My First Firefight
They say you never forget your first firefight, and that's extremely true. Mine was more than memorable.
It was in early March, 2012 in RC-South, Afghanistan. Beautiful day, considering what a shithole we were in. It was pretty early in the morning, and we were going out on a foot patrol to the South of our FOB (Forward operating base) to talk to one of the villagers, who was suspected of being a key player in the local Taliban group, who lived in what was referred to as Boss House. This also happened to be my very first mission.
Well, movement down there was slow, about 800m through an open field, but we had to follow some engineers with a minesweeper because of the extremely high IED (improvised explosive device) threat. Basically walking ducks in a row through an open area like that was pretty stupid, but we had vehicles just off from our formation as overwatch and support. Well, when got to the house the old man was already sitting outside the front door waiting to speak with us. Our ANA (Afghan National Army) counterparts and our leadership greeted him, talking and whatnot while the rest of us chilled in the field, getting bored. The old man seemed peaceable enough, just sitting there talking and fingering a necklace of some sort. Then, mid-conversion he kinda tossed the necklace, and all Hell broke loose.
The moment that thing hit the ground we started taking fire from three different directions. Mostly AK-47's, though they did have a few PKM's (It's a machine gun), and several snipers, who weren't all that good. The moment I heard the first shots fired I basically dove to the ground, trying to use a 6in mound of dirt as cover, and tried to figure out where the Hell I was being shot at from, which was hard as shit. Couldn't really tell by sound, since they were shooting, we were shooting, our trucks were shooting, and our 60mm mortars were blowing up every damn thing in site, which was kind of awesome. Every now and then I saw a muzzle flash from the surrounding buildings, and did my best to spray that general spot with lead. Every now and then I looked around to take stock of what all everyone else was doing. Saw my squad leader in a ditch, puffs of dust flying up all around him from a machine gun that was trying to tag him, watched an enemy sniper trying to zero in on one of my buddies. A puff of dust kicked up about 20m in front of him, then a few seconds later another one at 15m, then 10m, then 5m away from him. At that point he said fuck it, got up, and started bounding away from that spot. Guess he didn't feel like getting hit by Worst Sniper of the Year. Our mortar guys were doing an excellent job, though I think they were fucking crazy. Yea, they were hitting everything they aimed at dead-on, but some of their targets also happened to be about 50m away from us. That shit was deafening and knocked the air out of your lungs. It was pretty awesome when they nailed a Taliban who was sprinting between buildings. He was doneski.
Minutes in we were given the order to bound forward into Boss House so were weren't just pinned down in the open. Getting there wasn't terribly difficult, though it was pretty exhilarating. Getting up and sprinting several seconds at time, becoming Target #1 for all the snipers and machine gunners out there, and holy shit did they get close to hitting me. A lot. Much fun. So, I finally get up to the house, and the old man is still sitting there outside, just laughing his ugly little ass off. I wish I shot him, but I was kind of distracted. The place next to us was on fire. Some tracers from our light machine gunner had lit up a giant haystack the Taliban had hidden a PKM gunner in, plus a few mortars and grenades hit it. But I run into the house, and immediately on my right was an ANA guy who had gotten shot in the side being treated (shittily) by the engineers, a scared ass cow in the back/right corner of the compound (the center was basically a courtyard, walls on three sides, and the actual building acting as another wall. Everything was made of mud brick), and in the back left corner was Thomas, our RTO (Radio Transmissions Operater), with his pants around his ankles violently shitting in the old man's dinner bowl. He has the bowels of an 80 year old man, and when you gotta shit, you gotta shit. Timing could have been better though...
It only took me a few seconds to take stock of the situation before I grabbed one of the engineers, their Staff Sergeant, threw him out of the way, and opened up my first aid kit. Figured since the Army put me through EMT I might as well use what I knew. Plus, the engineers were lost in the sauce and needed some help. The ANA guy had a few bullet holes in his side and was bleeding out rapidly. I threw some gauze and ETB's (Emergency Trauma Bandage) on him, and basically just monitored him until a Medevac (Medical Evacuation) truck pulled up, which didn't take very long. By this time most of the shooting had stopped, just random potshots here and there from both sides, and we were given the order to move out. At this point tactics kind of disappeared, and we all got in line and sprinted up the road back to our FOB as fast as we could while the trucks covered our movement. Once there we got on line facing back the way we came while team leaders got their LACE (Liquid, ammo, casualty, equipment) reports to make sure everyone was still unhurt, good on ammo, and hadn't lost anything. We stayed there for a few hours, watching the village people/Taliban rove around area, throwing bodies/pieces of bodies in a wagon and cleaning up all the damage. When the sun was setting we went back out to properly search Boss House and some of the surrounding buildings. We didn't get shot at again, and almost all signs that there had been a firefight had been cleaned up, minus bullet holes in everything and blast damage.
I was submitted for an Army Commendation Medal with Valour for my role in the fight and treating the ANA guy (he survived), but that was denied by higher because "I was just doing my job". Fair enough, though they used those same words for every other medal my leadership put me in for. Assholes.
It was in early March, 2012 in RC-South, Afghanistan. Beautiful day, considering what a shithole we were in. It was pretty early in the morning, and we were going out on a foot patrol to the South of our FOB (Forward operating base) to talk to one of the villagers, who was suspected of being a key player in the local Taliban group, who lived in what was referred to as Boss House. This also happened to be my very first mission.
Well, movement down there was slow, about 800m through an open field, but we had to follow some engineers with a minesweeper because of the extremely high IED (improvised explosive device) threat. Basically walking ducks in a row through an open area like that was pretty stupid, but we had vehicles just off from our formation as overwatch and support. Well, when got to the house the old man was already sitting outside the front door waiting to speak with us. Our ANA (Afghan National Army) counterparts and our leadership greeted him, talking and whatnot while the rest of us chilled in the field, getting bored. The old man seemed peaceable enough, just sitting there talking and fingering a necklace of some sort. Then, mid-conversion he kinda tossed the necklace, and all Hell broke loose.
The moment that thing hit the ground we started taking fire from three different directions. Mostly AK-47's, though they did have a few PKM's (It's a machine gun), and several snipers, who weren't all that good. The moment I heard the first shots fired I basically dove to the ground, trying to use a 6in mound of dirt as cover, and tried to figure out where the Hell I was being shot at from, which was hard as shit. Couldn't really tell by sound, since they were shooting, we were shooting, our trucks were shooting, and our 60mm mortars were blowing up every damn thing in site, which was kind of awesome. Every now and then I saw a muzzle flash from the surrounding buildings, and did my best to spray that general spot with lead. Every now and then I looked around to take stock of what all everyone else was doing. Saw my squad leader in a ditch, puffs of dust flying up all around him from a machine gun that was trying to tag him, watched an enemy sniper trying to zero in on one of my buddies. A puff of dust kicked up about 20m in front of him, then a few seconds later another one at 15m, then 10m, then 5m away from him. At that point he said fuck it, got up, and started bounding away from that spot. Guess he didn't feel like getting hit by Worst Sniper of the Year. Our mortar guys were doing an excellent job, though I think they were fucking crazy. Yea, they were hitting everything they aimed at dead-on, but some of their targets also happened to be about 50m away from us. That shit was deafening and knocked the air out of your lungs. It was pretty awesome when they nailed a Taliban who was sprinting between buildings. He was doneski.
Minutes in we were given the order to bound forward into Boss House so were weren't just pinned down in the open. Getting there wasn't terribly difficult, though it was pretty exhilarating. Getting up and sprinting several seconds at time, becoming Target #1 for all the snipers and machine gunners out there, and holy shit did they get close to hitting me. A lot. Much fun. So, I finally get up to the house, and the old man is still sitting there outside, just laughing his ugly little ass off. I wish I shot him, but I was kind of distracted. The place next to us was on fire. Some tracers from our light machine gunner had lit up a giant haystack the Taliban had hidden a PKM gunner in, plus a few mortars and grenades hit it. But I run into the house, and immediately on my right was an ANA guy who had gotten shot in the side being treated (shittily) by the engineers, a scared ass cow in the back/right corner of the compound (the center was basically a courtyard, walls on three sides, and the actual building acting as another wall. Everything was made of mud brick), and in the back left corner was Thomas, our RTO (Radio Transmissions Operater), with his pants around his ankles violently shitting in the old man's dinner bowl. He has the bowels of an 80 year old man, and when you gotta shit, you gotta shit. Timing could have been better though...
It only took me a few seconds to take stock of the situation before I grabbed one of the engineers, their Staff Sergeant, threw him out of the way, and opened up my first aid kit. Figured since the Army put me through EMT I might as well use what I knew. Plus, the engineers were lost in the sauce and needed some help. The ANA guy had a few bullet holes in his side and was bleeding out rapidly. I threw some gauze and ETB's (Emergency Trauma Bandage) on him, and basically just monitored him until a Medevac (Medical Evacuation) truck pulled up, which didn't take very long. By this time most of the shooting had stopped, just random potshots here and there from both sides, and we were given the order to move out. At this point tactics kind of disappeared, and we all got in line and sprinted up the road back to our FOB as fast as we could while the trucks covered our movement. Once there we got on line facing back the way we came while team leaders got their LACE (Liquid, ammo, casualty, equipment) reports to make sure everyone was still unhurt, good on ammo, and hadn't lost anything. We stayed there for a few hours, watching the village people/Taliban rove around area, throwing bodies/pieces of bodies in a wagon and cleaning up all the damage. When the sun was setting we went back out to properly search Boss House and some of the surrounding buildings. We didn't get shot at again, and almost all signs that there had been a firefight had been cleaned up, minus bullet holes in everything and blast damage.
I was submitted for an Army Commendation Medal with Valour for my role in the fight and treating the ANA guy (he survived), but that was denied by higher because "I was just doing my job". Fair enough, though they used those same words for every other medal my leadership put me in for. Assholes.
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