Demon Camp

by Jennifer Percy

  Then he hears it: “Caleb, I’m burning, man. I’m fucking burning.”

  • • •

  Months before their next deployment, in the spring of 2005, Kip was heading home from the base, driving this old sloppy car, with broken wipers and no insurance. He was on his way to see his new girlfriend, Kristina, a twenty-year-old he’d met at a restaurant in Savannah. When the two met, Kristina was working as a hostess and Kip had been dating the bartender. Kristina thought maybe Kip was a little bipolar. He was loud and passionate and didn’t care what anyone thought. Kristina and Kip started flirting and the flirting got out of control, and right away things got serious and they moved in together. Kristina went out to bars with the crew. She was a good drinker, had no problem keeping up. Kip always moved from one woman to the next, but Kristina was different.

  Kip was in a rush to see her but Caleb wouldn’t let him drive off the base, not without insurance.

  “I don’t care ” Kip said. Kip opened his shirt. He had a new tattoo of the Evil Empire.

  Caleb tossed Kip the keys to his own truck. “Don’t fuck it up. Have a nice weekend.” Kip leaned his head out the window and told Caleb to hang on a second. “We’re going to die in that fucking desert, aren’t we?”

  Caleb folded his arms, dug at the dirt with his shoe. He told Kip to shut his face.

  • • •

  Al Gore had an old Camaro that wouldn’t run. He’d get frustrated, drink beer, try to make it work, then get more drunk and pissed off. A meaty guy. Loved hot rods. Never real bossy. Never large and in charge, but there were a few times in his life when he’d get stuck and stubborn. The same month Kip showed Caleb his new tattoo of the Evil Empire, Caleb was helping Al Gore repair the Camaro. They were trying to fix the temp switch on the fan because the engine kept overheating, and so Caleb tried to wire it so the fan ran all the time, and in the middle of all this fixing, Al Gore turned to Caleb and said, “I’m going to die in that desert.”

  • • •

  In May 2005, a month before their deployment, Caleb called Allyson in Missouri and told her about the dreams. “I need to see the kids. I’m not coming home from this one.”

  Allyson screamed at him, hung up the phone, called Caleb’s superior, First Sergeant Perez, and told him that her ex-husband ought to be put in a mental institution because he was having these crazy dreams.

  Perez called Caleb into his office, sat him down, and asked if all of this was true—the dreams, the visions. Caleb shook his head. He wouldn’t tell him anything.

  Major Reich had an office across the hall from Perez and overheard everything. He told the men to get into his office.

  “First Sergeant Perez, you can leave.” He told Caleb to close the door.

  “So,” he said, “are you going to tell me about these crazy dreams?” Caleb shook his head. Major Reich leaned forward and said, “Because I’ve been having the same dreams.”

  Major Reich pulled the unit together in his office and offered them the chance to back out. “Your aircraft has been in more firefights than anybody’s,” he said. “You guys are all the divorced angry ones. You guys always volunteer for everything. Why don’t you sit this one out, do the next rotation.”

  Caleb and Kip were the main guys in that aircraft; they’d deployed for years together—sleeping and eating in that aircraft. They knew every inch of it. Al Gore. Mike Russell. They all knew. They all had the same dreams—their chopper’s tail number—#146—disappearing into a curtain of flames. One by one, the men stared at each other. Too brute, too proud. Macho men. No one was going to say anything. No one was going to say, I’m having these crazy dreams. They tap-danced around it.

  The crew deployed in May 2005, and in June they were in the shadow of the Hindu Kush mountains, in the Kunar province of eastern Afghanistan, the most violent region in the most violent season of the war. Hindu Kush means “Hindu-killer.” The word kush derives from the Berber for “to slaughter” or “to kill.” When the Hindu slaves traveled from India to the Muslim courts of central Asia, the mountains killed them in hordes. In their weather and their extremes; their low, warm valleys and high, cold peaks; their deep, burrowing network of caves, they have seen more violence than any other region in Afghanistan.

  The mission was called Operation Red Wings and the goal was to kill or capture Taliban Ahmad Shah, leader of an insurgent group called the Mountain Tigers. The Night Stalkers were going to insert four Navy SEALs in the same location where the Afghan people warred against the British who arrived in 1839, the Soviets who arrived in 1980, and the Americans who arrived in 2001. The same mountains where, in April 1985, a tribe of Afghans ambushed a hundred Russian Special Operations soldiers and cut their throats.

  Period of darkness June 27, Major Stephen Reich and Captain Matthew Brady, platoon leader of the Night Stalkers of Bravo Company, gathered in Bagram for a mission brief.

  Caleb’s crew would fly to Asadabad and waited as part of a Quick Reaction Force, a rescue team, in case anything happened to the SEALs.

  At six in the evening, at sundown, another Chinook carried the four-man SEAL team, including Lieutenant Mike Murphy and Petty Officers Danny Dietz, Matt Axelson, and Marcus Luttrell, into the Hindu Kush, traveling at one hundred knots, flying close to the ground, and dropped them off on the side of a mountain called Sarwalo Sar. The Chinook hovered at twenty feet, and the recon team fast-roped to the ground. There was no moon. They crawled into an area of fern and cedar and dead upright trees.

  At Jalalabad the operations team monitored the SEALs, and once their positions were secure, SEAL team commander Eric Kristensen shipped operations back over to Bagram.

  The SEALs rested in the mountains during the daylight.

  • • •

  The four SEALs had been walking through the woods when an Afghan jumped out of the trees and came at Marcus Luttrell with an ax. Axelson had a gun at the Afghan’s head before the ax could chop. Two more men and a kid appeared from the trees, followed by goats. The herders had no guns. The soldiers told them to sit still. Lieutenant Murphy said they had three options: kill the goat herders and toss the bodies over the cliff, kill the goat herders and bury the bodies, or let the herders go.

  Dietz said he didn’t care. Axelson voted to kill. It was up to Luttrell. He voted to let the men go home.

  The herders, set free, must have run off and told the Taliban, because hours later Shah’s men chased the SEALs down the mountain in a parade of fire: machine guns, AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades.

  Danny Dietz died first, shot four times. It was the fifth bullet that killed him. Murphy found him and decided it was a good time to radio the base for backup. But he couldn’t get reception so he crawled to an open area, in full view of the Taliban. He said we’re dying out here. A bullet entered his back. Blood spurted on the radio. He hung up. Murphy stumbled to a rock face for cover. Luttrell followed his screams but they faded before he made it to the body. Luttrell found Axelson in a hollow, half his skull blown off, eye sockets full and dark with blood.

  • • •

  Captain Brady hadn’t been sleeping long when the maintenance officer walked into his bunker and told him to wake up. He said he’d been in the operations center and the SEALs had been compromised. The evacuation situation and requirements were unclear. Caleb woke up to the sound of Captain Brady gathering the platoon, talk of a new mission. Lieutenant Robert Long, assistant operations commander, notified the men that he’d received a distress call from the SEALs. The Night Stalkers waited for orders. A second call came in from the SEALs, but they didn’t need to say much because Lieutenant Long heard the sounds of rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons and maybe an eighty-two-millimeter mortar system. The call went dead. No one spoke. Lieutenant Long cracked his knuckles. Forty-five minutes passed. He didn’t have the authority to launch the rescue team, so he waited on the SEAL liaison team, who made rushed calls to Bagram and waited on the authorities there. It was a mess. Caleb and his crew s
tood ready. They were at a wood guard shack at the east end of the strip.

  At three thirty in the afternoon, the rescue mission was approved. Caleb and the rest of the crew prepared three Apache Attack Birds and two MH-47 Chinooks, including #146, the Evil Empire.

  Sergeant Marcus Muralles stepped on the aircraft. He wasn’t supposed to be on the flight but the other medic had an injured leg. Muralles had been packing to get home to celebrate the tenth birthday of his daughter Anna.

  Al Gore stepped on the flight and took a seat in the back of the Chinook. He was the guy who was going to help the Special Forces rescue teams get down the ropes. Gore wasn’t supposed to be on the flight either, but he’d kicked off another soldier who had a wife and two kids. Al Gore was single, and he never married because he figured he had a good chance of dying. He always volunteered to go on dangerous missions so that the soldiers with wives and kids wouldn’t.

  Captain Matthew Brady stepped on the flight. The blades were turning, and he was putting on his football gear when Major Reich walked up to him, peered inside, and said, “What’s your plan, Brady?”

  Brady started explaining the mission, how he was going to enter the mountains and save the stranded SEALs.

  “No, you’re not,” Major Reich said. “Get your shit and get off the chopper. You didn’t do anything wrong. Just get your shit and get off.”

  Brady got his shit and got off.

  The night before, Major Reich had sent his wife an e-mail saying he’d had a dream, but it wasn’t about the Evil Empire, it was about her. He said that in the dream Jill Blue was watching over him and they were together and he was happy and safe. Thank you for your presence, he wrote, even in a dream. They e-mailed every day. A few days before he’d written to tell her he loved her more than anyone he’d ever loved, and that they loved each other in a way that was beyond love and he wished he had a word for it.

  Caleb was preparing to get on board the chopper when Tre Ponder, the one who hated marshmallow Peeps, told Caleb he wouldn’t be flying this mission. Tre was in Afghanistan to train men, not to fly, but when the opportunity to fly came up, he took it. Tre was Caleb’s superior and Caleb had no choice in the matter. There was nothing he could do.

  Caleb waited in the rotor wind. He was watching, moving around. The men sealed themselves behind helmets and doors and guns.

  That’s when Kip strolled up to Caleb, completely sober in tone, and told him he needed to make a promise. “When we die, buddy,” he said, “it’s not your fault. Don’t ever think it’s your fault. You’re going home and you’re going to get out. You’ve been chosen for a bigger mission. You’ve been here longer than anyone else and you’ve already paid your price. This war is just the half of it. It’s just the beginning. You don’t need to pay the price here anymore.”

  Caleb tried to interrupt. He was Kip’s superior. It was Caleb’s job to talk, and Kip’s job to listen, but it was completely the other way around for this conversation.

  “Fuck,” Kip said. “You shut the fuck up.” He told Caleb to take care of Kristina, the only girl he’d ever loved. “She’ll probably end up screwing a Ranger, but that’s okay.” His blond hair tangled in the rotor wind. “This war is just the half of it. It’s just the beginning.” He shivered and spoke Bible words and filled his cheeks with Copenhagen. He mentioned something about building vehicles. He talked about Caleb going home to Georgia and falling in love. “You go home,” he said, “and you save lives.” Kip tapped the ground with his foot. “Promise me,” he said, “you’ll come back to get our bodies. Get our bodies out of this country. I hate this fucking country.”

  Kip walked back to the chopper. Behind him, a small string of chew on the tarmac, a little glimmering part left behind. Kip turned around. There was one more thing. “If you reenlist, Caleb, I will come back to Georgia, and I will haunt you.”

  • • •

  The first rescue chopper took off heavy with men—too many men—a dangerous load. It stopped in Jalalabad and the Evil Empire swept past, hauling sixteen men, eight Navy SEALs and eight Night Stalkers. They outran the Apache Attack birds that flew fifty feet above the ground, and entered the Hindu Kush, alone.

  At the same spot where the SEALs were dropped, the Chinook hovered. The rear ramp opened. The Night Stalkers prepared the fast ropes for a second insertion. One of Ahmad Shah’s men watched from a mountain crevice. He loaded a rocket-propelled grenade, aimed it at the aircraft, said Allahu akbar, “God is great,” and fired. The rocket flew through the Chinook’s open back, past the men’s heads, directly into the transmission, turning the metal into a liquid that consumed them. The chopper erupted. Men shot off the loading ramp. Bodies burned. The Evil Empire keeled, nose up, and fell fifty feet to the ground, rolling down the mountain, exploding. A huge fireball.

  The other Chinook circled the downed chopper, moving through smoke plumes, and thunderclouds. The command center said hold off—wait. In fifteen minutes they said, come back.

  Kip Jacoby was dead. Al Gore was dead. Steve Reich and Marcus Muralles and Tre Ponder and Corey Goodnature were dead. Mike Russell and Chris Scherkenbach. Everyone burned alive. Eight Night Stalkers and eight Navy SEALs. At the time, it was the worst Special Forces disaster in the history of the war.

  Captain Brady took over as commanding officer of Bravo Company. He had to generate a new rescue team, a new security force. Mobilize. Decide on the correct insertion point, the combat capability mix. Get new guys onto an aircraft. They attempted three times, but each time failed. They couldn’t insert. They lost visibility to rain and black clouds. On the third attempt, they quit. They didn’t want to lose more men. Let this blow over, they said, and we’ll try again at nightfall.

  No one knew that three of the SEALs were already dead. That they died before the Evil Empire took flight. The fourth, Marcus Luttrell, didn’t linger when he saw the chopper explode. He’d seen the last of his friends die. Luttrell loped off into the woods, bracing against the pain of bullet wounds, cracked vertebrae, shrapnel in the leg, dehydration, and a head wound. The Taliban stalked him through the night.

  • • •

  Caleb’s enlistment was up. His eardrums ached from all the mortar explosions. He jumped on the next Freedom Flight home.

  On the ground at Hunter, they told him everyone was dead.

  Get our bodies out of this country, I hate this fucking country.

  He flew back to Afghanistan to get their bodies.

  SEAL teams and Rangers were already climbing the mountain, searching for survivors, trying to get the bodies. They knew everybody was dead, but to verify death you have to have a corpse. It took days. The enemy had rushed in. They’d looted the SEALs. It was hot. Smelled like charred flesh. Everything was blown up by a minigun. The rescuers knew who was who by where the burned flesh piled in the aircraft. Later there were DNA tests. They found a dog tag engraved with inspirational quotes. They found Major Reich’s wedding ring in the troop commander’s seat. He wasn’t supposed to be wearing it, but he’d kept it hidden under his flight glove.

  The rescuers scooped the remains into body bags. Just pieces—bones and flesh. Wasn’t much left. Their bodies went to the Bagram mortuary. Caleb waited for Kip. He doesn’t remember how long he waited. Maybe three or four days. Kip went in a box and then in a plane and they flew together over the Atlantic to Dover, Delaware, where all the bodies return.

  From Dover, Marcus Muralles went to Arlington. Shamus Goare to Danville, Ohio. Stephen Reich to Panama City, Florida.

  Kip’s body went to Savannah. Caleb drove after Kip, looking up, seeking the plane’s small black shape against the blue sky.

  Caleb waited at the offices at Hunter for news of Kip’s funeral. One of the Special Ops guys, the one they called the jokester, walked up to Caleb. “You got out of that one pretty easily,” he said. “You fucking killed them. They’re all dead because of you.” Maybe he wasn’t serious but Caleb knocked him in the face with a chair anyway. He wanted to kill him a
nd he was trying to kill him. Blood spraying all over the office floor. Caleb wouldn’t stop. Six men pulled him off.

  Everywhere he went, Caleb heard it, over and over again: You killed them, Caleb. Why are you the one to be living?

  Caleb was thinking about his promise to take care of Kip’s girlfriend, Kristina. Caleb had direct orders not to tell Kristina about Kip’s death. The Casualty Assistance Officers would tell her first. They said he’d end up in protective custody. But Caleb didn’t care. They met in Forsyth Park. “I know,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t really know. But I knew.” She’d heard on NPR that a helicopter crashed and the helicopter they described was the Evil Empire.

  Caleb told Kristina that if there was anything of Kip’s she wanted to keep, then she needed to make it disappear because otherwise the military would find it and take it.

  Two days later Kip’s uncle called Kristina to tell her that her boyfriend was dead.

  Kristina wanted to know why Kip’s parents didn’t call.

  Guilt-stricken, the uncle said. Traumatized. They couldn’t deal with it. They threw their hands in the air and told the army to deal with it. And the way the army deals with it is that you get it done and you get it done now.

  Kip’s uncle asked her a few questions: Where did Kip want to be buried? Did he want to be cremated? What kind of coffin did he want?

  Kristina said she didn’t know because she and Kip never sat around and talked about dying.

  She was twenty. She said that the fact that her live-in boyfriend was never coming home was a lot for a twenty-year-old to deal with.

  Later Kristina thought maybe the funeral should be at Arlington.

  Kip’s mother told her that wouldn’t be happening because the army killed her son and she hated the army.

  • • •

  Kristina waited for the knock of the Casualty Assistance Officers. Meanwhile she hid Kip’s steel-toed boots and Glock in the trunk of her car. She piled his clothes on the living room floor while her father sat on the couch, mother on the chair, and they watched while Kristina folded. She held each piece of clothing to her nose so as not to forget Kip’s smell. All the clothes smelled like him—the sweat, the deodorant, the detergent, and the scents he used to cover these scents.