Lest We Forget Read online

  My Platoon Sergeant calls me over and says that we need to set up a choke point. I'm at a complete loss. I have no idea what he was talking about. I thought it might be some other Vietnam area Ranger trap. I felt pretty dumb when he just wanted me to take a knee and count the Rangers walking out of the patrol base to make sure that we had everyone.

  It's midday and we have been walking for hours. The temperature on my buddies cool guy watch says 102. We find the set of huts that we suspect was the home of some of the Taliban members that were involved in the firefight. We find a decent spot to set up over watch and a team goes into the house. It's more of a shack really. It has dirt floors and only 3 walls made of sticks and mud. There is a fireplace and a couple of utensils. There is a section of the hut designated for chickens. This guy definitely wins the award for lowest carbon footprint. I will say this, the view more than made up for his lack of appliances. It was breathtaking. You could see terraces across the ravine and mountains in the distance that were snow covered. No one was there, well besides the chickens. We do a quick search that comes up pretty flat. As we are searching a near by ravine I hear a call come over the radio.

  "There's monkeys."

  "Repeat last."

  "Ummmm, there is a pack of big ass baboons staring at us. And so help me God if they get any closer I am going to open up on them with the 240!"

  It was Josh on over watch. Now I know what you're thinking, "There aren’t any baboons in Afghanistan." Well listen here: that shit happened! There are a dozen Rangers that will confirm it. It was a pack of huge, fang-toothed baboons!

  We keep our distance and patrol the area in small teams looking for any signs of a firefight. One of the patrol teams finds several 5.56 shell casings so we know that this is where shit went down but there was no sign of the Seals.

  Four guys with very impressive beards, wearing shorts walk up to our over watch position. They are members of Seal Team 10. My first thought was, look at these shit bags wearing shorts. Then I realized that it's over 100 degrees out and shorts would be pretty awesome! Wait, why the fuck are we wearing pants? And long sleeve DCU tops? Damn I should have gone to BUDs. We exchange information. They tell us that they have Intel that one of the local goat herders has information on one of the missing Seals.

  We move out to the houses in the valley below. A couple of our guys accompany the Seals while myself and the other half of our platoon pull security. They find out that the body of one of the Seal operators was nearby. One of the locals agrees to show us where for a price. I'm not sure what they paid the man but I imagine that it was difficult for those guys to not pay that guy with a throat punch.

  We recover the body of Matt Axelson, a Navy Seal from California who turned 29 just 3 days prior. They must have anticipated what had happened, one of the Seals pulls out a black body bag. Throughout my time in the military I have been exposed to countless acts of absolute professionalism, this moment ranks among the top. Those four men refuse our help. They will carry their brother out themselves. A decision that I hold in the highest regard.

  It's just starting to get late and we begin to move away from the shacks. As we set up another patrol base we call for another resupply drop. This one doesn't come quite as close as the last one did. It impacts the side of the mountain with the force of a Mac truck striking a Jetta on the freeway. The palate explodes, which really wouldn't be an issue if it hadn't impacted on a portion of the mountain that featured about a 20% grade slope. This caused a diarrhea like explosion of water bottles and MRE's scattering our supplies all the way down the mountainside. By this point, we were pretty fatigued and definitely dehydrated. The thought of having to climb down that mountain to recover our water was a little heartbreaking. A team is assigned to do the recovery. There are a couple of body bags in the supply drop. We use one of them to carry our food and water back up the mountain to our patrol base. We are able to recover about half a bags worth for our entire platoon. It would have to get spread pretty thin.

  Back in the patrol base I begin checking feet and general morale. My platoon Sergeant's feet are wet. I dig into my bag and pull out a small container of foot powder and a fresh pair of socks. He tilts his head a little and says, "Squared away Doc!" It was the first compliment I ever received from him and it did well to raise my spirits.

  It was just about to be dark out and I found a perfect little spot under a bush to finally get some sleep. I couldn't have been asleep for more than an hour when I am snapped awake by the sound of an A10 Thunderbolt, "fast mover" dropping hate on targets via some big ass American bombs. It was the same pilots that gave us the thumbs up as we were waiting to board the Chinook. They were looking out for us, our guardian angels no doubt. The first explosion was so close! My eyes shot open, my brain told my hand to reach for my rifle but my body refused to respond. I was paralyzed with fear. I literally can't move! My pants are wet. Did I piss myself?! As my hyperventilating begins to subside, I am finally able to turn my head. I look around to see the rest of my platoon in a hyper-vigilant state. I take a knee and give my pants the sniff test. Its not urine, that's good! It looks like it started to rain a little while I was asleep. The bomb runs done by the A10's continued throughout the night. They call it a show of force. And if I was that scared, I'm sure those Taliban assholes were shitting themselves.

  I wasn't able to sleep after that. Years later a group of kids threw a firecracker outside of my bedroom window in the middle of the night. It brought me back to that very moment in time with such reality that I didn't sleep for two nights afterward.

  By sun up I had taken three extra guard shifts so that the guys could get a little more sleep. There was no way that I was going to be able to sleep so some of the other guys might as well get a few extra minutes under the covers. Being up all night allowed me the opportunity to see another picturesque sunrise. It is possible that it seemed so spectacular due to the vast untouched countryside that it sprawled out over but it has been my experience that no sunrise ever looks as good as the one that comes after a night filled with near death experiences. If I had to guess I would say that the sun rises in a glorious spectrum of color and sanguinity analogous to the birth of a child every morning. We just see that hope more clearly after it has been nearly taken from us forever.

  The morning light means that we are moving again. My PSG and I set up another choke point to count everyone off. This time I know what it means, by this point I am becoming a pro at counting to 38. So far the terrain that we had experienced had been the most austere I have ever traversed and it was about to get even worse.

  Within an hour the world just dropped off. We found ourselves descending down 500 or so meters of loose slate rock that was at an unbelievably steep grade. I’m still not sure how those men had conducted a firefight in this environment. The layered rock would frequently break under the weight of the Ranger’s feet, sending large sharp rocks tumbling past the men below. I am honestly shocked that no one was seriously injured during this movement. In addition to the danger that the falling rocks presented, we were so incredibly exposed. If the enemy were to set in the right position they would have been able to take out our entire platoon with a single machine gun.

  When we reached the bottom of the cliff we came upon the village that we had been searching for. Chills shoot down my spine as we find shards of American uniforms on the ground just outside the village. The bloody pieces of camouflage clothing that so closely resembled the very same ones that I had on served as a startling reminder of how real this situation was. This wasn’t a training exercise. No one was carrying blanks and no one would be calling index at the end.

  We need to speak to the village elder in hopes of gaining some information. Something seems out of place. My Platoon Sergeant and I both notice a man that is way too well kept to be a goat herder. His crisp clean white tunic is in direct contrast to the general appearance of every other member of the village. His sparkling gold watch was not something that a goat herder would
be wearing. The rest of the villagers are in old tattered garments with dirty snarled hair and beards. They resemble how I would imagine the characters of the bible. Trapped in some sort of mountainous time capsule, preserved from the rest of the world for two thousand years. We keep an eye on the out-of-place man but can't really do anything about it. We are in no position to start slinging accusations. We are out numbered at least 10 to 1, that we can see and we are trying to play nice. We are in their village attempting to get information that will hopefully lead to the recovery of our brothers in arms, harassing one of the locals will easily shut down their hospitality so he gets a pass.

  We get little from the village elder. The guys that conduct the interview said that he was very apprehensive about giving any information, that he seemed scared. This isn’t uncommon in Afghanistan. The vast majority of the population is simple, hard-working farmers and herders. They are bullied and intimidated by a select few whose contorted interpretation of a religious ideology has left them in the crossfire.

  As we leave the village we are notified that we are being extracted. We need to move roughly 9 kilometers to our exfil point. Typically, that isn't a distance that would make any one of us break a sweat. However, at this point almost everyone was severely dehydrated and without any water. It was over 100 degrees and this was some of the nastiest country in the world. We would be extracted just past dark so it only gave us a few hours to get to our grid coordinate. Most of the platoon had done well to hide their discomfort up until this point. Those 9 kilometers were the breaking point though. Guys started to really fall apart at this point. Most of us had less than 4 hours of sleep in the past 72 hours, add in the lack of acclimatization to the high altitude and the lack of water and we were getting close to becoming combat ineffective.

  I started an IV on the RTO (Radio Telephone Operator). His eyes were rolling to the back of his head and he was tachycardic. His skin was hot and dry. He had literally sweated out everything in his system. His body no longer had the ability to cool itself and his temperature was increasing rapidly. That poor son of a bitch was carrying around that 117F radio this entire time. With the extra batteries that radio added over 20 more pounds to his pack. I started to get concerned for the rest of the men knowing that our RTO is a pretty tough guy. I remember back to the lessons learned at OEMS (Operational Emergency Medical School) about Rangers being able to compensate right up to the point of death. If these guys were displaying these kinds of symptoms it wouldn’t be long before we were having to carry some of them out. Placing one guy and all of his equipment into a litter places a massive burden on the rest of the platoon and in this environment is almost guaranteed to create a domino effect. If he is this bad off it's only a matter of time before more guys start going down.

  I quickly make my way up to the front of the file formation asking how each guy is along the way. Once I get to the front I stop and face the men as they walk past me. I was attempting to see how well they were focusing, if anyone was stumbling or showing any other signs of distress. The thing about Rangers, and most members of special operations, is they won't always tell you that they are hurt. They pride themselves on their ability to endure incredible amounts of suffering. So I had to be a little tricky and observe them as they walked by. When the very last guy reached me I repeated the process, running back to the front of the formation in an effort to look each man in the eyes. I did this at least three more times before reaching our exfil point. One of our newer guys who was on his first deployment was sitting, head down when I came upon him. He was displaying all of the same symptoms as our RTO.

  "Hey Brandon, are you alright bud?"

  "Yeah Doc, I'm just a little out of breath."

  "What's the matter, you're not used to walking for three days at 10,000 feet in hundred degree weather without water?"

  "Ha, no Doc, I guess I'm not."

  "Well, you look good. I mean that, you're a good looking man!"

  Brandon just smiles and shakes his head. We need to get moving. I have a small packet of Gatorade at the bottom of my pack. I take it out and mix it with the last 8 ounces of hot water that I have left. Drink this. After another couple of minutes Brandon stands up. Not the way that a six foot, 200 pound Ranger usually stands, it was more like the way a fawn stands for the first time. I could see that he didn't have much left in him. I do the math in my head. With several more clicks to travel I decide that carrying his 35 pound assault pack would be a lot easier than attempting to drag his 200 pound ass in a skedco.

  "Let me see your pack bud."

  His squad leader says, "No, I'll take it Doc."

  "Roger that Sergeant."

  I chuckle as I see the frustration mounting in the squad leaders face as the second pack bobbles and hits him in the side of the head. He makes some comment about how bad this sucks.

  "Yeah, tell me about it Sergeant, my second bag has been hitting me for the last three days." He looks at me with awe as if his pack was the heaviest one on anyone’s back this entire time. He doesn't complain again.

  We are getting close now. The last 2 kilometers are a straight shot. We’re moving uphill on an old dirt road. I move through the platoon and ask how guys are doing one more time. Arter projectile vomits but never even slows down; he doesn't miss a single step. What a tough son of a bitch. He's been carrying that 240B this whole time. Without any ammo that belt fed weapon weighs nearly 30 pounds. I have no idea how he made it up and down some of those rock faces with that massive, cumbersome weapon system. His squad leader tells Arter to give him the weapon. Arter refuses, he won't give up his weapon. Tough, prideful impressive bastard. He vomits one more time without skipping a beat. My dehydrated heart swells with pride knowing that I am in the same unit with men like this. We had all put ourselves through a torturous selection process, not for a special colored hat or arm insignia but for the honor and privilege of working along side me like that; men who, in the most inhospitable environment, under the greatest stress imaginable, refuse to back down an inch. I know 100% in that moment that that man would give his life for me and I would do the same for him. This is why those men will forever be my brothers.

  As we reach the Objective Rally Point I see a few guys in digital cammies. It was a squad of Marines. I didn't expect to see that. We had felt so isolated for what seemed like so long that seeing other US uniforms was almost startling. When we get to a cluster of trees and see several more men, a feeling of relief comes over me. Then I see some guy hanging out with his shirt off. There is a group of Seals sitting around a radio. In all, a couple dozen Americans from different units were gathered there. There was such solitude for the last few days I had started to believe that we were the last humans on earth. It's amazing how isolated those little villages are from the rest of the world, surrounded by hundreds of miles of mountains that make the skyscrapers of our largest cities seem like insignificant toys.

  Our first order of business when we reach the ORP is water. We ask a few of the men pulling security if they have any. One of the Marines tells us that there are several cases remaining from a resupply drop down in the trees. What a relief. We dispatch a fire team to retrieve enough for the platoon. The water had been sitting in the sun for days and was about the same temperature as the water in a tea kettle just before that obnoxious whistle starts. Just as I am finishing my first bottle my platoon leader calls me over. One of the guys is down. Shit! Now? Really?

  It's one of the squad leaders. As I approach I begin my assessment by simply asking him what is going on. He blinks his eyes a couple of times in an attempt to focus on me the way a boxer does after he has had his bell rung.

  "Hey Doc." is all he says.

  His breathing is short and shallow. He's lying propped up against a rock. As I begin to remove his boots I tell him to take off his shirt and loosen his belt. His skin is hot and dry to the touch. I'm not at all surprised at this point. I pour some water on his neck in hopes that it would quickly evaporate, helping his body to co
ol. I pull the blue bag containing the IV setup kit, the very same one that this very same squad leader discarded at our first patrol base. The look in his eyes when I brandish the bag to him was that of embarrassment. He knew that he had fucked up; there was no point in me making a big deal about it. While asking him a series of questions I start the IV on his right arm. By this point this was such a routine procedure that I wasn’t even thinking about it, I was on autopilot. While giving my platoon leader a full assessment he interrupted me and gave me the most offhand compliment I think I have ever received. The lieutenant said, “Damn Doc, cool under pressure. So cool maybe you should stick some of those water bottles up your ass to chill them down so we can actually drink them.” That would be the only time I ever had a large black man tell me to stick something in my ass and take it as a compliment.

  The bird would be here soon. In the swirling dust and debris we board the Chinook helicopter. I can’t speak for the rest of the men but that was the toughest helo ride of my Ranger carrier. We were dispatched to find 4 of our brothers, men we didn’t know but knew all about. They may have been in a different branch but they joined for the same reasons that we did. They went through the same torture to earn the right to fight alongside the elite. They fought the same fight and bled the same blood. And here we were, departing in their time of need. I know that every other Ranger on that bird would have walked those mountains until their feet were bloody stumps to find those men. We never met them but that doesn’t mean that we didn’t love them.