Every Step is Your Last

21 September 2011
Zhari District, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan
Task Force Spartan, 4-4 Cav

The moon in September was special and the war kept going.

Bombs are planted everywhere.  The dogs catch some, but the dogs will get blown up, too.

Task Force Spartan is slowly tightening its hold around the Taliban sanctuary in this area of Kandahar Province.  Soldiers from 4-4 Cav are charged with taking Zhari District.  This was a typical mission.

No matter where we walk, the enemy will plant bombs.  On the roads, in the grape rows, in the middle of open fields where nobody would ever plant a bomb, there will be a bomb and people get blown up.  The victims often are noncombatants, such as children.  And so we were walking in this dry canal.  When there is water, the enemy will stretch tripwires below the surface.  Nowhere is safe and there are only so many places we can walk.

The point man often misses the bomb and is not hit.  The casualty might be the fifth man, or the fifteenth.  One casualty in 4-4 Cav was the 35th troop in the sequence.  In this war, every man, or woman, is on point.  One step from the “cleared” path might as well be a hundred miles off.  During firefights you go for cover.  Before I was here, a Soldier fell off a path and was killed.  The person who triggers the bombs is not always the one who is hit.  The triggers are often at a distance from the charges.  Or, as happens many times on every mission, you are standing there and someone walks by going forward or back, and to pass by they step must off to the side and in that moment you both can go.

This sun was just rising.  The night before, Soldiers and the dog had slept on the ground and I slept on the roof of a house.  Now the sun was rising and birds were singing and we were walking in the canal when BOOM.

There was an explosion.  He was not the first in line.  We kept walking through the ditch, and behind me were some women that Americans seem to think are not in combat, and there they were, stepping on dangerous ground again.

We had first walked here some weeks ago after coming in by helicopter.  Three Soldiers from 4-4 Cav had been shot very close by.  One bullet was stopped by a protective vest, leaving only a sizable bruise on the ribs.  Two other Soldiers were shot in the face and one died.  Just around the corner in the image above, a Soldier was on the ground.  He had stepped on a bomb.

While the wounded man was down, others moved forward, carefully, to help.  The bombs often come in clusters and so you start off with one troop killed and end up with several dead or wounded.

Enemy were moving into position to fire on us.

This is a 5-way intersection.  Stones were placed across the other avenues, but none in the direction from which we were coming.  The enemy had predicted our direction of travel. There were unexploded enemy explosives near the wounded Soldier.

Scott, an interpreter, carries no weapon.  He was born in Afghanistan but has been an American for many years.

This man squatted and watched.

An interpreter watched.

Sometimes a giant bomb causes Soldiers to disappear.  You might be lucky to find a piece of a helmet, or shards of uniform.

This bomb had not fully detonated.  One of our medics goes to work through an interpreter to treat the Afghan Soldier.

Another Afghan Soldier watches.

Other Soldiers push down parts of a wall to make hasty fighting positions.

The most dangerous jobs in Afghanistan and Iraq probably have been truck drivers, and EOD.  Our EOD people are not like the “Hurt Locker” circus.  They are not crazy, but well trained, extremely courageous, and equally important.  There is no way to know how many lives they’ve saved in the wars.  An EOD Soldier from this team recently lost his legs.  Apparently he was being targeted.  And here, now, were bombs in yellow jugs.  Many times the jugs contain boobytraps.  This entire wall might be laced with bombs because sometimes the enemy hides them in the mud walls.

While EOD worked the bombs, the medic worked the wounded Soldier.  His boot was fine, and there was no blood on the Soldier’s wounded foot and ankle.

Comrades carried him back to our last strong point, where he was evacuated back to our base called FOB Pasab.  He was fine.

A cemetery was just next to the ambush spot.  The enemy started firing at us and bullets snapped by and troops returned fire but it was over quickly.

The morning sun can be beautiful here.

This Afghan Soldier has a flash suppressor packed with soil.  He smiled and said it’s okay because when he shoots it blows out the dirt.

The night before, while Soldiers slept in the dirt on the ground, I was up on a village roof and whispered to a guard asking how Sergeant Larsen was doing.  I’d heard Larsen got shot.  He said he was Larsen and that an Afghan Soldier had accidentally shot him a couple days before during a firefight.

Luckily the bullet only hit Sergeant Larsen’s gear.

During every mission that lasts more than a day, some Soldiers end up with ripped britches.

EOD blasts the bombs just around the corner.  The dog is startled but no more than a Soldier would be.  The handler actually carries an IV for his dog.

Major Matt Graham often has something funny to say when situations get tense.  Firefights kick off and he practically yawns.  I looked at him, wondering what it might be this time.

It was time to move forward.

The casualty had been evacuated, the bombs had been cleared, and so we walked by the crater and moved deeper into the village.

There is no tidy ending to these war stories.   The war didn’t end here.

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