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By Root 1333 0

emerged from behind a rock, loaded RPG-7 resting on his shoulder. Perfectly aligned with the bird, the gunner aimed at the open rear of the craft, cried “Alla-u Akhbar! Alla-u Akhbar!” and then as time seemed to stop, squeezed the trigger. Click. With a boom! hiss! and a puff of white smoke, the rocket sailed toward the Chinook—self arming after eleven meters in flight—then a fraction of a second after that, streaked inside the helicopter and connected with the transmission under the rear rotor assembly of the MH. The explosion sent a stream of molten metal into the gears and shafts of the complex beast, incinerating and shattering the precision hub assembly. The Shock pilots watched in horror as the nose of the craft pitched up, then the girthy Chinook fell out of the sky onto the steep, rocky terrain below, erupting in a massive orange-and-yellow fireball as it tumbled 120 feet down the Shuryek Valley side of the peak, coming to a rest under a mushroom cloud of black smoke on a small ledge, instantly killing all sixteen aboard.

“CHINOOK DOWN! CHINOOK DOWN!” the lead Shock pilot called out. Bambey, hearing the message, struggled to find Sawtalo Sar, to see what had just happened, to find a plume of smoke—to see something . But he could see nothing but the sweeps of perdurable Hindu Kush mountains and an ever-darkening sky. The Skillful pilots of the Marine QRF element immediately thrust their craft into hard, evasive maneuvers, pressing the grunts deep into their seats under G-loading, and forcing one side sharply into the center of the craft while the other side pulled toward the open doors of the bird like a wild roller-coaster ride during hard evasive maneuvers. The Skillful pilots didn’t know at that moment what had brought the Chinook down—just that it was down. For all any of them knew, the craft could have had mechanical failure—or Shah could have gotten his hands on an SA-7 shoulder-launched antiaircraft missile, one of the greatest fears of pilots in Afghanistan ; hence the hard, evasive turns. But with sixteen more Americans down, Bambey felt that much more eager to insert. Let’s just get in—get in and do something. Americans are down, the twenty-six-year-old thought. Why are we just circling? He shook his head in frustration. What . . . Bambey then noticed features not of the terrain over which the two Apaches and three Blackhawks had been in a holding pattern, but of the Kunar Valley. We should be going in! We’re headed back to Jalalabad?!

7

STORM OF CHAOS

After nearly an hour in the air, spending most of that time carving tight, steeply banked turns over the same parcel of the Hindu Kush in a feverish holding pattern, Bambey realized that the Skillful Blackhawks were bound not for Sawtalo Sar but for Jalalabad. Capuzzi, too, recognized the dustier, flatter terrain on the city’s outskirts as he gazed down at the shadows of the QRF’s helicopters. We’re gonna refuel, recock, and get back up there. Four guys are down, and now also a Chinook and all its crew. We gotta get back up there! The thoughts raced through Capuzzi’s mind. The Skillful aviators landed their Blackhawks in perfectly orchestrated formation, rousing a blinding tempest of dust into the sky; the Marines squeezed their eyes shut and clenched their jaws tight as gritty swirls of air punched through the open doors of the 60s. As the whine of turbine engines grew lower and the roiling brown fog enveloping the craft bled away to reveal typically clement afternoon conditions at Jalalabad, Bambey squinted at the sight before him, wondering if the helicopters had landed at an airfield other than JAF. He recognized familiar landmarks of the base, but couldn’t see a single Marine—just crowds of SOF personnel—most sporting their signature beards and baseball caps—heatedly preparing . . . something. Preparing what? the lieutenant wondered. As the Hawks idled, Capuzzi raised the lieutenant over the net: “Bambey, we’re off. We’re done. Outta the loop.”

“What, sir?” Bambey responded with shocked disbelief.

“You and your Marines exfil the bird. We