Of particular interest, to everyone, should be the two times that my unit was attacked in July. As with all combat, or any dangerous situation for that matter, it is very hard to keep your cool and properly recollect and recount events. However, I will endeavor to do credit to the facts.
What follows is an account of the first of two attacks that occurred within a ten day period in July. The second story I will save for later, as I do not wish to cause too much of an emotional stir to my tender readers. That said, If you are standing, I suggest that you collect a glass of water and a chair with neck support (it is always important to protect the neck in the event that you pass-out). Also, you might consider asking a friend to stand by with some smelling salts in hand.
The first instance occurred in early July while a large contingent of the PRT was on a Ground-Assault-Convoy North of Jalalabad. We were snooping around trying to find a suitable location for a new landfill & recycling center for the greater Jalalabad area. Our search was taking us into some very tight spaces and around very sharp turns. Our vehicles, which are only a small step down from full-fledged tanks were not taking well to the tight spaces (we have knocked over many a mud wall and run over many an irrigation ditch…). The easiest analogy is: herd of uncommonly clumsy elephants following narrow meandering rodent’s path trough dense brambly thicket.
I was in the back left seat of the fifth vehicle of seven and not enjoying myself at all. The AC had crapped out about 15 minutes after we started the mission, and it was smoking hot. No clouds, no chance of rain, no chance of anything but the mid-day sky’s unblinking smoldering sun-burned headache-inducing glare. It was an unusually long mission; containing no less than nine planned stops. Due to the relatively high threat level in our area, we always roll out with the vehicle’s windows fully up. The only opening in the vehicle is at the top for the gunner’s position. This makes for a double bad: The window being up, while blocking bullets and fragmentation, also ably blocks the breeze. The open gunner’s position also blocks the breeze, but unfortunately lets both hot air and direct sunlight into the vehicle. There is an up side though: the steel shell of the vehicle serves as a very good convection oven; if we are late to the mission start time, and are forced to miss breakfast, we can still ensure that we get a hot meal ;)
We were in-between the fourth and fifth stop and had already taken a couple of wrong turns (there is always at least one wrong turn)….so it was shaping up to be an insanely long day. Worse, all of the ice in my vehicle’s water cooler had already melted; this on account of the lid to the cooler not being closed. We could not close the lid because the aft section of the vehicle had been improperly packed and poorly secured.
I was lazily staring out of the three inch thick projectile-resistant laminated window that bulged from the left rear access door, while I mused to myself about the miss packed equipment, the completely melted ice, and the almost completely melted soldiers inside the vehicle who were, despite all odds, not complaining about the situation.
We scraped around another turn and found ourselves under a nice stretch of trees with low branches and reasonable foliage. The shade was most welcome. Taking advantage of the shade, I took off the wad of duct-tape, superglue, and ballistic rated plastic that I use for sun glasses and began to remove a coat of Afghan highway dust for the fifth time of the day. As I did this, the driver hit the brakes; hard.
The sudden stop sent my sunglasses out of my hand and into the back of the driver’s dust ridden helmet. A cloud of dust came back at me and quickly found my nostrils, throat and eyes. Additionally, half of the equipment in the vehicle came down on my feet and lap. With one motion, I shoved the equipment (a tangle of boxed ammunition, food, surveying equipment, communications gear, and various survival implements) back to the center of the vehicle. One the vehicle’s fire extinguishers had managed to relocate it’s self between my feet. I tried to reach the extinguisher, but could not. The 70 pounds of body armor and equipment strapped to my torso paired with the confined space prevented any chance of success. I put my hand on the driver’s shoulder and began to ask for a long-halt so that we could repack the vehicle and properly tie everything down. But before I could get more than a word out, my heart skipped a beat. The vehicle in front of us, which contained five soldiers, was experiencing a mass exodus. First the gunner popped out of the hatch and dove awkwardly to the ground and scrambled towards the tree line. A second later, all four doors flew open and four soldiers dove out with awkward scrambling motions.
My first thought was that somehow a grenade had been dropped into the gunner’s hatch and/or that there was a serious fire within the vehicle. In Iraq, insurgents tossing unwanted items into the only truly vulnerable portion of the vehicle (the open gunner's hatch) is somewhat common….thankfully this is not so common in Afghanistan. No smoke came from the vehicle.
A moment later, one of the soldiers came back to the vehicle and started making stabbing motions into the rear compartment with his M4 assault rifle. It was the kind of motion that a soldier might use with a bayonet attached, but he was using the butt of his riffle instead.
I got out of my vehicle and jogged over to see what the problem was. As I approached I heard the soldier say “F***! F***! F***!” then some panting and then “die you F***er!” as he went into another tirade of jabs with the riffle.
Trying to be the cool and collected Company Grade Officer, I casually asked “Hey Kev, whats the matter?”
“Cap, a God damn…” more panting, and then “spider fell into the gunner’s hatch” more panting and more jabs with the butt of the riffle. “Hopped down from the F***ing trees”. This last he followed up with some more panting and jabbing.
I was a little incredulous and thinking that they were over reacting. It was a fairly significant breach of procedure to get out of vehicle in our area without conducting an IED sweep before hand…. I waved him off and peered into the rear space of the vehicle to see for myself what the fuss was about.
I peered in looking for the excitedly described little ‘f***er’. As I did not see it immediately, I figured that it was probably pretty small. From the corner of my eye, I saw something twitch down in the floorboard area. I peered more closely and readied a cloth scarf with my free hand; hoping to grab the critter without rendering harm. Then a blur of fuzz and tentacles leapt from the floorboard towards me. It landed on the back of the passenger seat, just a foot from my head, assuming a sideways hanging position with fangs barred and reaching! For the second time, my heart leapt out of my throat. I jumped backwards and landed awkwardly on the soldier standing behind me; almost sending both of us to the ground.
The spider was surprisingly big and eminently scary looking. Together the brown thorax and abdomen were the size of a woman’s fist. Angular but fuzzy and twitching black colored legs extended from the spider. The fangs were the hardest thing to deal with as they were each at least an inch and a half long and were born prominently and boldly from the business end of the spider. Every three or four seconds, the spider would make a little twitch. Each twitch was frightening in it’s own right. The spider moved with blinding speed while going no where. It was the creature’s way of saying “yeah, I could pretty much hop right on your face anytime I choose…that I haven’t done so yet is a consequence of the fact that I like to play with my food before I eat it….you sucker sissy of an American!”. The little f***er twitched yet again as if to prove his point. I felt a shiver go down my spine and took another step backward.
Thankfully, the little Taliban Al Quaida Bastard Spider F***er was too distracted with tormenting me that the soldier behind me was able to dive in and land a good riffle jab strait into the nasty teeth of the oppressor. We had inadvertently performed the time honored tactical flanking maneuver: Team A distracts the enemy while Team B flanks the enemy. Sun Tzu would have been proud.
However, as we celebrated our victory at the Battle of the Taliban Al Quaida Bastard Spider F***er, the vehicle, which still had no one in it, began rolling forward and did not stop until coming halfway through a villager’s mud wall. The driver, in his rush to get away from the situation, had neglected to apply the parking break as he made his escape. The spider had gotten the last word after all. Proving the timeless adage: in war, there are no winners.
As my recollection may not have been adequately graphic or descriptive, PBS has decided to produce a mini series on The Battle of the Taliban Al Quaida Bastard Spider F***er. It airs this fall. Jude Law will be playing the part of the scared and useless Air Force Captain.