Where Men Win Glory Part 9

As soon as Uthlaut's final request to reconsider the order to divide the platoon was denied, he hurried off to brief Eric G.o.dec and his three squad leaders-Greg Baker, Jeffrey Jackson, and Matt Weeks-none of whom was happy about it. First, however, Uthlaut told his radio operator, Jade Lane, to pack up the satellite radio and grab something to eat because they were about to get moving. So Lane and Pat Tillman sat down together and shared an MRE, Lane says, and as they ate, for some reason the conversation turned to the gender ident.i.ty of Afghan males. It is common in rural areas of Afghanistan to see men-even battle-scarred fighters-wearing flowers in their hair and thick black eye shadow made from soot. Males of all ages often hold hands with each other. It is not unusual, at remote militia outposts where no women are present, for there to be a young cook-boy in the camp who also serves as a s.e.x slave for the fighters. Pat was fascinated by the apparent acceptance of such behavior in this exceedingly macho, rigidly Islamic society that deems h.o.m.os.e.xuality to be both a sin and a mortal crime.

According to Lane, Pat pulled a small spiral notebook from the right cargo pocket of his pants "and read me a part of this journal he'd been writing, about how Afghani men acted effeminate, which he thought was because the lack of females in their everyday lives kind of pushed the men into a more feminine state of mind.... Anyway, he read me this stuff from his notebook, and then about fifteen or twenty minutes later we rolled out."

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Immediately before an Army platoon embarks on a mission, all the soldiers will typically a.s.semble for a "convoy brief" or "mission brief" by the platoon leader; if headquarters issues a "fragmentary order" that subsequently changes the mission, the platoon leader will give his soldiers a "FRAGO brief" before proceeding. In either case, the platoon leader or platoon sergeant will explain exactly where the platoon will be going, precisely what they will be doing, and other pertinent information. During the briefing, all soldiers typically will be reminded what to do if a vehicle is attacked with an IED and what to do if they are ambushed by enemy fighters. In the event of the latter, they will be reminded to respond initially with an intense fusillade of suppressive fire, but then to quickly "control your fires"-that is, to sharply reduce the volume of fire and shoot no more than necessary. They will be reminded to "go where your team leader goes, and shoot where your team leader shoots." They will be reminded to follow the current rules of engagement. If AMF or other Afghan soldiers will be involved in the mission, the U.S. forces will be reminded of that fact as well, and will be admonished not to mistake these friendly Afghan troops for Taliban or al-Qaeda. Above all, the American soldiers will be reminded to "PID your targets"- that is, to positively identify whomever they intend to shoot as an enemy combatant before pulling the trigger.

Because less than an hour of daylight remained, however, and Uthlaut had been ordered to get half his platoon to Mana before nightfall, there was no time to give a FRAGO brief to the entire platoon before moving out of Magarah. In the pointless rush to get under way, none of the standard caveats listed above was mentioned. Beyond Uthlaut, the platoon sergeant, and the three squad leaders, only a few of the Black Sheep understood where they were going or why the platoon had been split.

Uthlaut took command of Serial One, the element headed for Mana. He a.s.signed G.o.dec to take charge of Serial Two, which would escort the jinga truck, with the busted Humvee in tow, to the paved highway. And then, just before driving out of the village, Uthlaut contacted headquarters one last time to ask if they would rea.s.sess their decision to divide the platoon. "I made one final coordination with Captain Dennis," Uthlaut testified, "pertaining to the .50-cal machine gun that was on the broken Humvee." Because the fubar vehicle would be going with Serial Two, Uthlaut's element would be heading out without this rea.s.suring heavy weapon. "I emailed Captain Dennis relating that one of our elements would not have a .50-cal," Uthlaut said, "and my question was whether or not that would affect the chosen course of action (splitting the platoon). Captain Dennis replied that the .50-cal did not change the situation and to continue to execute, as discussed."

So the six vehicles in Serial One left Magarah around 6:00, with Uthlaut's Humvee at the head of the convoy. Pat Tillman was in the second vehicle, a Hilux pickup piled high with cartons of rations. "He was in the back of the truck sitting on top of these cardboard boxes, looking like the king of MREs," says Sergeant Mel Ward, who was driving a Humvee immediately behind the Hilux. "It was obvious he was going to get bounced off the first time the truck hit a b.u.mp, so somebody told him to get down from there," prompting Pat to climb down and wedge himself into the backseat of the pickup's crew cab.

The last vehicle in Serial One was a Hilux with a machine gun mounted in its bed, occupied by three Afghan soldiers. A few minutes after this AMF truck rolled north out of Magarah, the first vehicle in Serial Two-a Humvee commanded by Staff Sergeant Greg Baker-also departed the village, followed by the remaining five vehicles in the second element. Kevin Tillman was at the very tail end of the parade, manning the gun turret of a Humvee being driven by Jason Parsons, with Eric G.o.dec, the platoon sergeant, in the pa.s.senger's seat. Immediately in front of them was the wrecked Humvee being towed by the jinga truck.

As the twelve vehicles of the two elements pitched and heaved slowly down the riverbed that led out of Magarah, the distance between the last vehicle in Serial One and the first vehicle in Serial Two was no more than a couple of hundred yards. A mile and three-quarters north of the village, Uthlaut's Humvee arrived at a fork in the wadi and turned left, followed by the other vehicles in Serial One. A few minutes later when Baker's Humvee arrived at this junction, he turned to the right, as did the next two Humvees in Serial Two, but when the Afghan jinga driver got to the fork, he stopped his battered red truck and refused to follow.

When Uthlaut was ordered to send half his platoon to the paved highway with the broken Humvee, he was led to believe that headquarters meant for him to reverse the route the Black Sheep had driven from FOB Salerno to BCP-5 eight days earlier, which was the most direct way back to the pavement and was the only route he was familiar with. It was a treacherous track, however, which would take his Rangers up and over a sixty-five-hundred-foot escarpment by means of steep, extremely rugged goat trails. When the Black Sheep first traveled this route on April 14, they encountered terrain so precipitous that their vehicles were in danger of rolling over and tumbling hundreds of feet down the mountainside; upon eventually making it to the valley on the other side, the platoon told Captain Saunders that the route was "impa.s.sable." According to Saunders, Uthlaut's men insisted "they would not drive it again. They just said it was too dangerous."

Nevertheless, Uthlaut had interpreted his orders to mean that this was the route Serial Two was supposed to take, and during his extended e-mail debate with headquarters about dividing the platoon, n.o.body told him otherwise. When his many objections to the plan fell on deaf ears, he dutifully split the platoon and ordered Serial Two to escort the jinga over the mountain, even though he and all the men under his command thought doing so was risky and pointless. In the Army, you follow orders.

But then the jinga driver, who was intimately familiar with the local topography, balked at hauling the wrecked Humvee over the mountain. Through an interpreter, he managed to explain to the Americans that if Serial Two simply followed Serial One west to Mana and then turned north just past the slot canyon, they could reach their destination via a much easier route. Although more circuitous, it would actually take them to the paved highway more quickly and with considerably less risk by going around the mountain instead of over it. This made good sense to Sergeant G.o.dec, so he ordered Serial Two to reverse course and go the same way Serial One had gone. When all the Humvees managed to get turned around, G.o.dec put the jinga truck at the front of the procession, and the convoy began rolling slowly down the rock-strewn floor of the wadi toward the entrance to the narrows, approximately fifteen minutes behind Serial One.

As the vehicles of Serial Two b.u.mped along the riverbed into the maw of the slot, its steep sides and tight confines put many of the Rangers on edge. "The canyon was unbelievably narrow and the walls just shot straight up," says Brad Jacobson, who was driving the second-to-last vehicle in the convoy. "I've never seen anything like it in my life. And the way the sun was setting, the shadows-it was creepy." Just after he entered the narrows, as he steered his Humvee around a sharp bend to the left, there was a loud explosion, and the vehicles ahead of him came to a sudden halt. "Everyone started yelling, 'IED! IED!'" Jacobson remembers. "That was our first instinct-that a vehicle had gotten hit with an IED, and when that happens, you immediately stop and dismount. But about five seconds later there was another explosion, and I realized we were getting hit with mortars."

The first mortar round exploded on the floor of the canyon between the jinga truck, which was in the lead, and Greg Baker's Humvee, which was next in line. The second mortar hit the side of the canyon above the convoy, sending rocks cras.h.i.+ng down around the vehicles, and then a third mortar exploded in the same area. A few seconds later the convoy started receiving fire from small arms, prompting G.o.dec to get on the radio. "Go! Go! Go!" he yelled. "It's not IEDs! It's mortars!" When the Rangers got back in their Humvees and tried to drive out of the kill zone, however, they couldn't, because the jinga truck was stopped at the head of the line, blocking the way, and the vehicle's Afghan driver was still outside the vehicle, cowering beneath an overhang at the base of the cliff.

"There was a lot of tunnel vision, a lot of panic," recalls Jason Parsons, who was driving the last vehicle in the convoy. "I seen a silhouette on top of the hill to our north which I believed was a possible forward observer for the enemy, calling in the mortar rounds on us. So I engaged that position, and the rest of my trigger-happy crew engaged that position as well." Pedro Arreola targeted the northern ridgeline with his 240 Bravo machine gun, and Kyle Jones shot twenty rounds from his M4 toward the same area.

Kevin Tillman, up in the turret of Parsons's Humvee, thought about shooting his Mark 19 grenade launcher, a machine gun that vomits forth egg-size, high-explosive bomb-lets at the rate of one per second. But he was worried about firing it in such a narrow canyon, lest the grenades strike the vertical rock walls above the convoy and bounce back down. According to Kevin's testimony, "My immediate reaction was, 'If I shoot this weapon, it's going to land right back on my head or someone else's head.'... So I didn't fire." He did, however, attempt to lock and load the Mark 19 to be prepared to shoot, but when he pulled back the charging handle to feed a round onto the bolt face, the gun jammed, and he was unable to fire a single grenade during the entire firefight.

Baker, meanwhile, ran ahead to where the jinga driver was hiding and shouted, "Hey! We have to get this vehicle out of here!" Baker forced the Afghan to get back in the driver's seat, hopped into the cab beside him, and got him to start moving forward so the convoy could escape the ambush. Baker's Humvee, driven by Sergeant Kellett Sayre, followed close behind the jinga as the Rangers riding in it blasted the ridge to the north with a .50-caliber machine gun, a 240 Bravo machine gun, two or three M4s, and an M203 grenade launcher.

The convoy drove as fast as possible down the eastern portion of the canyon, but they were seldom able to move more rapidly than five miles per hour due to the rough terrain; enemy fighters continued to shoot at them all the while from the ridge far above. Baker, in the pa.s.senger's seat of the jinga, impulsively smashed out the window with the b.u.t.t of his M4 and returned fire. When he broke the window, Baker testified, the jinga driver got "all p.i.s.sed at me. I thought that was kind of weird at the time."

As Parsons's Humvee bounced down the wadi, the canyon was so narrow, he says, that "we lost the 240 [machine gun] mounted on Arreola's side because he didn't pull it in; the gun hit a rock and got yanked off." Parsons had to stop while Arreola jumped off and retrieved the weapon, which had its b.u.t.tstock sheared off in the collision.

The third vehicle in the convoy, rolling just behind Baker's Humvee, was a Humvee commanded by Sergeant First Cla.s.s Steven Walter, who saw another mortar round explode high on the canyon wall above them, after which the nervous and confused jinga driver stopped yet again, bringing the whole convoy to a halt behind him, because the canyon remained much too narrow for anyone to drive around the big truck. At this second stop, most of the Rangers once more dismounted their Humvees. Looking up at the high ground to their north, Walter said that he "observed four enemy personnel on the northern ridgeline," running west along the high ground, wearing "gray man-dresses." Walter shot at them with his M4, and Brad Jacobson quickly set up a mortar tube and fired a 60-millimeter mortar toward the ridge crest as well.

Within a couple of minutes Baker convinced the jinga driver to start moving again, and the convoy proceeded through the confines of the limestone slot, by which time most, if not all, of the enemy fire had ceased, although the Rangers in Baker's Humvee continued shooting hundreds of rounds as they drove. Approximately three-quarters of a mile beyond the place where they were first attacked, the jinga lurched out of the western end of the narrows, the valley abruptly opened up, and the truck came to a halt again, as did Baker's Humvee just behind it. As the vehicles rolled to a stop, they came into view of Bryan O'Neal and Pat Tillman, who were kneeling behind a pair of low boulders on the hillside above, looking down from only ninety yards away.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

When the first mortar exploded near Serial Two at the eastern end of the canyon, Serial One had just exited the western end of the narrows. Upon hearing the explosions and ensuing gunfire, twelve of the twenty Rangers in Serial One, including Tillman, scrambled out of their vehicles and, under the command of Staff Sergeant Matt Weeks, hurried toward high ground overlooking the mouth of the narrows to provide covering fire for Serial Two. Uthlaut and his radio operator, Jade Lane, stayed behind to establish satellite radio communications with headquarters from Uthlaut's Humvee in order to call in tactical air support, after which they intended to move up to the high ground themselves.

The route upward was steep and strenuous, prompting Tillman to ask Weeks for permission to shed his body armor, which weighed twenty-five pounds, in order to be able "to maneuver faster," a request that was in keeping with his approach to athletic challenges. Throughout his football career Tillman had elected to wear fewer and smaller pads than many of the other players, believing the resulting increase in speed and maneuverability made him less likely to receive an injurious. .h.i.t. The Army did things differently from the NFL, though. Ever since the invasion of Iraq, body armor (or, more specifically, the unavailability of effective body armor for some soldiers) had been a sensitive issue. As a result of political fallout, a decree had come down from the highest levels of Central Command that regulation body armor absolutely must be worn whenever contact with the enemy was likely. Weeks thus told Tillman that "no, he couldn't" drop his armor.

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After five minutes, the squad reached a grubby settlement. As they moved warily between the crumbling adobe buildings, struggling to catch their breath, they constantly scanned for anyone or anything that appeared threatening. They saw only one male beyond the age of p.u.b.erty-a crippled old man. There were some forty other people present as well, but all of them were women or very young children. The conspicuous lack of adult males in the settlement during the evening mealtime, when at least one man is typically present in every household, suggested the Pashtun villagers were allied with the Taliban and that the absent men were somewhere up on the adjacent ridges, partic.i.p.ating in the ambush on Serial Two.

Beyond the village the squad labored upward through low clumps of snakeweed to the crest of a bald spur, where everyone halted except Tillman, O'Neal, and Sayed Farhad,* the Afghan militia fighter, who continued over the top and dropped sixty yards down the far side of the spur to a pair of large rocks overlooking the canyon floor where they, too, came to a stop. When an enemy fighter began shooting at them from the opposite side of the canyon, across the wadi, Tillman directed O'Neal and Farhad to fire at the enemy position. Then Tillman sprinted back up the slope, under fire, to let Weeks know what they were up to. the Afghan militia fighter, who continued over the top and dropped sixty yards down the far side of the spur to a pair of large rocks overlooking the canyon floor where they, too, came to a stop. When an enemy fighter began shooting at them from the opposite side of the canyon, across the wadi, Tillman directed O'Neal and Farhad to fire at the enemy position. Then Tillman sprinted back up the slope, under fire, to let Weeks know what they were up to.

When he arrived atop the spur, Tillman explained to Weeks that he'd found cover for his team behind some boulders, and that they were engaging bad guys located across the valley. Weeks rose up on one knee, peered over at the rocks where Tillman's team was positioned, and expressed his approval of Pat's plan of action. After which Tillman ran back down the slope to rejoin O'Neal and Farhad. One of seven Afghan Militia Forces who had rolled out of Magarah as part of Serial One, Farhad had been awed by Tillman's physical prowess and charmed by his congenial manner during the previous day's rock-tossing contest. Perhaps this explains why, when Farhad saw Tillman and O'Neal rush up the hill independently from the other Rangers in Weeks's squad, he spontaneously decided to follow them, even though the rest of the AMF remained with their trucks in the wadi. And thus did Farhad wind up beside Tillman and O'Neal at the boulders.

Back up on the crest of the spur, the radio on Weeks's chest began to spit and crackle: it was a broken transmission between the vehicles of Serial Two. Although Weeks immediately tried to reach them, he later testified, "every time I'd make a transmission...it would be stepped on by somebody"-he would be interrupted by soldiers attempting to transmit on several radios at the same time. Weeks could hear Rangers from Serial Two frantically calling other Rangers in Serial Two, but in the chaos of the firefight they didn't seem to be able to hear one another's transmissions, nor did they seem to hear his transmissions. Despite several attempts, Weeks never raised anyone from Serial Two.

The last person to join Weeks atop the spur was Russell Baer, who arrived drenched in sweat. "I was dragging a.s.s," he admits. "I was p.i.s.sed at myself for being so smoked." As he was struggling up the slope to catch up to his squad, Baer began hearing strange buzzing and cracking noises, almost like static electricity. "I remember thinking, 'What the f.u.c.k is that sound?'" he says. "It wasn't like anything I'd ever heard. I didn't realize until later that it was the sound of rounds whizzing past."

Specialist Jean-Claude Suhl was positioned not far from Baer. He immediately understood that they were being shot at. "You'd hear the snap of the rounds" cutting the air, he recalled. But neither Suhl nor anyone else in Serial One could tell where the shooting was coming from.

The forward observer a.s.signed to Serial One, Specialist Donald Lee, heard an airplane flying overhead, and wondered if the A-10 Warthogs he'd requested for close air support had arrived on the scene. Warthogs have jet engines that emit a deafening, high-pitched scream, however, and the aircraft Lee was hearing sounded more like a lawn mower. "As I listened closer I knew it was a Predator drone," he testified. Several other Rangers also said they heard the drone. A small, unmanned, prop-driven airplane powered by a snowmobile engine, it was being flown by a pilot sitting in a trailer in the Nevada desert by means of a joystick and video screen. Predator drones are equipped with hi-tech cameras that function in daylight or darkness; some carry missiles as well. Cloudy conditions at Bagram, it turned out, had kept the Warthogs from ever taking off, but headquarters later confirmed that a Predator was overhead during the firefight, and a civilian contractor at Bagram said that he remembered seeing the Predator's video feed. During the numerous investigations that would be undertaken over the next three years, the Army and the CIA nevertheless a.s.serted that no such video existed.

As Lee listened to the Predator circling overhead, a 40-millimeter grenade exploded thirty feet from Russell Baer, who was lying p.r.o.ne on the spur above Weeks. "It was really f.u.c.king close," Baer recalls, shaking his head. "I saw a puff of dirt rise up, then BOOM! It blew my eardrum out, ruptured it." He believes the explosion "wasn't big enough to be a mortar round. If it was, I'd be dead. I think it was a 203 round"-a 40-millimeter grenade fired from an M203 grenade launcher, which is a tubelike attachment that snaps into place beneath the barrel of an M4 carbine. Neither Taliban nor al-Qaeda forces possessed M203 grenade launchers.

Another 40-millimeter grenade exploded just fifteen feet from Bradley Shepherd, showering him with gravel. Not long after that, says Josey Boatright, "I remember hearing a hard whistle, then this distinct screaming noise. I had no idea where it was coming from." Unbeknownst to Boatright, the latter was the sound of an AT4-a one-shot disposable bazooka that shoots a powerful rocket designed to penetrate fortified bunkers or steel armor. It had been fired by a Ranger in Serial Two named Chad Johnson, who was standing just out of sight beyond a low rise. The grenades that had nearly nailed Baer and Shepherd a moment earlier had probably been lobbed from Johnson's M203 grenade launcher.

Unaware that they were being shot at by fellow Rangers, Sergeant Mel Ward figured their position was being bracketed by enemy mortars, so he yelled to their squad leader, "Sarn't Weeks! We're taking indirect!"* Catching a glimpse of some movement on a distant ridge that he thought was the shooter, Jean-Claude Suhl let loose with a burst from his 240 Bravo machine gun, prompting the Rangers beside him to start frantically squeezing off rounds with their smaller-caliber M4 carbines, ratcheting up the tension and chaos, until Weeks shouted, "Cease fire! Everybody cease fire!" All they were doing, he later explained, "was kicking up dirt on the hilltops.... They weren't able to see what they were shooting at, and furthermore...the distance was about 800 meters from where we were to where they were shooting, and you know, with M4s that's kind of futile." He commanded his men to control their emotions and refrain from shooting unless they could positively identify what they were shooting at. Catching a glimpse of some movement on a distant ridge that he thought was the shooter, Jean-Claude Suhl let loose with a burst from his 240 Bravo machine gun, prompting the Rangers beside him to start frantically squeezing off rounds with their smaller-caliber M4 carbines, ratcheting up the tension and chaos, until Weeks shouted, "Cease fire! Everybody cease fire!" All they were doing, he later explained, "was kicking up dirt on the hilltops.... They weren't able to see what they were shooting at, and furthermore...the distance was about 800 meters from where we were to where they were shooting, and you know, with M4s that's kind of futile." He commanded his men to control their emotions and refrain from shooting unless they could positively identify what they were shooting at.

"Weeks only fired one round during the entire firefight," says Boatright. "He stayed real calm. Beforehand, when we were back in the rear, he was more on edge, more hyper. But it was eerie how calm he got once the shooting started. After that I always called him 'My G.o.d of War.' He'd been there before. He stayed cool and took control because he knew that's what he had to do."

Although they couldn't identify the enemy shooters, incoming rounds continued to pepper the earth around the Rangers hunkered along on the spur. Because the shots seemed to be coming primarily from the east, Weeks and his men dropped just below the crest to the west, the opposite side of the spur from the pair of boulders where Tillman's fire team was positioned.

These boulders rested on a steep slope, about three feet apart, with one slightly uphill and to the east of the other. Tillman was kneeling next to the higher rock, O'Neal was kneeling behind the lower rock, and Farhad was standing on the exposed hillside fifteen or twenty feet downhill and to the west of O'Neal. Although the boulders were approximately six feet long, they protruded barely twelve inches above the ground on their uphill sides. As Tillman and O'Neal kneeled behind them, the rocks rose no higher than the soldiers' thighs.

The rocks nevertheless provided a clear view of the mouth of the canyon. Not long after Tillman rejoined O'Neal and Farhad at the boulders after speaking with Weeks atop the spur, the lead vehicle in Serial Two, the jinga truck, came rumbling out of the narrows and halted next to the stone retaining wall of a terraced opium field that jutted into the riverbed. A moment later a Humvee sped out of the canyon as well and came to an abrupt stop behind the jinga. Several American soldiers then hopped out of the Humvee and started shooting up the slope toward Tillman's fire team.

Staff Sergeant Greg Baker, a highly regarded squad leader, had arrived in the jinga truck. Six Rangers and an Afghan interpreter under Baker's command arrived in the vehicle now parked behind the jinga. A version of Humvee favored by Special Operations Forces called a GMV (for ground mobility vehicle), it had no armor, roof, doors, or windows except the front winds.h.i.+eld, in order to give soldiers unimpeded sectors of fire from every seat.

The Rangers riding in this GMV had started firing their weapons when the first mortar sh.e.l.l had exploded near Serial Two at the eastern entrance to the canyon, and they'd continued shooting at real and imagined enemy positions on the cliffs above them as they drove through the gorge. The shooting stopped for a little while when the GMV exited the western end of the canyon and came to a halt behind the jinga, but it resumed again after several Rangers climbed out of the vehicle.

Although Tillman, O'Neal, and Farhad could see Baker's men shooting up at them, initially the fire was intermittent, and they weren't terribly concerned. It was only "maybe a couple bursts from an M4," O'Neal later testified. "We did a lot of waving up top, like, 'Hey, we're friendly,' because it wasn't-it wasn't real serious. Like, they weren't really seriously shooting at us to where we thought we really, really had to get down. And I figured, you know, it was just a mistake anyway, like they shot a couple times and they were like, 'Oh, they're friendly up there, so stop shooting.'" After Tillman and O'Neal waved and shouted "Cease fire!" a few times, the shooting petered out, O'Neal recalled, "So we figured we were fine."

When they had first arrived at the boulders overlooking the wadi a few minutes earlier, Tillman had seen an enemy fighter firing at them from atop a lightly forested promontory high on the other side of the canyon; the mortar that had shot the opening salvos was probably located there as well. Although O'Neal could see muzzle flashes emanating from the enemy's weapons on the other side of the valley some four hundred yards away, he couldn't make out the actual shooters. So Tillman fired a burst from his SAW at this enemy gun emplacement to indicate where he wanted his team to lay down suppressive fire, after which, says O'Neal, "Me and the AMF soldier then began to engage the position that Pat was directing us to fire on." When Baker's Humvee drove out of the narrows, O'Neal and Farhad were still shooting at the enemy position across the canyon.

Down on the valley floor, after approximately a minute the Rangers firing at Tillman's position climbed back into their Humvee, which started moving again, then drove around the parked jinga truck and turned the corner where the wadi bent sharply to the right past the corner of the opium field. Kellett Sayre was driving. Greg Baker, who had gotten out of the jinga during the stop, was now back in the front pa.s.senger's seat of the Humvee. Immediately behind them, up in the turret, Stephen Ashpole manned the heavy .50-caliber machine gun. In the waist seat to his right was Chad Johnson, a rifleman and grenadier. To Ashpole's left was Trevor Alders, a SAW gunner. Steve Elliott was standing at the right rear of the Humvee, where his 240 Bravo machine gun was mounted on a swing arm. In the rear seat were James Roberts, a young rifleman and grenadier, and an Afghan interpreter known as Wallid.

Having just blasted their way out of the ambush kill zone, Baker and his men were amped and jumpy. Several of them had never previously been in a firefight. Their weapons were charged, and they remained hyperalert, primed to shoot anything or anyone who seemed to pose a threat.

Although some soldiers in the platoon said Baker could be vain and arrogant on occasion, even his critics conceded that he was an exceptional soldier and a superb squad leader. In Iraq, before being promoted to the leader of First Squad, Baker had been Kevin Tillman's team leader, and both Tillman brothers had remarked on more than one occasion that Baker was "s.h.i.+t hot" and "totally squared away"-among the highest compliments one Ranger can pay another. Pat and Kevin were so impressed with him that they'd even expressed the desire to be in Baker's squad.

As the Humvee rounded the corner delineated by the stone wall of the opium field, Baker "noticed AK-47 muzzle flash to my right side" in the gloaming. The flash was from a Kalashnikov automatic rifle belonging to a small dark-skinned man with a black beard. The beard and the AK-47 caused Baker to deduce, correctly, that the shooter was an Afghan. But this Afghan was wearing BDUs-a version of the American battle dress uniform printed with the same three-color desert camouflage pattern as the Rangers were wearing-which should have alerted Baker that he was AMF, not Taliban. The uniform of the enemy was the shalwar kameez shalwar kameez-what the Rangers referred to as a "man-dress" or "man jammies": the tunic-and-baggy-pants ensemble worn by virtually every male Pashtun in Khost who wasn't a member of the AMF or Afghan National Police.

Baker testified that he noticed the Afghan was wearing BDUs, even in the fading twilight. But Baker also saw that the Afghan's weapon was pointed in his direction with flames spitting from its muzzle. Baker believed that the Afghan was trying to kill him, and his reflexes took over: he put his eye to the scope of his M4, centered its red electronic dot on the Afghan's chest, thumbed the selector lever from "SAFE" to "SEMI," and then squeezed the trigger six times in rapid succession. No more than three seconds elapsed from the time he first noticed the Afghan until he completed firing the six rounds.

Although Baker was shooting from the front seat of a Humvee bouncing over a rocky riverbed, his target was less than sixty-five yards away. "We trained a lot, and he was an excellent marksman," Jade Lane, the platoon's radio operator, reflects. "For him to shoot the guy from a moving vehicle at that range would not be an amazing feat." Two of the .223-caliber bullets from Baker's carbine hit the Afghan in the chest, his legs crumpled beneath him, and he flopped to the ground in a twisted heap.

The dead Afghan was not an enemy fighter. He was Sayed Farhad, the twenty-seven-year-old AMF soldier who'd attached himself to Tillman and O'Neal. And he hadn't been shooting his AK-47 at Baker; actually, he'd been trying to protect Baker and his men by providing covering fire, shooting at the enemy position far above the wadi on the south side of the canyon in order to deter the bad guys from firing down at the American vehicle as it rolled past.

As Kellett Sayre steered the Humvee around the corner of the opium field, he saw the six vehicles of Serial One parked three hundred yards straight ahead. Glancing up the slope to his right, he identified four Rangers high on the spur, frantically waving their arms to signal that they were fellow Americans. Sayre barked, "Friendlies on top!" hoping to prevent his colleagues in the Humvee from doing anything stupid, but he was a split second too late. The other soldiers in the truck had already started to shoot, after which Sayre's frantic screams of "Cease fire! Cease fire!" were lost beneath the din of gunfire. In the ensuing fusillade, hundreds of bullets were directed at the boulders where Tillman and O'Neal had taken cover.

Kneeling behind his boulder, believing the Rangers in Baker's Humvee had recognized him and Tillman as American soldiers, O'Neal was dumbstruck by the enormous volume of fire suddenly aimed at his position. Large-caliber rounds slammed into the earth all around him. Dozens of bullets struck the rocks behind which he and Tillman now hid, blasting shards of limestone from the boulders like shrapnel. According to O'Neal's testimony to Brigadier General Gary Jones during a subsequent investigation, the Rangers in the Humvee "fired for a good forty-five seconds to a minute. It felt like forever, so maybe it could have been like a minute, minute and thirty seconds, but it felt like a couple of hours, sir, you know what I mean, sir?"

When asked if he recognized the faces of any of the shooters, O'Neal replied, "I could just see persons, sir. There wasn't enough light to recognize faces, but I could tell that they were my buddies, you know? I could tell that they were friendlies, guys that I worked with and I just-I mean, I didn't know who was who. I just knew that they were my friends."

Eventually, O'Neal testified, he tossed his rifle aside "because I thought maybe if I threw my weapon down they would stop firing at us." But the shooting didn't stop, so he flung himself onto the ground and curled into a fetal position. "I began to pray out loud," he said. "I was sure I was going to die.... Pat then asked me why I was praying, he asked me what it could do for me."

As Baker's Humvee kept driving down the wadi, the shooters continued to spew bullets with reckless disregard, raking the entire hillside. Sayre, in desperation, reached back and grabbed the left leg of Stephen Ashpole, who was standing just behind him in the gun turret; although Sayre repeatedly yanked on the machine gunner's trousers with one hand while steering with the other, frantically trying to get him to stop shooting, Ashpole was so focused on firing his weapon that he failed to notice.

Up on the spur above Tillman, Weeks's squad was spread across the open slope, completely vulnerable to the fusillade. Private Will Aker looked down at the Humvee and saw Steve Elliott spray bullets from his 240 Bravo machine gun across the spur and into the buildings of the village. "He looked real panicked," Aker recalls. "He was shooting everywhere. One of his bullets. .h.i.t, like, this far from my foot." He holds his hands twelve inches apart to demonstrate how close it was.

"You could see rounds impacting all around us," remembers Russell Baer, a SAW gunner. "The air was filled with weird noises as bullets whizzed by. They just wouldn't stop shooting. I came so so close to shooting back at those guys. I knew I would be able to kill every one of them with my SAW. It didn't seem like anything else was gonna stop them. I'm glad I didn't do it, but it definitely crossed my mind." close to shooting back at those guys. I knew I would be able to kill every one of them with my SAW. It didn't seem like anything else was gonna stop them. I'm glad I didn't do it, but it definitely crossed my mind."

* For more than a year after Tillman's death, the Army reported that the ident.i.ty of this Afghan soldier was unknown and then announced that his name was Thani. This is incorrect. He was named Sayed Farhad. For more than a year after Tillman's death, the Army reported that the ident.i.ty of this Afghan soldier was unknown and then announced that his name was Thani. This is incorrect. He was named Sayed Farhad.* Rounds lobbed from mortars, howitzers, grenade launchers, and other varieties of artillery are known as indirect fire. Bullets shot from rifles and machine guns are called direct fire. Rounds lobbed from mortars, howitzers, grenade launchers, and other varieties of artillery are known as indirect fire. Bullets shot from rifles and machine guns are called direct fire.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE.

At the beginning of the ambush, when Sergeant Weeks had led his squad up through the village and onto the crest of the spur overlooking the mouth of the canyon, the platoon leader, David Uthlaut, and his nineteen- year- old radio operator, Jade Lane, had remained behind at the vehicles in order to call headquarters and sound the alert that Serial Two had been ambushed. After completing their radio communications, they moved up to the village and positioned themselves beside a two- story mud home above the wadi, where they began shooting at enemy fighting positions across the canyon with their M4 carbines. "We were right next to the building," says Lane. "The PL [platoon leader] and me were using the wall as cover. I remember the PL was standing up and I was on a knee. Suddenly there was an explosion that blew me to the ground. It f.u.c.ked up the PL's face really bad. He was bleeding all over the place, bleeding out of his mouth. He was really messed up and didn't even realize it. It wasn't until I told him-I was like, 'Hey, sir, you're pretty f.u.c.ked- up.' He said, 'I am?' Then he touched his face and saw that his Nomex* was just soaked in blood." Ten or fifteen seconds later a bullet demolished Lane's left knee. As he crawled away trying to find cover from the incoming fire, another bullet hit him in the chest, ricocheted off his body armor, and grazed his right shoulder, searing his flesh. was just soaked in blood." Ten or fifteen seconds later a bullet demolished Lane's left knee. As he crawled away trying to find cover from the incoming fire, another bullet hit him in the chest, ricocheted off his body armor, and grazed his right shoulder, searing his flesh.

Lane a.s.sumed he had been shot by a Talib wielding an AK-47, and that Uthlaut had been wounded by an enemy mortar. In truth, the bullets that hit Lane had been fired by a machine gunner on Greg Baker's Humvee, and the blast that nailed the platoon leader had come from a 40-millimeter high-explosive round most likely fired from Chad Johnson's M203 grenade launcher.

When he lobbed the grenade that probably shredded Uthlaut's face with shrapnel, Johnson was standing near Baker's Humvee beneath Tillman's position, just out of sight around the last bend in the wadi. Less than a minute after Uthlaut was wounded, the Humvee roared around the corner and came into view. "As soon as it rounded the corner," Lane remembers, the guns on it just opened up and you could see a ma.s.sive amount of rounds coming in. Even before I saw the vehicle, I could see rounds. .h.i.tting next to where Tillman and O'Neal were, impacting on the ground, but at that point I didn't know it was coming from Baker's Humvee. I thought they were still under some serious fire from the enemy. I even got on the radio and was screaming at the ETAC,* "We need help! We need fire support right now!" I didn't know that what we really needed was for our own guys to stop shooting at us. Once they came around the corner, I knew instantly that those rounds were not coming from the enemy. As they got closer, I could see where the 240 Bravo was aiming. I couldn't, like, recognize Elliott's face, but I knew that whoever was on the 240 was shooting at our position. "We need help! We need fire support right now!" I didn't know that what we really needed was for our own guys to stop shooting at us. Once they came around the corner, I knew instantly that those rounds were not coming from the enemy. As they got closer, I could see where the 240 Bravo was aiming. I couldn't, like, recognize Elliott's face, but I knew that whoever was on the 240 was shooting at our position.

When Stephen Ashpole, the .50-caliber machine gunner, was later asked by investigators why he and the other Rangers on Baker's vehicle didn't positively identify their targets before firing, he explained: You are drilled into as a private, shoot where your team leader shoots.... We came around a curve.... Sergeant Baker then called fire and I transitioned my weapon and saw some quick shapes and fired where Sergeant Baker and the other guys were firing.... I know there is a conflicting issue about PID-ing your target, but Sergeant Baker was one of those great soldiers. So if he was to call fire somewhere, you would trust him. Part of your job is following that. I fired where he called fire.... I do not fault Sergeant Baker for doing what he did, when he saw an Afghani firing in our direction. It was one of those split-second decisions that unfortunately turned out disastrous.

Other members of the platoon were less magnanimous about the failure of Baker and his men to control their fire. Sergeant First Cla.s.s Steven Walter, who was in a Humvee fifty yards directly behind Baker's Humvee, testified, "I had a clear view of his vehicle." As Walter rounded the last bend in the wadi, he witnessed Ashpole shooting his .50-caliber machine gun into the village, he said, and could "see the injured A.M.F. soldier on the side of the spur, he was wearing a tiger-striped uniform, and I could see four Rangers further up the spur on top, which I later found out was Staff Sergeant Weeks' squad.... I could clearly see the uniforms and helmets at this time of the Rangers on top of the spur.... When I identified the friendly locations, I pointed them out to my vehicle and I also called on the radio to Staff Sergeant Baker's to cease fire. I received nothing back."

The next vehicle to exit the narrows after Walter was a Humvee driven by Brad Jacobson, with Master Sergeant John Horney in its front pa.s.senger's seat. Ahead, they could see Baker's Humvee shooting up the hillside. "As soon as we got around the corner," Jacobson remembers, "Sarn't Horney was, like, 'Those are friendlies up there! Those are friendlies!' His voice was real upset. I have tunnel vision because I'm driving, just trying to haul a.s.s without hitting rocks, but I look up and see dudes waving on the high ground. You could see the whole f.u.c.king platoon right there. And I'm sorry, but they were pretty obvious. It was dark, yeah, but it wasn't that that dark.... n.o.body was being shot at by any Taliban at that point. Those guys in Baker's truck who f.u.c.king went to town on the dudes up on the hill? They were just trigger-happy." dark.... n.o.body was being shot at by any Taliban at that point. Those guys in Baker's truck who f.u.c.king went to town on the dudes up on the hill? They were just trigger-happy."

According to Walter's testimony, "I was dumbfounded at the fact that the .50-cal gunner was lighting up, so I was trying to get a hold of that [redacted] and see what he was doing. He was just wasting ammo." At this point, Walter said, the vehicles of Serial One were parked directly ahead, clearly visible. As Baker's Humvee drove past the two-story building where Uthlaut and Lane were positioned, Elliott continued to target it with his 240 Bravo machine gun, even as the Humvee rolled to a stop behind Serial One. "His tracers were actually going towards the rest of the convoy, which was just making the bend," Walter testified. "So I was trying to call him and tell his 240-Bravo gunner to stop shooting back towards...with the way those tracers looked they were flying right over this little knoll. Right at the rest of the convoy." Elliott had such poor awareness of what he was shooting at, in other words, that he almost hit the Humvees in Serial Two that were following behind him.

From the time Baker killed Sayed Farhad until the shooting finally ended, not much more than a minute elapsed, perhaps two at the very most. Near the beginning of this brief span, as bullets were striking the hillside around Pat Tillman and Bryan O'Neal, Tillman tried to calm the young private by saying, "Hey, don't worry, I've got something that can help us." Tillman then raised himself off the ground high enough to huck a smoke grenade toward the wadi, hoping to signal to Baker and his men that they were shooting at American soldiers.

O'Neal said he "heard a hissing sound, it was a purple smoke grenade that Pat had set off. The fire then stopped, and Pat and I got up.... We both thought everything was good at the time." It was, however, just a momentary pause in the onslaught. Within moments the Rangers in Baker's truck resumed shooting.

Ten or fifteen seconds later, O'Neal noticed that Tillman's voice took on a distinctly different tone-Pat had "a cry in his call" is how O'Neal described it-and O'Neal a.s.sumed Tillman had been hit. Tillman, it turned out, had taken one or more shots to the chest plate of his body armor-sharp blows that would have felt like a jackhammer striking his sternum. Astounded that his fellow Rangers would act so recklessly, he began to holler at the top of his lungs, "What are you shooting at?! I'm Pat Tillman! I'm Pat f.u.c.king TILLMAN!" TILLMAN!" His angry, disbelieving cries, however, had no discernible effect on the gunfire emanating from Ashpole, Elliott, and Trevor Alders as they drove by, all of whom fired at Tillman from less than 120 feet at their closest point-the distance from home plate to second base on a baseball diamond. His angry, disbelieving cries, however, had no discernible effect on the gunfire emanating from Ashpole, Elliott, and Trevor Alders as they drove by, all of whom fired at Tillman from less than 120 feet at their closest point-the distance from home plate to second base on a baseball diamond.

Alders, who had never been in a serious firefight, was the SAW gunner on Baker's Humvee, positioned on the left side of the vehicle, responsible for the "nine o'clock" sector of fire-which happened to be oriented away from where the Rangers perceived most of the enemy to be during the ambush. As Ashpole, Elliott, and Johnson blasted at targets on the right-hand side of the vehicle, Alders-a small guy, just five feet five inches tall, and p.r.o.ne to mask his insecurities with displays of bravado, according to some platoon mates-felt frustrated to be missing out on most of the action. Whenever the opportunity arose, he testified, he turned to the "three o'clock"-the right side of the vehicle, facing the hillside where Tillman was-and "got my gun into the fight." The SAW is a formidable weapon that can fire sixteen rounds per second and has an effective range of more than half a mile. As Alders seldom hesitated to point out, he was an expert SAW gunner.

Under oath, over a period of two years, Alders provided five separate accounts of the firefight to various investigators. According to a written statement he submitted in June 2004 in defense of his actions, when the Humvee turned the corner of the terraced poppy field (where Baker shot Farhad), Alders "heard shots fired, followed by 'Contact three o'clock.' Everyone echoed the command. I stood up, reoriented from the nine o'clock to the three o'clock, and looked for where everyone was shooting. I noticed that it was what appeared to be a small stone wall with sticks laid against it on both sides.... I fired 20 rounds (two 10 round bursts) at that wall with only a few seconds between the first and second. I identified two sets of arms straight up. The arms did not indicate any signs of a cease-fire or any other hand and arm signal."

Puzzled by the implications of this statement, a special agent from the Army Criminal Investigation Division later inquired of Alders, "Why would you fire on two sets of arms if they were straight up in the air?"

"This was a third world country," Alders replied, "and they don't have hand and arm signals like we do. It was my perception they were trying to signal somebody."

Another baffling aspect of Alders's testimony was his insistence that the raised arms he shot at were behind a stone wall. The only stone walls up on the hillside were a pair of goat corrals, which stood on the crest of the spur some distance above where Sergeant Weeks's squad was located. But no Rangers were ever positioned behind the goat corrals or anywhere near them during the firefight. The only men who were defiladed by rocks of any sort were Tillman and O'Neal, who had taken cover behind a pair of low, long boulders. Perhaps, due to the tunnel-like perspective of his gun scope, Alders mistook these boulders for a stone wall.

In any case, five months after submitting his written account of what happened, Alders described the event again in oral testimony to another Army investigator: "I stand up, I turn around, I see where they're shooting, I really don't see anybody, see a stone wall. OK, that's where they're shooting, it's a fortified position, I put a ten-round burst into the stone wall and then that split-second, hands pop up. I think to myself, OK, that's obviously where the enemy's at, I put that same ten-round burst down across the wall, because I couldn't see a solid silhouette of somebody. I was trying to get their hands down."

When the investigator asked if he ever saw any "friendlies" up on the hillside, Alders replied, "No, I didn't see any-a soul or anybody up there, sir. I mean, Sergeant Baker said when he engaged up there he saw the silhouette of what turned out to be the A.M.F. soldier, firing above us, but-I mean, I guess the A.M.F. guy was already down by the time I'd turned around, because I didn't see anybody up there, sir. I mean, all I saw was two sets of arms and I just a.s.sumed it was two hajjis hajjis. .h.i.tting the dirt and I mean, they were getting hammered on by the whole jeep, sir." hitting the dirt and I mean, they were getting hammered on by the whole jeep, sir."

From the numerous divots scarring the boulders around Tillman's final position, investigators determined that he was fired on by a .50-caliber machine gun, an M249 SAW, and possibly one or more M4s. But the autopsy performed on Tillman after his death leaves little doubt that he was killed by the SAW. And the only SAW gunner who fired at the hillside was Trevor Alders.

Some Rangers in the platoon regarded Alders as a chest thumper who talked big but often had to ask others to help carry his load. Pat, however, had always gone out of his way to be nice to him. "Alders was pathetic," says one of his platoon mates. "He was a child. Pat was just about the only guy in the platoon who treated him with respect." The previous September, when they were at Fort Benning preparing to attend Ranger School, Pat and Kevin were granted a four-day pa.s.s. Alders happened to be at Benning then as well. When Pat and Kevin were invited to spend their leave at the home of some good friends of their mother's who lived in Buckhead, just outside of Atlanta, Pat encouraged Alders to tag along. He gratefully joined them, and was treated like kin.

Seven months later, as Pat sat behind his boulder above the wadi-wounded, shouting his name, waving his hands over his head to signal that he was an American soldier-it's impossible to know what was going through his mind. His attention, however, would almost certainly have been focused on the open Humvee driving along the gravel riverbed just forty yards below, carrying seven of his Ranger comrades, two or three of whom were shooting in his direction. If Tillman had a football, it would have been pretty easy for him to hit the vehicle with a tight spiral pa.s.s.

Gazing down at his brothers in arms, he would have seen Alders, positioned on the far side of the Humvee, turn to face him and then point his weapon up the slope. Although Pat probably couldn't make out Alders's features in the twilight, he would have known who it was from Alders's compact stature and the fact that he was holding a SAW. Shortly after Alders brought the weapon to his shoulder, Pat would have seen a flash from the gun's stubby barrel. Concurrent with the muzzle flash, three .223-caliber bullets pierced the right side of his forehead, just below the rim of his helmet, killing him instantly.

Although the entrance wounds were deceptively small and clean-each was just five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, and all three were grouped tightly together-when the highvelocity, copper-jacketed bullets collided with the frontal bone of Tillman's skull, they broke apart and began to tumble wildly, with devastating effect. As they careened through his flesh and then exited his body, the bullet fragments obliterated much of the cranium, expelling his brain onto the ground. What remained of Tillman's head was mostly skin and fasciae, and resembled a punctured balloon.

Upon hearing the first burst from Alders's SAW shred the air, Bryan O'Neal threw himself facedown on the ground and tried to press his body into the earth behind the boulder. As he lay there, slightly below and to the west of Tillman, O'Neal testified, "I remember hearing what I thought was running water. I thought that Pat had urinated on himself. I asked Pat if he had urinated on himself, but he did not answer. I looked at the rock next to us, and I remember seeing a stream of blood. I didn't believe what I was seeing. I then saw what appeared to be pieces of blood and tissue. I thought I had been shot at first, I then realized that I was fine. I sat up, took a knee, and looked at Pat. He looked like he was kind of sitting, his back was on the hill, he was laying back. I remember that I started yelling for help."

Baker's Humvee rolled to a stop behind the parked vehicles of Serial One at 6:48 p.m., and the shooting ended a moment thereafter. From start to finish, the firefight had lasted fourteen minutes.

According to Steve Elliott's testimony, "I eventually heard 'Cease fire.'... It seemed like it was coming from everywhere. The vehicle was stopped at that point and I saw an A.M.F. soldier who had come around to the back of the vehicle. The impression I got from him was that he was worked up and he wanted us to stop firing. I don't recall exactly if this A.M.F. soldier was waving his arms and/or calling out 'cease fire.' He was pretty worked up."

Most of the Rangers in both serials were deaf from the gunfire. According to Sergeant Mel Ward, one of Weeks's two team leaders who was up on the spur above Tillman's position, "When I could hear again-which took a little while, because the .50-cal makes a lot of noise-the first thing I noticed was someone screaming, 'Oh my f.u.c.king G.o.d! Oh my f.u.c.king G.o.d! Oh my f.u.c.king G.o.d!' G.o.d!' I didn't know who it was, but because of the way he was screaming, I a.s.sumed he was wounded, probably in pieces." After telling his fire team to stay where they were and pull security in case there were still Taliban lurking, Ward hurried down to where the screaming was coming from. I didn't know who it was, but because of the way he was screaming, I a.s.sumed he was wounded, probably in pieces." After telling his fire team to stay where they were and pull security in case there were still Taliban lurking, Ward hurried down to where the screaming was coming from.

Ward arrived at the boulders about the same time as Staff Sergeant Weeks. O'Neal "was in a state of hysteria," Weeks testified. He was drenched with Tillman's blood and spattered with splinters of bone and chunks of brain matter. His helmet was off. His gun was lying on the ground.

"It was our guys that did it! They f.u.c.king killed him!" O'Neal screamed at Weeks. "We were waving our arms! How did they not know we're here?"

Weeks shouted at O'Neal to put his helmet on, pick up his weapon, and "square himself away." After ordering O'Neal to pull security over a nearby sector to give him something to do, Weeks called Eric G.o.dec, the platoon sergeant, and reported over the radio, "I've got one Eagle KIA, call sign Tango," indicating an American had been killed and his last name started with the letter T T.

By this time Sergeant Bradley Shepherd, Weeks's other team leader, had also arrived on the scene. "First thing Ward did," says Shepherd, "after he sees Tillman is pretty much decapitated, he falls on his knees and hugs him. Starts crying." Ward-a taciturn, physically imposing, politically conservative Ranger who was two years older than Tillman-does not believe men should cry in public, if at all, and is embarra.s.sed that his peers saw him "being a p.u.s.s.y." Only a couple of hours earlier, however, while the platoon had been cooling its heels in Magarah, Tillman and Ward had pulled security together off and on through much of the long afternoon, during which they had talked about their wives and families and what they intended to do when they got out of the Army. When Ward came upon Pat behind the boulder, he thought about this final conversation and was "taken over by events," as they say in the military.

"I was crying, which surprised me," Ward remembers. "I took a knee by Pat's body and put a hand on his chest." A wary, exceedingly private man, Ward has spoken about what happened only to his wife and Army investigators. "Seeing your friend like that was pretty difficult," he admits. "We had, uh...We had just spoken and...um ..." Four years after the event, his voice breaks and his eyes water. "I thought I'd be able to talk about this by now without being a big b.i.t.c.h about it.... But, um...I mean, he wasn't just lying there like someone who's been shot in a John Wayne movie, where it looks like maybe he's only sleeping."

Ward pauses for the better part of a minute to regain his composure and then continues. "It was getting dark. After all the noise, all of a sudden it was really quiet. I remember just sitting there with Pat for a while. And then it was, like, okay, someone is going to have to take care of this now."