For coalition troops at Kandahar Airfield, it's quite a bit different. It's certainly not home sweet home, but it's not half bad either. There was a Burger King trailer, something resembling a super market and the Canadians naturally saw fit to install a street hockey rink. Instead of eating MREs, we ate in high school cafeteria style "chow halls." (The cooks who worked them insisted on us calling them "dining facilities.") In some ways we were living in an oasis of Western Civilization.
On a blistering hot late June day in the lowland desert of southern Afghanistan, I joined a Special Forces team in our camp's chow hall to escape the heat and fill our bellies. I loved these guys. I'd been out with several other Special Forces teams at their bases and/or in the field, but these guys, let's call the Team Viking were the cream of the crop. The team's second in command, Nick, was an Army hero of mine I had met two years prior during a first-of-its-kind training mission in Pakistan. Not only was he a mountain of a man, a bad ass, he embodied why Americans are the good guys.
Nick alone would have been enough for anyone to pick the Vikings as their favorite Green Berets, but every soldier on the team down to the man was stellar, as warriors and citizens. They were what us younger guys aspired to be. Plus, we had the added benefit of having their small team on our battalion's camp. They were our heroes and neighbors.
One member of the team, their youngest, John, always had a hard time lightening up. He was new to the Special Forces world, on his first combat deployment and probably felt like he had everything to prove to his more grizzled teammates. Because of this, he rarely smiled or laughed. His mind always fixated with a laser like focus on the next task. I had a rather high opinion of myself as a young adult and troop, but he was the only one near my age group that made me feel like I needed to step up my game and grow faster. In other words, I respected the hell out of him.
Naturally, I gave him the best ribbing I could, getting under his skin a little but trying to make him laugh above all else, to make him realize he was still young and could goof around too. It took a bit, but eventually the facade cracked just long enough to make him laugh. "Ahh, he can enjoy life after all," I thought to myself.
When there wasn't a trace crum to be found on any tray, we went about our separate business. The Vikings were meeting up with the Afghan Commandos they'd been tasked to train, mentor and take out on missions that deployment. They had invited me the day before to come out and join them for some Commando marksmanship training, but my Officer in Charge refused to let me sharpen my warriors skills "just in case" he needed me for some menial task.
During a night operation, an IED struck a different Special Forces team's Humvee, claiming the life of one of our battalion's Green Berets.
It's part of the Soldier's Creed to "never leave a fallen comrade." It's nothing short of sacred to us.The honored task of gathering the remains fell to Team Viking. After receiving the Quick Reaction Force designation from command, the Vikings drove off in colossal up-armored vehicles known as MRAPs to retrieve their fallen comrade and augment the team that had already been dealt a brutal blow.
I knew having already been on one deployment that you are constantly finding out how much you take for granted being from a developed country like America. I never thought I would add structural engineer inspectors to the list.
As the convoy of Team Viking's MRAPs rumbled down a narrow dirt road to help their beleaguered comrades, the bottom fell out-- literally, I'm said to say. There are no codes or government standards on Afghan roads. They're often former goat paths vehicles have tried to transform into full fledge roads. This time though, the multiton up-armored MRAP was too heavy and the dirt road collapsed without warning, sending the vehicle and four troops, John, Randy, Simon and Chris, tumbling down a hill.
Fate was not on their side on this night. Their vehicle landed upside down in a frigid canal fed by snow melt still clinging to the surrounding mountain peaks. The water rushed in, shorting the electrical system and rendering the hydraulics necessary to open the bank vault, safe like door utterly useless.
Their multimillion dollar mobile battle shield had now become a watery tomb.
Chris was alive but fighting for his life. His seat belt likely had saved him, but heavy ammo canisters that had been dislodged and tossed around after the road collapsed had him entrapped, unable to reach and unbuckle himself. He was surely going to drown.
But then Chris felt a hand come down, unbuckle the seat belt and release his body armor. John was still alive doing everything he could to save Chris. Eventually, John was able to pull Chris up to an air pocket he discovered. John went back under water to see if he could find another, but that simply wasn't meant to be. John returned to Chris and they both waited in that air pocket for whatever fate awaited them.
Their Viking comrades all the while were outside the MRAP, hurriedly doing everything they could to rip the door open. Scores of us inside battalion's operations center watched the live predator drone feed of the rescue efforts playing out before our eyes, praying all the while.
After what seemed like an eternity, they were able to finagle the placement of a winch that pried the doors open. They quickly got all four men out began resuscitation efforts. One by one it became clear there friends were now corpses. But by some miracle, Chris, who had been shot the prior deployment, had an ounce of life left in him and their efforts slowly brought Chris back from the brink, confused, cold and delusional though he was.
The captain on scene ordered some of his men to scuttle their clothes and body armor as well as Chris's, using their body heat to ward off Chris's obvious hypothermia symptoms. Chris would live to fight another day and tell the tale.
Whether it was head trauma, oxygen deprivation, hypothermia or all the above, Chris went in and out of consciousness in that air pocket. He remembered John's life-saving rescue efforts, his vein search for more air and, lastly, John saying repeatedly, "I can't feel my legs."
John sacrificed his life to save Chris's. His youth and relative inexperience would never be called into question. He was the real deal, a true hero. We can now only hope he felt the validation of being the ultimate Brother in Arms. He was more than good enough.
Chris would continue on fighting that deployment. Months later though, while interrogating a suspected Taliban fighter, he saw prick squeeze his hand and heard a pop. Out of pure instinct, he kicked the insurgent knocking him and the chair he sat in over. The pop was the setting off the fuse of a suicide-bomber vest. Because Chris's boot had the terrorist's torso facing upwards and not outwards, most of the blast's force and shrapnel went into the ceiling. Chris survived being shot, drowned and would survive this too. That's not to say he didn't get banged up though.
On a field hospital's bed, he was awarded yet another purple heart and informed he was now solely to work desk duty. I think that, in that moment, bothered him more than what the blast did to his body. I'm sure his wife and family were more than thrilled though.
Years later, I went to Arlington cemetery to pay my respects to John and another man I knew who didn't make it back home from that deployment. Rodger.
I first visited Roger's grave, and even though we didn't spend nearly as much time around and with each other as I did John, I sobbed. Oh God did I sob.
How was I going to manage visiting the grave of someone I knew way better? How was I going to keep composure at the resting place of the one peer that pushed me to be more?
When I approached the grave, the tears immediately stopped. I rendered the snappiest salute I could muster and just stood in awe of the young man, my superior in every way. With all do respect to all the wonderful things Roger was, you just don't cry in the presence of John's remains. No, there's too much work left to be done. I have too much growing yet to do. Perhaps it's just the memories of all that he was and represented to me, but I like to think I felt his spirit, whatever it is that made him so focused and driven, made him forgo his own chance of survival to give someone else just a prayer of a chance.
Even after all these year I find myself wishing I could have chow and laugh with all those guys just one more time in that oasis.
RIP John, Randy and Simon. You are missed.
(Due to not knowing how the families involved would feel about their fallen's names being made public, I have opted to change Green Berets' names. Recounting this event relied heavily on the memories of testimonies from those involved. Many years have passed, but I provided the most accurate retelling of that fateful day I possibly could without asking others to relive it. Thanks for reading.)
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