Read Online Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War by Bing West, Dakota Meyer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Bing West, Dakota Meyer
Ads: Link
their sexual imaginations knew no bounds. Whatsoever.
I discussed religion with them all the time, trying to understand their beliefs while they were doing the same about mine. I was surprised at how educated they were about Christianity.
The Askars scoffed at the suggestion that the Taliban were the true Muslims. They were just bandits and murderers, they said. I don’t think they said that just for my benefit. When I asked if they knew where the dushmen were living, they assured me they did. But when I urged that we attack them there, they laughed as if I were simple-minded. I was always talking to them about how badly I wanted to fight and how much I looked forward to it. They would just sit and laugh, nodding along, with about as much confidence in me as they had in the idea that there would ever be peace in Afghanistan.
* * *
After dinner was a good time to call home, as people would be just starting their day in the States. We bought minutes on inexpensive Afghan cell phones. I wasn’t much for emails or video chats—I just never felt comfortable or natural communicating that way. A phone call was about my limit.
“Hi, Dad, this is Dakota. How’d your week go?”
“Good. The rain’s held off and we got up a hundred bales behind Pepa’s house. Tractor’s acting up. What’re you doing?”
“Nothing much. Just got back from another patrol. Pretty boring.”
It was like that. I would also call my friends Toby and Ann. Ann had been my high school advisor and she and her husband and I were like family. Toby wouldn’t hang up until he got something out of me that was either funny or dangerous. They would talk about me and what they saw in the news about that strange country in far-off central Asia.
In our hooch, we didn’t talk much about our lives back home. It was another planet, and nobody was interested in the soap operas going on back in somebody else’s family. We weren’t bored or annoyed by each other. We were different ranks and ages, so the verbal hazing you’d hear among lance corporals in a platoon—ridiculing comments about families, wives, or girlfriends—didn’t happen. When we visited another base, we stayed together.
After a while, it all becomes you, your buddies, and your Afghan friends. Other worlds fade away, even the other advisors ten miles down the road at Joyce. You stay alive because of what you do each day, sometimes each hour. It’s just you and your small band, operating beyond the bounds of civilization. You even think you control your own destiny.
Chapter 5
COMING TOGETHER
Some U.S. soldiers at Monti confided to us that they weren’t seeing enough action. After several outposts had been overrun, the U.S. high command had tightened the rules about leaving the wire. A patrol had to write a briefing detailed enough for a space launch. However, since we advisors fell under the Afghan command we could still plan our normal patrols—the beer runs with badass vehicles.
Sgt. 1st Class Dennis Jeffords complained to me that he wasn’t getting enough action. One night he and PFC Lage pulled me aside. Lage liked to fight so much that he carried a 240G machine gun instead of a rifle. Jeffords had received permission to set up a vehicle control point the next day. Nothing was more boring than a VCP—stopping jingle trucks and searching through chickens and fertilizer poop for weapons that were never found.
Jeffords and Lage had decided to place their checkpoint at Hill 1911, a notorious ambush point where a steep valley intersected with the only paved road north from Monti. Their plan was to sit thereuntil they took fire. Then, instead of pulling back as standing orders required, they would stand and fight against the enemy on the high ground.
“We may need backup,” he said. “But if I ask over there”—he pointed toward his op center—“I’ll be ordered not to go. So be ready to roll early if you want in on the action.”
Sgt. Jeffords was known for being the
I discussed religion with them all the time, trying to understand their beliefs while they were doing the same about mine. I was surprised at how educated they were about Christianity.
The Askars scoffed at the suggestion that the Taliban were the true Muslims. They were just bandits and murderers, they said. I don’t think they said that just for my benefit. When I asked if they knew where the dushmen were living, they assured me they did. But when I urged that we attack them there, they laughed as if I were simple-minded. I was always talking to them about how badly I wanted to fight and how much I looked forward to it. They would just sit and laugh, nodding along, with about as much confidence in me as they had in the idea that there would ever be peace in Afghanistan.
* * *
After dinner was a good time to call home, as people would be just starting their day in the States. We bought minutes on inexpensive Afghan cell phones. I wasn’t much for emails or video chats—I just never felt comfortable or natural communicating that way. A phone call was about my limit.
“Hi, Dad, this is Dakota. How’d your week go?”
“Good. The rain’s held off and we got up a hundred bales behind Pepa’s house. Tractor’s acting up. What’re you doing?”
“Nothing much. Just got back from another patrol. Pretty boring.”
It was like that. I would also call my friends Toby and Ann. Ann had been my high school advisor and she and her husband and I were like family. Toby wouldn’t hang up until he got something out of me that was either funny or dangerous. They would talk about me and what they saw in the news about that strange country in far-off central Asia.
In our hooch, we didn’t talk much about our lives back home. It was another planet, and nobody was interested in the soap operas going on back in somebody else’s family. We weren’t bored or annoyed by each other. We were different ranks and ages, so the verbal hazing you’d hear among lance corporals in a platoon—ridiculing comments about families, wives, or girlfriends—didn’t happen. When we visited another base, we stayed together.
After a while, it all becomes you, your buddies, and your Afghan friends. Other worlds fade away, even the other advisors ten miles down the road at Joyce. You stay alive because of what you do each day, sometimes each hour. It’s just you and your small band, operating beyond the bounds of civilization. You even think you control your own destiny.
Chapter 5
COMING TOGETHER
Some U.S. soldiers at Monti confided to us that they weren’t seeing enough action. After several outposts had been overrun, the U.S. high command had tightened the rules about leaving the wire. A patrol had to write a briefing detailed enough for a space launch. However, since we advisors fell under the Afghan command we could still plan our normal patrols—the beer runs with badass vehicles.
Sgt. 1st Class Dennis Jeffords complained to me that he wasn’t getting enough action. One night he and PFC Lage pulled me aside. Lage liked to fight so much that he carried a 240G machine gun instead of a rifle. Jeffords had received permission to set up a vehicle control point the next day. Nothing was more boring than a VCP—stopping jingle trucks and searching through chickens and fertilizer poop for weapons that were never found.
Jeffords and Lage had decided to place their checkpoint at Hill 1911, a notorious ambush point where a steep valley intersected with the only paved road north from Monti. Their plan was to sit thereuntil they took fire. Then, instead of pulling back as standing orders required, they would stand and fight against the enemy on the high ground.
“We may need backup,” he said. “But if I ask over there”—he pointed toward his op center—“I’ll be ordered not to go. So be ready to roll early if you want in on the action.”
Sgt. Jeffords was known for being the
Similar Books
![Taming Heather [Cariboo Lunewulf 1]](https://fs.dianahicksbooks.com/447568/thumbs/152x264/taming-heather-cariboo-lunewulf-1.jpg)