The Moment by Larry Smith

Author:Larry Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

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Aaron Huey

The day we were ambushed by the Taliban, I was wearing a forty-five-pound flak jacket but no helmet. The jacket weighed me down as I ran through empty villages, choking on fear, far from the Dyncorp mercenaries we came with. Major Khalil was screaming into his radio as we raced deeper into the battle, a captured Taliban prisoner in tow. As I ran, the poppies coated my pants with raw opium stains. Later, lying in a ditch with my writer, Jon Lee Anderson, and our translators, I prayed for an air strike. In that moment I stopped caring about collateral damage, I just wanted them to raze that village to the ground. And again, when I was crawling through a muddy field while Afghan Eradication Forces (AEF) and Taliban fighters exchanged gunfire across the tops of the bleeding plants, I remember distinctly not giving a shit about my cameras, The New Yorker, or my career.

I do remember holding Jon Lee’s hand over the seat of our Ford F250 as bullets rained down in that orchard. I told him I was scared. He said he knew. I’d said it many times that day. I told him this time it was different.

“I’m really scared,” I said.

He reached over the seat and held my hand.

The shooting had started three hours ago, and we had no clear exit. In the backseat of our unarmored Ford F250 there was a translator and a Dyncorp medic. I pressed down between them as close to the floor as I could so that they would absorb the bullets. At some point a helicopter arrived and raked both sides of the road with thousands of fifty-caliber rounds before being hit and retreating to base. It was a sweet sound at the time, like plastic wrappers crackling in your hand as you wad them into a ball. I have to admit I wanted more. I wanted all of it to be blown to fucking hell. So I could walk away.

Jon Lee reminded me to keep shooting pictures. I really didn’t care about the pictures anymore. I wasn’t worried enough about getting blurry shots of trees to offer myself up for target practice. At the river, a truck was stuck and we were trapped on the bank, surrounded on all sides but for one narrow escape route. Five mercenaries stood along the bank and in the water, full-on Rambo. They fought from behind ATVs and our unarmored trucks. They were calm. They were at work.

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