Home : America At War : War On Terror :Operation Anaconda (OEF)In March 2002 fighting in the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was renewed as coalition forces made a massive push against about 500 to 1000 al-Qaeda and Taliban forces in the Shahi-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains southeast of Zormat, in an operation code-named Operation Anaconda. The operation primarily comprised of elements of the United States 10th Mountain Division, 101st Airborne Division, Canada's 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and the Afghan National Army. In eastern Afghanistan, Operation Anaconda begins on March 1. U.S. special forces are secretly infiltrated in to set up observation posts.
Leave No Man BehindA team of Special Forces survives ambush, a 15-hour assault and harsh elements in a brave but costly rescue mission.On March 4, 2002, in the midst of Operation Anaconda, a helicopter carrying Navy SEALs on a routine recon mission was setting down atop a strategic Afghan mountain when it was suddenly consumed by ground fire. The chopper bucked wildly, and SEAL Neil C. Roberts was flung from the rear landing ramp, falling 12 feet into a hornet’s nest of Taliban and Al Qaeda gunfire. As the staggering chopper retreated, the men onboard knew they would have to return to retrieve Roberts. What they didn’t know was that when they did, six of them would die in one of the most brutal and second-guessed battles since the Black Hawk Down debacle in Somalia. But they had a code: “Leave no man behind.” This is their story—in two parts. First: a bullet-by-bullet account of the battle. Second: the damning trail of the screwups that fatally slowed the evacuation of the men who won it against massive odds. Vietnam veteran Michael Hirsh’s forthcoming book, None Braver, takes the military brass to task for not acting faster and saving more lives. Part I: The Battle of Takur GharThe battle raged on the mountainside of Takur Ghar, in the Shah-e-kot Valley region of the Hindu Kush mountains. U.S. troops hoped to secure the summit to gain its 360-degree view of several strategic trails and a large part of the valley. For centuries, local warriors have pounced on invaders, including the Soviets during the 1980s, from this perfect ambush setting. A Navy SEAL recon team attempts to land a MH-47E Chinook (code name: Razor 3). Due to poor intelligence, the lumbering troop carrier is shredded with machine-gun and grenade fire from dozens of hostile Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters as it tries to touch down. As the aircraft jerks to avoid incoming fire, Petty Officer First Class Neil C. Roberts is flung 12 feet to the ground from the rear ramp of the Chinook, where he begins to fend off enemy fighters. After pulling out to avoid further fire, Razor 3 is too damaged to return to the nearby base at Gardez and lands in a valley four miles from the summit. Razor 4, another Chinook in the area, heads to the valley to pick up the stranded SEALs and crew of Razor 3. With so many troops onboard, Razor 4 is too heavy to reach the ridge where Roberts is single-handedly staving off enemy fighters with his M-249 machine gun. Razor 4 returns to the Gardez base 15 minutes away to unload enough personnel to fly properly, then heads back for Roberts with the original SEAL team plus Air Force Technical Sergeant John Chapman. While intelligence monitors his struggle via a Predator drone, an unmanned (but armed) robot plane, Roberts fights furiously and survives for at least 30 minutes. He is killed by gunfire at close range before Razor 4 reaches Takur Ghar, a fact probably unknown to the rescue team. Razor 4 lands in the same area where Roberts fell and immediately takes furious fire. At touchdown, the SEALs and Chapman advance toward the enemy dug in near a tree 50 yards away. Chapman and two SEALs are shot. Wounded, Chapman is unable to be moved. Meanwhile, Army Rangers depart nearby Bagram air base in two more Chinooks—Razor 1 and Razor 2—to rescue Roberts. On the way, they are informed that they are to rescue Roberts and the SEALs of Razor 3. Razor 1 carries 10 Rangers, led by Captain Nathan Self, and three Air Force Special Tactics Squadron members, including pararescue specialist Senior Airman Jason Cunningham and eight crewmen.
Word does not reach Razor 1 that the SEALs have withdrawn, so a risky landing is once again attempted in the same ambush zone. The Chinook is bombarded by automatic-weapons fire and rocket-propelled grenades as it lands. When it hits the ground, an RPG sets it ablaze. Four Rangers onboard are killed, and both of the pilots are seriously wounded. Razor 2 loses contact with the downed team and heads to Gardez.
The bullets that found their way beneath the ceramic plates in Jason Cunningham’s protective vest had done maximum damage. One ripped through his lower back and fractured his pelvis. Another pierced the artery that carries blood from the abdominal aorta to the legs and feet. Two of his comrades, pararescue specialist Keary Miller and a Ranger medic who had climbed the mountain with the recently arrived reinforcements, instantly knew Cunningham’s wounds were life-threatening. But left in enemy territory on a freezing mountain, there was little they could do for him except keep him warm. He needed to get to a military hospital as soon as possible.
Cunningham was hit at about 11:15 A.M. The battle was wearing down, and it was obvious to Ranger team leader Captain Nathan Self that several casualties might not survive if the evacuation was delayed. “The controller asked me if the pick-up zone was cold [secure] and how many guys we were going to lose if we waited,” said Air Force radio operator Sergeant Kevin Vance in an affidavit about the battle. “The medic said at least two, maybe three. I reported: ‘It is a cold pickup zone, and we are going to lose three if we wait.’ Just as I said that, we were shot at.”
After the furious battle they’d just barely survived, the occasional rifle shots that Al Qaeda troops fired at them now seemed relatively inconsequential. Self’s concern was more about convincing headquarters in Bagram—near Kabul, about one hour’s flying time away—that it would be safe to come in during daylight hours and evacuate the wounded.
With Al Qaeda forces being held at bay by air cover, Self no longer needed Vance as a rifleman and allowed him to stay in contact with observation posts in the area. When word came that Al Qaeda forces were advancing, he’d call in close air support to suppress the threat, but repeated requests for evacuation went unheeded.
Sources in the Combat Controller (CCT) community claimed that the threat from enemy forces in the area was greater than the radio operator realized. The truth is difficult to sort out. Those who have asked why Captain Self’s request to bring in a medevac helicopter was ignored—among them, Jason Cunningham’s grieving parents—have never been given the satisfaction of a detailed answer. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) insists that Captain Self and Vance were wrong in claiming that the landing zone was made “cold” for a safe extraction of the critically wounded. However, another military source says, in no uncertain terms, that that statement is “an insult to the integrity of a highly qualified Ranger officer whose actions on Takur Ghar earned him a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.”
Indeed, there were other eyes watching the potential enemy threat in the area. Nearby, Australian patrols were monitoring attempts by Al Qaeda to advance on Self’s platoon, and several SEAL observation posts were in contact with the Rangers on the rescue mission. And while the action began to settle down, one CCT Technical Sergeant, Jim Hotaling, who had watched the battle from atop a ridge about two miles south of Takur Ghar, later disputed intelligence reports that some 70 enemy soldiers were heading toward the downed Americans. He never saw anything more than small groups of the enemy trying to get into the area. And when he saw them, he bombed them. None got closer than three quarters of a mile to Self’s platoon.
It wasn’t difficult for the men on the hill to surmise what was going on at headquarters. They’re thinking: We’ve already had three helicopters shot in the same location. Even though the captain thinks the area is cold, he may not have complete situational awareness. And the consequences of bringing another helicopter in—if it gets shot down—are that its crew would now be added to the 27 men who need to be pulled off the mountain already. The small landing zone would then be cluttered with the wreckage of two helicopters, and those guys would have to hike hundreds of meters to find another suitable one.
Nevertheless, Captain Self believed that with the close air support they’d been using all day, the landing zone was safe for an evacuation, so he ordered Vance to continue pressing the point with headquarters. The official radio logs indicate that the Rangers made “adamant” calls for a medevac, indicating that a bird could get in to extract the three critical cases and be on the ground for no more than two minutes.
At one point, a Ranger medic was put on the radio to convey the specific gravity of the casualties. He was followed by Self, who reiterated that if a helicopter wasn’t sent, they were going to lose two or three more men. The response was as cold as it was curt. “We understand the nature of your casualties and the consequences of not sending a medevac,” replied headquarters in Bagram.
Meanwhile, at Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan, an American base north of Afghanistan, Chris Young, a pararescue specialist comrade of Cunningham’s, was waiting for a transport plane to Bagram. While he waited, Young listened to the satellite-communications channel, and he heard Anaconda headquarters radio back to the Ranger team that “there would be no attempt to pick them up until nightfall.”
Military experts believe the brass in Bagram didn’t understand that by the time Self insisted on bringing in a helicopter to evacuate the casualties in daylight, all of the enemy fighters who had done the shooting from close range were dead. The problem was that Self hadn’t made it clear on the radio that they were no longer dealing with shooters 10 to 30 meters away. Because of the constant bombing, the enemy was now between 300 to more than 1,000 meters away. Long after the mission had ended, in the inevitable “lessons learned” documents, it’s mentioned that headquarters may have chosen to ignore Self’s claims that the landing zone was cold because the platoon was simultaneously calling for bomb drops on nearby ridges and valleys. The leadership watching live Predator feeds in Bagram didn’t comprehend that the bomb drops were preventative in nature, rather than evidence that the platoon was under close attack.
Everyone on the hill was aware that Cunningham would not survive if they did not get him out before dark. The Ranger medic who was caring for him knew there was nothing he could do to stop the internal bleeding, and he knew that Jason Cunningham understood it too.
Self analyzed the situation and determined that a Chinook could be directed to land on the reverse slope, away from where the enemy had launched their counterattack, which would conceal the aircraft and leave only its rotors visible from the enemy-held ridgeline 400 meters away.
No soldier on the mountain knew that less than 15 minutes flying time away, a pair of Air Force HH-60G Pave Hawk choppers were waiting for orders to get the casualties out. Had they known, they could have told Bagram that the significantly smaller 60 could land and be totally hidden behind the ridge. Not even the rotors would be visible to enemy forces. They could have even provided instructions for the route the Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) birds would fly in order to make the pickup. This wasn’t guesswork.
What is left to guess is whether the special operations commanders, including Air Force Brigadier General Gregory Trebon, knew that the CSAR birds were ready, willing and able to attempt the rescue. Trebon told Brigadier General John H. Folkerts, the commanding general of the 347th Rescue Wing at Moody Air Force Base, that the area had been too hot to bring in a medevac helicopter during daylight. But Folkerts says Trebon never mentioned the availability of the nearby Air Force CSAR birds with Folkert’s own Air Force troops aboard and ready for the evacuation.
What was more disturbing to some of the men monitoring the communications is that it appeared that the Rangers on the mountain were conned into believing that a rescue was still being planned, even though there was no intention to fly in until hours later.
But no one in uniform will publicly question or criticize Brigadier General Trebon’s decision to delay the rescue while Jason Cunningham slowly bled to death.
Shortly after 6 P.M., just as darkness fell, Cunningham’s condition worsened. A Ranger medic began CPR to no avail. In his affidavit, Vance says, “I was watching our medic…I saw him doing CPR, and I knew it was bad. I then saw the medic stand up and start walking to me. That is when I got on the radio to the controller and said we now had seven KIA.”
Cunningham lived for roughly six hours after being wounded. His death was the result of internal bleeding that could easily have been stopped by surgeons waiting at Bagram.
In Afghanistan, commanders watching video in comfortable quarters miles from the action could see their troops getting hit. The generals’ asses weren’t on the line—but their careers were. It was easier and safer—for them—to delay the evacuation that could have saved Cunningham until after dark. Clearly, the PJ credo, “That Others May Live,” was not in their playbook. Cunningham’s mentor, Air Force Pararescue Team leader Chris Young, says, “I learned a long time ago, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The next best thing you can do is the wrong thing to do. And the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
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