The Outpost An Untold Story Of American Valor Part 15

ROLL CALL

International Security a.s.sistance Force (ISAF) May 2007July 2008

At Forward Operating Base Fenty, Jalalabad Airfield, Nangarhar Province: Colonel Chip Preysler, Commander, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team ("173rd Airborne"), 10th Mountain Division At Forward Operating Base Naray, Kunar Province: Lieutenant Colonel Chris Kolenda, Squadron Commander, 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment ("1-91 Cav"), 173rd Airborne, 10th Mountain Division Captain Nathan Springer, 1-91 Cav Headquarters Troop Commander Captain Joey Hutto, 1-91 Cav a.s.sistant Operations Officer At Combat Outpost Keating and Observation Post Warheit, Nuristan Province: Bulldog Troop, 1-91 Cav, 173rd Airborne, 10th Mountain Division Captain Tom Bostick, Commander Captain Joey Hutto, Commander Second Lieutenant Ken Johnson, Fire Support Officer 1st Platoon First Lieutenant Dave Roller, Leader First Lieutenant Hank Hughes, Leader 2nd Platoon First Lieutenant John Meyer, Leader First Lieutenant Kyle Marc.u.m, Leader Staff Sergeant Ryan Fritsche Sergeant John Wilson Private First Cla.s.s Alberto Barba 3rd Platoon First Lieutenant Alex Newsom, Leader Sergeant First Cla.s.s Rodney O'Dell Staff Sergeant John Faulkenberry Private First Cla.s.s Chris Pfeifer Private First Cla.s.s Michael Del Sarto Private First Cla.s.s Jonathan Sultan On the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kala Gush, Nuristan Province: Navy Commander Sam Paparo, team head Trainer of the Afghan National Army (ANA) Troops at Combat Outpost Keating, Nuristan Province: Marine Master Sergeant Scott Ingbretsen On the Home Front: Sarah Faulkenberry, wife of Staff Sergeant John Faulkenberry Karen Pfeifer, wife of Private Chris Pfeifer June 2008June 2009 At Jalalabad Airfield, Nangarhar Province: Colonel John Spiszer, Commander, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division At Forward Operating Base Naray, Kunar Province: Lieutenant Colonel James Markert, Squadron Commander, 6th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment ("6-4 Cav") of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division At Combat Outpost Keating and Observation Post Fritsche: Blackfoot Troop, 6th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment ("6-4 Cav") of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division Captain Robert Yllescas, Troop Commander First Lieutenant Joseph Mazzocchi, Executive Officer Specialist Rick Victorino, Intelligence Officer First Lieutenant Kyle Tucker, Fire Support Officer First Lieutenant Kaine Meshkin, Red Platoon Leader First Lieutenant Chris Safulko, Blue Platoon Leader Trainer of the ANA Troops at Combat Outpost Keating: Marine Lieutenant Chris Briley On the Home Front Dena Yllescas, wife of Captain Rob Yllescas

CHAPTER 16

"There's Not Going to Be Any Ice Cream"

First Lieutenant Dave Roller couldn't believe his eyes, couldn't help but grin.

Two dozen naked young women?

Are you kidding kidding me? me?

Roller and his platoon were on a ridgeline overlooking the hamlet of Saret Koleh, east of Combat Outpost Keating. They had camped there to watch over the area, to try to discern whether the Nuristanis had any idea that the next day, July 27, 2007, Captain Tom Bostick, the leader of Bulldog Troop, would be coming to the village for a shura. The nearby road was a popular site for insurgent attacks, so there had been occasional sweeps of the hamlet, but until now, no U.S. troops had ever made an official visit. For more than a day, Roller and 1st Platoon had been reporting atmospherics back to Bostick, their commander, at the base: "Trucks are rolling through here," they would say, or, "The weather looks good for tomorrow." Now, through the magnifying scope on his rifle, Roller was finally seeing something really noteworthy.

"Bulldog-Six, this is Red-One," he had murmured over his radio to Bostick a few minutes before, using both of their call signs. "Looks like some women are leaving the village right now."

He'd watched as more than twenty women made their way from Saret Koleh to a stream that fed into the Landay-Sin River. Then kept watching as they started to disrobe.

"Looks like they're about to jump in the creek," Roller whispered.

They ranged in age from about sixteen to thirty. The sun was pounding the mountains on this hot July day, and after jumping into the stream, they splashed one another playfully as they bathed in the cool water.

It was, to say the least, jarring: Roller had seen only about five local women in total during his first two months in Afghanistan, and all of them had been covered from head to toe in burqas. It looks like a G.o.dd.a.m.n sorority pool party, he thought. He was two thousand feet above the Nuristani women, looking at them from eight hundred yards away, so couldn't see any real details, just general shapes and colors. Still, there was intelligence to be had here: their romping made him fairly certain that no one in the hamlet of Saret Koleh had any idea that 1st Platoon was watching from just up the hill.

"Red-One, this is Bulldog-Six," Bostick said. "What's going on?"

"Sir, you're not going to believe this," Roller replied. "I got about twenty to twenty-five women here, naked, taking a bath."

It was a comic overture, but a fleeting one, to a day that would end up being the worst of their lives.

First Lieutenant Alex Newsom and his 3rd Platoon were with Bostick at Combat Outpost Kamu that momentous July day, ready to serve as a quick reaction force. Both Roller and Newsom hailed from soft, privileged worlds that they had essentially rejected for lives of blood and muck. Roller had grown up in Coral Gables, Florida, and Newsom in Beverly Hills. Both were handsome: Roller had a tousle-haired all-American look to him, while Newsom was swarthy, with a devilish charm. They were the sort of guys the Army used to great success in recruiting videos, the Army Of One soldiers who were Being All They Can Be.

The two had briefly been cla.s.smates at U.S. Army Ranger School, the intense two-month combat leadership course in Fort Benning, Georgia, but they hadn't connected in any meaningful way until they were each a.s.signed a platoon in Bulldog Troop, 1-91 Cavalry Squadron, part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, in Schweinfurt, Germany. After four weeks in Germany, Roller and Newsom had flown back to Fort Benning for a reconnaissance-and-surveillance course focused on conducting operations in small teams and on foot. They'd bonded then, coming to see foot patrols and Vietnam-era tactics as the way to go in Afghanistan. Their commanders in Germany seemed to want to drive everywhere, while Roller and Newsom pictured themselves as bada.s.ses humping through the wooded hills.

It hadn't taken them much time at all to become best friends. They were confident, even c.o.c.ky, and as mere lieutenants, perhaps a bit too comfortable in their dealings with superior officers. On their way back to Germany after the recon course, having been upgraded to First Cla.s.s, the two of them drank all the Woodford Reserve bourbon on the plane.

Then Captain Tom Bostick, Jr., came into their lives to kick that silliness out of them.

Bostick, as the cliche went, had been bred to serve. His paternal grandfather, Bill, was an Army sergeant at Pearl Harbor when the j.a.panese bombs. .h.i.t. One of Bill's brothers survived the Bataan Death March. The family could trace its military service all the way back to James Bostick of North Carolina, who'd fought the Redcoats during the American Revolution; through him, Captain Bostick was related to the Texas Revolutionary War hero Sion Bostick, who as a seventeen-year-old Texas Army scout had been one of three soldiers responsible for capturing Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Bostick's father, Tom senior, did an eighteen-month tour in Vietnam with the Marines, after which he came back, married Brenda Keeler in 1968, and got on with his life. A year later, at the naval base in San Diego, Brenda gave birth to Tommy junior.

Tommy Bostick, Jr., had joined the Army Reserves while still in high school in Llano, Texas. He went to Panama as a Ranger with Operation Just Cause, the mission against Manuel Noriega; served as an instructor at Fort Benning; and worked in Kuwait at Special Operations Command during Operation Desert Thunder, the international military buildup that responded to Saddam Hussein's threat to violate the international no-fly zone over Iraq. Bostick fell in love with a fellow soldier named Jennifer Dudley, who was in Military Intelligence and had a baby daughter named Jessica from a previous marriage. In September 1991, he got a four-day pa.s.s, flew to Fort Meade in Maryland, and married Jennifer. Their daughter Ashlie was born a year later. In 1998, after ten years as an enlisted man, Tom Bostick applied to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning and got in on his second try. He became an officer and did a tour in Iraq, then another in Afghanistan.

Bostick was one of the company commanders in Vicenza, Italy, with the 173rd Airborne when, in 2006, he first caught the eye of General Frank Helmick, commander of the Southern European Task Force (Airborne). Helmick needed an aide de camp, and Bostick was the obvious choice. It would have been a comfortable job, but Bostick turned it down: he wanted to command troops in the field, even though he had already done that in Iraq and Afghanistan. Helmick admired him for making that decision, and he set it up so that soon Bostick and his girls had moved to Germany, where he was a.s.signed to 1-91 Cav. The squadron had only a handful of experienced Infantry leaders, including Operations Sergeant Major Michael "Ted" Kennedy and Captain Joey Hutto, the squadron's plans officer. Bostick would join that coterie.

The first time the troops of 1-91 Cav met Bostick, they were standing in formation at the motor pool for the change-of-command ceremony. Bostick explained that they were all a family now. He spoke with compa.s.sion and empathy, but what impressed the rank and file most was the knowledge that he had started out as one of them and worked his way up, from enlisted man to officer. He hadn't just joined ROTC in college and then gone right into the military as a lieutenant, without ever putting in any time as a lowly grunt.

It meant a lot to Private First Cla.s.s Jonathan Sultan of 3rd Platoon that the new commander understood what it was to be a joe. The nineteen-year-old Sultan had enlisted in the Army the year before. He hated his platoon leader, Newsom, who he thought had the energy of a hummingbird-"hated" him, that was, in the way any private would hate a tough lieutenant who rode his men hard and held them to impossible standards. Newsom was constantly pushing the members of his platoon to run and do sit-ups, pushups, and pull-ups, but the drill they dreaded most was when he'd force them to exercise wearing full body armor and gas masks-the goal being to increase their lung capacity and get them comfortable with the oxygen deprivation they would experience in the mountains of Afghanistan. The more his troops b.i.t.c.hed, the harder Newsom pushed-but there was nothing he made them do that he wasn't also doing himself.

As far as Newsom was concerned, Captain Bostick was the harda.s.s: he'd let you fall on your face and learn whatever the lesson was for yourself, and if you still didn't learn it, he'd make d.a.m.n sure you knew you were failing. Bostick emphasized communications above all. He wanted everyone talking, everyone sharing, not just the radio guy. And he didn't care one bit about rank when cracking down. In the middle of one exercise, he approached Newsom and yanked him out of his truck: "You'd better have the f.u.c.king hand mike glued to your f.u.c.king helmet, or I'll do it myself," the captain said. Embarra.s.sing though it'd been, Newsom for sure wouldn't make that mistake again: he now knew that the most powerful weapon he had was his radio.

The 173rd Airborne had originally been destined for Iraq, but in February 2007, the Pentagon opted to send the brigade to Afghanistan instead. This change of plans was no small matter, since at the time, the troopers were already training in Germany for urban, not mountain, combat. The brigade quickly revised its mission rehearsal exercises, and the senior officers canceled all Iraq-oriented language and cultural preparation, including advanced courses for Arabic-speaking intelligence officers. Amazingly, six years after 9/11, there were no Pashto speakers on hand to take their place. The timeline for the brigade's departure was also moved up by six weeks.

Lieutenant Dave Roller, for one, was happy about the change. He had trouble justifying the war in Iraq to himself both morally and legally and had been worried about how he would explain the Why? Why? to his men. He called his father with the news: he was going to fight the "good" war. Moreover, since there were only two brigades in Afghanistan-compared to what would be almost ten times that many in Iraq during the 2007 surge of troops-Roller was able to suggest to his soldiers that they were headed somewhere "unique" and "special." Bostick had been there before, so that added to his confidence. to his men. He called his father with the news: he was going to fight the "good" war. Moreover, since there were only two brigades in Afghanistan-compared to what would be almost ten times that many in Iraq during the 2007 surge of troops-Roller was able to suggest to his soldiers that they were headed somewhere "unique" and "special." Bostick had been there before, so that added to his confidence.

The troopers of 1-91 Cav flew from Germany to Kyrgyzstan to Bagram to Jalalabad to Naray, and then Bulldog Troop broke off and moved to Camp Keating. At each stop along the way, conditions became more austere. When they sat down for a meal at Bagram Air Base, Tom Bostick turned to his fire-support officer, Second Lieutenant Kenny Johnson.

"You gonna eat that ice cream?" Bostick asked him.

"No," replied Johnson.

"You should," Bostick said. "Because at Keating there's not going to be any f.u.c.king ice cream."

Lieutenant Colonel Mike Howard had handed over command of the area to Lieutenant Colonel Chris Kolenda on May 31, 2007. Kolenda lost his first man two days later.

Kolenda was an unconventional officer with a good heart, a deep belief in the potential of the Afghan people, and often the highest IQ in the room. He was in Jalalabad for a brigade-level meeting, sitting in a commanders' conference, when he was handed a note informing him that there had been a firefight in his area of operations. He excused himself and went to the operations center, where he called back to Forward Operating Base Naray and was told that one of his men was KIA. Kolenda had been in the Army for almost twenty years, and this was the first time-ever-that a soldier under his command had been killed. Private First Cla.s.s Jacob Lowell, twenty-two, was a big teddy bear of a guy, a football enthusiast who'd been something of a problem child before finding his direction in the Army. That day, a patrol to Gawardesh was ambushed from the high ground; Lowell, the gunner on a Humvee, was shot in the leg. He managed to get back in the turret and kept firing his .50-caliber, but a second bullet-this one to the chest-ended his life.

Although Kolenda hadn't known Lowell personally,-a feeling of intense anger, combined with a deep sense of loss, came over him. He told himself he needed to remain calm. He needed to get more troops, more resources, into the fight. He needed to focus on the living, on winning the next battle and then setting conditions that would make it easier to capitalize on future successes. It was not easy. Later, Kolenda and Captain John Page, the 1-503 Infantry Legion Company34 commander who had led the patrol, a.n.a.lyzed what had happened. This ambush was different from the enemy attacks that 3-71 Cav had experienced during its time in Nuristan. Until the previous month, when all of those ANA troops were slaughtered, nearly every firefight had occurred across a considerable distance, and the insurgents had appeared poorly trained. But in this latest incident, the enemy fighters had been willing to come close to their targets-to venture a "near" ambush, as such an action was known. They hid on the high ground just above the road, behind features of the terrain that kept them well concealed. And as had been the case with the ambush of the ANA and Pearsall's platoon, this was a well-planned attack conducted by trained and disciplined fighters. commander who had led the patrol, a.n.a.lyzed what had happened. This ambush was different from the enemy attacks that 3-71 Cav had experienced during its time in Nuristan. Until the previous month, when all of those ANA troops were slaughtered, nearly every firefight had occurred across a considerable distance, and the insurgents had appeared poorly trained. But in this latest incident, the enemy fighters had been willing to come close to their targets-to venture a "near" ambush, as such an action was known. They hid on the high ground just above the road, behind features of the terrain that kept them well concealed. And as had been the case with the ambush of the ANA and Pearsall's platoon, this was a well-planned attack conducted by trained and disciplined fighters.

The Americans seemed to be facing a different enemy in 2007 than they had faced in 2006.

Officers from 3-71 Cav had every good intention when they planned the grand opening of the Naray water-pipe project: they timed it to occur after their own departure, so that their replacements-and most specifically, Captain Nathan Springer of 1-91 Cav's Headquarters Troop-would get a quick success under their belt and earn some goodwill among the locals. Like many of the best-laid plans in Afghanistan, this one made perfect sense on paper.

The project itself wasn't the problem. The contractor had tapped into a spring above and to the east of Naray, which sent clean, potable water flowing down the mountain, through a pipe, to several spots in Naray Village. The problem was this: about halfway down the mountain, between the spring and Naray, sat the hamlet of Shali Kot, which was completely bypa.s.sed by the pipe. It was an honest mistake on the part of the United States, if most likely not so on the part of the Naray elders, with whom the contractor had worked in designing the project.

Springer didn't know about any of this before he went to the opening ceremony. There, while inspecting the pipe, he was approached by a Shali Kot elder named Mohammed Ayoub, who made it clear that he thought the omission of his village from the water project was insulting and unfair. He and the other Shali Kot elders claimed that the project not only threatened their own water supply but also violated a previous agreement between them and the elders of Naray regarding water rights. Ayoub let Springer have it-Springer's interpreter could barely keep up with his tirade-and concluded the conversation by calling the American an infidel, an intense pejorative in this part of the world. Hearing this, the head of Naray District, Shamsur Rahman-a six-foot-three behemoth of a man-stepped in and slapped Ayoub several times with the back of his hand for the disrespect he had shown Springer. That ended the ceremony.

There was a lot that the Americans still had to learn about Afghanistan. Maybe they would never learn what they needed to in order to win this war. But Springer knew that to insult (however unintentionally) a village elder who then called you an infidel was not good-not good at all.

Springer told the story to Kolenda, who agreed to budget additional funds to include Shali Kot in the pipe scheme. More important, however, was the larger lesson to be drawn from the episode: money and development projects were a double-edged sword. Zar, zan, zamin, Zar, zan, zamin, Kolenda thought. It was an Afghan saying, the Dari words for "gold, women, land"-the driving forces of conflict in the area, and here Kolenda thought. It was an Afghan saying, the Dari words for "gold, women, land"-the driving forces of conflict in the area, and here land land also meant "water," and also meant "water," and water water also meant "gold." These were ancient reasons for strife that hadn't gone out of style in Naray and Shali Kot. If the Americans weren't careful, their generosity could create more problems for them than solutions. also meant "gold." These were ancient reasons for strife that hadn't gone out of style in Naray and Shali Kot. If the Americans weren't careful, their generosity could create more problems for them than solutions.35 Nothing about this country was simple. The population of Kolenda's total area of operations in northern Kunar and eastern Nuristan included at least four of Afghanistan's many ethnic groups, including Pashtuns and Nuristanis. And then there were the political divisions. The villages of Barikot and Naray had ties to the National Islamic Front, a mujahideen party that had been active during the Soviet war, while the Kamdesh elders had long-established links to the rival HIG. The local leader of the National Islamic Front loathed HIG's founder, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and the feeling was mutual. Thus, even more than a decade after the Soviets' withdrawal, the Kom Nuristanis living in Naray and the Kom Nuristanis in Kamdesh District were stuck in the clutch of a blood feud. Of course, the religious differences were complicated as well-the several strains of Sunni Islam in the region, for instance, disagreed about the relative importance of certain texts and the role to be played by the mullahs. At the far end of the spectrum was the fanatical Islam being pushed by the Taliban and some of the more extreme seminaries, or madra.s.sas.

Kolenda considered it his duty to understand all of this. He studied the distinctions and the similarities among the various groups and sects, keeping in his head a sort of Venn diagram that looked like a spilled case of Slinkys-which he knew could ultimately make the difference between life and death for his men.

The 3-71 Cav staff officers, immediately impressed with Kolenda during their overlap in May, had referred to him as "The Big Brain." They found his calm demeanor and inquisitive nature a refreshing change from the personal qualities of the man he was replacing, their own squadron leader, whom they called, behind his back, Howard the Tyrant. Kolenda, a Nebraska native, hadn't been satisfied with just an undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy, so he'd gone on to earn master of arts degrees in modern European history, from the University of Wisconsin, and in national security and strategic studies, from the U.S. Naval War College.

In 2001, the Army War College Foundation Press had published a book he'd edited, Leadership: The Warrior's Art, Leadership: The Warrior's Art, which contained essays by military thinkers, including Kolenda himself, on lessons of leadership gleaned throughout the ages. "The most effective leaders are able to motivate people... not by appealing to fear and interest alone (the 'transactional' approach), but by appealing to ideas more lasting, more meaningful, and ultimately more human," he wrote. In another essay, he examined ideas articulated on the topic by Aristotle, Cicero, Plato, and Xenophon, arguing that the best leaders were those who valued independent thought and individual initiative. In a third piece, he took a critical look at Alexander the Great. which contained essays by military thinkers, including Kolenda himself, on lessons of leadership gleaned throughout the ages. "The most effective leaders are able to motivate people... not by appealing to fear and interest alone (the 'transactional' approach), but by appealing to ideas more lasting, more meaningful, and ultimately more human," he wrote. In another essay, he examined ideas articulated on the topic by Aristotle, Cicero, Plato, and Xenophon, arguing that the best leaders were those who valued independent thought and individual initiative. In a third piece, he took a critical look at Alexander the Great.

And now here Kolenda was, literally following in Alexander's footsteps, though this was his first time ever commanding on the field of battle. It was a h.e.l.l of a place for him to make the transition from the world of theory to brutal reality.

Alex Newsom would have been happy to leave the men of departing 3-71 Cav alone, but he and his 3rd Platoon had been posted to Combat Outpost Kamu and needed some guidance on the terrain and the people. The thing was, the 3-71 troops had been at Kamu for only a few weeks themselves and thus didn't have much to offer. What they did know, they shared, but by now they were running on fumes. Indeed, Newsom had never seen American soldiers more burnt out, emotionally and physically, than the guys from 3-71 Cav at Camp Kamu. They'd lost friends and leaders, including Ben Keating, Jared Monti, and Joe Fenty; they'd had their tour extended to almost sixteen months; they were dead-eyed and pale.

After the men of 3rd Platoon were dropped off by chopper on May 18, their seats were occupied by members of 3-71 Cav on their way out. Newsom had with him his platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Cla.s.s Rodney O'Dell, Staff Sergeant John Faulkenberry, and a couple of dozen others. It was ridiculous: they hadn't even been issued maps for their new area of operations. The day before, Newsom had frantically dashed around the office buildings at Bagram Air Base, eventually prevailing upon a private to hand over his own rather shabby map indicating the location of Combat Outpost Kamu. Such was the level of preparedness they had going in.

The residents of Kamdesh Valley were still growing accustomed to the idea of having an American presence in their midst. Many locals seemed confused by the new cast of characters, and a number approached Newsom to ask for money that they felt was owed them-for fields ruined by chopper landings, for rental fees for King Zahir's former hunting lodge (now used as part of Combat Outpost Kamu), and on and on. Newsom had no funds to hand over, so he had to do some talking-"Give me some time, and we'll figure this out," he pleaded-but that got him only so far. Soon some of the locals began making veiled threats: if they didn't get paid, bad things would happen. One elder lifted the veil and said straight up to Newsom, "You are going to be ambushed very soon."

Combat Outpost Keating was spartan when Tom Bostick took command in May 2007. The bunkers were bare-bones. There was a junkyard on the grounds, and at the southern edge of the outpost were a burn pit for refuse and a tent that served as the maintenance bay. Nearby, troops urinated in "p.i.s.s-tubes" and defecated in latrines built over fifty-five-gallon drums cut in half, whose contents would each day be burned using JP-8, the military's kerosene-based fuel. The ignited latrines smelled horrid, fouling the air. Walking in through the front gate, the new arrivals would see, off in the distance to their right, in the southwestern corner of the camp, a small wooden structure; that was the gym. Turning left, or east, as they entered the grounds, they'd pa.s.s a bunker on their left, with the mortar pit on their right. The aid station and sleep quarters for 1st Platoon had been constructed adjacent to the former Afghan Department of Forestry building. To their right sat the bunks for 2nd and 3rd Platoons, alongside a site designated for a future morale, welfare, and recreation center, with s.p.a.ce for storage on the upper floor and sleeping quarters for transient personnel on the lower.

A view of Combat Outpost Keating from the east, May 2007. (Photo courtesy of Bulldog Troop) (Photo courtesy of Bulldog Troop)

Continuing east, next came a newly constructed command post and sleep quarters for Headquarters Platoon, followed by the old Afghan National Police station, and then finally, at the far eastern edge of the outpost, right by the road, some huts for the Afghan National Army company.

Inevitably, new troops would tilt their heads back and take in the peaks looming over them. The southern mountain rose almost right from the border-or "wire"-of Combat Outpost Keating. Somewhere up there were Observation Post Warheit and Kamdesh Village, though neither was visible from the outpost. Those on the base could see, to the west on that southern mountain, the "Switchbacks," as the path running back and forth up the steep slopes was known, from whose track insurgents would sometimes fire.

On the other side of the Landay-Sin River from the camp stood two mountains, one to the northwest, closer to Urmul, and one more directly to the north. The enemy lurked in specific spots there as well, ones so frequently used that the troops of 3-71 Cav had come up with nicknames for them, which they pa.s.sed on to their successors with 1-91 Cav: the Putting Green was a patch of gra.s.s on the mountain to the northwest, and the Northface was straight north. A Marine serving with 1-91 Cav, training ANA troops at the camp, dubbed an area southwest of the outpost the Diving Board. Bostick ordered that construction continue on two additional "hard-stand" buildings, made of concrete and rock and able to withstand a blast. He also directed that a mosque be built on the base.

In early June, Captain Bostick drove the six miles from Camp Keating to Combat Outpost Kamu to check the place out. Newsom had briefed him on 3rd Platoon's activities there: patrols that were generally uneventful, a few shura meetings held with elders in Mirdesh and Kamu. The chief elder in Kamu was a retired Afghan Army colonel named Jamil Khan, a man in his late sixties with a huge white cloud of a beard and a significantly disabled arm, who could nonetheless outpace any of the nineteen- or twenty-year-old U.S. troops when they hiked up and down the mountain trails with him. Newsom liked Khan, who eschewed the typical "You're an American, give me money" school of Afghan leadership. He seemed to have a real sense of military pride and patriotism. He also had a checkered past, according to many: as a colonel in the Afghan Communist Army, Khan had fought against and been defeated by members of the local Kom community, who viewed him as a turncoat. There were various stories floating around about what had happened to his arm: some said he'd been wounded in combat, others that he'd been caught in bed with another man's wife. The one thing the Americans were fairly sure of, in June 2007, was that Jamil Khan was just about the only friend they had in the area.

When he met with his new commander, Newsom had a makeshift cast around his right hand, which he had fractured but not told anyone about. He was supposed to inform Bostick about such things, it was true, but in this instance there was good reason for his reticence: he'd broken his hand on the head of Habibullah, an ANA soldier, with whom he'd gotten into a scuffle one evening when the Afghan was stoned out of his mind and became confrontational. Now, however, Newsom had even worse news to impart: he had heard from the Kamu elders that the school the Americans had built for the kids of Kamu and Mirdesh was a nonstarter, since the parents from each village refused to allow their children to be in cla.s.s with the children from the other village. The residents of Kamu and Mirdesh had each wanted their own school, and they all felt the Americans hadn't delivered. Moreover, in spite of the poverty of the region, the United States hadn't hired locals to build the new facility. In what might have been the only example of coordinated activity between the two villages in decades, insurgents from Kamu and Mirdesh had been taking turns vandalizing and attacking the building. And this was far from the only evidence of local displeasure with Americans in general. The officers of 3-71 Cav had done their best to make sure their replacements knew what promises they'd made, but the Nuristanis invented many additional ones. These allegedly broken promises fueled a mounting sense of insult and inspired additional threats of revenge.

So Newsom's broken hand was nothing, really-the other breaks were bigger.

The Americans had many names for the insurgents. Officers called them ACMs, short for "anticoalition militias," but that was just the latest acronym circulating on memos from the Pentagon, soon to be replaced by "AAFs," for "anti-Afghan forces." Some officers blandly spoke of them as just "the enemy" or "fighters." Another word sometimes used was dushman, dushman, a noun of Persian origin meaning, again, "enemy." "Bad guys" was often the shorthand translation; there was almost a comic quality to that term, implying a return to a simpler, childlike, black-and-white view of a world that didn't bear much resemblance to the Americans' new home in Nuristan. The Cavalry officers instructed their troops to avoid using religious nicknames, forbidding them from calling the enemy a noun of Persian origin meaning, again, "enemy." "Bad guys" was often the shorthand translation; there was almost a comic quality to that term, implying a return to a simpler, childlike, black-and-white view of a world that didn't bear much resemblance to the Americans' new home in Nuristan. The Cavalry officers instructed their troops to avoid using religious nicknames, forbidding them from calling the enemy hajis, hajis, which in Islam is a term of reverence for those who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Also prohibited were which in Islam is a term of reverence for those who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Also prohibited were muj, muj, short for short for mujahideen, mujahideen, and and jihadi, jihadi, from the same root. In Afghanistan, those words were used to refer to the revered mujahideen who had fought the Soviets (and who at the time had been funded by the United States). Calling the insurgents mujahideen would also imply that they had some religious justification for their attacks. It cannot be said that no one ever used these names, or worse, but such language was officially not permitted. from the same root. In Afghanistan, those words were used to refer to the revered mujahideen who had fought the Soviets (and who at the time had been funded by the United States). Calling the insurgents mujahideen would also imply that they had some religious justification for their attacks. It cannot be said that no one ever used these names, or worse, but such language was officially not permitted.

Many soldiers just called them f.u.c.kers.

Bostick had intended to return to Combat Outpost Keating after his visit, taking Newsom's platoon back with him and leaving the platoon from Legion Company (to which the late Jacob Lowell had belonged) at Kamu in its place, but a flurry of new intelligence reports suggesting that the enemy was planning to overrun Combat Outpost Kamu put an end to that plan. The captain needed to stay.

On June 6, the lone local worker at the Kamu outpost failed to show up for work. Bostick radioed Kolenda in Naray, and they discussed the need to prepare for an attack; they planned to send out two platoons. Bostick then briefed his men and listened as Newsom and his platoon sergeant, Rodney O'Dell, both eager to get in the fight, spent half an hour bickering like brothers about which one of them would lead 3rd Platoon into the mountains. Ultimately, O'Dell won out. Newsom would help command from the base with half of the platoon, which would be at the ready as a reserve force.

O'Dell and his half platoon left for the mountain, with orders both to watch over the area and to find a mountain path from Combat Outpost Kamu to Camp Keating so they and the rest of 3rd Platoon could avoid the dangerous road if need be. The platoon from Legion Company moved to take the lower ground. Newsom and Bostick sat on the rooftop of the hunting lodge with their interpreter and other officers, monitoring enemy traffic on the radio. The insurgents were speaking in Nuristani and Pashto and a third language that none of them could discern. For a time, the chatter was fairly vague. Then, in an instant, it got specific.

"We see them in position," an insurgent announced.

Newsom radioed O'Dell and pa.s.sed on the translation.

"When the Americans get here, we will attack them, and they will fall off this cliff," another insurgent said.

Bostick ordered Sergeant Mark Speight, in charge of the mortars at Combat Outpost Kamu, to have his men fire their 120-millimeter mortars into the hills, targeting the suspected general area where the enemy fighters might be, partly in hopes of learning more about their position: the incoming fire would cause the insurgents to talk, Bostick reasoned, and possibly to reveal some information about their location. (They didn't seem to realize that the Americans could listen in to their radio transmissions.) The mortarmen fired, and Legion Platoon, on the low ground, a.s.sessed where the ordnance had landed. O'Dell and his troops, on the high ground, fired with their M4 carbine rifles in the general direction of where the mortars had landed. Enemy gunfire erupted as a large element of forty or so fighters began conducting a complex maneuver that brought the whole force down the hill toward O'Dell's patrol, with smaller groups providing cover for one another. O'Dell and his troops took cover, returning fire with their M4 carbines. One enemy shot found its mark, hitting a rifleman, Sergeant Wayne Baird; the bullet entered Baird's forearm, traveled through his arm, and blew out his tricep as it exited his body.

O'Dell radioed in the WIA-the soldier "wounded in action." The bullet had hit an artery, and Baird was bleeding out; he would need a medevac. Other of O'Dell's troops stabilized the injured sergeant, trying to calm him down and prepare him for the move down the hill. In a valley-a disorienting, vulnerable, echoing s.p.a.ce,-it can be hard to tell where enemy fire is coming from, but it seemed clear that the enemy was firing upon the patrol from the hillsides to the south and southwest of the base. "We need to reinforce the platoon element up in the hills," Bostick told Newsom.

The enemy fire abated a bit after mortars began raining upon the area where the Americans now knew the insurgents were, allowing some of Baird's fellow troops to help him back toward Combat Outpost Kamu. Newsom and his half of 3rd Platoon grabbed medical supplies and started running up the hill to meet them. Newsom wasn't planning to go far; Bostick and the others back at the hunting lodge would be able to see his and his men's general position.

Up on the hill, Newsom spotted two insurgents some distance away, hiding behind rocks and getting into sniper positions. Just at that moment, two A-10 Warthogs arrived at the outpost.

"I got aircraft here," Bostick radioed up to Newsom. "I'm gonna give 'em to you. Whaddaya got?"

"I got targets," Newsom told Bostick, then provided the relevant coordinates. The A-10s fired and hit their marks. Nothing was left of the insurgents who had been there but a second before.

Bostick also called in an emergency resupply, since 3rd Platoon was getting dangerously low on ammo. Within thirty minutes, a Black Hawk and two Apaches had flown in from Naray. As the Black Hawk pa.s.sed by him, Newsom saw a ma.s.s of muzzle flashes from the northern northern side of the mountain. This was a shock. He and Bostick knew the enemy was to the south, but they'd had no idea a whole mess of insurgents were on the northern side as well. s.h.i.t, Newsom thought. Because their guns weren't powerful enough in and of themselves to bring down a bird, the insurgents were trying a tactic that Newsom had read about but never before seen, called volley fire: by ama.s.sing the fire of many small arms, the shooters hoped to replicate the effect of a larger weapon. It was another clear sign of discipline and training, if not of the presence of other, more sophisticated enemy fighters. side of the mountain. This was a shock. He and Bostick knew the enemy was to the south, but they'd had no idea a whole mess of insurgents were on the northern side as well. s.h.i.t, Newsom thought. Because their guns weren't powerful enough in and of themselves to bring down a bird, the insurgents were trying a tactic that Newsom had read about but never before seen, called volley fire: by ama.s.sing the fire of many small arms, the shooters hoped to replicate the effect of a larger weapon. It was another clear sign of discipline and training, if not of the presence of other, more sophisticated enemy fighters.

The Black Hawk landed under fire. The ordnance-mainly a critical supply of 120-millimeter mortars-was quickly offloaded, and the helicopter flew away. But the insurgents didn't stop there; now they started firing at Combat Outpost Kamu, where Bostick was still trying to figure out exactly what was going on.

"Break, break, Bulldog-Six," Newsom said, interrupting the radio chatter, "we see them. What are your recs?"

"I'm going to give you the hundred-and-five-millimeter, and you call it in," Bostick replied.

The 105-millimeter was a long-range howitzer located at Combat Outpost Lybert, approximately ten miles to the east of Kamu. Newsom, O'Dell, and forward observer Specialist Brett Johnson started working up coordinates to call in, using a hundred-thousand-meter grid square for the area. When they were ready, they radioed the six-digit grid coordinates, but the first rounds ended up being wildly inaccurate, landing about eight hundred yards too far to the left. Newsom called Bostick and relayed the bad news. The men at Combat Outpost Lybert fired again; these rounds. .h.i.t eight hundred yards too far to the right.

"What the f.u.c.k is going on?" Newsom snapped.

Bostick wanted to know the same, and he started hounding Newsom over the radio.

"What the h.e.l.l are you calling in?" he asked.

"I know what the h.e.l.l I'm doing," Newsom said. "This is not me me."

With the 105-millimeter not functioning properly-it would later be discovered that there was a technical problem with the weapon-the return of the A-10 Warthog jets was a welcome sight. It was getting dark now, and the Warthogs fired white-phosphorous marking rounds at enemy positions.

The chatter picked up on the insurgents' radio frequency; Newsom listened with his interpreter.

"You okay?" one insurgent asked another, presumably one of the targets.

"Yes, I'm all right, they're shooting below me," came the answer.

The A-10 circled around. Newsom told the pilot, "Try fifty yards higher."

The Warthog fired.

A minute later, the enemy chatter started again: "You all right?"

"Yes, but they're getting closer."

Newsom told the pilot to aim fifty yards higher again.

Fire.