Continuing Actions on Objective Part 5
Rest with your eyes open. Rest with your eyes closed. It doesn’t matter you are never safe.
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"The ground’s flooded," our pointman relayed across the platoons radio net. The field we chose to insert into was engulfed by a water integration system, stopping us in our tracks right off the bat. Remember that swift insert you read about? yea, this was not happening, I stepped off, and my boots sunk right into the ground up to my mid-shin. The mud was warm, thick, and glue-like, much like quicksand with every step I’d take. My bodyweight, plus the dwarf on my back and full combat gear, made it difficult to have an effective patrol. And like that, our patrol changed within seconds of stepping foot into Taliban country. Adapting on the fly, the timer started, and it ended at sunrise, and we did not want to get stuck in plain sight in plain daylight.
To patrol - walk in an organized, strategic order with hyper-awareness looking out for the men to the left and right of you or in front and behind, searching for the enemy - through the farmlands of Afghanistan challenged every man's athleticism. The dangers of walking on roads and known footpaths were a no-go, another feature trying to get us all killed. We stuck to crossing over canals ranging from door size wide breaks in the ground or bigger using small wooden planks to cross over, praying for it not to break beneath my feet or jumping over these black holes of death filled with god knows what. Of course, with more exposure, it became routine over time, but that first mission, all of us found ourselves lost. We were confused on how to cross safely without causing too much attention to ourselves and trying to monkeyfuck this problem to find a solution on the fly. A few tactics were used and worked well; holding security and, one at a time, going through the process of getting across the canals. I had three options: take my ruck off and toss it across to the other guy, or run and jump over the canal and hope to make it through in full combat gear, not slip in and possibly ruin the entire patrol, which as a platoon happen a few times, and finally, using the locals as guides when needed to cross specific areas in villages, which became a tactic used more than I can count on my hands and feet.
With this being our first exposure to the area, it changed the dynamic of the patrol, the terrain turned problematic, our load on our backs brought us to a snail pace - not the racing snail speed from the neverending story - made use nearly combat ineffective. Our patrol ended up 800 meters directly south of our primary blocking position that we originally were asked to set up, but with the obstacles each of us faced. We found ourselves tucked away behind a berm near a road running west to east with another berm facing the north, which made into an L-shape that overlooked to the east. Off in the distance to the south, cracks and bursts of assault rifles and machine guns start to go off, ‘Troops in contact’ breaks over my headset from my ruck, the patrol south us must have found the hornet’s nest by the volume of gunfire that opened up. If you ever stepped into the arena of war, you will learn the distinguishing sound difference between various assault rifles, machine guns, bombs dropping, and if gun fire was directed at you or not. Even with the fighting down south, the fact that we were not far from our date with the enemy drove my heart to race and palms to sweat. My mind starts to race. There is no turning back or quitting, no longer in a training simulation, it’s real life, and I will be hunted or hunting the Taliban. I realized quickly that we all entered an ecosystem with no rules leaving the better warriors to triumph.
