by Mitch Weiss
But now there were limits to what he could do. When he got shot in the thigh, he told himself it was fixable. He could still move his leg. It wasn’t broken. When he was hit in the ankle, he knew he was screwed. That wasn’t fixable. He was immobile. The irony wasn’t lost on Morales. A strong, athletic Green Beret, he worked out all the time—push-ups, sit-ups, weights—and ran hard, not jogged. It was always faster and stronger. He pushed his body to the limit and prided himself on his endurance. Now he was helpless.
25
Master Sergeant Jim Lodyga
With gunfire erupting in the valley, Master Sergeant Jim Lodyga had to rethink his plans.
When ODA 3336 started toward their objective, Lodyga and his team, including Eric Martin, Staff Sergeant Nick McGarry, and Sergeant First Class Sergio Martinez, peeled off toward the other side of the wadi.
It was their job to scale the opposite mountain and set up a machine gun to cover ODA 3336’s ascent.
From the wadi, the team could see a massive two-story mud-walled building and six other buildings clustered nearby. That was their target. The plan called for them to climb the mountain and clear that village while they also set up a machine gun to cover ODA 3336’s assault across the wadi.
Lodyga had broken his ODA and commandos into fire teams. McGarry, the team’s senior weapons sergeant, was leading one group, and Martin, the team’s communications sergeant, was leading the other. With McGarry’s Alpha team concealed and covering the mountain, Lodyga sent a half-dozen commandos forward to the cliff. It was a fifty-meter sprint over the rocks. When the Afghans got to the base, they started to climb.
The imagery of the mountain hadn’t done it justice. It was massive, and even the Afghans, accustomed to living and fighting in the terrain, were having problems. They had made it about a quarter of the way up, clawing for every inch, when the first shots echoed across the valley.
Lodyga knew immediately that ODA 3336 was in a fight. The fire started with a few pops and then it quickly built into a roar. Lodyga and his teammates knew the sound well.
A few months earlier, ODA 3312 had been in a similar ambush. They were on a reconnaissance patrol near Gowardesh in the mountains. Their mission was to clear the valley of insurgents who had been attacking Coalition forces. But while on patrol, in January 2008, they were attacked. It was a brutal firefight, and one of the Green Berets, Staff Sergeant Robert Miller, was killed while providing fire for his teammates to escape. (Miller was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor in 2010.) To Lodyga, the Shok Valley’s landscape—and mission—reminded them of the earlier operation.
They weren’t surprised by the Shok Valley ambush and knew all the insurgents’ tactics.
“Squat hold right here. We need to see what is developing,” Lodyga told his team. “It sounds like these guys are getting hammered.”
As the machine-gun and rifle fire built to a crescendo, Martinez, the team’s medic, could see children running down a trail away from the fighting. Lodyga could hear the radio calls from ODA 3336 as they tried to call in air strikes.
Lodyga knew he had to wait on his objective in order to figure out what was going on with ODA 3336. After talking to McGarry, he decided to put his mission on hold because he didn’t want to get strung out climbing the mountain and not be able to help if ODA 3336 called.
Finally, Lodyga heard Ford calling over the radio. He told them that ODA 3336 was getting hammered and they needed Lodyga’s team to start moving to help.
“Things are bad,” Ford said. “You might want to come over here.”
If we are not going to make it to my target, we have to go up and help Ford, Lodyga reasoned. He made the call to abandon his objective and started moving to help his brothers across the valley.
26
Wurzbach
From the beginning, Wurzbach didn’t like the mission. Too many obstacles. Fighting uphill. Landing in a valley. It felt all wrong, and had the potential to be a “really bad day.”
Now, pinned down as he was by heavy enemy fire on a hill, his dire feeling was looking like a prophecy. We’re never going to get out of here, he thought. He hoped he was wrong. But with everything that had already gone awry from the time they jumped off the helicopter, he wasn’t sure.
First, when the Chinook pitched forward, Wurzbach fell out of the bird and almost landed on his head. After scanning the landscape, he saw that the intelligence was all wrong. They said the weather was “quite pleasant” in the valley. It was icy and cold. They said the wadi was dry. But they ran into a river and Wurzbach had to wade through the water to get to the other side. And when they got to their positions, the satellite imagery was inaccurate. All bullshit, he thought.
His team had to find a new route to get to their blocking position. That was critical. A blocking position denies the enemy access to a given area or prevents the enemy’s advance in a given direction. Essentially, Wurzbach’s team would have to seal off the valley and protect the rest of the unit. But first, they had to find a way to get in position.
When a pilot reported that he had glimpsed a path that led up into the northeastern part of the canyon, they took it. They humped up that route until Wurzbach could no longer see the assault team. At that point, he began moving his team, which included his interpreter, Noodles, and several commandos, into position.
His goal was to get his team to higher ground, where they would be midline or above the village. That way they would have a clear vantage point. So if something happened—a firefight erupted—his men would be shooting on a more even plane, rather than shooting up. It would enable them to see better in general—a critical factor for a blocking team.
Wurzbach pushed forward about three hundred meters and found a patch of rocky ground. It wasn’t perfect, but at least his team would be able to cover the assault team and help close off the valley during the operation. Just as he was ready to radio the assault team to tell them he was in position, dirt kicked up around him.
“Did anybody see that?” he asked his men.
They all looked at Wurzbach like he was crazy. Nothing.
Wurzbach grew uncomfortable with the location. He glanced up and tried to decide whether to move up to even higher ground. Before he had a chance to make up his mind, he noticed more dirt flying up—and he realized what was happening.
“They’re fucking shooting at us,” he shouted.
“I know. I’ve only been saying that for ten minutes,” Noodles said to him
“Why didn’t you say it to me?” Wurzbach asked.
“The commandos thought I was being a girl.”
He was stunned. What the fuck? he thought. “I don’t care what they think. I’m the fuckin’ one you have to talk to.”
Wurzbach ordered everyone to take cover behind a shoulder-high rock wall. It wasn’t great, but it was better than being out in the open. Wurzbach crouched and scanned the terrain. He could see people up in the village about six hundred meters away. But they quickly disappeared in a building. One man was carrying a backpack with part of a warhead sticking out—a telltale sign he was carrying an RPG. Wurzbach pulled the trigger of his M4. He was unsure whether he hit him. Without warning, other men began running between buildings. He opened fire on them. Again, he wasn’t sure if he hit anyone.
Wurzbach turned and stared at his team: Noodles and three commandos. Another member of his team, Staff Sergeant Dan Plants, was set up about two hundred meters down the canyon by a big tree. His job was to cover Wurzbach’s team, to make sure nobody could sneak up on them.
Sitting behind the rock wall, Wurzbach radioed the assault team. He told them what happened and that the HIG fighters had disappeared in the buildings and rocks.
But then more rounds began impacting the dirt surrounding his position. At one point, the bullets landed inches in front of him, and the dirt and rocks kicked up in his face. Wurzbach was irritated. I have to move to a better position where I can scan and try to find them, see where they are shooting from. He
didn’t see any muzzle flashes. Wurzbach pushed forward to a spot where the canyon dropped down, and found a broken-down goat shed. He crawled into it and used it for cover. His eyes scanned the compound, trying to figure out from where they were shooting. “Where the fuck are they?” he asked. He stayed there for several minutes. When he crawled out, he heard gunfire reverberating in the valley.
Wurzbach sprinted to a small tree at the apex of the rock wall that he had been using for cover, and then turned his attention back to the compound. That’s when he discovered what appeared to be a bunker complex—with at least three different openings for firing ports. He kept his eyes on the target, trying to identify muzzle flashes coming from the openings. Wurzbach also was scanning the village itself, staring into the dark windows and doors to see if he could see something. But whoever was there, they were on their game.
He could tell from the radio traffic that his friends were in trouble. Behr and Morales were wounded. He heard Walton’s voice frantically telling commanders they were stuck. They had nowhere to maneuver. Wurzbach was pinned, too. Plus, he couldn’t just abandon his position. With no way to reach his teammates, the only thing he could do was wait.
27
Howard
Like some great hunter on an African safari, Howard waited for his elephant gun.
He was going hunting with the only weapon the team had that could possibly penetrate the mud-walled compounds protecting the enemy fighters: the Carl G.
He didn’t know how long he and his commandos had been trapped at the base of the mountain, trying to make their way up to help their wounded comrades. They were held back by hellish fire, but that only made Howard more determined. Maybe it was his New England stubbornness, Yankee roots dating back to the American Revolution, but Howard was going to find a way to get the job done.
Before the first rounds were even fired, Howard and his commandos had moved to the far side of the wadi hoping to set up so that they could get a clear shot at the houses above. Peering up at the edge of the cliff, he could see men running along the ledge. But he couldn’t see any guns through the ten-power scope mounted on his SR-25 sniper rifle. People always move when you show up in helicopters at a village. People are going to walk around and tell the others something is going on. That is to be expected. As long as they don’t have a gun, you can’t shoot them.
But when one of his commandos started yelling and pointing, he knew something was wrong. Howard strained to see what the Afghan was pointing at, slowly scanning each man through the scope. Without an interpreter, though, he had no idea what the Afghan was saying.
Howard called into his radio: “Hey, I need a terp over here.”
His eyes continued to slowly scan the ridge for any men carrying guns. Frustrated, Howard turned to a commando. “I can’t see what you’re pointing to. I can’t see it.”
Without warning, he was caught in a maelstrom of fire. Pressing himself against the boulders in the wadi, Howard tried to find cover. Any cover. Jamming as much of himself as he could behind a basketball-size rock, he got behind his sniper rifle and searched for a target.
No one was visible.
The fighters who were up in the ridge moments before were now behind cover and concealed. He started to methodically scan the buildings, looking into windows and at holes and creases in the wall for muzzle flashes or smoke. Anything that would give away their position. All around him the others were shooting at the buildings and the windows, even bushes where they thought someone might hide. Anything to suppress the fighters.
A few minutes into the fight, Howard saw Ford start calling for a cease-fire by waving his hand up and down in front of his face. Sometimes you have to stop shooting to make sure you’re actually getting shot at and to figure out where the enemy fire is coming from.
During the previous rotation, Howard remembered how they had hit a target with the Afghan National Police. As the police got out of the vehicles, one of the Afghan officers accidently fired his gun into the dirt. No one shot at them, but everybody on the back side of the house started shooting. It took a few minutes to figure out that no one was under attack.
Soon all the commandos had stopped firing—except one. Howard stopped scanning and turned to him: “Cease fire. Cease fire.”
Howard knew the commando understood him. It was one of the first commands they taught their Afghan counterparts. But the man kept shooting.
“Cease fire. Cease fire,” Howard said again.
Finally, he grabbed the Afghan, punching him in the shoulder. The Afghan turned and looked at him in amazement.
“Cease fire!”
Howard had barely gotten the words out when two rounds hit a rock in front of them. Both men dove behind the rock.
“Never mind,” Howard said. “I don’t know where you are shooting at, but keep doing it.”
That’s when he called for the commando carrying the Carl Gustav.
“Bring me my rocket.”
He called the gun a rocket because the commandos knew that word. In seconds, the commando ran up to Howard and handed him the green tube. It was heavy and the Afghan was happy to get rid of it.
Fired from a pistol grip and trigger, it is aimed with a massive black optical sight. It can be fired standing, sitting, kneeling, or prone.
“Ammo. Ammo,” Howard called next.
Sanders and Walding had identified a two-story building that overlooked the whole wadi. Walton and Rhyner had called over and over again trying to get the pilots to drop bombs on it. The bombs would drop to the left or right of it, but never on it. From inside, the fighters could keep up a steady barrage.
Calling down to Howard, Ford wanted him to use the Carl G to mark the building. The Hellfire air-to-surface missiles from the attack helicopters were bringing buildings down, and Rhyner and Sergeant Robert Gutierrez of ODA 3312 were trying to talk the Apaches onto the other buildings where the fighters were hiding. But the Air Force JTACs had no way of identifying the target. The Carl G was big enough that the rounds could be seen from the air, making it perfect for marking targets.
“I’m going to shoot and try and mark this building that we’re trying to blow up,” Howard called up to Rhyner. “So tell me when they are looking.”
In the distance, he glimpsed two Afghan commandos with heavy rounds attached to their backs running toward him. When they reached him, he removed the rounds he had tied to their body armor with nylon webbing. He broke open the breech and slid the round into the tube. The gun can fire a number of different rounds from high explosive to antitank and even smoke. He was shooting high explosive. With his sights on the building, Howard checked to make sure no one was in the back-blast area and then fired.
The round slashed across the valley, smashing into the building.
Howard fired three rounds from the wadi, but the building was so solid it was like he had fired a pebble. But the pilots from the Apaches spotted the rounds and launched Hellfires that would soon level the building. Finished, he called the commandos back.
“Okay, take my gun,” Howard said, handing the tube to the Afghan and grabbing his sniper rifle again.
Taking up position behind the rocks again, he started to fire through the windows of the remaining houses. He had a feeling it was going to be a long day.
28
Walton
Walton knew their survival probably depended on getting air cover. He glanced at Rhyner, who was huddled behind a small tree at the edge of the cliff. Then he yelled at the JTAC: Start bringing in close air support.
Sanders had identified a large mud-walled building close to where he and Walding had set up, and told Walton he needed CAS—close air support—in a hurry.
“Bomb that shit,” Walton yelled.
Rhyner started to put together a nine-line, a script used by pilots and spotters with all the information needed to target an air strike. It included the type of target, the location of friendly and enemy forces, and other information. The idea is that both side
s, the pilots and the spotters, have a common script that can be used during a stressful combat situation.
Rhyner turned to Walton. “Hey I need your initials. This is danger close,” he said.
The building was close to where Sanders and Walding were positioned. In order to hit targets so close to friendly units, a commander must approve the request with his initials.
“Dave, are you sure, man?” Walton said. “You’re danger close, man.”
“Fuck it,” Sanders told Walton. “Hit it.”
“All right,” Walton said, giving Rhyner his initials to carry out the attack.
Sanders, using his M203 grenade launcher, marked the building with a round as two Apache gunships flew in side by side and unloaded their rockets and missiles into the building. The explosion was massive and Walton was sure his men were dead.
“DAVE, DAVE, DAVE, YOU OKAY?” Walton shouted into the radio.
“Keep it coming,” Sanders radioed back.
“Fuck it. Hit it again,” Walton furiously barked at Rhyner.
This time, a fighter thundered out of the sky and strafed the building with guns, followed by a bomb strike. It was so close, Walton had to open his mouth to let the concussion clear through his body.
“Keep putting fires all along that mountain,” Walton said after the last blast. “Bring every bomb in danger close and use my initials.”
“This is danger close. I am going to need your initials,” the pilot said.
“KMW, motherfucker,” Walton said, referring to the initials of his name. “Don’t ask me again. Everything is danger close.”
If they were going to survive, they needed those fighters to give them some breathing room.
29
Carter
Carter was no medic.
Yet here he was, trapped on a cliff and pressed into medical duty. Behr was seriously wounded. So was Morales. And Shurer was nowhere in sight. Unknown to Carter, Walton was a paramedic. But the captain was so tied up on the radio helping Rhyner with the air strikes he didn’t have time to take care of the wounded.
