Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War by West Bing & Meyer Dakota

Author:West, Bing & Meyer, Dakota [West, Bing]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780679645443
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2012-09-25T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

INTO THE FIRE

It was standard procedure for the dushmen to place sacks of ammonium nitrate in shallow holes, insert a blasting cap, and run a wire to a flashlight battery. They’d cut the wire and glue each strand to a piece of wood, with the ends almost touching. When a foot or a tire wheel applied pressure, boom.

“I don’t think they had time to wire them up,” I said. I had no way of knowing that for sure, but I wanted to believe it. They might have seen us coming and rigged it in a hurry to cut us off.

“You ready?” Rod said.

He dropped the truck into gear. I hung on to the turret, eyes squeezed shut. I waited to be flung into the sky and wondered if I could do a backflip in the air and land on my feet—not that it would make any difference. I’d be dead, but you have a few funny thoughts in the infinite split seconds of a battle.

We rolled over the bags. There was a slight bump, and we continued driving.

“All right!” Rod yelled.

Ahead of us the trail cut sharply to the left and led down into a gully. Rod hit the accelerator, and we gained speed downhill. I lost sight of Valadez’s orange air panel up on the ridge. Then we popped out on the far side of the gully.

I saw Hafez. He was staggering past us, holding up another Askar.

“Stop!” I yelled to Rod.

I climbed down and grabbed Hafez. He had been nicked in the right arm and another bullet had lodged in the armor plate on his back. He was dirty and tired. He drank some water while I bandaged his arm.

“Very bad in there,” he said. “All confused.”

“Where’s Lieutenant Johnson?”

Hafez shook his head.

“We were in a house, heavy shooting,” he said. “The lieutenant told me to go first. I knew the way. He’d follow.”

He described what happened next: They ran out of the house and across a terrace. They leapt into a trench to catch their breaths before making the next bound. The trench, visible on our photomaps, slashed diagonally, leading uphill toward the schoolhouse occupied by the enemy.

Lt. Johnson said he’d cover Hafez, who helped two wounded Askars hobble downhill. With bullets zinging about him, Hafez ran at a fast clip. He didn’t see or hear Lt. Johnson after that.

Hafez and the two wounded Askars joined the Command Group scattered in the terraces beside the wash. He had heard an insurgent leader, whose voice he did not recognize, tell his men to stay off their radios and use their cell phones.

Dushmen were pressing in on the Command Group from both sides, yelling in Pashto to the Askars to surrender. A wounded Askar next to Hafez threw down his M16.

“If you give up,” Hafez said, “I’ll shoot you. No one surrenders.”

At one point, Hafez said Maj. Williams was lying next to him, returning fire. Two dushmen in dirty man-dresses peeked over a terrace wall about thirty feet away and gestured to them to surrender.

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