War Dogs

by Shane Bryant

  I could see that Robbo had a point. The Russians had come and built dams and housing and roads, but their troops and their ideology had been hated, and both were long gone. However, Robbo also told me about a conversation he’d had with a tribal elder of the Alokozay, the local people, who claimed the Russians had massacred about 300 people during the invasion and that their bodies were buried somewhere around Tarin Khowt.

  ‘We’re not as bad as the Russians, but we’re still foreigners and we’re adopting a siege mentality,’ Robbo said, looking across the river to the village.

  It was not surprising that I’d meet ex-army people, like Robbo, in Afghanistan, but it was an eye-opener to see just how many different types of contractors there were in the country, and the range of jobs they were doing. As well as ex-military and law enforcement people, contracting firms recruited people straight from civilian life if they had the necessary skills.

  In a couple of shipping containers in a separate compound near the SF base at Tarin Khowt was a bunch of guys who had turned their hobby – flying remote control aeroplanes – into a lucrative job in a war zone. When we went on missions in populated areas, such as in the town of Tarin Khowt itself, we’d sometimes take these guys and their model aircraft, which was fitted with a camera and called Tiger Shark, with us.

  The team was providing security for a shura – a gathering of senior men, like a council meeting – in Tarin Khowt, and the flyboys came along and launched their plane from a road. The local kids were amazed and I’m sure that any bad dudes who were lurking in the area well understood that this thing buzzing around overhead was keeping an eye on them. The aircraft had a wingspan of about two metres and, as it slowly orbited the neighbourhood, was plainly visible from the ground.

  Ricky was fascinated by the aeroplane, and by the toy model aircraft that the ground-bound pilots flew back at base in their off-duty hours. We searched some streets and buildings around the place where the meeting was to be held, and every time the aircraft droned overhead, Ricky would look up and follow its path across the clear blue sky. I was searching him off-lead and he was behaving himself, yet I could tell he wanted to get a closer look at the Tiger Shark. I told the guys from the team that, as far as Ricky and I could tell, things were clear and the remote control aeroplane pilot said the same.

  The mission was completed without any drama and after we got back to the FOB, I took Ricky for a walk. By this time, the guys from the Tiger Shark container were outside, playing with their toy aeroplane. One of the guys had the remote control box in his hand and was scanning the skies. Ricky and I looked up at the sound of the approaching engine.

  The pilot started bringing his toy aircraft in to land in a patch of open ground. Ricky was by my side but, as we were on-base, he was off-lead. He looked up again as the buzz of the little engine got louder. The plane was coming in towards us, on final approach for its landing.

  Ricky took off.

  ‘Ricky! Get back here, boy!’

  Normally obedient, my dog was like an animal possessed. Every instinct he had told him it was time to bring that bird down out of the sky. ‘Look out,’ I yelled to the guy with the remote control.

  ‘Shit! I’m losing control. It’s not responding,’ the pilot said.

  He was trying to pull the power back on, like a pilot of a real plane who sees danger on the runway and has to abort a landing, but the aircraft kept coming down and down as Ricky bounded towards it.

  It was all over in a flash. Ricky leaped at the aircraft when its wheels were almost on the ground, and got the fuselage between his jaws and dragged it into the dust. Our working dogs were supposed to be fanatical retrievers and my boy had decided that he wanted to retrieve that thing right out of the sky, like he was a gun dog!

  There was a knock on the door of my hooch. ‘Mr Shane?’

  ‘Coming.’

  Ricky had been sitting peacefully on the end of my bed, but the sound of an Afghani voice was enough to make him ballistic. He shot away, with the same speed and determination he’d exhibited when he’d gone after the model aircraft. The Afghani must have thought I’d said ‘Come in,’ rather than ‘Coming,’ because he had started opening the door before I had a chance to put Ricky back in his portable kennel. The dog reared up on his hind legs and started pawing the crack in the door, snarling and barking at the young Afghani interpreter on the other side.

  ‘Eeeeeeeeek!’ shrieked the interpreter, sounding like a little girl who’d been frightened by a mouse. In fact, I’d never heard a guy utter such a high-pitched, effeminate squeal in my life, and although I felt for the poor Afghani, it was also one of the funniest reactions to a dog I’ve ever seen.

  Ricky never lost his distrust of the locals. It was hard disciplining him because, while I didn’t want him indiscriminately attacking people, I needed him to be capable of a crowd control role, in which part of his job was sometimes to snarl and look vicious if it looked like people were getting out of line.

  I was careful to keep Ricky locked up if I knew locals were going to be in the compound. Still, one day two laundry boys were moving through collecting dirty washing and Ricky darted out when I turned my back on him. I must have left the door to the hooch ajar. The laundry boys dropped their sacks and ran, robes flying behind them as Ricky chased them out into the courtyard and around and around in circles, nipping at their heels.

  TEN

  Death in the Baluchi Valley

  November 2006

  We were busy at Tarin Khowt, going on missions for two or three days at a time, sometimes with only a couple of days’ break in between. Winter was well on the way and the Taliban, like the Green Berets, were trying to make the most of the last of the good weather, before the fighting season came to an end and the cold set in.

  At the time, no-one had been up into the Baluchi Valley for two years; the last people who had dared to do so were the Australian SAS. The Taliban had had free rein of the area ever since, but the SF team at Tarin Khowt was tasked to go into the valley to see what action it could stir up. As we loaded the trucks with food, water and ammo, saddled up and rolled out the gates of FOB Ripley, we knew we’d find a fight. My mate Adam was in the turret of our GMV, behind the .50 cal, and I was in the back.

  ‘Good to go?’ Adam asked me. I gave him the thumbs up and settled in behind the 240, with Ricky at my feet.

  We were part of a massive convoy of about 30 vehicles, including ANA, and Afghani police. It took us two days’ driving to get to Baluchi and as we got closer, our reception from the villagers became colder and quieter. The team was also in search of high-value targets, senior Taliban who were hiding up in, what they considered was, a pretty safe haven.

  We came to a village that was much bigger than most I’d been to, which was strung out along a river line and surrounded by very well-irrigated fields. In so many ways, Afghanistan’s a country of stark contrasts. This place had lots of greenery and thick bush around its outskirts but then it was as though there were a line where civilisation ended and desert began again.

  We were sited, to give covering fire, on some high ground overlooking the village about 200 metres from the nearest houses and compounds, while the ANA, led by some American ETTs, went in to clear the place and see who they could flush out. Things were confusing, because there was lots of movement going on all around us and in the village below, and plenty of intercom radio chatter going back and forth.

  Below, there was gunfire, and associated chatter as people started giving each other target indications and reports. Adam and I held our fire, as there wasn’t anything for us to shoot at yet and, of course, the last thing we wanted was to brass-up one of our own guys. I had an assigned arc of responsibility to watch over. The idea was that the ANA and police would sweep through the tree line in front of us, from left to right, and then swing towards us. Following Adam’s lead, I only fired two or three rounds, and mostly we held off.

  Every now and then, the silence alongside our gunfire was
broken by the loud shah-chunk of a .50 calibre round leaving the long barrel of a Barrett sniper rifle, when one of the team guys found a target. Originally designed as an anti-materiel rifle – that is, for shooting holes in vehicles and equipment – the Barrett came into its own in Afghanistan as a sniper’s weapon, given the long ranges on many battlefields. A bullet designed to punch a hole in a light armoured vehicle makes a hell of a mess of a human body.

  ‘Ah, the terps are picking up Taliban radio chatter saying they’re gonna be coming in from the south, over,’ a voice said over the radio.

  In the distance, in front of Adam and me and inside the arc we were covering, were some young boys leading a couple of donkeys. ‘Adam? You see those kids?’ I asked. ‘What the fuck are they doing, wandering around?’

  ‘I dunno, man. Those donkeys are loaded – maybe they’re carrying ammo for the Hajis.’

  The kids kept moving across our front, not seeming to care about the operation unfolding in their village, which made me think Adam was right – that they had a reason for being down there, and not taking cover or bugging out. It was clear by this stage that there was going to be a serious fight down there.

  Behind us came a high-pitched whistling sound and, as I turned around, there was an explosion in the rocks as an RPG exploded not far from our truck.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Adam said.

  This was puzzling, as, according to the plan, the Afghani soldiers and police were supposed to approach our position from the south but the radio report had told us to expect the Taliban coming from the same direction.

  ‘Movement!’ someone yelled down the line. ‘In the trees, coming this way.’

  I looked back to the front, and pulled the butt of the 240 into my shoulder and sighted down the barrel. I could see Afghanis armed with AK-47s dressed in man-jammies, which is what we called the payrann tambaan, or salwar kameez – long, loose-fitting tops over baggy pants. Most of them were either wearing turbans or small round caps. We had no idea where the RPG round had come from, but it seemed to have been the same direction from which these unknown men were creeping through the trees.

  ‘Here they come,’ I said, but I wasn’t about to fire until I had clearance.

  Adam traversed the .50. ‘Shit! Hold off, man,’ he said. ‘Don’t fire, Shane; it’s the police.’ I realised that Adam must have recognised one of the Afghanis. It turned out that he was right and that some of the Afghani police didn’t have uniforms. As if it weren’t fucking hard enough to tell a Taliban or al-Qaeda dude from a local civilian, even the cops dressed the same and carried the same weapons. Adam had averted a major blue-on-blue friendly fire incident, with all the firepower aimed at those men walking through the tree line.

  The intercom radio chatter started getting faster and more agitated as more government forces continued their sweep through the mudbrick houses and fields of corn below us. There was plenty of noise coming from the village, with the pop-pop-pop of AK-47s firing and the occasional crump of a grenade going off.

  ‘We’ve got troops in contact, troops in contact, over,’ a calm voice drawled over the radio. The American on the radio was one of the ETT advisers working with the Afghani forces.

  When targets were sighted and positively identified, we’d get word to lay down some covering fire. I looked down at my dog at my feet. He started barking at the long bursts of gunfire. ‘Shush, Ricky, it’s OK, boy.’ I watched Adam’s fall of shot, and swung the 240 around a few degrees and squeezed the trigger, sending a burst of fifteen rounds. It was good to be doing something and, hopefully, helping the guys on the ground.

  I listened in while I kept watch down the barrel of the 240, swinging from side to side every now and then, looking for a target, ready to respond. It sounded as though things were hotting up. All along the gun line, people were calling to each other, giving target indications or calling for more ammo. On the intercom radio, someone was looking for someone else, as they’d lost contact with one of the ETT call signs. The ETTs’ questions to each other were punctuated by bursts of fire that I could hear in stereo, over the radio, in one ear, and in real time from the village, in the other. Talking to Adam, I worked out that it was Scott who was missing.

  Scott, who was from Utah, was a US Army second lieutenant, one of the ETTs. Those guys had one of the toughest jobs in Afghanistan: training the ANA and going into the field with them as embedded military advisers. There would be two or three of them in a team, an officer and senior non-commissioned officers, each assigned to a section or a platoon. The ETTs and their Afghanis got into some hellish TICs during some of the missions I went on. The American advisers fought and died alongside the Afghanis, and we all had a lot of respect for them and for the job they were doing. Scott was a National Guard officer, which meant he was a reservist.

  Usually, the SF teams I was with would stand off and give covering fire while the ANA or Afghani police did the actual house-to-house-clearance of a village or a compound. As it’s their war, they were expected to step up and do their share of the fighting, but most times the local troops went in to clear somewhere, there would be a couple of ETTs in the thick of it as well. Now, as the fight went on, I could see ANA men emerging from the village, back the way they’d come. It didn’t look good and it seemed as though the Afghanis were withdrawing.

  Scott was a really nice bloke, who loved Ricky. He had a dog back home, as well as a wife and four kids, and I think he liked hanging out with me and Ricky because it reminded him of the life he’d left behind and was looking forward to getting back to. He’d joined the National Guard after September 11, with the goal of serving his country overseas. He wanted to get into SF, but the ETT job had been a way for him to go straight into combat in Afghanistan.

  Scott’s fondness for Ricky was typical of the way that soldiers related to my dog. Having a dog in the FOB was about much more than having an extra level of security against mines and IEDs. Dogs don’t know about rank or religion, or if you’re having a good day or a shitty one. They’re always there, ready to give kindness to people who show it to them and who deserve it. Guys – and girls – were always coming up to Ricky, and asking about him and whether they could pet him. There was something about scratching a dog behind the ears, or even just talking to him, that could make a soldier feeling like a cog in a big machine that was going nowhere fast feel human again.

  ‘Yep, looks like they’re fucking pulling out,’ Adam said to me as we watched the Afghanis moving back towards our position.

  The Afghanis had withdrawn without Scott, their ETT. He was still down there, somewhere in the village, where the Taliban were shooting back at the fleeing government soldiers. I felt sick, as did every other man watching the scene unfold and listening to people on the intercom radio still trying to get a handle on what had happened to the American officer.

  ‘OK. We’re going in to look for him,’ a voice said authoritatively over the radio.

  This time, the Americans who had been giving covering fire from behind their .50 cals and Mark 19s on the hummers were yanking back on the cocking handles on their M4s, adjusting their gear, checking their ammo and getting ready to get into the fight proper. Their faces were set. Whatever had happened to Scott, they were not leaving that village without him.

  The SF guys had Scott’s last known position, which was where they headed. No doubt, the Taliban knew exactly what was going through their minds because the Americans came under fire as they retraced Scott’s movements.

  On the radio, and across the open ground between us and the village, we could hear the firefight going down, and it was intense. The SF were shooting at close range – trading shots with the enemy over 50 to 100 metres. If both sides had been looking for a fight that day, they found it, as the US soldiers continued their fire-and-movement drills, rushing from cover to cover and aiming and shooting at any Afghani who showed his head.

  Doors were being kicked in as buildings were cleared all over again. Occasionally, someone would f
ire a burst on full automatic, laying down covering fire for his buddy, who would rush across a narrow alleyway, between compounds or from tree to tree. Searching for a missing man provides strong motivation even for SF guys, who were generally pretty pumped up in the first place.

  ‘Ah, we’ve got one KIA down here, over.’

  Scott had died fighting.

  His body was found still propped up on one knee, in a firing position. He’d taken a bullet through the eye and died instantly. He’d put his life on the line to train and lead the Afghanis he worked with, and they had fucking bailed on him and left his body there. His buddies brought him out – brought him home.

  ‘Those fucking Afghanis just left Scott there, man,’ one of the guys said, disgusted. I saw Scott’s body, laid on a stretcher, being loaded into one of the hummers.

  ‘They ran,’ another muttered. ‘Fucking cowards didn’t even think about trying to carry him out.’

  The Afghanis view death – like they do so many other things – differently from us. To them, if they die, it’s God’s will, and they’re resigned to there being nothing they can do about it. Also, I’ve heard of Taliban guys in TICs who have run out of bullets or RPG rounds and just started walking around, waiting to be shot, because they’ve already made their peace with their God and assume that this is the day they’re going to die. The ANA troops probably didn’t think there was anything wrong with leaving Scott’s body behind, even though their action riled the Americans, who pride themselves on never leaving a man behind.

  To a certain extent, you can start to feel the same way the Afghanis do; you give up trying to work out why something happens to one man and not to another, and become pretty fatalistic. I had a friend named Josh, an SF guy who had finished his second tour in Afghanistan, and had flown from FOB Cobra, back to Tarin Khowt, and on to Kandahar for his final leg to the States. He was a big, healthy dude but he died in his sleep, a week before he was due to get home. No-one knew why.