Part 32 (1/2)
”The Taliban have taken that side,” he said.
”Get your me and go and retake your side of the camp!” Lakis told him.
”You are not my commander!” the Afghan exclaimed, and he ran off.
Specialist Zach Koppes was alone at LRAS-1, the guard post where he'd had some bad luck back in June, resulting in his self-inflicted head wound. It turned out that had been a good day, comparatively speaking.
The rockets and RPGs just kept coming and coming in to the camp. Koppes recalled hearing about two pickup trucks full of ordnance that had been stolen recently, and he wondered whether this h.e.l.l being unleashed upon Keating might be connected to that. A sniper had begun targeting Koppes, his bullets. .h.i.tting the Kevlar tarp covering the back of the truck with deadly accuracy; if the American had stood up, they would have gone through his head. The tarp was tough, but the bullets were shredding it. f.u.c.k, Koppes thought to himself. This thing's not going to last.
Joshua Dannelley ran over with his Mk 48, as did Christopher Jones with MK19 grenades to give to Koppes and several belts of M240 machine-gun ammo for the fighting position right next to the Humvee.
”Keep down! Keep down!” Koppes yelled. ”There's a sniper!” But soon it wasn't just a sniper anymore; RPGs began showering down near them, one hitting fifteen feet away.
”My knee! My knee!” yelled Jones, falling to the ground. Dannelley inspected him but couldn't find any external injuries.
Sergeant John Francis had been running ammo back and forth to guard posts for a while when he decided to check in back at the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds' barracks. An RPG exploded behind him, lifting him up off the ground and throwing him against a pole. Next thing he knew, he was on his back on the ground, and Specialist Mark Dulaney was on top of him, shaking him.
”You good? You good? You all right?”
Francis opened his eyes.
”Sergeant, you good?”
”I don't know, motherf.u.c.ker,” Francis said. ”You're the one looking at me. You tell me if I'm good!”
”Can you get up?” Dulaney asked.
Francis tried, but his left side throbbed with pain.
”You all right?” Dulaney asked again.
”I think I'm all right,” Francis said. ”I think I got some busted ribs.” He would later find out that five of his ribs had been fractured.
”Should we go to the aid station?” Dulaney wondered.
”f.u.c.k, no,” Francis said. ”We gotta keep fighting till this s.h.i.+t's over.”
Sergeant Breeding and his men did everything they could to get the radio back up, but it wouldn't work. They had no idea what was going on elsewhere in the camp; they were completely disconnected from the rest of the world.
”As long as we're in the bunker, we'll be okay,” Breeding told Rodriguez and Barroga.
But the bunker was precisely where the insurgents continued to shoot machine-gun and sniper fire-for good measure adding multiple RPGs to their onslaught, too. Breeding and Rodriguez returned fire with their M4 carbines. They didn't think they had much of a chance of hitting their targets; they just wanted to throw down some lead to keep the bad guys from shooting at them.
Meanwhile, the men on the guard posts at Camp Keating were starting to run low on ammunition. The sheer volume of rounds they were putting out astounded Bundermann. And though some of the American bullets were finding their mark, the counterattack clearly wasn't having much of an effect.
The RPG that had blown Hill onto his back also blew out their generator, and the satellite phone line went dead; the enemy seemed to know exactly what to target. The mIRC system, thankfully, was still online. Forward Operating Base Bostick's ops center alerted Keating's that a pair of F-15 Strike Eagles, the two of them together codenamed Dude 25, were on their way, courtesy of Task Force Palehorse.
6:12 am <tf_destroyer_btl_cpt> BK DUDE 25 enroute No eta yet<tf_palehorse_btl_cpt> NEGATIVE, AH83 ARE BEING ALERTED TIME NOW ARE BEING ALERTED TIME NOW<tf_palehorse_btl_cpt> ITS A 40 MINUTE FLIGHT6:13 am <keating2ops> whats the status of air6:14 am <tf_destroyer_btl_cpt> CLOSE AIR SUPPORT 5 minutes
Justin Gallegos, Brad Larson, and Stephan Mace were stuck at LRAS-2. ”We're getting attacked from the village,” Gallegos told Bundermann, referring to Urmul. ”Do I have permission to fire back?”
”Absolutely,” Bundermann said. ”Light it up.” At that point, everything was fair game.
6:14 am <keating2ops> we are taking fire from inside urmul village6:18 am <keating2ops> our mortars are still pinned down unable to fire6:20 am <keating2ops> we need cas84<keating2ops> still taking heavy rpgs and machine gun fire6:21 am <keating2ops> at both locations fritsche and keating taking heavy contact
All of twenty-three minutes had pa.s.sed since the attack began.
Ty Carter ran in to the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds' barracks and was greeted by a scene of chaos and shouting.
”Shut the f.u.c.k up!” Hill yelled. Everyone quieted down. ”We need to find out who needs what.”
”Everyone needs everything,” Carter said, gasping for breath.
From Spokane, Was.h.i.+ngton, Carter had joined the Marines out of high school, but he'd been busted down to a lower rank for fighting. He'd then quit and spent five years as a civilian working aimlessly at a series of odd jobs. He hated that, felt like one in a herd of cattle. He wanted to fight for his fellow soldiers, not earn a paycheck without a sense of honor or direction. He reenlisted in the military in January 2008, opting this time for the Army, figuring the Marines probably wouldn't take him back.
In civilian life, Carter had felt like something of an oddball and an outcast, but in the Army, he felt alive, with purpose. And on this day, he relished his role as the soldier trying to help his fellow troops.
Hill loaded up Specialists Michael Scusa and Jeremy Frunk with more ammunition to take to Gallegos at LRAS-2. ”Okay, get the f.u.c.k out of here,” he told them. Harder stood by the door; he would join them. He opened the door as Scusa, Frunk, and Private First Cla.s.s Daniel Rogers lined up to run.
”Are you ready?” Scusa asked Frunk. Echoes of incoming gunfire filled the barracks.
”Let's go!” Frunk said.
They exited the barracks in earnest.
Hill watched them proudly. Men of valor. No questioning, no protest. He'd given them the order, and they'd run out into the fire.
In the hills of the Northface, a sniper was waiting. One of his bullets. .h.i.t Scusa in the right side of his neck, lacerating two major blood vessels and the right jugular vein. It also penetrated a larger artery and cut across his spinal cord before exiting out his lower back.
Scusa's head rocked back, and he went limp.
Frunk tried to grab the loop on the back of Scusa's armored vest in order to drag him to the aid station. As he bent down, the sniper opened up with a dozen more rounds. A bullet went through the side of Frunk's vest, slamming into his back; panicked, the soldier hit the ground and low-crawled back to the barracks, where the next troops were getting ready to run out and resupply those on guard.
”Don't go out! Don't go out! Scusa's. .h.i.t!” Frunk yelled. The other men lifted him up and brought him back to Hill. He was shaking and scared.
”You okay?” Hill asked.
”Sergeant Hill, I think I've been shot,” Frunk said. He'd never been shot before, so he thought his wound was worse than it was. He took off his vest and s.h.i.+rt.
”It's just a graze,” Hill told him. ”You're okay. Is Scusa wounded?”
Frunk hung his head, shaking it no.
”Where was he hit?” Hill asked.
”I think he got shot in the face,” Frunk said.