Soldier: 'Death is a companion'
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By PAMELA HESS, Pentagon correspondent
WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- Green Berets are the most tight-lipped soldiers around. Their safety depends on secrecy. Five days before its mission a small team goes into physical isolation to plan its battles and review reams of intelligence. They see no one, speak to no one outside the team. They don't even share battle plans with other Green Berets.
But an errant U.S. missile strike that killed three Army Special Forces soldiers on an Afghan battlefield last week has eroded that reticence, for a few days anyway.
"They were soldiers fighting in a noble cause. They need to be remembered as heroes" rather than victims of a friendly fire accident, said 30-year old Army Capt. Jason Amerine, the commander of the 5th special forces detachment which was operating with the forces of Hamid Karzai in southern Afghanistan.
What he wants his fallen comrades remembered for is the salvation of Tirin Kowt, a small village in the mountains of southern Afghanistan, which faced certain slaughter by the Taliban and al Qaida forces had Amerine and his cohorts not arrived in time to direct the town's defense.
"It will always be in our memory as our greatest victory, probably of our lives," Amerine told reporters by phone Tuesday from Landstuhl, Germany, where he is recuperating from injuries sustained in a friendly fire accident.
Even more than Kandahar, Tirin Kowt was the heart and soul of the Taliban, according to Karzai, the Pashtun military leader soon to be installed as Afghanistan's temporary prime minister. Karzai knew if he could take the city he would break the back of the Taliban movement, Amerine said.
"He wanted to use it as a base to gather popular support," said Amerine.
As Karzai's forces with Amerine's team of about a dozen Green Berets advanced on Tirin Kowt late the night of Nov. 17, the villagers -- sensing the shift in power -- ousted their Taliban leaders. The town had few Taliban fighters to resist the coup; they would come about six hours later.
Karzai and his men settled in to meet with the town elders when messengers arrived to say a convoy of about 80 vehicles was coming from Kandahar to retake the town.
Amerine later learned from surrendered Taliban soldiers their intention was to "basically slaughter the town, kill women and children, kill the men and hang their bodies outside their houses."
"The impression I got was that they didn't know we were there," Amerine said.
Amerine's team of soldiers, who had been living and working alongside the Afghan freedom fighters "grabbed up their lead element and moved to a ridge where we proceeded to try to set up a hasty defense," he said.
The Americans called in airstrikes. But as the bombs started falling, the Afghans -- largely untested in battle -- fell back, retreating to Tirin Kowt.
"They were our ride," Amerine said, so his men went with them.
"It was a tense situation. All of our (Afghan) forces hadn't really shown up in the valley," said Amerine. "The first couple of hours I had my doubts whether we could hold the valley, hold the town. I started thinking about getting Hamid Karzai out of their for his own safety."
Once back in Tirin Kowt, the Green Berets immediately "stole" four cars and drove back up to the ridge to continue to call in airstrikes.
"We decided it would be in the best interest of the two to take them and move forward, so that's what we did," he said.
They set themselves up in the same ridge, looking down on the narrow pass the convoy was moving through. Using their communications equipment, they called in bombing strikes.
"It was kind of strange because they just kept coming into the valley and we just kept bombing them."
The convoy lost most of its vehicles and about 300 fighters. A few Afghan Taliban fighters surrendered. Most of those in the convoy, however, were Arab and other non-Afghans. They left their dead on the road and fled back to Kandahar.
"None of the Arabs stuck around to surrender from what I can see," he said.
The battle over, the Americans returned to Karzai.
Over the next hours and days Karzai received various religious leaders. He was concerned about allowing the Green Berets in on the meetings, as he feared the Afghans would say "bad things" about them in their presence.
But what the Americans heard was gratitude.
"They said if we hadn't been there they would be dead," Amerine said.
As detachment commander, Amerine spent about half his days at Karzai's side. He is, to say the least, a major fan of the man who was tapped to lead Afghanistan out of the last 20 years of war.
"Working with Hamid Karzai was an honor," Amerine said, describing Karzai's ability to lead his people with a quiet power.
"I would consider him a friend at this point. I've developed a great deal of respect for him" as a military leader, political leader and an international diplomat.
That restraint extended itself to battle as well.
The message he continued to spread was to treat prisoners well, send them home ... so the country could heal its wounds," Amerine said.
By acting mercifully towards his adversaries, Karzai saw a way to break the cycle of bloodshed that has plagued Afghanistan for two decades.
"The Taliban were extremely willing to surrender to him because they knew he favored good treatment," Amerine said.
Amerine's men were initially received as guests, a place of honor in Afghan culture. By the end of the battle for Tirin Kowt, they were brothers.
"The trust was there. The bonds were there," he said. "They welcomed us into the village as guests, an extremely important part of Afghan culture. But we had to prove ourselves to them. We did that by sharing hardships ... we were shot at together."
His esteem for the Afghan fighters is high.
"The biggest thing I judge an army by is the heart I see in the soldiers," he said. "They were incredible patriots."
It took a while before his team was fully at ease with the Afghans.
"When you're working in denied territory, the only way you can sleep at night is knowing you have some measure of security," Amerine said. "You have to be able to trust them. The whole development of that relationship with the anti-Taliban was the most difficult thing to develop."
"By the time this tragic incident occurred, we were brothers out there," Amerine said.
The "tragic incident" was the death of three of Amerine's compatriots on Dec. 5 when a B-52 dropped a 2,000-lb Joint Direct Attack Munition weapon on the Afghan fighters and the Americans.
Two were from Amerine's own detachment. -- Master Sergeant Jefferson Donald Davis, 39, of Tennessee, and Sergeant First Class Daniel Henry Petithory, 32, of Massachusetts. "We were closer than a family," he said. "It's not something you ever really recover from emotionally."
Also killed was Staff Sergeant Brian Cody Prosser, 28, California, who was with a separate detachment that had just joined Amerine on the battlefield that day.
Davis was the team sergeant, "the glue that holds the detachment together, the ring leader," said Amerine. It is his job to coordinate the various activities and expertise of the 12-man team.
Petithory was the senior communications sergeant, one of two on the detachment. Petithory was the detachment's "lifeline to the world, the conduit to the chain of command ... arguably the most important job on the team."
The death toll would have been higher had it not been for the heroics of the medics on Amerine's detachment and the pilots who braved flying low over Afghan territory in daylight hours to rescue them, in some cases loaded with makeshift crews of other Green Berets -- friends in other detachments -- who had heard what happened and determined to be a part of the rescue.
Amerine said at least five American soldiers suffered extensive trauma from the bomb and would have died had it not been for the quick work of the others. Nearly 40 Americans and Afghans were wounded in the accident, including Hamid Karzai.
"Everyone who could walk, everyone who could crawl was working on them," Amerine said.
"Death," said Amerine, "is a companion when you are out on an operation like this."
"I'm often asked, who do I blame for this?" he said. He blames no one.
"Close air support was one of the most important missions of this war. It kept us alive when the Taliban were coming north to Tirin Kowt. You can not devalue that asset."
Amerine, a 1993 graduate of West Point, suffered flesh wounds and a ruptured eardrum. He said his "A Team" detachment has only one mission now: to heal.
"A lot will be in physical therapy. A lot will be limping around for a long time," he said.
They will spend the next few months taking care of the families of the fallen and of each other, he said.
But when the detachment is healthy and whole again, they will "get another mission and get back to the war," Amerine said.
The detachment includes a commander -- in this case Amerine. In addition to the team sergeant, the detachment includes a warrant officer, responsible for long-term planning and "giving me advice, to keep me from making stupid decisions," Amerine said.
There are two weapons sergeants, who attended "nearly every military school imaginable" and are experts in everything from marksmanship to artillery. There are also two detachment engineers, able to build irrigation systems, construct buildings, blow things up and take apart landmines.
Two logistics sergeants are responsible for resupplying the team, arranging for humanitarian aid and determining what can be procured on the ground.
Two intelligence specialists determine the location and capabilities of enemies, friendly forces and noncombatants.
A typical detachment also includes two communications specialists, who link the team back to their headquarters.
Finally, the team includes two medics "the best trauma specialists in the world," Amerine said. "They give us confidence to go deep behind enemy lines." |
