Lest we forget.

This post is going to be a little long but it’s informative.

In late April 2006, 3-71 was involved in Operation Mountain Lion in the Chowkay Valley in Afghanistan. My platoon was tasked with establishing over watch for a platoon from 2-87 while they did a village clearance. The mission began changing as soon as we went wheels up and was never as advertised.

After an eventful insertion and movement to our over watch position, we realized that we did not have the observation we needed. The PL and I took a section and went looking for an OP site. In our travels we stumbled upon a perfect spot to see what we needed to see. We established the OP and deemed it OP Red. That site selection will haunt me for the rest of my days.

A few days later around dusk, the bad guys decided to come play. They engaged the 2-87 platoon and my other section plus the CP. From the OP we began calling for fire and engaging with 240B’s. We were not being engaged and had the freedom to just destroy the enemy.

When the aircraft arrived, we laid waste to a bunch of bad guys. When I say a bunch, it was above 40. We had 2 A-10s and 2 Apache's expend all ammunition. We directed the Mortars and wreaked havoc. We fought well and had no casualties.

This night extended the mission, as it always does, and made the area more interesting. We had a resupply brought in and with this resupply, as our tiny LZ on OP Red was covered in MREs and water, a CH-47 pulled up and decided he was going to land. I was unaware of this plan, but we got the LZ cleared and backed him in. Out of the back came LRAS, a generator, fuel, water and a whole bunch of guys from A Troop. They took over the OP and we moved back to link up with the platoon at the CP.

We did a few more days out there and finally the mission was set to end. They had decided to do a nighttime exfil from both LZs. There was a shit load of equipment on OP Red and they were going to exfil first. We set the platoon in PZ posture and waited. Straight line OP Red was only about 500 meters from the CP and we could see the Chinook loading after it finally got settled which took a couple of attempts.

Suddenly the noise changed, and a loud popping noise was coming from the bird. I stood up to try to see what was happening and watched in horror as the bird went to full power, started to climb, flipped over and dove into the valley. It exploded on impact. I had no idea if everyone from the OP was aboard or if they were still on the ground. We immediately set up to move over to the crash site and were moving before the cook offs started. It had taken 90 minutes to move from the OP to the CP but we covered the distance back in less than half that time. In route we had heard the CP establish commo with some of the guys from OP Red so we knew some had survived. We moved up to the OP to secure the area and equipment while the A Troopers searched for survivors.

At first light we moved a couple guys down to assist in the search. That’s when we found out that LTC Fenty, our Commander, was on board the aircraft. We were searching for bodies to try and account for everyone. We had found most when the “Specialists” arrived to start their duties. A platoon of Marines had arrived with the important people and they took over security and handed out cigarettes.

We spent the rest of that day and the next moving our fallen brothers to the CP location for extraction. This was a very emotional time for the platoon, but everyone performed well. We moved them back up the mountain to the LZ one at a time with the most respect possible.

The things we saw in those couple of days are permanently etched in my mind. Images ranging from the effects of the crash to my guys working thru pain and mental agony moving brothers. The image of one of my mentors crouched over the body of one of his Soldiers while trying to figure out why this happened is never far from mind. The image of one of the hardest men I have ever known in tears hugging another brother who was also in tears is also in my head.

The men in this picture were all with me in one form or another on the above mission.