Chapter 2
Intuition is often crucial in combat, and survivors learn not to ignore it.
—COLONEL F. F. PARRY, USMC (Ret.)
August 2006
The wheels of the massive gray C-17 cargo plane screeched as they hit the pavement of Kandahar Airfield (KAF). The plane shook violently, its powerful engines screaming, until it finally rolled to a stop at the end of the runway.
Ten minutes before, we had been told to strap in for landing. We all gave up our somewhat comfortable nooks within the belly of the aircraft and took seats along the sides of the cargo bay. Guys crawled off large pallets of supplies or rolled off the hoods of the trucks. No one talked. We all just sleepwalked to our seats. The jolt of the wheels hitting the tarmac helped wake us up. Wiping the sleep from my eyes, I stretched and scanned the cargo hold. The rest of my team seemed groggy, but awake. The roaring engines pushed the huge plane and its cargo forward to the twenty-foot white W painted on the runway and then we taxied over to the terminal.
The flight for me was always the major turning point. It was when reality set in that there was a war going on and we would again be put into the middle of it. Seventeen hours earlier, as the plane climbed into the sky, I tried to shed all my concerns about the life I was leaving at Fort Bragg. It was a mental separation as much as a physical one. For the next eight months, I’d have to be a diplomat, peacemaker, teacher, and hunter. On bad days, I’d be the hunted.
Leaving my family was always the hardest part. It was worse than the combat, worse than the crappy living conditions, and worse than being injured. What made it hard was the unknown. I never knew if I was saying my last good-bye. When I was young and thinking about getting married, I prayed for a strong, independent wife who could take care of my family should anything ever happen to me. That is exactly what God gave me. But the good-byes took a toll. My wife had a weary look. Leaving my child was excruciatingly painful. You can’t explain why you’re going, and that’s all they want to know. But the why, for me, is really simple. My family is why I fight, but it’s hard for them to understand the reason I had to travel thousands of miles away to do it. We didn’t have any special rituals. I just tried to spend as much time as I could with them before they dropped me off at Fort Bragg. After the final hug, I went numb and pushed home deep inside, to a safe place no one could get to.
When I’d joined, the Army was drawing down after Desert Storm. I had a college degree, but there were no slots available in Officer Candidate School (OCS). It didn’t matter to me. I was just out to pay off my debts and see the world. It wasn’t long before I found my niche in the Noncommissioned Officer Corps. I loved the camaraderie and was eager for any and all training my senior sergeants could give me. I just tried to be a sponge and absorb everything I could learn. I got my Ranger tab, graduated from airborne and air assault schools, and even went to Malaysian tracking school. It wasn’t until years later that I finally got my shot to attend Officer Candidate School and eventually survived selection to Special Forces. I have always felt that being an NCO first, understanding how they function, operate, motivate, and lead men as part of the backbone of the Army, made me a better officer. The skills and the attention to detail I was taught would serve me well in the future.
When I graduated from the Special Forces Qualification Course, I inherited a Super Bowl–caliber team. After my first SF rotation, a few of my senior guys were forced under standing policy to rotate off the team and assume other assignments. I thought removing guys with so much combat experience from a team that was so clearly cohesive was a ridiculous requirement. But I did not have a vote in this; we were, after all, in the Army. Thankfully, the remaining members of my team were great mentors. When new guys arrived, they were immediately molded into the team structure and we moved on.
Very soon after joining my unit I realized that Special Forces soldiers and our organization in general have a particular mystique. It’s something you can’t put your finger on and definitely does not derive from a Hollywood movie. We lived, trained, and operated within a unique paradigm. On one hand, every day was like September 12, 2001. We were truly the tip of the spear, out there in the enemies’ backyard with little or no support, living wholly within the indigenous culture. Our country wanted blood, brains, and balls on the wall in Afghanistan, and we would deliver. On the other hand, we were simultaneously trying to build a country and free its people from the tyrannical ideology of the Taliban—the more difficult challenge. In order to fulfill this key aspect of our mission, it was necessary to separate ourselves from Western thinking and adopt the mind-set of an Afghan, immersing ourselves in their society, tribes, languages, culture, religion, and fundamental philosophy. It was imperative to establish and meet the needs of the Afghan people as they undertook the huge transition from a warring society to a peaceful one. They needed security, education, organization, honest political representation, and civil infrastructure. We understood that this transition would take several generations and a whole lot of money. We understood, strategically, that Afghanistan as a nation had to prevail. If it followed its historical track record, and we could not secure a country for these people, all our sacrifices would be for naught. The Afghans do not see their country as a graveyard for another empire. We were not there to conquer but to rebuild and help, and they knew it.
As the C-17 glided through the night sky, I concentrated on my last rotation as a Special Forces team commander, reviewing our premission training and preparation for the upcoming deployment. There is not another unit in the U.S. military as versatile as a Special Forces team. Born after World War II, Special Forces fields some of the most highly trained units in the U.S. military. The standard SF team, called an Operational Detachment Alpha, or ODA, is designed to operate independently and consists of twelve men led by a captain and a warrant officer. The rest of the team is made up of NCOs—sergeants. Two senior sergeants serve as the team sergeant and intelligence sergeant. Each team specialty also has two sergeants, one senior and one junior. The weapons sergeants are experts on tactics and maintain the team’s weaponry, such as rifles, machine guns, and rocket launchers. The engineer sergeants build and blow things up, and they also act as the team’s supply sergeants. The medical sergeants are the Army’s best trauma medics, but they can also treat common diseases, do dental work, and even provide veterinary care for farm animals. The communications sergeants maintain the team’s radios and computers and keep the team connected to the outside world.
My team had studied the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan for the past couple of months. The remote, wild tribal area in Pakistan, stretching five hundred miles along the Afghan border, has been lawless and violent for centuries. Today it is a breeding ground for jihad. Taliban and Al Qaeda militants hunkered down there to use the area as a launching pad for attacks against Afghanistan, and as a training ground for terrorist attacks worldwide. It is an area of Pakistan the government doesn’t control and it is off-limits to the U.S. military.
We knew the major players and could occasionally tell the good guys and those just riding the fence from the bad. We plotted the Taliban’s routes in and out, identified probable hideouts and ambush sites. Our Special Forces company, in conjunction with a brigade from the 173rd Airborne, had nearly shut the Taliban down in Kandahar Province during our last rotation eight months ago, and I prayed for the same successes this time.
After a few minutes, the plane finally stopped taxiing and the Air Force crew chiefs who’d loaded the plane opened the rear cargo door. They were dressed in tan flight suits and heavy body armor.
“Okay, Captain,” Zack, my weapons sergeant, said sarcastically, chuckling as the crew chiefs waddled about trying to get the cargo ready to unload. “So we’re on a ten-ton plane carrying five tons of fuel flying four to six hundred miles per hour. The absolute last thing you need to worry about is a bullet.”
“I know Zack, I know,” I said.
Zack was new to the team, having arrived during the early summer, but you would never have known it. He was burly, with a stocky build and a barrel chest that would have suited a UFC fighter. He fell in with Bill, the team’s senior sergeant, and the two of them made a damn good pair. You can always tell who the pipe hitters are, and Zack fit the bill to a T. He was rough, young, brash, and annoyingly honest. He could most likely kick your ass, and he knew it. His thick black hair made for a great full beard, and I had already pondered the scope of his capabilities when in civilian clothes among the Afghans. My guess was that he could easily disguise himself physically and would work well with the team in dicey circumstances. Zack handled guns like professional drivers handle race cars. They were to be guarded and protected until it was time to use them. Then, when the time is right, you bang the living shit out of them for all they are worth. Zack knew he could repair or replace them later, but when they were needed, he knew how to apply them for their intended purpose and get every mile per hour out of them. He was Bill’s protégé and they trained hard together. Bill turned Zack into a top-notch weapons sergeant, while Zack kept Bill on his best game. Between the two of them, anyone we ran into on this trip stupid enough to engage the team would pay a dear, dear price for his recklessness.
Zack was single, and several of the married team members lived vicariously through him. Women loved him and he never went without a lady on his arm. Zack was not cocky—okay, maybe a little—but it is not considered cocky in this culture if you can back it up. Zack always tested himself, rigorously, physically and mentally. Whether it was physical team events, marksmanship, drinking beer, or a Sudoku puzzle, Zack would come in first or die trying. His career was just beginning, but his mental toughness would continue to be sought after through the years. Watching him, I often wished I was fifteen years younger and twenty pounds lighter. Zack was the training partner to push you where you didn’t think you could go. I kept that little secret tucked away in my bag of tricks. If I ever needed a square peg smashed into a round hole, I knew Zack was the guy to do it, and that it would please him greatly. I would have loved to have traveled the world with this extraordinary young man, kicking people’s asses who desperately needed it. He didn’t take any shit from the other team members, even though he was a new guy. If Zack didn’t know how to do something, you only needed to give him a month and he’d be doing it better than you.
With the cargo ready, the broad gray hydraulic doors opened and the cool temperatures we had enjoyed at altitude quickly gave way to the stifling heat waiting outside the aircraft. Afghanistan smells like an open sewer running past a pine wood fire. Every head on the team literally sank, almost in unison.
We were back.
As the engines shut down, trucks began to pull up to the rear of the aircraft. The vehicles were dirty, banged-up Toyota Hilux trucks, the Afghan equivalent of a Toyota Tacoma compact pickup. The crew chiefs quickly snapped off the huge chain supports and rolled the pallets out of the back of the plane to the waiting forklifts, which lumbered forward and began to hoist the pallets of supplies out of the bowels of the plane. The pallets contained everything from weapons and ammunition to office supplies. Piled high on one pallet were boots and uniforms for our Afghan National Army soldiers. We had seen how poorly the Afghan soldiers had been equipped on the last rotation. This time each of us brought all his spare gear from home: boots, uniforms, belts, socks, hats, load-carrying equipment. I, and many others in the unit, had personally purchased additional gear for them. We knew what they needed and wanted to be sure they had it. All of it was critical for the fledgling Afghan Army.
I climbed out of the back of the plane and hit the concrete of the runway. My knees ached from being trapped inside. It had been six months since I’d left Kandahar Airfield and I took a quick survey. It was built in the 1960s about ten miles southeast of Kandahar city by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as a base in case of war with the Soviets. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and used the airfield themselves. Army Rangers seized it in 2001 and it became the United States’ main hub in southern Afghanistan.
A senior sergeant from the tactical operations center greeted us on the tarmac and tracked each pallet as it was unloaded, checking it off on his clipboard. With the last pallet finally secured on a flatbed truck, we were ready to head out.
Bill pointed out the team’s trucks. He had come to the team halfway through our 2005 rotation. A former platoon sergeant in the Rangers, he had taken only a few days to get up to speed. Now the team sergeant, the senior supervisor, he kept the team on track with training and tactical planning. Bill answered to me alone and was as good a noncommissioned officer as anyone could ever hope for—the guy who could be a friend to the soldiers, yet maintained their respect as the senior NCO. Raised in a poor rural community in White Settlement, Texas, he joked that his family was a living Jerry Springer show. He was a vivid, wiry Dallas Cowboys fan with a taste for top-shelf bourbon, and when not on duty he kept the team in stitches for hours. For men like Bill, combat was an extension of their personality. He could go from easygoing team member to head disciplinarian (or asshole) in less than a second if the situation called for it. But when it came to work, no one knew tactics and weapons better. He kept the team leaning forward, ready to take on the next challenge at all times. To say Bill was competitive would be an understatement. When he first joined the team he had been a physical stud—he could easily outrun any of us, do more push-ups, pull-ups, and sit-ups, typical Ranger stuff. He quickly learned that no one in SF gave a flying shit about running fast. A team member must be able to do three vital things in combat, all of them in full equipment and body armor: fight, carry a fully equipped wounded soldier, and carry a rucksack uphill. Most of us were Rangers. We never left a fallen comrade on the battlefield, ever. After several team lessons in the combatives pit, Bill figured it out. Soon after that he was attending daily workout sessions in the weight room. I think he liked the brawn and it stuck. He had put on nearly twenty pounds of muscle since the last rotation.
Climbing into the truck, I asked the NCO from the TOC for an update.
“Sir, it is pretty complex,” he told me. “You’d better get the briefing from the boss.”
Bill leaned over. “It can’t be good if you have to go get the briefing,” he whispered.
The special operations compound is a short ride from the airfield. We drove through the gate, past the guard shack, and were dropped off in front of our barracks, a hastily built plywood building. We threw our gear onto our bunks, which consisted of cheap, thin mattresses on ramshackle metal frames taken from the old Russian barracks.
The supply pallets were being delivered to a gravel field nearby, and we headed over to inspect them. Bill decided to stay with the team and make sure all the gear was accounted for while I went to the TOC for the brief. “Captain, I’m going to get a feel for the place. I’ll catch up to you later,” Bill said. Exploring the camp didn’t interest me. I was eager to get the intelligence briefing and check in with my commander, Lieutenant Colonel Don Bolduc.
Rounding a corner, I ran into Bolduc and an old friend, Lieutenant Colonel Shinsha, the commander of the Afghan Army’s 2nd Battalion, 3rd Kandak. Short, lean, and fit, Bolduc lived off some kind of inexhaustible energy source. Even this early in the morning, he was firing on all cylinders. He liked being around the soldiers in his command and used his time with them to get up to speed on what was happening in the field. It wasn’t lip service, like some commanders. He really wanted to know what they thought, and he commented often that the input and information helped him make decisions. Bolduc himself had enlisted and became a sergeant before attending OCS. The mission always came first, but he valued his soldiers and took care of all of us. He treated everyone in the battalion, from his operations officer to a mechanic in the motor pool, as a professional.
In my fifteen years in the Army, I’d never had a better commander. Bolduc understood the importance of details and, like a chess master, his command of the big picture made him lethal. He seemed to know what the Taliban, ISAF, coalition, and even his own team leaders were going to do before they did it.
In the years between 2002 and 2009, there was no centralized national military strategy for Afghanistan—none. A strategy refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. An overarching strategy for any conflict unifies and directs all of its elements to work toward the execution of that strategy, facilitating the accomplishment of the intended goal. In the absence of a strategy, military organizations, especially ones composed of diverse multidimensional and multinational forces such as those in Afghanistan, operate in an unsynchronized fashion, never accomplishing or achieving their intended goals.
If a unified strategy was out there during those years, it was invisible to us, and we populated the battlefield more frequently than any other unit. We received ever-changing directives from commanders that were based on their professional and personal leadership style, not necessarily around a cohesive, nested strategy that forced everyone in the battle space to work toward accomplishing the same set of goals.
The first and fundamental requisite for establishing a strategy is to know exactly what the end state needs to be. This is no small task. In Special Forces, we understood it was paramount that a stable and secure national government be established in Afghanistan and that that government had to provide for the security of the people and meet their basic needs. If the national government would not or could not meet the needs of the people, the insurgency would interfere or even try to meet these needs, thus creating a massive division among the people and their society. Once the end state is determined, the means to achieve it must be identified. To reach our desired end state, we needed to establish and accomplish a certain set of achievable goals. Defining what those goals were for ourselves allowed us to establish a series of objectives and accomplish them one by one.
Recognizing these inherent shortfalls in strategy and in the conduct of warfare, the members of our Task Force 31, or TF 31, and its commander did our best to establish a strategy by defining the desired end state, determining a series of goals, and then deciding on the specific objectives that needed to be accomplished to achieve those goals. The commander then directed the integration of all subordinate units under his command to abide by this strategy. He also ably recruited ISAF and coalition support by building rapport with the unified commands of southern Afghanistan, the Afghan National Army, and the local governmental officials. This small strategy created by an SF task force would be nested and synchronized with the overarching national goals of the United States and the fledgling government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Now, at least, we had a plan that reflected what the bigger picture should or would look like and we worked feverishly toward implementing it. This was a mere micro picture of what needed to be established across the entire country.*
A simple Thai proverb says it all: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
The following is the direct guidance we received from the 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (1/3 SFG) commander on all SF operations to be conducted in Afghanistan in 2005–06:
Your operations must be intelligence driven, decentralized, full spectrum operations designed to have the best long term effects against the enemy and on the populace. All operations must be led by Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). Your kinetic operations must have a non-kinetic effect built into the plan. Everything that we do affects the populace and we must ensure that our operations are conducted in a manner that gains the support of the populace. All of your operations must have a Civil Military Operation (CMO), Information Operation (IO), and Humanitarian Assistance (HA) component and capability and all post kinetic operations must be followed by a meeting with village elders to explain the purpose of the operation and to legitimize the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (IRoA). This will go a long way in gaining the support of the local populace and will mitigate the enemy’s IO plan to discredit IRoA and coalition force operations.
Whether it was training in the United States or conducting operations in a war zone, Bolduc clearly articulated to all of his subordinates what he expected to be done. He wanted them to have no doubt what to accomplish in the execution of their orders—and also in the absence of orders. There would be no ambivalence. Love him or hate him, the men knew what to expect. The following are excerpts from the desk-side brief that was personally given to all of his soldiers:
Leadership Philosophy: Understand where we have been; focus on the present and plan for the future. Everything has a triangle which encompasses three major points. Discipline, Competence and Trust comprise the first triangle.
Trust was the base of the triangle. We were expected to be able to look in the mirror, not out the window. Confidence and familiarity with even the smallest tasks established this. Competence was next. There was always an expectation to focus on the fundamentals, understand the psychology of war, and do the right thing. The final and most crucial ingredient was discipline; discipline in yourself and in your soldiers. To Lieutenant Colonel Bolduc, discipline was not about power, it was about the judicious use of authority and responsibility. Special Forces had a boatload of both.
Command Guidance: You will Pressure, Pursue and Punish.
We were expected to conduct the preparation and training for war as skillfully as we would execute operations themselves during war. During deployments we would often find ourselves passing this concept on to our ISAF and coalition counterparts. It is not hyperbole to say that we were expected to go anywhere, anytime, anyplace, and be prepared to do damn near anything.
Next to Shinsha, Bolduc looked like a kid. Shinsha is an absolute bear of a man, with a round face, huge hands, and strong and broad dark Tajik features. Unlike most Afghans, he wears a thin, well-groomed beard that he says is just long enough to keep the Pashtun tribes off his back.
I had barely gotten the words “Good morning, sir,” out of my mouth when Shinsha recognized me. He came straight over and threw his arms around me. I am not a small man by any stretch, six foot one, but he easily picked me up in a bone-crushing hug and feigned two kisses on both cheeks. Holy crap, I thought, he may have cracked a rib or two. Bolduc, understanding the importance of our relationship, winked and walked off.
“It is good to have your long beards back in Afghanistan,” Shinsha said. “Long beards” is a nickname given to Special Forces by the Afghans, a mark of respect in its comparison to the beards of their elders.
I was truly glad to see him. He and I had a long history. We’d fought together in 2005 and 2006 and had broken the back of the Taliban in Kandahar Province. Shinsha would proudly boast that “the Taliban could not stop to piss in Kandahar Province without us showing up that year.” Unbeknownst to him, this statement was essentially true. Captured Taliban had said much the same. He jokingly referred to the Taliban as “shuzzuna”—women—in Pashto.
We’d spent many hours talking strategy and learning each other’s languages over strong green and black tea. He still spoke only a smattering of English, and my Pashto was equally as bad. Since we were just out of earshot of the commanders, I asked him how things were going in Kandahar.
“What is the situation, my friend?” I asked in broken Pashto.
“No, no, no things good here in Kandahar,” he said in heavily accented English.
Shinsha never minced words and painted a bleak picture. Taliban fighters were operating inside and outside the city and more fighters arrived daily. The Special Forces units that replaced us after our last rotation focused most of their efforts doing night raids and did not have sufficient time to build rapport with the population. This was not their fault; the directive to move only at night came from higher headquarters. Shinsha said the Taliban now dominated the daylight hours. I knew and respected members of the other Special Forces group as both friends and professional colleagues, but Shinsha’s news worried me.
Last year we had rarely encountered resistance inside the city except for suicide bombers. We had run across the Taliban on patrol near mountain passes, but rarely in the city. When Shinsha’s battalion had completed its training, we immediately started raiding Taliban safe houses. Eventually, the raids grew into full-scale attacks. My team hit targets up until the week before we rotated out. The constant pressure had driven the enemy deep underground or out of the province altogether, and we had passed our strategy to the incoming replacements. Eight months later the Taliban resurgence was obvious to everyone. Their progress was steady and methodical. Fighters based in the villages around and inside the city now attacked the ISAF coalition and measured its response. I wanted to know how all of our work had been reversed.
Winning a guerrilla war means getting out in the hinterland and not just showing, but convincing the population that your side is the winning team. Working by, with, and through the local population and indigenous forces is not optional. It is the essential key to success. Moving away from that holistic approach represents a fundamental breach in counterinsurgency operations, leading to major setbacks. For whatever reason, the pressure had not been kept on the Taliban rurally; the focus had switched mostly to raids and operating exclusively at night. We couldn’t afford to take this approach anymore.
Shinsha and I agreed to meet later, and I hustled into the headquarters. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was the memorial wall. The list of our fallen soldiers now almost reached the floor. I stopped and ran my fingers across the names and closed my eyes so I could see their faces and hear their laughter. I fought back tears for my friends. It happened every time I came back.
Farther down the hallway, an eclectic assortment of dozens of modern rifles and rocket launchers hung side by side along the wall. Most were taken from weapons caches or dead enemy fighters. As on the memorial wall, I noticed a few new additions. But I put aside my nostalgia when I got to the door to the tactical operations center and keyed in the new pass code.
The TOC looked like the bridge of a starship. Several large screens displaying Predator feeds filled the main wall, with an even bigger screen that tracked every unit in southern Afghanistan. Everything was monitored by TOC drones, soldiers who buzzed around the room or huddled over laptops. Most of the time, they sat facing their monitors on a raised semicircular platform that resembles an altar. Each soldier, dressed in brown T-shirt and desert uniform pants, had a specific job. One might work supply requests while another coordinated aircraft and another coordinated artillery fire. The whole room revolved around the battle captain, who acted as the conductor of the orchestra of war.
The planning and intelligence office sat off the right side of the main room. I walked over and knocked on the door. Trent, my unit’s intelligence sergeant, met me with a somber look on his face and led me to a seat.
Maps and pictures of possible targets covered every inch of the wall. A large table cluttered with laptops and intelligence reports ran through the middle of the room. Intelligence analysts sifted through radio intercepts, satellite pictures, and tips from Afghan locals, trying to build a clear picture of what was going on in southern Afghanistan.
Trent’s assessment of the situation didn’t differ much from Shinsha’s. “This place is about three months from going under,” he said.
He outlined a series of setbacks. When we left Kandahar after our last rotation, the Taliban were afraid to come into the city, and we seemed to be one step ahead of them. Now we were outnumbered and losing ground fast. By the end of the brief, I felt sick to my stomach. The sickness quickly turned to anger. My team now had to fight for ground we had already taken. Kandahar was the prize—strategically vital to both us and the Taliban.
The third-largest city in Afghanistan, Kandahar has been fought over for centuries. Since the time of Alexander the Great it has stood at the crossroads of trade routes to five major cities: Herat and Gereshk to the west, Kabul and Ghazni to the northeast, and Quetta in Pakistan to the south. With its airport and extensive network of roads, the city served as a center for the mujahideen resistance during the Soviet invasion and was the one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s hometown. When the Taliban captured it in 1994, it became their capital.
“Trent, please tell me exactly what the hell happened in the six months we were gone,” I said.
“Seems the enemy moved in too fast and we lost a lot of the rapport we had built with the civilians and leadership,” he said sharply.
It was our job now to rebuild it and keep the Taliban from reclaiming its power base.
* Shortly after taking over as the commander of all ISAF and coalition forces in the country in 2009, General Stanley McChrystal addressed the lack of a unified national strategy in Afghanistan. It took him less than a year to establish, synchronize, and direct its implementation, completing the macro (big) picture.