Love In The House Of War Read online

  Love In The House of War

  Scott A. Meehan

  Copyright (C) 2017 Scott A. Meehan

  Layout design and Copyright (C) 2017 by Creativia

  Published 2017 by Creativia

  Cover art by Cover Mint

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE 1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  PART TWO Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  Now Available

  The Team

  Captain Carter, First Sergeant Mark Talbot, Chief Warrant Officer Dan Hall, SFC John Banks, SFC Bill Huber, SSG Chris Short, SSG Mike Phillips, SGT Ron Hawkins, SSG Hal Redman, SSG Rich Bradley, SSG Jack Davidson, and SSG Jeff Reimer

  PART ONE

  1

  On a brisk night in September, 2001, the young girl was cleaning the eating area in back of the traditional Afghan mud-brick home in Golbahar. Above the clattering of pans, her stepfather, Dr. Rajiv, yelled in despair.

  “They killed him! He's dead!”

  Twenty-year-old, Sarah ran through the large visiting area toward the front greeting room just inside the door. “Who is dead, papa?”

  “Ahmad Shah Masood! He is dead! They killed him! The Taliban killed him!” the thin, gray-haired man answered.

  Sarah did not know what to say. She decided to return to her chores. At five feet nine inches, she stood at least two inches above all her friends.

  “He was our best hope to reunite Afghanistan—The Lion of Panjshir! Now he is dead!” Dr. Rajiv yelled from the front room.

  “Papa, everything will be okay, will it not?”

  “One can hope my dear child, one can hope.”

  Two nights later, on 11 September, Dr. Rajiv yelled at the Television again. This time he called her. “Sarah, come quick! You must see this!”

  Sarah ran to the front, fixing her eyes on the television and watched a tall building with dark black smoke rising from it. “That looks like the city in America!”

  “Yes, indeed it is! New York City!”

  “What happened?”

  Before he could answer, they both watched in horror as a plane appeared onto the television screen, crashed into the other building and exploded into a huge fireball.

  Both of them gasped, Sarah's green eyes widened; her lips parted.

  “Papa!”

  Dr. Rajiv held out his hand for her to grasp. “Come my dear. It is far from us.”

  * * *

  The next evening, both Dr. Rajiv and Sarah sat in front of the television listening to President Bush address the American people.

  “Why does he think we are evil and wants to have war with us?” Sarah asked.

  “Because the Taliban will not give up Osama Bin Laden. It is against the Pashtunwali code to turn over someone who is considered a guest.”

  “The Americans will come here?”

  “I would say, yes. Just like the Russians did just before you were born.”

  “Will we be safe, papa?”

  “If we help the Americans and not fight them, we should be safe. We will continue to do our duty to help people with their medical needs.”

  “Will Uncle Abdul fight with the Americans?”

  “I think he will. We must leave for Dehi tomorrow and set up a clinic there. His men will need our help.”

  Sarah had mixed emotions. She felt apprehension about the dangers of being in the middle of war but a tinge of excitement about the possibility of meeting an American soldier. Rumors abounded concerning American soldiers—they were like the Russians; they were killers; they were bold and strong. I believe what the girls told me about them, Sarah decided, referring to the American missionary girls she had met when she was a teenager.

  “We will leave tomorrow?” Sarah asked.

  “Yes, my child. Tomorrow.”

  The next morning, they loaded their white Toyota pickup with medical supplies and clothing. “You seem cheerful this morning my little princess.”

  Sarah shrugged her shoulders. “I'm always cheerful, papa. You said so yourself.”

  The five-foot, seven-inch thin man shook his head. “This will not be an easy journey. Things will be different when the Americans come. There will be fighting like before when the Russians were here.”

  “We will see the Americans in Dehi?”

  Dr. Rajiv eyed her. “It is possible. Are you ready to travel? You have everything you want to take?”

  “Yes papa, I am ready.”

  “Get in. Let's go.”

  Sarah slid into the passenger seat adjusting her blue burka in the process. Their Toyota exited the walled compound and headed northwest towards the Samangan valley.

  “One hundred kilometers to Samangan,” Sarah volunteered.

  “Yes, more or less.”

  “We will eat lunch there?”

  “Yes, we will eat, pick up more supplies and complete our journey to Dehi.”

  “That will be another 104 kilometers,” Sarah added, looking at a map on her lap.

  “Indeed. But, the road will be harder so it will take longer.”

  “Then maybe I will sleep now.”

  “You did not sleep last night?”

  “Not very well. I kept thinking about the…trip to Dehi.”

  Dr. Rajiv glanced at her before returning his gaze on the road.

  Sarah laid her head back and closed her eyes. If those girls were right, I could meet my prince to take me away from this place and live in paradise.

  “Sarah?”

  “Yes papa?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Hmm. Do you remember when I told you about the dream I had last summer?”

  “The one with the prince saving the princess?”

  “Yes, that one.”

  2

  On a clear, cool morning, Sergeant Ron Hawkins was conducting first aid classes to team members. Standing five feet, eleven inches, First Sergeant Mark Talbot selected the skilled medic and youngest member on the Special Forces A-team to be the team medical specialist at the request of Staff Sergeant (SSG) Chris Short. With sandy colored hair and hazel eyes, good-natured Ron grinned often and loved practical jokes.

  First Sergeant Talbot popped his head from the screen door of the wooden head shack. “Hawk, you're done! Y'all get in here now!”

  The soldiers looked at each other in confusion as Talbot ducked back into the building. Then, without conversation, they all hur
ried to meet with their First Sergeant.

  Piling inside, Staff Sergeant Short led the men towards Talbot who was standing in front of the Television set in the orderly room.

  “What's up, Top?”

  “See for yourself.”

  The others gathered around them, eyes fixed on the television. One of the twin towers emitted thick, black smoke like a factory chimney.

  First Sergeant Talbot relayed the media reports about a commercial aircraft slamming into one of the buildings in New York. “Nobody is sure…” he was cut off by the spontaneous reaction of the others.

  “WHOA!” Short blurted amongst the chatter.

  First Sergeant Talbot looked at Short and then the rest of them. “Y'all know what this means don't you boys? Alright, everybody get your gear together and be prepared for further instructions. We'll be moving out soon.” Talbot said with gravity.

  * * *

  Three days after the attacks, Ron joined the rest of his team in a classroom, listening to twenty-nine-year-old, Captain Steve Carter. The Fifth Special Forces Team leader gazed at his men with a mixture of determination and concern.

  “Alright, men, it is official. We will be the lead element going into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban.”

  Ron heard the murmurs around him as he looked around the room and saw that everyone on his team was doing the same…looking around at each other.

  Carter continued. “After linking up with members of the Northern Alliance, who will help us with our fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban forces, we will spot targets from the ground, blast the suckers off this planet and build alliances among the locals, which is what we do best. Questions?”

  First Sergeant Talbot spoke. “Sir, I believe I speak for the team when I say we are all behind you with this mission and are more than ready.”

  There was a loud unified “Hooah” from the soldiers sitting in the room. Talbot continued. “Who do we have over there now in charge of linking us up with the northern alliance?”

  Carter answered, “The CIA are already there and will grease the skids.” Ron could tell by the way Captain Carter answered Talbot's last question that he did not want to field any more of them but wanted to move forward with the planning and training stages of the mission. Nobody spoke up.

  “Good, let's roll. We have a lot to do in a few days. POTUS wants us there yesterday!” He added with emphasis.

  The team headed for the door before Carter shouted, “Oh, I do not need to remind you that this mission is classified TOP SECRET! Understand?”

  “Hooah!” the soldiers responded. Carter looked over at Talbot and nodded his head. “They'll be ready, sir!” he assured him.

  Ron went back to the aid station and selected items to pack into his primary aid bag and a few small surgical kits he would disperse throughout his rucksack and cargo pockets. As he was busy packing and listening to the radio, First Sergeant Talbot came in to see him.

  “Hey top, everything good?”

  “That's what I was about to ask you.”

  “All's good, top, you know. I'm ready.”

  “I know you are, Hawk. Have you told your mother yet, I mean about not being around; you going on a mission?”

  “Not yet, top. She is smarter than the average bear. She'll know where I would be going if I told her I will be out of the net for a while.”

  “You talk to her at least once a week. You'll have to tell her something, Hawk.”

  “I know, Top, believe me, I know. I just haven't thought of how to tell her yet.”

  All Ron wanted to do was get ready for war, survive the war, and come home alive to his mother in East Tennessee. His mother relied on him and had done so all his life, from his earliest memories.

  Within days, the team moved into the Isolation Facility (ISOFAC), which was a gray two-story building. Guards operated the locked gate surrounding the building. Here, the team would conduct their last bit of planning and training.

  3

  Ron, part of Task Force Dagger, began his mission only thirty-nine days after the 9/11 attacks. His team traveled on a C-5 Galaxy to a former Soviet air base in Uzbekistan. The stopover at Karshi-Khanabad, or K2 as the men called it would be brief. It was still more than two hundred miles from their destination in Afghanistan. There, CIA operators on the ground and a contingent of Mujahedeen warriors waited for them.

  Once Captain Carter's team linked with the guerrilla forces, they intended to use the AN/PEQ-1, or Special Operations Forces Laser Acquisition Marker (SOFLAM). This device would direct accurate delivery of missiles from a high-altitude aircraft.

  As the CIA and guerrilla force waited in the pitch-black darkness, a SOAR MH-47E Chinook helicopter, equipped for the mountainous regions of Afghanistan, prepared to land. The bird had just flown from Uzbekistan across the sixteen-thousand-feet-high Hindu Kush Mountains in zero visibility and high-wind conditions.

  Used for insertion, extraction, and resupply of Special Operations Forces, it came equipped with a forward-looking infrared camera mounted in a bubble under the helicopter's chin, allowing pilots to fly at low levels during the night and in unfavorable weather conditions.

  The helicopter was armed with M134 7.62-mm Gatling guns and contained infrared jammers, radar-warning receivers and jammers.

  * * *

  In the early morning hours before dawn on October 19, 2001, Carter's team landed near Dehi, where guerilla leaders, led by fifty-five-year-old, Abdul Mohaqeq, would meet them.

  An Afghan warlord who fought with the Soviets, Abdul dressed in a waistcoat made of black and red velvet and decorated with a gold braid. The six-foot, one-inch man was stout and he wore a western style jacket that he picked up at a local bazaar. He sported a grizzly grey beard, and his wrinkly olive skin, blended with his hazel eyes.

  Strained relations with the Taliban led Abdul to help General Masood's campaign against them and solidify his efforts to help the Americans fight against the Al-Qaeda-led forces. Fighting for any force catering most to his financial benefit was his primary motive.

  Mohaqeq maintained a strong base camp with soldiers and equipment who were willing to help the Americans fight the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. When meeting with Captain Carter's team, his men and equipment were in an open field of the Persian-a-Souf Valley.

  Horses were the primary transportation and were available by the Afghan tribes they were supporting. Once the initial link between the two groups was complete, Mohaqeq and his men led Carter's team to a prearranged safe house in Dehi, a village south of Mazar-i-Sharif.

  “All right guys, it won't be for long but take a few and get some rest.” First Sergeant Talbot announced.

  Sergeant Hawkins rested against his rucksack and sitting next to Staff Sergeant Short, who was a mentor to Ron. Chris, six feet tall, with short curly black hair and blue eyes is good-natured about life in general. He took Ron Hawkins under his wings when they met during phase two in San Antonio, Texas, while training during the Medical Aidman course. Chris, already on an A-team, was cross training from his weapon-specialty position. He went to Ron for help often since he was the top of the class.

  “You know what I hear, Hawk?”

  “What's that?”

  “These guys teaming with us now, fought for the Soviets in the eighties! Can you believe that?”

  “What?”

  “Yep, and get this, some of those Mujahedeen that fought with the CIA during the Soviet occupation are now the Taliban who we will be fighting.”

  “That's crazy!”

  “Yep, friends one day, enemies the next.”

  “Works both ways I guess, huh?”

  “So it would seem.”

  “So, how do we know we can trust these guys?”

  “Just watch your six while you're here, the whole time.”

  “I thought they were on our side?”

  “Well, one of the primary leaders, General Masood, did fight against the Soviets during the eighties and is now helping us, in a way.”
<
br />   “Wait, wasn't he just killed?”

  “Yeah, but he aligned his men with Mohaqeq, which is good, because he has close to three thousand light infantry with him.”

  “Wow that will help. What about these Taliban dudes?”

  “Ha, these guerrillas are a bunch of ragtag men made up of local warlords, religious zealots, bandits, and foreign mercenaries.”

  “And these, so-called, ragtag zealots are the ones who were behind the 9/11 events?”

  Short just looked at Ron. “Well, the Al-Qaeda group, which is international, no doubt funded by big oil money.”

  Ron thought for a moment. “Same old story.”

  “These guys want to turn the world into a fourteenth-century utopia ruled under Islamic law.”

  “That will never work.”

  Chris thought for a moment. “Their numbers grow through religious education at mosques all over the world.”

  “Well, we're here to stop them, right?”

  “That's the idea. If for no other reason than their religion, think of it as our mission to free the oppressed because these guys are ruthless and have been known to brutalize local citizens through rape, public executions, amputations, and a host of other humiliations, a lot of times just for the heck of it, but always under the guise of religion.

  “That's insane.”

  “Yep. I read up on them before coming here, while you were reading hunting and survival magazines.”

  “Well, you never know. I might have to survive in these here mountains.”

  “You should be used to that, coming from the Appalachians, right?”

  “True, but those mountains were not as tall as these.”

  Ron noticed that Short was digging in his pockets for a health bar, so he reached into his pocket, content with whatever he came up with, which was a piece of hard jerky.

  4

  Sunday, October 21, 2001

  Mohaqeq and Captain Carter crouched at a nearby observation post from a cave opening set in the side of the mountain. Eight thousand feet above sea level, Carter could see for miles across the valley. Mohaqeq pointed to a Taliban bunker across the valley.