Victory Point - Ed Darack [120]
But he probably wouldn’t. In fact, he was probably the same terrorist who had downed the MH-47, killing all on board. He, like others in Shah’s group, was probably one of the world’s most proficient, most determined extremist fighters. And after having sent the MH-47 to the ground in flames, he was confident that he could blow the Dustoff bird out of the sky. He rested the RPG launcher on his shoulder, dropped his right index finger onto the trigger, and buttressed his stance, preparing for the sharp blowback of the RPG launch to which he’d become so accustomed.
Seven hundred meters away, near Middendorf’s mortar line, Lance Corporal Lavon Pennington, a combat engineer attached to Fox-1, saw the terrorist spring forth, holding the RPG launcher. An image of a fiery explosion and senseless death flooded Pennington’s mind. He lifted his standard-issue M16, squeezed his eyes shut—knowing that he’d have only one chance, one shot. Pennington opened his eyes and positioned the insurgent in his iron sights. Then he squeezed the trigger. Crack!
The eyes of the Dustoff aviator on the right seat of the Blackhawk were transfixed on the RPG gunner. He could have thought of his home, his family, his dog . . . his car. He knew he could do nothing, so he just continued to do his job. Life before him continued in real time—no slow motion; he didn’t even pray for survival. He just worked the tough machine through the wispy air, readying for a landing and to get wounded troops to safety. He ignored the fact that he was about to be blown out of the sky, that he was about to be incinerated on top of some forlorn peak deep in the hinterlands of Afghanistan, that he would never see his home again.
Puff! And that was it. The end. The men in the second Dustoff saw it all: as the lead bird was in final flare, Shah’s RPG gunner locked onto the Blackhawk, clasped the trigger of the launcher, just as had been done before the MH-47 shoot-down . . . and then the RPG gunner’s head disappeared in a cloud of pink mist. Pennington’s 5.56 mm round had connected with his scalp just a neuron’s response time before he could squeeze the RPG trigger. The lead Dustoff swooshed down, cushioned by the craft’s ground effect, and landed on the small flat spot amid the steep terrain.
As Pigeon knelt under the rotors, barking orders into his radio, Konnie had his two “horses”—twenty-year-old Lance Corporal Albert Mendiola and twenty-three-year-old Lance Corporal Justin Monk—race down the hill to carry the casualties and their gear up to the aircraft. “So, sir,” the interpreter known as the Rock began before he was loaded into the medevac, “I am leaving. I will see you soon. Try to kill all of these Taliban fucks.”
“Will do, Rock,” Konnie replied.
“I wish I could stay and watch them all die!” the big terp finished.
“I think most of ’em are dead, after all that.” The lieutenant smiled.
“Look, sir.” Lance Corporal Jason Dunaway grabbed Konnie’s attention by holding up a carbon-scored piece of melded lead and copper. “The 7.62 round—we pulled it out of my SAPI.”
Konnie laughed at the sight, the round having gone through Dunaway’s left biceps before lodging into the front ceramic-plate insert on his flak jacket. “Now get on the bird with Einarson, Wilson, and the rest of ’em,” he ordered. All told, five Marines and the Rock had to be evacuated that morning, including Lance Corporal Anthony Adams, with shrapnel to his arms and legs, and Lance Corporal Dustin Epperly—one of Fox-3’s most proficient Marines—with shrapnel to one of his arms from an RPG burst.
Waving off the second Dustoff—the LZ didn’t have enough space for two birds at the same time—Konnie and Pigeon huddled as the pilots spun up the first Blackhawk’s engines, lifting the bird into the sky. The second craft landed, and Konnie and his Marines loaded it with gear from the wounded—which would get the lieutenant in a bit of trouble later on, as Air Ambulances adhere to strict rules forbidding the carrying of anything but wounded personnel.