The Fighters: Americans in Combat in Afghanistan and Iraq

383 Pages·2018·6.28 MB·English

by  C.J. Chivers

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Contents
Epigraph
Guide to Maps
Preface
—  PART I: Storm  —
1: INTO AFGHANISTAN
G-MONSTER—Lieutenant Layne McDowell’s Quick Air War
2: INTO THE KILL ZONE
Sergeant First Class Leo Kryszewski and the Gauntlet at al-Kaed Bridge
—  PART II: Bad Hand  —
3: THE ONE YOU HEAR ALREADY MISSED
Sergeant First Class Leo Kryszewski and the Rocket Attacks
4: “IN THE NAVY HE’LL BE SAFE”
Hospital Corpsman Dustin E. Kirby and a Family at War
5: DOWN SAFE
Chief Warrant Officer Michael Slebodnik and the Air Cavalry War in Iraq
6: G-MONSTER
Lieutenant Commander Layne McDowell’s Dream
—  PART III: Counterinsurgency  —
7: ON AL QAEDA’S TURF
Dustin Kirby and the Route Chicago Shooting Gallery
8: “I’LL FLY AWAY”
Chief Warrant Officer Mike Slebodnik and the Air Cavalry in the Eastern Afghan
Valleys
9: “WE’RE HERE BECAUSE WE’RE HERE”
Specialist Robert Soto and the Ghosts of Korengal Valley
10: THE PUSH
Lieutenant Jarrod Neff and a Battle to Turn the Tide of the War
—  PART IV: Reckoning  —
11: G-MONSTER
The Satisfaction of Restraint
12: THE FIGHTER
Gail Kirby’s Demand
Epilogue
Author’s Note Regarding the Cover
Author’s Note on Sources
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
For those who recognize these stories as their own
Why, it seems like only yesterday, or the day
before, when our vast armada gathered . . .
—The Iliad America is not at war.
The Marine Corps is at war; America is at the mall.
—handwritten note on the wall of the government center in Ramadi, Iraq, in
January 2007
Guide to Maps
Map of Afghanistan
Map of Iraq
Movements of O.D.A. 572
Area of Operations of Alpha Troop
Area of Operations of Weapons Company
Area of Operations of Charlie Troop
Viper Two in the Korengal Valley
Area of Operations of First Platoon
Preface
FEBRUARY 14, 2010
Marja, Afghanistan
The American medevac helicopter descended toward a shattered home on the
Afghan steppe, sweeping grit against its mud-walled remains. Gunfire cracked past.
Inside the ruins, several young infantrymen from Kilo Company, Third Battalion,
Sixth Marines, crouched near the bodies of freshly killed civilians. They had tallied
eleven corpses so far. All but two were women or children.
Two American rockets had struck here a short while before, a pair of errant blows
in a battle between the Marines and the Taliban that had begun in the morning of
Valentine’s Day. In the seconds after, as a dusty smoke cloud rose, a small girl
scrambled out. For a moment she stood still. Then she ran, sprinting headlong to
another nearby building, which the Americans occupied as a temporary outpost. Her
father was detained inside.
Soon Marines were hustling across the field, crossing the open space where a
gunfight had raged for hours. When they entered they found one more survivor—a
young woman lying in a pool of blood. She was calling out children’s names. The
blasts had severed both her legs and one of her arms. Covered with dirt, streaked with
blood, she moaned and repeatedly asked for the kids. She tried sitting up. A corpsman
and a few Marines consoled her. A lieutenant and a sergeant with radios called their
commanding officer, seeking a Black Hawk medevac aircraft to rush the woman to
care. Around her the bodies of her family were scattered where they had died, not far
from dead poultry and sheep. Gently the Marines assured the dying woman that all
would be okay.
The Pentagon and the manufacturer of the weapon that struck here, known as a
HIMARS,I consider its ordnance to be precise. Its GPS sensors and guidance system
help the rockets fly scores of miles and slam to earth within feet of the coordinates
they are programmed to hit. Each carries a high-explosive warhead and a fuze that can
be set to burst in the air, maximizing the spread of shrapnel below. The manufacturer
markets them as “low collateral damage” weapons. This is true on practice ranges.
Battlefields rarely resemble ranges. More often they are the lands where people live
and work, and in this profoundly poor village, the Pentagon’s precision weapons had
hit precisely the wrong place. A sniper had been firing on the Marines from near
another home, but the rockets landed here. A family following American instructions
—stay inside and out of the way—had been almost instantly destroyed.
By the time the Black Hawk arrived, the woman had died.
The aircraft flew into a trap.
Automatic fire erupted. Kalashnikov rifles joined in. The Taliban had been
waiting, and ambushed the aircraft as its wheels settled toward the ground. The
lieutenant and sergeant ran into view, arms waving, warding the pilots off. Their
company commander shouted to a radio operator: “Abort! Abort! Tell him to
abort!”
The helicopter lurched forward, gathering speed. A rocket-propelled grenade
whooshed into the whirling tower of dust. An explosion boomed behind the Black
Hawk’s tail rotor—a near miss. The helicopter flew across the field, banked, and put
down near the company commander to pick up a wounded Marine, whom the sniper
had shot. Then it was gone.
A lull replaced the din. Young men muttered curses. Inside the compound,
Afghan soldiers working with the Marines covered the dead with cloth. A Taliban
commander, overheard on his own radio frequency, berated his fighters in Pashto for
missing the Black Hawk. He’d almost realized his prize. “That was your chance!” he
said.
These Marines were almost all young men on their first enlistments, the type of
citizen who serves for four years and returns to civilian life. They were thoroughly
trained, visibly fit, thoughtfully equipped, and generally eager to participate in what
they were told would be a historic fight, a campaign preordained for American
military lore. Most of them were also so new to war that the dead women and