18 Hours

by Sandra Lee

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘Oh shit! Is this going to be the last photo of me, the last image of me taken — at least by Western photographers?’

  SAS SIGNALLER JOCK WALLACE

  JOCK WALLACE WAS FREEZING his arse off. For the past hour the SAS soldier had been cooling his heels at the form-up point on a muddy patch of earth used as a carpark beside the main runway at bombed-out Bagram Air Base. As he waited to go into battle, he could feel the mercury sink deeper and deeper into the sub-zero zone. It was just shy of 2400 zulu time (Greenwich Mean Time) — 4.30am on the local clock in eastern Afghanistan — and the sun wasn’t due up for a good two hours and 22 minutes, well after the time he’d have landed at a destination nestled in the Shahi Kot Valley, a couple of hundred clicks south in Paktia Province, Afghanistan. Known as ‘bandit country’, this was one of the 34 provinces that made up the war-torn and lawless country.

  The moon was bright, at least 80 per cent illumination according to the strategic note-takers who purposefully record such things when sending men into harm’s way. Cutting through clouds and fog, it cast an eerie light over 200 or so soldiers steeling themselves for a gunfight with al Qaeda terrorists hiding in the nose-bleed-high mountains that surround the Shahi Kot Valley. The mission had been called off the previous two nights due to sleet and snow blanketing the base and preventing the Chinook helicopters from delivering the warrior cargo.

  Fierce enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, Jock reckoned, feeling the bone-chilling cold through the GORE-TEX pants he wore over his camouflage gear.

  Every few seconds a flashbulb exploded, assaulting the senses, as a photographer from the US Army official newspaper, Stars and Stripes, took for posterity pre-battle pictures of the soldiers waiting for Operation Anaconda to start rolling.

  He’s coming around like one of those dicks in a restaurant, Jock thought, watching the bloke work his way through the gathered men from Charlie Company of the 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment at the US Army’s 10th Mountain Division.

  ‘Can I take your photograph?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, mate,’ Jock nodded, cool as a cucumber.

  Jock now says: ‘I remember thinking of that SAS book Phantoms of the Jungle; there’s a photo of one of the guys taken before a patrol in Vietnam. It was the last photo ever taken of him and I’m thinking that’s a good idea, having a photo taken before the patrol. That way you’ve got the most current photo.’

  Jock didn’t need to be told, but the most current photograph was just in case anything went wrong. This was war; things went wrong.

  The snapper fired off a few frames, temporarily blinding Jock with the flash.

  ‘I’ve gone, “Oh shit! Is this going to be the last photo of me, the last image of me taken — at least by Western photographers?” Then I told him to piss off, he was taking rolls and rolls and rolls. “Go and talk to my agent,” I said.

  ‘When you think about it, you think it could be the last photograph, and you go, “Oh shit, that’s big.” And then you go, “Stiff shit.” There’s nothing you can do anyway. I’m on this vehicle whether I like it or not at this point. I’ve given my word that I’m going to do this, and whether or not I’m starting to have an inclination that I’m not going to come out of this … I’ve given my word and I’m not changing anything.’

  Wallace, at 32, was one of just two Australians attached to the 1-87, as it was known. He’d spent the past few days bunking in with the troops from the 10th Mountain and had got to know a handful of them pretty well, particularly Frank Grippe, the sergeant major of the infantry regiment.

  Grippe could have come straight from central casting. He was a soldiers’ soldier and everything about him was big, including the GI Joe haircut that stood defiantly on end on top. His barrel chest threatened to burst open with each muscle-rippling move; his biceps and triceps were the size of well-worked quadriceps that in turn could take their own special punishment, and would later that day. And he had a pockmarked face made even more interesting by the gruelling climates it had weathered while serving Uncle Sam. He was a finely tuned warrior whose voice, when he spoke to his men and women at times just like this, before heading into battle, echoed the staccato delivery of a machine gun fully loaded. Rat a tat tat. Rat a tat tat. Rat a tat tat. Only a fool argued with the sar-major and there were no fools at the form-up point (FUP) that early morning; scores of naive, young men on their first combat mission, but no fools.

  Jock felt like he’d won the lottery when he was assigned to the 10th Mountain. The regiment had been given a key role in Operation Anaconda, a mission that had one objective: to capture or kill al Qaeda and Taliban elements that had been regrouping in the Shahi Kot Valley in the four months since the rapid fall of Kabul the previous November, and Tora Bora soon after. Intelligence estimates in the weeks before the operation variably put the enemy numbers at between 100 and 250. The valley was in the foothills of the magnificent Hindu Kush, a range in which some mountains soar to 7000 metres, and had always been a redoubt for Afghan guerrillas hiding from and fighting foreign invaders. Poetically known as the Valley of the King, it had been where thousands of occupying Soviet soldiers were annihilated by the mujahideen in the 1980s while fighting the ten-year Soviet occupation. It had a history, and it was an ominous one that did not augur well for intruders.

  Anaconda was a three-pronged operation. Combined allied and Afghan forces would launch an assault at two points from the west in the Shahi Kot, crushing the enemy into submission the way an Anaconda envelops and crushes its prey. Seven blocking points would be established by American soldiers on the eastern side of the valley to stop any surviving enemy from fleeing through treacherous donkey trails and goat paths, dubbed rat lines, which snaked over the eastern Takur Ghar mountain range into Pakistan. Troops from the Australian SAS would act as another blocking force and set up observation posts at the southernmost end of the valley.

  The SAS had gone to Afghanistan as part of the multi-national coalition force fighting the war on terrorism and were engaged in vital long-range reconnaissance and surveillance missions. The patrols comprised some of the most highly skilled and rigorously trained soldiers in military history; men, only men, who had developed a reputation for fearlessness, independence, resourcefulness and self-sufficiency in the most adverse of conditions. They also came with their own long-range patrol vehicles, known as ‘devil vehicles’ by the enemy. The six-wheeled, open-air Land Rovers were armed to the teeth and had the motorised agility of a mountain goat, giving them a superior advantage over other nations’ Special Operations forces. The Americans loved the Aussies’ audacity and respected their courage. They wanted them on board. It was a done deal.

  H-Hour, the precise moment when Anaconda would all begin, was scheduled for 6am local time, when two flights, each consisting of three Chinook helicopters, would touch down, first in the north — infiltrating 100-plus troops of the 187th Infantry Regiment from the renowned 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), otherwise known as the Rakkasans or Screaming Eagles. Five minutes later, Chinooks would land in the south, depositing Jock and his fellow SAS trooper, Warrant Officer Clint, with troops from the 1-87. It was the first time since World War II that the Rakkasans and 10th Mountain battalions had worked together.

  Anaconda was given added importance because of the high-value targets (HVTs) thought to be hiding in the valley. The greatest HVT, according to the vast but not infallible US intelligence network, was Osama bin Laden, possibly hiding in the extensive cave systems that lined the precipitous mountain ridges. There wasn’t a single soldier braving the conditions in Bagram that winter who hadn’t dreamt of nailing the hate-filled monster who gloated in a videotape that he had orchestrated the murders of nearly 3000 people in four separate terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001.

  For many of the men from the 10th Mountain, based in the verdant and rolling hills of upstate New York, it was even more personal. Some were native New Yorkers, lik
e Sergeant Major Grippe, who grew up about 90 minutes from the 10th Mountain’s home, Fort Drum, 530 kilometres away from the World Trade Center. There were dozens of soldiers who had lost family or friends in the attacks on New York and on the Pentagon in Washington DC. They were in awe of the bravery of the passengers on board the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 that had crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Thousands of US bullets that night had one name indelibly etched on them — Osama bin Laden.

  Wallace was attached to the 1-87 as a signaller from the Australian Army’s Special Air Service Regiment. He ran communications for Clint, whose job as SAS liaison officer was to coordinate movements between 1-87 and the 1 SAS Squadron which was operating in the area.

  The SAS soldiers, members of the Sabre, or fighting, squadrons, had been let loose in Afghanistan the preceding December, and by January had operated in an area in the Shahi Kot Valley that the American generals had dubbed Area of Operation Down Under, often abbreviated to AO Down Under. The men were renowned for their knowledge of the region.

  Jock and Clint’s mission with the 1-87 was vital. They had to ensure that the 10th Mountain Division did not stray into AO Down Under and that any enemy forces could be engaged without endangering the lives of Australian and American soldiers. It was Clint’s job to ensure the Americans didn’t accidentally open up on their allies with misplaced and ironically named friendly fire, or ‘blue-on-blue’ action. In military terms, the job to prevent friendly fire incidents is known as deconfliction. Jock provided the lifeline, a high-tech communications network that kept the Aussies in touch with each other and their chain of command, and Clint liaised with the commanding officer of the 10th Mountain’s battalion. Together, they would keep the SAS men away from friendly fire. The rest, staying alive, was up to the hard-hitters from the SAS Sabre squadrons.

  ‘The Americans supplied their own nets, they had their own sigs,’ Jock explains, abbreviating networks and signallers. ‘I was there as an Australian communicator to work on the Australian net. I was not working on an American net. My signal went to Australians and their signals went out to their blokes in the field. We did the same thing, but we had different missions. Clint and I were with them to deconflict with the Aussie SAS patrols that were deployed ahead of the American arrival into the Shahi Kot Valley.

  ‘They [the SAS patrols] were up there for SR — surveillance and recon — which is a pretty standard operation,’ says Jock. ‘So we talked directly or indirectly to the Australians from exactly where the Americans were firing from, and if they were getting fire from the Americans, we were there to stop it.’

  Now in the freezing cold Jock was champing at the bit to get out there and close with the enemy, to get on with the job. The wickedly biting cold wind howling across the FUP offered extra motivation.

  The engines of three tandem-rotored CH-47 Chinooks started to turn and burn about 250 metres down the apron, ready to take the soldiers to their landing zones: 82 to the southern end of the Shahi Kot Valley and another 40-odd slightly further north.

  Most of the young 1-87 Americans were Generation Y soldiers who looked like they had stepped from an end-of-year school photograph, as they sat on their packs in a place they called ‘the ’Stan’, shooting the breeze, making small talk to distract themselves from the dangerous mission ahead. Bagging Osama and the al Qaeda murderers. Debating the relative merits of their iPod playlists back in their footlockers in tent city: Britney v White Stripes v Busta Rhymes, pop versus rock versus rap. Bumming cigarettes, having a laugh, talking about wives, girlfriends and the piss-poor substitute of internet porn. Jive talk, shit talk, small talk to pass the time.

  ‘Everyone is tired, sleepy and has just woken up and it’s two in the fuckin’ morning and you’re sitting in a muddy paddock for another two hours, beside the runway, waiting to go to a place where people are going to try to blow your head off,’ Jock recalls. ‘It’s just half-awake soldiers; men, all milling around with a delay in front of them before they are going into a really, really serious event.’

  As the departure drew closer, the soldiers went about their business, mentally ticking off the drills they had memorised, and checking their webbing, weapons and ammo.

  ‘Making sure your gatt was good to go, wouldn’t seize up under fire in the cold hills 10,000 feet above sea level,’ Jock says, using the soldier slang for ‘weapon’.

  Days earlier, a three-metre-square mud map had been scratched into a patch of snow-covered dirt to chart the AO known as Remington, which included three villages in the Shahi Kot Valley — Sherkhankhel, Marzak and Babukhel. The sar-major had pointed out the 1-87’s landing zones on the map: LZ 13 and LZ 13a.

  Bloody beautiful, thought Jock, thirteen, lucky for some.

  Their objective was in the south, to establish security at a place known as Blocking Point Ginger.

  Jock could hear one of the senior non-commissioned officers barking out final instructions over the increasing thwack and thwomp of the Chinook’s blades, repeating the most basic rule of engagement.

  ‘Stay fuckin’ alive,’ the NCO hollered.

  The troops didn’t respond with the usual hoo-ah chorus they frequently used as a mass psych-up, and one they had used outside tent city at Bagram the day before when US Colonel Frank Wiercinski jumped on the back of a Humvee for a rallying war speech. Hoo-ah came from the acronym HUA, for ‘heard, understood, acknowledged’.

  Dispensing with the hoo-ah war cry, Jock instinctively knew the blokes were conserving their energy, steeling themselves for the job ahead.

  ‘It’s like they’ve got a marathon to run; they’re just sitting there waiting, not doing laps around the bloody airport,’ he reflects now. ‘Everyone is trying to stay as reserved and focused and calm as possible.’

  The 10th Mountain’s only mortar platoon going into the southern landing zone checked their equipment, pleased they were taking the awesome firepower of the 120mm mortar into the field. Based on the intel he had received, Platoon Sergeant Michael Peterson thought the 120mm — with its 7200-metre reach — was the right system for Operation Anaconda because he could range all the blocking positions, including that of the 101st Airborne which would land further north in the valley. The generals decided against importing field artillery, known as the king of battles, so the 120mm provided the best indirect support. The platoon would also take 56 mortar rounds, each of which weighed in at 15 kilograms, as well as their own 50–60 kilogram rucksacks loaded with survival equipment, cold-weather gear, ammo and rations.

  Peterson, a lanky twenty-year army veteran and father of two, had no doubts about the capability or commitment of his men, even though the youngest was just seventeen, slightly under the age at which soldiers are legally permitted to go into combat. The kid was just four years older than Peterson’s son, but he didn’t know that then.

  ‘I had no idea. I’m a platoon sergeant. You send me somebody — unfortunately, it’s like a piece of equipment. Although I do love my men.’ Peterson adds: ‘But you know, “Hey, you are going to the fight, kid. I don’t care how old you are, everyone fights.” Daniel Menard: great kid.’

  Peterson’s troops were fired up. Two days before Anaconda kicked off, one of the privates in his close-knit outfit had received a CD from his girlfriend back home, along with a few other odds and sods to remind him of the comforts he was missing while at Bagram. It couldn’t have been more perfect. Kenny Loggins’ ‘Danger Zone’.

  ‘I made him play that song like twenty times right before we went in,’ Peterson says. ‘And we’re all sitting there, everyone is fired up and everyone is listening to “Danger Zone”.’

  Peterson and Jock had already met on the tarmac at Bagram at the end of the mission rehearsal for Anaconda the day before, when the entire complement of soldiers ran through their objectives in preparation for the real thing. Sergeant Pete and his seven men had just disembarked from the Chinooks with their loaded SKEDCOs when another aircraft began taxiing towards them.

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bsp; ‘Each sled weighed about 600 pounds and we’ve got six of those and there are eight of us,’ Peterson says now. ‘We got those things off the bird and everyone takes off and we are trying to drag these things. And there’s a plane taxiing, getting ready to hit us, and the only guy that came back was your buddy [Jock]. He actually came back and helped us pull them, and I was, like, “Thanks man, thanks a lot.”’

  As Peterson recalls, the two soldiers exchanged pleasantries and then ‘went about our merry way’. As meetings go, it was brief, but it meant that Peterson knew exactly who the Aussie was who was willing to help them out of a tight spot when they met again the next morning in the Shahi Kot Valley, up on the high ground as the mortar platoon set up its perimeter.

  Jock looked over at Clint and noted that he looked concerned.

  ‘You got your chook shit?’ Clint said, meaning Jock’s comms gear.

  ‘Yep. Everything’s ready, mate,’ Jock said to reassure the seasoned SAS man who had a decade of experience on him.

  Jock was methodical to the point of being anal, but methods and processes were what kept men alive on battlefields. Jock was a strategic thinker, a man who had quit the Army once to do a bachelor’s degree in science, only to re-enlist after graduating a few years later. Naturally, he headed straight back to the SAS Regiment and 152 Signal Squadron in Swanbourne. Apart from having the hubris of youth on his side (well, compared to Clint who clocked in at 45, he thought), and the fervent belief that wars were what soldiers did, Jock had checked, in triplicate, his equipment and codes.

  He was diligent about adhering to and maintaining information security principles and his were as right as rain, but the American network had been compromised the day before by some goose who left his radio in a place where the enemy could have found it. As a result, Jock took extra measures to protect the integrity of the Australians’ communications networks. Nothing was left to chance in this man’s war. Then there was a similar incident involving yet another one of Uncle Sam’s finest, requiring more safety measures from Jock.