At around 10 p.m. on Sept. 14, 2012, 15 heavily armed insurgents penetrated the perimeter of Camp Bastion, a base in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan. Slipping through a hole in the wire, heavily armed and outfitted in American military uniforms, they wreaked havoc across the northeast flight line, killing two American Marines, wounding nine others, destroying six AV-8B Harrier jets and causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. One of the dead was the Harrier squadron’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Christopher Raible, who died using only his 9mm handgun against five insurgents.

Late last month, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos, released findings from an investigation that found shortcomings in security at the base, despite warnings that such an “outside in” attack was possible. General Amos forced two respected Marine Corps generals, Charles M. Gurganus and Maj. Gen. Gregg A. Sturdevant, to retire because of their culpability in the security failing.

Despite the widespread attention to the equipment damage and lost lives, there have been only a few stories describing the response to the attack by American Marines and British Royal Air Force troopers. And almost none of those accounts have mentioned that United States airmen, including four members of a combat rescue team, including me, also ran toward the sound of the guns that night.

I was deployed to Bastion as the commander of the 46th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron. We flew casualty evacuation and personnel recovery missions on HH-60G Pave Hawks, known to many by the call sign Pedro.

We ran several missions a day, pulling casualties out of hot landing zones. That night I was on a sort of second-line “anything else” kind of alert. “Anything else” didn’t happen much, so I was looking forward to catching up on some administrative work. Around 10 p.m., I took a break from my office in the rescue operations center and walked to the alert tent to check on the men. The guys were doing what they normally did between missions: watching movies, reading e-mail, joking around, cleaning weapons. I wasn’t there more than a few minutes when a strange call come over the radio:

“HC-130 personnel are bunkered down. Taking RPG and small arms fire.” (RPGs are rocket-propelled grenades.)

We looked at one another. Yeah, right. I walked back to the ops center. Everyone was gathered silently around the radio.

“Confirm your last.”

“All personnel accounted for; we are bunkered down. Receiving RPG and small arms fire.”

I peeked outside and could see an orange glow coming from the hangars. The base went to lockdown: people grabbed their weapons, flak vests and helmets; took defensive positions or headed for the bunkers. While I waited, we received a call from the main Marine headquarters. They had two casualties in a hangar and requested our help. The ops center chief looked at me. “Can you send a team?”

“We’re on it,” I said.

I radioed the men and asked for three guys. Paul, Kyle and Dan volunteered. They grabbed an unmarked white Dodge pickup and loaded up gear.

Photo

The intelligence was garbage. Reports were conflicted, and lockdown meant everyone was bunkered down, ready to shoot. We would run the risk of getting shot by our own guys in the confusion. The safest thing to do was wait for better information. But by then, it might be too late. So I shouldered my armor, grabbed my rifle and walked out to the waiting team. “We’re going to take this nice and slow,” I told them in my 60-second brief. “Any questions?”

Perhaps, I thought, this was nothing more than some mortar or rocket hits on the airfield and hangars. Maybe a bit of shooting at the towers, but nothing crazy. Pick up the wounded, get them to the hospital, I figured. In and out in 15 minutes tops.

As we headed to the flight line, several large fires burned bright, creating “blooms” in our night-vision goggles and making it difficult for Kyle to see where he was driving. As we drove south, sporadic gunfire turned into a gunfight, heavy machine guns booming and rocket-propelled grenades streaking across the sky. Attack helicopters were overhead. A fuel farm burned, flames reaching at least 100 feet. Klaxons wailed. Things were far worse than I had expected: Charlie, it seemed, was inside the wire.

“Thank God you’re here,” a British medic said. He told us what he knew: No casualties here. Big firefight over there. That’s all, mate.

We jumped in a small vehicle and headed toward the firefight. There was a small hill on the other side of the burning fuel farm, and I saw a couple of friendly vehicles rocking .50-caliber machine guns at a hidden position. Paul, Kyle and Dan moved ahead on foot. In a moment, Paul returned to brief me: a couple of casualties, enemy holed up about 50 meters to our right. To get to the casualties, we’d have to run to them, uphill, with zero cover. Ugly.

I was in the middle of briefing the team when I heard the volume of fire pick up significantly. I looked up, and Paul was already off and running.

“I guess we’re going,” I said as I slapped Dan on the butt and sent him off. Kyle went next, then me. I could hear gunfire around me, above me, booming through my headset. I couldn’t tell if it was coming or going, but it didn’t matter. There wasn’t time to think or worry. We made it.

Dan and Kyle worked the patients, while Paul and I manned security positions. There was sporadic fire, but the volume was replaced by the shouts of what turned out to be a largely Scottish contingent of Royal Air Force troopers running in and out of cover, grabbing ammunition and passing reports at the top of their lungs in an unintelligible brogue.

Waves of heat from the burning fuel farm buffeted us. Paul came back with a situation report. Kyle and Dan’s casualties were stable, mostly fragmentation wounds. The British were getting ready to assault a cryogenics complex across the road from where they had taken fire. They said they’d appreciate a hand; we were looking for work. So we joined them.

Through my goggles I saw that the large complex was surrounded by protective barriers, including metal shipping containers. In back a tent was burning from an earlier airstrike. Kyle and I were in a small ditch when two figures emerged from behind a barrier, running in our direction. I could tell they were Americans, just by the way they moved. Plus, they appeared to be in their pajamas.

“Friendlies!” called Kyle. “Hold your fire!”

The two guys stumbled into the ditch, and Kyle and Dan were immediately on them, searching and debriefing. One wore boxers and a T-shirt, and I could tell they were shell-shocked. They were pretty sure that Taliban fighters were still in the complex. As we readied for an assault I thought it was a good thing that my team and I had completed a workup in small-unit tactics, including urban operations, close-quarters battle and live-fire exercises in a house. We may ride in helicopters or jump from HC-130s, but we know the work starts on the ground.

We slowly cleared myriad metal shipping containers and heavy equipment filled with places to hide. We were behind a generator when the British troops opened fire with an automatic grenade launcher and heavy weapons. There was no return fire, so I figured maybe all the enemy had been killed.

As the assault team began their attack on a small bunker, there was a large boom, followed by fully automatic gunfire. One of the Taliban had thrown a grenade, but it had bounced backward and blown up in his face. The lead British assaulter was knocked back by the concussion, then fired on full automatic, killing the insurgent inside.

As I ran out from behind the generator, keeping my rifle trained on a dark blob at the rear of the bunker, something didn’t feel right. I looked back in time to see a muzzle flash and a bullet tear into a nearby barrier. I swerved back clumsily to the generator as another team hit the bunker again and finished off the insurgent hidden there.

We continued clearing the complex. Ammunition ignited by the fires was exploding everywhere. The situation was ripe for fratricide. As I cleared around one corner, shouting “Friendly!” I found myself staring down the barrel of a British trooper’s weapon. Inside one office, drawers were pulled open, papers strewn everywhere; the Taliban had ransacked the building before holing up in the bunker.

When we finished the complex, 40 of us regrouped to move north toward the end of the runway. I could see attack helicopters circling above burning Harrier jets, and recalled that earlier that night I had spotted the frequency for Righteous, the Marine Corps attack helicopters. So I pulled out my radio, pulled up the Righteous frequency and gave it a shot.

“Any Righteous, any Righteous, this is Varsity One-Actual,” I called.

My radio came to life. “Varsity, this is Righteous.” Success.

Righteous relayed what he knew: His pilots had eyes on five guys hiding behind concrete barriers and were preparing to attack them.

“Righteous, be advised: we have potential friendlies in the area,” I relayed, having seen British vehicles moving north. “Please hold fire.”

I ran down the line, looking for a British officer, and finally found the platoon leader. I asked if he had a team near the Harriers. He wasn’t sure and asked if I could help. In a few minutes, I confirmed with the British the location of all their forces so we could avoid fratricide. We were good.

Photo

“You are cleared hot,” I told Righteous.

At the request of the British platoon leader, I continued to work communications with the aircraft. Two helicopters made multiple attack runs on the Taliban position. Cheers went up and down the line as the helicopters unleashed steady streams of glowing gunfire. Righteous reported four Taliban apparently dead, with one more still moving, a grenade in hand.

Righteous let me know we were clear to move toward the Harrier area. But we were on our own once we went inside the hangars and containers.

At that point, I learned that the Taliban were wearing American uniforms, which complicated things seriously.

We got ready to move north along the road. There would be two elements walking alongside two vehicles on the road, and as we moved into the inky darkness I felt exposed and vulnerable to the enemy and the friendly alike.

When we reached the southernmost end of the Harrier area, tall runway floodlights illuminated the area from hundred-foot poles. But for all we could see, there was a lot we couldn’t. Containers, hangars, blind corners. The lights created as many problems as they solved.

A barrage of small arms fire suddenly ripped through the night. Dan used his night-vision goggles and identified the lone surviving insurgent clutching a grenade. His team unleashed a withering wall of lead on the insurgent.

“Target down,” Dan radioed.

Dan made contact with Marines bunkered down in a small building surrounded by concrete barriers. They had one casualty. Their commanding officer. Colonel Raible, 40. Dead.

“I am really sorry to hear that,” I told the Marines’ executive officer, a slim major. “Do you want me to call in a bird to move him to the hospital?”

The officer shook his head. “I don’t think we’re ready to let him go,” he said.

I walked back up to where Paul, Dan and Kyle waited. I tossed them energy drinks and bummed some chewing tobacco off Paul. We were behind cover, so I took my helmet off and sighed. It had been six hours since we had left our barracks. The men were both excited and sobered. The scale of destruction surrounding us was appalling. Two dead Marines and several wounded. Millions of dollars burned to the ground.

We walked to the dead insurgents behind the concrete barrier. Sure enough, they all wore American military uniforms, complete with patches and ball caps. Several had surgical masks around their necks, and I could see a green pallor to the lifeless skin around their mouths. “I guess they were huffing paint to get high,” Paul said.

They were armed to the teeth: light machine guns, AK-47s, grenades, plenty of ammunition, and RPGs were strewn around the area. Some of the dead men still clutched their weapons. One of them in particular stood out, his head misshapen, more than likely the result of direct hits from the attack helicopters. He was bearded, hair short. His name tape read “Watson.” Filled with anger, I wanted to spit on his body. For the first time in my life, I understood why soldiers disfigure enemy corpses. I muttered a curse instead.

Dan got a flag, climbed up into a truck and placed it on Lieutenant Colonel Raible’s chest and escorted his remains to the hospital. It was our last act of the night.

We were all scheduled for casualty evacuation duty in a few hours, and we would need rest. Driving down the flight line, past the fuel farm still blazing, I struggled for a handle on the moment. It was impossible to make sense of things, but when you buy the ticket you take the ride. That’s all.

This was not the kind of combat scenario we had run countless times, getting ready for deployment. Those scenarios were easy by comparison. Tonight we had marched into a full-on gunfight, risking fratricide along the way. We had then joined up with unfamiliar British soldiers and commenced an infantry action into what had become enemy-held territory. The men had met the challenge and everyone was going home in one piece. It was no small feat.

In the days, weeks and months since, I haven’t gone a day without thinking about that night. I continue to feel an inexplicable connection to Colonel Raible. The attack on Camp Bastion was the worst airfield incursion since the Tet Offensive. Yet Colonel Raible and Sgt. Bradley Atwell, the other Marine killed that night, became just two of the latest names on an ever-growing list of casualties of a nearly forgotten war. Beyond local memorials on the Web, I couldn’t find much about them.

Then, several months ago, I found Colonel Raible’s “Command Guidance,” which he had put out before he died, online.

The memorandum is short and to the point. I had hoped to find something profound, something to justify the way I felt, something that would explain the character of a leader who died for his men.

Instead I found a simple letter outlining his principles for being successful as a Marine Corps attack pilot. Principles like “Hire for attitude; train for skill.” Unadorned, straight talk from a leader to his men. It was an excellent memo, but not what I had hoped to find.

A year ago, I instituted a monthly leadership development session with my officers at my home unit, the 212th Rescue Squadron. I pulled from reading lists published by the Air Force chief of staff, the Marine Corps commandant and military staff college courses Over a year, we worked through the books together. As I began to assemble an idea of how to structure this year’s program, I decided to start with Colonel Raible’s command guidance.

To a man, each participant in the session identified with Colonel Raible’s document. A couple even took lines from it verbatim. We all agreed that it was the best we had seen, simple and clear.

I felt a strange sense of catharsis. It was as if the colonel had spoken to us from beyond Arlington, providing wisdom that he surely never foresaw when he sat down to type that memo.

I count three bosses who have taken the time to mentor me personally as a leader. To that list I can now add Lt. Col. Chris Raible, United States Marine Corps, killed in action on Sept. 14, 2012. Dead before I even knew his name, but, as it turns out, a mentor.



Major Matthew Komatsu is a full-time Alaska Air National Guardsman with the 212th Rescue Squadron at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. His deployment in 2012 was his third combat tour in Afghanistan. You can sample his writing.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force, Department of Defense or United States government.