It was December 2, 2009 and Michael was up and ready to join his team at 0500 hours. It was a cold winter morning in Kunduz, Afghanistan and patches of dark clouds were still in the sky from a light snow fall the day before. This mission was unlike all the other missions of the Special Force Team. It was moving very quickly. Usually missions don’t just happen on a spur of the moment; there is a lot of time put into planning to make sure they are successful. Almost all Special Forces missions take place at night and done under total secrecy. Before the mission takes place meetings are held, briefings are given, and jobs are assigned. Accountability of assets, personnel, and intelligence is exchanged along with current conditions that are analyzed to complete the mission. This mission was on a convoy and during the daylight hours.
As Michael headed out of the safe house to the convoy he was excited but yet apprehensive as his body shivered from the cold Afghanistan air. He believed it wasn’t just the cold air that made him shiver but maybe from a little fear of what lie ahead for him and his team. On this mission Michael’s team had worked alongside the Afghanistan Northern Alliance to set up a meeting with the Village Chief of Kharid-e Olya, just outside Kunduz. The Special Forces teams act as ambassadors, protectors and instructors to the Afghans who have expressed a desire to free themselves of the Taliban militants.
The village chief is one that Michael’s team had been hoping to convince for a long time to accept the safety and protection of the coalition forces. The aim of the Team was to bridge the villages to the United States led allied Federal Afghan Government. The chief had finally agreed to a meeting in the Village with Michael’s team and they were taking a convoy into the village. The team had also worked with the Afghan Uniformed Police known as the Special Tactic Team. They were Afghan soldiers with advanced training. Together, the units had found and cleared insurgent-buried bombs known as I.E.D (improvised explosive devices) in a lot of different locations. They went out before Michael’s team was deployed and searched and cleared the roads for I.E.D’s. They had done everything possible to try and implement a safe passage for Michael’s team into the village. To add additional stress to the mission Michael’s team had recently found that a local commander that was normally allied with the United States military was actually betraying American intentions and foiling operation to capture Taliban and al-Qaeda soldiers. (18)
The convoy had four Humvee’s and each Humvee consisted of a fire team: fire team leader, vehicle driver and a gunner. When the convoy started moving or was in a fixed position a 360 degree perimeter of security is maintained at all times. Each driver in the convoy also had to stay in communication with each other. As they pulled away from the safe house Michael felt nervous and vulnerable about this mission. For the first time since he had been in Afghanistan, his team was being deployed on a ground vehicle and not by helicopters and this one was during the day, not at night like all others normally were.
Michael had heard all the stories about the thousands of bombs the insurgents placed in the roads and knew they were taking a big chance by traveling the roads. He and other members of his team had expressed concerns regarding this trip during the briefing with the commander. They told him they would rather take a helicopter and do the mission during the night hours. The commander had already made the decision that they would proceed with the convoy. Even though some of his team members thought it was a bad idea they still followed their orders. They believed the Taliban would have advanced warning the convoy was coming because the Afghans close to the village chief would talk and the word would get out about the meeting.
For the first several miles everything was quiet and normal but as the convoy got within a few miles of the village they started receiving incoming small arms fire on both sides of the road from the enemy insurgents. The enemy was hidden approximately two hundred yards away and it was hard to know their exact location. The convoy immediately came to a halt and the gunners on the Humvee’s sent out suppressing fire in a spray pattern. The exchange of gunfire lasted about eight minutes and then it stopped as quickly as it had begun. None of the American forces were hit from the incoming rounds but it was still a little intimidating. At that point some of Michael’s team members expressed their desire to abandon the mission and return to the basecamp safe house. The decision was made by the commander to continue the convoy to their destination.
The convoy slowly started to move and had only gone another forty yards when Michael’s Humvee was hit with a large I.E.D. Upon the impact of the explosion he was thrown about fifteen feet from the Humvee. He immediately lost consciousness and when he woke up he was in excruciating pain and his legs were mangled from the explosion. His left leg was missing from the thigh down, along with his left arm from the elbow down. He could hear a member of his team yelling and calling for a medevac. When he saw the damage to himself he knew he would be dead within a few minutes if he couldn’t stop the bleeding. His first thought was to crawl to the destroyed Humvee and find his medical kit. He soon found it was no use, he could only get a few feet before he started to black out again.
Michael could hear some of his team members that had been on the Humvee with him crying out in pain as they yelled for medical help. He was the medical sergeant and now he was one of the ones that needed help. Once the Humvee blew up, the enemy insurgents once again started firing on the convoy with heavy small arms fire. The convoy was pinned down and he knew that help for him would be too late as he lost consciousness once again. When one of his team members finally arrived he vigorously shook Michael to see if he was still alive. For a brief moment he woke up and opened his eyes. It was just long enough to see it was one of his best friends from his team. Just before he took his last breath he said, “Tell my grandpa I love him.
Grief is a very
powerful thing and it can humble you, devastate you or destroy you. There is no deeper pain than a father or mother having to bury one of their children. Doug found out that no one knows, unless it happens to them, how they will react when they get the news that a loved one has been killed by enemy insurgents in a foreign country like Iraq or Afghanistan. The devastating news had destroyed Doug when he found out about Michael.
Doug and Shirley had raised Michael since he was two and a half years, after the fatal car accident that killed his mother and father. Doug felt more like a father to Michael than a grandfather. For that reason his grief was almost unbearable when Michael was killed in Afghanistan by the enemy insurgents.
Doug James Cotton, a reclusive, wealthy retired doctor, was told by the military officials that at the time of Michael’s death he was fighting to stop the militant terrorist insurgents from spreading their jihad to America. They said Michael was helping to stop global terrorism by destroying the terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and making peace with the local leaders. Afghanistan was home to the militant terrorist organization known as al-Qaeda and they are the ones that claimed responsibility for the attacks and destruction of the “Twin Towers” in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC on September 11, 2001. Doug tried hard to believe what they were telling him regarding Michael’s death was true. He desperately wanted and needed to believe his grandson had died for all the right reasons while serving his country in Afghanistan.
Doug was very familiar with the type of warfare Michael was faced with in Afghanistan because he had spent a year fighting in South Vietnam in 1968 (during the Tet Offensive). He had seen firsthand the death and destruction of war and as a sniper and had killed countless North Vietnam and Viet Cong Soldiers during his tour of duty. He had seen the type of guerrilla tactics the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong used against the soldiers and believed their booby-trapped bombs were similar to the ones used by the radical Muslim militant terrorist in Afghanistan. He couldn’t believe it when South Vietnam surrendered to North Vietnam shortly after the United States pulled all our soldiers out of South Vietnam. Unfortunately it wasn’t until after losing over 58,200 Americans killed, and thousands wounded. He often wondered, what was the real purpose and net result of the Vietnam War? Did it really accomplish anything?
Doug had always strongly believed the war in Afghanistan was similar and that it may also be a no-win war just like Vietnam. Because of what he had seen and gone through in Vietnam it was his opinion that no young American soldiers should be dying in Iraq or Afghanistan. He was convinced the United States needed to bring our soldiers home and use them to root out the radical Muslim terrorists from their camps and hiding places in America. He felt we should destroy them and their organizations at home before they had a chance to kill more innocent American citizens. He had done extensive research on the radical terrorist organizations when Michael was in the military and knew they were already in America, poised and ready to attack on command.
Although Doug and Shirley had set aside thousands of dollars to pay for Michael to go to any college or university he wanted once he graduated from high school he had made up his mind at a very early age that he was going to join the military as soon as he turned 18. Michael felt a patriotic duty to serve his country once he witnessed the devastation of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (Twin Towers) and the Pentagon in Washington DC. Doug had tried desperately to talk him out of joining the military but it was all to no avail.
Once Michael was in the military and committed to fight the radical militant terrorist it became Doug’s goal in life to find out everything he could about the terrorist and how their organizations worked. He read and studied the Qur’an (Islam holy book), and the basis for the Muslim religion. He studied everything he could get his hands on regarding the radical militant Muslim extremist, (the terrorist). He took a home study course and learned the Arabic, Urdu, and Farsi language and became proficient in them. He studied how the Muslims prayed, dressed, their mannerisms, and customs. He learned everything he could about their way of life. He also studied and learned about the cities of Kabul, Kandahar in Afghanistan, and the different cities and people of Iraq.
During his months of research, Doug was completely shocked and devastated to find there were over thirty five known radical Muslim Jihad terrorist sleeper cells in twenty two of the states in the United States. They hide under the disguise of many types of organizations in America. He found that in 1980 an organization was set up in America by the radical Muslim terrorists. He read that the goal of that organization is to destroy the “infidels,” who he learned is anyone that is not Muslim and especially the “Jews and Christians.” He was amazed that they were allowed to live and speak about killing the Christians and the Jewish people while living and working next door and among the Americans. Doug was convinced the entire time the radical terrorists are in America they are hiding their true goal and pretending to be peaceful loving people. They exploit the use of the civil liberties of the United States constitution, (freedom of speech, assembly and religion) as their shield to carry out their destructive goals of terrorism.
When Michael was killed in Afghanistan at the hands of the militant terrorist insurgents, Doug felt like he nothing else to live for. He had lost his daughter and son-in-law in a car accident when they were young, and his wife, Shirley, had died of cancer a few years earlier.
The love and compassion Doug once had for people was replaced with anger and hatred toward the radical Muslim terrorist organizations for what they had done to Michael in Afghanistan. Because of his deep seeded hatred he declared his own personal war of vengeance against their organizations in America. Michael’s last words were forever haunting him. It became his personal mission to hunt down, expose, and destroy every radical Muslim terrorist cell hiding in America. He gave up his church going ways and his promise to the Hippocratic Oath and set out on his quest to kill every radical Muslim terrorist he felt was a threat to the people of the United States of America.