Anaconda: A war story
US soldiers recount 18 hours in one of the fiercest firefights of the Afghan war
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"Lay down some suppressive fire!" Grippe yelled to the Chinook gunner, who seemed unfazed by the danger. For the first time that day, the ridgeline above remained silent.
As the chopper rose, Abbott's whole body tensed as he gauged the rise in elevation. "100 feet, OK, nothing yet ... 200 feet...."
They cleared the valley. Healy, who had been holding his breath, burst out a sigh of relief.
Rivera looked at his buddies' dazed faces. "Yeah, we made it," he thought. "That was my lottery, right there," he said. "I won the lottery."
A cool spring breeze blows down through the hardwood forest of the Adirondack Mountains and across the grassy hills surrounding Fort Drum, N.Y. There, inside a packed sports arena festooned with US and state flags, LaCamera, Grippe, and dozens of their men stand at attention in the center of a basketball court as a military band plays the national anthem.
One by one, as their names are called, the soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division step forward.
"Lt. Col. Paul LaCamera ... the Silver Star ... for gallantry in action."
For his tough, clearheaded decisions on March 2, LaCamera earns the highest medal awarded to US soldiers so far in the antiterror war. Grippe and Healy receive the Bronze Star With Valor for "heroic achievement." Taylor and two dozen others are decorated with Bronze Stars, and Ryan with an Army Commendation Medal. Purple Hearts are awarded to Abbott and other wounded.
"Welcome home," booms Army Brig. Gen. Thomas Goedkoop from the podium. "And from a grateful nation, thank you."
The standing-room-only crowd erupts with applause from hundreds of comrades in fatigues, shouts from children, and tears from wives cradling infants. Many of the babies were born during the six-month Afghanistan deployment and are seeing their fathers for the first time. "I thought I'd never get to be a father," says Sgt. Randel Perez, who earned a Bronze Star With Valor for his bravery March 2. His son, Ramiro, was born Dec. 23.
Indeed, for the soldiers who hastily shipped out in October unable to tell their families where they were going or when they'd return it's a euphoric homecoming. A time, at last, to let their guard down.
"I said a couple of 'Our Fathers' and 'Hail Marys,' " LaCamera says, reflecting on the spiritual side of soldiering. "There's no atheist in a foxhole."
Grippe jokes about how the shrapnel lodged in his right hamstring will set off metal detectors for the rest of his life. He shrugs off his Bronze Star, saying, "It's really no big deal."
Maybe not to him. But at Shah-e Kot, the 10th Mountain Division was tested in the first battle of a campaign with huge stakes.
Amid fierce resistance, what was originally planned as a 72-hour operation stretched out for two weeks. An additional 200 to 300 US troops were flown in, as were Marine Cobra helicopters. In the end, US-led forces swept through the base and killed hundreds of enemy fighters, although an unknown number escaped, according to US military officials.
Grippe and his men were vital to bringing down an enemy stronghold, but the slightest loss of will, slip in judgment, or adverse turn could have cost scores of lives. Indeed, on March 4, just north of where Grippe and his men fought, seven US commandos on a reconnaissance mission died in mountain ambushes.
"What message would we send to the rest of the world on the seriousness of our war on terrorism if we lost against a terrorist organization?" Grippe asks. "An 18-hour battle can affect a whole country."
