Foxtrot in Kandahar by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / Iraq War (2003-2011)
ISBN: 9781611213584
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Published: 2017-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

24

The Best Laid Plans

The PARACHUTE-SHROUDED MUD house in the Shin Naray Valley became our living quarters, and on the morning after our dinner with Shirzai I stepped outside to get my first daytime look at Afghanistan. From my elevated perch I saw that the wide valley we occupied was bordered on each side by steep, rugged hills sparsely covered by brown scrub brush. In any direction I turned, the land looked thirsty, and the air almost crackled from dryness when I breathed it. The arid character of the place made the pool of water below me look particularly inviting. The cumulative effect again reminded me of New Mexico, particularly southern areas of the state where as a boy I hunted desert quail, dove, and mule deer. The feel of the rifle in my hands, combined with the familiar-looking setting, put me at ease. I felt very much at home.

As our first order of business, Mark and I climbed into Shirzai’s Land Cruiser, and he drove us around to show us his fighters so we could get a head count. They were not in formation, far from it, but were scattered in various small encampments up and down the valley, so the best we could do was to come up with an estimate. Hank was also taking a separate head count, and we compared notes at the end of the morning. I guesstimated there were 600–900 fighters; Hank figured the numbers were somewhat lower, somewhere between 500 and 700. Although our numbers differed, both estimates met or exceeded the magic number of 500. With that prerequisite met, Hank sent word back to 5th SF Group Headquarters and requested the rest of his team to be deployed that night as planned.

After we got back from the survey, I asked Shirzai for another AK-47, one with a folding stock and no vertical grip. A few minutes later a young Afghan wearing fatigues and oversized tennis shoes trotted up and handed me his folding stock AK. I did a functions check and the gun seemed fine. I handed him my AK and as he fondled the vertical grip I disliked, he smiled, probably because the gun was brand-new and considerably lighter than the one he had given me. To make sure the gun was reasonably accurate, I walked over to the backside of a hill and set up a dirt clod as a target. After pacing off a hundred meters I took aim and fired. The dirt clod shattered. The gun was good to go. In the meantime, Mark, who so far had only been armed with the Agency pistol, acquired an AK for himself.

Later in the day, Hank received word that the remainder of the SF team was not coming until the following evening. The original plan to have them come the day after we arrived had been scrubbed without our knowledge when the pilots who brought us in had reported to Air Ops that they spotted only about 40 fighters around the landing zone.

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