by Ed Darack
“Nobody does anything but keep an eye out for the enemy,” Konnie instructed. “Nobody takes their eyes off the surrounding terrain. Nobody sleeps, nobody eats,” he finished, with a glaring Crisp at his side. Grissom and Pigeon established a command post in the cover of some large downed trees a good distance from Konnie’s position to ensure that if Shah attacked with overwhelming opening salvos aimed at the CP, the Marines wouldn’t be left without leadership. For the remainder of daylight on the thirteenth, everyone at the base stood watch, scanning every trail, rock, ridgeline, peak for any trace of Shah.
As Fox Company battled the elements and the terrain to reach their position, the platoons of Echo in the Korangal and the Shuryek pushed southward, and Golf moved up the Narang. Donnellan and the Jump CP moved along the north ridge of Sawtalo Sar, intending to link up with Second and Third platoons in the Korangal Valley, and meet with locals and leaders in a number of the valley’s villages. Everything had been timed and choreographed perfectly so that Shah and his small army would fall right into ⅔’s hands—but just where would the showdown happen? That, nobody knew. ICOM chatter, intercepted by Golf Company’s interpreters in the Narang, indicated that some of the extremist’s force was on the run out of the Korangal and had tried to move into the Narang—until they spied the grunts, and turned around. Blocked in the Shuryek as well, Shah’s force had to move toward the Chowkay, but coalesced in strength as they did so. Intel revealed that Shah had elements of his force located at different villages throughout the upper Korangal, and that once he was on the run, he was merging these elements into a force of between sixty and eighty fighters, all moving toward the grunts of Fox Company.
Stymied by the intractable donkeys, but determined to position his mortars to ensure that Fox-3 was safely within the weapons’ umbrella of indirect fire, Middendorf led his mortar team, along with Fox-1 and the Afghan soldiers, into the upper Chowkay during the very worst of the day’s heat. Each Marine carried at least one mortar round, twenty bottles of water, six MREs, and his own weapons and ammunition; without the donkeys, they also carried the four 81 mm mortar tubes, each weighing a total of over 93 pounds (able to be broken into three components, the gun tube weighs 35 pounds, the mount 27 pounds, the base plate 29 pounds, and the sighting unit weighs 3 pounds). Thus many grunts carried over 130 pounds of gear—on a movement with temperatures in the deep, bare-rock valley of over 120 degrees.
By nine o’clock that evening, as the last of twilight faded, Middendorf set up a patrol base within a draw on the steep western face of the Chowkay Valley. Despite the heat, the terrain, and the weight on their backs, his grunts had traveled over two kilometers, covering an incredible 3,500 vertical feet. But their movement, like Fox-3’s, didn’t come easy. Some Marines were suffering from acute dehydration, which required corpsmen to rehydrate them not with bottles of water, but with IVs. Others bent over, vomiting, during the hellacious march. But perched at their night’s camp, high on the slope above the Amrey Creek bed, Middendorf’s all-important mortar tubes stood at the ready to support Fox-3; at just two and a half kilometers north of the mortar team, they sat well within the effective range of the weapons.
“Sir!” Jimmy the translator ran to Konnie’s position at the Fox-3 patrol base around seven in the evening. “Sir, Ahmad Shah and his men are looking for you. We have heard them talking over their ICOMs!”
“What are they saying, Jimmy?” Konnie asked.
“They have a lot of fighters. I don’t know how many. But a lot. And they are looking for the Marines. They are coming into the Chowkay Valley!” Kelly Grissom, who had also been apprised of the ICOM chatter, wondered if an attack was imminent, or if the messages had been sent solely to get intercepted, for psychological purposes. Every last grunt continued to stand watch that evening, glaring at the landscape as the shadows of dusk swept across the Chowkay. At nine o’clock, with the grunts not having had a wink of sleep in over thirty hours, Grissom moved the patrol base from 100 percent on watch to 50 percent, thereby mandating some sleep for the unit’s Marines.
The pitch-darkness of the night drove home the insularity of the Fox company’s situation. Amrey village, the closest point with vehicle access, was hours and hours away by foot. Medevac support was iffy at best. And Middendorf’s 81s were their sole organic indirect fire support assets, while close air support was as much as a full hour away. Knowing as well that they were surrounded by Shah’s force, the Marines of Fox Company dug in for one of the longest nights of their lives.
Back at the mortar team’s position, the intermittent beeps of Middendorf’s radios split the otherwise silent night. With all four mortar tubes ready to fire at a moment’s notice, the lieutenant knew that the Marines were ready to push through the very worst of Shah’s onslaught. Although confident, the lieutenant also knew that the Marines of Fox Company were very, very alone in the austere high Chowkay that night; but they would forge ahead in the operation with the utmost focus, undeterred by the heat, dehydration, lack of water and food, and pure exhaustion, but even the slightest mistake could avalanche into disaster.
10
ARMAGEDDON, DENIED
After eighteen hours of movement, the Marines of Fox-3 were completely wasted. “Eighteen hours straight,” a lance corporal muttered on the morning of the fourteenth, gazing at the shattered rock at his feet, “all that pain, to get to . . . to this place.” The young Marine craned his neck and squinted at a distant ridge to the east, but could see nothing more than an outline of the jagged buttress under the blinding light of the rising sun. He shook his head and leaned back against a tree stump, not wanting to think about anything but a few more hours of sleep.
Just over two kilometers due south of Fox-3’s camp, Middendorf’s mortar section, accompanied by Fox-1 and the Afghan soldiers, had been on the move since five-fifteen that morning, well before the sun crested the eastern peaks. The temperature slammed the grunts—even during the predawn hours—and conditions would only worsen with each passing hour. The Marines and Afghan soldiers arduously trekked up the Chowkay, pushing ever higher under their crushing loads. Some felt like they were teetering at the very edge of sanity as the movement taxed them to the very limit of their strength. But the mortar tubes needed—absolutely needed—to be kept well within range of Fox-3, even if higher command, based on up-to-the-minute intel, ordered Third Platoon to keep moving even farther north. The Marines, isolated in the Chowkay that August day, could count solely on one another, as they strained into the heat and heights, each grunt resolving to keep the chain that was Fox Company uniformly strong.
As the sun launched into the heights that morning, drowning the eastern Afghan mountains in life-sapping heat, Staff Sergeant Crisp stared hard at his Marines, feeling in his gut that something wasn’t right, that the stillness of the morning would soon be shattered by a vicious enemy. It wasn’t that he knew something that the others didn’t; he just had an instinct. And the thought of any of his Marines not being absolutely prepared for any eventuality made his blood boil. Complacency kills, complacency kills! he thought. Don’t ever fucking forget it. Complacency kills! “You hear me?” he roared a moment later. “I said get ya gear on NOW!” The staff sergeant glared at those Marines who’d removed their flak jackets and Kevlar helmets. Konnie seconded Crisp’s motion, albeit less vociferously.
“No. Let them rest—without their flaks and Kevlars,” Captain Grissom ordered as he approached Crisp and Konnie. The captain was determined to afford the Marines every possible comfort in order to rejuvenate their enervated bodies; he knew that in just a few hours they’d be embarking on yet another grueling march, higher and deeper into the strange and forlorn mountains on their journey toward Objective- 4. “Just got off the hook with battalion. We’re moving again at twelve hundred and I want half the Marines resting at any one time while the other half stands to. And when I say rest, I mean rest, not just laying there gettin’ their heads cooked inside their helmets and having body armor jamming into
their ribs. It’s gonna be a bitch again today and I want to minimize heat casualties.” With their water supply quickly dwindling, and many in the platoon exhausted from the hellish first movement, Grissom wanted everyone as strong as possible. Conditions would only get worse in the coming days.
“Roger that,” Crisp responded before turning toward his Marines, “Okay, Devil Dogs! Rest up—without your gear on—but keep the fuck in a covered position.” Pondering the troops’ upcoming noon movement into the unknown terrain looming above, he glanced at his watch: a few seconds past 9:00 A.M. The staff sergeant peered through the morning quiet, visualizing fighters lurking in the terrain above, watching his platoon through binoculars, readying RPGs, PK machine guns, AK-47s—fighters who knew how to melt into this raw, unforgiving landscape, who were motivated and skilled, who had experience organizing and executing complex and well-coordinated ambushes. He didn’t care that intel had suggested that the Korangal was the likeliest location for a showdown. They could attack from anywhere. Like the others, Crisp had been worn down—but his flak and Kevlar would never come off. He couldn’t see any immediate threat, but that didn’t mean the enemy wasn’t out there, somewhere.
“Konnie! Get over here!” Captain Grissom ordered the young lieutenant—who, like his Marines had been told, had dropped his body armor and Kevlar helmet—to see him for a face-to-face discussion. Konnie knew that he’d be grilled about having the Marines keep their gear donned; he could tell by Grissom’s stare that he was pissed. But the discussion would have to wait for another time. As the lieutenant took his first step toward the peeved captain, the very worst of Crisp’s premonitions exploded into reality: the ridgelines surrounding Fox-3 erupted in a maelstrom of machine-gun and RPG fire, focused expertly on Fox-3’s position. So it would be the Chowkay, Konnie realized.
Rounds began to split tree branches and ping off rocks. Konnie could hear the heavy 7.62 × 54 mm PKM machine-gun rounds whizzing just feet above him; then came the frightful crack that rounds passing just inches from one’s head leave in their wake. RPG explosions encircled the Marines. Blasts of impacting 82 mm mortar shells came next, bursting in massive yellow-and-black-smoke fireballs, turning rocks into dust, splintering trees, smashing the morning air with earsplitting concussions. Konnie might not have had his body armor on, but he, like all Marines, was never without his weapon. Overwhelming fire superiority. Rounds downrange! The muzzle of Konnie’s M16A4 sprang to his right eye’s level with a flick of his wrist as he dropped to the ground in the “Marine Corps sitting position.” Does anyone really shoot from this position? he wondered, laughing to himself. He’d been taught to assume this position in TBS, but he’d never heard of anyone in a firefight really shooting from it. Holy shit! I’m in a fucking firefight, and doing it sitting Indian style—with no flak or Kevlar! he thought. His ass hit the ground as his thumb flicked the selector to semi on his condition-1 weapon. Well-placed shots! But where to shoot? Wherever those rounds are coming from, that’s where, Konnie thought. Everywhere. They’re coming from everywhere atop the surrounding ridges!
Put-sheeew . . . boom! As the distinctive, bloodcurdling screech of a launched RPG connecting with a target rocked Konnie’s eardrums and sent a flash of heat to his right cheek and head, he spotted the point of origin of the launcher, a puff of rising white smoke. The lieutenant quickly realized that Shah’s force had set up an L-shaped attack, with a line of men to the east, on the southwest side of Cheshane Tupay, and another to the Marines’ north, from a ridge on a mountain named Lamkandah Sar, which defined the very upper limits of the Chowkay. Crisp, too, immediately oriented himself to the enemy’s fire: plunging, interlocking machine guns and coordinated mortars and RPGs, launched from superior positions; this was exactly the way Shah had attacked the NAVSOF recon team a few weeks prior, just a few miles to the northeast. Combined arms! Crisp muttered in his head. These motherfuckers are doin’ it just like the Marine Corps does it!
The buttstock of his M16 planted against his right shoulder, Konnie locked onto one of Shah’s men high on a ridge to his east who was scrambling to reload another RPG round below the dissipating smoke of his last shot. The lieutenant judged the shooter to be about 650 meters distant, out of point-target range of his M16, but nevertheless, if he put enough rounds downrange, something might hit. Right? Get some! Elevating his gun to adjust for range, Konnie aimed through the M16’s iron sights and loosed round after round. Crack! Crack! Crack! Streaks of red marked the trajectory of Konnie’s bullets; like many U.S. Marine Corps platoon commanders, he used a magazine of tracer rounds in the opening shots of a firefight in order to help others orient themselves and get rounds on target. The gun weighed a little less with each burst, until the bolt locked open, indicating his thirty-round magazine was spent. Without looking—without even thinking, for that matter—the lieutenant slapped the ejector button and popped out the empty mag, then slammed another one packed with tracers into the gun’s well, releasing the bolt catch with a flick of his right thumb. The bolt thrust forward, locking another 5.56 mm round into place, and Konnie immediately began firing, alternating between “semi” and three-shot “burst.” The M16 has to be one of the greatest creations humanity has ever developed, he thought, bracing the perfectly balanced weapon against his shoulder. It’s just damned functional art.
Put-sheeew . . . boom! Another RPG exploded, and another—then yet another. Mortars rained down, closer each time. A forward observer for Shah’s mortar team “walked on” the high explosive rounds by relaying fire-adjustment instructions after each impact, zeroing in on the Marines. Shah had clearly added a large number of highly trained, seasoned fighters to his cadre, no doubt the extremists that intel had identified as funneling through Pakistan from throughout the globe. Ahmad Shah’s small army couldn’t have done a better job. That intel had stated that Shah’s band now ranked among the world’s fiercest, best organized, and capable. Now the Marines were experiencing this proficiency firsthand.
But despite their entrenched positions, their skills, their multiple weapons platforms, and their knowledge of these mountains, Shah and his men were attacking United States Marines. And within thirty seconds, the extremist’s cell would experience the infamous and overwhelming force and fury of a United States Marine Corps unit under attack—giving it right back, in spades. The Marines had proven themselves to be the fiercest, most effective fighting force in the history of warfare.
The Operation Whalers chapter of this tradition now opened.
Lance Corporal Dustin Epperly had left his flak jacket, with thirteen full mags of 5.56 mm attached to it, on the ground near the spot onto which Konnie had dropped and started firing. Convenient, thought the lieutenant. Now where the fuck is Epperly? Konnie called for Lance Corporal Karsten Machado.
“Yes sir!” the lance corporal barked as he finished off another of his magazines.
“Where’s your Kevlar?” Konnie asked.
“Uh . . .” Machado gave Konnie the “what you looking at me for?” look. “Where’s yours, sir?” he asked back.
“Right here next to Epperly’s flak and all his rounds that I’m about to send downrange on these motherfuckers.” Konnie picked up his helmet and tossed it the three odd feet to Machado. “Now get back to what you were doin’, Machado. And keep up that good work, Marine.”
“Oorah! Sir!” Konnie continued to do his part to saturate ridges to the east, north, and southeast with rounds, courtesy of Epperly’s well-placed, ammo-adorned flak jacket.
The first few seconds of Shah’s ambush proved the most hellacious, having caught Fox-3 by surprise. While Konnie, Machado, and a few other Marines immediately returned fire, other grunts oriented themselves to the fight, including Epperly, who shot to the aid of Lance Corporal Paul Greenfield with his 240. The ambush had literally caught some Marines with their pants down, relieving themselves when the attack started. Once the 240 opened up, however, shocking the ridges with deadly 7.62 mm rounds at the rate of nine hundred per min
ute, the others in the platoon fell into place.
“I wanna hear those guns talkin’ to each other, got that, Devil Dogs? I wanna hear ’em talking to each other. Talkin’ guns!” Staff Sergeant Crisp boomed over the explosions of Shah’s attack, reminding the grunts behind the SAWs and Epperly and Greenfield on the 240 of the tried-and-true method meant to both accurately and effectively put machine-gun rounds on target while conserving ammunition for the next engagement; one gun would unload for a few seconds, then stop as another started. Crisp relished the loud, clattering symphony.
But Crisp, like Konnie and the other Marines that day, knew that their real return punch would come with the synergy of the classic Marine Corps combined-arms attack—laying everything on Shah at once: M16 rounds, light machine-gun rounds, mortars, and aerial strafing and bombardment. At that point, however, Fox-3 had just their M16s, SAWs, and the 240, while Shah’s mortars, RPGs, and machine-gun fire continued to rain down at an ever-more-feverish pace.
“Get battalion on the line! Now!” Grissom told his radio operator. The skilled RO dialed in the SATCOM frequency. “We’re in heavy fucking contact!” Grissom roared to Captain Perry Waters, the watch officer at the JAF COC. “We’re in the fight of our motherfuckin’ lives!” Grissom then immediately set out to direct serious pain on Ahmad Shah and his crew. “Get me Middendorf. We need an 81s suppression mission. We need it. We need it RIGHT FUCKING NOW!”
“Corpsman UP! Corpsman UP!” a Marine bellowed over the cacophony of battle for any “doc” within earshot to come help a wounded Marine. Lance Corporal Matt Wilson, dumping blood from his left calf and left ass cheek, writhed in pain, having been shot twice by heavy PK rounds. Hospital Corpsman Third Class Travis “Doc” Beeman and Hospitalman Iram Figueroa lunged through the volleys of machine-gun fire to aid Wilson. Kneeling beside him, his hands clumping with grit, dirt, and congealing blood, Figueroa cut off the left side of Wilson’s pants as Doc Beeman readied a tourniquet. The two corpsmen worked furiously to stop the bleeding, ignoring the risk to their own lives, but Wilson continued to lose blood.
