Several soldiers and officers I spoke with told me they were unprepared for their mission in the north of Afghanistan. No one, it seems, told them they would have to fight a Vietnam-style war at high altitudes. One officer told me the 10th Mountain's limited resources and poor planning frustrated him. (He also asked that his name be withheld for fear of retribution.) "Leadership has failed us," he told me. "They don't give a shit about us. We've been shorted everything we needed. Our training didn't prepare us for this terrain or this mission. We're doing the best we can but we're not getting support." He said the summer of 2006 had been filled with air-assault missions in which Chinooks delivered 20 to 30 troops to a ridgeline with little food or water, and no plan to pick them up.
Places like Gowardesh, the site of Camp Lybert, and Kamdesh are crucial in America's war in Afghanistan. Their proximity to the areas of Pakistan where U.S. intelligence officials believe bin Laden and al-Zawahiri travel has created an instability U.S. forces are trying to counter. "Camp Lybert was built to keep border infiltration routes closed off to the insurgents," said Spc. Timbo Harrell. "They bring weapons and men over from Pakistan and then go back when fighting gets intense. We try to light 'em up if we can see them carrying the weapons. But usually weapons are hidden on donkeys and we're not allowed to engage."
And because U.S, soldiers are allowed to pursue insurgents only a certain distance into Pakistan, the border acts as an invisible wall, the insurgents' best protection.
Adding to Charlie Company's frustration, it cannot go on manned patrols in the villages below. Capt. Mike Schmidt, the commanding officer, told me the location of the base and size of his troop limited how much he could do. "We depend a lot on locals walking up from the neighboring villages to give us information," he said.
Again and again soldiers referred to insurgents as "the enemy" or "the bad guys." But the lack of detailed knowledge about whom they were fighting, and why their adversaries were fighting in turn, is troubling. In the north, for instance, the Taliban are weak and unwelcome. And while al-Qaida has local fighters in some valleys, their reach, according to U.S. intelligence officials, has been diminished. Though Army officials quietly say the insurgents are religious fighters, some evidence shows the disputes are local and have little to do with jihad. A translator named Abdul who has worked for the CIA and the Special Forces told me that the biggest threat to American troops in the north, a man named Haji Usman, had been nothing more than a rich timber smuggler before the war. "Now he's enemy No. 1," Abdul said. "He was not a nice guy, but he was not fighting a jihad. He wasn't fighting the Americans. But they took favor with his biggest smuggling competitor, and now he's the No. 1 enemy. I do not understand this."
Back at Kamdesh, the base was gearing up for an incoming convoy. Humvees and LMTVs (for light medium tactical vehicle, a 2.5-ton truck) would be arriving from Naray, carrying ammunition, food, fuel and water along a winding, rock-strewn dirt road. In 2006, insurgents had ambushed many convoys with RPGs, light arms and improvised explosive devices, along a stretch that 3-71 had come to call "Ambush Alley." Several supply trucks driven by Afghans had been torched and pushed into the river. Some U.S. soldiers had been killed, and dozens had been injured in a three-month span. Sometimes security precautions meant it took nine hours, instead of six, to cover the 25 miles between bases.
Soldiers began to intercept radio communication between insurgents. A man speaking the local Nuristani language began to yell "Allahu akbar!" -- "God is great!" -- before directing his men to attack. "Do not miss. Be accurate. Do not worry, they don't have any planes." He was right. Close air support, the element that gives U.S. forces the biggest advantage over the insurgents, didn't seem to be nearby, and even if planes and choppers were on their way, the radio traffic didn't identify where the insurgents would fire. One of the military intelligence officers who helped relay the information to the convoy expressed frustration. "We know they're going to try to fire, but we don't know from where, so we can't help the convoy out much," he said.
Within a minute, the Americans were hit with several RPGs and rifle fire. A Humvee flipped and was evacuated. A group of soldiers sat around the radio at the Kamdesh control post, listening, hoping the platoon could make it through the "kill zone" without taking casualties. They did. Hours later the convoy reached camp, and there had been only a few minor injuries.
However, the convoy had lost another vehicle in addition to the Humvee, and there were signs that the insurgents were trying new tactics. For the first time, instead of one firing position, the ambush had come from three positions on a mountainside, creating more fire of longer duration and hitting more vehicles. The insurgents had had another success, and had isolated the PRT base even further. Lt. Ben Keating, for one, admitted a grudging admiration for his adaptable foes. "They're smart. They keep low, never expose themselves for more than 30 seconds to a minute, and then disperse. It's frustrating."
A few nights after I left Kamdesh, word came that a soldier had died in an accident. A team was attempting a lights-out, nighttime convoy to return a truck. The 2.5-ton truck flipped off of a cliff, tossing its two passengers 300 feet down to a riverbank covered with boulders. The Kamdesh soldiers knew the drive would be dangerous. The truck was large and unstable going over a poorly constructed road littered with rocks, boulders and craters. It was the main section of Ambush Alley that Lt. Col. Feagin had ordered rebuilt. But four months later, it was still in bad shape. By the time a group of soldiers got the injured back up the cliff and to a medevac helicopter, one of the passengers, Lt. Keating, had died from his fall, at the age of 27. The men of the PRT base renamed it Camp Keating.
About the writer
Matthew Cole is a writer living in Brooklyn, N.Y. He has written for GQ, Details, ESPN The Magazine and Wired among other publications.
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