The following is an account of a military action in Afghanistan, told by an American paratrooper.

I awoke around 5 a.m. to the putrid but familiar stench of foot rot and the oppressive, lingering flatulence of more than a dozen men. 

It was as if I hadn’t slept at all.  A sense of dread stirred inside me, as piercing pain deep inside the recesses of my brain overcame the neurons of my extremities. Pain prodded me to sit up.

I palmed the plastic top bunk and thrusted my way to the ground.  Shock traveled from the balls of my feet and my heels, silencing the harassment of my neurons, but could not stop the bad ache in my bones.

“It’s on again, motherfuckers!’ muttered one of my brainwashed tent mates.  The comment was classic false motivation, which always elicited the complementary “Shut the fuck up, bitch!” from someone else.

            There was no time for a “real” meal before this debarkation.  A quick shit, shave, Gatorade and a few biscuits.  Fuck those hideously glopped eggs that sat like a huge mass of yellow shit.

            My fire team brethren quickly returned to the tent. They gathered their gear and headed to company formation for pre-combat inspections, and then off to the troop loading zone to catch the CH-47s and Blackhawk helicopters to go look for hajjis.

            Unusual for that day, our rifle company was among the last in the battalion to arrive at the TLZ.  Even more atypical was the presence of high leadership and the brigade chaplain.  The skies were overcast. The air, which was cool but not quite damp, had a biting nip that grasped my exhales and transformed them to visibly smoky vapor.

            I noticed the leadership immediately but paid no extra attention.  My ankles were extra aggravated and magnified whatever rage I normally tried to conceal.  What I could notice was the look on the chaplain’s face, at once sardonic and jovial. I recognized it from other times in my life. The man was clearly scared.  I looked at some of my fellow soldiers who appeared clueless to what was happening.

            A high-ranking leader roared for everyone to close ranks around the chaplain for a group prayer which I thought would alarm everyone but they laughed and joked.  I scanned the many faces for concerned looks and could not even see one.  I remarked to people on my left and right how morbid and weak the whole thing seemed.  After all we were going off to kick some asses not deliver food to the needy.

            Then I think it started to register with the rest of the soldiers that, as animated as they were at that very moment, maybe some of them would not be returning from this tryst.

            THE AFTERNOON BEFORE squad leaders received the operation order from the platoon leaders.  When they returned their faces were grim.  One soldier who was known for his naiveté and thinly veiled cowardice asked his squad leader about the chance of confronting enemy.  The question was rewarded by the sergeant with a statement of 100 percent certainty.  The private walked away with an absurdly fake satisfaction.

            After the benediction by the phony chaplain the helicopter blades roared with ferocity, kicking up the terrifically fine Kandahar dirt (aptly described as cocoa powder sans the sweet taste).  Our battalion commander was on the chopper my squad boarded.  This always gave me extra confidence for some unknown reason.  In less than ten minutes the Chinook helicopter was airborne and we were off to fuck some shit up.

            The orders for the mission had been to shoot anyone on sight that appeared threatening.  The order was intentionally subjective because the leadership wanted violence.  The reports, according to fresh intelligence gathered by aerial surveillance, were that our helicopters received surface to air fire from approximately 800 enemy fighters atop a ridge.  Our mission was to destroy those forces as revenge.  Some people were charged up, some were miserable, others were probably terrified.

Eight or ten minutes into the air the door gunner fired several rounds to the ground below.  We were probably 200 feet off the ground.  Several troopers looked out the side door with dismay.  A squad leader was heard gruffly instructing over the powerful twin blades: “Test fire!”  A trooper nodded violently in satisfaction with his lower lip pursed looking at the floor of the chopper.

Out of the side and rear opened doors I could see the Apache escorts on the lookout for threats.  Not long after, the choppers started to circle the valley adjacent to the target ridge top.  The circling approach was violent.  You had to hold onto the trooper next to you.  The feeling was nauseating and caused your eyes to roll to the back of your head.

            There were probably sixty fully equipped, enraged and newly-sickened paratroopers on each of the airborne troop carriers.  Finally the landing came, followed by a swift well-rehearsed tactical exit.

            Racing off the bird last was the mortar section.  Sgt. ********* and my close friend ******** came running toward me and in an uncharacteristic tone screamed, “You guys better hope you don’t get hit ‘cause we’re already suckin’!”  ******** just looked at me with exasperation and shook his head quickly sideways a few times.

            “You ready?!” barked ********* to ********, who nodded and quickly grabbed the handles of the mortar shell cans. They had carried them maybe 30 feet and then they were out of my sector of view.

My team leader told me to take a knee.  I could see to my right that the regimental sergeant major had even been on one of the choppers.  I was always used to seeing him relaxed and upbeat, but from afar he even appeared to be tense and ready to meet the enemy.

Soon the order was given to begin patrol posture and the order of movement had my fire team in the lead.  I was on the right flank with my M-249 fully-automatic machine gun.

My team leader was two body lengths to my 10 o’clock position.  The signal was given to rise from the knee and lead the patrol.  

“Let’s go”, said Sgt. ******, and with that we walked straight ahead with the company immediately at our backs in wedge formation.  I had been tracking a person I saw immediately after exiting the bird.  From about 600 yards away and halfway up the hill to my front a hajji was going down a hill.  The rest of the company, progressing forward, began to see this man coming down the hill and at a more rapid pace.

The man was wheeling a small crudely made carriage powered by a donkey.  I could see he was wearing a hat, a blue loose fitting shirt and blackish pants.  My team started to hook to the right in the direction of the hajji and our pace quickened.  Suddenly the company first sergeant yelled in his typical yet annoying voice, “Cut that mother fucker off!  Stop him!”

We began to run in perfect spacing towards the man, quickly closing the space between him and us.  My helmet started to shimmy.  I could feel the mortar rounds I was carrying in my assault pack bobbing up and down banging into the small of my back.  I was getting angry that I had to run after the man who only seemed like he wanted to get away as fast as he could.  The distance was closing very fast.

As we ran I wondered if we were being baited into an ambush.  I could see large boulders to my 9 o’clock position and it would have been easy for Taliban fighters to set up there and wait for us.  Could my leadership be so stupid as to not know this?  That same leadership was not the lead team so probably not something they considered.

When in situations like that time after time you have to have a very fatalistic attitude and accept the fact that your leadership does not always have your best interests in mind.  I was never angry in situations like that, merely numb but not yet a zombie.  It was more like focused bliss mixed with outrageous hubris.

As we closed within 200 feet of the hajji, I could smell his fear.

The sergeant yelled, “Heeeeeeey, stop!”

The hajji kept moving very fast, guiding his buggy.  I was running with the rest of my team, my shimmying equipment feeling oppressive.  At that the sergeant yelled again, “Stooooooop!”

The sergeant, as he was running, fired a single round from his carbine and instantly the hajji stopped and dropped to the ground.  His donkey and buggy came to an immediate halt too.  The hajji writhed on the floor in absolute fear.  He was yelling loudly in his native tongue many things that I could not clearly understand. He yelled, “Salaam! Salaam!”.

Nothing followed the single shot by the sergeant.  The shot was so out of place.  No shots followed from a single person in our company, not even from the other sergeant.  There was silence except from our Afghani suspect.  I never felt threatened not even a little bit.  Besides those large, suspicious boulders that may have concealed Taliban I was not the least bit worried.  After the single shot we kneeled in place except for me.  I got on my belly and kept the hajji in my sights waiting for a potential threat.  While the hajji continued to writhe around on the ground yelling, an Afghani interpreter with us ran to the front of our fire team and instructed the hajji to remain flat on the ground which he did.

A search of the hajji revealed nothing more than some sticks he gathered from the hilltop and placed in his buggy.  He also had some opium and a pipe.  After the search was complete the sergeant walked over to my position and said, “Next time I fire a shot you better follow it with some rounds. That’s your job!”

I didn’t really have a good answer for him other than I didn’t think of him as a threat since he was running away and was not carrying a weapon.  That response did not interest him, probably because he was embarrassed that there was only one shot.  Soldiers are trained to shoot what are called controlled pairs.  His was a lonely shot that disappeared into the valley not the hajji’s chest.  The Afghani was released though perhaps scared, furious or relieved.

Who wouldn’t run from 150 paratroopers running after them?

By this time the company command was reporting to higher headquarters for orders.  Other sergeants could be heard from my rear commenting about the situation.  I heard several remarks that made me laugh or irked me.  One experienced leader coined a moniker for the sergeant, calling him “Dead Eye Dick” because he thought he could hit a man with a single shot.  Another who’d been in the very rear was supportive of the sergeant saying that he had felt threatened from even his position.

The last comment I heard was a typical one from a character also known for false motivation and wry remarks.  As his fire team took the lead position he looked back diagonally and barked, “You guys choked!”

As the company resumed forward movement I could not help wishing that the ambush I had suspected lurking behind the boulders would have materialized and choked his throat with blood.

I did not get that lucky.