INCOMING!

People have said this many times before, but where do we get such men?

The answer is they are all around you every day. These are you sons and daughers, brothers, sisters, moms and dads. THIS is what it’s all about. These are the people some up in DC are going to try and hang out to dry. HONOR THEM!

INCOMING
By Richard S. Lowry

Here are the details of the Firefight at COP KEATING

It began at dawn on Saturday, October 3, 2009, at an isolated outpost in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban had been harassing the troopers at COP Keating for months, attacking them three or four times a week. Most attacks consisted of a few bursts of small arms fire and a lobbed mortar round or a single RPG; nothing like what the soldiers at Keating were about to experience.

Combat Outpost (COP) Keating had become a thorn in the enemy’s side. The American cavalry troopers of Bravo Troop, 3d Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment had occupied the small COP deep in the Afghan mountains for some time and the American soldiers had been trying to win over the local civilians. It appeared that the Americans were there to stay. So, the enemy launched a massive assault on the isolated American stronghold.

First Lieutenant Andrew Bundermann, the Red Platoon leader, was still asleep, as were most of his men, when the attack started. “That’s incoming,” a soldier told Sergeant Eric Harder as they lay in their racks. Red Platoon’s troopers quickly responded to the attack. Soldiers on watch started returning fire as everyone dressed, grabbed their gear and ran to their assigned stations. Gunners ran to the Troop’s HMMWV gun trucks, infantrymen manned their fighting positions, leaders rushed to the Tactical Operations Center (TOC), and mortarmen headed for their mortars to try to suppress the enemy fire coming from the mountains above.

The COP was taking a lot of indirect fire and RPGs were hitting everywhere on the compound. Sergeant Harder could hear rounds fired from the high ground hitting the roof of the barracks. The enemy attacked from three sides with RPGs, a couple of Russian-made B-10 recoilless rifles, accurate sniper fire, and machine guns. If American troopers went out in the open, they were vulnerable. The enemy had a commanding view of COP Keating.

The Afghan National Army soldiers wanted nothing to do with this fight. They cut and ran, leaving the COP’s main gate undefended and the Cavalry Troopers to fight off the attack on their own.

The American commanders could not have selected a more difficult spot to defend. COP Keating was set close to a small village in a deep river valley near the Pakistani border. It was surrounded on three sides by towering rocky mountains. The Americans and Afghan soldiers occupied a complex of nineteen buildings down in the valley. It was like being the away team in a football stadium where the angry fans had AK-47s, sniper rifles and machine guns. Bravo Troop’s soldiers hunkered down in the sturdier buildings surrounded by HESCO barriers, sandbagged fighting trenches and a concertina-topped chain link fence. A concrete bridge was just outside the Entry Control Point (ECP), connecting the small outpost with its Landing Zone (LZ) on the other side of the river. This was COP Keating’s only connection to the outside world. The entrance to the COP was the weak link in the defensive perimeter.

The soldiers had built a machinegun bunker on top of a small building that overlooked the entrance to the COP and the bridge. They had several HMMWV gun trucks with machine guns mounted in their armored turrets. They also had 120mm and 60mm mortars set up inside the compound that could reach high into the mountains with deadly, accurate indirect fire.

The Taliban had conducted recon-by-fire missions that seemed to be simply harassing fire. When asked, one of the troopers called it “general douchebaggery.” It is apparent that the harassing fire was much more than that. Enemy commanders noted how the troopers reacted to their attacks. They observed how the Americans responded with their mortars, timed how long it took for aircraft to respond, and counted the American’s heavy guns. They learned that the Americans could provide indirect mortar fire from nearby COP Fritsche.

One of the first incoming rounds took out Keating’s generator, leaving the soldiers in the dark and without some of their communications gear. Red Platoon was on batteries. When they died, there would be no communication with the outside world.

Task Force Pale Rider’s mortarmen rushed to the mortar pits in Keating and Fritsche at the first sounds of the attack. The Taliban were waiting. They had heavy weapons zeroed in on Bravo Troop’s mortars at both COPs. They opened fire on the soldiers, killing one and wounding another at Keating. The mortarmen at both outposts were pinned down, not able to get to their guns. The enemy had taken out Red Platoon’s indirect fire capability.

Red Platoon’s only effective fire came from the .50 caliber and 240 machine guns in their gun trucks and sandbagged fighting positions. Undaunted, Sergeant Jayson Souter called for fire from FOB Bostick and the Squadron zeroed in on Fritsche’s attackers with 155mm howitzer fire. Once the troopers at Fritsche could get to their 120mm mortars, they began pounding the enemy positions above Keating with high explosives.

With no artillery support, it was pretty intense for the first half hour. Soldiers were pushing out from their barracks to man their positions as the gun trucks fought back with their heavy machine guns. Everyone was laying down as much fire as they could, trying to repel the determined attack.

Air support was on the way but a fire had started to rage in the compound. Sergeant Harder was fighting from the cover of his barracks when he got the radio call. The gunners in the trucks were running out of ammo. Harder and several other soldiers answered the call for ammo and raced from the barracks toward the Ammunition Supply Point (ASP). Steps outside the door, they could feel the rounds hitting the building as they ran. Harder was the first to reach the ammo bunker. He started pulling out ammunition and giving it to his guys, ordering each soldier to a different truck. The soldiers raced the ammunition to the gun trucks and then returned to the safety of their barracks. Once the enemy noticed that Harder and his men were re-supplying the gun trucks, a sniper zeroed in on the door to their barracks. On the machine gunners’ next call for ammo, Harder had to pop a smoke grenade to push guys out again. There was no stopping. The guys on the trucks kept calling for more bullets. “We had to keep moving.”

On each call for ammo, Harder would pop a smoke at the barracks door and then he and his men would rush to the bunker, grab two more smoke grenades and more boxes of machine gun rounds and rush them to the HMMWVs. Then they would return to the relative safety of their barracks.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Carson Shrode, the Troop’s Fires Support Officer, had called for air support. Very soon, it was clear that this was no ordinary harassing attack. The enemy was making a deliberate attempt to overrun the outpost. Soon three of the five main buildings were in flames and the enemy was at the wire.

American jet aircraft were on station within 20 minutes dropping their bombs. But, the enemy continued the attack, completely overrunning the ECP and the abandoned Afghan National Army compound. The American soldiers fought gallantly, but they were severely outnumbered, outgunned and surrounded. They continued to fight, begrudgingly giving ground, feet at a time. Casualties started to mount…

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