The Silence of War

by Terry McGowan

  It was also there that I began to spend more time hanging out with our forward air controller, whom I had first met back at Twenty-nine Palms during Mojave Viper—Captain Eric “D-Ring” Terhune. Although he was a fighter pilot, he was rotated to the ground side of the Marine Corps, as is the accepted routine. The Marine Corps long ago learned the immense value of close air support to the infantry, and there is no one who can better communicate with pilots in the air than a pilot on the ground.

  D-Ring was older than everybody else except me, and like me, was an “attachment” to Golf Company rather than an assigned member. As such, and being an officer, he had few friends in the company. He was affable, and I liked the way he interacted with the enlisted Marines. He was their senior, but he treated them with decency. I like that trait in an officer. He was also older than most of the enlisted guys with whom we traveled—nowhere near as old as me, of course—and it was a pleasant change of pace to converse with someone with a bit more time on the planet.

  The next day we moved out. Once again it was single file. Our convoy stretched quite a distance. We had Marine engineers with us by then, along with other attachments. I was in the second-to-last vehicle; D-Ring was behind me—dead last. The terrain was no doubt worse than expected. Vehicles, especially those pulling trailers, kept getting stuck. The short, steep inclines of dry washes that crossed our front were particularly troublesome. The soil of western Afghanistan was rocky, sandy desert. What the rushing water from a bygone rainy season had left behind were loose sand and gravel. We spent a lot of time at a dead stop while vehicles somewhere out of sight were extricated.

  Although it was still only spring, the heat was on the rise with each passing day, and also with each passing hour. We had packed what was felt to be plenty of water, but the trip was taking much longer than we had anticipated. We gulped the elixir of life down at a prodigious rate. To beat the boredom, whenever we stopped for a long period, I would get out of my vehicle and walk back to D-Ring’s. He had a radio and could hear the company commander’s communications with various elements of the convoy, so D-Ring had a better idea of what was going on than the rest of us.

  During one such stop I asked him to take my picture. Against a backdrop of pure desert desolation, standing in a dry river wash, there I was—sunburned, flak jacket open, soft cover on, wearing a pistol and carrying a rifle. I was probably the only Marine in the battalion to carry a Vietnam-era magazine holder. I was carrying twelve magazines instead of the issued seven. I have always held to the “better too much than too little” theory when it comes to ammunition. The look on my face says it all. It was hot; we were burning up, thirsty, and tired. We still had a long way to go.

  After hours of slow movement we had to refuel our Humvee. Demanske and Durham used five-gallon cans to refill the tank. Since we had topped off before leaving that morning, this was not a good sign. Hour upon hour the motor march continued at a snail’s tempo. We were still sucking down water at an alarming pace. We were getting low. During many of our frequent stops, somebody in the vehicle would approach other Humvees to see how they were stocked with water. It wasn’t good. Everybody was running out. We just kept hoping Baqua wasn’t much farther.

  As we neared our destination we passed uncountable acres of poppy fields. They had already been harvested, but what the crop had been was unmistakable. I had been told that Afghanistan produces 96 percent of the world’s opium. Seeing that vast expanse, I could believe it. Afghanistan grows poppies like people in Nebraska grow corn. That’s all we saw for uncountable miles. We also passed pile after pile of dried poppy plants. They were the pods piled up in odd-looking mounds.

  Marines asked me what they were looking at. I explained that they were next year’s seed crop. The fields would be sown with the contents of each pod. During one stop, I broke one open and ate the seeds. My companions were aghast. They acted like I was doing drugs. I explained that what I had just eaten was exactly what they ate on a poppy seed bagel or hard roll. It takes an evolutionary step-by-step process to turn the plants into a drug.

  It took thirteen and a half broiling, thirsty hours to reach Baqua. Long before we got there we had run completely out of water. We were parched. The water may have been hot, but it was wet. Thirst in a superheated desert cannot be described in words. We sat in our vehicles and roasted.

  Michalak, in another vehicle, had gotten some dirty ice before leaving. He bought it from a local Afghan who hadn’t used clean water. There was actually dirt visible in the ice. Michalak had kept it in a cooler attached to the outside of his Humvee to keep the contents—water and soda—cool. The ice had long since melted and the contents were long gone. He drank that dirty water right out of the cooler, deciding he’d take his chances on getting sick later.

  When we finally reached Baqua, D-Ring stormed forward to confront the company commander and find out why the men had not been given a water resupply. His flushed face was not entirely due to the heat; he was livid. His body English magnified the effect. A stocky, muscular man, he would have been a formidable opponent in a fight. Of course he was not going to fight; he was a Marine, and the CO was in command. But D-Ring was clearly in a bad mood. I learned later that he and the company commander had gone head-to-head in a heated exchange. D-Ring was a Marine’s Marine. To him, the troops came first.

  D-Ring told me the company CO had said the men could wait. He also told me that the CO had water for himself. That kind of self-centered behavior was so unlike a typical Marine officer that I had to see for myself. I walked forward, and sure enough, a one-liter bottle of water produced at Bastion was sticking out of that man’s carry pouch. The Brits at Bastion bottled their own water from their own wells at the base. The plastic water bottles have a distinct look. Since I had personally observed him bumming water, cigarettes, and food from his men during the trip, I have to assume that he had been out of water and had just gotten some.

  I’ll be honest. I never liked that man. I still don’t. But after that incident, I lost all respect for him as well.

  D-Ring had also learned that somebody had screwed up. What was supposed to be a trailer full of water had mistakenly been left behind. The trailer that was believed to be carrying water was not. There would be nothing until the next day, when the Army would come to our rescue. A scant few bottles of Bastion water were found and passed around. About twenty of us shared a one-liter bottle. A few short swallows is all anybody got. It was all the water we had. It was all there would be until the next day.

  It speaks well of the continuing tradition of brotherhood in the Corps that no one supervised the passing around of that lone water bottle. Everybody just took a little and handed it to the Marine next to him. We were all excruciatingly thirsty. Yet there were no selfish Marines in the entire group. The guys who drank first probably took the least. There was no complaining. Marines tend to take the worst conditions in stride. Still, I remembered the lesson I had learned in 1977—the desert heat can kill a man.

  The Army guys from the small FOB we had just left, unencumbered by a long convoy, made better time than we had. By 10:00 a.m. the following day they came to our rescue with as much hot water as they could spare. Although I would pass the summer months at another location, the hottest I ever was in Afghanistan—or anywhere else on this earth, for that matter—was at Baqua.

  Later, when I found myself sitting in front of Lieutenant Colonel Hall’s desk, I was sorely tempted to “drop the dime” and tell him all about our company commander. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Nobody likes a snitch, and I didn’t want to be one.

  Baqua was the name of an old—probably historic—ruin. Rumor had it that it had once been the fortress of a king, or the residence of a wealthy merchant. Allegedly it sat astride what was a major caravan route between Europe and the Far East in the distant past. Its days of glory were long gone. It was nothing more than an unoccupied adobe-walled ruin with huge cracks in i
ts parapets and crumbling mud buildings within. It squatted in the middle of the desert floor—baking in the glare of the relentless sun.

  The vehicle I was in, and others, took up a defensive position behind the ruin. A very large crack in the wall was there, big enough for a man to pass through. The vehicles were arranged in a semicircle around that fissure. Each Humvee had a turret with an automatic weapon. The turrets were manned around the clock. The Hesco FOB was to be built outside the ruin, but until it was completed, the old walls were our protection. And we were guarding the rear entrance.

  The Marine officer in me felt compelled to check out the terrain for myself. I went for a walk alone. Most of my professional life I have operated on the “forgiveness is easier to obtain than permission” theory, so I just went without asking anyone. I could see a walled Afghan civilian compound not far off, which could easily have served as an assembly area (a place for the enemy to gather). Not visible unless the ground was actually walked on, as I was then doing, was a concealed avenue of approach—an irrigation ditch. The furrow was shallow but deep enough for a man to crawl in—unobserved. A smaller ruin—a beaten-down adobe barrier and a few old buildings—obscured our ability to see the logical exit point from the ditch.

  An enemy could have entered the minor ruin unobserved and moved through its crumbling buildings to an adobe barricade. It was a mere twenty-five yards from us. From that point, the Taliban could have been on us in seconds. Once they had overrun us—guarding the “back door”—they could have entered the large crack in the wall. It would have provided them with easy access to the upper ramparts—the “high ground.” From that position small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades could have been rained on the Marines inside the ancient fortress. It goes without saying that I was deeply concerned about our tactical disposition.

  I pointed this out to the NCO in charge of the position (not Corporal Durham) and advised him to alleviate the problem by moving our vehicles and us inside the minor ruin. From there we could observe any enemy exiting the irrigation ditch and cover the crack in the wall as well. It had the additional advantage of providing an adobe wall around our position. He wouldn’t do it. He was afraid of the company commander. I told him to ask permission. It was an eminently reasonable realignment—surely the CO would see that and agree. The NCO wouldn’t do it. The company CO was considered highly unapproachable by his men.

  So once again I went off by myself. I took up a position inside the lesser ruin, from which I could observe the potential avenue of approach. I was prepared to stand solitary guard all night. The NCO was distraught. I didn’t care. I was right to be concerned. Lance Corporal Tim Perkins found me in the dark and told me there was no way he was going to let me stand guard alone.

  —

  I knew if push came to shove I could explain myself to the battalion commander. I had already photographed the assembly area, the irrigation ditch, the small compound, and its relationship to our position—as well as the crack in the rear wall. I had also taken pictures from the top of the walls looking down at vulnerable Marines inside the old fortress. The investigator in me was prepared to go to trial. I felt sure the battalion commander would agree that our rear was inadequately protected and that I had done the right thing. Alternatively I was prepared to accept responsibility for my actions. But Tim risked perdition from the CO. I will always respect him for that.

  The whole affair created another “white knuckle” internal struggle for me when I sat with the battalion commander in days to come. I badly wanted to tell him how tactically inadequate our CO was. But as much as I respected the colonel, and as much as I believed that he valued me and would have listened, I just couldn’t bring myself to squeal. I still wonder if I was right to withhold the information.

  In December 2008, at a memorial service for battalion Marines killed in action (KIA) during the deployment I learned for the first time that the company commander had been relieved of duty—fired—by Lieutenant Colonel Hall while still in Afghanistan. I was overjoyed.

  Finally the NCO in charge asked me if there was some other disposition he could make that would satisfy my instincts and not cause him to move the entire unit. By moving one armored vehicle to the corner of the main ruin, observation could be kept on the potential avenue of approach—its existence now known. It wasn’t the best troop disposition that could have been made, but it would do. He made the change on his own initiative and Tim and I returned from our solitary post.

  As I recall, the NCO was highly put out because I had questioned his judgment. He felt things were fine the way they were. After all, he said, this wasn’t his first “rodeo”—referring to a prior deployment to Iraq. The rodeo analogy didn’t persuade me. I had been a captain. I was trained to attack. What I saw alarmed me because it was how I would have taken our position if I were the enemy. Willful blindness and/or a desire to be popular were not going to impede my usefulness to the Marines I was in Afghanistan to support. I kept things as low-key as my conscience would allow and stayed “inside my lane” as best I could. But some things were blatantly wrong and I would not stay silent. Throughout the entire deployment there were many times when it was difficult for me to keep my mouth shut.

  As Lieutenant Brewster would later put it, I had to “walk a fine line.”

  —

  I had learned a lot since my own Iraq experience. Prior to entering this country, I had diligently studied the Taliban and their tactics. I realized how differently the Taliban fought than the enemy in Iraq did. Afghanistan wasn’t Iraq. This was going to be an entirely different kind of war. Ironically, the “boots”—the new guys, green and untested—were all ears.

  At one point I asked my buddy Lance Corporal Steve Jorgensen how many firefights he had been in during his Iraq deployment. He told me seven. I asked him to guess how much time all seven had taken. He guessed about an hour and forty-five minutes. When the Taliban attacked our FOB at Golestan, they kept at it for three hours. When a “firefight” lasts that long, it’s no longer a firefight. It’s a battle.

  Afghanistan was definitely not the same “rodeo.”

  Meanwhile, back inside the semicircle, we slept on the ground, ready for instant action. I tried to sleep with my rifle under my right hand and wore my pistol all night. My flak vest was my pillow. None of us changed clothes or washed up for the whole time we were there.

  I left my boots on day and night for so long I developed ringworm. It was the first and only time in my life I had gotten it. Doc Watkins gave me some ointment to put on it. The ointment worked. Doc admonished me to return the ointment to him, as it was the only tube he had. Long after we had gone our separate ways, I realized I still had it.

  Sorry, Doc.

  It didn’t take the Taliban long to react to our presence. They began to launch rockets at us pretty much every evening just before dark. I’m sure their reasoning was that if they got into trouble, the coming of darkness would assist them to escape. I stood on the very top of the walls and yelled “INCOMING!” when I saw the telltale yellow smoke trail the rockets left behind. The Marines had been ordered to take cover. I stayed on the walls wearing no body armor and only a soft cover (hat).

  Another reason I stayed on the walls was because the ANP were up there. They were all armed. So was I. I didn’t trust them one bit. The Marines were below them, so I stayed on the same level. I had learned how to watch someone without their knowledge in my law enforcement days. I used my peripheral vision and keenly observed their expressions and movements. I wasn’t wearing body armor, but neither were they. I was also mentally ready to take them on if necessary. Whether I was completely successful or not, it would have bought some time for the Marines below.

  I was beginning to enjoy my newfound freedom of action. With independence came flexibility. I could not only think outside the box, I could act outside it as well. I wasn’t limited to a military approach. I could utilize my entire
life’s experiences—military and law enforcement—as a synthesis. I had tacit authorization from the battalion commander to place myself in positions where I could observe what I needed to. My personal safety was no longer a hindrance.

  The enemy rockets were very inaccurate. They never even came close. I could follow the path of their smoke trails and tell where they were going to land. We had two 81mm mortars set up inside the ruin, and they returned fire. It’s impossible to know if they had any effect; the insurgents were firing from a concealed position, and it was a long distance away. Although I still remembered how to call for fire on a target, I couldn’t be of any help to the mortarmen. The enemy was too well concealed in flat, featureless terrain characterized by chest-high brush. I could see, in a general sort of way, where the rockets were, but I couldn’t quite tell where our mortar rounds were landing. Hence I couldn’t suggest any adjustments.

  Oddly enough, I reveled in it all—yellow smoke pouring from incoming rockets, the 81mm mortar crews answering the enemy’s call to fight—the possibility of ANP betrayal, being exposed on the high wall. It may be insanity, but at the time, I enjoyed the danger. I had waited a lifetime for the experience. Somewhere deep inside me, a part of my psyche breathed an unfathomable sigh of relief. It can’t adequately be explained; it has to be felt.

  A patrol of experienced war fighters led by the company gunny went out each evening hoping to ambush the rocket-firing insurgents, but they had no luck. I asked the gunny if he would take me along, and he promised to do so when the time was right. I knew what he meant. I might have been an albatross around the neck of the patrol. I was still inexperienced when it came to combat. The patrols were actively seeking a fight with an enemy known to be close at hand. That was not the time to bring me along. Unfortunately, the gunny and I parted before I had a chance to go with him. I greatly admired and respected him and would undoubtedly have benefited from his guidance.