Figure 55. Initial signal links to K2.
An initial difficulty at K2 was determining where to set up. This was a critical decision because a guiding principle is that once communications have been established, the equipment should not be moved. There were only about 100 people on the ground when the company arrived in theater, and there was little knowledge of what other units would arrive or when. Additionally, available real estate was littered with trash and discarded Russian equipment, and the soil was contaminated with oil. Some difficulties developed among the communicators from different headquarters, and real estate allocators as units began to move into the base. A critical concern was that systems that processed Top Secret information be located near the Secure Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). Not having the facility established early on led to equipment being moved and communications interrupted contrary to standard procedures.
The company deployed with one superhigh-frequency satellite hub, a tactical telephone switch, a data services team, one SCAMPI node to provide secure and nonsecure networking plus data services and secure telephones, equipment for secure video teleconferencing (VTC), and three Special Operations Communication Assemblage (SOCA) teams to provide tactical satellite (TACSAT) communications. They also took about 200 personal computers. Within 48 hours, the company had installed communications to support the Joint Special Operations Air Component (JSOAC) that had already been established. Real estate allocation difficulties that required some equipment to be moved and minor technical problems resulted in the SCAMPI not being reestablished for about four days. Normally, some of these problems are resolved in a predeployment communications exercise. Under the given conditions, however, being able to troubleshoot problems before hand was not possible. The company also deployed two SOCA teams to embassies and one team to provide communications between a Special Forces detachment at Mazar-e Sharif and its headquarters.
After approximately 100 days, A Company at K2 was replaced by a conventional Army signal battalion. That, though, did not end the unit’s involvement in the war against terrorism. In March 2002, the second platoon of B Company deployed to Bagram, Afghanistan, to provide communications to the JSOTF being established at that location. Second Lieutenant (2LT) Tom Washington (pseudonym), a former enlisted Special Forces soldier, and his platoon immediately appropriated space in a dirt field near the perimeter and went to work. Within 48 hours, as did A Company, Washington completed the links between the JSOTF and the higher headquarters. In his words, “that was possible only because incredible guys are running these systems.” The next month, soldiers from first platoon, B Company, established communications in Kabul between 1st Battalion, 3rd SFG, and the JSOTF. The platoon also deployed three SOCA teams to support forward operating bases (FOBs) in Khowst, Kandahar, and Shkin.
DAPs Set the Stage for UW in Afghanistan
LTC Brinks, the JSOAC commander, had been told on 12 October to begin planning air infiltrations into Afghanistan. This order expanded his mission from CSAR support to inserting Special Forces teams into Afghanistan to advise and assist anti-Taliban leaders in conducting UW. Coordinated through diplomatic and military channels, the first ARSOF aviation mission was to insert an eight-man pilot team at night south of Mazar-e-Sharif to establish contact with General Dostum.
CWO Roger Charles (pseudonym), the MH-60L Direct Action Penetrator (DAP) flight leader, received the mission. Originally deployed to Uzbekistan to provide armed escorts to MH- 47Es performing air rescue of downed aircrews in northern Afghanistan for the air campaign, the DAP would demonstrate what it was designed to do—conduct independent long-range penetrations into hostile environments to insert special reconnaissance (SR) teams. Although the DAP had weapon systems and the 160th SOAR relied heavily on the cover of darkness for protection, CWO Charles’ main concern was the incomplete antiaircraft artillery (AAA) threat picture in Afghanistan. Overhead cover of the helicopter mission by Air Force combat air patrol fighters was not an option. Thus, in an abandoned Soviet concrete building, the JSOAC staff worked feverishly to collect data from alternate sources because the SCAMPI system (secure intelligence reachback) was temporarily down and access was restricted to national intelligence sources.
CWO Charles’ second concern was weather that potentially was an even greater threat than the enemy. Poor visibility masked terrain, and a 10,000-plus-foot mountain range controlled access to Afghanistan from K2. Sand or dust storms constantly obscured the high desert plains beyond them. Visibility routinely dropped to less than one-eighth of a mile in the plains region. When the dust storms slammed into the mountains, visibility limitations reached as high as 10,000 feet, and the associated air turbulence was lethal.
Figure 56. MH-60L DAP. Winter operations in high mountainous terrain posed major challenges.
Adhering to Night Stalker tradition, “Alone and unafraid,” the 160th DAP pilots prepared their insertion plan with the information available and what the pilot team could tell them. On 14 October, Charles did the mission brief in an old Soviet aircraft bunker where the crews slept because there was more room than in the JSOAC building. The two DAP crews, the Chinook crew carrying emergency contingency fuel, the MC-130P tanker crew providing primary fuel by aerial refuel, and the JSOAC staff principals received the mission briefing huddled in a small circle around a map of the area of operations. The flight route was long, requiring two aerial refuels. The plan was simple but had several key elements for success; fuel and weather headed the list. Barring poor weather, the mission could be executed the next night. However, CENTCOM bumped the mission several days for diplomatic considerations, weather, and reservations. Finally, on the night of 16 October, the execute order was given.
Under the cover of darkness, a flight of DAPs, configured more like Black Hawk assault helicopters with their armor stripped off, and an MH-47E Chinook took off from K2 headed to the south and Afghanistan. The two DAPs rendezvoused with an Air Force MC-130P Hercules tanker orbiting above southeastern Uzbekistan to refuel. After the DAPs had refueled from the tanker, the MH-47E Chinook helicopter returned to K2. It would meet the returning DAPs at the scheduled border-crossing time in the morning darkness. They were carrying an internal fuel bladder to refuel the DAPs on the ground if needed.
Shortly after the DAP flight crossed the border just east of Termiz, Uzbekistan, around midnight, it hit an unforecasted sandstorm in the northern plains where earlier satellite imagery had shown clear weather. Undeterred, CWO Charles led his flight onward as visibility shrank to less than one-half mile. While the pilots could see stars above through their night vision goggles (NVG), providing the illusion of a possible escape, the sandstorm rose to 10,000 feet. The helicopter’s forward-looking infrared radar (FLIR) helped the pilots maintain proper obstacle clearance altitude, especially as the flight reentered mountainous terrain to the south of Mazare- Sharif. Relying on instruments, the pilots adroitly flew their helicopters “nap of the earth” (NOE), following the terrain down steep valleys and then climbing the rugged terrain before they broke out of the sandstorm at approximately 8,000 feet mean sea level (MSL). When the weather cleared, the moonless night challenged even the latest-generation NVG as the pilots flew into the central mountain region. They were looking for landing zone (LZ) Albatross, a cleared plateau in the bottom of a canyon, close to General Dostum’s headquarters.
After flying for two and one-half hours, the DAPs neared their objective. Expecting the LZ to be marked with some lights, CWO Charles was slightly taken aback when he discovered the landing area surrounded by more than 100 armed Afghans carrying AK-47s and rocketpropelled grenade (RPG) launchers. Just before takeoff, SSG Michael Stark (pseudonym), the crew chief on the lead DAP, had put an infrared chemical light on the right shoulders of the pilot team to track the ground force once they disembarked the helicopters. This was to help identify the U.S. personnel among the Northern Alliance forces in the event something went wrong on the ground. En route to the LZ, the pilot team had radioed Dostum’s forces and had been assured that everything was looking good. Still, prudence dictated caution.
Thus, CWO Charles in the lead DAP landed first in the dusty LZ, while the second DAP circled overhead maintaining