How about a war story for Black Friday?
âUnderstand Americans under FIRE are a lower priority than allies inside their baseâŠâ
ââ-â
I picked up the air support request, and my eyes widened as they focused on the priority box.
#1.
We were the number one priority mission in all of Afghanistan that day. My heartrate increased as I sped through the details in the concept of operations:
Movement to contact⊠village sweep⊠expected enemy resistance: significant.
I looked to my wingman and smiled. âThis is gonna be a good one.â
âNot so fast,â our ground liaison representative muttered. âBefore you get too spun up, I gotta burst your bubbleâŠâ He sighed disappointingly. âA certain NATO member nation hasnât gotten any air support recently, and they complained about it pretty loudly. So the generals decided to placate them and make them the number one priority to prove how much we âcareâ about and support them.â
âBut theyâre gonna go kick over a hornetâs nest, rightâ I raised and shook the request sheet.
He shook his head. âIâm not even sure theyâre leaving their FOB,â he replied. âThey were told that in order to get support, they had to submit a CONOPS, so Iâm pretty sure someone gave them that one to cut and paste.â He grinned. âWho knows, maybe todayâs the day theyâll actually get out there and do something.â
âââ-â
Hours later, after repeated trips to the tanker and endless taskings staring at civilian bazaars surrounding a VERY well defended allied FOB with no sign of either offensive operations or enemy activity, the radio crackled to life with a new tasking.
âHog 51, Troops In Contact! Contact Stork 11 on Red Five for further taskingâ snap heading 030!â
Throttles firewalled, we roared northeast and checked in with the Polish JTAC. We input the coordinates passed by the controlling agency and slaved our sensors to the location along Highway 1â the main ring route circling most of the nation. A series of MRAPs were parked at 45 degrees to the road, blocking traffic in both directions. The JTAC informed us that they were preventing traffic from getting to the team that was under fire, and he passed us an inter-team FM frequency and new location. He also informed us that he was NOT in contact with that team due to the fact that he was located on a FOB about 10 miles from the fight.
No problemâ we loaded the FM freq into one of our radios and tuned to the teamâs fight. As soon as I entered the last digit, the radio exploded to life.
âMary, if you take fire from that building again I want you to fâing level it!â
âCopy that!â
âDeuce 12, this is Hog 51.â
âWhat the hell was that?â
âDeuce 12, this is Hog 51â two A-10s overhead, and Iâm here to help.â
âWho the hell is on MY frequency?!?â
âDeuce, Iâm Hog 51â Iâm a flight of two A-10 Warthogsâ weâre here to help.â
âDid you hear that?â the team leader asked.
âI think they said theyâre A-10s.â
âYES I DIDâ Iâm a flight of two A-10s⊠Iâm here to help you.â
âCan I talk to them?â
âYES! TALK TO ME! Iâm here to help YOU.â
âWho is this?â
âHog 51â here to help.â
Once we got it all sorted out, the situation started flowing. I could see five Stryker vehicles below me, and the team lead informed me that they were taking fire from a building 90 meters east on a heading of 090. I used my sensors to âdrawâ a line in that direction and distance, and locked onto a building on the west side of a village. I called back to the JTAC, who couldnât provide any assistanceâ he wasnât part of the fight, and since he was Polish, I wasnât even sure if he had any command relationship to the embattled team. I stopped wasting time.
âStork, Iâm declaring Emergency CAS in self-defense of US forces. Monitor our comms and let me know if you have anything critical. Otherwise, weâre gonna shoot this one out on our own.â
âStork copies and I concur.â
Turning back to the ground team, I offered an immediate solution. âDeuce, Iâm about 90% that Iâm in the right location, but letâs confirm with a Willie-Pete.â A white-phosphorous rocket would âmarkâ the location with a brilliant plume of white smoke and under the rules of engagement, offered a no-collateral damage option.
He concurred, and I selected an aimpoint about 20 meters offset from the building intentionally. Any corrections from the friendlies would take my next weapons pass away from them and into the enemy. I could have put the rockets right into the area, but if we were wrong about the selection, the correction might drive us back towards friendlies, and there was little to no room for error here.
The two rockets impacted the open desert near the building. âNegative, the next building to the south!â Deuce corrected. Perfectâ now I know exactly where to look. I rolled in for a second pass and dropped another rocket about 10 meters from the new building. âThatâs it!â he bellowed.
I reached down and selected the weapons steerpoint; the A-10 stores your last weapons impact point in a specific navigation point, and by selecting it, I could slave my sensors to the location without being passed a grid by the guys on the ground. The targeting pod spun rapidly and presented an interesting picture to me on the small multi-function color display over my right knee.
The house was well-built by Afghan standards. We werenât talking about your average mud hut that we saw everywhere elseâ this was a two-story building with intricate designs on the walls and a manicured courtyard in the center of the compound. In that courtyard, a man calmly walked a cow. That changed the gameâ potential non-combatants on the target.
âDeuce, are you under fire at this time?â If he was, it was game on. If not, we had just been handcuffed.
âNegative, you shut them down with those rockets!â
âCopy, no longer taking fire.â
Unfortunately for us, Stork heard that transmission, and as the qualified JTAC in the area, he informed me that if friendlies were no longer taking fire, that heâd have to downgrade the situation from a TIC to a priority.
âStork, recommend keeping the TIC open,â I began. âIf you downgrade, theyâre gonna pull us back to our previous taskingâ these guys are still in a kill zone and could really use our help.â
âCopy Hog, but if theyâre no longer under fire, then I am bound by the ROE to downgrade it to a PRI.â
âDammit,â I transmitted to my wingman. âThis is gonna suck.â
Sure enough, within two minutes of the downgrade, our controlling agency informed us that we were ordered to return to our original tasking. We agreed VERY reluctantly.
âDeuce, theyâre pulling us off station. But Iâll keep your team freq up and keep one of us close enough to keep tabs. If you come back under fire, weâll be back up as soon as we can.â
He wasnât happy about it, but he understood. We returned to our other allies, who informed us that they still were not ready to commence their village raid but wondered if we could scan the perimeter again for anything suspicious?
I looked down at my gas. It was time to hit the flying gas station, so that at least offered a reprieve from the moment. Since my wingman had a little more fuel, we decided to split the formation. I would go first, he would monitor both situations and weâd get back together after weâd both gone to the tanker.
We had a great tanker crew, and they met us overhead, right in between both events. As I approached the -135, my wingman informed me that Deuce was under fire again. I had left the freq for the tanker, so I didnât hear the initial calls. And I didnât hear the next one, but the relay got my blood boiling.
âTheyâve taken a casualty.â
I was too low on gas to get there, so I had to concentrate on the tanker in front of me. I tried to raise command, but couldnât get ahold of them. I plugged into the tanker and the intercomm buzzed to life.
âAre you guys in touch with the CRC?â I asked the boomer.
âAffirm sir,â he replied.
âAsk them if I can go back to the TIC,â I directed.
He came back a few seconds later.
âNegative sir, itâs still a PRI and they direct you to go to your priority one tasking.â
âListen to me very carefully and say these exact words to them: understand that Americans under fire are a lower priority than our allies on their FOB!â
âYes SIR!â He couldnât contain his excitement. Iâm pretty sure they had turned up the pressure on their pumps to get us our gas faster, but the damn fuel sprayed from around the nozzle and made it difficult to see through the front windscreen. Normally, Iâd select the rain-remove function that blew more air over the windscreen to alleviate that, but in the heat of the moment, Iâd neglected to do so and had to hold on tightly to see through the spray.
The Boomer came back up, unable to contain his excitement, blurting, âYouâre cleared back to the TIC!â
âDamn right,â I muttered. The fuel topped off, and I thanked them for the assistance before hitting the disconnect button and stowing the refueling door in the nose. I flipped back to Deuceâs freq and directed my wingman to get to the tanker ASAP and then meet me back at the TIC. I skipped Stork and informed Deuce that I as coming in as low and fast as I could from the west, and that Iâd give him a thirty-second call to cease any indirect fire they were employing.
âDamn thereâs a lot of towers down here!â I thought as I got down to a hundred feet and bent the throttles forward. Being the main road in the country, every cell tower and radio antenna was constructed there, and I weaved my way around several.
I roared in over the friendlies and pointed my nose directly at the target building, pulling up sharply and punching out self-protection flares as I entered the fight. âWeâre back, boysâ I heard youâre looking for a scrap!â
Deuce informed me almost apologetically that the enemy had again ceased fire when we returned, and that they were mounting up under our cover and would use the opportunity to egress the kill zone.
âRoger that, weâll stay in a protective escort until youâre clear,â I returned. With my wingman back on board, we entered a formation that we normally reserve for escorting helicopters in the terminal phase of a rescue. We were low, in a wide circle, maneuvering defensively, and always keeping a gun pointed inward towards the known enemy location. The Strykers started lumbering back towards Highway One, and as they turned onto the pavement, an impact bloomed about fifty yards behind the last armored vehicleâ someone had fired an FU rocket at them, but we couldnât see the launch site unfortunately.
We kept the protective bubble around the friendlies, and I informed Deuce that Iâd stay with them all the way back to their FOB if needed. He thanked us and passed the radio call that I can still hear to this day:
âMan, you got the coolest job in the world!â
âHere for you, brother! Call us anytime you need us.â
The team freq chatter continued as we maneuvered alongside them. The lead told the uninjured troops to get straight to chowâ if anyone tried to to stop them, heâd straighten them out personally. The casualty wasnât criticalâ heâd been shot, as Forrest Gump would say, âin the buttocks.â
You read that in a Forrest, Forrest Gump voice. Admit it.
I did too.
As they turned into the FOB, Deuce cleared us off and thanked us again. It was two days before Christmas, 2011.
We returned to our allies, who still werenât âreadyâ for their assault, and since the daylight was fading, decided to postpone it indefinitely. No kidding, I thought. When the gas ran low again, we pointed our noses back to Kandahar and flew into the setting sun.
That was a good day.
(Pic was taken many years earlier... on a Northern Watch sortie where mostly nothing happened...)