Enduring Freedom, page 25
Baheer looked his brother in the eye. “There is nobody else.” He wasn’t sure if he could move the truck or not, but he went for it.
“What are you doing?” Rahim screamed as he followed. “Let’s just run toward the school.”
Baheer climbed up to the driver’s door. “If we run, we’ll get shot. The truck will give us cover and once it’s moved, the American machine gun can shoot back.”
He opened the door. The driver had taken two bullets in his head. With the strength that comes from desperation, Baheer shoved the man’s body across to the passenger side, then moved his legs out of the way. Several bullets pinged the truck, and Baheer stayed low to avoid the enemy’s sight. Rahim stood on the steel step below the door.
Baheer had only had one driving lesson, and it was over a year ago, but he’d seen his uncles and father drive trucks like this all the time. He did his best to remember, he and Rahim mumbling prayers the whole time. He turned the key to start the truck and then grinded the clutch a little, trying to shift into gear.
“Come on!” Baheer pleaded. “Pleeeease, you stupid truck! Go!”
Ahead of him, the other Humvee machine gun opened up. A slower chunk-chunk-chunk-chunk-chunk. Baheer cursed. “Stop for a second. I’m getting this thing out of your way.”
The bus exploded from the inside, not explosions of fire, but bursts of shrapnel, glass, and blood. Baheer and Rahim ducked.
“Baheer, we can’t stay here!” Rahim shouted. “Drive!”
Baheer fought to shift again. “Grab this shifter and help me pull!” Both Baheer and Rahim pulled it back. A second barrage from the American grenade-shooting machine gun. Chunk-chunk-chunk-chunk. The bus was being shredded.
Baheer felt the gears clunk into place. “Finally!” he shouted. “Here we go!” He stomped on the gas, but the truck lurched backward. Baheer hit the brakes hard.
“Just go!” Rahim screamed.
“There are hurt people behind me,” Baheer said.
“They’ll be hurt if they don’t keep moving. Anyway, we can’t drive in front of that grenade-launching machine gun,” Rahim said.
Baheer reversed toward the school until the back of the truck slammed into the concrete porch. They jerked to a stop and killed the engine, but they still weren’t safe. The Taliban turned their guns toward the truck. Rahim pulled Baheer out of the vehicle and down to the ground before the bullets could catch him.
On the edge of Joe’s consciousness, he knew the jingle truck had backed out of the way. He felt compressed air in his chest with the PopPopPopPop of the .50-cal. joining the fight.
BreathControl—RelaxedTriggerSqueeze—AimCenter Mass. No thought. No separation from his weapon. Joe shot and killed people—Taliban. He’d burned through another magazine, laying down fire on the bus. He slapped another magazine into his weapon, pushed the bolt release to send the bolt forward to seat a new round, and started taking down individual targets one by one.
But that first pickup was trying to flank them. If it did, they were dead.
Joe grabbed the grenade from the canteen cup clipped low on his vest. Unthinking, he bit hard on the tape holding down the spoon, the safety lever, ripping it away with a jerk of the head. He pulled the pin, squared up to the Hilux.
Give it some lead! Gotta hit this! One chance!
He didn’t throw the grenade with the special windup they’d showed them in basic. He whipped it baseball style, one bounce short of the truck, and a roll right to the front left wheel.
The grenade exploded, shredding the tire, part of the wheel, maybe some of the engine, and the truck skidded to a halt.
“We’re just trying to help a school!” Joe fired three times. At least one round hit the driver.
Baccam cursed. “They hit my gun! Right in the barrel! We got more coming in through the gate!”
“We gotta get out of here!” Paulsen shouted from behind the Land Cruiser. “We’re pushing a bad position!”
“Baccam?” Joe called. “Make toward the school?”
The taliban in the pickup Joe had disabled were using their vehicle for cover and showering them with rounds. Joe moved back, opened the rear passenger-side door for a shield and returned fire.
“Shockley, what are you doing!?” Cavanaugh shouted. “Everybody get to the school!”
The big guy had slung his rifle and run toward the disabled pickup with the AT4, talking himself through the cocking procedure even as he did it. “Go! I got these guys!” Shockley yelled. He wasn’t waiting, but slung that big green tube up onto his shoulder. Baccam pulled Joe toward the school.
The AT4 screamed! Fire and smoke shot out both ends, and the pickup exploded into fire, glass, shredded metal, and blood. In a second, Shockley chucked the spent weapon to the ground and brought his M16 to bear. He fired a couple more times at the remains of the truck, then pivoted toward the bus and gate where more of the enemy had taken up shooting positions. He fired—two steps back—fired—two more steps. He’s incredible! Joe, Baccam, Mac, and Paulsen laid down cover fire from over the hood of the Land Cruiser.
A third pickup drove in, following the path of the one Shockley had just destroyed. “Shockley, move!” Paulsen shouted. He slapped a 40-millimeter grenade into the M203 grenade launcher beneath the barrel of his M16, slammed the breach closed, took a second to aim, and fired toward the new truck.
The enemy saw the danger and swerved to the right, away from the incoming grenade round. It exploded on the ground short of the target.
Joe, Baccam, Mac, Paulsen, and Shockley used the enemy’s moment of distraction to fall back to Alpha Team’s Humvee.
A talib on the new truck fired a rocket-propelled grenade. It screamed through the shot-out back window of the Land Cruiser and exploded inside, blasting all four doors and the remains of the windshield completely away.
“Get to the school!” Baheer yelled. He helped a terrified younger boy, lifting him off the ground and pushing him along. The girls’ screams were almost quiet. Where is Joe? What if he’s dead? The last time the two had talked, they had argued. Baheer had never apologized.
When he looked at the Humvee where Joe had been earlier, there was no one. “O Allah, please save him. He was here only to help our school.”
The Land Cruiser was blown up. Baheer and Rahim ducked almost under the jingle truck to get covered.
More taliban were at the gate. “Wait here,” he told Rahim. “I gotta shift the jingle truck into forward to drive ahead and block the gate.”
“Stupid! Don’t!” Rahim shouted.
“I have to. We have to protect our school.”
Baheer climbed back into the truck. But when he got it started, bullets hit the front. Steam started rolling out. Baheer cursed the Taliban. The truck overheated and died.
“Thank Allah,” Rahim shouted. “Let’s go, Baheer.”
Baheer abandoned the truck and noticed Joe and other soldiers running back his way. They were being overrun. The taliban had a better position. Then Baheer had an idea.
“I know the way to the roof,” Baheer yelled to Joe. He led Rahim, Joe, and three other soldiers while the last American machine gun continued shooting back.
Just inside the main doors on the way to the principal’s office, there was a ladder leading up through a hatch. “Come on!” Baheer shouted and hurried up, Rahim and the others following close behind.
“Joe! You are bleeding.” Baheer pointed to his arm when they’d reached the flat roof.
Joe looked surprised. How had he not felt the wound? He set his rifle down near Baheer’s feet.
“I didn’t think it was that bad,” Joe said. “Adrenaline, I guess. Take my weapon and shoot back while I work on a bandage.”
Baheer eyed the gun. “I can help you tie the bandage.”
“Just shoot ’em, Baheer!” Joe shouted, pulling a bandage from a pouch on his vest.
Time slowed down for Baheer. He thought about how the Taliban had tortured and oppressed Uncle Kabir and Ayesha, and so many at school back in Kabul. Baheer knew this was never about Islam. It wasn’t about school or education being bad. It was about control. School, education, new ideas—people who had free thought were harder to control. So first the Taliban came for the books. They attacked a school.
Baheer’s shoulders heaved. He wanted to scream. Baba Jan had once quoted the Holy Quran, “If you kill an innocent human being, it is as if you have killed the whole of humanity, and if you have saved an innocent human being’s life, it is as if you have saved the whole of humanity.”
He should save the lives of the school kids, teachers, and his American friends who were here to help. The Americans may be rich and arrogant, but they were trying to help.
As Baheer stepped up to the short wall at the edge of the roof he said quietly, “No! Enough! You’re done! We will not go back!” He blinked the tears from his eyes. “You have to stop!” And he started shooting. It wasn’t hard. Pull the trigger, the gun shoots. He missed with his first three shots but didn’t care. His grandfather stood up to the Taliban to protect his family. Baheer would make his stand here. They would not stop his school or make this place an oppression zone like schools were during the Taliban time.
Baheer shot a talib by the gate. Right in the chest. He fell and shook around for a moment before going still. Baheer’s mouth was dry. He shot again, killed another. He missed four more shots. Then he hit a third talib in the head by the bus.
By this time, two more American Humvees had swung in through the gate, the lead machine gun cutting down the remaining taliban by the bus.
The last pickup was disabled by the first American machine gun. Baheer stopped firing for a moment. Now the second new American Humvee rolled in, and its machine gun roared, blasting right through that pickup and every talib near it.
Baheer screamed, “Allah-o-Akbar!” and pulled the trigger again and again and again, helping the American machine guns destroy the last Taliban pickup. Finally the rifle clicked empty, but Baheer kept pressing the trigger.
“It’s out of bullets. Stand down,” Joe said.
Baheer ignored him. His breathing was super fast. He couldn’t control it. His teeth hurt from grinding them so hard when firing. He was nearly crying. He kept pulling the trigger, aiming at the dead truck, even though he had no more bullets to fire and there was no more enemy to kill.
Joe put his hand over Baheer’s, the Afghan’s skin sweaty, trembling. “Ease it down, Baheer. It’s over.” With his other hand, Joe gently lowered the barrel of the rifle. “Come on. Breathe. Try to relax. You’re OK.”
Baheer handed the rifle to Joe before pounding his fist over his chest, coughing. “My grandfather says, men don’t cry.”
Joe wiped his eyes. “I think we get a pass on man points after combat, rafiq.” He felt the turn in his stomach, more saliva in his mouth. His legs shook. A cough. Then he heaved. He spit hot, sour-sweet bile. He stepped back, slung his rifle on his shoulder, bent over, and vomited hard, everything he had left in him. Hard trembles shook through his whole body, and he dropped to a knee, felt his own sick soak through his uniform pants. “Yep. We’re all good.”
Baccam produced a bandage from his own pouch and set to work, tying a proper field dressing on the other Afghan with Baheer. “What do we do now?” Joe asked breathlessly.
“Security and casualty treatment,” Sergeant Paulsen said. “Killer, that bandage stop the bleeding for now?”
“Hurts, but yeah. I think so.” All that time back at Fort Hood and Des Moines spent going over treating battlefield wounds. Joe had thought he was going to lose his mind from the tedium back then. Today he would have lost his life without that training.
“Good,” Paulsen said. “Reload. Then you and Baccam stay up here. Keep scanning the perimeter. You see anything remotely hostile, you shoot it. Mac, let’s go see who else needs help.” The two of them headed for the ladder.
Baccam lifted his SAW. “I’ll take overwatch on the gate and street. You scan everything else.” He let out a long breath, eyes wide. He was shaking. “Anybody else feel like they’re . . . kind of . . . floating? Like they’ve just slammed a case of energy drinks and can’t calm down now?”
Joe smiled. A hard shiver went through his whole body. “Hadn’t noticed.”
He stepped away from his best Army friend to take up position over most of the school compound.
Cavanaugh groaned, trying not to scream, as Master Sergeant Dinsler tightened a field dressing on a leg wound. Specialist Gooding sprinted from one boy on the ground to another, dropping to his knees and yanking out a bandage, working to stop the bleeding. A couple of guys from Second Squad hurried to help the medic.
“Joe,” Baheer said quietly. “I’m . . . I’m sorry for what I said before at the PRT. I should not have become so angry with—”
Without thinking, Joe sprang to his feet and reached out to shake Baheer’s hand, wincing as red-hot pain seared in the wound in his arm. He reached around to hug his Afghan friend with his good arm. “I’m sorry too, rafiq. I shouldn’t have assumed . . . I mean, I know now, have known for a while, not all Afghans are the same. Most of you are great. And you know—”
Baheer put his hand on Joe’s shoulder. “After this, I say we forget about it.”
Joe nodded. “Thanks for getting us to the roof. Thanks for covering me after I got hit.”
There was a lot more to say, about what had happened there that day and about their unlikely friendship. About this mission in Afghanistan. He had spent the whole time in this place trying to come up with the words to tell the truth about this war, but when his eyes met Baheer’s, he found he had nothing to say. Sometimes words weren’t enough. Sometimes they weren’t needed.
Baheer nodded at Joe. He wanted to say goodbye or apologize for whatever he might have done wrong. But, he couldn’t. He simply nodded and, taking his brother by the arm, left the roof.
Rahim reached the base of the ladder first and was waiting for Baheer to climb down. He was shaking with sobs by the time Baheer reached the floor.
“It wasn’t—” Rahim gasped, crying. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Baheer, I need to tell you something.”
Baheer looked at his brother, this boy who hated school so much, who complained about the Americans and anything Western. Rahim had tried so hard to keep Baheer from going to school today. He’d been the only Afghan who knew Baheer had told the Americans about the stolen truck full of explosives, and he’d been so sure about the reason why their farm had been attacked. “I know,” Baheer said quietly. “I know it was you, Rahim.” Sometime in the course of the battle he’d sensed the truth that he’d been trying for months to ignore.
“No, you don’t know! It wasn’t what you think.” Rahim was quiet for a moment. “Not completely. I didn’t talk to the Taliban. The guy I know said he knows them, said they’d just scare the Americans off. A bunch of shots before they even reached the school. That’s it! There wasn’t supposed to be an attack like this.”
“You tried so hard to get me to avoid school today.”
Rahim shrugged, then groaned from the pain from his wound. “I thought it would be better if you just left town for the day, just in case—” He burst into tears, his whole body shaking.
Never before had Baheer experienced such a confused mix of emotions. He was disappointed in his brother, and yet pity crept into his heart as he watched Rahim crumble before him. Baheer threw his arms around Rahim, feeling his brother melt into the hug with anguished sobs. “I’m sorry,” Rahim cried. “I’m so sorry.”
Later, Baheer might be angry about what his brother had done, but for now he knew both of them were sad and exhausted and the day had furnished more than enough pain. He did not need to add to it with angry accusations.
Omar and so many others were dead. He remembered the girls who had been passing through the campus. Ayesha. He called her name. For once he didn’t care if anyone heard him or knew he was looking for her.
He ran over to where the girls had been when the attack started. He saw one girl face down in the dirt. Next to her, lying on her back in a dark circle in the dirt near the school building, was Ayesha. The other girls had crouched on the ground around the corner.
“It can’t be her,” Baheer muttered.
“She pushed us out of the way, but she was shot,” said one of the nearby girls.
Baheer fell onto his knees next to Ayesha. Then he finally cried. The girls circled around with him. He’d wanted to meet Ayesha. This was the only meeting the two of them would ever have.
Farah, Afghanistan
May 15, 2004
Faisal died a few hours after the Taliban attack on the school. Before he’d even taken the final exam, Baheer was already the top student in his grade. He had finally made it to the front of the line. He had worked hard to earn the position, had dreamed of standing there with pride. But now the Taliban twisted that dream into a nightmare, and he knew he would always feel like an impostor, standing in Faisal’s place. And he would always feel guilty thinking about such things, knowing others had been killed and no longer stood anywhere, impostors or not.
Taking the final exam was even more difficult than he’d expected. He sat in the classroom at a nice new desk, and he should have focused on the exam material. Instead he couldn’t help but notice the many empty desks in the room, chairs unoccupied both because of the students who had died and because of those who, out of fear, would not return to school. Once during the exam Baheer dove to the floor at the sound of a loud bang. He returned to his seat a moment later, sweating and with a pounding heart, after he realized the sound had been caused by his teacher accidentally dropping a book.
No matter what Baheer was doing, his thoughts kept drifting back to Ayesha. How long would the image of her bleeding body be burned into his memory? How long would the sound of her screams echo through his head?
