The Final Mission of Extortion 17

by Ed Darack

  While planners called for an IRF mission to reinforce the Lefty Grove strike, they had actually created a new operation interdicting an enemy shaped by Darby’s presence. As such, Kelsall increased the force to 33, to be inserted en masse in two Chinooks. “While they were technically filled to capacity, as the Chinook has 33 seating positions with 33 seatbelts, we often flew with far more passengers,” said Buddy, adding that Extortion Chinooks often carried upward of 50 passengers.

  The planners carefully studied recent high-resolution imagery and terrain analysis models that note slope angles by color: green indicates ground acceptably level for a helicopter landing, yellow a marginal slope, and red an unacceptable grade. “Dan Bair had selected a suitable LZ in the area a few weeks earlier for a mission that was eventually cancelled,” recalled Buddy. Guided by environmental factors such as slope, possible dust and other detriments, and the enemy’s geometry, Dan identified an LZ on a field in the middle of the Green Zone one-half mile north-northwest of the compound that Slasher 02 identified as the squirters’ location. The relatively remote LZ, which lay more than three miles northwest of the initial Lefty Grove infil LZ and two miles northwest of the Lefty Grove complex, could accommodate just one Chinook.

  Because a sequential insert, with Extortion 17 landing first and then Extortion 16, might present attackers with a valuable target after the first Chinook lifted off and the second came inbound, Kelsall decided to place all of the IRF into one Chinook. The two CH-47s that had inserted Team Darby hours before on the Lefty Grove raid would lift off from FOB Shank together, but Extortion 17, with the entire IRF force, would enter the Tangi Valley unaccompanied by the other Chinook. Extortion 16 would instead orbit north of the valley so that the aircraft’s pilots and crew could be on the ground within minutes to render aid, such as casualty evacuation, if needed.

  “That was the only way to insert the force,” Dan said of Kelsall’s decision. “The Chinook easily accommodated that size of a force, and flying a second helicopter to the same landing zone after the first took off after infilling troops would have been irresponsible, potentially exposing the second aircraft to the small-arms or RPG fire of an alerted insurgent.” The IRF infil would approach the Tangi from the opposite direction and opposite end of the valley than the initial infil for the added security offered by surprise.

  While Dave, Bryan, Spencer, Pat, and Alex would leave the mission’s fellow CH-47 north of the Tangi Valley, Extortion 17 would not enter the valley alone. Low on fuel just prior to the launch of the IRF Chinooks, Pitch Black 45 and 70 sped back to Shank’s FARP. Just after 2 a.m., as ground personnel refueled and rearmed Pitch Black 45 and refueled Pitch Black 70, Dave pulled thrust on Extortion 17 and air-taxied the Chinook to a loading area where a bus holding the IRF waited. As Spencer, Alex, and Pat loaded the IRF’s 25 American and 8 Afghan personnel onto the aircraft, the Apaches lifted off and sped west at 140 mph toward the IRF LZ, which they would orbit to search for any enemy and await the lone Chinook.

  At 2:22 a.m. on August 6, 2011, Extortion 16 and 17 lifted off from Shank, transmitted their Alpha calls, and disappeared into the night.

  Among those buckled into Extortion 17’s bench seats in the early morning of August 6 as the Chinook slipped toward the Tangi Valley were some of the United States’ most highly skilled, experienced, and determined individuals, including four U.S. Navy West Coast Team SEALs: Jared Day, Nicholas Null, Michael Strange, and Kraig Vickers. While each was a unique character, they shared certain experiences and character traits.

  The four all had begun their careers at the Naval Special Warfare Training Center in Coronado, California, at Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. “BUD/S is where all SEALs start out,” explained “Grant” (a pseudonym), a U.S. Navy SEAL with multiple overseas tours, including a combat tour in Afghanistan, who had recently served as an instructor at BUD/S. “That’s part of our ethos. We don’t seek self-recognition. The ethos is something that every ‘Team Guy’ should know and do his best to live by. We hammer it into the students at BUD/S.”

  Grant explained that BUD/S consists of three phases, the first being Selection, or First Phase. “The first three weeks are all curriculum—everything is written out. We want to see them show discipline, show time management skills, even doing things like getting their rooms cleaned. We want them to have a military bearing, show self-sacrifice and grit.” Much of this portion of BUD/S consists of physical training: running in sand, surf immersion, carrying logs, undertaking frigid ocean swims and obstacle-course runs, and carrying boats above their heads. “It’s a gut check. We’re looking for ‘teamability,’ guys who can communicate, who have that never-quit attitude.”

  Instructors do not teach tactics during this phase of BUD/S, instead focusing primarily on the physical, mental, and emotional endurance of prospective SEALs. Grant explained that on average, 50 percent of any class of 180 who start BUD/S are either dropped by the command due to poor health, injuries, or insufficient performance or drop out voluntarily (called Drop on Request, or DOR) within the first three weeks. “You really have no idea how hard it is to prepare for BUD/S,” he said, “especially Hell Week. You can’t train for that. Nothing can prepare you for it. It’s the fourth week of First Phase. Most of the guys who make it to Hell Week actually make it through [that phase], but the rate of failure can vary widely. It’s very complex.” Beginning on a Sunday evening, Hell Week lasts five and a half days, with candidates remaining outside for its duration, getting only about four hours of sleep per night, receiving little food, and spending a lot of time in the cold Pacific. “By the end of Hell Week, you’re completely exhausted. We have mandatory medical checks over the next 24 to 48 hours. You’re that wasted,” Grant said. “The rest of First Phase is pretty tame after that.”

  Grant described the men who come to BUD/S as typically from 19 to 29 years old and hailing from diverse backgrounds. Some have worked as lawyers, some have worked as carpenters, some made fortunes on Wall Street, some have Olympic backgrounds, and some are former college athletes. “One even worked at Victoria’s Secret for a while.” All share the same passion; they are what Grant calls the brotherhood. “Everything we do is for each other, the guy next to you, your brother. If that isn’t what you’re about, then the teams aren’t for you.” He further noted that most SEALs do not have prior conventional Navy experience. In a BUD/S class of 150 men, he estimated that roughly 10 have prior “big Navy” experience.

  Lasting seven weeks, Second, or Dive, Phase exposes the students to combat diving, the bread and butter of what Grant and other members of Naval Special Warfare simply call “the teams.” Third Phase teaches students basic weapons use and tactics, including shooting pistols and rifles as well as making and placing demolition charges.

  Grant described his life as a Navy SEAL when he first deployed. “Afghanistan was the best nine months of my life. It’s a badass hunting trip. Everyone wants to be there. Ask anybody throughout special operations—they love it. You’re pulling triggers next to your brothers, not for self-preservation but for them. You’re not thinking about yourself; you’re always thinking about your team. Thinking about these incredible brothers. They hammer self-preservation into you not for your own sake but for the sake of your brothers.”

  Enlisted ranks in SEAL teams have much more operational latitude than do those in conventional military units. “It isn’t like the lieutenant says, ‘This is how it is; now go do it.’ No, we all have a say, we all can make suggestions, come up with seven or eight ways to get something done, and then we choose the best of those seven or eight, regardless of who came up with it.” Despite the differences between SEAL teams and conventional military units, Grant expressed his respect for conventional warfighters. “The Army, the Marine Corps—those guys are hard as nails. They don’t get the money and the training we do, yet they get the job done, and done well.”

  Grant explained that East Coast/West Coast Team SEALs revere DEVGRU SEALs, referring to him
self as a “plain vanilla” SEAL. “Everyone throughout the teams looks up to those guys at Dam Neck,” he said, referring to DEVGRU’s home base at Dam Neck, Virginia. “They’re really a different breed of individual. They’re incredible.”

  Also in the hold of Extortion 17, forming the core of the IRF, sat Team Logar members Darrik Benson, Brian Bill, Christopher Campbell, John Douangdara, John Faas, Kevin Houston, Jonas Kelsall, Louis Langlais, Matthew Mason, Stephen Mills, Jesse Pittman, Thomas Ratzlaff, Robert Reeves, Heath Robinson, Nicholas Spehar, Jon Tumilson, Aaron Vaughn, and Jason Workman, all Dam Neck SEALs who had graduated from BUD/S, joined SEAL teams, deployed, and then screened to become a member of DEVGRU.

  “I waited for that phone call at the end of Hell Week,” said Jan Anderson, mother of Kevin Houston, “and shortly after 5 p.m. California time, I got a collect call. All I could hear him do was just kind of mutter, ‘Mom, I made it.’ ” Her son’s BUD/S class, number 221, began with 131 men and finished with just 11. Kevin would begin his operational career in SEAL Team 4, based at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Virginia, near Virginia Beach, where he reported on May 4, 1999.

  While each of Kevin’s fellow SEALs and other SOF and conventional military personnel were unique, they all shared similar qualities. “They are a group of guys cut from a cloth of warriors, all of them,” Jan said. “I met a lot of the guys Kevin worked with. They all have hearts of gold. They watch out for their families, they play with and love their children. All the guys I met were that way. They’re with their brothers at work but with their families at home.” Jan said that her son and his colleagues felt a responsibility to protect others, and she also noted that their backgrounds did not matter to one another. “Kevin’s father was African American, so Kevin was biracial. Of course, that never mattered, but he would always joke to the other guys that ‘he put the brother in the brotherhood.’ ” Kevin had faced adversity while growing up, to the point that Jan placed him in foster care for a few months. Once on her feet, however, they became a family again. The experience forced Kevin to become strong, to be a leader, and to be compassionate. “Kevin and all the SEALs he worked with had this deep respect for everyone who went to war for the country, the Army pilots and the crews, the Air Force guys, all of them.”

  Sitting with Kevin and the other passengers on Extortion 17 on the flight into the Tangi, Air Force 24th Special Tactics Squadron personnel John Brown, Andrew Harvell, and Daniel Zerbe accompanied Teams Darby and Logar on their raids, working as PJs and combat controllers, who also worked as JTACs. “Pararescuemen save people in all types of terrain and in all types of conditions,” explained Susan Zerbe, Dan’s mother. Dan’s years-long training had included numerous Air Force and joint training schools: Army Airborne School, Air Force Survival School, Special Forces combat dive course, Special Forces military freefall school, paramedic school, and Air Force Pararescue School. A sense of compassion and a desire to help others had driven him to become a PJ. His mother recalled that at 17, while still a senior in high school, Dan had “slapped down this Air Force brochure and said, ‘This is what I want to do.’ Following with ‘If I can achieve this, and if in my career I can save one life, then I did a good job.’ ”

  At Pararescue School, Dan learned how to start IVs, triage combat and disaster casualties, and tend to the sick and injured in precarious situations, such as in places accessible only by a rope dangling from a helicopter. After graduating PJ school in June 2004, he began where all PJs in JSOC’s 24th Special Tactics Squadron begin before they screen for the unit: in a conventional rescue squadron. In his case, it was the 38th Rescue Squadron at Moody Air Force Base near Valdosta, Georgia. Dan then deployed twice to Iraq and served as an Astronaut Recovery Team member in support of NASA’s Trans-Oceanic Abort Landing Sites for the Space Shuttle, a position for which he was hand-selected. Most of the general public is unfamiliar with Air Force PJs; when Dan joined their ranks, he was one of only 300.

  He screened for the 24th in June 2006 and was based at Pope Air Force Base, adjacent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as a member of the 24th’s Red Team. Dan’s time at FOB Shank was his seventh combat deployment. Of the 24th’s warfighters, Susan said that “they’re all cut from the same mold; they’re just extraordinary people.” She noted that on her son’s tours, he provided medical care to local families in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as his fellow American service personnel.

  Accompanying the Team Logar IRF were “Asfar Khan,” “Ahmad Sayed,” “Amanuldin,” “Hassan Ali,” “Hedayatullah,” “Mir Abdul Qadem,” and “Nasratullah” (whose names are changed here to protect their families), a mix of Afghan National Directorate of Security and Afghan National Army special operations commandos—in aggregate, an Afghan Partnering Unit—as well as “Jawid Sadat,” an Afghan interpreter. The SOF personnel supported by Task Force Knighthawk trusted their Afghan counterparts completely, although they were not privy to operational specifics. All carefully vetted, they were trained in part by JSOC personnel so that when U.S. forces left Afghanistan, they could run operations themselves.

  Also onboard the flight that morning was a member of Team Logar, Bart, a military working dog, who played one of the most dangerous roles in the JSOC raids in and around the Tangi Valley. A few days before the Lefty Grove raid, Buddy Lee and another Extortion pilot, CW3 Travis Baty, had met the highly trained Belgian Malinois while visiting the JSOC compound to begin planning an operation. Sitting on a couch in their planning area, waiting for the ground forces planners to decide which target they would raid that night, the two heard a door squeal open and then a pitter-patter. “And this dog runs around a corner and up to me and lays his paws on my lap and starts shaking this toy he has in his mouth,” recalled Buddy. Although he is a dog lover, Buddy had never seen Bart before, so he hesitated to play with him. Then Bart’s handler, John Douangdara, a DEVGRU SEAL and one of the Team Logar members, strode into the room and let Buddy know that Bart loved to play like any other dog. Unlike ordinary dogs, however, Bart also played an integral role in each JSOC raid he accompanied. After SEALs had surrounded a compound and performed their callouts through an interpreter or their attached Afghan commandos, they would send Bart in to search room to room to ensure no suspected terrorists remained in hiding.

  At 2:24 a.m., just minutes after lifting off from FOB Shank, Extortion 16 banked away from Extortion 17’s trajectory and orbited in a holding pattern roughly three miles north of the IRF landing zone. With Dave on the controls and Bryan navigating and making radio calls as pilot-in-command, the Chinook continued on a route due west for a few more minutes. “Six minutes out from LZ,” Bryan transmitted over Helo Common, a radio net used by all Task Force Knighthawk aircraft. Extortion 17 then turned south. As Pitch Black 45 and 70 approached the Tangi Valley, Dave banked the Chinook into a southeast heading and nudged the CH-47’s cyclic forward to begin their descent. Extortion 17, traveling 500 feet above ground level at 127 mph, neared the opening of the Tangi Valley. “Four minutes out,” Bryan radioed.

  Pitch Black 45’s Randell DeWitt and Greg Sievers heard Bryan Nichols’s voice in their helmets’ integrated headphones, as did Scott Quiros and Greg Robertson in Pitch Black 70. Entering the Tangi from the south and flying at 92 mph, the two Apaches of the AWT cut the first arc of a counterclockwise orbit with a radius of one mile centered on the IRF landing zone. Both pilots of each AH-64 scanned the LZ and the surrounding fields, stands of trees, and boulders of the Green Zone and the walls, terraces, and stone-and-mud houses of the small villages peppered throughout the lower ramparts of that slice of the Tangi. Randell, sitting in Pitch Black 45’s front seat, and Greg Sievers, in the rear, led the AWT, flying 1,000 feet above the ground. Greg Robertson and Scott followed, flying “rear and high” at 1,500 feet over the landscape, three miles in trace of the lead helicopter and maintaining opposite positions on the circle they drew in the sky.

  Fifteen minutes before the two Pitch Black Apaches slipped over the southern peripher
y of the Tangi, Slasher 02 had arrived on station and began a thorough scan of the area from 7,000 feet, orbiting counterclockwise two miles around the LZ. The sensor operators and pilots of the higher-flying gunship carefully searched the Green Zone and the area’s villages, including Khan Khel, one mile northwest of the IRF LZ on the north side of the valley, and neighboring Juy Zarin, the largest village in that part of the Tangi, seven-tenths of a mile from the LZ. They also scanned the small enclave across the Logar River from Juy Zarin, Hasan Khel, a collection of roughly a dozen houses and outbuildings built atop a bluff overlooking the Green Zone. As Slasher’s pilots and crew scanned the area around the IRF LZ, they simultaneously kept another of its sensors locked onto the compound in Zmuc Zukly, a half-mile south-southeast of the LZ, where the squirters—suspected members of Lefty Grove’s group, possibly including Lefty Grove himself—remained. However, none of the aircrafts’ sensors detected anything suggesting hostile intent. Nevertheless, Slasher 02 lased the Zmuc Zukly compound to indicate the position of the closest potential enemy combatants to the IRF LZ. Other than that laser radiation, the aviators could find no activity in that part of the valley.

  “Three minutes out,” Bryan transmitted at 2:33 a.m., Extortion 17’s rotor blades sending a building bump-bump-bump through the opening of the Tangi Valley as the CH-47 passed south of the village of Sheikhabad, flying at 92 mph 300 feet above the Logar River’s riparian corridor.