Figure 48. COL Frank Kisner and COL Mulholland.
Hot-Wiring the “Snake”: Rearranging JSOTF-North Communications
The 112th signalers, 5th SFG, and Air Force communications personnel scrambled fast to accommodate the rearrangement while supporting the CSAR mission and anticipating the UW campaign. MSG Don Sullivan (pseudonym), the 5th SFG communications chief, and MAJ Derrick Jacobi (pseudonym), the 5th SFG signal officer, accompanied COL Mulholland from Fort Campbell. Their initial mission was to provide communications for the two SF ODAs that were on “strip alert” at K2, ready to take off by helicopter at a moment’s notice to search for and rescue any U.S. Air Force aircrews that had bailed out of their aircraft during the air campaign while bombing targets, dispersing propaganda leaflets, or dropping humanitarian relief in Afghanistan.
MAJ Jacobi had been made the JSOTF-North communications and electronics staff officer (J6) responsible for continuous and reliable telecommunications. His principal assistant was MSG Sullivan, a former chef and top-notch tennis player with an undergraduate degree in medieval history and Islamic studies. Why the entire 5th SFG staff was going to Uzbekistan to set up a base for two ODAs was a mystery to Sullivan, despite having the same security clearances as the principal commanders and staff officers and having helped design the networks for the operation. His “need to know” did not extend beyond the initial planning for CSAR. Whatever the reason, Sullivan focused on his key task—ensuring that the 5th SFG commander always “got the information he needed to do his job.”
That meant rapidly integrating the established Air Force and 112th Signal Battalion communications array to best support the JSOTF-North headquarters without losing voice and digital message connectivity because the JSOAC was already coordinating flights of MC-130P tankers and 160th SOAR helicopters to perform the CSAR mission. The 5th SFG soldiers built their “tent city” operations center first, setting up work tables, desks, and chairs and hanging wall charts and maps in the principal staff areas. The 5th SFG’s communications section then shifted half of the Air Force network setup from its principal location in several abandoned buildings on the opposite end of the runway.
Figure 50. The support battalion needs communications to provide support.
Then MAJ Jacobi’s communications section established the network systems and tactical communications links and brought them operationally “on-line.” Having completed this, they took the Air Force communications “off-line” and walked together with them, helping to carry wiring harnesses, equipment, and other connectors down the runway to new workstations in the Snake. Next, they were “logged back in” through the digital network “cloud.” The other half of the network then followed, with all its hardware and cables being incorporated in the eight-section “temper tent” that was the joint operations center (JOC) for the JSOTF headquarters. Thus, operational communications were never lost, despite the rapid relocation of equipment and personnel. With the 112th Signalers and the Air Force communications element helping, the joint base station was completed in less than 48 hours. “We went from dirt to a functional J6 in thirty-six hours—bottom line—it worked,” reported MAJ Jacobi.
Shortly after COL Mulholland arrived at K2, CPT Steve Marks (pseudonym), commander, A Company, 112th Signal Battalion, was tasked to be fully mission capable to support future missions by 13 October. Marks, having successfully led his unit during Operations JOINT ENDEAVOR and JOINT GUARDIAN, was determined not to be the weak link in supporting those missions. The 112th Signalers met the challenge and established a secure video teleconferencing (VTC) link from the theater back to the United States. At the height of combat operations, A Company was conducting 10 to 14 VTCs a day. These conferences enabled the TF Dagger and JSOAC commanders to provide real-time reports, to recommend future operations, and to receive guidance directly from CENTCOM’s leaders in Tampa. First Sergeant (1SG) Martin Masterson (pseudonym) summed up the unit’s performance: “We don’t fail; we just don’t fail.”
Building the JOC Inside the “Snake”: TF Dagger’s JOC
After three false starts, CPT Carlos Hernandez (pseudonym) had been told that the 5th SFG intelligence section would leave for Central Asia on 8 October. This time it did, and Hernandez and the intelligence staff landed at K2 in the predawn darkness of 10 October. The staff had been cramming on Afghanistan since 9/11. Before then, the former 82nd Airborne Division infantry platoon leader only knew that it was “a mountainous country with lots of snow in the winter” in the CENTCOM region. Since then, his section had been searching classified and public data bases for information on Afghanistan and had talked with analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency, seeking background material on several Afghan warlords in the Northern Alliance; namely, Rashid Dostum, Mohammad Atta, Fahim Khan, Ishmail Khan, and others. To their dismay, there were no personality data bases available or any information about any subordinate leaders. Copies of The Bear Went Over the Mountain and The Other Side of the Mountain, books on the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, were circulated among the staff.
Along with the intelligence he needed to collect and analyze, CPT Hernandez was also focused on setting up his S2 “shop” in the JSOTF headquarters. En route to Uzbekistan, he chanced to meet MSG Jason Bennington (pseudonym), a 5th SFG staff NCO during a refueling stop at Sigonella, Sicily. Bennington was returning from the site survey of the former Soviet air base at K2. Elements of the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) and the 528th SOSB were already there, Bennington reported. Air Force aircraft and Army helicopters were at the airfield, ready to conduct search-and-rescue missions in support of the bombing campaign that had begun on 7 October. On a hand-drawn sketch of the airfield, Bennington pointed to a spot next to the runway and said, “Here’s the space for the JSOTF.” The Uzbeks had granted the Americans use of abandoned parts of the active air base. Since the Air Force had already occupied the only building, the 5th SFG staff would have to create their task force headquarters with tents.
Figure 52. Dry for the moment.
The “space for the JSOTF” that Bennington had pointed out turned out to be a narrow strip of land about 200 feet long and 100 feet wide between a taxiway and several old concrete aircraft bunkers. Twenty large tents were assembled and then erected in a row, mostly end to end, creating what became known as the “Snake.” Shortly after the tents were set up, a heavy rain began to fall, and the downpour lasted for 10 days. That was when Hernandez remembered one of the “lessons learned” from the Kosovo deployments: “Never set up tents next to a runway or the adjacent taxiways because they are designed to allow water to drain naturally off their surfaces into adjacent fields.” To make matters worse at K2, the dirt security berms that surrounded the base prevented natural runoff. There was no other location big enough (and more importantly available) to go. Within days the water was ankle deep in the JOC. Computer servers, cables, and electrical wiring soon filled the folding tables used as desks. Throughout the rainstorm, Special Forces engineers continued to elevate the wooden flooring in the Snake. Although the temperatures were surprisingly mild, the rain threatened to shut down the JSOTF headquarters just as the UW campaign was ready to “kick off.”
The JSOAC was charged with the CSAR mission. On 12 October, Mulholland told LTC Brinks, the JSOAC commander, that six Special Forces ODAs would be infiltrated into Afghanistan within 48 hours.
Staff “Battle Captain”: The Combat Operations “Pulse Monitor”
While the J3, LTC Warren Richards, an augmentee from the Special Operations Command, U.S. Joint Forces Command (SOCJFCOM), Norfolk, directed daily operations and activities in the JOC, the staff “battle captains”