Jerry Bradley & Kevin Maurer

by Lions of Kandahar: The Story of a Fight Against All Odds

  As the vehicles sped off, Mike focused the Spectre north of our position along the riverbed. Again, another group of about ten Taliban were trudging away. This group was moving much slower. David fired a white star cluster in their direction, and they took off in a dead sprint.

  For the next several hours, we waited for an attack that never came. We’d won without firing a shot, but watching the Taliban operate told us they could coordinate a large attack with multiple groups of fighters, something that I’d never witnessed before in my three rotations to Afghanistan.

  Finally, Reaper 21 flew on to other targets. Mike said good-bye for all of us. We all hated to hear her go. Her soothing female voice was a connection to what we all held dear. Even though we were far, far away from any ground support, we still had the full might of the United States of America at the end of our radio.

  After chasing ghosts all night, I’d finally dozed off around five a.m. I woke to the swish of Dave cleaning the dust and grime from the .50-caliber machine gun with a stiff brush. It had been another night in my seat next to the driver, handsets lying on my chest and the weight of my vest slowly crushing my sternum. I cracked my eyes open and stared at the laminated pictures of Rachel Hunter and Dana Delany taped over my seat.

  It was eight a.m. and my guys had let me sleep two extra hours, a treat not lost on me. The day was already hot and on its way into triple digits. The Afghans had put tarps up to shade their positions, which seemed unnecessary since we didn’t plan on staying. Bill was standing near his truck, and I asked him why the Afghans were dug in.

  “Bill, what’s with the tarps? When are we taking off?”

  “Ask the major,” he said, clearly not wanting to get in the middle.

  Over at their truck, Jared and Mike had the scope out, scanning the maze of villages in the valley. Jared had a shemagh headdress, the traditional scarf of the Afghans, wrapped around his head and his uniform pants on. Like the rest of us, he preferred to shed some clothing rather than invite more misery.

  “What did you find today for me to visit?” I asked Jared.

  “Nothing. Nothing is moving,” he said.

  Considering last night’s aborted attack, there must be something of interest out there. I took my turn at the scope; no movement in any direction. Not a donkey cart or Hilux truck on the road. No farmers tending the lush green fields that surrounded the mud compounds.

  I called Victor and the other interpreters, who had been dozing in the hot sun, over to Jared’s truck. “What are you hearing?” I asked them.

  “We hear nothing, Turan, everything is quiet.”

  ISAF was running behind schedule, and Jared had decided to stay another night. We could literally be in our blocking position in a hard day’s ride. The Army had trained me to do a lot, but the best thing was to teach me to appreciate the simple things: water, clean clothes, and comfortable shoes. Today was a good day, and I bowed my head to give my gratitude.

  Bill walked the perimeter to make sure the Afghans knew we planned to leave around five the next morning. We had an elaborate exit plan, and it required everybody’s attention. The Taliban knew our location, but we didn’t want them to follow us to our blocking position.

  Before dawn the next day, on cue, every driver started his truck in concert with the others, generating one undifferentiated roar that made it harder to count the total number of vehicles. The Afghan soldiers hunkered down under blankets in the truck beds. Special Forces soldiers drove using night vision. We crept slowly down the hill and into the riverbed. No one spoke either in the trucks or on the radio.

  I watched small fires we had set and left behind burn brightly in the side mirror. Flares ignited large bundles of scrub brush, wood, and boxes left behind. From across the river, it would appear there were still soldiers on the ridge, and the Taliban might choose to hit the easier target instead of a heavily armed convoy. I have no idea if the ploy worked, but we didn’t get ambushed.

  The jet blue sky was turning orange behind us and we made good time in the rocky river bottom. As we got closer to the mountains, we saw a massive caravan of jingle trucks, dusty cars, mules, buses, vans, and carts streaming out of the valley—a mass exodus of civilians from Panjwayi. It looked apocalyptic. Those without transport walked. It looked like a dark line of ants, each carrying his worldly possessions on his back or in his car toward Kandahar.

  The day before, we had learned that Asadullah Khalid, the governor of Kandahar Province, had told the citizens of Panjwayi in a series of radio messages that a massive NATO operation was coming and that all civilians should leave the area. The spectacle was staggering. These people had lived under the Taliban for months and they wanted out bad, so bad they were willing to leave crops in the field and their houses and farms unattended.

  Hodge led the convoy to the far right of the refugee caravans so as not to become engulfed in their moving quagmire. Once up into the mountain passes, I watched our vehicles peel off into their respective blocking positions. It was good to see things running as scheduled again.

  Hodge’s team set up on the northern side of our sector, on a long peanut-shaped mountain called Kheybari Ghar. My team split into two groups and occupied two narrow passes between the mountains to the south. Bruce’s team occupied a saddle between the mountains. We set up observation points and before sunset positioned the machine guns to cover the passes. That officially completed our final task for this phase of the operation. All we had to do now was keep the Taliban bottled in and send intelligence reports.

  “I’m glad this nonsense is over,” Brian said.

  “Get ready for some long, boring days,” I said, hoping and praying that the bad feeling buzzing in my head was just paranoia.

  Chapter 12

  “SHOOT INTO THE

  BUSHES, DADDY!”

  If men make war in slavish obedience to rules, they will fail.

  —ULYSSES S. GRANT

  My day started with a tug on my foot. It was Jude, waking me up for my guard shift. I hadn’t seen much of him on the road during his stint driving Jared’s truck. It was good to have him back in the fold.

  “Nothing going on out there, Captain,” he said.

  “I’ve gotta have a cup of coffee today or I’m gonna break something,” I said.

  He shrugged and handed me the night-vision goggles. Before I could get out of the truck, he had disappeared into his sleeping bag for a few hours of sleep. I opened the door and pulled a bag of ground coffee and filters from a metal box.

  It was just after four a.m., with the sun just below the horizon. While the coffee was brewing, I walked over to check on the ANA. Taz sat with his legs tucked under him, the American-made AK-47 magazine carrier I bought him on the last rotation strapped across his chest, the small squad radio at his ear. He gave me a thumbs-up and grinned.

  “Dodee wharlee, Turan?” he asked. Do you want food, Captain?

  “Walee na zma, malgaree,” I said. Why not, my friend.

  Coughing and a growl issued from a sleeping bag behind me.

  “Roostie.” Shinsha jammed a cigarette in his mouth before completely sitting up. He slapped my leg, nearly knocking it out from under me.

  “Sahar pakair, Komandan,” I said in Pashto. Good morning, Commander.

  We could still see torches flickering down in the valley as the long lines of civilians continued to flee Panjwayi. Taz and Shinsha were clearly disturbed by the refugees and the prospect of their country being torn apart, again.

  Operation Medusa was set to kick off in just a few hours, and talk soon turned to the Canadian attack. Shinsha was sure he knew how the battle would turn out.

  “This is same as with the Russies,” he said. “They attack and the Taliban will make defense and absorb attackers until they are too weak to go on.”

  “This time, though, you’re rooting for the attackers,” I teased him.

  By the time the sunrise sent streaks of brilliant gold light into the deep blue skies above the desert, I
was nearly full of tea and bread. I hope today is better than yesterday, I thought.

  A Canadian special operations unit had infiltrated onto Masum Ghar, five kilometers north of our position, under the noses of Taliban fighters during the night. We heard them on the radio for the first time that morning. Masum Ghar was the northernmost terrain feature, with commanding views of the Canadian objectives. The Canadian plan called for several days of bombing, targeted in part by the Canadian special operations team, followed by a ground attack across the Arghandab River.

  The first dull gray A-10 streaked high across the desert overhead, engines wide open. It climbed straight up for several thousand feet, banked hard left, went wings level, then dove like an arrow, belching fire. Like preying birds, bomber after bomber swooped in, pounding Taliban positions.

  I stood on the hood of Ole Girl following the aerial assault with my binoculars, my adrenaline spiking. I felt like a Spartan captain watching the Persian navy smash into the Greek coastline.

  “Ahhhhhh,” I bellowed, bringing Brian out of his sleeping bag, pistol in hand.

  “Where, where, where?” he yelled.

  “Be cool. The Canucks are crushing some nuts across the river,” I said, grinning.

  The bombardment was the “softening,” or targeting of the objectives in the valley to destroy enemy communications, command positions, defenses, and logistical sites. I had never seen this much firepower from either side in all my tours in Afghanistan. Streams of anti-aircraft fire arched into the sky, trying to clip the fighters. The lofting wave of bullets coming out of the valley was as transfixing as the arsenal going in. This was not a collection of hillbillies. These were hardcore fighters.

  Then word came that a general somewhere in the chain of command had moved up the attack without conducting a reconnaissance, or recce, of the target. Instead of following the plan, this general had received “intelligence” that the Taliban were breaking and made the change of plans to attack early. You never conduct a deliberate attack without conducting reconnaissance. It didn’t shock me, though. I am never amazed that certain generals, however far away they are, know more about the battlefield than those standing on it.

  Jared and I studied the maps and the new timeline. Brian and Dave monitored the radios and called out friendly and enemy positions to the group in order to keep everyone informed. The aerial bombardment had just begun when we heard an unusual noise. I looked at Jared.

  “What the hell is that?” I said.

  South of Masum Ghar, one of the men attached to the Canadian recce company commanded by Major Andy Lussier pointed to the sky. Andy saw it immediately: a four-engine British Nimrod on fire and trailing thick black smoke. Seconds later, the plane disappeared in a massive fireball. Not waiting for orders, Andy and his men started for the crash site. The Canadians knew the unspoken code as well as we did. Andy could not, would not let the Taliban get there first.

  The explosion reverberated deep in the ground. We felt it at our position, grabbed weapons, and scrambled to the top of the small ridge behind our vehicles. “Lord,” Dave mumbled, looking at the distant fiery debris. We said a prayer for those on board and their families.

  As we watched, the radio announced what we already knew. “All Task Force 31 units, this is a net call. We have a coalition aircraft down. Aircraft is a British Nimrod. Can anyone identify?”

  Andy’s team was having difficulty finding its way through the villages and around the irrigation ditches that crisscrossed the district. Finally, an American Apache helicopter guided the Canadians to the gruesome crash site. Parts of the aircraft were strewn everywhere across the scorched earth, but the plane had impacted with such force that there was little to recover. All fourteen British crew members died.

  That night on duty, I listened to the coalition satellite radio transmission to help pass the time. Settling into the turret, I had the radio in my ear when I heard a transmission about the Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Mullah Dadullah Lang, commander of southern Afghanistan. Both men, according to the transmission, might be in Panjwayi. If they were down there, we would dearly want to be in on their demise. After my shift I found Smitty and we spent the next few hours drilling down on our hard intelligence and educated assumptions about what we could expect to face in the valley. If there were senior-level Taliban commanders and foreign fighters in there, the resistance would be particularly stiff, Smitty insisted.

  For the moment, there was little we could do but remain on station, ready to support the Canadians.

  The next morning, our radios crackled to life. The main Canadian ground attack had started. Over the next few hours, as we listened intently, the situation deteriorated rapidly. Very soon, Charles Company was fighting for its life near Objective Rugby.

  Rugby was a small white schoolhouse in the middle of Panjwayi. The array of irrigation ditches, bisecting tree lines, and dense marijuana fields, their plants taller than a man, made the schoolhouse the natural center of the Taliban’s defense. We could see the fight from nearly a mile away. It was vicious.

  Charles Company of the Royal Canadian Regiment had come under lethal fire and taken heavy casualties almost immediately after crossing the river. General Fraser’s intelligence about a weak, broken Taliban was wrong. In minutes, several Canadian vehicles were destroyed and four soldiers dead.

  We tracked the battle on our maps from our blocking position. The concept was to keep the enemy compressed in the meat grinder. “Battle tracking” was the only way to keep up with what was going on and pass the time. It also kept us abreast of where everyone was located on the battlefield. Midway through, my interpreter, Victor, raced to me, his eyes filled with tears. He held out his radio and I tried to make sense of what I heard. Taliban soldiers screaming. Gunfire, so dominant that I guessed the fighter was holding the radio against his weapon. He said the fighters were forcing the remaining civilians who hadn’t escaped into the open courtyards and streets at gunpoint as shields against air strikes. Fighters circled above but didn’t attack. Stalemate.

  Establishing the Blocking Positions (August 31–September 1, 2006)

  Ambush at Sperwan Ghar (September 3, 2006)

  Mere spectators, we could only watch and listen to our comrades fight for their lives. After a few hours absorbing the panicked radio calls, I gazed out over Panjwayi. Dozens of thick black smoke plumes climbed into the blue sky as buildings and Canadian vehicles burned. Secondary explosions shook the ground. Each time the fighting spiked, Smitty raised his big bushy eyebrows at me as if to say, “I told you so.” The fierce resistance he had predicted earlier was playing out now in real time.

  Slowly the sun slipped below the mountains, and I thought of the Canadian soldiers, pinned down and buttoned up in their vehicles in the hellish heat, surrounded by scores of enemies, with little air cover.

  We listened as the Canadian infantry moved forward again. This time, Andy’s unit would fake an attack to the north to draw fire and Charles Company would push across the river. Artillery and 25-mm cannons signaled the push. The Taliban answered with recoilless-rifle and machine-gun fire, and we periodically heard the metallic thump of RPGs against the Canadian trucks’ armor plating. Even with superior equipment, the Canadians weren’t gaining ground. The terrain was as much the enemy as the enemy.

  Andy’s feint was dashed when we heard over the radio that an A-10 called in to engage an enemy position had strafed the Canadian forces by mistake, killing one soldier and wounding more than forty. The whole attack stopped as the Canadian forces reorganized and evacuated their wounded.

  Jared, Shinsha, and I stood over the map. The attack had to be reorganized, but quickly. “It wasn’t necessarily a bad decision—unless, of course, they wait too long,” I said to Jared.

  Several critical hours passed.

  “This is bad,” I said.

  Jared agreed. Shinsha inhaled heavily on his umpteenth cigarette, as engaged as if it were his unit in the fighting. “If they wait too long, the
Talibs will move into positions closer to the Canadians than before,” he said urgently. “It will be much more difficult to use the airplanes. The fighting will get very, very bad.”

  The whole intent of my training was to teach us always to remain two or three steps ahead and to think like an insurgent. I pulled out my notepad and started to work out the scenarios. If I was trapped what would I do? Where would I go? How could we get in there and help?

  Then I saw it. Sperwan Ghar. It wasn’t really a mountain—it was more of a tall hill surrounded by villages. It hadn’t captured our attention during planning, but now, with the battle unfolding before us, it was clear that not only was this key terrain, but based on their radio calls, the Taliban thought so too. I knew that once on top, we could call down hellish air strikes in support of the Canadian forces pushing west. I picked my words carefully as I pointed it out to Jared on the map.

  “Sir, this terrain feature could be the key to success or failure for this entire operation,” I said.

  For the next several minutes, I laid it out. Charlie Company had attacked Objective Rugby and had been repelled. The enemy’s numbers and strength were far, far greater than anyone had expected, and they were wholly committed to the fight. The Canadians had had to stop to evacuate their wounded, and their ability to use air cover was limited.

  We had just lost the initiative.

  “Look at the defense they put up against a mechanized task force,” I pressed. “This is bigger than anyone ever planned. This hill holds too much potential to either side not to own it.”

  I presented three alternatives. The first split our force between the blocking positions and the hill. The second moved our force to the top of Sperwan Ghar and used the advantages of the high ground to control the whole southern part of the valley. The last option was to stay put and take our chances.

  Slowly, Sperwan Ghar became an obsession. The more I discussed it, the more certain—adamant—I was that we had to take it.