DESPERATE GROUND: MAD DOG 7 AND THE BATTLE FOR OP NEVADA

By Susan Katz Keating
From the July 2015 Issue of SOF

“Watson. Wake up. Woods. Everyone. Wake the hell up.”

Hours earlier, the nine-man squad had been kicking back with Pepsi, listening to music and swapping stories under a full moon atop Outpost Nevada, some 12,000 feet above the Ganjigal Valley in Afghanistan’s deadly Kunar Province. Now, on the morning of 17 July 2011, the American soldiers urgently were being roused to stand-to, in preparation for what would turn out to be a brutal 18-hour slugfest against an overwhelming enemy force. By battle’s end, this handful of Americans would earn the respect of an enemy whose ancestors confounded even Alexander the Great. These American were not SEALs. They were not Army Special Forces. They were the Mad Dogs: Delta Company’s second platoon from the 1-182nd Infantry, Massachusetts National Guard.

The Mad Dogs arrived in Kunar in June, as the security force to a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Wright in Asadabad. At the time, Big Army’s 25th Infantry Division was taking heavy hits during Operation Hammer Down, which targeted insurgent camps in the Pech Valley. Within hours of first arriving at FOB Wright, the Mad Dogs plunged into action. They offloaded the wounded and dead from MEDEVAC helicopters, carrying men to surgery or zipping them into body bags.

The following morning, the Mad Dogs began their rotations atop the remote OP Nevada, whose previous occupants – elite Soviet Spetsnaz troops – had been overrun by mujahideen in the 1980s. The old outpost, littered with abandoned Soviet relics, protected both FOB Wright and FOB Joyce in the valley below.

Three weeks in-country, 3rd Squad, led by Sgt. Brian Wood, packed their gear, arranged for Pepsi to be delivered via the local Afghan donkey boy, and boarded the Molson Air Hueys that carried them to their scheduled rotation on OP Nevada.

“We were excited about going up there,” recalls Pvt. Wayne Woods. “It was a chance to get away from the FOB.”

The night of 16 July, the tight knit squad relaxed, “shooting the shit,” says John Marquardt, a PFC at the time. Squad leader Wood entertained the men with stories of his prior tours with the Mad Dogs’ charismatic and battle hardened platoon sergeant, SFC John Melson, who was on his sixth deployment. Some in the squad retired to their primitive racks, while others remained awake and on duty.

Around 0530 on the morning of 17 July, the squad’s interpreter approached Wood.

“He was scared,” Wood says.

With good reason. The interpreter had overheard the Taliban talking on the radio about the size of the element on OP Nevada, and its fortifications. The chatter meant only one thing: the Taliban planned to attack. Wood and others instantly shifted into stand-to mode, urgently waking the rest of the squad.

“We knew it was serious,” Eric Watson says. “It went from relaxing to real. Just like that.”

Wood dispatched a small patrol to make sure no one had breached the perimeter. The patrol found three Afghans, and a spot where the wire had been flattened with rocks. The patrol captured one of the Afghans, but could not grab the other two.

“The old man told us he was a farmer,” Marquardt says. But Marquardt, a police officer in civilian life, noticed the so-called farmer’s hands: “They were smoother than mine. He was no farmer.” In fact, he was the uncle of the local Taliban commander.

The squad sent the uncle to be questioned at FOB Wright. The uncle’s two comrades, meanwhile, told their own leaders what had happened. The Taliban believed the uncle was being held at OP Nevada.

“Throughout the day, the Taliban vowed to fight to the death to get their guy back from the Americans,” says Melson. The combat-seasoned platoon sergeant, who was monitoring the situation from the tactical operations center (TOC) on FOB Wright, warned his men.

“We knew something bad was going to happen,” Watson says. “All day, we got ready. We changed out batteries. We put ammo in place.”

The men manned their weapons: two .50 caliber machine guns, a Mark 19 grenade launcher, two M-240 machine guns, and rifles. Around nightfall, the interpreter heard the Taliban say they could see the Mad Dogs’ eyes.

“We knew right then. Shit was gonna get real,” Watson says.

Down in the TOC, Melson received reports that some 60 Taliban were advancing up the mountain, covering themselves in blankets in order to conceal their heat signatures. He relayed the vital information to Wood.

Up on the OP, Marquardt spotted the enemy.  “I was up in the tower,” he says. “I saw two Taliban with an RPG.”

“Muzzle flash! Muzzle flash!” Marquardt yelled. He popped off three rounds from his M-4.

For a moment, the OP fell to silence.

“Everyone stood stock still,” Watson says. “We didn’t think it was real. We couldn’t believe we were being shot at. But we were. We were being attacked.”

An instant later, everyone let loose.

“There were a few muzzle flashes, and then it just went crazy,” Wood says.

The Taliban hit hard. They blew up the Americans’ food and water supplies. They pounded the OP with machine gun fire and shoulder-fired anti-tank rocket launchers (RPGs).

“I was nauseous and sick from the RPG [rocket] blasts,” says Cpl. Patrick Camillo, who manned a .50-caliber machine gun. “I kept firing. And they kept advancing.”

Watson, a cook emplaced with infantry, stepped in as assistant gunner on a couple of weapons, and ran back and forth, delivering ammo to his squad mates.

Wood scuttled among the stations, communicating with Afghans from nearby smaller OP’s, and talking on the radio to Melson. Wood continuously called for mortar and artillery from FOBs Joyce and Wright; but the FOBs soon ran low on rounds. The night was pitch black from cloud cover. Wood called for illumination. “It was chaos,” Wood says. “You couldn’t hear anything but the sounds of battle.”

The fight raged for hours. The Mad Dogs had no water. Their overheated weapons jammed. They went critically low on ammo. Still, they had to fight. If not, they would suffer the fate of the spetsnaz before them.

“We couldn’t leave our weapons,” Camillo says. “We were filthy. Beat. And they kept coming.”

“We had no break,” says Wayne Woods, a private who was spending his 21st birthday manning an M240 machine gun. “We had no choice. We had to keep fighting.”

Marquardt remained in the tower, calling out enemy positions: “Rocket at two o’clock! Muzzle flash twelve o’clock!”

“We hammered it,” Watson says. “We fought full out.”

“I was trying to create a wall between us and them,” Wood said. “It was a constant barrage. A lot of firepower; a lot of violence.”

Several hours into the battle, the ammo supply dwindled to dangerously low levels. The Taliban showed no sign of problems with resupply.

Wood radioed FOB Wright: “It’s getting rough up here. When are you sending help?”

The answer came cold over the wire, a decision relayed from the PRT commander, a Navy officer: “We’re not.”

The embattled Mad Dogs were stunned.

“We all looked at each other,” Marquardt says. “We told ourselves, holy hell. We’re gonna die. We had no air cover. No support. Nothing. This was it. We’re gonna die.”

The men briefly went silent. “Then we just started laughing,” Marquardt says.

But the men also reminded themselves of what their platoon leader, Melson, instilled in them: You’re never out of the fight. Inspired anew, the exhausted Mad Dogs rallied around the man who led them even his absence, telling themselves: “Man up. Let’s go. If we die, hell with it. Let’s go.”

“We accepted our deaths,” Watson says. “After that, I noticed a change in our fighting ability. We fought like we didn’t have a care in the world.”

On a channel separate from the one he used to communicate with the FOB, Wood radioed Melson: “We’re not going to make it through the night.”

Melson was fully aware of what lay in store for 3rd Squad. He knew what they were capable of. During train-up, he had physically and mentally prepped the men to the point where these National Guardsmen garnered praise from SEAL commanders. But Melson also understood the odds against his men. Sixty to nine, with scant ammo for the nine, added up to a bad outcome for the Americans.

From his place inside the TOC, Melson had been trying for hours to bring in a quick reaction force (QRF). Incredibly, the nearby 25th ID did not know Americans were on the mountain, and the PRT commander was reluctant to authorize a QRF.

Melson nevertheless rallied a QRF for standby. Men nearly fought one another to be placed on the QRF; their best friends were on that mountain, fated to die. But the roster had to be chosen carefully. Melson handpicked a medic and others whose skills would be needed, and tasked a second group as backup, in case the QRF went down.

At FOB Wright. Melson and his men began loading up “speedballs,” body bags filled with essentials: one with ammunition, the other with water. Even then, they had no choice but to agonize over their fellows’ bad fortune. The mountain was so high and so steep that the only way to reach OP Nevada was via helicopter. None were available, and the QRF still had not been given the green light.

“We saw the muzzle flashes, we saw the firefight,” Melson says. “All we could do was watch from across the valley.” But, he adds: “Those were my boys on OP Nevada. I wasn’t going to let them do this alone.”

Inside the TOC, a computer monitor showed what was going on with military in the area.

“I saw two blue dots on the screen,” Melson says. “I tapped on the screen.” The dots came up as two Blackhawks.

Melson contacted the pilots. He explained the dire situation, and asked for help. At first, fate was against the Mad Dogs. The pilots said they were on another mission, to Jalalabad, and couldn’t divert. But by a freakish turn of providence, weather prevented the birds from landing at J-bad. The pilots agreed to ferry Melson’s QRF to a hot LZ atop OP Nevada. Following some intense exchanges in the TOC, Melson secured a go for the mission. The Blackhawks landed at FOB Wright.

The backup force and the PRT’s civil affairs detachment commander, an officer much revered by the men, helped load water and ammo onto the birds. Then away went the QRF, headed for the fight.

The Blackhawks came in so fast and so hot that at first the squad on OP Nevada assumed they were Special Forces. Camillo offered to secure the LZ so the birds could land.

Wood refused to allow it. He told the men: “This is my OP. I’ll do it.” Wearing only his pants and his plate carriers, Wood ran shirtless into the firefight, to show the Blackhawks where to land. The site was closer to the Taliban than it was to the OP. The first Blackhawk carried a familiar figure.

“I see this dude hanging from the Blackhawk, spitting fire, with a beacon on his helmet,” Marquardt says. “I knew only one guy who wore a beacon like that. The guy jumps out, races into the hot LZ, and starts screaming orders.”

“It was Melson!” says Wood, who nearly was hit by the second Blackhawk. “In the middle of this chaos, it was Melson.”

“There’s nothing like the sound of that voice screaming in combat,” Watson says. “It’s a piercing, piercing voice. I was more scared of that voice than I was of the Taliban, and was so happy to hear it.”

“It was such a relief to see him,” Marquardt says. “With him there, we just knew it was going to be okay; we were going to make it. He is very comforting in a badass, tactical way.”

“They came at just the right moment,” says Camillo. “I was so tired I didn’t care if a bullet hit me in the face.”

Bullets were flying between the Taliban and the OP. The men of the QRF were smack in the middle.

“We were afraid we were going to shoot our own guys coming to help up,” Private Woods says.

The chaos continued. Woods did not see the entire QRF arrive at the OP. He thought Melson was taken by Taliban.

“I was like, ‘I gotta get Sergeant Melson!’ “ Woods says. Frantically, he ran toward the enemy. “I ran to get him back from the Taliban.”

Heading directly into enemy fire, Woods tripped. “A bullet flew right over me. If I hadn’t tripped, it would have hit me.” Woods continued in a low crawl toward the Taliban.

Somehow, amid the cacophony, Woods heard Melson screaming at him from the OP.

“I ran back. When I got there, he yells, ‘You scared the shit out of me! Don’t ever do that again!’ I didn’t care that he was mad. I was just so glad to see he was okay.”

The rest of the squad, meanwhile, was revitalized by the QRF’s arrival.

“They had water. Food. Ammo. People to replace us on the guns,” Watson says. “We were smoked. But we couldn’t stop fighting.”

Camillo could not let go of his weapon. “I had been holding it so long, I couldn’t let go,” Camillo says.

Bolstered by the QRF, the men rallied yet again and blasted the Taliban without mercy.

The fighting continued to a total of 18 hours. The battle ended when airpower arrived on 18 July.

“We had two fixed wing, and two rotary wing,” squad leader Wood says. “An F-16 came in and dropped bombs.”

The Taliban stood down. The mountain fell still. The men on the QRF told their 3rd Squad fellows to take a break.

“Our adrenalin was pumping for so long, we didn’t know we were tired,” Watson says. “But [Sgt Kevin] O’Boyle from the QRF said, ‘We got this. Get some food and some rest.’ We all went and peeled off our gear. I think I slept for four days.”

The men of OP Nevada all received awards, with a Bronze Star with “V” going to Wood and a Navy Achievement Medal going to Melson.

Perhaps the highest honor, though, came via the Taliban. After the harrowing Battle of OP Nevada, the Mad Dogs’ interpreter laughed while listening to enemy transmissions.

“We asked them, what are they saying; what are they saying?” Camillo recalls.

The interpreter translated the Taliban’s advice to one another: “Thank God they’re leaving. Don’t mess with those guys. They’re crazy Americans.”

“They didn’t mess with us after that,” Marquardt says. “They knew who we were. We were the Mad Dogs.”

 

Susan Katz Keating and John Melson are chronicling the further exploits of the Mad Dogs in their forthcoming book, Desperate Ground: The Battle for OP Nevada, available at Amazon.com.