tanks on either side of the Chinook meant they were safe.

Cory, a veteran of the 1989 invasion of Panama and the 1991 Gulf War, was in his element working on the casualties. But the small fire burning had now ignited some of the rucksacks. Cory had to decide whether to stand up and risk getting shot in order to put the fire out, or just let it burn. Shawn tossed him a fire extinguisher and Cory stood up quickly and put out the fire without incident, much to his relief. He told Cunningham to start an IV on Greg, but Greg had lost so much blood that Cunningham had a hard time finding a vein. After several unsuccessful attempts, Cory took over and got it done.

Greg and Cory discussed the tactical situation, and in particular, whether they should leave the aircraft. Greg’s first suggestion was to get out of the helicopter. Anytime anyone moved or poked their head up, a burst of fire would come in. But no one was getting hit. The self-sealing fuel tanks protected them. Greg began to feel fuzzy and get tunnel vision as he fought to stay awake. Cory decided to stay in the helicopter for now.

The flight medic told Dave he was going to put a splint on his leg. “This is going to hurt,” he said to the crew chief. It did hurt, so much so that Dave asked for morphine. “No, not at this altitude,” Cory told him. “It’d slow your heart rate.” After they splinted his leg Cory and Cunningham put Dave on a Skedco. By now Greg was lapsing in and out of consciousness. Cory took one of the helicopter’s portable oxygen systems and put the mask over Greg’s mouth to keep him awake. Greg went into shock several times. On each occasion Cory’s response was cool, calm, and professional. “He’s the reason Greg is alive,” Don said.

HAVING
staved off the immediate threat of the RPG gunner, Self began to worry about having his tiny force outflanked. Gilliam was focused on the tree bunker. DePouli was watching the right flank. Miceli had taken up position with Totten-Lancaster’s SAW about thirty meters behind him and was covering the entire rear area. Self, Walker, Vance, and Totten-Lancaster covered the helicopter’s frontal arc. Don and Chuck (until he was moved inside) watched the left flank. Self also was getting word from Cory and the PJs that they needed to get the casualties medevaced as soon as possible.

After the enemy fighters on the left and right high ground had been killed in the battle’s opening minutes, the only fire the Americans were taking came from the bunker under the tree (which soon became known as “the Bonsai tree”). The Al Qaida fighters would emerge from behind the tree, fire off an AK burst or hurl a grenade, and then pop back down. The Rangers behind the boulder with Self were protected from any direct fire unless they raised their heads to shoot. The enemy hurled grenades at them, but they all landed in the snow with a pathetic
poof.
Some Rangers carried their own grenades, but every time they tried to throw one up the hill at the bunker, it landed short. Walker’s 203 seemed a more logical weapon in that situation, and he fired grenade after grenade up at the bunker, trying—often successfully—to detonate the grenade off the tree so that the shrapnel blew down onto the enemy position. Usually DePouli’s squad carried bazookalike AT-4s, but they’d forgotten them on this occasion. Self cursed himself for neglecting to check for them on the tarmac at Bagram, but he knew that the upward angle of fire would have made it almost impossible to employ them from their current position.

Self thought that if he could just suppress the enemy’s Bonsai tree position, perhaps with close air support, he and the other healthy Rangers could assault it, seize the hilltop, and then Razor 02 could come and pick them up. Although he had feared from the start of the fight that they wouldn’t be able to leave until night fell, he was coming under pressure from the medical personnel to bring a medevac in for the wounded.

Normally Vance would be trying to arrange close air support and talk to higher headquarters. But Vance had left his radio in his rucksack sitting in the snow beside the ramp. Even if he’d had it with him, it would have taken time to attach the satellite aerial and then figure out the correct azimuth in which to point it. “That wasn’t gonna happen anytime soon,” Self said. Anyway, with so few able-bodied men, Self felt he needed Vance’s help in holding off the enemy. As he had planned in Bagram, the captain used Gabe Brown, the Air Force combat controller, as his RTO and to call in close air support. Brown was sheltering behind a rock in a tiny, shallow depression twenty meters behind Self’s position. Self and one or two of the other Rangers yelled back at him to get on the radio and see what planes were available. Oddly, the Rangers had somehow gotten the impression that Brown’s first name was Jeremy, and that is what they called him until, about an hour and a half into the fight, between radio calls he told them, “That mission’ll be here in about five minutes, and oh, by the way, my name is Gabe.”

For this first mission of the day, a pair of F-15Es was inbound. Brown asked Self whether he wanted them to strafe the enemy position with their cannons or to drop bombs on it. Vance and Self talked. Vance yelled down to Brown to tell the planes to only use their cannons. It was just before 7 a.m. when the first F-15E came in on a dry run, popping flares. Vance, the more experienced coordinator of close air support, didn’t like the angle of approach and told the pilots to adjust it. They zoomed in on another dry run. “That’s good,” Vance said. “Bring them in, guns hot.” Every American put his head down. The jets swooped down firing their 20mm cannon into the tree position. To Don it sounded like someone stepping on bubble wrap. The tree branches flew apart. The planes went around and rolled back in. Somewhere an enemy antiaircraft gun opened up, and black clouds burst behind the jets. The gun run was accurate. The tree top was shredded. But after a couple of passes, the Strike Eagles were out of ammo. They tried to persuade the Americans on the mountain to allow them to drop JDAMs, but Self resisted. His impression was that fast-movers were always trying to “push” JDAMs on their close air support customers, but he wasn’t ready to take that risk just yet. Sitting about sixty meters from where the bombs would land, his position just about defined “danger close.”

THE
Americans on the mountaintop were fighting for their lives, and dying, in large part because their satellite communications had let them down when they needed it most. Commo problems continued to hamper them throughout the day. Brown was having no luck on the frequencies TF 11 should have been monitoring. He tried using his own call sign—Slick 01—as well as those of Vance and Self. No one in TF 11 answered him, except for Juliet, the one AFO team left in the valley from the original three that had trekked in. From their OP Juliet had an excellent view of Takur Ghar. They told Self that they could see several enemy fighters milling on the back side of the mountain (i.e., just below and behind the bunker).

When Razor 02 landed at Gardez at 6:25 a.m., Canon went up to the cockpit to talk to the pilots. They told him they were awaiting instructions from higher headquarters. As calmly as he could, the NCO explained that his chalk accounted for half of the QRF, and the other half needed them to get back to the valley as soon as possible. Canon went back to the rear to tell the others what was happening, at which point Vic Hyder walked up. “Hey, I’m Vic Hyder,” he told Canon. “Those are my guys out there.” Together the SEAL and the Ranger NCO went forward to talk to the pilots. The aviators had a new set of grid coordinates for an offset LZ on the slopes of Takur Ghar and were cleared to return to the Shahikot. They also told Canon that Razor 01 had been shot down on its LZ and there were casualties. At 7 a.m. Razor 02 took off. The men oiled their weapons and got their game faces on. Halfway to the mountain Mako 30 called on UHF and told the aircrew the LZ was hot, a bombing run was beginning (the first F-15E dry run) and that Razor 02 needed to hold off. They flew to an adjacent valley and waited for the Strike Eagles to finish their gun runs. Then Mako 30 called back and vectored them in to an LZ close to the SEAL team. As they approached the LZ, together the Rangers in the back recited the Ranger Creed.

The landing was unopposed. The Rangers poured out of the back and assumed a security perimeter while the helicopter lifted off. Canon was pleased to find the snow hard-packed and firm underfoot.
This isn’t gonna be that bad,
he thought, pulling out his compass, his GPS and his map to figure out exactly where he was. The NCO could hear Self and DePouli talking on the platoon radio net. He grabbed his MBITR and told the captain he was on the ground. But he still didn’t grasp the scale of the mountain or the magnitude of the task ahead of him. Hyder pointed to where Mako 30 was sheltering several hundred meters away. “Let’s go over and get my guys and then we’ll go to the top.” Canon, who could hear the sound of automatic weapons fire from the valley, spoke to Self. “I’ve got Vic Hyder with me,” he said. “He wants us to go exfil his guys.” Self wasn’t surprised to hear that Hyder was with Chalk 2, but he was infuriated that the SEAL officer was trying to take the Ranger reinforcements away from the battle. “No, I need you up here,” Self told Canon. “He can go and get with his guys, they’re not in contact. We are in contact and have casualties. You’re coming here.” Canon told Hyder he was taking the Rangers up the mountain. The SEAL officer later said his impression was that the Rangers on the top of the mountain “had their situation under control” and that the “immediate need” was to assist the two badly wounded SEALs. He struck out alone in Mako 30’s direction. The spectacle of the senior ranking officer on the mountain—and a special mission unit member at that—not heading to the sound of the guns himself did not disappoint Self as much as might have been expected. “I didn’t want him to come up,” Self said, explaining that he thought a SEAL officer showing up in a Ranger gunfight might just have confused the situation. “They’re Navy. They do things differently. We knew that from working with them previously.”

With Hyder out of the picture Self and Canon spoke again. Self thought Chalk 2 had landed just southwest of the mountaintop. He told Canon that they should just assault up the mountaintop and through the bunker position while the men from Razor 01 suppressed the enemy. “You can just wipe right through them and we’ll be done,” he told Canon. He fired a star cluster to give Canon a fix on his position. Canon couldn’t see it. Only then did they realize Canon had landed much farther east, away from the mountaintop. Self told Canon to move south to a draw, and then walk up the draw toward the top, meaning Chalk 2 should crest the mountain immediately behind the Ranger position. The captain asked Canon how long he estimated it would take Chalk 2 to hike up the mountain. About forty-five minutes, Canon said.

WHILE
he waited for Chalk 2, Self opted to just keep his men pulling security and not try any more gun runs from the fast-movers. They weren’t worth the risk, now that reinforcements were on the way, the captain reckoned. But his men were still taking sporadic fire from at least one enemy fighter under the Bonsai tree. Then mortar fire started raining in on them from the higher reaches of the mountains on the eastern side of the Upper Shahikot Valley, about 3,000 or 4,000 meters to the east. “Here we are on the side of a snowy mountain with a big, huge black helicopter on it—it’s kind of an easy target,” Self said later. The first mortar salvo landed about fifty meters off the nose of the helicopter, which was tremendously accurate for a first round. (The Al Qaida gunners clearly were not too worried about the risk of fratricide.) The next set landed behind the Rangers, farther down the mountain. The enemy had them bracketed. Self worried these opening salvos would be followed by rounds falling in between where the first two had landed; in other words, right on his men.
We’re in trouble,
he thought. He began to get extremely impatient about getting his men off the side of the mountain.
The enemy might be firing these mortars in preparation for an assault,
he thought. He had been on the ground less than two and a half hours.