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By Root 1467 0

to happen.” Cousin-O, who’d been imprisoned by the Soviets in western Afghanistan in the eighties, then escaped after killing two of his prison guards to flee to the United States by way of Iran and Germany, ultimately worked for the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, before directly aiding American forces inside Afghanistan. But the standard military-gear acquisition process could take months, leaving the Marines without a potentially critical piece of gear. “Don’t worry. Just get me the money and I’ll get someone to go into Peshawar and buy the ICOMs for you there. I’ll have them for you in just a few days,” Cousin-O confidently reassured Rob. In his typical fashion, Rob got Cousin-O the cash, reminding himself that it was his job to keep the battalion progressing forward in its mission, however unorthodox the means.

9

WHALERS UNLEASHED

Deep into the night of 7 August, with brilliant starlight hanging in the sky above the Hindu Kush, Echo Company’s First Platoon slipped into the Shuryek, and Second and Third platoons entered the Korangal. Twelve hours later, the operation was declared a victory—without a shot fired, or a single sighting of Shah or any of his men. “CJTF-76 decided that we’ve met the end state of the op,” Rob Scott incredulously reported to Tom Wood. “Over before it even began.” With the operative words of Whalers’ objective being “disruption of ACM activity,” senior CJTF-76 staff, to whom Wood had briefed the mission just days earlier, decided that the mere presence of coalition forces in such numbers in the Korangal and Shuryek had constituted sufficient “disruption.”

“Sounds to me like they’re nervous. Gun-shy after Red Wings,” Wood opined about CJTF-76’s stance. “We came. We didn’t really see anything. They figured we conquered—just because we went in there. Now we’re out.”

Rob Scott, wedged squarely between keeping ⅔’s mission objectives on track and the in-country higher command’s restrictions, once again set about developing a work-around solution. After consulting with Wood and Donnellan, he had ⅔’s operational fix: as CJTF-76 continuously monitored ⅔’s progress, Task Force Devil would control the battalion’s movements by phase line, meaning that individual units—Fox Company in the Chowkay, Golf in the Narang, etc.—could only move to a predetermined latitude within a given time span, with approval required to continue beyond each line. The operation also had a concrete time limit as a result of the upcoming elections: Whalers needed to be completed by the nineteenth of August. While the parameters restricted the fluidity of the op in what would certainly prove to be an evolving battle, at least the grunts of ⅔ would have their second crack at Whalers.

CJTF-76 command, however, worried about another dramatic helicopter shoot-down, held strong reservations about the op. The only air assets, other than close air support and high-flying C-130s for cargo drops, they’d grant the battalion were Air Ambulance medevac birds, absolutely crucial for the long-distance movements ⅔’s Marines would be undertaking. CJTF-76 mandated, however, that if medevac missions were to be flown, then the battalion would follow every textbook procedure to the last written letter. ⅔ Command knew that if so much as a single enemy round came anywhere near an American aviation asset in the post-Chinook-shootdown operational atmosphere, then air assets, other than close air support, would be almost impossible to procure in the Kunar for any subsequent operations. Whalers would prove decisive not only in the battalion’s fight to break the enemy’s back before the elections, but in allowing ⅔ to continue to conduct operations for the remainder of their deployment.

Nearing midnight on 11 August, Second and Third platoons of Echo Company with attached Afghan National Army soldiers swarmed into the Korangal as First Platoon, under Kinser, pushed into the Shuryek with their contingent of ANA. Donnellan, Tom Wood, and Scott Westerfield—the “Jump CP” (a term referencing a forward command post consisting of