It was late December 2009 and our 14-man Marine Special Operations Team (MSOT) was tasked with conducting a Joint/Combined operation to seize a key piece of terrain in Bala Morghab River Valley.  Our partner for this mission was a squad (-) of 82nd Airborne Paratroopers and a small detachment of Afghan National Army Soldiers (6). Our objective was a hilltop located on the eastern side of the BMG valley. It was the first piece in cutting off the Taliban’s freedom of movement from north and south through the valley. Bala Morghab had been a Taliban stronghold since the war began in 2001.

I was the only Scout Sniper from the team that was present for the mission. My specific task was to secure the southwest corner of the hilltop. This mound of dirt was was named “Objective Pathfinder” and we were Team Pathfinder.

Team Pathfinder left the fire base and moved east under cover of darkness on foot, meeting no resistance in physically securing the hill. The Soldiers and Marines used the last hours of darkness to dig shallow trenches and fighting positions prior to sunrise; knowing full-well that once the Taliban realized Coalition Forces had occupied this key piece of terrain a firefight was guaranteed to erupt. It was only a matter of time now.

Team Pathfinder, Day 4
Team Pathfinder, Day 4

Day one – The first enemy contact occurred around 0830 hours. It was a long day filled with multiple waves of enemy engagements. They used small arms, medium machine-guns and several volleys of rocket propelled grenades (RPG) from numerous fighting positions within the villages below the hill. I was using a 7.62 semi-automatic sniper rifle and it was working well against near targets, but most of the enemy movement we could observe was at a distance of over 1000 meters. At this point, I knew I needed my Barrett M107 SASR, nicknamed “Elvis”. As darkness fell over the valley, friendly forces settled in for a long and cold night of observing the battle space through night vision devices. The valley was sporadically lit by friendly mortar illumination rounds throughout the night. It was a sub-freezing break for the fighting.

We slept in 30 minute shifts throughout the night and stood up all forces just before sunrise. We knew the fighting was going to continue. Like clockwork, the Taliban engaged us with sporadic fire. Their intent was to test and probe the defenses of the hill. We knew from intelligence reporting that the Taliban were planning a last ditch effort to drive us from the hill today.

I was scanning the villages for movement when the post “noon-pray” engagement kicked-off. The Taliban launched a complex attack on us. The initial fire come from rolling hills to our east and consisted of medium machine-gun, mortar and RPG fire. The rockets streaked over our heads while machine-gun rounds impacted the berm and sandbags we were using to fortify our positions. This was followed by enemy fire erupting from the village to our south. This was a well-coordinated L-shape attack. At this point, I began engaging enemy targets to the south while taking accurate machine-gun fire from the eastern Taliban element in the hills. Every gun on pathfinder was in the fight, returning waves of fire to enemy positions on both flanks.

While returning fire on an RPG gunner in the village, my M107 SASR was struck in the magazine well by a PKM machine-gun round.  The force of the impacting round knocked me off the gun. The round that impacted my rifle was a tracer, and it was still burning. The tracer caught the magazine on fire, which caused a round inside the weapon to explode.

MSOT 8222 Scout Sniper "Cool Breeze"
MSOT 8222 Scout Sniper "Cool Breeze"

The magazine itself contained the force of the exploding round.  My team leader, Andy, worked to put out the now burning gun.  The fire was out; Andy turned to me and asked if I was okay. I replied by saying “yeah, that scared the shit out of me”.  I was fine, just a few bullet fragments in the neck, nothing major.