Level Zero Heroes: The Story of U.S. Marine Special Operations in Bala Murghab, Afghanistan

PROLOGUE

SPRING 2009

Dust churning in our wake, we rolled along a rutted dirt road that wound through countryside that could have passed for the set of Dust Up. A flat, empty wasteland greeted our eyes to the north and south. Wadis and arroyos furrowed the landscape. Here and there, a few hardy plants and trees tried valiantly to make a go of it. Brown grass grew in tufts and waved in the gentle breeze. Behind us, snowcapped mountains rose out of this post-apocalyptic nothingness to provide a dramatic backdrop.

Our drivers were going flat out as our gunners rode high in their turrets. We’d been equipped with light armored trucks called Ground Mobility Vehicles (GMV)—basically souped-up Humvees with pickup-truck-style beds behind the cabs. They were designed exclusively for Special Operations units, and they bristled with weaponry. The turrets sported .50 caliber machine guns or 40mm grenade launchers, while the guys in back manned a pair of 7.62mm machine guns. Humvees had a third of our firepower.

The dirt road dumped us onto a black strip of asphalt that cut east–west through the desert. We swung left and blasted down the hardball, speedometers touching sixty-five. I rode in the back bed of our GMV, watching our little convoy of gun trucks and enjoying the wind on my sunburned face. It’d been a long day in full battle gear, and I was sweaty, rank, and dust-covered. Hours of wearing my helmet had left the back of my neck sore, as was my ass from sitting on the hard bench in the back of this truck. A few spent shell casings rattled around at our boots. We’d have to clean the brass out later.

The diesels roared. The sun dropped lower on the horizon, growing redder and more defined as sunset approached. We passed a reservoir haloed by green trees and grass, and it reminded me of an oasis in a Foreign Legion movie.

Another twenty minutes, and the desert gave way to irrigated farmland sustained by the reservoir. Orderly and well tended, the farms fanned out for miles on either side of the highway, a few homes interspersed among the fields.

A small town came into view up ahead, shimmering in the heat radiating off the asphalt. Some old buildings and a gas station—that was about it. Our lead truck pulled into the station and stopped at the pump island as the rest of us lined up to take a turn as well. After all the driving we’d done that day, all four of our GMVs needed to be topped off.

A few locals were busy gassing up their sedans and pickup trucks. When we dismounted from our armored vehicles, they snatched uneasy glances at us; others gaped in surprise. I doubted any of them had seen a Marine Special Operations Team blow into their little town before like this. When I climbed out of the back of our GMV to stretch my legs, the .45 caliber MEU(SOC) pistol I wore attracted some looks. Or maybe it was the body armor.

Pat, one of our Recon operators, slipped out of his turret, face covered in camouflage paint. I’d only been with the team a short time, and I barely knew its members but already Pat stood out. Energetic and passionate about all things military, he had been among the first to welcome me aboard. He was also the only one of us to put on cami paint. He wore it all the time, through every mission. When we hit the casinos in Reno after training missions, he’d show up with the stuff still in the creases behind his ears and along his hairline, even after showering.

Let’s go get some food, he said as he walked past me.

I followed him and the others into the gas station’s minimart, where a thirtysomething woman at the cash register greeted us with wide eyes. She was a stocky woman with bad teeth and a nametag on her shirt.

Tough life out here on the edge of nowhere. Probably makes less than eight bucks an hour.

That was me once, toiling away in a meaningless job, saving every dime I had to get out of the dead-end shithole existence I lived in back in Levittown, Pennsylvania. I achieved escape velocity and never looked back. I wondered about her. Was she saving, or simply surviving?

I nodded to her as we streamed past on our way to the beer cooler.

Coffee’s free for you boys, she said to us.

We thanked her, and a couple of us peeled off and went for the pots brewing on a side counter. The rest of us grabbed boxes of Budweiser, Coors Light, and Miller and stacked them next to her register. A few more of the guys grabbed a bunch of Ball Park Franks and buns. Soon, we had a pile of dogs, buns, beer, and condiments heaped in front of the cashier. She began ringing it up as the rest of us grabbed some coffee.

We stood in line and waited as the cashier totaled out our munchies.

Hey Ski, can I ask you something, Pat said.

Sure.

I’d seen him looking at the tattoo on my arm earlier, so I was expecting some sort of remark. It always got remarks. He nodded down at it and said, What’s that shit on your arm say?

Kill Whitey. In Hindi

He blinked. Dude, that’s fucked up.

It actually says Peace in Hindi, but I wasn’t about to tell a bunch of Special Ops Recon guys I’d just met something like that. I was already the black sheep of this bunch, I didn’t need to make it worse.

The cashier gave us our total, and Pat paid up. She handed him the receipt, which he stuck absently in his pocket. That little scrap of paper later came back to haunt us, but we didn’t know it then.

Moments later, twenty Marines in full combat kit burst out of the local Kwik-E-Mart toting boxes of beer and sacks of grub. We threw them aboard the GMVs and mounted up. Traffic in this little burg on the outskirts of Fallon, Nevada, was light that day, but cars stopped to let us have the right of way as we pulled out onto the main highway. After all, who wouldn’t break for armored gun trucks? Well, besides Iraqi drivers and guys emplacing IEDs (improvised explosive devices).

Gas, food, booze; we were all set. We put the sunset to our six and double-backed toward the wasteland of Dixie Valley. We hadn’t gone far when Pat ducked down in his turret, then reappeared with a Budweiser in hand. He cracked it open and took a long pull.

Do the open container laws extend to machine gun turrets on armored vehicles?

We had been training in Nevada now for several weeks as part of our pre-deployment workup for Afghanistan. Our Marine Special Operations Company (MSOC) was next in line to deploy to that country. The teams had been formed only a few years before, and now we were in the full-up rotation of deployments to Afghanistan like the rest of the SOCOM (Special Operations Command) elements.

To stand up MARSOC, the Corps culled the ranks of the Force Recon battalions, which up to that time had been the elite of the Marine infantry (MOS 0321). I was one of the only non-Recon guy on the team, which made me instantly suspect to the others. That was okay. I’d been an outsider all my life; nothing new here.

We reached the dirt road just as it grew dark. Headlights on, we bounced and shuddered into Dixie Valley as naval jet fighters streaked overhead. The valley was part of the vast naval airbase at Fallon, and the aviators used it for simulated bombing runs and low-altitude combat maneuvers. We’d been out at the ranges all day, shooting up targets as we practiced firing from our moving GMVs.

When we’d planned our operations in Dixie Valley, we’d discovered a couple of derelict buildings large enough to be seen on our satellite maps. Seemed like a good place for some team bonding. We decided to spend the night there.

We found the site about ninety minutes after leaving the gas station. An aluminum barn sat beside a trashed single-wide mobile home in disrepair. The place had been abandoned for years, if not decades. Nobody lived in the valley of course, since it was one giant military reservation. Our drivers parked the GMVs beside the barn, and we dismounted to set up our campsite between the two buildings.

With headlamp on, I set off to explore with the rest of the guys. The barn was tall, perhaps forty feet high at its peak. The roof was still intact, as was the siding. But when we pulled open the door, a vile stench poured out. Rats scurried between the stalls. Animal shit was scattered everywhere. One look was enough. We backed off and went to check out the mobile home.

The interior looked like the scene of the world’s worst domestic fight. Drawers had been pulled out and smashed. Cabinetry had been yanked off the wall and now sat splintered in heaps in the kitchen. A foul odor permeated the air here as well—a combination of rot and the sourness of neglect. Trash littered the place—broken bottles, wrappers, and shreds of linen or clothing lay intermingled on the dirt-strewn floor. The carpet had rotted away in places, and the linoleum in the bathroom was curled and torn. Part of the roof was gone, too.

George, one of our breachers, whose job it was to blow doors open for the rest of the team to go through, stood inside the place and said, This looks like something straight out of a horror movie.

We returned to the trucks and began off-loading the food and booze. Not far from where we parked, we found an old campfire site. This was probably a secret party spot for the high school kids in Fallon.

We scrounged around for wood and started our own bonfire. Somebody returned to the mobile home and pulled the grates out of the oven. We put them over the fire and threw the hot dogs on top. Soon, everyone was standing around in small groups, chatting, drinking, and eating.

We hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know each other. We’d had some nights out in Reno, but this was our first opportunity to get away from our command and the casino night life and just be together as a team.

I stood alone, drinking a beer and watching the guys. I’d been away from the team for much of the pre-deployment workup. While they’d been together, I’d been off at Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) course learning how to call in air strikes with pinpoint accuracy. I’d volunteered for the position and had come straight from a Field Artillery unit, so nobody in the Recon community had any idea who I was. Recon Marines are a closed bunch. If you are not one of them, they do not trust you until you prove your worth. That made me the team’s question mark. It also made me cautious and quiet.

A sonic boom thundered overhead. More dogfight training. I took a long pull from the can of beer I held and realized Rob was standing next to me.

Dark hair and dark eyes, bushy eyebrows, and broad shoulders, Rob was a Recon guy filling the role of team human intel specialist. He was also one of our senior Recon Marines.

How you doing, Ski? As usual, he had a dip in his mouth.

I shrugged. A lot better now that I am out of that truck.

Since I first came aboard, Rob had been the only one to greet me with any warmth. I’d gotten a good vibe from him right away, and that initial impression proved to be spot-on. As I watched him during our training exercises, he continually impressed me. Smooth and cat-quick in close-quarters combat drills, an excellent shooter, in superb physical shape—he was the consummate Marine. He also had a quiet, thoughtful leadership style that amazed me at times. A few words from Rob could change everything in a heartbeat. He was the kind of alpha male that other alpha males followed.

You’re from Colorado, aren’t you? he asked.

Now I am. Grew up in Pennsylvania. How about you?

Richfield, Ohio. Small town. Just me and my dad.

Were your folks divorced? I asked. I never knew my father. He bailed when I was a kid.

Rob shook his head. No.

The answer seemed like the verbal equivalent of a no trespassing sign, so I changed the subject. That was a hell of a run you pulled off in Reno.

Rob grinned. Thanks. Was a long night.

One night, we’d gone out on the town in Reno, and Rob had disappeared throughout the course of the night. The next morning we were supposed to head over to the Reno Police Department SWAT team’s rifle range. Rob never made it back to the barracks. We had waited for him as long as we could, then climbed into our trucks and departed. Later that morning, our company’s executive officer spotted Rob running on the side of the road, bathed in sweat. He’d woken up someplace in town that morning with his cell phone dead. Instead of calling for help and a ride, he shucked off his shirt and started running the eleven miles uphill back to the Reno-Stead Airport, where we were staying. The temperature couldn’t have been under a hundred that morning, and he pulled off this feat without any water.

Our MSOC commander called Andy, our team leader, and asked what the hell Rob was doing running on the side of the highway. Without a thought, Andy covered for him. He’s just doing a little extra PT.

Across the fire from us, George was talking with our team’s scout sniper, Mark. The two of them suddenly erupted in laughter at something George had said. Raised in Atlanta, George was a rich kid. I didn’t know much about him other than he talked a lot. And by a lot, I mean like nonstop. He was a one-man spectacle of sheer entertainment whose sense of humor was wicked smart and edgy. A few times in Hawthorne and Reno, I’d be sitting near George and the other younger Recon guys, listening to him say things so outrageous that I couldn’t help but to bust out laughing. I felt like an eavesdropper and tried to stifle myself. The guys would look over at me like I was the band geek sitting at the next table over from all the jocks.

Rob walked over to grab another beer. Alone again, I sat down in a folding field chair next to our GMV and listened to the conversations around me. Another pair of jets passed overhead. The night grew cold. As the temperature dropped, the team started to gather by the fire. The little knots of friends gave way to a warrior’s circle, faces lit red-orange by the flames. Soon they were laughing about Okinawa deployments and a legendary redheaded stripper from