The Outpost An Untold Story Of American Valor Part 16

A minute pa.s.sed.

"You all right?"

"Yes, but they're getting closer. Pray for me."

Newsom advised the pilot, "Aim up just five more yards." He did so.

The first insurgent's voice came again: "You all right?"

This time the inquiry was met with only static.

By midnight, it seemed to Bostick that the enemy threat had been eliminated. Just in case, though, he ordered 3rd Platoon to stay in the hills until morning. At around 2:00 a.m., O'Dell was on guard duty when, through his night-vision goggles, he saw some insurgents regrouping on the northern mountainside. He radioed Speight, the mortarman, and gave him the grids. Then he gently nudged Newsom awake.

Are you serious? Newsom thought to himself. They're coming back? back? We just hammered that whole area for half the day. We just hammered that whole area for half the day.

Speight fired the 120-millimeter mortars at the insurgents, pummeling them. That seemed to put an end to that.

Through the morning, 3rd Platoon stayed on the hill. At one point, Afghan Security Guards-local contractors-brought up Pepsis and cookies, but by then two of Newsom's soldiers had already fainted from heat exhaustion. At 11:00 a.m., Bostick finally told Newsom that he and his men could head back to the camp.

Any impulse Newsom may have felt to be celebratory, to slap some backs and pump his fist in the air, was negated by Bostick's clear concern that there would be another attack. He told Newsom to meet him at the operations center so they could make plans for the next two days. It was only later that night, at a barbecue where the men grilled some steaks and took a breath, that Newsom pulled Bostick aside.

"Hey, sir, I had a lot of fun," he told his commander.

"Yeah, I know." Bostick smiled. "It was a good TIC"-meaning "troops in contact," a firefight.

The clash had reminded Newsom of stories he'd read about Special Forces early on in the war-sitting up on an observation post, calling in close air support and mortars. If this is combat, then count me in, Newsom thought to himself, because that s.h.i.+t is fun. "Are they all like that?" he asked.

"Yeah, pretty much," Bostick said. "It's fun stuff."

"I want more!" Newsom exclaimed. Bostick laughed. Newsom thanked the captain for trusting him in the field, for staying calm, for being a great commander. Bostick shrugged.

Staff Sergeant Ryan Fritsche36 was late in getting to Forward Operating Base Naray. His leave back home in Indiana had been extended so he could say good-bye to his father, Bill, who was dying of cancer. was late in getting to Forward Operating Base Naray. His leave back home in Indiana had been extended so he could say good-bye to his father, Bill, who was dying of cancer.

Ryan had scheduled a lot around his father's illness-he and his wife, Brandi, had gotten married the previous September because they weren't certain his dad would make it this long. On May 16, 2007, fifty-two-year-old Bill Fritsche, surrounded by his family, succ.u.mbed to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

By June, the younger Fritsche was in Afghanistan. He'd been deployed abroad once before, at a base in Djibouti, between Ethiopia and Somalia, as part of a U.S. effort to hunt terrorists in the Horn of Africa. Fritsche's company had pulled security there for the members of the Army Corps of Engineers as they dug wells and built schools and orphanages. For the whole five years that Fritsche had been in the Army, the United States had been fighting at least one war, if not two, but he'd had yet to see any combat. He'd served as a member of the elite "Old Guard" unit stationed at Arlington National Cemetery. He'd escorted caskets at Dover. He'd marched in President George W. Bush's second inaugural parade. He had never fired a gun at an enemy fighter, nor had one fired at him.

He was a textbook Hoosier, Fritsche-tall, good-looking, a bit meek in bearing, and possessed of a disarming simplicity. For his first ten days in Afghanistan, he'd been biding time at Forward Operating Base Naray, waiting for a slot to open up out in the field. Then, on June 19, two staff sergeants with 2nd Platoon suffered ankle injuries near Combat Outpost Kamu, and Captain Joey Hutto sent for Fritsche to replace Staff Sergeant Patrick Potts. Potts had been with his men in 2nd Platoon for half a year-working with them, bonding with them, developing close relations.h.i.+ps with them.

"I'm nervous about going," Fritsche wrote to his wife. "It's been a long time since I've done any of that stuff. I'm worried I won't remember things I need to. I'm sure I'll be fine, but I'm worried anyway, it's not something that you can get away with being bad at." Since his deployment, he'd also been having dreams that bothered him, mostly about his late father.

Bulldog Troop had only just arrived in Kamdesh District, but the attack on Kamu was something of a last straw for Chris Kolenda. First there'd been the May 14 ambush on Aaron Pearsall of 3-71 Cav and the ANA troops, and then the June 6 attack at Combat Outpost Kamu-and on the latter occasion, according to informants, the fighters had come not just from the immediate area of Kamu but also from the Saret Koleh Valley, down the road to the east, and the Pitigal Valley, northeast toward the Pakistan border.

In the short time that 1-91 Cav had been in Nuristan, none of Kolenda's men had yet ventured into Saret Koleh to reach out to the locals, build rapport, or gather information about the people and the enemy. Kolenda knew that 3-71 Cav hadn't done any of those things, either. He had previously ordered Operation Ghar-ghar being Pashto for "mountain"-to develop relations.h.i.+ps with the villagers of Gawardesh, a mission led by Captains Page of Legion Company and Springer of 1-91 Cav Headquarters Troop, and now it was time to do the same in Saret Koleh with Operation Ghar Dwa, or "Operation Mountain II." The plan was fairly straightforward: Roller and 1st Platoon would briefly relocate from Combat Outpost Keating to Combat Outpost Kamu, then they'd move again toward Saret Koleh on July 26, splitting up and establis.h.i.+ng two observation posts to watch over the area. Lieutenant John Meyer would lead 2nd Platoon and the ANA company as they escorted Bostick and some soldiers from Headquarters Troop to the hamlet. Newsom and 3rd Platoon would serve as the quick reaction force, ready to roll up from Kamu if needed. being Pashto for "mountain"-to develop relations.h.i.+ps with the villagers of Gawardesh, a mission led by Captains Page of Legion Company and Springer of 1-91 Cav Headquarters Troop, and now it was time to do the same in Saret Koleh with Operation Ghar Dwa, or "Operation Mountain II." The plan was fairly straightforward: Roller and 1st Platoon would briefly relocate from Combat Outpost Keating to Combat Outpost Kamu, then they'd move again toward Saret Koleh on July 26, splitting up and establis.h.i.+ng two observation posts to watch over the area. Lieutenant John Meyer would lead 2nd Platoon and the ANA company as they escorted Bostick and some soldiers from Headquarters Troop to the hamlet. Newsom and 3rd Platoon would serve as the quick reaction force, ready to roll up from Kamu if needed.

After a strategy session at Forward Operating Base Naray, Bostick caught up with one of his closest friends, Joey Hutto. They were both "older captains" in their late thirties, having both worked their way up from the rank of private-a parallel history that had given them an instant rapport when they first met, in Germany. Their families had bonded as well.

Bostick and Hutto sat together for an hour, chugging coffee as if it were beer (since alcohol was prohibited in theater) and talking about their wives and children, and work, too. Hutto was slated to take Bostick's place as commander of Bulldog Troop around New Year's 2008-welcome news for Bostick, who wanted to be replaced by someone in whom he had confidence, someone he thought would be a competent combat leader in the pitiless terrain of northeastern Afghanistan.

On July 20, less than a week before Operation Ghar Dwa was scheduled to begin, Dave Roller was on the roof of the Kamu hunting lodge when two Black Hawks and an Apache gun team buzzed into the area. As was standard practice, the pilots radioed below to ask the troops if there was anything they could do for their comrades on the ground.

As Roller stood up there talking on the radio with the lead Apache pilot, one of the Black Hawks rolled so low through the valley that its pilot was at just about eye level with him, giving him an alarmingly clear view of what happened next: an RPG was fired out of the hills, missing the Black Hawk but exploding right next to it, propelling shrapnel that clipped the bird's rotor. Flailing and plummeting, the bird landed hard about five hundred yards down the river, around a rocky spur off the mountain. Survivable. Maybe.

"Did you see that?" Roller asked the Apache pilot, who said he wasn't sure. The 1st Platoon leader then alerted everyone else, yelling into the radio, "Guys, you're not going to believe this, but we have a Black Hawk down! We have a Black Hawk down!"

It sounded weird to him even as he said it. Roller had turned eleven on October 3, 1993, the first day of the Battle of Mogadishu. He was sixteen when the definitive account of that battle-Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War-was published, and nineteen when the Ridley Scott film hit theaters. It was the kind of experience that those around him in Coral Gables, Florida, were perfectly content to keep on the page or on the DVD player. But now here he was, saying those same words and meaning them.

Fortunately, the pilots and crew were fine, and they flew off in the other Black Hawk, leaving the men of Bulldog Troop to guard the wounded bird until it could be airlifted to Forward Operating Base Naray. The squadron's a.s.signment to pull security on the helicopter, combined with the impending mission into Saret Koleh, meant that for the first time since the beginning of his deployment, Bostick had all three of his Bulldog Troop platoon lieutenants with him in once place-Roller, John Meyer, and Newsom-along with his fire-support officer, Kenny Johnson. Bostick wasn't one to shower his lieutenants with praise, but he seemed content; his men appeared to be squared away. They all grabbed some MREs and headed to the river.

Lieutenant Dave Roller, Lieutenant John Meyer, Captain Tom Bostick, and Lieutenant Alex Newsom. (Photo courtesy of Dave Roller) (Photo courtesy of Dave Roller)

For his part, when he heard about the attack on the Black Hawk, Kolenda was even more convinced that outreach to Saret Koleh was needed-both the kind of outreach consisting of money and development projects and the kind released by a metal trigger.

Fritsche did not fit seamlessly into the leaders.h.i.+p role in his new platoon. Partly to better acclimate himself to his new troops, he led them on a patrol a couple of days before Operation Ghar Dwa was to begin. On one particularly steep incline, he tripped and stumbled.

"Don't worry, I got you," said Private First Cla.s.s Alberto Barba, catching him. Barba was a short, likeable kid from South Central Los Angeles who always joked about having been shot at before he even joined the Army.

"You didn't 'get' your last squad leader," Fritsche noted, referring to the fall and ankle injury that had led to his replacing Staff Sergeant Potts. Surely Fritsche meant this as just a joke, a little macho wit, but no one found Potts's mishap amusing.

Sergeant John Wilson didn't care for that crack, that was for sure. In fact, he didn't care much for Fritsche's att.i.tude in general. Wilson had developed a rapport with Potts, and he'd already attempted to do the same with the new guy. Preparing for the mission to Saret Koleh, Fritsche had been tinkering with his radio, taking extra precautions because equipment often broke down in the field. Wilson tried to help him out, but Fritsche didn't seem to want his a.s.sistance. Wilson even offered to hook Fritsche up with a "trucker mike," which would allow him to put the radio in his chest rig and hook the speaker-or trucker mike-onto the shoulder of his Kevlar vest, closer to his mouth, thus leaving his hands free to hold his gun. Wilson tracked down three possible trucker mikes and gave them to his new staff sergeant. A warm thank-you was not forthcoming.

Roller and 1st Platoon left on the mission the next day, heading for the observation post from which they would see the naked Afghan women romping in the stream. Back at Combat Outpost Kamu that night, Bostick, Meyer, and Newsom watched several episodes from the first season of the NBC TV show Heroes Heroes before cras.h.i.+ng at around 1:00 a.m. before cras.h.i.+ng at around 1:00 a.m.

At 4:00 a.m., Bostick and the top officers and NCOs of Bulldog Troop accompanied Meyer and 2nd Platoon to Saret Koleh. A disappointed Newsom hung back; Bostick had explained to him that his platoon, which had the fewest soldiers, would be needed as a quick reaction force should there be any significant enemy contact-as Bostick was almost certain would be the case. He a.s.sured Newsom, in his calm yet focused way, "You will will be a part of this fight." He would be right. be a part of this fight." He would be right.

Private First Cla.s.s Jonathan Sultan had been on guard duty the night before and expected that as part of the operation, he would be tasked to guard Combat Outpost Kamu. But less than an hour after the a.s.signed troops left the camp, Bostick's radio transmission operator (RTO) said he'd hurt his ankle. Soon Staff Sergeant John Faulkenberry was shaking Sultan awake.

"We've got fifteen minutes to go, we're rolling out, let's go," Faulkenberry told the private. "You're going to be the CO's RTO."

Sultan griped, as was customary. He felt skeptical that the original RTO was really injured; more likely, he thought, he'd heard how dangerous this mission might be and figured out a way to get out of it. But Sultan threw on his gear anyway.

Sultan now caught up with the group at last and was directed to Bostick, Meyer, and Johnson. With them was Air Force Staff Sergeant Patrick Lape, there to coordinate with various combat aircraft should the need arise, including A-10 Warthogs, French Mirage 2000s, and an unmanned Predator drone.

Bostick looked at Sultan warily. "Every single RTO I've ever had has broken on me," he said. "Are you going to break on me?"

"No, sir," Sultan a.s.sured him. He didn't know what else to say.

Typically, a "village a.s.sessment" would take four to six hours: while Bostick talked to the elders, the medic, Sergeant Rob Fortner, would set up a station directly behind him to care for sick and injured villagers. That morning, however, before they even entered Saret Koleh, Bostick told Fortner that the medic wouldn't be coming along this time; he asked for a rifle team with a light machine gun to accompany him into the village instead.

At roughly 6:30 a.m., Meyer and his 2nd Platoon troops crossed the footbridge over the Landay-Sin River to Saret Koleh. They were followed by other Bulldog Troop soldiers who circled around the village, establis.h.i.+ng security. Bostick walked to a spot at the edge of the hamlet by a large grove of trees, where he radioed to Roller. Roller and 1st Platoon were watching everything from above, and Bostick nonchalantly gazed up toward where he thought they were and asked if Roller could see him. Bostick didn't want to wave for fear of giving away 1st Platoon's position.

"Roger," Roller told him.

"Sweet OP," said Bostick, referring to the observation post.

Roller agreed. They had a great position, overlooking the entire valley.

Dave Roller's view of Saret Koleh, the Landay-Sin River, and the road. (Photo courtesy of Dave Roller) (Photo courtesy of Dave Roller)

With that piece of business done, Bostick sent the ANA troops into the hamlet to make the initial contact, then went in himself and approached a village elder. At thirty-seven, Bostick was considered aged for a captain in combat, but he had nothing on any of the Nuristani elders he'd met so far, with their decades-old white beards and craggy oaken faces. Bostick was fairly sure that neither this man nor any of the other residents of Saret Koleh had ever before met an American. He and the elder headed into a building for a shura while Fritsche, Wilson, and others from 2nd Platoon pulled security outside. Once again, Wilson made a suggestion to Fritsche, saying that he thought their position might be a tad too exposed, that maybe it would be better if they moved over and stood in the grove of trees instead. Fritsche rejected Wilson's idea.

It wasn't all unpleasantness between the two of them, however: they joked around a bit, then played and exchanged smiles with some village kids, to whom they gave candy. The presence of children was usually a good sign in situations such as this, indicating that the villagers weren't aware of anything bad that was about to happen. A young girl with big, beautiful eyes appeared, reminding Wilson of the iconic Pashtun on the cover of the June 1985 issue of National Geographic National Geographic. She started playing peekaboo with the soldiers from behind a house, granting them a rare moment of innocence and levity.

During the shura, Bostick tried his best, with the aid of his interpreter, to convey that the Americans were there to help. The United States, he explained, wanted to a.s.sist the Nuristanis with development, to help them succeed. The old man focused on something else: for months now, he said, mortars had been repeatedly exploding on the mountain next to the village-American mortars, targeting whomever. This needed to stop, he insisted. Bostick expressed concern about the explosions but noted that there were many insurgents in the area. He asked for more information, but the elder offered no additional details.

If Bostick needed further evidence of local insurgent activity, he was about to get it.

CHAPTER 17

"Bulldog-Six, Where Are You?"

Nothing happened, and then everything happened at once.

Per Lieutenant Meyer's orders, Ryan Fritsche led a team out to set up an observation post from which they would watch over the valley. They would cross the bridge, make their way east on the road in the direction of Forward Operating Base Naray, wait for their cue, and then slog up the southern mountain.

"An OP site?" said Wilson, always questioning. "We don't have any cover for it."

"Let's go," Fritsche said. "We're going to push down the road."

Fritsche, Wilson, Private Barba, and their SAW gunner and rifleman, Privates First Cla.s.s Nic Barnes and James Stevenson, walked over the bridge and then continued on a couple of hundred yards to the east, where, near a large boulder, they came upon two American snipers, Staff Sergeant Bryan Morrow and Specialist Matthew White. The sun was oppressively beating down upon them all, and Fritsche told his men to drop their packs and helmets; the additional weight was too much, he said.

"We saw two guys with AKs run up the hill," Morrow reported. The snipers had been scouting ahead for the rest of the company, and as they were moving up the side of the mountain, they'd glimpsed a young male Nuristani, age eighteen or so, holding a rifle, along with a boy of about twelve, both running away from them.

Why would anyone with a weapon run away? wondered Wilson. He thought of Sun Tzu's The Art of War The Art of War and the concept of a baited ambush. The Chinese military strategist had described the tactic centuries before: "By holding out baits, he keeps him on the march; then with a body of picked men he lies in wait for him." and the concept of a baited ambush. The Chinese military strategist had described the tactic centuries before: "By holding out baits, he keeps him on the march; then with a body of picked men he lies in wait for him."

"We're going to recon the patrol base," Morrow said, meaning they were going to scout out a place for an observation post.

Fritsche turned to his men, Wilson and Barnes, and explained the mission, adding that they would walk in single file because of the steep climb.

"We're not supposed to go until we get word," Wilson reminded him.

But Fritsche shrugged off Wilson's protest. Barba and Stevenson stayed back at the rock while the others started up the hill. White took point, followed by his fellow sniper, Morrow. Fritsche, Wilson, and Barnes came next. After climbing about a hundred yards, they saw the two locals in the distance. All five men broke from their single file and spread out on the hill.

"We're being led into an ambus.h.!.+" Wilson yelled. "Stop following the kid!"

"Shut up!" Fritsche said through clenched teeth.

"Stick with me," Wilson said to Barnes. "This is bad."

Barnes said he would. Wilson was his team leader as well as his friend. And he shared Wilson's concerns about Fritsche's lack of experience in the field.

Bostick and his team finished up with the shura and left the village, crossing the bridge back to the road to Kamu. On hearing that Fritsche and the snipers were pursuing suspected insurgents up the mountain, Bostick pulled aside the medic, Fortner, and advised him, "Get ready." The ANA troops who'd accompanied them on this operation thought they saw something odd going on at a house back across the bridge, one that had previously been used as a staging ground for an RPG attack. After Bostick gave them the okay to run back and check it out, they recrossed the Landay-Sin River and went into the house. Bostick now turned to his men and said, "Guys, let's get off the road." He, Johnson, Lape, Sultan, and the others headed up into the sloping woods. Bostick was just a few steps up the hill when he stopped.

"Wait," he said.

Pausing, they listened to the radio: lots of enemy chatter. Sultan looked north, back across the river, to the hamlet of Saret Koleh. He saw a villager pick up her child and start running.

Bostick had instructed the ANA troops to rejoin the group once they'd checked out the house on the other side of the bridge, but after exiting the home-where they hadn't found anything-they instead continued walking eastward, away from the bridge and toward a second home across the river.

Up on the southern mountain, Fritsche, Wilson, and Barnes followed the snipers, Morrow and White, as quickly as they could up the steep incline. They came into an open area. It was still and silent-until enemy guns began firing at them from some one hundred yards farther up the mountain. Bullets whizzed by, making a snapping sound. At first the U.S. soldiers weren't sure which way to run, forward or backward, but then they swiftly pulled back and took cover behind some trees down the hill.

Insurgent fire aimed at Tom Bostick and Headquarters Platoon now also began exploding from the hills above-the same mountain that Fritsche's patrol was on, but farther west. Bullets splashed into the Landay-Sin River.

The ANA troops ran back across the bridge toward the road, returning fire with their AK-47s and RPGs as they went. One ANA soldier fell, shot in the leg: it was Habibullah, on whose head Newsom had broken his hand weeks earlier. Since then, the Afghan had developed trusting relations.h.i.+ps with many of the Americans. He'd been hit in the thigh; Rob Fortner met him and hustled him to safety in the trees. Nearby, Bostick, Johnson, Lape, and Sultan took cover in the woods behind some boulders.

Farther to the west on the southern mountain, from his observation post high in the hills, Dave Roller had been watching Bostick and his men and trying to figure out what the ANA troops were looking for. The insurgents now answered that question, as 1st Platoon, too, was. .h.i.t by a shower of small-arms fire and RPGs.

The enemy had the high ground, attacking from the mountains above the platoon's position and surrounding it from left to right, 270 degrees. Specialist Tommy Alford got his M240B machine gun, ran to the southern edge of 1st Platoon's position, and laid down a streak of bullets. Then he realized that shots were coming from the east as well, so he began returning fire in that direction. A bullet hit him. Blood gushed from his neck. Alford kept firing until he collapsed.

"I'm hit!" he screamed. "Oh my G.o.d, I'm hit!"

Private First Cla.s.s Miles Foltz grabbed his wounded comrade and pulled him behind a large rock, where he began administering first aid. The bullet had torn through the right side of Alford's jaw and exited out his neck. Foltz bandaged up the exit wound; the stream of blood was forceful, as if springing from a bottomless source.

Roller, busy switching among the three radios he had, yelled for someone to pick up Alford's machine gun. Every second spent on something other than coordinating bomb drops would be, for Roller, a second wasted. Specialist Eric Cramer responded to the lieutenant's order, s.n.a.t.c.hing up the M240B, and then he and Foltz took turns trying to save Alford's life and trying to end the lives of a few insurgents with the machine gun. At one point, when Foltz replaced Alford's saturated bandage, the blood began spilling out again.

"Oh, s.h.i.+t," Foltz said. He plugged the hole in Alford's neck with his hand, then rebandaged the wound and attempted to calm down his injured friend, talking to him as if he were confident that everything was going to be just fine.

Crouched behind a rock, Ryan Fritsche tried to reach to the rest of Bulldog Troop to report his patrol's position and give its coordinates, but discovered that his radio wasn't working properly; it kept cutting in and out. Wilson, who had been on guard a short distance away from the group, came back and offered to tinker with it, but once again, Fritsche turned him down.

Not long after that, word came crackling over the radio that Alford had been shot in the neck. All units were ordered to stay where they were until he'd been medevacked out.

Apaches now flew into the valley, and as they swept through, Fritsche, Morrow, White, Barnes, and Wilson could hear the enemy, just a few hundred yards above them, firing at the U.S. helicopters.

Tom Bostick and his patrol were farther down the mountain, to the west, closer to the road. The captain directed Kenny Johnson, his fire-support officer, to get the mortars firing and have them hit the ridge above them to the southwest, where the enemy now had Dave Roller and his men pinned down. They needed to beat back the insurgents so they could get a medevac in there. Johnson called it in, and seconds later, there was a faint boom off in the distance.

"That's it?" asked Bostick. The mortars hadn't landed even remotely close to where they needed to go.

The captain grabbed the radio from Sultan. "Why isn't there f.u.c.king mortar fire?" he bellowed. "What the f.u.c.k is going on? Why don't I have mortars?!"

He was told that the mortars were being adjusted; apparently the mortarmen were resetting the base plate, which had become unbalanced.