The Outpost An Untold Story Of American Valor Part 30

As an intelligence collector, Gilberto could speak with informants and pay sources, whereas Schulz, as an intelligence a.n.a.lyst, a.n.a.lyst, was forbidden to do either of those things. But for much of September, Gilberto was still at Barg-e-Matal, where he'd been a.s.signed several months before, so COP Keating was without a clique of patiently a.s.sembled local informants. Fire-support officer Shrode had stepped in to try to fill the breach; since he was also involved in paying contractors for the few development projects that were still in progress, he had the authority to deal with locals and pay them. was forbidden to do either of those things. But for much of September, Gilberto was still at Barg-e-Matal, where he'd been a.s.signed several months before, so COP Keating was without a clique of patiently a.s.sembled local informants. Fire-support officer Shrode had stepped in to try to fill the breach; since he was also involved in paying contractors for the few development projects that were still in progress, he had the authority to deal with locals and pay them.

Earlier in the month, after hearing that the Taliban had held a meeting in a nearby village to discuss a potential future attack on the outpost, Schulz and Shrode had requested an unmanned Predator drone to help them keep an eye on events in their area. That request, however, was rejected by commanders at Regional Command East in Bagram, who prioritized demands on surveillance a.s.sets for other missions, particularly at Barg-e-Matal. Shrode and others discussed using the Raven UAV (short for "unmanned aerial vehicle") they had on base. Weighing a mere five pounds and flown by remote control, the Raven looked almost like a toy airplane, though the whole system cost about a quarter of a million dollars, and the craft had a range of more than six miles. The Raven, though, was not especially effective in the powerful winds common to Nuristan's mountain ranges; in this situation, the odds were that it would be blown off course and would have to be recovered by 3-61 Cav troops. Without a Predator, they were stuck.

Toward the end of September, Gilberto returned to Combat Outpost Keating. Rumors of future enemy attacks were always coming in to the outpost, but now the intel collector noticed a definite uptick in such warnings. The nearby Afghan National Police station, for instance, received a letter from the local Taliban advising policemen to stay away from the station because an attack on Camp Keating was imminent.

Gilberto shared the intelligence with Schulz and Portis, and they discussed the best next steps to take. One warning referred to an a.s.sault planned for dawn the next day, so Portis ordered Black Knight Troop to increase security; dawn broke, but nothing happened. It was terrifically difficult to know which tips to take seriously. Per protocol, Gilberto sent each draft intelligence report up to his team leader at Forward Operating Base Bostick, but for some reason, he didn't see most of these reports included in the squadron's daily intelligence summary.

Likewise, information acc.u.mulated at the squadron and brigade levels never made its way down to Combat Outpost Keating. In retrospect, there were plenty of clues that the enemy had something serious in the works. On September 23, one source informed the Americans, insurgents from Kamdesh, Mirdesh, and other communities met in Mandigal. A different source said that half of the insurgents were from Nuristan and the other half from Pakistan, where they were a.s.sociated with Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the largest Islamist terrorist groups in South Asia. Yet another source told the Americans that "there are still issues between HIG and TB [Taliban] but for the purposes of attacking Keating they will work together." One local testified that insurgents in Mandigal had 107-millimeter rockets and ten suicide bombers. Another said there were more than two hundred fighters planning on attacking Camp Keating. On Tuesday, September 29, "a large number of people" were reported to be gathering in Lower Kamdesh for an attack on Combat Outpost Keating and Observation Post Fritsche. A report from October 2 stated that thirty to thirty-five men then in Barg-e-Matal were "planning to attack COP Keating... and COP Lowell with in the week." The a.s.sault force would be made up of locals with RPGs as well as "suicide attackers."

None of this information reached Gilberto and the others at the outpost because at the time, all of these truths were scattered among bushels of lies, gossip, nonsense, misunderstandings, and plans that were never carried out. At the higher levels, largely due to concerns about information oversaturation, such intelligence reports were not widely disseminated: since n.o.body had the time or the expertise to sift through the bycatch, blanket decisions had to be made that kept intelligence from reaching the field. Too much information can be as worthless as none-that was a lesson of 9/11, and it would soon be a lesson of Combat Outpost Keating as well.

Faruq's father, a sheep and goat herder in the community of Lowluk, had died when his son was eight. The boy's maternal uncle took him under his wing and sent him to a local madra.s.sa, where clerics who subscribed to fundamentalist Salafi Islam instructed him in the Quran and how to be a good Muslim. Many of these clerics had been trained in special camps that were funded with money from Saudi Arabia and at the very least tolerated by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency and its military. Part of the camps' purpose was to create holy warriors who would wage war against the Indians in Kashmir. But after the United States attacked Afghanistan in October 2001, mullahs at Faruq's mosque began preaching that the infidels had now arrived in their homeland to impose their beliefs on and divide the Afghan people. They were not to be trusted, Faruq was told: when they invaded your country, you were obligated to defend yourself and Islam, to help your Muslim brothers.

In 2007, when he was eighteen, Faruq had traveled to the Waygal Valley, where he met Mullah Abdul Rahman Mustaghni, the local Taliban commander whom the 6-4 Cav had referred to as "Bad" Abdul Rahman. Rahman told Faruq that a Taliban fighter's only job was to attack Americans, then to sleep, then to wake and attack Americans again. He operated under the command of the "shadow governor" of Nuristan, the Taliban leader Mullah Dost Mohammad.

Faruq had been following Rahman for two years. Barg-e-Matal was their home base, but they traveled throughout the area. Every week, sometimes every day, they would fire at Americans, with rockets, with guns, with RPGs. Eventually, they were given more powerful weapons by their friends across the border in Pakistan, including heavy machine guns and mortars.

Among Faruq's fellow fighters was one from the local village of Pitigal. Ishranullah's father had been killed years before, in a tribal dispute. At the age of ten, Ishranullah, like Faruq, was sent to a madra.s.sa, this one across the border in Peshawar, a major transit zone between Afghanistan and Pakistan. There he became devout and learned about the "injustices" committed by foreigners. As a Taliban fighter, he also came to hate the Afghan National Army, believing its soldiers to be just as treacherous as the infidels, guilty of spilling the blood of other Muslims while claiming to believe in Allah.

Faruq and Ishranullah were just two out of hundreds of local fighters in an insurgency that was gaining strength in Nuristan. They fought the Americans in Barg-e-Matal and fired upon them at Camp Keating and Observation Post Fritsche. Many came from Kamdesh Village and nearby settlements such as Mandigal, Agasi, and Agro. They did what they were told. And in September 2009, their commanders and Nuristan's Taliban "shadow governor, Dost Mohammed, began planning something truly catastrophic for the Americans, something that would put the Taliban in Nuristan on the map.

By this point, President Obama and White House officials thought they had successfully wrested control of the Afghanistan debate from the men with the bars and stars-McChrystal, Mullen, and Petraeus. Come the end of September, the public and the media would focus on a series of meetings the president had with his "war council"-a large deliberative body made up of top national security advisers, military and civilian, who were to help guide Obama's decision-making about what to do next in Afghanistan and Pakistan. McChrystal was a member of the team, beamed in from Kabul on secure video teleconference, but he was just one of many.

On October 1, McChrystal spoke at the International Inst.i.tute for Strategic Studies, in London, about the options in Afghanistan. His written speech had been approved through all the proper channels. During the question-and-answer period, he made it clear that he favored sending more troops to that country and maintaining a long-term presence there. The general was asked if he would be happy if within two years, Afghanistan could be handled through a counterterrorist approach, with drone missile strikes and smaller Special Forces teams-which, everyone knew, was the approach favored by Vice President Biden and other top presidential advisers. "The short, glib answer is 'No,' " McChrystal replied. "A strategy that does not leave Afghanistan in a stable position is probably a shortsighted strategy."

McChrystal's remark was immediately seized upon by reporters as yet another shot fired in the Obama-versus-McChrystal troop showdown. White House officials were divided on the question of whether McChrystal was somewhat naive or downright manipulative. This wasn't some offhand comment made to a reporter who happened to catch him in a mess hall at Bagram; McChrystal had flown to London, delivered a speech, and taken questions. And all the while, he was enjoying a spate of positive media: a profile on 60 Minutes 60 Minutes had just aired, and a major story for the had just aired, and a major story for the New York Times Magazine New York Times Magazine was in the works. The truth was that media coverage of the speech unfairly inflamed the matter, portraying McChrystal as having personally gone after Vice President Biden, and incorrectly reporting that he had referred to Biden's plan as a proposal for "Chaos-istan," when in fact the general had used that term specifically in reference to another study altogether. was in the works. The truth was that media coverage of the speech unfairly inflamed the matter, portraying McChrystal as having personally gone after Vice President Biden, and incorrectly reporting that he had referred to Biden's plan as a proposal for "Chaos-istan," when in fact the general had used that term specifically in reference to another study altogether.

McChrystal had gone to London to help bolster Britain's support for the war. When later asked about his comments at the International Inst.i.tute for Strategic Studies, he said that he'd intended to fully endorse President Obama's stated policy as well as the deliberative process the president had commenced, and after the event, he'd felt he had succeeded in doing that. He was shocked when his remarks were interpreted as criticism of the vice president-in some reports, falsely so. But at this stage in the story, the truth was almost an afterthought: in politics, be they parochial or international, perception generally becomes reality.

During his predecessor's term, President Obama had heard members of the Bush administration say, again and again, that they were listening to the commanders in the field. He didn't much care for that. First, it wasn't true: the Bush administration had constantly overruled generals' requests for more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Second, President Obama firmly believed that the commander in chief had to be the one who set the mission. Now he was getting fed up with what was coming his way from the generals across the Potomac River and in Kabul. Their campaign was impeding a deliberative process, and the president would not be rolled.

On October 2, President Obama flew to Denmark to try to help his adopted hometown of Chicago win its bid for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. (His effort failed; the nod went to Rio de Janeiro instead.) He summoned McChrystal to meet with him on Air Force One as it sat on the tarmac at Copenhagen Airport. For twenty-five minutes, one on one, the President made it clear to the general: We're going to do this through our process, not via speeches or public relations. He told McChrystal that it looked untoward for him to be out there running an active media campaign while his commander in chief was attempting to make a resource decision. He also described the process that he wanted to pursue, in which he-the commander in chief-would review the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the nation's objectives in those two hot spots, and overall U.S. strategy. The general responded that he was entirely dedicated to the mission at hand. It wouldn't be accurate to describe McChrystal as contrite, but the president believed McChrystal left their meeting more on the same page with him-and determined to keep a lower profile.80 The degree to which the p.r.i.c.kliness between the two men over the previous six months had affected the American evacuation of Camp Keating can't be precisely determined. McChrystal's remark to Colonel George, about not wanting to close the bases in Nuristan prematurely for fear of getting ahead of the president, indicated that he was sensitive to the uncomfortable perceptions that had arisen. By the time of McChrystal's London speech, plans were finally under way to close the camp, but the withdrawal date had already been postponed by some months. The damage had been done.

CHAPTER 29

Elevator Ride

It was a dilemma: Radio Kamdesh's transmission tower and broadcasting devices were expensive pieces of equipment, but shipping them out would require even more helicopter sorties, draining even more resources. Portis was in favor of either abandoning or destroying it all. Brown and George wanted to reuse the apparatus, concerned that if it was left behind, the Taliban would commandeer it and utilize it for their own propaganda.

On September 29, the argument was resolved by G.o.d: lightning struck the radio tower and blew it apart.

On October 1, Portis and the leaders of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds-Lieutenant Salentine and Staff Sergeant Kirk Birchfield-hopped on a helicopter headed for Observation Post Fritsche. The men at Camp Keating called such quick journeys to the top of the southern mountain elevator rides. The attack that Afghan National Police chief Shamsullah had warned of had not happened, but Portis still wanted to find out whatever he could, and he thought some of the folks in Kamdesh Village might be able to help him. He was also hoping to meet with some Kamdesh elders so he could learn more about the HIGTaliban agreement to cooperate. But his main reason for this elevator ride was inventory: he was looking for equipment, knowing what sticklers Army bureaucrats were.

The men had originally planned to walk up the mountain, but then Salentine noted that the chopper was going up to Fritsche anyway, so what the h.e.l.l, why shouldn't shouldn't they just take an elevator ride? It was hard to argue with that logic. Portis walked in to the operations center and told Bundermann and Shrode where he was going; while he was gone, Bundermann would be in charge of ground forces, and Shrode would supervise the implementation of close air support and mortars. they just take an elevator ride? It was hard to argue with that logic. Portis walked in to the operations center and told Bundermann and Shrode where he was going; while he was gone, Bundermann would be in charge of ground forces, and Shrode would supervise the implementation of close air support and mortars.

The trip from Keating to Fritsche normally took just a matter of seconds, but on this occasion, an insurgent fired on the bird. He scored a direct hit.

"The fuel line's been shot out," said the pilot, who immediately took evasive action and left the valley in the rearview mirror, taking with him Portis, Salentine, and Birchfield. They soon enough landed at Forward Operating Base Bostick, safe but disconcertingly far from their troops. Whether or not he meant to do so, the enemy had succeeded in once again depriving the men of Camp Keating of their commander.

"Bad" Abdul Rahman had wanted to attack Combat Outpost Keating on September 30, but he knew that spies had tipped off the Americans. So he waited.

Hundreds of Taliban warriors had been living in the mountains, watching and waiting to pounce. They saw that despite having been tipped off, the Americans did not bring in more troops or equipment to fortify the base.

Rahman noticed, too, and decided that no more patience was required. They would attack before dawn on Sat.u.r.day, October 3.

On the night of October 2, Jonathan Hill and Eric Harder zoned out in the barracks, watching a Time-Life doc.u.mentary about World War II. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds complained a lot, but G.o.d, it would have been awful to be in World War II, they agreed. Down in the dirt, with no shoes, the Americans got shredded by German artillery as they stormed the beaches of Normandy. "Those guys basically walked into the valley of h.e.l.l," Hill said.

They made similar observations about Vietnam after they popped in a bootleg DVD of Apocalypse Now Apocalypse Now. It was a little trippier than the actual footage from World War II, of course, especially the part where the deranged Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore told his men it was safe to surf in the Nung River, even as they were taking artillery rounds from the Viet Cong.

After watching both DVDs from start to finish, Hill and Harder called it a night.

Specialist Michael Scusa and Specialist Mark Dulaney were up until about 2:00 a.m., shooting the breeze and talking about their plans. Per usual, Scusa wouldn't stop gabbing about his son, Connor, and how big he was getting. Sometimes the guys would tell Scusa to shut up about his wife and son already, but he wouldn't.

Specialist Michael Scusa. (Photo courtesy of Jon Hill) (Photo courtesy of Jon Hill)

When Scusa entered the Army, he looked so young-with his thick gla.s.ses and boyish face-that the first thing his sergeant told him was that he seemed like he was wearing his big brother's uniform. One of his fellow joes in the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, Specialist Jonathan Adams, thought of Scusa as having walked right out of a remake of Revenge of the Nerds, Revenge of the Nerds, he was so awkward and dorky. But they all came to respect his calm, measured approach to combat, his kindness, and his work ethic. And his devotion to his family: Scusa was going on leave in a few days and couldn't wait to see his wife, Alyssa, his mother, and his little boy. he was so awkward and dorky. But they all came to respect his calm, measured approach to combat, his kindness, and his work ethic. And his devotion to his family: Scusa was going on leave in a few days and couldn't wait to see his wife, Alyssa, his mother, and his little boy.

He and Dulaney were planning on applying for the Warrant Officer Flight Training program, and while on leave, Scusa intended to get some books that the two of them could use to study for the admissions test. They would be Army pilots together, remaining in a combat arms environment but no longer based in h.e.l.lholes like Camp Keating.

Noor Din was a truck driver when the Taliban fell in 2001. After that, he signed up to become a police officer to help his country. Din saw Nuristanis rejoice at the arrival of the development dollars that the United States spread around for roads and schools. He also saw Nuristan and the local Kamdesh District become a battlefield as the American presence was challenged by insurgent groups. He saw the grief, the anger, when U.S. troops killed innocent Nuristanis. Their apologies-whether in the form of words or cash-were never enough.

As a police officer, Din tried to help the Americans. For years, he told the U.S. soldiers every time he heard about an imminent attack. The information would come to him from locals, and sometimes he would pick it up while listening to walkie-talkie chatter. Whatever intelligence he could muster, he would share: which village the insurgents were coming from, which spot on which mountain they were plan to fire from.

This attack had been coming for days, he knew-ever since word spread that Camp Keating would soon be closing. At that moment, the clock had started ticking down.

And now here it was, zero hour.

The Taliban fighters came to Urmul in the dead of night. The women and children of Urmul fled, as did many of the men, after being cautioned not to alert the American soldiers in the camp just a few hundred yards away. "We don't have any problems with you," the insurgents told the villagers. "We have a problem with the Americans."

At 4:00 a.m. on October 3, 2009, close to three hundred mujahideen-led by "Bad" Abdul Rahman and scattered over the three mountains and throughout the village of Urmul-turned to Mecca and conducted morning prayers. Then they grabbed their guns and got into position.

Faruq and some others went to the Afghan National Police station about a hundred yards to the northwest, outside Combat Outpost Keating. The insurgents shot and killed two policemen; the third policeman on duty fled. The enemy fighters set up a base there. Other mujahideen went to the Urmul mosque. Many more were still in the mountains, where pine, cedar, fir, and oak trees stood like sentries, providing the Taliban plenty of cover. Fifty-three Americans were in the camp. Most would be sleeping. Maybe ten or fifteen would be on guard.

Ishranullah lurked in the hills, excited. On a number of occasions in the past, he'd been disappointed when the Taliban ran out of ammunition and couldn't do anything for weeks. This was not one of those times. The Taliban had truckloads of ammunition. This attack had been planned and coordinated for weeks.

"There were a lot of foot soldiers from all the surrounding villages," a man from Nuristan would later remember. "Each village volunteered a bunch of soldiers. They thought they were doing jihad, that COP Keating was occupying their land, occupying their area. They thought they were doing a service to their area. They were very, very proud.

"They thought, Let's send a message. The message was: Tell the United States you don't mess with us. It was a suicide mission; a lot of the fighters knew they weren't coming back."

Those who weren't involved knew they'd better make themselves scarce if they wanted to live to see another day. As the sun started to rise on the valley and the mujahideen prepared to attack, Noor Din, the police officer, left Urmul and fled north to Mandigal. He did not warn the Americans.

Din's boss did. Afghan National Police chief Shamsullah approached the camp and spoke with an interpreter whom the U.S. troops referred to as "Ron Jeremy" because of his resemblance to that mustachioed adult-film star.

Red Platoon was responsible for guard duty that night. Shortly before 6:00 a.m., the new shift relieved the guys who had been on watch since midnight. Private First Cla.s.s Nicholas Davidson came a few minutes early to replace Corporal Justin Gregory near the camp's entry control point, in the gun turret of the tower of the shura building. Gregory was giving Davidson the lowdown-"There are fresh batteries in the radios, the ammunition is over here"-when Ron Jeremy ran over to them.

"The Taliban are here!" he said, urgency in his voice. "They're coming!"

Gregory grabbed the radio and called the tactical operations center. "Hey, TOC, this is ECP," he said-short for "entry control point."

"Yeah?" responded Private First Cla.s.s Jordan Wong, the radio operator for the camp's headquarters.

"Ron Jeremy just ran in and said Taliban are here," Gregory announced. "You got anything on cameras?" There were PTZ ("pan, tilt, and zoom") security cameras all around the borders of the camp, sending feeds to the operations center.

"I'll check it out," said Wong.

Ron Jeremy then ran to the operations center, where he approached Sergeant Jayson Souter, the Headquarters Platoon NCO in charge of fire support.

"The police chief just came to the gate and told me there are four hundred Taliban hiding around the camp, and they're getting ready to attack!" the interpreter exclaimed.

Souter pa.s.sed the word to Staff Sergeant James Stanley, who was relieving Sergeant Gallegos as sergeant of the guard. Stanley then radioed the news to everyone on guard.

Ron Jeremy next ran over to Staff Sergeant Kevin Daise, who was sitting by the burning barrels near the latrines. "Hey, Sergeant Daise," he said. "The locals said the Taliban kicked them out of town."

"Okay," Daise replied. But how seriously was he supposed to take this warning? There had been so many false alarms over the past few months.

After telling him that the enemy was in Urmul, Ron Jeremy proceeded into the latrines to hide.

"Allahu Akbar," the holy warriors said as they prepared their mortars, their B-10 recoilless rifles, their RPGs, their Dushkas.

G.o.d is great.

Declared one insurgent in the hills, in his own tongue, "The prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, says if you throw an arrow toward the enemy, it is as good as freeing a slave for the sake of Allah."

They recorded these and other exclamations on video, for later posting on YouTube, as part of their propaganda campaign.

"We are ready with the help of Allah," said another. "Bring me the ammunition."

Five fifty-eight a.m.

It began.

CHAPTER 30

"Wish Me Luck"

The mortar pit didn't have a computer, so in these early-morning hours Daniel Rodriguez had to go elsewhere to work on the online correspondence course he was taking to earn points for a promotion. Since he was friends with Docs Cordova and Courville, he headed for the computer at the aid station. Cordova was studying calculus and physics online through Pikes Peak Community College, but this morning, he was slacking: he was in his bunk, having dozed off while reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers Outliers. Rodriguez spent a while on his correspondence course, then surfed the 'net looking for possible vacation options in Australia; he had some leave time coming.

The first RPG hit the aid station, and Rodriguez didn't need any help identifying what the explosion was. He stopped what he was doing and put on his helmet and a non-Army-issued protective vest-one that actually didn't contain any body armor but was much more comfortable than those that did-just in time for the next blast. Cordova and Courville were now awake; they came from the back of the aid station, where their bunks were.

Rodriguez usually carried an M4 carbine, but this morning he had opted instead for his lighter 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol. Now he cursed himself for that decision, which had been rooted entirely in sloth. Wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers, he headed for the door, stopping on the way to look back at Courville and Cordova. "Wish me luck," Rodriguez said. He then went to the door, prepared his 9-millimeter to fire, and sprinted out into the open.

The bullets were coming in sporadically, punctuated by occasional RPG bursts, and Rodriguez zigzagged across the grounds to the laundry, then to the showers and the p.i.s.s-tubes. His first, human instinct had been, of course, to stay in the aid station, but his sense of duty propelled him to the southwestern corner of the camp, to Mortaritaville, to his team: Breeding, Kevin Thomson, and a new guy just a few days into his tour at Camp Keating, Sergeant Janpatrick Barroga.

As Rodriguez ran to the right, he caught a glimpse of the incoming small-arms fire from the Switchbacks in front of him, sparks in the dawn's dim gray. The bullets, shrapnel, and rocks on the ground sounded to him like popcorn kernels bursting. The gravel hit his legs as he ran at full speed; it felt like hail going in the wrong direction, from the ground toward the sky. He had once dreamed of being a college football player, Rodriguez, but this was an altogether different kind of running for the end zone.

Rodriguez was near the Humvee/guard post known as LRAS-1 when he started firing back toward the Switchbacks with his pistol. He had only fifteen rounds, but he used every last one of them as he sprinted breathlessly toward his team and up the stairs to the mortar pit.

The first blast woke them up, but they remained in bed.

"Was that incoming or outgoing?" asked Hill.

"Outgoing," said Harder. Neither of them opened his eyes. They were both exhausted from staying up late watching those DVDs, and one big explosion wasn't all that odd a sound to hear as dawn broke at Camp Keating. They figured Breeding was just firing a mortar.

Then the second explosion came in to the camp, and this one shook the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds' barracks.

"Nope, that's incoming," said Harder as he got up and threw on his gear. He was wearing only underwear and shorts, but he was sure he'd be up and down in twenty minutes. His sneakers were outside the barracks-they smelled pretty ripe-and he couldn't find a clean pair of socks.

From the mountains came the staccato of heavy machine-gun fire. Harder knew he had to get outside and take care of whoever this was-and then, he thought, he could go back to bed. He pulled on a tan T-shirt and laced up his hiking boots.

"Hurry up and get your s.h.i.t on!" Harder yelled to his men-Michael Scusa, Christopher Griffin, Specialist Jeremy Frunk, Specialist Mark Dulaney, and Specialist Jonathan Adams. They grabbed their ammunition and weapons. Harder opened the door and saw what was going on outside. He turned to Hill.

"This is a big one," he said, though he had yet to realize just how bad it was.

The first thing John Breeding heard from his position in the mortar pit was a cacophony of RPG explosions, one after another after another. Everyone promptly got suited up. Thomson, his gear already on, was standing by the door, near the radios, and he ran out to remove the tarp from the M240 machine gun so he could fire it into the hills.

Thomson was ripping the poncho liner off the gun, about to run around and fire it, when Rodriguez arrived on the scene.

"Switchbacks!" Rodriguez yelled. "Switchbacks! Target sixty! Hit the Switchbacks!"81 But just as Thomson stepped in front of him, Rodriguez saw his face explode in a burst of red. A bullet fired from the high ground had found its mark in the private's right cheek, going through his mouth and out his left upper back. He fell onto the ground.

Rodriguez went to him; Kevin Thomson was gurgling, but he couldn't speak. His eyes were filigreed with burst vessels. A pool of blood and parts of his head were spilling into his helmet, into his body armor, onto the ground. The gore had the texture of soup. Rodriguez was at once horrified and nauseated by the sight. Thomson's eyes glazed over and turned black and red.

"Thomson!" Rodriguez yelled. "THOMSON!"

The private was gone. That calm kid from Nevada didn't make a sound; he didn't move. Two minutes into their attack on Combat Outpost Keating, the Taliban had scored their first casualty.

The new guy, Barroga, poked his head out of the mortar pit to see what was going on.

"Get on the sixty!" Rodriguez told him, pointing him to the 60-millimeter mortar tube. But he saw Barroga hesitate. The kid was weighed down with fear, inexperience, and instant regret. There lay Thomson's body.

Barroga thought he probably could have prevented Thomson's death, could have said to him, "Hey, we're getting shot at, wait two minutes before you run out to throw off the tarp," but this was his first firefight, and he'd been at Camp Keating for only a few days, while Thomson had been there for months. And now...