The deal was basically, “Shit happens, fight’s on.” I just made that up but it fits. We’re going to fight, we’re not going to play grab-ass or paddy cake. While we’re at it, shit is going to happen. Bad shit, messy shit, unfortunate shit, and just shit all around. That’s just the way it is. No matter what happens though, you must maintain who and what you are – US Marines. Special Operators. Experienced (some of us) warriors. Men, and all that being a Man is supposed to mean. We don’t hurt women, we don’t hurt kids, we don’t hurt the elderly, infirmed, or disabled. Unless they are actively trying to do us harm, but even then you have to weigh the situation.
I don’t buy into the whole “them or me” argument as a black and white thing. What’s my life worth? I’m sent here to fight - and die if I have to. I’m not going to do anything I have to do to make it home because I live by a creed with my fellow man. I’m not going to put rounds through a child to get the terrorist behind them. I’m not going to fire indiscriminately into a crowd of people because I’m being shot at from that direction. I’m not going to report a target location without stressing the fact that unarmed civilians are there or in the immediate vicinity. If this creed cost me my life, than that’s just the price to be paid and I’ll meet my Maker with a clear conscious. Like Tecumseh said: Never fear death.
We had spent nearly 2 full months just getting to Jalalabad, Afghanistan. We spent the entire month of January on the USS Bataan transiting the Atlantic and the Mediterranean with port stops at Sicily and Turkey. Then we sailed through the Suez and down into the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. We performed an “amphibious landing” via LCAC (hovercraft) into Djibouti and sat on Camp Lemonnier for several days while transport into Afghanistan was arranged. I know that sounds a little disorganized, like, shouldn’t transport to our operating base have already been arranged and planned for? Yes, it should have, but this was no ordinary deployment and everything was a disorganized mess from the outset to the finish line. We didn’t even know where in Afghanistan we were going to until we were already in the Mediterranean. Training and intelligence preparation was a disaster since we couldn’t print maps, focus research, or do any of the normal prep an intelligence cell would do prior to arriving. Even the mess deck on the USS Bataan was disorganized. They didn’t account for us being on midnight shift hours so they didn’t make enough food to feed us, so for multiple nights in a row we dined on re-heated instant rice and leftover hotdogs.
The journey to Afghanistan was a long and interesting one for sure, but even after we finally got there it wasn’t over. We landed at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul and my team had to stay a few days to get “certified” in performing interrogations of Afghanistan’s precious detainees. This was a real slap in the face. I had already completed an entire deployment at the Al Asad Detention Facility in western Iraq where all I did for 6 months straight was interrogate mid-level detainees. That followed a previous deployment where I interrogated dozens of detainees at the combat level; i.e. the point where detainees are actually detained. When I arrived at Bagram I had already performed over 300 real-world, not training, interrogations of suspected enemy personnel that generated hundreds of interrogation and intelligence information reports and resulted in two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Awards – one with Combat Distinguishing Device. I was also a Staff Sergeant of Marines by that point. My “certifier” for Afghanistan interrogations was a young Army or Chair Force kid who looked like he hadn’t even grown facial hair yet and had to sit in with me while I questioned some random detainee they pulled into the booth. It was a real kick in the sack. A slap in the face.
Finally after all the adventure, we touched down at Jalalabad Airfield at the end of February, 2007 for duty under Special Operations Command. Most of Fox Company arrived before my team did because of the interrogation delay, and they were already at work trying to put together the crap hole we relegated to. It was an abandoned compound on the edge of Jalalabad Airfield that had previously been occupied by French Foreign Legion and was in tatters. Since we were there for combat and not handyman work, we went straight into mission planning and area familiarization. What we learned right off hand is that Nangarhar District (where Jalalabad is at) was actually a pretty quiet area. Not a lot of enemy activity at all, but it was recognized as a logistical route for the Taliban.
With the Tora Bora Mountains just south of Jalalabad and more mountainous terrain north, Nangarhar District was just about the only paved route in from Islamabad, Pakistan, where everyone knew the Taliban logistical, political, tactical, and cultural leadership was coming from. It made sense then, that the Taliban would want to keep Nangarhar quiet and the freedom of movement open. Prior to us showing up, hardly any action had taken place in the district and Green Beret teams that had been operating in the area confided that to my team.
We learned from local contacts that the French Foreign Legion unit that used to be in our compound didn’t do anything or go anywhere in the District. They just sat in their compound all day and drank alcohol at one or more of the no less than seven makeshift bars we found in the compound. It all started to make sense: SOCOM didn’t really want us, but after being forced to take us they tried to stash us away in a little quiet place that was already overrun with Special Ops teams, NGO’s, OGA’s, etc. How much harm could we do then? Well sir, we could destroy 6 years of counterinsurgency progress, that’s what we could do, and we did, much to the chagrin of our intelligence cell.
Not long after we started waking up in Jalalabad, our headquarters section along with the Direct Action Platoon Sergeant started planning a reconnaissance mission out to Torkham Gate (the Afghanistan/Pakistan border crossing in eastern Nangarhar). It was to be our furthest foray out of Jalalabad to date and would put us in direct contact with district officials, adjacent military units, and the Afghani public. We had already started developing our information sources and putting an intelligence picture of the battlefield together. We were learning some really good stuff, and some not so good stuff.
Understand now, Marine Corps CI/HUMINT was really, really good at their job. Maybe they still are, but by now I’m far removed from that community so I can’t say. First of all, they only took alpha-male types who completed an arduous selection process that tests your smarts, your ability to think on your feet, to create something out of nothing, and your ability to be a social chameleon. After selection you attend the Counterintelligence/Human Intelligence course where you are trained to perform mental acrobatics in any situation. All of that is built on the foundation of being a gung-ho, motivated, adapt and overcome U.S. Marine. It works, and it works good.
Do you remember Jessica Lynch the POW in Iraq? She was actually found and proof-of-life provided by a CI/HUMINT Marine who also paved the way for her recovery. I actually met the guy and worked with him later on. That is a really interesting and cool story. It involved a local doctor (the human source), a gym bag, and a hidden micro camera. Saddam Hussein was found in a “spider hole,” remember that? Legend has it a CI/HUMINT Marine also got credit for that. CI/HUMINT Marines did crazy things throughout the globe in every climb and place, and usually without any fanfare. Seal Team 6? We had an attachment there. JSOC? Yep, one there too. I’m good friends still with one of the guys who was there. And then there’s MARSOC. I’m a plank owner of 2nd Marine Special Operations Battalion along with the other guys who were on my team. We stood in the formation that day 2nd Force Reconnaissance was decommissioned and recommissioned as 2nd MSOB. Every climb and place. Every critical embassy. Every combat theater. Every Marine Expeditionary Unit.
One of the critical pieces of information we focused on after arriving in Jalalabad was a religious fanatic who lived somewhere south of the Bati Kot area, which is southeast of Jalalabad. We put together source reporting on his identity, his sentiment, his likelihood of conducting an attack, and most importantly his residence. Together with our company’s intelligence cell we built an entire target package on this individual and started planing a direct action. Then we found out the bad stuff about Afghanistan.
During this era of the Afghanistan War, everything was controlled by NATO. Everything. Just as I mentioned in a previous post, all target packages had to be submitted to NATO for approval. That took a minimum of three days, and we were denied. We were instructed to continue collections and development of the target. Well, we didn’t get approval before March 4th, 2007, and it turns out after that day we weren’t going to need it. The morning of March 4th our reconnaissance and HUMINT mission launched out of Jalalabad for that very fateful operation. I had no idea that morning that my life was about to make column right turn.
To be continued…