Michael G. Walling - Enduring Freedom, Enduring Voices: US Operations in Afghanistan

ENDURING

FREEDOM

ENDURING

VOICES

US OPERATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN

M ICHAEL G. W ALLING

Dedicated to the women and men who have sworn to protect and defend us from our enemies. Thanks for all youve done.

First and foremost is my wife Mary for her unwavering faith and support through another all-consuming project. Marcus Cowper, my editor at Osprey, showed remarkable patience and provided terrific input throughout the long process of bringing this project to print.

Obtaining access to and interviews with a remarkable group of women and men was made easier through the efforts of Public Affairs Offices, institutions, and their dedicated staffs. Among these wonder people are Jennifer Elzea, Office of the Secretary of Defense; Ken Gott, Combat Studies Institute; Cheryle Rivas, US Army Special Operations Command; Captain Israel Miller, Pennsylvania Army National Guard; Amy L. Forsythe, US Navy; Lieutenant John Bonds, 3/7th Cavalry, US Army; Senior Airman Mariah C. Tolbert, US Air Force; 2nd Lieutenant Rebecca Ennis, US Air Force; Lieutenant Colonel Sharon K. E. Kibiloski, US Air Force Reserve; Major Christian Hodge, North Dakota Army National Guard; Major Penny Ripperger, North Dakota Army National Guard; Senior Airman Naomi M. Griego, US Air Force; Staff Sergeant Susan Hanson, US Air Force; Lieutenant Colonel Kirk Luedeke, US Army; Colonel Beth Thelen, US Army; and Staff Sergeant Jamal Sutter, US Air Force.

There are many Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps personnel who shared their memories with me, not all of which made it into this book. For that I apologize. Every one of your memories helped shape this work and will not be forgotten.

Thank you all for helping me keep the faith.

The morning was clear along the eastern seaboard as passengers boarded their flights at Boston Logan International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, and Dulles International Airport. No delays were expected as people settled in their seats and aircrews readied for takeoff. American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston departed at 7:59am, 14 minutes late. The next, United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark, pushed back from the gate three minutes later. At Dulles, American Airlines Flight 77 was scheduled to leave at 8:10am. The fourth flight, United Airlines Flight 175, also out of Boston, took off at 8:14am.

The first sign of trouble came at 8:14am, when American Airlines Flight 11 did not respond when the air traffic controller instructed the aircraft to climb to 35,000ft.

Five minutes later, Betty Ong, a flight attendant on Flight 11, alerted American Airlines via an airphone: The cockpit is not answering, somebodys stabbed in business class and I think theres Mace that we cant breathe I dont know, I think were getting hijacked. She then told of the stabbing of two flight attendants.

Within a minute Federal Aviation Administration flight controllers in Boston concluded Flight 11 had probably been hijacked. The hesitation was understandable, since no US airliner had been hijacked since December 7, 1987.

Duff recalls: I was just standing up by the ops desk and I was told I had a phone call. I asked who it was and they said the [Boston] tower calling and something about a hijacking. It was Flight American 11, a 767 [sic], out of Boston going to California. At the time we ran in and got suited up. Two unarmed 102nd Fighter Wing F-15s scrambled to intercept the plane.

As soon as the pilots were strapped into their aircraft, the green light directing them to launch went on. Duff radioed his command post for guidance, asking, Do you have words? The response was, Possible hijack, American Flight 11, 737, flight level 290 [29,000ft], over JFK.

But it was already too late. At 8:46am American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Centers North Tower, and 17 minutes later United Airlines Flight 175 impacted the South Tower.

When Flight 175 hit, the F-15s were 71 miles about eight minutes flying time from Manhattan. Both pilots were together, near John F. Kennedy Airport, about 15 miles from the World Trade Center, when the first tower collapsed. Visibility was extremely clear that morning, and Nasty could see the plume of black smoke pouring from the first tower. He was flying about 5,000ft above the second tower when it, too, folded into a torrent of dust and debris. Nasty recalls Duff saying over the radio, It looks like the building collapsed. He thought to himself, There were just tens of thousands of people killed. I thought it was the start of World War III.

Even if the F-15s had arrived in time, they did not have the necessary presidential authorization to shoot down civilian aircraft. If we had shot down four airliners on September 11, we wouldnt have been heroes, Nasty said. You dont have the choice of outcomes. Theyre all bad. We didnt have the authority to [shoot it down]. We didnt suspect they would use kamikaze tactics that morning. We werent ready for that type of an attack, to quickly shoot down one of our own airplanes. We did everything we could do to get there in time. I was the same as everyone else. I was shocked and disbelieving, and frustrated that we were so late.

American Airlines Flight 77 smashed into the western side of the Pentagon at 9:37am. At 10:03am, the hijackers on United Airlines Flight 93 intentionally flew into the ground 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, to avoid being overpowered by the passengers.

I remember sitting in my civilian office down in Lancaster [Pennsylvania] when things started happening, recalls Colonel David A. Wood, G Company, 104th Aviation Regiment, Pennsylvania National Guard. I grabbed my gear, grabbed my flight suit, and jumped into my car. Within an hour I was flying the governor and the commander of the State Police to the crash site in Shanksville. We were there about an hour after the plane hit and saw the devastation and how you can reduce an airplane to very small pieces.

General Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief (CINC), US Central Command (CENTCOM) was in Crete resting after a ten-hour flight from Andrews Air Force Base. A few minutes after 4:00pm local time, his aidede-camp, Navy captain Carl V. Mauney, informed General Franks of the World Trade Center attacks. As I watched the flames and roiling black smoke, a colorful graphic appeared on the bottom of the screen: America Under Attack. Osama bin Laden, I said Son of a bitch!

Master Sergeant Mike Elmore was with 5th Special Forces Group at the time of the attacks:

On September 10 we were on a training exercise with another team from 5th Group using Zodiacs on the Cumberland River. On the morning of the 11th we came back and put the Zodiacs on the trailer getting ready to go back to Fort Campbell.

We turned the radios on and heard the news of the second plane hitting the towers. After finagling for about two hours to get on post we put the Zodiacs back in the dive locker [and] we went straight to palletizing and packing. We werent given any formal instruction about leaving at that point, but we knew that sooner or later we would be leaving, so we started getting our stuff ready to go, waiting for the word telling us about leaving.