The Taliban Don't Wave (25 page)

When my turn came for the sat phone, I called home and reached Amélie. We talked for a few minutes and it felt great to hear her voice, especially after the day we'd had. I was still giddy with the adrenalin monkeys still riding my back, because we'd almost been killed a dozen times over in
one
day. Amélie was the best, and she understood what was going on, without me having to say anything. She was the rock that kept me grounded in that terrible place with her love, strength, and patience.

We could only talk for a couple of minutes because everyone needed a turn, so I handed the sat phone over to the next guy in line and found Warrant Smith. I shook his hand and told him how glad I was that he was still with us. I described how he had looked walking into our compound with his helmet all askew, and we had a good laugh. He told me all about his “unplanned space flight,” and it was an incredible story. I told him he was lucky it was an RPG anti-tank round, the conical shaped one, because if it had been an anti-infantry round, he'd be suntanning in the Elysian Fields. We just hung out and shot the shit. I really liked talking with him, and I learned a lot from him later in the tour when we were together in Mushan.

I checked on my team and made sure everyone was doing okay, then we said good night
Waltons
style, as was our custom. I heard the other call signs snickering at us, but we didn't care. Traditions were important. That night, we all slept like the dead, grateful we hadn't joined them.

Chapter 13

The ANA took a few days off from the planned mission for admin reasons, and nobody really complained. We were all terribly dehydrated from the first day's patrol and welcomed the chance to get topped up and rested a bit. We changed all of our batteries, cleaned our gear, and then started patrolling in the local area. On one patrol, my team found an IED in the middle of the street, not buried but just waiting for us above the ground. We set up a cordon with the ANA, who quickly grew bored with the whole thing, and then casually picked up the IED and just threw it into the back of a truck. We also had some incoming fire whanged at us. Just to
harass
us.
All very normal.

After two days of local area patrols, we woke up early on the fourth day of the op and headed off to the LD, the start line for the day's patrol south. We marched for twenty minutes, before a visiting Afghan general named Bashir called everyone back to the LD and switched my ANA's position on the trace with Rich's ANA. For no apparent reason.

So after some under-the-breath-cursing, we started up again, and we'd been marching for a half an hour when we came across an American vehicle convoy of army troops, waiting outside of a narrow village. We said hi and kept walking. Rich and his crew broke off to the west while 72A started to enter the village. Longview and the dirty Hungo passed through it with Aziz in the lead, and Fourneau, Shafiq Ullah, and I were just about to go through a narrow alley when—CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

Incoming rounds began to scream down the narrow alley choke point. I threw Max behind me as we all took cover at a right angle to the alley. I heard Warrant Longview and Hetsa open up, and quickly broke out my map. The next village down the road was allegedly a Taliban stronghold.
Must be coming from there.

I pulled my head back as rounds snapped and cracked into the wall in front of me and continued down the alley. The Americans scrambled into their vehicles and started them up, ready to move. I knew Rich and his guys would be finding cover on the other side of the village.

I tried to peek down the alley but the incoming fire was too intense. I looked left and right, but the walls were too high for us to jump over. There was nothing for it—we'd have to go down the alley.
Hey diddle diddle, right up the middle.
I suddenly remembered the words of a Para instructor of mine back in England who said, “The worst thing that can happen to you is you'll die.”
Hmm. Poignant.

I turned to face Fourneau. “We can't do any good here; we've got no SA [situational awareness]. We've gotta sprint up and join Warrant Longview and Hetsa. Do you want to come with me or wait here?”

Fourneau looked terribly insulted. “I'm coming with you, sir!”

“Good man.” I continued, “It sounds like big incoming rounds, like a crew-served weapon. We'll wait until they reload, and then take off at a dead sprint.” I quickly peeked around the corner. “It's going to be twenty metres. Hey, you should be happy I've been working out, 'cause I'm massive! I'll make a great meat shield for ya!”

A big grin spread across his face. I looked over at Max and told him to stay put. We wouldn't need him, not yet anyway. “Please ask Captain Shafiq Ullah if he would care to join me, up at the front, so we can actually see what's going on.”

“No thank you; he says he is good here.” The incoming fire had begun to die down a bit.

“Yeah, I thought he might say that. Okay Fourneau, stand by. In four, three, ready, steady, GO GO GO!”

I pushed off the wall and rounded the corner at a dead sprint, giving it everything I had to cross the open ground down the narrow alleyway. I could see Longview behind a wall, now only fifteen metres away, ten metres, five metres,
RUN RUN RUN!
I slammed into the wall next to Longview and spun around to see where Fourneau was. He was only five metres away and pounded into the wall right beside me just as the Taliban machine gun began firing again.

SNAP SNAP SNAP! CRACK! CRACK!

The incoming rounds tore the air over our heads as we ducked behind the wall.

I asked the warrant what was going on and he pointed to the village to our south, the one we'd been warned about. I looked all around and took in some ANA behind the wall to my right, ducking and shooting back, and some American Humvee vehicles, part of the convoy, strung out and disappearing back into the village.

Suddenly Rich shouted over the net, “Charlie, Charlie! You are engaging us, you are engaging
us!
CEASE FIRE CEASE FIRE CEASE FIRE!” I scrambled to look left, right, and behind me, trying to find the friendlies who were shooting at Rich. I couldn't see anybody shooting toward him in the west; everyone around me was shooting where they should be, to the south, at the Taliban stronghold.

I spoke quickly over the net, “Charlie, Alpha, there is no one around this call sign engaging you, over.” I looked again, but still couldn't see anyone shooting in Rich's direction.

“Charlie,” Rich shouted, “run around and tell everyone to stop shooting—the Americans, the fucking Afghans! Get everyone to
stop
shooting!” I suddenly realized how stupid it was to be arguing the finer points of friendly fire with the guy
getting
shot at, so I ran up to the nearest American Humvee and found a major standing behind it, using it as cover. He started to say, “Hey, I was thinking—”

But I cut him off. “Get all your call signs to stop shooting; someone's engaging my other call sign to the west. Get everyone to stop shooting, NOW!”

“But we're not—”

“DON'T ARGUE! Just get all of your American call signs to stop shooting!” I had gotten through to him because he quickly ran up to his vehicle, opened the door, and started barking the order over his radio net.

Ten seconds later Rich told us the incoming friendly fire had stopped. Major Hobbles picked up the radio conversation and said, “Seven Two Charlie, you owe me one, out!”

I told the American major to get a grip of his men; they'd almost killed my friend and his Afghans. He didn't have anything to say back, so I rejoined Longview, Hetsa, and Fourneau over by the wall.

“Hey, sir,” Hetsa said, “check this out,” and pointed toward an Afghan border cop (judging by his long hair, flowing beard, and shoeless feet). He was out in the open, carrying a large Spig 9 recoilless rifle around on his shoulder, just like Aziz had done when Sperwhan got attacked the second time. The border cop was high as a kite, singing and waving the eight-foot-long cannon tube back and forth, up into the air, and then clunking its barrel down into the dirt. All of the Afghans shouted their version of
“Geeewwww!”
as he'd swing it around and point it at them, as if it was a funny joke. Naturally, his finger was on the trigger the whole time.

Finally a buddy of his, who was equally high by the looks of him, stumbled over and helped him point his BFG in the right direction, toward the Taliban village. The rocketeer shouted something, then casually aimed the Spig at the village. But at the last second his inner-ear problem must've kicked in, because he pointed the Spig up into the sky at a sixty-degree angle, and fired his round off into space.

KERWHOOSH!

I thought he must have taken a personal dislike to the Taliban base on the moon, or something. As his intergalactic missile launched into space, the stoned border cop disappeared behind a wall of dust kicked up from his launcher's backblast.

Everyone started howling with laughter, because after about twenty seconds when the dust started to settle, the cop walked out of the eye of the dirt hurricane, dropped his Spig 9 roughly on the ground, and promptly collapsed in a heap.
Good a time as any to take a little nap.
One of his fellow cops walked over to him, swiftly kicked him a few times in the ribs, and then started laughing again.
Was he alive or dead? And really, who cared?

I had to wipe tears from my eyes, it was hands-down one of the funniest things I'd ever seen in my entire life. Then Captain Shafiq Ullah decided to finally join us as his ANA began to move out toward the village. Rich and his crew would carry on to the west and hit the village to our front from the flank, supporting us as we attacked it with a full frontal assault.
Pop smoke, full frontal! Airborne!

We marched along but before we were even close to the village, some of the high border cops ran out of a wood line to the east of the village, stormed the main gate, and began room clearing on full automatic.

“Whaddya think, sir?” Longview asked me over the PRR, as hundreds of rounds snapped and cracked from within the village.

“Let 'em clear it themselves. It would be pure suicide to go into the village while the high friends of Jesus lay down the law!”
No thanks!

We patrolled up to the village and then quietly passed it. As we walked next to a twenty-foot-high wall, I heard a long burst of AK fire. I looked around but nobody else seemed to notice because there were so many rounds going downrange. We were becoming dangerously inoculated to gunfire and that
could
lead to complacency, and that
would
be the end of us.

We passed the Taliban village and took a breather in the shade. The CSM and his FOO/FAC and medic/mobile reserve unit joined us. I asked how they were doing and they were good to go. It had been a while since any of us had to patrol over twenty kilometres under enemy fire. I reminded myself to watch everyone more closely because heat exhaustion would be a real threat on a day like this.
Yeah, if the stoned border cops don't kill us first!

We marched on and laughed as the omnipresent, perpetually high border cops “liberated” a motorbike from the Taliban, put four guys on it, and tried to zoom around, much to the delight of everyone present.
These guys should open their own circus.
They zoomed down a very steep ditch, smashed into the bottom of it, went ass-over-teakettle, and sprawled all over each other. We passed them on the road and looked down at them, all crumpled one on top of the other in the ditch, moaning in pain. One guy seemed to be unconscious. Of course we laughed at them as we marched past. Who wouldn't? They were quickly becoming our mobile comic relief.

Some ANA troops called me over and pointed out a possible Taliban compound. Then they asked me if I could call down artillery on it, thereby denying its use to the enemy—and they were serious. I asked them what they planned on doing with all of their fellow soldiers who were still inside the compound.

“They will move,” an Afghan officer, whom I'd never seen before, smartly replied.

“In time?” I asked.

“Sure. Can you do it right now?”

“Are you going to get them out of there,
right now
?”

“Sure. Hey,
hey
!” He began to shout at his men to vacate the premises so that I could call down artillery (but most of his Afghans remained inside, probably still liberating items from the Taliban).

I waited until the ANA officer walked back over to me, then I pretended to press my radio button, and moved my mouthpiece closer to my lips as I said, “Roger Young, we have an official request by the mobile infantry to commence bombardment of Planet P; how copy? Affirmative, that's a big rog. Covenant ground forces are attempting to fire the Alpha Halo!” I called Max over and said, “Please tell the officer, ‘Negative, Fleet has other plans for Planet P,' but welcome home.” Max looked at me quizzically not understanding the
Starship Troopers
movie and Halo references, then tried his best to translate my mad ramblings. The Afghan officer thanked me anyway and then strolled off.

We continued on the patrol, our feet kicking up the ever-present moon dust, an ultrafine dust powder that settled onto everything like a blanket. As we'd pass farms and compounds, several times the Taliban DEWS alert would begin to bray, letting us know we'd been compromised and Timothy was on to us.
Damn donkeys!

We patrolled for another half an hour when a massive TIC kicked off to our east. But it was all outgoing fire. And it seemed to be travelling south down the road. I found out later that night, after talking to a few Americans, that their guys had been doing spec fire (speculation fire), which meant they would fire at anything suspicious. So that explained why the TIC seemed to be moving down the road, as they travelled south. I could just see our American cousins, riding up in the Humvee turrets:
No siree, I don't like the look of that rock!
BANG BANG!
Nope, that wadi looks suspicious
. BANG BANG BANG!

After a few more hours of marching in the terrible heat, with the odd angry shot snapping and cracking over our heads and making us flinch, we finally met up with Rich and his boys. I shouted at them to “Get back! I don't want your death wish rubbing off on my call sign!” We had a few laughs and Rich told me he had a good story for the campfire that night.