Part 33 (1/2)
”Come with me,” Daise said to Private First Cla.s.s Kyle Knight. The two of them ran from the shura building to a position between the outpost mosque and the nearby generator. As Daise was reloading his M4 rifle, preparing to fire into the hills, he saw the barrel of an AK-47 coming around the corner, which he a.s.sumed must belong to either an Afghan Security Guard or one of the remaining ANA soldiers. As the man holding it rounded the corner, their eyes met. He was maybe seventy-five feet away, in his thirties, with a beard, wearing a dirty red overs.h.i.+rt and a white turban. Daise was stunned. This wasn't an Afghan Security Guard; it was an insurgent.
It's the f.u.c.king Taliban, thought Daise. Inside our camp.
The Taliban fighter was likewise surprised to see the American. They both raised their weapons, but the insurgent's gun jammed. Daise fired as his target ran back around the corner.
s.h.i.+t, Daise thought. Oh no. Oh G.o.d no.
He had a radio attached to his belt and a hand-mike hooked up to his collar. ”Charlie in the wire!” he said, for some reason at first using old Army slang for the Viet Cong. He immediately corrected himself: ”Enemy in the wire! Enemy in the wire!” On a different radio frequency, Wong repeated what Daise had called in: ”We got enemy in the wire! We got enemy in the wire!”
Daise could hear the news repeated and echoed through the camp.
Enemy in the wire.
It was what everyone had dreaded, what every troop had known was possible since 2006. The Taliban fighters were inside Combat Outpost Keating.
CHAPTER 32
Into This h.e.l.l
6:49 am <keating2ops> enemy in the wire at keating6:50 am <black knight_toc=””> ENEMUY IN THE WIRE ENEMY IN THE WIRE!!!6:51 am <keating2ops> how long until cca?85<keating2ops> we need support6:52 am <keating2ops> we have enemy on the cop
Less than an hour into their a.s.sault on the Combat Outpost Keating, insurgents had breached the camp's perimeter. They were coming from the southern wall, near the maintenance shed; they were coming from the ANA side of the outpost; they were even walking through the front entrance.
And as the enemy slithered into the outpost, the operations center took more incoming, and the mIRC system went down. Fortunately, Burton had set up a redundant satellite radio that allowed the ops center to provide news to troops at Forward Operating Base Bostick, one of whom recorded what he was being told so he could pa.s.s it on to others:
BOSTICK: Enemy in the wire at COP keating they breached from the ANA side of the COP to the West
The F-15s had arrived and dropped two GBUs, or ”guided bomb units,” on the Switchbacks, but no one was sure if they'd hit anyone.
Hill was bandaging up Francis, whose ribs were cracked.
”Is it getting any better out there?” Hill asked.
”It's crazy,” Francis replied. ”The gates of h.e.l.l just opened up on us. We're running around, no s.h.i.+t, in the backyard of h.e.l.l.”
”We've got to pull together,” Hill said.
The barracks became quiet for two minutes as the troops regrouped, gathering magazines and supplies. Francis was in his little area at the far end of the barracks, and the next thing he knew, an RPG had come through the door to his room, blowing up his entire hooch.
”Son of a b.i.t.c.h! Motherf.u.c.ker!” he yelled. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the RPG explosion started a fire that soon threatened to engulfed the north side of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds' barracks. Troops s.n.a.t.c.hed up fire extinguishers to try to stop the conflagration, or at least contain it, but that proved to be a difficult task; the buildings on the outpost, mostly made of stone and wood and topped with plywood roofs secured with sandbags, had been built in close proximity to one another. The fire quickly spread, as did a separate conflagration at the Headquarters Platoon barracks. Leaving the blaze to his men for a moment, Hill headed for the aid station, seeking information about Scusa.
”What's the condition of my soldier?” he asked.
Courville looked down and shook his head.
Soon Romesha, too, stopped in at the aid station. He looked at Courville and did a ”Thumbs-up or thumbs-down?” motion. Which was it?
Courville silently responded: thumbs-down.
There were many ANA soldiers there, and Romesha noticed that one of them had leaned his Soviet sniper rifle-a Dragunov-up against the wall. Preferring that to his own M4, Romesha took it and left.
Cordova and the other medics were tag-teaming with Kirk; Floyd had been treating him, but now Cordova was looking over him again. Kirk was now taking what medicine calls agonal breaths, labored gasps every ten or fifteen seconds (the colloquial term is ”dying breaths”). Cordova gave him two shots of epinephrine and started chest compressions, then breathed for him using a squeeze bag that pushed air into his lungs every six seconds.
After many minutes of trying to keep the sergeant alive by breathing for him with the squeeze bag, Cordova looked down at the floor. They would have to perform CPR on him all day to keep him alive, taking two of the four medical staff out of commission. Any other day, they would have done it without question, but not today. The wounded were already stacked up, and more would be coming in. They would have to stop treating Kirk.
Floyd was torn up. He knew they could keep him alive. He also knew they didn't have the manpower to do so. He understood intellectually that Cordova was making the right call, but he was still filled with fury.
At 6:45 a.m., Cordova p.r.o.nounced Kirk dead.
Including Thomson, three members of Black Knight Troop had been killed this morning, and the attack was but three quarters of an hour old.
After their sniper picked off Scusa, the insurgents had turned their weapons on Zach Koppes at LRAS-1, relentlessly firing rockets at the Humvee. His radio had gone out, so at one point, Romesha braved the enemy fire and ran up to him.
”This doesn't look good,” Romesha said. ”We're all going to die.” He laughed-he had a pretty dark sense of humor, Romesha. ”You okay?”
Koppes looked at him. Bullets were ricocheting off the truck right next to him, but the staff sergeant just stood there looking back at Koppes, smiling the whole time. Holy s.h.i.+t, he's lost his mind, the specialist thought.
”Yeah, I'm good,” Koppes finally replied. ”I still got this sniper behind me.”
”Okay, stay low and hang tight,” Romesha told him.
At that moment, the sniper shot at Romesha, who then ducked behind the Humvee and began playing peekaboo with the enemy, trying to draw him out so he could see exactly where he was firing from. He decided that the Taliban fighter was midway up on the Northface, so he fired the Dragunov at the spot.
Then he turned and airily announced to Koppes, ”All right, I'm going to head out.”
The smoke from the burning ANA building was becoming a problem for him; it stung his eyes and made it tough for him to breathe. And that fire was spreading.
A little later, Koppes saw four enemy fighters moving over the crest of the Diving Board, walking on a path to the Switchbacks. He fired his MK19 grenade launcher at them and watched all four go down. He was about to pull the trigger again when all of a sudden, Sergeant John Francis was running full steam toward him, screaming all the while in his thick Long Island, New York, accent.
Koppes was sure Francis was yelling, ”Friendlies on the Diving Board! Friendlies on the Diving Board!” Holy s.h.i.+t, he thought, I killed four Americans who were trying to help us! In a flash, he figured they'd been Special Forces troops, dressed like locals and carrying AK-47s-and then he looked up and saw seven more more men on the Diving Board, coming down the hill to the ANA side of the camp. Really alarmed now, he thought, Holy s.h.i.+t, I just shot their friends! men on the Diving Board, coming down the hill to the ANA side of the camp. Really alarmed now, he thought, Holy s.h.i.+t, I just shot their friends!
But then, as Francis got nearer, Koppes heard him yelling again. This time it was clearer-he wasn't yelling ”Friendlies,” he was yelling, ”Enemy on the Diving Board! Enemy on the Diving Board!” So Koppes erased all his misgivings and guilt, pointed his grenade launcher at the insurgents headed down the hill-the one in front looked about fifteen years old-and went up through the line, taking them out one after another. on the Diving Board! Enemy on the Diving Board!” So Koppes erased all his misgivings and guilt, pointed his grenade launcher at the insurgents headed down the hill-the one in front looked about fifteen years old-and went up through the line, taking them out one after another.
Bundermann was focused on the men stuck in the Humvee at LRAS-2. There were now five of them: Ty Carter, Justin Gallegos, Brad Larson, Stephan Mace, and Vernon Martin. They might not be able to wait until the Apaches and fixed-wing aircraft got there. The vehicle used as Stand-To Truck 186 had a .50-caliber mounted on it; Faulkner was in it and had been firing as much as he could. If someone joined him in that truck, they might be able to drive it closer to LRAS-2 and rescue the trapped soldiers. had a .50-caliber mounted on it; Faulkner was in it and had been firing as much as he could. If someone joined him in that truck, they might be able to drive it closer to LRAS-2 and rescue the trapped soldiers.
Joshua Hardt and Clint Romesha began arguing about the best course of action. Hardt endorsed Bundermann's plan to have someone run out to Stand-To Truck 1 and drive it over to LRAS-2 to provide cover fire-shooting at the enemy snipers and RPG teams in the hills-so the five men could get out of the Humvee and run for safety.
”That's a bad idea,” Romesha said. ”The fifty-cal is close to black on ammo. The fire up there is too intense-they're telling everyone to keep away. They need to just hunker down and pray for the best.”
Hardt looked at Romesha. ”I want to take the truck to them,” he said.
Romesha studied Hardt's face. Hardt and Kirk-always the first ones out the door whenever there was enemy contact. You couldn't stop them.
”Hardt, you can do this, but you need to be in an effective place to put fire at Urmul,” Romesha said. ”Don't put yourself in a position where you're out there with your d.i.c.k slapping in the wind.”