The soldiers surrounded the soldier and kicked him, screaming at him for his weakness. They dragged him back to his feet. I thought it was pretty stupid to jeopardize our safety by whimpering loud enough for the Taliban to hear, but then the soldiers started reprimanding him, further jeopardizing our safety. He continued sobbing, saying he couldn’t go on, and the other soldiers continued pushing him to move forward. The Taliban would have gotten a laugh out of that scene.
The terrain felt more navigable than in Yaka China, and the distance between where we were and Second Platoon was an easy thirty minutes away. On a crisp, sunny day Captain Kearney sent us on a patrol down to meet frontline soldiers, and we were relieved to finally be with them. The platoon was spread out, relaxing after several strenuous days, trading Skittles and M&M’s. The communication devices whirred with Taliban voices, including one the soldiers nicknamed “the whisperer,” who repeated in a hushed voice that “he was getting closer” and that “he saw hair,” which we assumed was either Elizabeth or I. We knew it was only a matter of time before the Taliban attacked.
The ridgeline where the soldiers had gathered ran along a steep mountain face at roughly a seventy-five-degree angle. The angle made it almost impossible to find a place to pee, which I had been holding off on doing all morning. I took off my helmet, placed my cameras next to Elizabeth, and climbed up the mountain on all fours. About forty feet up, a monstrous tree had fallen among the sinewy pines, creating the perfect place to go to the bathroom. I jumped over the log, and before I’d even unbuttoned my pants I heard the familiar snap of AK-47 rounds—the gun of choice for the Taliban.
I dropped to the ground and lay flat behind the cover of the log. I was straight up above the troops along the ridgeline, out of their sight and all alone. I tried to dig myself as deep as possible into the ground—to get as much cover from all sides. Bullets whooshed past, over the cover of the tree, from several different directions. In the midst of an ambush it was always nearly impossible for me to tell what direction the bullets were coming from, or which deductions I made stemmed from reason and which from fear. Bullets snapped all around my head, that miserable sound of them slicing through the air: Bizoom, bizzzzoooom, bizoom . . . I could tell that the Taliban was shooting from nearby.
I felt the rise of panic from the pit of my stomach into my chest: What if the whisperer came from over the top of the mountain and stumbled upon me first? Would he take me prisoner? I was alone, and as far as I knew, none of the soldiers below had any idea that I had run off to pee. I started saying my Hail Marys in an attempt to redeem myself as a good Catholic. I pleaded with God to keep me safe, making all sorts of promises I knew I would never keep.
Or what if my fellow Americans shot up at me in a friendly fire incident? They could have easily started shooting in my direction if the Taliban were behind me. I continued praying. I knew I had to get down to the ridgeline, where Elizabeth, Tim, Balazs, and the Second Platoon were taking cover.
“Lieutenant Piosa!” I screamed. The rules of an embed are that journalists obey the commanding officer or whoever is assigned to track us; if all hell is breaking loose, however, we are no one’s responsibility.
“Elizabeth!!” I screamed thinly into the bullet-ridden air. I couldn’t even hear my own voice. I burrowed myself in the space behind the log, knowing I had to muster the courage to reach the others. Agonizing minutes passed until there was a brief lull in the shooting. I jumped over the log and lay prostrate on the ground, stretching my arms above my head like an Olympic diver, and rolled all the way down the mountain to where the others were. I first reached Sergeant Tanner Stichter, who was standing beside another soldier.
“Get behind cover!” Stichter screamed as bullets continued all around me. “Find a tree!”
“I need my cameras! And my helmet . . .”
I spotted Elizabeth, crouched behind several other soldiers in the forest below, hiding behind the baby pines, each with trunk diameters of no more than six to eight inches. The Taliban, ever professional fighters and masters of their terrain, were ambushing us from three sides. I cowered behind Elizabeth, once again forgetting to photograph, and looked around to get my bearings. To my right and a few feet away, Tim was filming the scene: He was perched up against a slender pine, holding his video camera steady, a picture of calm amid the panic.
Then a terrified voice came over the radio: “Man down! 2-4 is hit!”
Everyone had a call sign, and Sergeant Kevin Rice was 2-4. Piosa gave steady directives over the radio, trying to get a sense of the situation unfolding.
The panicked voice came over the radio again: “Wildcat has been hit!”