Second of two articles
Sgt. Eric W. Stebner knew something about snow and cold, having grown up in
North Dakota. He also knew something about mountain trekking, having trained as
an Army Ranger and climbed rocks in the Shenandoah Mountains.
But neither Stebner nor any of the other nine U.S. Army Rangers struggling
behind him on the morning of March 4 had encountered anything like Takur Ghar,
the mountain in eastern Afghanistan on which they found themselves.
They faced a climb up a steep, forbidding slope, with upwards of 80 pounds of
military gear, wearing inappropriate clothing and boots, and under sporadic
enemy fire. They also were in a race against time.
The other half of their unit was stranded at the top of the ridge, their
helicopter shot down shortly after sunrise. They had flown in to rescue a Navy
SEAL team, only to be ambushed by enemy fighters. Four of the quick-reaction
force were dead, three aircrew members were seriously wounded and the rest of
the contingent was pinned down.
The ordeal had begun around 3 a.m., when the SEALs had come under attack as
their helicopter landed on the ridge for a reconnaissance mission. One, Navy
Petty Officer First Class Neil C. Roberts, fell off the damaged chopper as it
took off. The SEALs returned to rescue Roberts and were ambushed again, losing
the Air Force combat controller in their group, Tech. Sgt. John Chapman.
It was day three of what the U.S. military called Operation Anaconda, a
three-week-long offensive against members of al Qaeda and the Taliban in the
Shahikot valley. Over the course of 17 hours, seven Americans lost their lives,
the highest number of combat deaths in a single day by any unit since 18 Rangers
and Special Operations soldiers had been killed in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993.
As their comrades began the climb, the Rangers on the ridgetop had made one
uphill attempt to assault enemy positions on a crest line 50 to 75 yards away.
They were forced to retreat behind boulders near their downed MH-47E Chinook.
Although airstrikes had silenced some enemy fire, the Rangers lacked sufficient
manpower and weaponry to try again.
They were worried about an enemy counterattack. They saw enemy fighters
moving in the distance toward their rear, and U.S. military spotters and
aircraft picked up other signs of enemy reinforcement efforts.
Mortar shells fell around their chopper. The first landed ahead of the nose,
the next one down the hill to the rear, suggesting the enemy was attempting to
zero in on them. The whooshing of the shells sent shivers through the Americans,
especially the helicopter crewmen, who were unaccustomed to ground combat.
Concerned about the condition of the three wounded aircrew members, some of
the chopper team pressed the Ranger platoon's commander, Capt. Nathan Self, to
mount a new assault to clear the way for an evacuation. Self told them he needed
reinforcements first.
"They didn't understand the timetable that we were really on," Self
said. "They expected things to happen quick, quick, quick: 'You guys run up
there and kill the enemy.'"
But Self shared their sense of urgency. He worried they all would be in
trouble unless the rest of his unit got up to the top soon.
That half of the Ranger force, designated Chalk 2, had been in a helicopter
over the Shahikot valley when Self took his Chalk 1 team to the ridge. Shortly
afterward, communication with the chopper carrying Chalk 1 was lost, and Chalk 2
flew to Gardez, a town northwest of the valley that was a staging area for the
larger U.S. offensive. As time ticked by with no information about the lead
Ranger group, Chalk 2 grew anxious.
"At one point, I had a crew chief by the collar," said Staff Sgt.
Arin Canon, the ranking Ranger in Chalk 2. "I'm screaming at him that
regardless of what happened, the first bird only had 10 guys on it. That's the
bare minimum package. If something happened to them, they need us. We complete
the package."
Then word came in that the chopper carrying Chalk 1 had gone down. Within 30
to 60 minutes – accounts vary – Chalk 2 was back in the air and heading
toward the ridgetop.
The first challenge was finding a place to set down. "It's the side of a
mountain, so there are not a whole lot of places to land," said Ray, who
piloted the chopper. "You basically hunt and peck around."
At about 8:30 a.m, the crew found a space just big enough to get all the
wheels on the ground. The aircrew had advised the Rangers that Chalk 1 would be
straight ahead of them, about 250 to 300 yards away. After they got off, the
Rangers learned that Chalk 1 was actually about 2,000 feet up the mountain, at
an altitude of 10,200 feet. The plan had changed, but no one told the Rangers.
The Chalk 2 Rangers surveyed the landscape. Towering before them was a rocky
slope angling as steep as 70 degrees in places and covered with snow as deep as
three feet. They also could see, off to the right and about 1,000 feet up,
another small cluster of Americans – members of the SEAL unit the Rangers had
been sent to rescue.
The SEALs were edging their way down the mountain with two wounded. Two other
members of their original team – Roberts and Chapman – had been killed on
top.
A SEAL who had flown in with Chalk 2 to link up with the Navy unit asked
whether the Rangers could hike over to help the SEALs before beginning their
climb. Canon forwarded the request to Self up on the ridgetop.
"I've got casualties up here, and I need you now more than they need
you," Self radioed back. The SEAL headed across the mountain alone to join
his team members. The Rangers of Chalk 2 headed up.
"It was kind of like a merry-go-round," said Chalk 2's medic, who
asked that his name not be used. "We were trying to go up and they were
coming down."
With no trail to follow, the Rangers blazed a path of their own. One route to
the right looked promising but would take them close to an enemy bunker on top.
They chose a course to the left that appeared to provide some cover from enemy
fighters and bring them around to the rear of Chalk 1's position.
Canon, who is qualified in Army mountain warfare, thought that if this had
been a planned route of attack, scouts would have eased the way with fixed rope
lines. The Rangers struggled for traction on the loose shell rock.
"Just the grade of the ridge made it an unbearable walk, not including
the altitude," Canon said. "It was enough to where my guys' chests
felt heavy and my joints were swollen."
The Rangers at times got down on all fours – "kind of like a bear
crawling up," in the words of the medic. Enemy mortar attacks punctuated
the climb, although they were sporadic and poorly aimed.
"Everyone would stop and look to see where they were coming from,"
said Stebner, one of the squad's two team leaders. "I would say, 'You can't
stop. It's not going to do us any good to stop. We have to keep moving.'"
Their weighty gear only made things worse. The Rangers' body armor alone
totaled 22 pounds a set. Most of the soldiers carried an M-4 assault rifle,
seven to 12 magazines of ammunition, two to four grenades, a pistol, knives,
lamps, radios, night vision gear, a first aid kit and 100 ounces of water. Their
helmets added another three to four pounds.
"There were some places where I had to throw my weapon up ahead of me,
then climb up and pick it up again," said Spec. Jonas O. Polson, who
carried one of the squad's two 17-pound M249 light machine guns, called SAWs for
Squad Automatic Weapons.
Spec. Randy J. Pazder, the heavy machine gunner, probably had the biggest
load, with a 28-pound M240B gun plus 30 pounds or so of ammunition. His
assistant gunner, Spec. Omar J. Vela, carried a spare barrel and another 30
pounds of ammo.
"You need to get to the top of the hill, where we'll be in a static
position and can rest," Canon told them. "We've got to go, our guys
need us."
When they were scrambled for the mission, most of the Rangers had been under
the impression that they were being sent on a quick, in-and-out rescue. "My
understanding originally, when they woke me up, was that a helicopter had been
forced to land and we were going to pick up the crew – basically, just a
taxi-ride type of thing," the medic said.
Anticipating a lot of sitting in cold, drafty helicopters or in stationary
ground positions, many put on thermal underwear and bulky parkas that were now
impeding their movement and causing them to sweat profusely. Others were wearing
suede desert boots instead of cold-weather footgear. The desert boots soaked up
the snow like sponges.
About halfway up, as the Rangers shimmied around a rock and hoisted
themselves past a tree that jutted from the mountain face, Canon figured
something had to give. "I took a look around and everybody had the, you
know, 'Man, this sucks' face – just a long face," the staff sergeant
said.
The Rangers began to shed their heavy clothes, and Canon relayed permission
from Self that they could take off the back plate of their body armor. Getting
rid of the $527 plates was a risky move. The basic Kevlar vest worn by troops
protects against 9mm bullets; ceramic plates, placed in front and back, offer an
additional layer to stop 7.62mm bullets – the kind fired by AK-47 assault
rifles used by al Qaeda.
Removing the back plate would save only six pounds, but would allow greater
mobility and comfort. Most elected to take them off. But to avoid leaving them
for the enemy, the soldiers shattered the plates by heaving them onto the rocks
below.
"It's the most expensive Frisbee you'll ever throw," Canon told the
men.
As they continued climbing, many of the Rangers thought of their buddies on
the ridge. They knew there were casualties, although they did not know who or
how many had been hurt or killed.
Many assumed that at least one of the casualties had to be Spec. Anthony R.
Miceli, a SAW gunner considered the most accident-prone in the group. So
legendary was Miceli's tendency to injure himself that the platoon had a saying
about him: "No one could kill Miceli except Miceli."
Coming over the final rise, the first thing Canon glimpsed were the
casualties spread out on the ground near the helicopter's rear ramp. Miceli's
luck had held. His SAW had been shot up, but he had picked up another gun and
was still in the fight. Even so, Canon was shocked to see so many dead or
wounded.
A climb Canon had estimated would take about 45 minutes lasted more than two
hours. Chalk 2 was joined with Chalk 1, but the Rangers would have little time
to rest.
The Rangers moved quickly to organize an assault on the ridgetop. The chief
objective would be the one enemy bunker they could see – off to the right of
the nose of the helicopter and about 50 yards away. An airstrike had appeared to
silence the bunker, but the Rangers were not sure whether enemy fighters were
still in it – or beyond.
The heavy machine gun team from Chalk 2 – Pazder and Vela – moved to a
rock beside the helicopter, joining Chalk 1's machine gunner, Pfc. David B.
Gilliam. Canon hunkered down between the two machine guns.
"Sergeant, I don't know if I'd get right there," Gilliam said in
his thick Tennessee drawl. "I about got shot there a while ago."
"Well, I don't plan on getting shot today, Gilliam, so you just keep the
fire on," Canon replied.
The assault team, composed largely of members of Chalk 2, got into position
behind another rock slightly ahead and to the left of the machine guns.
The machine gunners let loose with supporting fire. Stebner, Sgt. Patrick
George and Sgt. Joshua J. Walker pushed forward along with Spc. Jonas O. Polson,
Spc. Oscar Escano and Staff Sgt. Harper Wilmoth. The Rangers moved at what they
call the "high ready" – weapons on their shoulders, their eyes
focused directly over gun sights. They tossed grenades as they advanced.
Rangers train to use two four-man teams for an assault, with the teams
focusing on maneuver while other elements provide supporting fire. In this case,
the Rangers had only a team and a half.
"When the supporting fire opened up, everybody just went for it,"
Wilmoth said. "The snow was so deep, and the terrain under it was rocky, so
our footings weren't too good. We pretty much had to lead by gunfire."
The Rangers were pouring on so much fire that some of the chopper crew
worried they were overdoing it. The crew yelled at the Rangers to "slow
down, they're going to run out of ammo," Self said.
The assault group made it to a boulder about 40 yards up the hill, near the
enemy bunker that was just around to the right. Stebner, approaching the boulder
first, stumbled across a body lying face down in the snow. It was a dead
American – he couldn't tell who and didn't have time to stop.
From the boulder, Wilmoth, George and Escano went for the bunker, finding two
dead enemy fighters. Sandwiched between the fighters – amid the debris left by
an earlier airstrike – was the body of another American. Stebner and Polson
went left, then circled around right, blasting at other enemy positions over the
crest.
The end, when it came, was strangely anticlimactic. The Rangers did all the
shooting during the 15-minute assault. At the top, they found a network of enemy
positions dug next to trees or behind rocks and connected by shallow trenches. A
canvas tent sheltered one position.
The area was strewn with Chinese-made 30mm grenade launchers, sheaves of
rocket-propelled grenades, a 75mm recoilless rifle, a Russian-made DShK heavy
machine gun, long bands of machine-gun ammunition and assorted small arms.
The Rangers say they are not certain how many they killed. Self credits his
men with killing at least two during the assault, and there were other bodies of
enemy fighters scattered around the ridgetop. But the Rangers say it was
difficult to determine how many had died from airstrikes or in firefights with
SEALs earlier in the day. A U.S. military team that visited the site days later
counted eight enemy bodies.
After the shooting stopped, Canon went to identify the two dead Americans.
Near the boulder lay Roberts, the SEAL who had fallen out of the chopper eight
hours earlier. Some of his military gear was later recovered elsewhere in the
area, and a dead enemy fighter was found wearing Roberts's jacket. In the
bunker, Canon identified Chapman.
It was about 11 a.m. Chalk 1 had been on the ridge nearly five hours.
Feeling more secure and a bit more relaxed, the Rangers shifted their command
and communications post to the ridgetop. They made plans to move the dead and
wounded from behind the chopper to the other side of the crest, where there
appeared to be a suitable landing zone for evacuation.
Canon, the most senior noncommissioned officer on the mountain, sat down
beside Self, who told him the names of the Rangers who had died. "It hit me
pretty hard, and I remember having to take a second and pause," Canon said.
Self could not afford to have Canon – or any of the other men – lost in
mourning, not with all that still needed to be done to get them all off the
mountain.
"He said, 'Arin, there's nothing we can do about it now,' " Canon
recounted. "He pretty much reminded me to get my head back into the game
– 'Let's get the rest of these guys out of here alive, and we'll deal with
what we have to deal with when we get back.'"
Down behind the chopper, Greg, one of the two wounded pilots, was taking a
turn for the worse. "I hesitate to say he was close to dying. But he had a
definite change in his level of consciousness," said Cory, the chopper's
medic. "He was starting to speak to me as if he was going to die."
On the radio, Headquarters was asking whether the ridgetop was
"cold," meaning no longer vulnerable to enemy attack.
"Controller asked me if the pick-up zone [PZ] was cold and how many guys
we were going to lose if we waited to be exfiltrated," Air Force Staff Sgt.
Kevin Vance, a tactical air controller attached to the Ranger unit, said in a
sworn statement to Air Force authorities three weeks later. "I asked the
medic, 'If we hang out here, how many guys are going to die?' The medic said at
least two, maybe three. I reported to controller, 'It is a cold PZ, and we are
going to lose three if we wait.'"
But just as he said that, three or four enemy fighters on a knoll to the
south, 300 to 400 yards behind the chopper, opened fire.
Machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades started ripping into the
casualty collection area. Bullets also ricocheted around the feet of Rangers and
aircrew members carrying the first of the casualties up the hill – David, the
flight engineer, who had been shot in the leg.
The group dropped the litter and ran for cover, leaving David on his back on
the hillside. Stebner, one of the carriers, twiced dashed out to try to drag
David behind some rocks, only to abandon him again. "I stayed out there a
good 15, 20 minutes, just watching stuff go over us," David said.
The third time, Stebner reached David and pulled him out of harm's way.
Down behind the chopper, Cory and an Air Force para-rescueman, Senior Airman
Jason Cunningham, had just inserted a fresh IV into Greg when they came under
fire. Their position left them exposed.
"We realized we were just going to have to sit there and shoot it out
with them," Cory said. "Neither Jason nor I were going to leave."
One rocket-propelled grenade came straight at them and zoomed over their
heads, exploding above the helicopter. One bullet struck about three feet in
front of Cory, kicking snow over him.
"We were shooting back and forth," Cory said. "And I can
remember getting down, thinking, 'I have only two magazines left – something
has to happen here pretty soon.'"
That's when he and Cunningham were hit.
"I had turned over on my stomach and crawled up a hill about five feet,
thinking this might do something," Cory said. "I turned back on my
back to shoot, and it was just shortly after that that Jason and I got shot at
the same time. We were sitting no more than five or six feet apart."
Two bullets hit Cory in the abdomen, but the impact was cushioned by his
ammunition pouch and belt buckle.
"It took me a little while to get up enough courage to check myself
out," he said. "As a medic, you realize that a penetrating wound to
the abdomen can be absolutely the worst thing. So I reached my hand down there
and tried to see how much blood there was. I pulled my hand back initially and
it was wet with water. That was a very reassuring sign." The water was from
his punctured canteen.
Cunningham was in worse shape: He was hit in the pelvic area and bleeding
profusely. Although still lucid, he was in considerable pain.
Good-natured and enthusiastic, Cunningham, 26, was popular with his fellow
para-rescuemen, known as "PJs," for parajumpers. He had been a PJ for
all of eight months. It was his first time in combat.
Rangers down the hill from the copter shot at the enemy position with a heavy
machine gun, a SAW light machine gun, a grenade launcher and several M4 assault
rifles. They watched some of the enemy fighters maneuvering around the backside
of the hilltop, shooting at the Rangers from two directions.
"We could see the tops of their heads, barely," said Staff Sgt.
Raymond M. DePouli, a member of Chalk 1.
Pazder, spotting an enemy fighter pop up to the left, let loose a burst from
his M240B heavy machine gun and killed him.
Off to the east, about 700 or 800 yards away, the Rangers noticed four or
five other enemy fighters walking up. Canon figured he could reach them with the
heavy machine gun but he needed more ammunition. He sent Vela, the assistant
gunner, back to the helicopter about 150 to 200 yards away.
As Vela dashed back, more enemy fire erupted and Vela dove for cover behind a
rock with Stebner. "You might not want to be by me because for some reason
the enemy doesn't like me," said Stebner, who had been dodging bullets
trying to pull Dave to safety.
"What are you talking about?" Vela said.
Just then, a rocket-propelled grenade soared over their heads.
"That's one thing I'm talking about," Stebner said. "Every
time I get up and move, they shoot at me. And now I'm laying here and they're
shooting at us."
Vela crawled to another rock outcropping, joining DePouli. He wrapped the
machine-gun ammunition in a bag normally used to hold the spare gun barrel and
tossed it to Canon, reaching only halfway.
Canon scrambled out on all fours and dragged the bag back to the spot behind
several boulders where he and Pazder were set up. Pazder passed the heavy gun to
Canon, who had a better angle on the enemy below.
"We poured machine gun fire onto every tree or bush where they may have
been hiding," Canon said. "I don't remember seeing them again."
The enemy fighters on the knoll kept shooting at the Rangers for more than 20
minutes. Then Navy F-14 fighter jets arrived and dropped about a half-dozen
500-pound bombs on or around the enemy position, silencing it.
"With one three-pound burst, shrapnel could be heard traveling through
the air," said Air Force Staff Sgt. Gabe Brown, a Special Operations combat
controller with Chalk 1 who was radioing directions to the jets. "We could
see the bombs go down the hill below us, and we heard the material rising up
past us, whizzing through the air."
The force of one bomb blast pushed back the helmet on DePouli's head. He
called Self on the radio. "Can we get a little bit of a head's-up down here
the next time we're going to make a bomb run like that?" Canon asked the
platoon leader.
Self replied, "Yeah, sure, no problem."
With the enemy's southern knoll position eliminated and the northern ridgetop
secured, the Rangers resumed carting the casualties – five wounded and six
dead – to the other side of the ridge crest. The move, 80 to 100 yards up a
snow-covered rocky incline, required four to six men to transport one casualty.
Again turning to the question of evacuation, the Rangers felt an even greater
sense of urgency because of the two fresh casualties. The Ranger medic listed
them both in the gravest category, "urgent surgical." He was not
entirely sure just how serious Cory's injuries were, but he was definitely
worried about Cunningham.
The medic had stopped Cunningham's external bleeding, but he had little idea
what was happening inside. Only days before, Cunningham had been lobbying
commanders to allow PJs to carry blood packs on missions and had won permission
to do so. Now he received one of the blood packs he had brought to Takur Ghar.
As worrisome as Cunningham's condition was, commanders were wary of
attempting another daylight rescue, knowing that this was part of what had got
them into trouble in the first place that morning.
Also occupying the commanders' attention was the rest of the battle, with
about 1,200 to 1,400 troops of the 10th Mountain and 101st Airborne divisions
spread throughout the valley and swarms of U.S. fighter jets, bombers,
helicopters and other aircraft in the skies above.
Earlier in the day, military intelligence sources had reported as many as 70
enemy fighters converging on the ridgetop. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jim Hotaling, a
combat air controller who had a commanding view of enemy positions atop Takur
Ghar from a ridge about two miles to the south, never saw anything approaching
70 enemy reinforcements. But he did see small groups of several fighters each
maneuvering up the mountain during the day.
"Most of the enemy I was engaging was a good 1,500 to 2,000 meters away
from their position, down on the bottom of the mountain and in the creek
beds," Hotaling said.
At least some of the Rangers believed a daylight evacuation could be carried
out and was worth the risk.
"If we had CAS [close air support] on station dropping bombs, we could
have gotten out of there at that time," Vance said in his statement.
"Just having the planes nearby kept the enemy away."
Vance added: "I kept telling controller that we lost another one, cold
PZ, when are we getting exfiltrated? Controller said to hold on. After asking
him three times, PL [platoon leader, meaning Self] expressed urgency at getting
the team out of there. I continued to tell controller but he just kept telling
me to hold on. After the third time, I handed the hand mike to the PL and asked
him to tell controller the same thing.
"I tried to keep a monotone voice. There were times that I tried to
throw some words in there to make controller realize that we have to get out. It
became a personal conversation, and we kept saying we have to get out of
here," Vance said.
Once, the Ranger medic got on the radio and tried to convey to headquarters
the gravity of the injuries. "I felt as though if I started making a big
deal about their condition, then it would worry my patients," the medic
said. "You want to be open and honest, and I was, but I wasn't jumping up
and down, ranting and raving, that this guy was going to die if we don't get him
off this mountain.
"I said, 'Listen, here's the story. I've got two urgent surgical
patients, and we need to be evac-ed.' And their response was, 'Roger, we
understand.'‚"
The medic repeatedly assured Cunningham and the others that help was on the
way. But the aircrew, especially the pilots, knew their commanders' preference
for nighttime evacuations.
"I kept coming back to them saying, 'Hey guys, listen, they're going to
come get us, we're going to be out of here soon, hang in there,' " the
medic said. "And it was the helicopter pilots who were pretty upfront about
it, and they said, 'We know we're not leaving until dark because that's just the
way it is.'
"I knew in the back of my head that the chances of them coming during
daylight hours were slim to none, but I was trying to be positive about
it," the medic said.
Cunningham's reaction? "For the most part, he listened."
As the sun sank around 5 p.m., the wind kicked up and the ridgetop turned
frigid.
"You couldn't get enough oxygen," Wilmoth said. "Everyone's
throat was bleeding, coughing up some blood. Everyone had bad sore throats and
dehydration."
The soldiers searched the chopper for items – crew bags, equipment kits,
anything that could provide warmth or something to eat.
"We probably found enough food for everybody to have a bite of something
and put something in their stomachs – whether it was a pack of crackers or a
Power Bar or sharing half of a cold meal" from military rations, Canon
said.
Don, the chopper's air mission commander, peeled off the aircraft's sound
insulation liner for blanketing the casualties. Some of the men built a lean-to
out of wood from a bombed tree to keep the wind off the wounded.
"Pants, sweat shirts, jackets, blankets, sleeping bags – anything we
could find that would retain heat was given to the casualties," the medic
said. "Some had upwards of a foot of stuff on top of them to keep them
warm."
Seated on the ridgetop, admiring the stunning vistas, Stebner told Wilmoth
about how strange it was to be in such a beautiful place amid such dire
conditions.
The evening before their mission, some of the Rangers, attending a Bible
study group at Bagram air base to the north, had read a passage about mountains
and deliverance. It was Psalm 121, which begins, "I lift up my eyes to the
hills, where does my help come from?"
The psalm held particular meaning for Self, who thought of it during the
first moments of the firefight that morning as he rushed off the helicopter. The
passage had stuck with him since a day on a road march as a West Point cadet,
when he passed a chaplain standing on a hill reciting the psalm.
But as he and his men waited to be evacuated, Self did not want them getting
too contemplative, and especially too mournful. Not yet.
"There were a few times here and there where guys would start to reflect
on what had just happened, and their minds started to affect them a little
bit," Self recalled. At those points, he would tell them, "Hey, you've
got tomorrow and the rest of your lives for that."
Shortly after nightfall – at 6:10 p.m. local time, according to Self's
records – Cunningham perished.
"I could tell you that we did everything that we could do up
there," the medic said. "He had hung on for hours, and it was simply
his time."
Two hours later, at 8:15 p.m., three evacuation helicopters began lifting
everyone off the ridgetop. A fourth picked up the SEAL team on the side of the
mountain.
The first helicopter landed with its tail ramp at the opposite end of where
the troops had planned for it to go. The Rangers once again had to carry the
casualties across icy, rocky terrain, this time 40 or 50 feet, the length of the
chopper.
"It was more than once that we had to stop and set down, or one guy
slipped on the ice," the medic said. "We never dropped a casualty. But
I know it was uncomfortable for the casualties, even with the pain control stuff
they were given. I know they were hurting. They made it pretty vocal."
Within an hour, all the troops, their wounded and dead, were loaded and gone.
'There's No Right Answer'
All told, seven Americans died on Takur Ghar that day and four were seriously
wounded. In honor of the first to perish there, many among the Special
Operations forces now refer to the place as Roberts' Ridge.
As for the number of al Qaeda killed, military officials do not have an exact
count. The Rangers figure they shot at least 10 enemy fighters during the course
of the day. Other tallies, based on accounts of the firefight involving the SEAL
rescue team and U.S. airstrikes, have put the total enemy killed at as high as
40 or 50.
"It really wasn't our concern to have a good enemy body count when we
left," Self said. "If they were dead, they were dead."
Operation Anaconda ended inconclusively 19 days later. The military disrupted
al Qaeda in the Shahikot valley, but an unknown number of enemy fighters slipped
away to regroup over the border in Pakistan.
In the end, the Rangers accomplished their mission. They retrieved the bodies
of all U.S. servicemen on the ridgetop, leaving no one behind.
Don, the air mission commander on the downed helicopter, said he was later
told by a member of the SEAL rescue team that if the Rangers had not arrived
when they did, the SEALs would not have lasted much longer. Although the SEALs
had already started down the mountain by then, they were still under attack.
"The fire had been focused on them, and when we came in, it got
diverted," Don said.
The events of March 4 have underscored the U.S. military's commitment to
doing whatever is necessary to prevent any U.S. soldiers – alive or dead –
from being left on a battlefield. But the episode also has provoked debate among
at least some military officials familiar with the details about the need for
establishing minimal thresholds for dispatching rescue teams – thresholds that
would balance the need for urgent response against the risks of going in with
incomplete information.
Releasing an official report yesterday on the battle on Takur Ghar, Army Gen.
Tommy Franks, the Central Command chief responsible for U.S. military operations
in Afghanistan, dwelt on the bravery and tenacity of the American troops
involved. As for the intelligence lapses, communications breakdowns and
questionable command judgments, he suggested they were simply part of the
"fog" and "uncertainty" that are "common to every
war."
Other military officials said the battle has led to improved communications
and other changes in U.S. military operations in Afghanistan that cannot be
discussed publicly. Efforts also have been made at the field level to advance
coordination between conventional and Special Operations forces.
"There was no reason to believe from history that we should have been
doing it any differently than we had been up to this incident," said Army
Maj. Gen. Franklin L. "Buster" Hagenbeck, who commanded Operation
Anaconda from his headquarters at Bagram air base. "But we've just decided
that we'll always know what each other are doing at any given time."
If the Rangers who fought on the mountain find fault with the way the mission
was mounted, they are keeping any criticism to themselves. They say they knew,
when they signed up, that duty on quick-reaction forces would be hazardous.
"At our level, everyone did his job superbly that day," DePouli
said. "We did everything we could do. We were in a crappy situation, and we
came out on top."
The Rangers, and the Army helicopter crews and Air Force members who were
with them, cite a number of actions that they believe kept the casualty tally
lower than it might have been.
Reflecting, for instance, on his decision to break off the Rangers' first
attempted assault on the northern bunker, Self noted that the assault team
included the most senior Rangers on the ridge at the time. If they had died,
Self said, the others would have stood little chance of survival.
"We could have tried it again and had a couple of guys get some
posthumous Medals of Honor," Self said. "But I don't know if anybody
else would have gotten out of there."
Self also observed that if Chalk 2 had not made it up the mountain when it
did, and then quickly assaulted the ridgetop, Chalk 1 would likely have been
more exposed to the enemy's counterattack from the southeast.
"We would have had the whole force laying on the side of the hill,
getting shot from behind," Self said.
Still, the Rangers remain haunted by other decisions, especially to delay
their evacuation until dark. Could an earlier evacuation have saved Cunningham's
life?
"It's something we've been asking ourselves now for the better part of a
month and a half," Capt. Joseph Ryan, the commander of Alpha Company, which
includes Self's platoon, said in an interview in early May. "But there's no
right answer to that question."
Said Self: "So many decisions we made that day that could have gone the
other way. A lot of what-ifs. That was one of those decisions. It was a dilemma,
and there were consequences."
All in all, it was a day of both tragedy and courage, of bad luck and
fortuitous timing, of poor coordination and true grit. The Ranger medic spoke
about the "positives" and the "negatives" of the experience.
"The positives are, we got to play the game and everybody did
exceedingly well," he said. "Everybody did what they were trained to
do, everybody performed well above the standard. It's negative because, in
getting to play the game, losing is very final, it's very ugly. And until you
really see it like we got to see it, it's kind of this mysterious thing.
"Quite frankly," he added, "I think that if guys with our job
dealt with it or thought about it quite a bit, there would be a lot fewer of
us."
[BACK TO
CUNNINGHAM HOME PAGE]
Soldiers
of Chalk 2: Standing, left to right: Staff Sgt. Harper Wilmoth,
Spec. Oscar J. Escano, Spec. Jonas O. Polson, Sgt. Patrick
George, Spec. Christopher M. Cunningham. Kneeling, left to
right: Spec. Randy J. Pazder, Spec. Omar J. Vela. (Master
Sgt. John M. Pennell - U.S. Army Photo)
