The Taliban Don't Wave (34 page)

After what seemed like an eternity, but I found out later was actually one hour and forty-seven minutes, we were told the evac choppers would be landing any minute. We had placed the wounded on stretchers and carried them over to the north end of the FOB in anticipation. I had thought of it a little too late, but told Ginge to run and get some thermal blankets. He came back from the medical container and handed them out. The OMLT soldiers began to gently wrap the wounded ANA in the blankets to keep them warm for the flight.

We carried the ANA to the helicopter landing site on the other side of the Hesco wall. Warrant Smith popped smoke and the American Black Hawks (out of KAF) began to set down, one at a time. An American medic would disembark, run over to Sergeant Park, have a quick “transfer patient care” meeting regarding the Afghans, and then help us load the wounded on board.

We would fill up a Black Hawk and then another would land. We filled them up with injured ANA until we had only the dead Afghan left. His entire body had been covered with a thermal blanket. I grabbed one end of the stretcher, but a crying Afghan soldier nudged me out of the way. I guessed it was his friend, and as a final gesture, he wanted to be the one to help get his friend's body on the chopper. I stood to the side and let him take my spot.

At the last minute I realized that both Hassan, who was actually wounded, and Omer, who wasn't, were getting on the last chopper. I shouted at Omer but he ignored me and hopped on board next to Hassan. I would never see Hassan again—he had been wounded and treated and that was enough for him; he went AWOL (absent without leave)—but Omer came back about two weeks later.
So that's that. Now I have no terps.

After the last chopper had left, we slowly walked back to the inner compound. Ginge came over and I told him thanks for his hard work, but I had one more job for him. I knew it could prove to be very traumatic for the ANA to see dozens of bloody bandages littering the ground where their friends had been bleeding to death, so I politely asked him if he would put on some latex gloves and go police up the garbage and used bandages. He said he would square it away and jogged off around the corner.

One of the Brits saw me and said, “Oi, mate, I think you're hit.”

I looked down at my body and said, “No, it's someone else's blood.” I walked back toward the inner FOB with a warrant I hadn't met before.
Maybe he'll know,
I thought to myself. I looked at him and asked, “What the hell took the choppers so long? I mean, what happened to the golden hour?” The general belief was that if the choppers could collect you and get you back to KAF in under an hour—the so-called golden hour—you stood a better-than-average chance of living through your ordeal. It had taken the choppers
over
an hour and forty-five minutes to finally appear.

“I hate to say it,” the warrant said, “but I think it was because they were brown.”

“No. Bullshit,” I snapped. “I don't buy that for a second.” I wasn't having it. I knew those choppers would go to hell and back to get the wounded out.
Any
wounded—Afghan or coalition. The only reason I could come up with was that they knew the enemy was still present, near the helicopter landing site, and they couldn't risk the choppers and their crews getting hit.
They weren't allowed to land, but the Brits had taken care of the enemy mortar team, hadn't they?

“Do you think they would've taken so long if it was coalition troops that had been wounded?” he asked, not willing to drop it.

“Yes, if the choppers were already tasked out, or in a different part of the country. Yeah, they have a lot of choppers, but they're not limitless, ya know? There's still only so many in the country and they can't be everywhere at once.”

The warrant dropped it and we parted ways as I walked over to the ANA command post. I found the ANA captain and said, “
Man mutasef aastam.
”
I'm sorry.

He shook my hand as tears brimmed up in his eyes, then he turned and walked back into his CP. I saw Ginge and thanked him for cleaning the place up. He had been everywhere at once, all day. We wandered back over to the OMLT CP, where the boys were sitting outside, sipping coffee out of Styrofoam, their blood-red hands stark against the bright white of their cups.

I found the OMLT sergeant who had worked on the wounded Afghan with me and plopped down next to him. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, but he hadn't even registered that someone was next to him. He had the proverbial thousand-yard stare.
Not a good sign.

“Sergeant,” I said.
Nothing.
“Sergeant. Hey, Sergeant!” He finally snapped from his trance and looked over at me.

There was no life in his voice as he quietly said, “Oh, hey sir.”

“Hey, Sergeant. That was a pretty messed-up day, eh? I'm glad I didn't have a full bladder!” I tried to get him to smile but he seemed to be getting that vacant look back.

I kept going, hoping he'd listen. “I just wanted to come and find you. You did an awesome job today. I think the guy we worked on is going to make it. We got him to the chopper in decent shape, and that was thanks to you and Pastel.”

The sergeant suddenly became animated and turned on me, saying, “You don't gotta blow smoke up my ass, sir!” He stared at me through angry, tired eyes.

“And what do you mean by that, exactly?” I asked, staring right back.

“I didn't know what to . . . we didn't . . .” he droned off.

Oh,
I get it.
“Sergeant, if you're feeling bad because we didn't do all the right things, or you felt like you weren't sure what to do, well, I got news for ya! Look at me! You don't have a Red Cross badge on your shoulder. And guess what? Neither do I! We've got TCCC training, and what's that? An extra two weeks of combat first aid? Those medics spend years getting to that level, and they still make mistakes! Don't get comparing yourself to them, okay? OKAY?”

“Okay, sir, I hear ya. Thanks.”

“We did the best we could, with what we had, and that's all anyone can ask of us. Think about this. Nobody forced you to run outside during a freaking mortar attack to come and save ANA soldiers! Those weren't Canadians in the line of fire, but Afghans. Look at me!” His eyes slowly tracked up my face to meet my gaze. “I ran into that ISO container, and you know what? It was chock full of Canadians. And no one can fault them for taking cover during a mortar attack—that's what you're supposed to do! But
you
, and all the rest of the OMLT guys, all of you put the lives of the dying ANA soldiers ahead of your own. And no officer could ever be more proud of his men! As far as I'm concerned that was heroic, what you did today. Absolutely
heroic
!”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “But what happened today, we're going to be carrying that around with us for a long time. So don't feel like you gotta figure it all out today, okay?”

I got up slowly to find the others. My body ached all over, and my head was killing me. But I knew I had to make the rounds. I found Ginge, still running around and helping out, and stopped him long enough to tell him how proud I was of him. I told him he had singlehandedly saved lives—he'd been everywhere at once. I told him that when he was done he should find the newly installed shower and wash all the blood off.

I found the doc and told him I'd never seen anyone act so calmly and professionally. He was everything the CF had hoped he could be, in that terrible moment. I told him I was incredibly proud of him, and I knew Sean would be putting him in for official recognition, because holy crap, did he ever deserve it!

I ran into Sean and asked him if I needed to fill out any reports or other officer paperwork. He looked at me and grinned. “As always, numbnuts, I've done all of your work for you. Go get cleaned up.”

I tried to think of a witty retort but drew a complete blank, so I just half-smiled back, said thanks, and went to find Big Joe. He was over by the damaged truck. I walked up to him and just gave him a moment alone. He was looking at the shattered Ranger and the tent with a thousand holes in it.

I got his attention and we shook hands. His large hand was still covered in blood. I kept his hand in my grip and thanked him for saving my life. I told him that if he hadn't picked me up and dragged me behind the bunker, the next round probably would've ended me. I said, “I thought I had whiplash from when you shoved me to go and get my PPE, and at the time I was going to have words, but I thought better of it.” The warrant laughed and slapped me roughly on the back, shifting me a foot.

We looked at the damage: the blown-apart Ranger, with smoke seeping out from under the hood; the tent with hundreds of shrapnel holes in it. There were bloodstains all over our triage centre, but in some spots the ground was saturated with pools of dark red liquid. It was a haunting image.

“One of the guys was standing right next to that,” I said, pointing at the tent with all the holes.

“It's a miracle they weren't all—”

“Hey guys,” a voice cut in from behind us.

The warrant and I turned to see a Canadian captain I'd never met before.

“Hey, what's going on?” I asked.

He coughed nervously and said, “I just came by to see how you guys are doing, and to talk about something.”
Really? To “talk about something”? Okay, here we go
. . . .

“And what exactly would you like to ‘talk about'?” I enquired, looking at Big Joe, who seemed equally unimpressed.

“Well,” he began, “it's just that someone here gave the Royal Marines permission to fire their mortars, but it's not their AO.”

“Yes,” I said, immediately not liking where I thought the conversation was going.
Stay calm, Rob. Hey, wait a minute, let me guess, this is the mad FOO/FAC bastard from the Zangabad teardown!
I looked at his badges and crest.
Yep, FOO/FAC!
The right side of my head began to throb painfully from where I'd been backblasted by the RPG.

“So you see what I mean,” he continued with a lump in his throat. “The Royal Marines weren't supposed to fire, and . . .” I felt my blood pressure rising a little too quickly. Joe looked like he was about to pick the clown upside down and shake him until he got some common sense.
Breathe, Rob, breathe.

“You mean,
the
Royal Marines
whose counter-mortar fire probably saved all of our lives? You can't possibly mean
those
Royal Marines?” I asked sarcastically.

“Well, yeah—them.” He looked back and forth between Joe and me, his eyes searching our faces for some sign of acknowledgement that we gave two fat shits about his firing-in-someone-else's-AO lecture. Of course, we couldn't care less, and worse, it was actually insulting.
That's it, I'm losing it—I'm losing it!
My vision began to turn dimly red and my head started to pound even more violently.

“I mean,” he continued, “we can't just have
anybody
shooting off mortar rounds—”

Okay, that's it. But just don't shout. Do
not
shout.

“Right, that's enough!” I shouted, cutting him off mid-sentence. “
First off
, do you really think the Taliban give a fuck about who's trying to kill them, the Brits or the Canadians? Is that what's important? Or, maybe,
just maybe
, is it
more
important that somebody—on
our
fucking side—is actually trying to kill
them
when they're trying to kill
us
? And come to think of it, I didn't hear your guns from Sperwhan firing! And then you fucking march in here, you don't ask about our wounded, or what you can do to help—that doesn't even cross your mind. All you care about is finding the OC of FOB Mushan and giving him some piddly ass Sunday-school lecture on who can shoot in whose AO?” I was absolutely livid.

“Well, it's not that—” he stammered.

“Enough! Look at him!” I said, pointing at the warrant, all covered in blood. “LOOK AT ME!!” I wrung out my pant leg so hard that my hand became soaked in blood. I held it up to his face and shouted, “I'm fucking standing here
soaked
in another man's blood!” I flicked my bloody fist hard at his feet, spattering blood all over his boots. “Do you think I give a
fuck
about your stupid AO rules, right now, here, in this place? Didn't you see the pools of blood as you walked in?” The warrant had inched closer to me and now placed his big arm across my chest, holding me back. I put my bloody hand up to the idiot's face, where he could see it clearly. My mind began to race with thoughts of extreme violence.

“It's time for you to leave,” Warrant Duceppe said with menace dripping from his ice-cold voice. The FOO/FAC didn't need to be told twice. He spun on his heel and jogged away through the gap in the Hesco wall.

“Easy, sir,” the warrant said. “Stand down. He got the point. Shit, you really tore into him.”

“Warrant, honestly, did that really just happen? Did my mind just make that up? Did he really come in here and try to lecture us on artillery rules in an AO? Am I losing my mind?”
I am losing it. There's no way that just happened.

“Oh, you know some people, sir, common sense ain't that common!”

“Okay, but did he think if the Brit mortars fired at the same time as our guns fired, the rounds would meet in mid-air, smash into each other, and cancel each other out?! What the hell, man?”
Breathe, Rob, breathe.

“C'mon,” the big warrant said, “let's get some coffee. Hey, did you hear that those mocha sachets are actually supposed to be poisonous?”

“After today,” I sighed, “who gives a shit?”

I grabbed a coffee and garnered stares everywhere I went.
Oh yeah—the blood.
But I wasn't going to get in the shower before any of the enlisted men. I walked from soldier to soldier and tried to encourage everyone. I could tell most of the guys felt like me—sort of hollow inside.