One Bullet Away

by Nathaniel C. Fick

  "None."

  "No, one. The Afghans slaughtered all of them except one. They let him live to tell the story.

  "Christ, and the Soviets," he continued. "They admitted to fifteen thousand dead in the 1980s, plus at least ten times that number wounded and thousands dead from disease. And that's only what they admitted. So my point is just that this place has been a graveyard for a lot of guys like you and me, and we owe it to ourselves at least to learn from their mistakes."

  I turned to a report on Taliban tactics. Their technique for moving through a minefield, according to the brief, was to put the unit in single file with the man at the front holding a large sandstone rock. Before each step, he drops the rock in front of him. If it falls on a mine, it will explode in a puff of dust, with the soft sandstone absorbing most of the blast. The point man may be stunned and temporarily deaf, but he will just go to the back of the line while the next guy takes over with a new rock.

  The brief also said the fighters never carried any of their own gear—women and mules did that. If there were no women or mules available, they'd do without that particular equipment. The briefer finished with a note that Westerners who worked with the mujahideen in the 1980s said it was almost impossible to launch a coordinated attack with them; they quickly abandoned support positions in order to join in the glory of the assault.

  "Death before dishonor."

  "Say again?" Patrick looked up. I hadn't realized I had spoken aloud.

  "Death before dishonor. Marines tattoo it on their forearms, but these fuckers live it."

  Any cavalier bravado I might have had—what Captain Novack would have called my "posturing behavior"—was ebbing away.

  "Gents, the order we've all been waiting for is on the street." It was October 7, and I stood at the back of the nightly brief in the wardroom, listening to the ship's operations officer. He shook a stack of papers and went on. "This is the night's theater air-tasking order. This document is usually one page of resupplies and medical flights. As you can see, this one looks more like a telephone book. Our neighbors this evening will include B-1 and B-2 bombers, B-52s, and every type of carrier air. Lots of it."

  I had learned earlier in the day that Charlie Company had flown off the Peleliu. Their mission was to secure an airfield in Jacobabad, Pakistan, for use by combat search-and-rescue aircraft. That could mean only one thing: American pilots would soon be in the sky over Afghanistan.

  The operations officer continued. "The phased air campaign against Afghanistan begins in about an hour. Tomahawks from the Philippine Sea will be part of the first wave. Now I want to wrap this up so we can all get on deck to watch the show."

  Word had spread quickly through the ship, and dozens of Marines gathered in the dark on the upper decks. One level below, two sailors strummed guitars and sang Bob Dylan's "Shelter from the Storm."

  Patrick saw it first. A distant glow resolved itself into a small orange ball, rose vertically to the top of a haze layer about one finger above the horizon, and then flattened to horizontal flight as the Tomahawk missile disappeared to the north.

  We'd been waiting for this moment for weeks. September 11 had been an act of war, but we couldn't really say we were at war until the United States responded. Now all ambiguity disappeared. As if to confirm my thoughts, the ship's captain made an announcement over the shipwide loudspeaker that all scheduled events for the next two days were canceled "in anticipation of operational taskings." We were at war.

  10

  HIGH ON THE SUNLIT DECKS a week later, just below the signal bridge where the old Navy traditions of flags and blinker lights lingered into the twenty-first century, my troops were kicking my ass on a blue rubber mat. I may have been the platoon commander, but many of my Marines were bigger than I was and better fighters. We passed idle time on the ship by training in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program, universally known as "semper fu." My machine gun section leader, Staff Sergeant Law, was instructing.

  "OK, listen up, all you pussies who've never been in a fight. If you can fuck or play baseball, you can fight. It's all in the hips." Law looked more like a librarian than a Marine machine gunner. He described himself as "skinny but fat," tall and thin but soft. He was one of the platoon's only combat veterans, with a handful of Balkan firefights in his past. His "skinny fatness" didn't inhibit his skill as a semper fu artist.

  The Marines mimicked Law by slamming someone, preferably of higher rank, to the mat. Having been stomped two or three times in the past hour, I was relieved when one of the company clerks came rushing up the ladder with a message. "Lieutenant Fick, the skipper needs you in TACLOG right away. Important message traffic."

  Captain Whitmer waited in front of a computer. "Nate, I've just been called over to the Peleliu for mission planning. I want you and Patrick to come with me. No time for questions right now. Pack a bag for two or three days and be ready to go in five minutes."

  A dry-erase board hung on the wall behind Captain Whitmer. Our current list of missions, under the heading "Be Prepared To," was written in blue marker: "BPT reinforce USEMB Islamabad, BPT secure forward airfield at Zhob, BPT reinforce Jacobabad." This mission didn't sound like any of those. I ran down the passageway to my stateroom and threw my planning paperwork, some workout clothes, and a paperback copy of Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose into my waterproof bag. After closing the door, I realized I had forgotten my plastic Dubuque coffee mug and went back for it. Mission planning meant late nights. I climbed back to the top deck and told the platoon I'd be gone for a couple of days but would be in touch as soon as I knew more.

  Captain Whitmer and Patrick were waiting for me. "No helos flying. We're going by RHIB."

  The Dubuque carried two eleven-meter rigid hull inflatable boats. They were small black craft, grossly overpowered, and usually used to insert SEALs on clandestine missions. We climbed down narrow ladder wells to an open cargo door in the ship's side. Ten feet below, the ocean foamed past. One of the RHIBs maneuvered off the ship's beam, and beneath us dangled a rope ladder.

  As the boat slid beneath the ladder, we swung our way down and clambered aboard. The RHIB crew seemed intent on showing off their boat's performance to a group of Marine officers, and we shot away from the Dubuque as if it were steaming in reverse. Open ocean lay ahead. We rocketed along at forty knots for ten minutes before the Peleliu's hulking profile loomed in the haze. Coming alongside, we reversed the earlier process and climbed up a rope ladder into the cavernous hangar bay. The Peleliu's flight deck stretched from bow to stern, like an aircraft carrier, and the MEU's whole squadron was aboard. Inside the hangar bay, helicopters and Harrier jets crouched on their landing gear in the dim light, while maintenance crews scurried around and a group of Marines practiced semper fu on a blue rubber mat.

  The Battalion Landing Team (BLT), composed mostly of infantry Marines from 1/1, planned its missions in a room the size of a Manhattan studio apartment. Computers lined one wall, and a huge map of Pakistan and Afghanistan covered the opposite bulkhead. Exposed pipes and fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling, and some wag had taped a drawing of Osama bin Laden to the door. Its caption read, "You can run, but you'll only die tired." Battalion officers and staff NCOs filled the scattered chairs.

  When Captain Whitmer, Patrick, and I walked in, the battalion's executive officer called the room to order. He freed up chairs by dismissing several Marines from the room. "We're keeping details on this one close to our chest, gents. Sorry."

  They walked out, looking hurt, and the door was closed behind them. This was starting to sound interesting.

  "Welcome, Bravo Company," he said with a nod in our direction. "What I am about to say will not leave this room. You will do your planning, theorizing, and bullshitting within these four walls—not on the mess deck, not in the wardroom, and not in the gym. Is that clear?"

  We all nodded as he continued. "As you know, the United States has been dropping bombs on Afghanistan for the past nine days." He explained that ther
e was a small CIA and Army Special Forces presence on the ground, mainly in the north. There was as yet no ground presence in the country's south. The executive officer paused for effect. "That is about to change. On Friday evening, October 19, Task Force Sword will conduct a mission into southern Afghanistan to seize an airfield and attempt to capture a high-value leadership target." Pause. "We have been tasked with providing a Bald Eagle for that mission." Pause, and a slow turn to face Captain Whitmer, Patrick, and me. "Bravo Company, you're it."

  The three of us glanced at one another. A Bald Eagle was a company-size reserve element, ready to help in case a raid force ran into trouble. The question on all our minds was "Why Bravo?"

  Captain Whitmer was too self-effacing to say it, but I knew the answer. Among the battalion's company commanders, he was the iconoclast, the outcast stepchild who trained his Marines to be good instead of look good. He pushed us hard, questioned authority, and couldn't even feign obsequiousness. But when the first real mission called, the battalion turned to him.

  "Task Force Sword is composed of SOF currently embarked on the Kitty Hawk" the executive officer continued. The aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk was being used as a floating base for special operations forces working in and around Afghanistan.

  "Here's your mission statement." He handed us a sheet of paper marked SECRET in bold red letters. I read, "On order, Task Force Bald Eagle launches from PEL in 4 x CH-53 to OBJ RHINO, links up with TF SWORD mobile reserve, and conducts relief in place. Defend RHINO with Bravo Company for up to twenty-four hours. O/o turn over OBJ RHINO to TF SWORD and withdraw to ARG shipping." This prompted more questions than it answered.

  After a more comprehensive brief, I thought I had a good idea of the plan. On Friday night around dusk, elements of Task Force Sword, mostly Army Rangers and Special Forces, would launch from the Kitty Hawk. They would fly into Pakistan, securing a small airfield near Dalbandin, code-named Honda, to use as a refueling and rearming point. From Dalbandin, part of the force would parachute into a desert airstrip in southern Afghanistan code-named Rhino, while the other part would raid Taliban leader Mullah Omar's residential compound outside Kandahar. We would serve as a reserve in case something went wrong during any part of the mission. This sounded complex, I thought, and a lot could go wrong.

  Bravo Company flew over from the Dubuque the next morning. While the NCOs settled the troops in their temporary berthing and began distributing ammunition and gear for the mission, Captain Whitmer, Patrick, and I continued with planning. Every MEU mission ran through three planning stages. First came a warning order from some higher command notifying the MEU to "be prepared to" execute a given task. That task may have been distributing food to the people of East Timor, evacuating the embassy in Islamabad, or serving as the quick reaction force for a mission into Afghanistan. Once the warning order was received, the MEU staff went into overdrive, developing a course of action for how the MEU would accomplish the mission.

  It is a central tenet of the Marines' war-fighting philosophy that each subordinate must provide options to his boss—tell him what you can do, rather than what you can't. Depending on the situation, two or three or four courses of action would be developed and then roughed out into basic operational plans. For the Sword mission, helicopter pilots calculated distances and fuel burn, charting different paths through the mountains. Infantry officers studied maps to memorize the layouts of Rhino and Honda and decided how many men they'd need in different scenarios. All the hypothesizing came together in the final construction of three possible courses of action—put the Bald Eagle on the ground at Honda in case it was needed, keep it airborne over the ocean until called, or keep it on the Peleliu, ready to launch on a few minutes' notice. The MEU commander reviewed the options and decided to keep the quick reaction force aboard the Peleliu. Its response time would be almost as fast and at greatly reduced risk. With a course of action chosen, the MEU fleshed out a detailed concept of operations for accomplishing the mission.

  The wheels spun madly again. Numerous small planning cells, each focused on a different aspect of the mission, convened in coffee-fueled debate sessions. Pilots plotted their courses and picked the mix of Super Stallion transport helicopters and Cobra gunships. Grunts finalized their manifests, picking platoons and dividing them among the helicopters so that one crash wouldn't wipe out all the machine gunners or all the officers. Other cells focused on communications, requesting dedicated satellite radio channels and preparing encryption codes to scramble the transmissions. Logisticians brought ammunition up from the ship's magazine. Medical teams prepared the ship's operating rooms and thawed blood for the Marines to take with them. All the details of the plan were then presented to the MEU commander in a concept of operations brief.

  Preparing a concept of operations during training had always frustrated me. The briefs were PowerPoint presentations held in the Peleliu's wardroom. Captains and majors fought over font size, background color, and whether to include cute graphics of moving helicopters. The purpose, though, was sound: to air the plan publicly, criticize it, test its assumptions, focus on the friction points where something was likely to go wrong, and strengthen it. Finally, after the appropriate changes and refinements were made, the plan was rehearsed from start to finish in a confirmation brief, with each key player explaining his role to the MEU commander. According to MEU (SOC) standards, the whole process, from warning order to confirmation, had to be done in less than six hours.

  Only after the plan was approved did I feel comfortable briefing the Marines. I wanted to insulate them from the confusion of changing details in the mission.

  "Weapons platoon, circle it up," I said, standing in the hangar bay with my notebook and a photocopied map.

  The Marines stopped loading ammo and programming radios, pressing close to hear the word. I quickly outlined the mission to low whistles and nods of approval.

  "It's important right now that we stick to our timeline. We have a lot to do. The rest of this evening is your time to prep individual and platoon gear. Get some rest tonight—tomorrow's a busy day." I tore a page from the notebook and taped it to the bulkhead above the platoon's gear. "Here's the schedule: 0600 breakfast; 0630 to 0800 draw weapons, issue ammo, and stage equipment; 0800 to 0900 helo drills; 0900 to 1000 formal platoon order issued; 1100 to 1200 final gear staging; 1200 to 1300 rules of engagement brief; 1300 to 1600 rehearsals; 1630 test fire; and 1700 call away and final load rehearsals. After 1730, Sword is airborne, and we're on alert 10—that's ten minutes from notification to launch."

  I looked around at the crowd of faces. "You're it, fellas. A hundred million American men would like to be in your shoes right now. We have the honor of fighting back."

  On Friday, I got my first look at the wartime military. While the platoons ran through the schedule, Patrick and I gathered equipment for the mission. I was used to signing for a roll of duct tape and accounting for each individual MRE we ate. But now gear seemed to materialize from nowhere—Javelin antitank missiles, iced coolers full of blood, atropine injectors for defense against chemical nerve agents, and two laser marking systems for guiding smart bombs in the dark.

  By 1700, our packs, ammunition, and medical equipment were staged in the helicopters, which sat, fueled and waiting, on the flight deck. The evening was balmy and clear, with dry air seeming to throw the ship's features into high relief. I sent the platoon to its berthing area with orders to stay together—no trips to the gym or the late-night chow line. At last, I joined the company officers in TACLOG, where the Sword mission was unfolding over the radio speaker.

  We listened as the Rangers on the ground in Afghanistan vectored AC-130 Spectre gunships in on targets. Feeling helpless and wanting to be rested in case we got the call, I climbed five levels down from the Peleliu's tower and then up into an empty bunk, turning off the light and drawing the privacy curtain around me. Fatigue won out over excitement, and I fell asleep.

  The battalion executive officer yanked back the
curtain. "One of the Sword helicopters crashed. Get up and stand by."

  I leaped from the rack and pulled on my boots, laces still flapping as I ran down the passageway to the battalion planning room. The clock read 3:45 A.M.

  The Sword mission was still under way, and information was incomplete and contradictory. The helo had been shot down in Afghanistan, or it had crashed in a cloud of dust while landing in Pakistan. No casualties, or everyone aboard had been killed. Rescue would launch immediately, or the Rangers would attempt to do their own recovery. Our default setting was to wait and let the situation develop. I picked up a phone to wake the Marines and then thought better of it. Each adrenaline rush is followed by a crash. Each time we prepped to launch but didn't go would leave us a little more tired, jaded, and frustrated. It would be better, I thought, to protect them from as much of that as possible. With dawn an hour away, we'didn't have enough darkness to launch and reach the crash site before sunrise.

  The parachute jump into Rhino had been successful, and the Rangers had overcome limited resistance. The Sword mission to capture Mullah Omar failed because he hadn't been there when the raid force had arrived. The Americans had narrowly avoided disaster when their helicopters came under fire while taking off. One Chinook had clipped a stone wall, knocking off one of its landing gear, but escaped safely.

  The crash had occurred at a staging base along the Pakistani border. Two Rangers had been killed when an MH-60 special operations Black Hawk rolled over after the pilots got disoriented in swirling dust. The dead men had been pulled out, and the survivors had been evacuated on other aircraft, but the helicopter was still where it had crashed.

  Despite the Pakistani government's nominal alliance with the United States, it had only loose control over the border regions, where Taliban sympathies were strong. After one attempt to recover the helicopter was thwarted by heavy hostile fire, reaching the Black Hawk became a high priority. This was partly because of the sensitive nature of its avionics, and partly because of its propaganda value to our enemies. But mostly it was because the Marines weren't going to let a few Pakistanis with rifles chase them away. Planning began for a beefed-up recovery force to go in, shooting if necessary, to bring back the Black Hawk. It would be built around Bravo Company.