Part 27 (2/2)
On July 7, the Taliban violently seized Barg-e-Matal, a remote village in northern Nuristan, up the road from Combat Outpost Keating, with a population of roughly fifteen hundred people. The village sat in a politically important location and was a tempting sanctuary for insurgent groups that were being driven out of Pakistan. President Karzai demanded that General McChrystal send U.S. troops there. The Afghan Border Police who had jurisdiction wouldn't be enough, he said; American forces would be required to retake the town. Karzai and his advisers feared that the loss of Barg-e-Matal, a significant thoroughfare, would suggest to the rest of the world that they were losing control of their country.
Barg-e-Matal was located in the area of operations commanded by Colonel Randy George, and he was afraid of stepping into this tar pit. Once he sent U.S. troops, how would he get them out again? Would dispatching these guys into yet another remote, spa.r.s.ely populated district-even for just a few days-be worth it? Barg-e-Matal was even more isolated than Camp Keating and other, similar outposts that the brigade was already struggling to maintain. How would sending U.S. soldiers there affect brigade operations elsewhere? To what extent would it deprive other companies of medevacs, Apaches, fixed-wing aircraft, drones, and other needed resources? There were no satisfying answers to these questions.
George's skepticism was met by a direct order from McChrystal to get moving. The message was clear: Karzai wants to do this, it's important to him, and we're going to support him.
On the morning of July 12, coalition forces-specifically, the 1-32 Infantry-and Afghan troops launched Operation Mountain Fire in Barg-e-Matal. The fighting was intense. Army Staff Sergeant Eric Lindstrom, twenty-seven, was killed. A police officer from Flagstaff, Arizona, Lindstrom left behind a wife and seven-month-old twins named Olivia and Riley. That night, when the shooting was done, the American and Afghan forces had regained control of the Barg-e-Matal district center and the surrounding area. Karzai was happy. But the 1-32 Infantry troops, scheduled to leave Barg-e-Matal within four days of the initial a.s.sault, would not actually be able to depart until over two months later.
With so many a.s.sets-helicopters, drones-pushed north and counterinsurgency efforts in the region down to few or none, life at Camp Keating and up at Observation Post Fritsche involved a decent amount of hanging out. In between patrols and basic maintenance operations-the burning of the contents of the latrines, for instance-uncountable games of Hearts and Spades were played and stacks of DVDs repeatedly viewed. Specialist Stephan Mace had returned from leave with an Xbox, enabling hours of video gaming. Daily workouts were nothing new for soldiers at the outpost, but the men of Black Knight Troop had so much time on their hands that some began lifting weights twice a day, drinking protein shakes, and taking supplements to jack themselves up.
A few troops experimented with less traditional pursuits. The Bush administration had authorized the use of the interrogation technique known as waterboarding, which was cla.s.sified throughout the world as torture; upon taking office in 2009, President Obama had banned its use. Some Red Platoon troops, trying to burn time, decided to see what all the fuss was about. In their barracks, Lieutenant Andrew Bundermann, Specialist Tom Rasmussen, Sergeant Justin Gallegos, and Specialist Zach Koppes were all voluntarily waterboarded. Sergeant Brad Larson held a s.h.i.+rt over their faces while Staff Sergeant Clint Romesha poured the water. No one could get past four seconds until Koppes tried; he made it to eight. As far as Koppes was concerned, there was no debate about it: this was torture.
Much less sobering were the inevitable practical jokes. Goats roamed freely across the outpost, so one day Larson la.s.soed one and with the help of some fellow pranksters shoved it into Bundermann's hooch while he was napping. Another time, Red Platoon super-glued the lieutenant's items to the floor, a feat one-upped by Tom Rasmussen's low-crawling into his hooch and spreading flypaper underfoot.
Christopher Jones had a guitar with him, so when he wasn't pulling guard duty at the entry control point-scanning the mountains and watching people on the road-he'd write and sing songs about the platoon. Among these was the mocking ditty known as ”The Davidson Song,” about Private First Cla.s.s Nicholas Davidson of Humboldt County, California:
Stutters when he talksStumbles when he walksTrying to find the phoneSo he could call back home....
Another Jones number, about his immediate supervisor, team leader Joshua Kirk, included Specialist Zachary Koppes's free-style rapping:
Whatchoo you hearingWhatchoo heardMotherf.u.c.ker got killed by Combat Kirk...Only man who could turn a kitchenInto a fighting position....
The lyrics had some truth to them: Kirk's men saw him as being unafraid, unthreatened, and, at times, unrestrained. During firefights, he would tell them, ”If you think you need to shoot something, shoot it. It doesn't matter how much ammo you might waste. If you need to kill it, kill it.”
Kirk had been born at home in Thomaston, Maine, the son of a Vietnam veteran who transformed himself from the dope-smoking head of a motorcycle gang into a born-again Christian carpenter. When Josh was five, the family moved to fifteen acres of land not far from Bonners Ferry, Idaho, a small town best known for U.S. law enforcement's siege of a compound at nearby Ruby Ridge in 1992. The Kirks had running water but no electricity; their closest neighbors were five miles away. The kids' entertainment was entirely self-created: building forts, sleeping in tents, playing flashlight tag, and, when they were teenagers, engaging in elaborate games of war. One such game, invented by Josh, came to be called Test of Courage; it basically consisted of devising terrifying tasks and daring the other players to attempt them. The challenges started out harmless enough but then quickly escalated to really dangerous stuff like exploring an abandoned silver mine, walking on top of the old Eileen Dam, and body-surfing fierce river rapids. In retrospect, it seemed astonis.h.i.+ng that no one had ever gotten lost or hurt.
After high school, Kirk returned to Maine with his father and brother to do some construction work and ended up taking cla.s.ses at Southern Maine Community College, where, in September 2004, he met Megan Gavin. Holding down a construction job and going to school at the same time soon proved impossible, so the following spring, Kirk enlisted in the Army, attracted by promise of the G.I. Bill. He was a persistent guy, and he asked Megan to marry him three times before she finally said yes; they were married a few days after got out of basic training in 2005. Three months before he deployed with 1-91 Cav in 2007, their little girl was born. And now here he was, back in Nuristan.
From: Joshua KirkTo: Megan KirkSent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 Hey sweetie, just wanted to say that I love you tons! Little p.r.i.c.ks have been hitting us all day with B-10 and rpg fire. Lovely and then some!!!! Of course they wont let us patrol more so we can secure this place. instead lets just sit here and take it in the a.s.s. Working on the patroling way more so we can secure it. I would rather hit these dudes out in the brush then wait here, its really driving us nuts, oh well... TTYL Love you XOXOOXOXOXOXOXOXOX JK
Sergeant Joshua Kirk. (Photo courtesy of Megan Gavin Kirk) (Photo courtesy of Megan Gavin Kirk)
The frequency of firefights at Camp Keating increased significantly, from 136 in 2008 to 212 throughout 2009. When the men of 3-61 Cav took incoming fire, Kirk was a machine machine: he'd hop on the AT4 rocket launcher, then switch to the .50-caliber, then the M203 grenade launcher, then he'd get back on the .50-caliber and shoot that again. Most of the guys at the outpost were pretty tough, but Kirk, he was crazy brave-fearless, thought Jones. Absolutely.
Growing up in Winesburg, Ohio, home of the world's largest Amish community, Specialist Zach Koppes-who'd attended a private Mennonite school-had never pictured himself landing in a place like Combat Outpost Keating.
His path from Winesburg to Kamdesh District had been blazed by his troublemaking ways. He was kicked out of high school for breaking into a file cabinet and stealing (then selling) answers to a test, and then, for far worse infractions, he was kicked out of his family's house. He moved to Colorado to work in landscaping with his uncle Mike but wasn't particularly good at it. Burnt out, he found himself twisting dough behind the counter of an Auntie Anne's Pretzels at a Walmart, embarra.s.sed by what he'd become.
At first, Koppes was just trying to impress a cute girl with talk of joining the military: a commercial came on the TV for the U.S. Navy SEALs, depicting the fierce warriors jumping out of choppers and parachuting into the jungle, and Koppes made an off-the-cuff remark about signing up. But the comment had a weird sort of cling. Joining up would, he figured, solve all his problems. His mother would respect him again, as would his friends. His life's demerits would be erased; he would no longer be twisting pretzels at Walmart. So one day he smoked a bushel of pot and then headed to an Army recruiter's office.
From there, he and five others were driven in a van to a cla.s.sroom where they took a four-hour test. Afterward, a staff sergeant told him that he'd scored in the top tenth percentile. After basic training, Koppes went back to Ohio before s.h.i.+pping out to Korea. Instead of spending any time with his family-including his thirteen-year-old sister, Eva, who had cystic fibrosis-all Koppes did was smoke pot, hang out with his friends, and hit on girls. He fought with his mom. He fought with his dad. He hadn't changed at all. The problems remained because the real problem was him.
Three months later, Koppes was drinking with his Army buddies at his new home, a base in South Korea, when his commanding officer knocked on the door and took him to the chaplain. ”We got a call from the Red Cross about Eva,” the chaplain told him. ”They don't think she has much time left. We're going to put you on the next plane.”
The two of them had been close, though of course Koppes hadn't been around much in the previous few years. He flew to her and ran to her hospital bed. ”I'm sorry I wasn't here more,” he said to her. ”I'm sorry I didn't spend more time with you.” He told her how much he loved her. ”I love you, too,” she replied. She died two days later. Koppes was convinced she'd been hanging on just to say good-bye to him.
Back in South Korea, Koppes straightened up. He worked harder. He earned awards. He took cla.s.ses. His guilt and grief over Eva melted his rebellious, juvenile sh.e.l.l, revealing a humanity he'd all but forgotten was there. After his rotation on the Korean Peninsula, he transferred to 3-61 Cav-then training at Fort Carson, Colorado-so he could spend more time with his girlfriend, Kaila, who attended the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She ended up dumping him three months later, and that was when Zach Koppes became best friends with Specialist Stephan72 Mace. Mace.
He was Koppes's first friend in the squadron. Mace was good-looking, with boundless energy and a wicked sense of humor. He and his brothers had grown up in a small community named Purcellville, in Virginia, where they learned patriotism from their maternal grandfather, an Air Force veteran. Mace loved guns growing up, not just to hunt with but also for the craft of their manufacture. He became an apprentice to a gunsmith and built a rifle for his father for Christmas. After 9/11-Stephan was thirteen at the time-the Army just seemed to make sense.
Everyone in 3-61 Cav seemed to know everyone else from the previous deployment in Iraq; Mace and Koppes were the new guys, and they started hanging out together. They were walking through a Colorado mall together one afternoon when Kaila texted Koppes her official end-of-relations.h.i.+p message. He started to cry.
”I'm not here to hear you cry,” Mace said. ”Let's go get some booze and party.”
After that, they became inseparable; their bond was wild and fierce. When Koppes decided to try to win Kaila back, it was Mace who-intoxicated-drove him to her house. They had purchased mullet wigs and wore them everywhere, and Mace had his on that night. As Koppes and Kaila sat down on a stoop to talk, a wigged Mace humped the campus's giant statue of a mountain lion. Each man's effort proved fruitless.
Koppes got back in the car. ”Don't worry about it,” Mace said as he revved the motor and drove off with his friend to another adventure. Koppes knew that as long as Mace was around, he would be okay.
Specialist Stephan Mace. (Photo courtesy of Vanessa Adelson) (Photo courtesy of Vanessa Adelson)
During one of their first firefights at Combat Outpost Keating, Koppes took shrapnel to his head.
He was in the Humvee that was parked on the ANA side of the camp-the eastern side, facing the Diving Board to the northeast. After tearing through his rounds, Koppes had begun reloading his M240 machine gun when a round from the old belt-one that had been dented but not fired-cooked off and fired into the ground. Called a hang-fire, this delay between the trigger's being pulled and the bullet's being discharged can be deadly. In this case, the bullet, hot from the gun, fired into the ground, and a piece of the metal ricocheted and went right for Koppes, slipping under his helmet and grazing his head. Bleeding and in pain, he was convinced he had been shot by the enemy and started freaking out. Romesha, who'd seen the whole thing happen, grabbed him and took him to the aid station.
Before 3-61 Cav left Colorado, Koppes had promised that any man who saved his life could have anything he wanted to tattooed on Koppes's back. So later that day, his head bandaged from the grazing wound, Koppes came in to the Red Platoon barracks and said to Romesha, ”Ro, you saved my life, what do you want on my back?”
Romesha thought it was hilarious. Saved his life? Not only was Koppes going to be fine, but clearly he still didn't realize that his had technically been a self-inflicted wound. Trying hard not to laugh, his ”savior” suggested that he make plans to have ”ROMESHA” indelibly recorded across his shoulder blades.
Command Sergeant Major Rob Wilson, visiting from Forward Operating Base Bostick, had visited Koppes at the aid station and seen for himself that his injuries were minor. In the operations center later that day, Wilson noticed Romesha and Bundermann talking with a suspicious degree of discretion-so he pressed them until Romesha admitted that Koppes's injury had been caused by a hang-fire. There wouldn't be any Purple Heart for a self-inflicted wound, Wilson said.
Eventually, Romesha let the cat out of the bag and told Koppes about the hang-fire. It was a good news/bad news situation: there would be no Purple Heart-but to his own relief and Romesha's perpetual regret, the young ex-Mennonite had been stopped before self-inflicting yet another wound, this one in ink.
CHAPTER 27
The Deer Hunters
Even to close members of his family, Ed Faulkner, Jr., had never seemed comfortable in his own skin, so it might not have been so surprising that he smoked pot in high school and was twice cited for underage possession of alcohol. He was living at home in Burlington, North Carolina, and working at a driving range when he joined the Army in 2005 to get away from the bad influences in his world. His father and both of his grandfathers had served.
In Iraq on January 20, 2007, Faulkner was shot by a sniper in his left arm. He got sent home, had some surgeries, and quickly became addicted to painkillers. One of his best friends from Iraq, Specialist Thomas Blakely ”Blake” Nelson, was also addicted-he'd had lower back pain after his deployment-and at some point, heroin entered the picture.
The Black Knight Troop soldiers had a relatively high rate of positive urinalysis at Fort Carson in Colorado after they returned from Iraq-an issue that Captain Porter put a lot of effort into addressing. Faulkner and Nelson were at the center of it. Faulkner was disciplined for using meth, and Brown gave him a shot at rehab. Nelson completed his own six-week resident program, but on January 8, 2008, he was found dead in his room at Fort Carson, having overdosed on a combination of prescription drugs and heroin. Out of rehab for less than a week, he left behind a son named Karson. His death was tough enough on Faulkner in the safe and secure environment of Colorado; it didn't get any easier once he deployed to Kamdesh. A few months later, up on Observation Post Fritsche with Blue Platoon-they called themselves the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds-Faulkner tried to deal with the pain of his life and the pain of losing Blake the only way he knew how: he scored some has.h.i.+sh, which was, to say the least, not that difficult to do in Afghanistan.
John Francis-an older, no-nonsense sergeant at thirty-five, from Lindenhurst on Long Island, New York-tried to look out for Faulkner. The kid didn't always make that easy. Francis, a team leader for the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, was sergeant of the guard one night, in charge of calling all the troops at the guard posts, and Faulkner's tower didn't answer when he radioed. The operations center at OP Fritsche had a small camera that could provide a 360-degree view of the entire observation post, so Francis focused the camera on Faulkner's tower and clicked on the night vision. It was pitch black, with no moonlight. Francis pushed the view toward the tower even more and saw some tiny flashes of light. Both wary and curious, Francis grabbed his portable radio and night-vision goggles and walked up to Faulkner's tower post. He quietly proceeded up the stairwell made out of ammo cans, strode onto the dirt platform in the darkness, and paused to watch Faulkner and another private use a cigarette lighter for illumination as they tried to break up a small brick of hash. There was no mistaking what it was; its aroma alone filled the guard tower. For four minutes or so, Francis stood just mere inches from the two and watched them prepare to smoke hash while on guard duty.
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