Chapter 14

I loved being a medic! At this point in my life, there wasn’t anything on Earth I’d rather be. The trouble was, that the empathy that made me a good medic, also made the inability to save every patient’s life hurt me to my heart. The four soldiers who died in the ambushed Bradley weighed heavily on my mind when I was back at the FOB. I knew there were nightmares in my future about the Bradley driver who had been disintegrated by the exploding RPG. When I closed my eyes, I saw his remains smeared around the inside of the driver’s compartment like raw hamburger.

So naturally, the DFAC served spaghetti and meat sauce as a main course that night. I passed on the pasta and was desultorily pushing salad around my plate when someone dropped a hand on my shoulder. I looked up into a pair of concerned big brown eyes.

“I heard about today, Johnny. The people who recovered the Bradley said it was horrific. Are you okay?” Regina Baker asked.

I answered her truthfully.

“I’ve had better days, Ma’am. Four guys died today, and I couldn’t do anything for any of them. One of the ones I could help might never walk again, and two of the others probably have some degree of permanent hearing loss,” I admitted.

“I felt that way after my convoy was ambushed, and the fuel tankers were blown up. I told Chaplain Tolliver how I felt, and he told me that it was normal to feel some survivor’s remorse. The Chaplain also told me that we should mourn those we lose, but it’s more important to celebrate those we saved,” she said.

I could tell the lieutenant wanted to say more but SSG Kennedy walked up.

“We need to get going Ma’am, we’ve got counselling sessions scheduled starting at 1800,” said Kennedy.

Regina looked at her watch and frowned.

“I gotta go, Doc. I’ll call you later.”

“Wait a minute,” I said before she could walk away, “don’t you need my number?”

“I’ve had your number since the day you wrapped my ribs at the TMC. I got it from your personnel records that same afternoon. In fact, we all have your number now, don’t we Staff Sergeant Kennedy.”

Then she laughed, patted my shoulder, and walked out of the dining facility.

Regina didn’t call me until twenty-hundred (2000 hours). I was working on an e-mail to my sister when my phone rang.

I flipped open my phone and said, “This is Johnny.”

“Whatcha wearing, Johnny?” this sexy as hell voice asked.

“Stylish desert camo pants and a coyote brown t-shirt. How about you?” I said.

Regina Baker laughed and said, “The same. It’s what’s in, this year.”

“Yeah, but you look so much better in them than me,” I replied.

She laughed again.

“If anyone else used that line on me, I’d tell them to drop dead. But when you say it, I tingle to my toes. I’m gasoline and you are a match, Johnny. I swear, one day we’re gonna start an epic fire.”

“You say the word and I’ll be there, Sweetness,” I said as I adjusted the hard-on she’d just given me.

We traded sexy talk for a few more minutes before ending the call. Regina had done an excellent job of taking my mind off today’s tragedy. She also gave me something good to dream about that night, when she told me how badly she wanted to be naked in my arms.

Of course, my roommate, the ever inquisitive, never at a loss for words, Jerome (JP) Pettis, overheard my side of the conversation.

“That sounded hot. Who was that?” he asked.

“It was Nunya’,” I replied.

Which one is Nunya. Is that Kennedy’s first name?” he asked, a confused look on his face.

“Nope, it’s none ya’ freaking business!” I crowed.

The ambush of the Bradley resulted in more dismounted patrolling through danger areas by the 4^th Infantry guys. Troops on the ground cleared the area with the Bradley over-watching. The FOB Commander had two of the six mech platoons out patrolling around the camp every day. Plus, one platoon was always out blocking suspected infiltration routes. The tempo of operations was putting a lot of strain on both the maintenance support soldiers, and the Bradley crews.

With the mechanized infantry units patrolling out to ten miles, the TOC was tasked with doing the more long-range reconnaissance. Most of our missions took us all the way to the Syrian border. We were mapping possible infiltration routes along the border in two or three kilometer swaths. We skipped along the border to keep the bad guys from determining where we’d be next. The good thing about the patrols along the border was we seldom engaged anything we found. Instead, our Combat Controller called in a C-130 gunship. The gunships were code named Spooky and they were just that. They flew in, acquired their targets, blew the shit out of them, and then flew off.

So that’s how January and three weeks of February sped by. We were busy, but the worst casualty I treated was the foot that SP4 Wagner broke when he exited a helicopter too soon as we were being inserted into the field. SFC Edwards talked LT Albert into keeping Wagner at the FOB instead of evacuating him to the rear. Edwards said sending Wagner back to the states was rewarding him for being an idiot.

I fitted Wagner with a walking cast and wrote him a temporary physical profile for limited duty. I wrote that he could perform light duty as long as he was off his feet for ten minutes an hour. SFC Edwards detailed Wagner to the Dining Facility as a cook’s helper. Edwards and the Sergeant First Class that managed the DFAC were friends, so we knew the fix was in. Since Wagner was a complaining dickhead, we also figured he deserved his plight.

It was the first of March, and we were taking two days of down time after five straight night ops when a runner from the TOC pounded on our door. I looked at my Seiko as I hauled my ass out of my rack. It was 1235. I opened the door knowing I probably wasn’t getting any more sleep.

“Sergeant Pulaski, you need to report to the TOC at 1400,” he said.

“In what uniform?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“Don’t know, Sergeant. I’m just the runner, nobody tells me shit.”

Since I had over an hour before I had to report, I threw on a clean uniform and moseyed over to the DFAC. SP4 Wagner was sitting at the desk by the DFAC’s entrance with one of those little silver things that, when you push on a button, increases a number counter by one. Wagner was wearing an armband with corporal stripes on it. He was on his third week of duty at the DFAC and he was all smiles when he saw me.

“I need to see your meal card, Doc. Sergeant First Class Isaacs made me an acting corporal so I could be headcount (headcount was normally an NCO’s job),” he said officiously.

I shook my head and pulled out my wallet. This was the first time I had to show my meal card in the almost six months I had been at the FOB. He made a production of studying my card before clicking his counter and letting me pass. I loaded up a tray and found an empty table. I was taking my first bite of mystery meat with brown gravy when Lieutenant Patricia Smith and a captain walked up to my table. The pair of them were wearing flight suits.

“May we join you, Sergeant?” the captain asked.

It took me a second, but I recognized the captain; his name was Daily, and he was the pilot of the helicopter shot down on the SAR mission. I had treated him for a broken wrist. Trisha was his co-pilot.

Yes, Sir,” I replied.

Daily sat across from me and Trisha slid into the chair to my left.

“How are you two doing? I see you are back flying.” I said.

“I’m good, Doc, thanks for asking. And you already know about Lieutenant Smith’s recovery,” the captain said.

Trisha ducked her head and blushed as Daily chuckled. I wasn’t about to let him get to me.

“Yes, Sir. Follow up care is very important,” I dead panned.

“Touché,” he replied with a laugh.

“So what brings you guys out to the boonies, are you being punished for something?” I asked.

This time Trisha laughed along with Daily.

“We have no idea why we are here. We were sent here with only our crew chief and told to be ready to fly any time after 2400,” Trisha said.

“I have to report to the TOC at 1400, maybe I’ll learn something then,” I said.

Another chuckle.

“We’ll find out together because we have to report, too,” Daily said.

Man, oh man, did we ever find out!

The TOC was crowded when I walked in at 1355. There were a bunch of Army aviators, CPT Daily and LT Smith, all the leadership of the Second Platoon, the TOC staff and two bearded guys I first thought were Iraqis. An Army major in a flight suit led the aviators off to the other side of the room and one of the bearded guys started briefing the rest of us.

“Good afternoon, I’m Master Sergeant Rivera, from 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta. (1^st SFOD-D). In the early morning hours three days ago a convoy of medical personnel belong to the Doctors Without Borders was ambushed soon after entering Iraq from Jordan. They were ambushed and taken hostage by elements of ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq). The convoy’s Iraqi military escort was wiped out, so no one knew of the attack until the convoy failed to show up at a clinic in Samarra later that afternoon.”

“Yesterday, one of the doctors was beheaded in a video provided to the Al Jazeera news channel. The ten-minute video showed seven other hostages, four males and three females. The man who did the beheading claims to be an ISIL Commander name of Abdullah. The man said the hostages would be released if a list of terrorists in various prisons around the world were freed. Commander Abdullah stated that if the terrorists weren’t released within forty-eight hours, a hostage would be publicly executed each day until the prisoners were set free.

“We caught a big break when they uploaded the video by cell phone. Even though it was a burner phone, the geeks at the NSA was able to trace the call back to the small Syrian village of Al Busamal, seventy-five kilometers west of here, just across the border. Satellite overflight and signal intercepts identified the location as an ISIL training base. Satellite imagery counted approximately sixty insurgents there and identified the likely location of the hostages.

“My team’s mission tonight is to rescue the hostages. To accomplish that, we need you Rangers to neutralize the training base and prevent any of the foot soldiers from reinforcing the group holding the hostages. We have to do this the old-fashioned way because of the diplomatic uproar using attack aircraft in a foreign country would cause. Don’t ask me why, but once we retrieve the hostages, we can call for air support.”

Rivera pointed to the second bearded man.

“SFC Steele has satellite photos of the compound you can use to make your plan. He also has the timeline and our OPORD (Operations Order). I know this doesn’t give you much time to plan, but if we are going to get those hostages, it has to be tonight. Steele and I will try to answer your question as you plan.”

When the platoon’s leadership gathered around SFC Steele. Rivera turned to me and let me know my part in this.

“SFC Edwards speaks highly of you, Sergeant Pulaski. He said we could count on you to do whatever was needed and that you were a damned good Ranger and an excellent medic. So, you are coming with us to get the hostages. You’ll be part of the breach element led by SFC Steele. His team will clear a room and call you in if they need you. Until then you hang back and don’t get yourself shot. Capiche?”

“I understand, MSG Rivera,” I replied.

Holy Moly, I was going on an operation with Delta!

Rivera and Steele huddled with LT Albert, SFC Edwards and the squad leaders, so I went back to my room. I don’t know why I was surprised that Rivera and Steele looked like two average guys. Nothing about them even hinted that they were among the most elite soldiers in the world. On reflection I guess looking so normal helped them blend in with their surroundings.

I napped for a couple of hours until JP woke me at 1715.

“Get up, Bro, we have a warning order at 1800 and we need some chow first,” he said.

We gobbled down dinner and joined the rest of the platoon in the open area between the shipping containers that held our extra and special weapons and equipment. The area between the containers was much nicer now because we had eight picnic tables compliments of the SEABEEs.

Someone had made a sand table of the camp we were attacking. The camp was really a four-acre compound enclosed by a concrete wall about a meter and a half tall. The camp consisted of a large house with two metal buildings against the wall to the right of the house. The metal buildings were about fifteen meters long and seven meters wide and sat a hundred meters from the house. Four small pickup trucks and two box trucks were neatly parked beside the left-hand building. A hundred and fifty meters in front of the house at a right angle to the metal buildings were six, white, five-sided Bedouin tents. The tents were about ten meters in circumference (which is about 12.5 feet across). Behind the tents a gate led out to a rifle range and an obstacle course. A double gate to the village’s dirt road was centered in the wall fifty meters to the left of the house.

The Second Platoon Squad Leaders went over their squad’s part in the operation until every Ranger knew his responsibility inside and out. It was the best they could do since they couldn’t rehearse. We drew extra ammunition and grenades for the mission and everyone except me and the RTO drew a claymore. We dispensed with most of the gear and rations we normally carried to make room for the war fighting items. I ended up with ten magazines of 5.56, five grenades and as many additional medical supplies as I could stuff into my aid bag.

At 2200 hrs, I geared up, spending extra time taping off anything that could rattle or jingle. Then I cammoed any exposed skin and walked over to the heli-pad to link up with SFC Steele. Steele was standing with the five other members of his team, and he introduced me around as we got organized to board an MH-60. While we were standing there Trisha Smith walked up. She was carrying an aviator’s helmet bag, and her brown hair was in a ponytail. In the dim light of a quarter moon, she looked like a teenage girl playing dress up.

She put her hand on my arm and said, “Be safe, Johnny.”

I nodded and replied, “You too, Ma’am. Don’t make me have to come get you again.”

She laughed and punched my arm.

“Find me when we get back so I can say bye before we fly home,” she said.

I saluted.

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said.

She laughed and snapped me a perfect military academy salute.

SFC Steele gave me a look as she was walking away.

“I’m fostering inter-service cooperation,” I said.

In the best ‘hurry up and wait’ military tradition, we stood around until it was time to load onto the helicopters as they spun up on the concrete pad. There were five helicopters in our flight. They were all 160^th SOAR (Special Operations Air Regiment) Night Stalkers. Second Platoon was spread between two MH-47 Chinooks. The Chinooks were configured to transport twenty-four soldiers and 10 stretchers. Each of the Delta elements had its own MH-60 and an empty Blackhawk flew chase. Two Apache attack helicopters and CPT Daily’s SAR bird would join us in an hour.

I listened to my iPod during the thirty-minute flight to keep my mind off the mission. Ironically, the particular section of the playlist Mikayla made me was from the Vietnam War era. As I listened to Eric Burdon and the Animals singing, We Got to Get Out of This Place, I was wondering why we couldn’t just fly in with guns blazing like in Apocalypse Now. Those dudes weren’t tied down with rules of engagement or political considerations. Yeah, I know it was all Hollywood fiction, but the idea of going in to mop up after rockets and napalm blew the shit out of the target beat the hell what we were about to attempt.