BULL WHIP Part 2

I guess I'll start this off with March 25th, now that you understand some of the background leading up to Operation BULL WHIP. When I woke up on March 25th, my emotions were again a little mixed. I was very much looking forward to the break in the monotony that is life here at Bagram. I was also a little tense about our plan, and how aggressive it was.

I had consulted with many people that I trust, and we all agreed that one of two things was going to happen. Either the enemy was going to give us the fight of our lives, or they had already fled. Reports of what the enemy was going to do were mixed, and no one truly knew what to expect...so we were prepared for the worst possible scenario.

As you may have already guessed, the enemy choose to sit this fight out (good choice on their part). I can't go into all of the reasons why here on this blog, but the bottom-line is that most of the enemy either knew what was coming, or quickly realized how serious we were when they saw how we arrived, and blended back in with the local population.

Our plan was fairly simple, and unfolded near-perfectly. First, we dominated the high ground on the mountains surrounding the Valley, with the insertion of platoons at various observation points. Next, we inserted our forces high into the Valley floor, which allowed them to fight downhill chasing the enemy into blocking positions, while blowing his weapons & caches in place. While doing this, our forces in the Valley floor stopped to engage local Village elders and leaders, and invite them to the culminating "Shura" that would be held later in the week.

There was much, much more to the plan, but that was the basic premise, and fortunately for us, it unfolded perfectly.

As I mentioned in my last post on this operation, COL Corell advised that I would be going along as his operations officer. My job was to keep him advised of where his units were located on the battlefield, and what was to happen next. He also selected SGT Smith, a Radio Telephone Operator (RTO) who was tasked to ensure that we could communicate with our Brigade, the Division Headquarters, aircraft, etc. The Commander also brought along Lt Col Filler, a Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC). Lt Col Filler is the senior JTAC in Afghanistan who just so happens to be assigned to our Brigade. He was responsible for coordinating all the airspace surrounding our objective area. SSG Bryant, who is COL Corell's personal assistant and bodyguard accompanied us as well.

The five of us discussed our role. Most important was how we felt we could best control the battle. We decided that we would initially control the fight from an aerial communications bird (UH-60 Blackhawk with tons of really cool communications equipment), prior to inserting ourselves into one of the observation posts (OPs) on the high ground surrounding the Valley.

As the evening drew near on March 25th, we conducted a final "conditions check" with the Division Headquarters. We briefed Brigadier General Stephen Townsend (BG Townsend is best known in the US Army for what his Battalion accomplished in Iraq a few years ago...capturing Saddam Hussein). After briefing BG Townsend, he validated that all conditions were met, and gave us the command we all wanted to hear..."RED BULLS, you are a GO for this operation. Godspeed, see on the objective tomorrow."

Wow. This is when it finally sunk in...we were only 2 hours from finally kicking off the operation. I headed to my room to grab my gear, then on to the chow hall for my last hot meal for the foreseeable future. Those couple of hours were surreal. Life at Bagram is fairly safe, and very mundane. It was weird to interact with anyone, knowing what we were about to do. The whole day was like that for that matter. You could see it in everyone's faces from RED BULLS...we all had our "gameface" on, while the rest of the base continued with business as usual.

Finally, the five of us piled into a couple of SUV's, and made our way to the other side of the Base where we would meet up with our aircraft. While we were en-route to the other side of the Base, we began turning on our radios. Aircraft were already checking in on station with Lt Col Filler at this point. It was again, very surreal. Here we were, riding in an SUV while Lt Col filler was already tasking the F-15 pilots with missions for the evening...which was the signal that the operation had officially begun. Below are some pics of us preparing to depart Bagram from "Delta Ramp."

The Command and Control (C2) UH-60 Blackhawk. We spent over 4 hours on this aircraft...it was a little grueling.

From left to right...SGT Smith, SSG Bryant and Lt Col Filler hanging out at Delta Ramp awaiting our departure.

SGT Smith and SSG Bryant. SGT Smith had more radios and antennas attached to him than I ever seen. If he wasn't done having kids before this mission, he is now.

Myself, SGT Smith and SSG Bryant.

SSG Bryant, Lt Col Filler and SGT Smith.

Lt Col Filler and I.

Watching Lt Col Filler control all the aircraft over the battlefield from this helicopter was a site to be seen. I have no idea how he kept everything straight. It was a sight I will not soon forget.

Me with my trusty Petzel headlamp. This headlamp is now on it's second Afghanistan deployment, and many many hunting seasons in-between. In the background to the right, you can see RED BULLS soldiers making their way to an aircraft for insertion into the Galuch Valley.

Tracking mission progress while awaiting departure from Bagram. We used codewords for each step in the operation. For example, when an aircraft lifted off or landed, codewords were transmitted in order to assist with brevity on the radio. Every codeword was the name of a town/city in Iowa. It was very cool to hear the names of so many familiar places from home being called out/transmitted throughout the night.