A 16-man U.S. Army squad was pinned down in an ambush in the rugged Pech River Valley and needed to get one of their soldiers out for immediate medical treatment.
Any rescue attempt would have to navigate difficult terrain in the heat of an intense battle.
It would be an effort that would be different from the vast majority of medevac missions, where ground and air units kill or run off the enemy before an unarmed medical helicopter lands.
Months earlier in their year-long 2009 Afghanistan tour, the crew of Dustoff 24 had mentally prepared for the decision they made that day, vowing to risk their lives and go in during a battle if necessary to save a life.
According to crew-member interviews and official accounts of the rescue mission from California National Guard, Dustoff 24 not only rescued five incapacitated soldiers without landing, but helped direct air support attacks and drop off ammunition to the beleaguered U.S. Army squad while dodging rifle fire and avoiding rocket-propelled grenades.
What’s more, Dustoff 24 went into the ambush six times with unforgiving terrain that only allowed the helicopter one way in and out of the narrow valley — making it easy for Taliban fighters to know where the helicopter would appear next.
“It really was by the grace of God that we weren’t hit,” Chief Warrant Officer Scott St. Aubin said in an interview, recounting that neither his crew nor the helicopter were struck by a single bullet.St. Aubin and two of his crew recently earned the prestigious Distinguished Flying Cross medal for their efforts, while medic Emmett Spraktes of Dixon earned the Silver Star for tending to his patients in the middle of combat.
Finishing what he started
St. Aubin, 38, like much of his crew, is different from the average U.S. Army soldier. As a member of the California National Guard, he holds a regular job as a probation officer with Solano County and has lived in Napa with his wife and daughter since he moved here in 1999.
“Most of our people are either cops or firefighters as well,” he said. For example, Staff Sgt. Spraktes, 48, is an officer with the California Highway Patrol.
To St. Aubin, the National Guard was a way to stay involved with the military after cutbacks in the ‘90s convinced him to curtail a would-be career with the Air Force, where he served before leaving for college in 1995. When he finished school, the military was going through a reduction in force and the Air Force told him they had little room. So, even though he came from an Air Force family, St. Aubin settled into civilian life.
“Right around that time, I met my wife and moved to California,” he said.
Then came Sept. 11 and the global war on terror.
“I started watching what was going on,” he said. “I really wanted to go back and fly helicopters for the military.”
The California National Guard put him in the cockpit.
“It really allows me to give back,” St. Aubin said. “I’m the constant citizen-soldier, at the same time I’m allowed not to be thrown to the wind like an active-duty soldier.”
Being in the National Guard, on that year-long tour in Afghanistan, he said, allowed him to “kinda try and finish something I started a long time ago.”
Suspended in mid-air
The crew of Dustoff 24 didn’t know how bad things were when they first heard the call for help that July day in 2009 — but they soon learned.
“Initially we didn’t understand there was a critical patient,” St. Aubin said, adding as Dustoff 24 got closer, the radio traffic from attack helicopters also informed them that there was a heavy firefight in the area.
The soldiers were halfway up a mountain, at about 1,000 feet, St. Aubin estimates, and no other ground combat units could get to them because of the terrain.
Spraktes said the way in was very narrow.
“The area was very steep and rugged,” he said. “The only way in ... it was pointing toward where we think the main body of Taliban fighters were.”
That meant the crew wouldn’t be landing. They would be doing an uncommon maneuver called a “combat hoist.” The medic is lowered at a slow speed as the helicopter approaches the wounded soldier, reducing the amount of time the helicopter ends up stationary over the drop zone.
Something went wrong that time, however, Spraktes recalled.
“As we’re making the final approach, they’re lowering me down ... about two-thirds of the way down the hoist stops.”
Suspended in mid-air, with bullets crackling past him, Spraktes said he called up to the crew on his radio.
“I said ‘Get me on the ground now. I am like a (expletive) piñata down here.’”
Spraktes said the crew member in the helicopter operating the hoist had to hit the deck to avoid incoming fire, stopping the hoist. For Spraktes, watching bullets hit the landscape around him, it was an eternity. In retrospect, he figures that eternity lasted for 15 seconds before the hoist lowered him to the ground.
He was a welcome sight for the soldiers, and in some ways, entertainment.
“I imagine from their perspective watching me come down the wire, it must have been a good show. A couple of them raised their hands and said ‘Man, that was badass.’”
The combat situation was not as good, Spraktes said.
“There are 16 guys down there and most of them are the age of my oldest son, in their mid-20s. Two of their (other) guys are injured and there are two heat casualties.”
No ‘Blackhawk Down’
Up above, the rest of the crew of Dustoff 24 could see a group of Taliban fighters breaking off to flank the soldiers, and Taliban armed with RPGs coming up in the rear. The squad was getting low on ammunition and in the searing heat, wearing all their gear, they were out of water.
Not wasting time, Spraktes said he directed the soldiers to take different cover so their position could be better defended. But the most gravely wounded soldier worried him. Spraktes knew that he would die if not flown to a field hospital immediately. He placed the soldier on a stretcher-like apparatus to be hoisted to the helicopter.
Meanwhile, St. Aubin noticed Taliban on a ridge and helped direct an attack from two OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopters armed with cannons and rockets that had arrived to help. An Apache helicopter also aided the group.
With their help, the flow of the battle created lulls where there was less danger. With repeated evacuations, Dustoff 24 was also able to hoist a soldier shot in the leg and one with an open fracture of his ankle, plus two men rendered listless from heat exhaustion.
On one run, Dustoff 24 flew low and slow near the ground and dropped off ammunition and water.
Eventually, the remaining members of the squad on the ground had an opportunity to move out of the area and return to base.
St. Aubin attributes Dustoff 24’s success to the ability of soldiers and air support to keep the enemy pinned down, making the Taliban rely on what he calls “spray and pray,” where fighters hunker down behind cover and shoot without aiming.
Nonetheless, St. Aubin and the crew were well aware of the danger if their helicopter had been hit and forced to crash land.
“We’re the rescue effort,” he said. “We don’t want to become the effort. You’ve seen the movie ‘Blackhawk Down.’ Once a Blackhawk goes down, that becomes the effort.”
It’s not clear how many Taliban fighters there were in the area, but Spraktes believes there were at least 11 Taliban casualties noted on a sweep of the area.
“For me, I can honestly say that day, my crew and I were doing what we normally would do,” St. Aubin said. “We were not trying to earn any medals ... It was valuable to me to do that mission even if I didn’t earn any medals. We were just trying to get these kids home, that’s all.”
Source: Napan and crew win military honors for heroic rescue in Afghanistan
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