Nicholas Moore (85:34)
No, that's okay. I, We. So that this was kind of the, the 2011 deployment was the, it was the last of this, the surge, the special ops surge into, you know, Petraeus's surge into Afghanistan and kind of increasing that force. So BCO was the last company in 2nd range battalion to surge, whether stay late or, or go early. And so we just finished the, the Capex at Fort Bragg, which is the big, you know, the special ops dog and pony show for Congressman and you know, the President and all that stuff, which was fine because it gave us, you know, an extra week of training with, you know, 1/60 and, and some, you know, platoon time, if you will, to run around and work through, fine tune some TTPS and some SOPs and bring some of the new guys a little bit tighter online with, you know, how we were gonna accomplish these, these tasks when we getting overseas. So, you know, we got tasks to go to FOB Shank and be pass with team six under their command. And so we went over and, and did that and you know, we had a pretty good working relationship with, with the Gold Squadron for, for that early part of that deployment. And then the, you know, night of August 6th rolls around and so objective Lefty Grove comes up on the table as a, you know, it's a, a target that had been tracked and chased and kind of lost, but never could get a lot of fidelity. To, to it because he's a pretty dynamic target, meaning he's constantly on the move and, and you know, hard to nail down to, to one location. But he had rolled into the tangy valley on this, you know, this day and, and SIG had kind of pinned him into a certain location inside the, the valley and a little cluster of buildings. And it was enough that it was probably about 70% fidelity on the, on the objective targeting that it was, it was still solid. And we had just come off a few days of weather and we're looking at maybe some more days of weather on the back end of this. So it was, we had this little like two day window of, of good weather to do an op and I just kind of, you know, looked at the, at my peel and you know, we went to, to ciao and we were sitting there having the conversation. I'm like, look, I'm willing to take a swing at 70%, you know, for this target. You know, you know, we're gonna be stuck sitting for weather for a few days. And I, I don't, you know, we've already been stuck sitting and Ranger doesn't do well sitting, sitting around with, with weather if we don't have anything to do. So you know, I was like, I'm willing to take a swing at 70. You know, we're going into Tangi Valley, so it's basically guaranteed gunfight. And you know, what do you think? And he's like, yeah, I'm willing to take a swing on 70. So we went back and pitched it that we'll take a swing at at it and if nothing else, you know, we'll let him know that we're chasing him and kind of break his pattern of life. And, and usually when we can do that and break the pattern of life on people, that's when they start making mistakes and it becomes easier to, you know, launch, launch a follow on operation because he's not sure what he needs to do. And so, you know, we drew up the plan and got approval and, and then briefed the plan, pitch the plan to the boys. And you know, one of the only times I've ever told the boys, actually it was the only time I ever told them, I was like, you know, this is the Tangi Valley. And, and it's not an if we're going to get into a gunfight, it is a 100. We are walking into a gunfight on this night. And there's a reason why we only go into this valley on the, the no illumination cycle. And that's because they're going to shoot at anything, helicopters, aircraft, people. So you know, switch it on, put it on straight and you know, we're going to get it on tonight. And so we had an uneventful, you know, infill, no rounds taken because we had flown in extortion. 16 and 17 had been our infill aircraft. And so then they flew back, cycled through and Gold Squadron was on QRF for, for us or any follow on objectives that, that came up from what we were doing. And so infield got the guys on, got the boys on the ground, you know, started movement to the objectives, got word that, you know, there was eight to 10 enemy fighters moving off the objective. And so we hold formation, got clearance for fires with the Apache gunships and, and lit into them with the Apache gunships. Two gun runs per aircraft and, and then push the target uneventful after that and then cleared through the, the contact and had stirred up a bunch of, you know, stuff in, in the valley. And so, you know, I was, it's just, you know, guys in their rebel rousing, trying to get guys to come out and you know, gather a force to come and fight. And so we're clearing through our target and you know, it's looking good for what's being seen on ISR because they're seeing a bigger picture than what I'm seeing within, you know, a thousand meter circle of my objective. And so the, the call came from the, from the jock to my platoon leader and myself is like, hey, are you guys going to go, you know, you're going to go push farther into the valley and, and you know, take on this contact and, and at the time, you know, we're working a pretty good objective and we actually kind of thought we had what we were looking for on the objective as far as who we went into the valley to get. And we said no, no, we think we're, we're working it and we have what we want. They said, you know, do you care if, you know, Gold Squadron comes in and you know, it starts their own movement to contact on, on the rest of this objective and you know, about 5K to the west of you. And I said, well that's plenty of deconfliction of space for small arms fire. So if they want to come in, you know, and that's what they want to do, good on them. You know, this had been a pre briefed discussion between my platoon leader, myself, Jonas and Lou, the, the master chief and the commander for the Gold Squadron that hey, look, if, if it does ever happen that it's a single objective but we end up bringing in the other element, you know, we'll link up and then we'll just kind of work exfil, you know, as it plays out. And if we have cycle aircraft and we'll cycle aircraft and you know, we'll just get it done and it's like, okay, great, awesome. So we knew how that was going to go and we kind of had a pre, pre planned position where we were going to link up, you know, if that had happened. And you know, we got the word that they were loading on the extortion and we weren't sure which way they were going to come into the valley. And we kind of said, hey, we recommend, you know, if you overfly our objective then we can at least, you know, provide ground cover for anything. And you know, but that way, you know, we only get a small amount of say and it doesn't really carry that much weight as far as what the airplaneers are doing, you know, because these are conventional aircraft so the pilots are only flying what's been approved through their S3 air shop. And, and so, you know, what we're saying to our jock is not necessarily making it over to theirs. And so we were like, well, okay, so you'll get the call that their wheels up and they're 10 minutes out. And so we wanted to clear one more building. So we've kind of pushed to try and clear the building real quick and get the call that, you know, they're six minutes out and then three minutes out. And so we held our, our assault and what we're doing and we're just kind of sitting there waiting and I'm waiting, I'm waiting to see the birds flush after infill. And, and so that we're not, you know, if we end up shooting on target, that we're not going to ricocheting something into aircraft because they're within, you know, small arms distance. And then that, that never happened. And I would kind of wondering what's going on. And we get over the fire net from the FOS that there's a, a fallen angel. And I had known what the, you know, the, the pro word, if you will, is and I just kind of dumb struck by it and I said, say that again. And he's like, we're a fallen angel. And I was like, okay, now so that my brain and my, you know, it's all connecting, you know, speak it in English. And he goes, extortion's been shot down. And I was like, okay, great. So then it was, you know, how fast can we back out of this target building? How fast can I get the guys on the road and get them to start moving, even though we don't know exactly where it is yet is. I just know the general direction that we need to go, which was to the west. And so we got the boys backed out of the objective, off the objective, and we're moving in about three minutes, you know, as far as getting guys pushed out. And then it's trying to. All the weapons and everything that we had accumulated on our objective is trying to take all that stuff with us and, you know, get everybody and everything on the move and. And not leave, you know, all this stuff to potentially be shot in the back with it. So send it forward and find a place to blow it in place. And, you know, then the question comes to, what do we do with all these detainees? And so it just becomes, well, leave them. And, you know, people are like, well, you're going to untie them. I was like, nope, somebody will come over and cut them loose later. I'm not. Not cutting anybody loose. They can figure it out, right? And so we got off the objective and started moving. I just, you know, I'll never forget, you know, when those. The lead element and the snipers and the. The dog handler finally got within eyesight of, you know, around the terrain feature. And it was just this, you know, I won't use the profanity, but it was one of those oh, my God moments. You know, the whole night sky is just lit up with just fire and, you know, the. The burning wreck of it. And, you know, you know, we're still trying to figure out, you know, the fastest way and, you know, should we, you know, so the tangy road that runs through this valley is heavily IED. I mean, it's IED, like, every three to 400 meters, there's something planted in that road, and it's to stop, you know, the trucks. And so there was this, you know, do we want to go over land? And I told the. The pls, like, hey, look, sir, my recommendation, we got to assume the risk to force, and we're just gonna have to stay on the road because we got to get there. And he said, I agree. So we just, you know, I told the dog and the handler up front, it's like, if it looks suspicious or he wants us, you know, to. To, you know, say that there's something in the road and just mark it and mark good and Just tell everybody to stay out of the way because we gotta go. And so it took us about an hour to go the 5k to get up there. And then, you know, it's a kind of trying to put this whole thing together on the fly. And, you know, everybody's radios are going nuts. As far as, you know, the pl, he's, you know, like basically glued to the stat radio and just like, hey, sir, we gotta, I need some information here. You know, we gotta, you gotta tell me how many people are on this aircraft? You know, so we're working through that and it's, you know, he. I finally get the numbers and I'm thinking, you know, it's half the force. And I'm like, okay, so. And they, you know, but he gave me the number 38. And I was like, so how many are on the other aircraft? You know, I'm not joking about it. I'm like, I'm in disbelief. It's like, how many people are on the other aircraft? And he goes, empty ships.
