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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Sean Parnell
We were
driving them away. Now was the time to deliver the coup de grâce.
The Delta element came from our battalion’s heavy-weapons company. Originally designed to be an antitank element,
The Prophet
spooks must have heard some enemy radio transmissions. Their tidbit matched with what my gunners were seeing.
“Baldwin, grab your squad. Campbell, give me a fire team. We’re gonna counterattack.
Grigsby and the ANA are going to lead out,”
hadn’t joined because he couldn’t find a job. He’d joined to kill the sons of bitches responsible for 9/11.
11.
They negotiated the slope with ease as some of the Afghan troops fired from the hip while they ran.
Afghans reached the house. They stacked up next to the door, then kicked it in on
First Sergeant Grigsby’s orders.
reached the top of the ridge without receiving a single bullet.
The enemy had melted away.
it
appeared, the dwelling had been abandoned for a long time. Neglected walls and dust and dirt everywhere attested to its disuse.
Soiled pressure dressings, torn packages for other medical supplies, and syringes completed the scene. This was their casualty collection point.
the battlefield, still shrouded in smoke and dust, fell silent.
By the time we had all the components in place for our counterattack, the enemy had simply vanished.
We’d been in the fight all afternoon.
we discovered a red-brown trail leading up over the ridge, indicative of a casualty who had been dragged off by his comrades. Our search uncovered several more. We’d hurt them. Badly.
Figure at least twelve dead, not the ten reported by the Prophet
spooks.
Long after dusk, we began the slow drive back to Bermel. We needed to repair or swap out our battered vehicles.
sometime before midnight, our bullet-scarred trucks garnering lots of attention from the
guards.
Captain Dye came over and asked for a full report of the engagement. It took about thirty minutes to walk through everything that had happened.
“Sir,” he said loud enough for everyone in the chow hall to hear, “I just wanted to tell you that you did a great fucking job out there today.”
Once again, a surge of love went through me. These men were family now, not just brother warriors. Family.
had felt the indescribable rush created by bloodlust, survival, and victory.
Restless, I rose from bed and stepped into the black Afghan night. I had never felt farther from home than at that moment.
EIGHT
BRING
OUT
YOUR
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DEAD
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May 8, 2006 FOB Bermel
Rakhah Ridge just a few kilometers west of the border. “I want you to take your platoon out there and see if you can find ’em,” he explained.
Today we were going to carry the fight to them. I loved the aggressiveness of the mission.
He preferred to hang out with our troops, something that unsettled me at times because of the familiarity it bred. That level of closeness could become an operational security issue, and
Dizzying drops into vast canyons greeted us on
the
o...
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sid...
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crept along, everyone vigilant fo...
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men ducked inside the cave, grabbed more long tubes, and
began walking back to the truck.
Apparently we had stumbled across something important. I acknowledged the order and then radioed my trucks that we had an air strike inbound.
Three five-hundred-pound bombs fell out of the sky at five-minute intervals. Each one scored a direct hit. The men, the truck, and the cave vanished
Enemy is now fleeing east for the border carrying their wounded.”
