The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor

by Jake Tapper

  At 2:00 p.m., with no additional troops having arrived, they set off. The hike would take at least four hours, and the decline was so steep that Sax told his men to empty their packs of everything other than ammo and water.

  Miraldi briefed the platoon. Birchfield would guide them down from Observation Post Fritsche to an outcropping of rocks, from which they would follow some defunct power lines to the top of the Switchbacks. They would clear the Switchbacks, establish fire support and overwatch, and move in to Camp Keating. They would almost surely be ambushed along the way, Miraldi acknowledged; what the QRF lacked in numbers, it would have to make up for with its speed and ability to mass and coalesce as a single, brute force.

  The instant they left the wire of Observation Post Fritsche, enemy machine-gun fire began blasting them. Miraldi’s troops returned fire while air support was called in. An A-10 Warthog zoomed in on the enemy in a strafing run, and then the QRF continued down the hill. The men slowly made their way through the mountain’s rough terrain. Above them, they could see nearly every kind of aircraft that they knew existed. Sometimes the A-10 Warthogs and F-15 fighter jets flew so close that they knocked the soldiers off their feet.

  By 4:00 p.m., the QRF had reached the rocky outcropping, which afforded a good strategic view of the valley. While the men rested, Portis and Salentine relayed grids to the Air Force radio operators,87 who coordinated with the pilots to drop bombs at targets on the mountains below them and across the valley. The QRF troops would spot groups of anywhere from twenty-five to fifty fighters trying to reconvene to attack the camp again, and they’d radio the guys in the sky.

  “Two above the Switchbacks, one above the Diving Board.”

  BOOM, dead.

  After half an hour, they moved on. In places, the ground was slick and challenging to negotiate. At one point, Specialist Kyle Barnes, a twenty-year-old soldier from 1-32 Infantry, slipped. Barnes hated this journey. The footing was slick, the descent was steep, and the M240B machine gun slung around his neck didn’t make it any easier. As Barnes picked himself up, he pivoted on his right foot and—from the bizarre angle he’d fallen into—saw, right off the trail, a dead insurgent. Five feet to the corpse’s left was another enemy fighter crouched down with a walkie talkie in his hand, wearing a white hat and looking away from the trail. His head was moving.

  He was alive.

  Barnes whispered to the person behind him. He thought it was Miraldi, but it turned out to be Specialist Paul Labrake, the radio operator for Miraldi’s platoon.

  “Sir, there’s a dude in the woods,” Barnes said. Worried that his machine gun would cause a dangerous ricochet that could hurt his fellow troops, Barnes drew his 9-millimeter Beretta pistol from his thigh holster.

  “What?” asked Labrake.

  “There’s a fucking dude in the woods,” Barnes said.

  “Shoot him!”

  Barnes unloaded a magazine in the insurgent’s chest. The expression on the his face seemed to indicate to Barnes that he was taking his death almost in stride, like a warrior.

  Eight troops had already passed the two insurgents without seeing them, and they were shocked when they heard the sudden drilling sound of Barnes’s automatic pistol firing. Miraldi, a few yards behind them, was confused. As the platoon took cover behind him, Miraldi shouted, “Barnes, what are you doing?”

  “There’s guys in the woods!” Barnes screamed in his thick South Boston accent.

  “No shit, Barnes!” said Miraldi. “Where? How many?”

  Barnes started shooting again as Miraldi ran down to him. The two insurgents were both now definitively dead. Miraldi sent two of his men to inspect the area the insurgents had been huddling in, where they found an RPG launcher with about five rounds, two AK-47 assault rifles, chest racks with magazines, some pineapple grenades, a radio, and a bag of flatbread. Barnes had killed one of the insurgents with his Beretta. The other had been mortally wounded long before that moment, much of his right leg having been stripped of flesh. The QRF troops took all of the insurgents’ gear and returned to their hike. To Salentine, the dead insurgents didn’t look Afghan or even Pakistani.

  Labrake noted that enemy radio traffic suggested the insurgents were retreating. He’d also made contact with 3-61 Cav troops in the operations center below. They’d recovered six of their dead but were still missing one man.

  Portis heard Cordova announce over the radio, “Anybody else got A-positive blood, I need to know! Come to the aid station if you do.” It was uplifting just to hear his voice, Portis thought, though the message itself was depressing. Out there, there was only one thing you needed extra blood for.

  An eerie calm seemed to have settled over the valley as the QRF trudged through debris left by the 120-millimeter mortars, trees shattered by bombs and shrapnel, and fields reduced by the Willie Pete to smoldering ash. Soon they arrived above the Switchbacks.

  “We need to skirt the outside of this field,” Birchfield said. “We get ambushed here a lot.”

  It was a strange, otherworldly experience, as if they were descending into a Goya sketch. As they arrived at the midpoint of the Switchbacks at around 6:30 p.m., Portis started noticing many more dead Taliban bodies. He realized he’d been counting enemy dead on his way down the hill. There were more to count now. He told himself that when he got to a hundred, he would stop.

  They proceeded down the remainder of the mountain, the smoke and fire from Camp Keating’s burning buildings so heavy now that they couldn’t see much of the land in front of them. Miraldi and Salentine took one of the rifle squads down the hill to the outpost while Sax, Portis, and the remainder of the 1-32 Infantry company conducted overwatch from the Switchbacks.

  The rest of the QRF—the late arrivals to Observation Post Fritsche, delivered at long last—were on their way down and had been able to proceed more quickly because the initial QRF force had already secured the way. They were being guided by Specialist Victor De La Cruz, who had fought valiantly at Observation Post Fritsche earlier that day using TOW88 missiles, repeatedly exposing himself, and had a left leg full of shrapnel to show for it.

  Salentine and Miraldi entered the wire. The insurgents in Urmul were still firing at the outpost, which was also engulfed in flames. Salentine and Miraldi and their men cleared every building on the western side of the COP, from the mortar pit to the center of the camp. The QRF members were greeted by wounded troops whose arms and legs were covered with gashes and blood. The battered men looked at once haunted and relieved.

  Miraldi called back to Sax on the radio. “Looks like we’re okay here,” he said.

  Portis had hit his one-hundred mark and stopped counting insurgent corpses; he and Sax led the other troops from the Switchbacks down to Keating. Men from 1-32 Infantry joined with the two Latvian trainers to secure the eastern side of the camp. Only two buildings were not on fire; In one of them, the aid station, Miraldi saw a soldier transfusing his blood into Mace. In the other–what had been the Red Platoon barracks but was now the new operations center—Miraldi introduced himself to First Sergeant Burton.

  Lieutenant Shrode was sitting at the door on the north side of the barracks with Bundermann, coordinating air support on the radio, when he spotted Miraldi—which was a bit weird, since the two of them had been pals in college, playing football together at West Point. Miraldi had been a fullback and Shrode a middle linebacker, so with one on offense and the other on defense, they’d had some epic battles in practices on the gridiron, a number of which had ended with both of their heads ringing. They hadn’t seen each other since graduation. Shrode stood, and they shook hands.

  “How’re you doing, Cason?” Miraldi asked.

  “Way better now that you guys are here,” Shrode said.

  Sax, in charge of security for the camp, had his men fill sandbags and establish fighting positions. Birchfield checked the maintenance shed, the stand-to trucks, and other areas; Taliban bodies riddled with bullet holes were scattered throughout the camp. He m
et up with Romesha at the shura building and assigned troops to guard specific positions, clear various buildings, and inspect the outer perimeter.

  Birchfield and some of the men from 1-32 Infantry were on their way down the hill when they saw something of note—or someone, rather. They radioed Bundermann: amid the strewn corpses of enemy fighters littering the southern side of the camp, they could see the body of a U.S. soldier. Hill and Francis went to the spot as directed—near the maintenance shed, close to Stand-To Truck 1, at the edge of the camp.

  It was Hardt.

  Rigor mortis had begun to set in. He had three entrance gunshot wounds on the left side of his head; his skull had suffered multiple fractures. Gunpowder residue indicated that he had been shot in the head at close range. He also had gunshot wounds to the left side of his chest, his left leg, and his left arm. Hill got a stretcher, and he and Francis carried Hardt’s body to the aid station.

  Hill found Bundermann.

  “We’re all accounted for now,” he said. It was just after 8:00 p.m.

  Hill and Francis sat down with Birchfield and told him who had been killed. There were seven: Kevin Thomson, Joshua Kirk, Michael Scusa, Chris Griffin, Vernon Martin, Justin Gallegos, and Joshua Hardt. Stephan Mace was banged up pretty good, but Doc Cordova had expressed optimism about his chances so long as they got him on a bird as soon as possible.

  Birchfield thought about Scusa. The last time he’d seen him, the specialist was talking about his son. Indeed, it was always the same thing with Scusa: Connor did this, Connor did that, Connor is walking, Connor is eating solid food. He was a very proud father, as well as a hardworking soldier. And now he would never see his boy again. Birchfield started crying. Then he stopped, realizing this was not the time for it. Those men were gone, and that was tragic—and he would mourn them, later—but right then he had a job to do, and that was to keep everyone else alive.

  Romesha and Larson were sitting in the shura building smoking Camel Lights and drinking Dr. Peppers that Larson had grabbed from the Red Platoon barracks. The spicy fizz was like mother’s milk to the two men, who were in awe that they had lived to see the end of the day.

  Everything had started to slow down. The aircraft were in the midst of releasing the last of the sixteen tons’ worth of bombs they would drop on the enemy that day. Troops weren’t yet standing out in the open, but the enemy fire wasn’t nearly as intense as it had been.

  Soldiers from the 1-32 had volunteered to clear the landing zone so the medevac could—finally—land, but 3-61 Cav wouldn’t have it. Soon Salentine, Romesha, Larson, Damien Grissette, Ryan Schulz, and Stephen Cady were heading across the bridge to the landing zone.

  Larson threw a frag grenade into the Afghan National Police shack there, but he missed the door by four inches and hit the doorjamb instead; the grenade bounced right back to his feet. The men quickly jumped behind the rocks as it exploded. No one had the inclination to laugh.

  The men got back up, and Larson and Cady cleared the shack as they were supposed to—with their M4 rifles. No one was in there. The men then pulled security on the landing one until the medevac came in for Mace—a helicopter that also was bringing in Lieutenant Colonel Brown.

  Before the medevac arrived, Koppes had gathered Mace’s stuff—his iPod, camera, laptop, and a couple of books—so he’d have it all when he got to his hospital bed in Germany. Rasmussen and Adams kept asking Koppes if he wanted to visit with his best friend before the bird left, but Koppes resisted. The memory of seeing his sister on her deathbed in Ohio was still fresh in his mind, even as he stood in that smoldering deathtrap in Kamdesh. Everyone was telling him that Mace was going to make it, but Koppes was convinced that if he went to see Mace in that state, it was going to be Eva all over again.

  It was dark now. In addition to the rest of Sax’s group from 1-32 Infantry, Special Forces troops had also arrived and were clearing Kamdesh Village and reinforcing Observation Post Fritsche. Portis went to the Red Platoon barracks, outside of which he saw Bundermann’s lanky silhouette. “You’ve done an incredible job,” Portis told him. “I’m the commander again, you’re Red-One.”

  As Bundermann was relieved of his command, he exhaled and rolled his shoulders.

  “You’ve done an incredible job,” Portis repeated.

  There weren’t many places to sleep at Camp Keating that night–just the Red Platoon barracks and the aid station, and the ground around them. Few slept, and none slept well. October in Afghanistan: it was chilly. Some of the troops were wearing only T-shirts and shorts, having been woken up suddenly that morning and then later having lost all their clothing to the day’s fires. Bodies—living ones—were scattered throughout the small section of the camp that was still standing. Red Platoon troops crashed in their barracks while the Bastards slept on the deck of the Café, huddled together. Big, strong men covered with blood and scars, men who had cheated death. They slept on body armor, which wasn’t at all soft. They curled up in the fetal position, redolent with this day’s worth of sweat and smoke.

  Portis walked outside the Red Platoon barracks. The dying fires crackled in nearby buildings. A glowstick flickered a blue light. Then Portis heard a sound. Someone was singing.

  … I ain’t see the sunshine

  Since, I don’t know when…

  Portis walked into the barracks. Chris Jones and his guitar had both survived the attack, and Jones was playing Johnny Cash’s classic “Folsom Prison Blues,” sitting in the middle of the barracks and moaning in his Tennessee twang with Zach Koppes.

  When I was just a baby

  My Mama told me, “Son,

  Always be a good boy,

  Don’t ever play with guns,”

  But I shot a man in Reno,

  Just to watch him die.

  When I hear that whistle blowin’,

  I hang my head and cry.

  Portis shook his head at the moment. The white noise emanating from the radio was interrupted by a squawk. He thought about the soldiers who had been killed. His men. Just one night before. they’d all gone to bed thinking they would soon get out of this cursed valley surrounded by these ominous mountains. But the mountains had gotten them first.

  CHAPTER 38

  Saint Christopher

  You’re going to make it,” Cordova told Mace as he finished prepping him for travel. “You have a quick flight to Bostick; you’re going to be fine. Just hang in there for another fifteen minutes.” The entire medical team was filled with optimism about Stephan Mace. He’d been wounded before 7:00 a.m., and though he’d had five transfusions of blood, he was alert and speaking in complete sentences.

  After supplies were flown in, other wounded men from 3-61 Cav would be flown out that night, including Cookie Thomas, Ed Faulkner, Josh Dannelley, and Andrew Stone. First Sergeant Burton insisted that anyone with any kind of an injury needed to leave that night, but many of the wounded—including Eric Harder and John Francis—refused. They would leave when everyone else did. They would leave when Combat Outpost Keating was shut down.

  When Stephan Mace was fifteen, his mother had let him spend the summer in South Africa with his best friend, whose family was originally from there and who returned seasonally to help run hunting safaris. Mace’s mother worried about him, especially about his pending five-hour layover in England. She fretted that he would miss his connecting flight, that he would lose his passport, that something would go dreadfully wrong. And once he arrived in South Africa, she was equally concerned about her precious Stephan and what might happen there. Surely something horrific would befall him on safari, some horrible incident with a lion or a rhinoceros.

  So Stephan Mace’s mother bought him a Saint Christopher’s medal, which she attached to a dog-tag chain, knowing of his desire to enlist someday. It would keep him safe, she told him, since Saint Christopher was the patron saint of travelers. Fifteen-year-old Stephan rolled his eyes, but he put it around his neck and from that moment only rarely took it off.

 
When Mace landed at Forward Operating Base Bostick that night, he was met by Command Sergeant Major Rob Wilson, who noticed the medal and commented on it. Mace asked him to hold on to it for him.

  “You hang on to it,” Wilson told him. “You’re in good hands. Trust the doc.”

  “Okay,” Mace said, looking up at Wilson.

  Major Brad Zagol, M.D., a surgeon trained at West Point and Walter Reed, examined Mace, who had tourniquets on both legs and multiple penetrating wounds to his abdomen.

  “I don’t want to die,” Mace told Zagol.

  He didn’t sound panicked, but he was clearly scared. Mace looked Zagol in the eye. They were in the aid station, fifty feet off the tarmac.

  “I just don’t want to die,” he said again.

  Zagol looked at Mace. “I’m going to get you home,” he promised him.

  The nurse administered a sedative to calm the soldier down, and the surgical team began giving him blood. Zagol was worried; even though parts of Mace’s body that his heart had deprived of blood—his bowel, for example—were now receiving red blood cells, the legacy of his physiological shutdown was grim. Too many of his blood-starved organs, too much of his tissue, had already died. Medics in war zones talk about that first “golden hour”: if they can start treating a patient within the first sixty minutes after he’s wounded, the odds of his survival will be greater than 90 percent. It had been more than twelve hours now since Mace was wounded. His blood pressure was weak. And Zagol wasn’t sure what to do with the tourniquets; he figured for now he’d leave them on until Mace got to Bagram, where he could get even finer medical care.