The War I Always Wanted

by Brandon Friedman

  I lay shivering on my cot late that night, staring up at the ceiling of the hardened aircraft hangar in which we lived. I had no idea who we were really going after in Afghanistan. Thus far they were only being vaguely described as “terrorists.” I did know, however, that if these were the same people who had helped launch the September 11 attacks, they were serious about their business. Because those people, whoever they were—their hatred had been pure. That much I knew. I had tried to dismiss them as insane, but in the end, couldn’t talk myself into it. And that was the disturbing part. They weren’t insane. Insane people couldn’t have pulled off an operation like that. These were intelligent, reasoning beings so consumed by the most crystallized strain of hatred that they were willing to kill themselves along with other men, women, children, Muslims and non-Muslims whom they’d never met. I contemplated what would make a person become like that. And if this was indeed the same group of people, I wondered how they would react to those who weren’t unarmed airline passengers or unsuspecting high-rise office workers. I wondered how deep this hatred went.

  For the second time in four months we were headed for the unknown. My mind drifted to something I’d heard one of my soldiers say earlier in the day: “What’s that, Lassie? The Rakkasans are coming?” As I lay there on the creaking cot, I imagined a cave. Inside are two terrorists. One is wearing a turban; the other wears a field jacket and carries a radio in his right hand. They are talking to each other. All of a sudden Lassie walks in the entrance of the cave and stops in front of them. They stop talking. Lassie barks . . . twice. The terrorists look at each other and say something in Arabic. I see subtitles in English. They say, “What’s that, Lassie? The Rakkasans are coming?” Under the cover of my thin poncho, I finally fell asleep.

  There are only a few windows on a C-130, and even those are just small holes in the fuselage about eight inches in diameter. There was one near me and, if I craned my neck just the right way, I could see out. Through this tiny porthole I was able to view the vast stretches of Pakistan’s western desert. Almost immediately after takeoff, the surface of the earth below us began to crinkle and rise up, in ridge after ridge of rugged mountains. It was not only a spectacle of enormousness, but also one of uninhabitable desolation for as far as the eye could see. There were no roads; there were no buildings; there was nothing to suggest people had even been to this part of the world. For nearly two hours I stared down, mesmerized, at the alien landscape. At some point, as we flew north over this seemingly boundless stretch of wasteland, we crossed into Afghanistan.

  4

  Bagram, Afghanistan

  March 2002

  My first thought was: Those can’t be real.

  Some several hundred million years ago, the Indian subcontinent started its slow geologic crash into Asia. The wreckage is spectacular—an arc of torn, folded, and cantilevered stone that roughly tracks the border of northern India and Pakistan. Its eastern leg is the higher and better-known Himalayan Range, stretching across India, Nepal, and China. The western leg, which reaches across India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, is known as the Hindu Kush.

  In the middle is a small town on the Shomali Plain with a long, Soviet-built runway. Fought over by the Russians and the mujahideen, the Tajiks, the Taliban, and the Americans, the battle-scarred town is surrounded on three sides by these geologic cathedrals that rise nearly twenty thousand feet.

  The first thing I was told when I stepped off the plane in Bagram was, “Don’t step off the concrete. Mines everywhere.” A generation of fighting in and around the airfield had left it littered with every conceivable kind of unexploded ordnance. Wandering the demined areas, I found myself in a warped Wild West. Tents bristling with antennae had cropped up amidst shattered mud-brick buildings, and bearded Special Forces soldiers with laser range finders and satellite phones milled about with Afghans who had drifted off the pages of a nineteenth-century storybook.

  I was standing beside my ruck when a good friend of mine on the battalion staff approached me. I could tell by the look on his face that things weren’t going well.

  He had been watching live footage of the battle, beamed directly from a Predator drone. He told me that seven hours earlier a combination of army rangers and Navy SEALs had attempted to insert a team onto the mountain that dominated the eastern side of the Shah-e-Kot Valley. The Afghan name for the twelve-thousand-foot peak was Takhur Gar; the U.S. Army had dubbed it Objective Ginger. They had gone in to establish an observation post on the high ground in order to regain flagging momentum. Just like the 101st and 10th Mountain before them, they landed in a hornet’s nest of al Qaeda fighters. A Navy SEAL fell out of his helicopter and they were trying to get him back. We didn’t know that he had already been executed.

  “Do you know how lucky you are to be able to lead an infantry platoon into a fight like this?” my friend asked. “I would trade places with you in a heartbeat.” He was trying to be upbeat about the whole thing.

  Lucky is when you win the lottery. This was not lucky. I knew he was trying to help, but for the first time, I was starting to stress. So I just said with a wry smile, “Speak for yourself, dude.” What I wanted to say was, “You’re not going in. It looks different from this angle.”

  I left Sergeant Collins with the platoon and began to meander about with Sam Edwards and our boss, Captain Rob K. All we knew was that a battle to which we had been invited was raging, and we were late. Walking aimlessly among tents and buildings, we came to the realization that everyone with information was either on a radio, glued to a television screen, or fighting in the valley itself. Eventually we stumbled into a green tent with a sign outside that said in block letters: SECRET. Inside, we found a scale model of the operational area.

  The sand table (as they’re called) displayed two prominent ridges on either side of a wide valley. The western ridge, the smaller of the two, was marked “The Whale;” the valley, “Shah-e-Kot.” The eastern ridge had placards on a number of spots. Each label was a separate objective area, and they all had women’s names. I knew of “Ginger,” the looming anchor of the eastern ridge, but now, as I scanned the model from north to south, I saw “Amy,” “Betty,” “Cindy,” Diane,” “Eve,” and “Heather.”

  Captain K. thrust at Sam and me two crappy, photocopied maps he’d received from somebody. He also gave us each a transparent overlay and told us to start copying the objectives from a large map hung on the wall of the tent. Another glance at the map I held in my hand, and I knew it was a waste of time. It was unreadable and using it wouldn’t have made any sense at all. But Captain K., who had only assumed command of Bravo Company a month earlier, was intent on going through the motions.

  Now, upon being commissioned as an officer all the way through my army schooling, I always had this irrational fear of being shot in the back in combat by one of my own guys. It shaped the way I tried to lead. I always took the attitude that my men didn’t work for me, but that I worked for them. My job was to provide for them, to make sure they received proper training; that they had the right equipment; that they knew what to do in a firefight; that they had good food to eat; that they were safe; that they could call home; that their families were taken care of. I reasoned that if I concentrated on those things, they would take care of the hard stuff—closing with and destroying the enemy, thereby allowing all of us to go home in one piece.

  I tried not to be the guy who thinks he’s smarter than his men just because he went to college. Or the boor who gets off on being “in charge.” Or the glory hunter who thinks his men exist for the sole purpose of helping him to propel his career. I thought it was more important to impress the guys below me than those above me. Hearing my commander say, “Friedman is a good officer who really keeps his men in line,” is nice. But I would much prefer to overhear one of my privates say, “You know, Lieutenant Friedman sure is goofy, but I’d follow him anywhere. You know he’d take care of us.”

  That idea of being scorned by forty dedicated infantr
ymen kept me awake at night. This, however, was not something that seemed to concern our new commander.

  Captain K. was a big, serious-looking guy with a permanent scowl on his face. He accused me in his office once of being “too happy-go-lucky.” Captain K. was long on infantry tactics, but short on people skills. And he always excused his inability to communicate with others by calling it “tough love.” The way I saw it, his tough love was based out of the insecurity that people wouldn’t think he was tough enough. Whereas most soldiers kept pictures of their wives and girlfriends inside their helmets, the single Captain K. kept his dog’s collar in a zip lock bag. More commando than ladies’ man, I guess he thought that affection for a carnivorous animal, bred for hunting with fangs and claws, would dissuade anyone from questioning why he was single.

  Once, after eye surgery (the irritatingly painful photorefractive keratectomy, or PRK), I was eating breakfast across the table from him at the chow hall on Fort Campbell. The doctor had ordered me not to run or work out for my first full week back at work after the surgery. My medical profile stated that the most I could do was to “walk at own pace and distance.” Still doped up on Percocet, that was about all I could manage anyway. Over scrambled eggs, Captain K. asked me what I’d done for PT that morning. Since we usually scoffed at such medical profiles, especially those with the kinds of instructions I’d received, I responded, half-jokingly, that I’d walked at my own pace and distance. Captain K. had authorized the surgery, so I assumed he’d get it.

  Instead, he stopped eating and looked at me, suddenly enraged that I would be so weak as to follow the medical doctor’s directions. “I’ll throw you out of that window,” he said with the point of a fork, “at my own pace and distance. Don’t you ever say something like that again, Friedman.” He never liked to call his subordinates, especially NCOs, by their proper rank either—it was always just the last name. Everyone at the table around us, including a few other commanders, stopped chewing and became quiet. They were trying to discern whether or not he was serious. I knew he was, however, as I had gotten used to dealing with those types of remarks. I knew that Captain K. was embarrassed that one of his platoon leaders had revealed what he perceived to be a weakness in front of the other commanders.

  I just said, “Okay. All right. I’m done here.” And I took my tray and walked out.

  I never understood why he was like that.

  No sooner had we started copying onto the maps, than another staff officer burst through the door of the tent. He was out of breath and said he’d been looking for us. Captain K. asked him what was going on and this is what he said: Some shit is fucked up. Some other shit is confused. And there’s still some other shit we don’t know about. His mission: Get us into the shit as quickly as possible. When would that be? Shit . . . either today, tonight, or tomorrow. No one really knew.

  As the sun began to drop behind the mountains, the temperature began to plummet. What had been a pleasant, cloudless day with a temperature in the low sixties, was turning into a bitterly cold, miserable night. Just before sunset, Sergeant Collins and I located the tent that belonged to our platoon for the night. There was nothing inside but hard-packed dirt. I picked out a nice spot of soil in between Sergeant Collins and my RTO, Specialist Taylor. Taylor and I grabbed our ponchos, reckoning that a poncho, a tent, and body heat would be enough to sustain us through the night. Sergeant Collins grabbed what looked like an old, muddy, piece of olive drab canvas he had found. I was spreading my poncho on the floor when Taylor stopped what he was doing and looked at Sergeant Collins.

  “That’s disgusting. You’re gonna sleep under that?” he asked.

  “Shut yer ballwasher, Taylor” came the response. “We’ll see who stays warm tonight.”

  As dawn crept over the peaks ten hours later, I wished I had had an old, rotten piece of canvas with which to sleep. Those ten interminable hours had been my first experience with the northern Afghan night. The cold had penetrated the defenses of the thin tent almost immediately after the sun’s retreat, and only slightly later it penetrated the defenses of my even thinner poncho. I had lain awake all night, teeth chattering, trying to find the “warm position,” a mythical arrangement of body parts that desperately cold people mistakenly think can save them. During all the tossing and turning, I had listened in the darkness to helicopters returning. In their bellies were the dead and wounded from the day’s battle.

  It was a beautiful day—not too cold and not too hot. Miles away, wisps of snow blew off of the higher peaks to the north, against a royal blue sky. At midmorning we began a long walk out to an improvised firing range to resight our weapons. It was located at the northern end of the runway, about a mile from the tent area. Along the way I had plenty to think about. It was now eight dead. Fifty wounded. In my mind, this would have been unthinkable a week earlier. Not since the fight in Mogadishu in October of 1993 had anything like this happened.

  I was disappointed and concerned, but not yet terrified. I was disappointed on the count that I had naively envisioned being a hero, as too many American kids do. I had seen myself swooping in to save the day in a terribly important battle. Now, as an adult being force-fed a reality sandwich, it looked like I was going to be the underdog. And the concern—well, it looked like we could end up fighting for our lives.

  We marched in silence, each soldier alone with his thoughts. In the distance I could make out the Apaches that had returned from the previous day’s fight. From what I had heard, all six birds had received fire, and several had been critically disabled. A few of the pilots had been wounded, some seriously. I couldn’t imagine Apaches—bristling with rocket pods, missiles, and machine guns—being shot up.

  As we approached the tarmac where the attack helicopters were parked, I could see that something just didn’t look right. Angles were wrong. The helicopters themselves looked wrong. From a hundred yards away I could see this. Coming from Fort Campbell, I’d seen Apaches every day, and these just didn’t look right. As we got closer, I could see what it was. They looked small.

  They looked broken. They looked beaten down and exhausted. I still don’t understand how an inanimate object could be perceived and personified in such a way, but that is the only way I can describe it. They looked physically smaller than I remembered them being. Maybe that was my imagination. However, when I got within a few feet of them, what I saw was not my imagination.

  The helicopters had been thrashed by the al Qaeda fighters. Each had flown through a withering barrage of gunfire, receiving multiple hits from tail to nose. The first thing I noticed was the copious amount of hydraulic fluid on the first bird. It had been sprayed all over the tail section of the aircraft. I looked closer and could see large bullet holes in a connect-the-dots pattern along the side as well. They looked to be the size of those fired from AK-47s.

  The second looked worse. Along with numerous holes of varying sizes, its windshield had been shattered, parts of it broken out completely. Along the side of the aircraft were other bits and pieces of broken off or jagged pieces hanging from the fuselage. From behind me I could hear the muffled sounds of, “Shiiiit,” and “ahh Christ,” and “mother . . . fucker,” coming from the platoon. Having now seen the Apaches up close, I was no longer disappointed and concerned. Now I was terrified. Keeping my thoughts to myself, I continued walking toward the range with the guys, just taking it all in.

  “Ahhhh, shit!”

  The crack of the first volley at the range was followed instantaneously by a louder pop. I looked over my left shoulder. It was Private First Class Bumstead, from 3rd Platoon. He hadn’t screamed it—he’d just announced it like he’d dropped a bag of groceries. As I stared at him, I could see blood starting to soak into his torn uniform just above one of his knees. Instinctively, I walked toward him, as did others. Immediately two guys grabbed him and lowered him to the ground. It was then that the pain hit him. He started wiggling his legs. “Ssssssss . . . mother . . . fucker . . . shitshitshitshitshit!”
He was trying to stifle it.

  A minute earlier, the gunners and ammo bearers had ambled over to the firing line and kneeled down. They had brushed away the old, spent shell casings left behind by other units. They had assumed the prone position, taking aim behind their weapons. Then one of them had shot a land mine.

  My medic ran to Bumstead’s side and began assessing the damage. A piece of shrapnel had sliced into Bumstead’s thigh, narrowly missing an artery. Two other soldiers in 3rd Platoon were hit as well—both in the hands. As Doc worked, Captain K. called off the range.

  So that’s what blood looks like coming out of soldiers. I can deal with this. I heard the first sergeant call my name. I answered him, “Sir?”

  Sir? Where did that come from? Why am I calling him sir? “I, uh, wh . . . what, First Sergeant?”

  He looked at me inquisitively. I had just called him sir, and I could see his wheels turning. After hearing it, he was wondering the same thing I was. Will Friedman be able to keep his shit together in front of his guys. “Lieutenant Friedman, is your platoon ready to go?”

  “Uh, yeah . . . yeah, we’re ready to go.”

  “Okay,” he said, “get Sergeant Collins and you guys can head back.” As I turned, I could feel him watching me.

  If I thought I’d had a lot to think about on the way to the range, it had increased exponentially in the intervening period. For starters, I knew I was going to die. For a cocky, arrogant Rakkasan with years of specialized training, this was not something I had ever expected to feel in combat. Prior to the last forty-eight hours, I had fully expected the enemy to cringe and grovel before us, the vaunted 101st Airborne Division. It had become such a rarity to see an enemy of the United States stand their ground in a pitched battle. And now eight special operations troops, including four army Rangers, were dead. The 101st and 10th Mountain had over fifty wounded. All of the Apaches were down. And now it was my turn to take a whack at the situation.