MSG Paul Evans, U.S. Army, Afghanistan, Gulf War

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Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
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this edition is US Navy and US Army veteran Paul Evans.
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He served in the Army Special Forces and was team
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sergeant for Operational Detachment Alpha or ODA five nine five,
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better known as the Horse Soldiers. Today you'll hear about
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his service in the Gulf War, the early days of
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the war in Afghanistan, and more. Paul Evans was born
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in the Midwest, but was raised in California. As a
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young man, he joined the Navy, left the service, and
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then enlisted in the Army.
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I was an Benjamin. Most of my time was spent
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on a destroyer USS Oldendorff. I liked my job in
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the Navy. I just did not like I was getting
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claustrophobia from being stuck in a ship all the time.
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So after three years in the Navy, I got out
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did construction work. I realized, that's a hard, hard life
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to hoe. I'd gotten married while I was in the Navy.
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I only got paid when I worked. There was no
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health care, no vacation, no promotional thing. And I went,
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you know, the military was had a lot of things
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going for it, so I didn't want to go back
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to the Navy, so I joined the Army. I joined
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the Army as a twelve bravo combat engineer, went to
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Fort Leonard Wood for basic ait again, then off to
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Fort Benni for jump school, and to the one hundred
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and first Airborne Fort Campbell, Kentucky for assignment to the
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three two six Engineers.
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After going through Army training, Evans was assigned to one
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of its best known divisions. But that's still wasn't the
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right fit.
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So I get to one hundred and first three two
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six Engineers, and at about two and a half years in,
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I realized that the three two six Engineers at that
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time was not very professional organization. I had neighbors who
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were in Special Forces, and they said, try special Forces,
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so I volunteered for Special Forces.
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Evans volunteered for Special Forces in nineteen eighty eight. Becoming
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a Green Beret is grueling, both physically and mentally. Evans
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describes it and what the toughest part was for him academically.
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Really for me, I was older and more mature. I
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had researched it, so I made sure I was physically fit.
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I could do the land. Now I was an engineer
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before I got there, and I was an eighteen Charlie
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engineer is what I did in Special Forces. So it
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was hard in that you had to do a lot
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of work, but it wasn't that bad. Probably the hardest
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part was a language lab doing language. I'm not real
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good at languages, so I had to learn Arabic and
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that was tough.
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When it comes to the most physically gruelling parts of training,
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Evans immediately pointed to scuba school when.
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I got to Special Forces Charlie Company Third, but time
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Special Forces grew I signed in. They were just standing
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up third Battalion, fifth Group. I was initially assigned as
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a team Startant as an E six right in the unit.
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That lasted about three or four months. Then a new
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team Sartant came in that an E eight as a
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team started replaced me. Long story short, I did not
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want to go to a scuba team because I had
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done stuff in the Navy, and I'm from San Diego
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and I don't like cold water. But the only team
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in the company that was doing any honest training was
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ODA five nine five with the team Starden of Joe Lloyd.
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Joe Lloyd had a long history and was really a
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soldier soldier, so he grabbed a lot of the young
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guys gravitated to him. So I started training with ODA
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five ninety five and I went off to and passed
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Scuba school because I'm good in the water.
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In fact, Evans was still in Scuba school when Saddam
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Hussein decided to invade Kuwait in August of nineteen ninety.
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Evans was willing to go to war, but he really
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didn't want to stop and have to restart that training.
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I was actually in Scuba school when Sodom Hussein invaded Kuwait.
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I didn't. They actually said for a while that we
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weren't going to graduate, which was like, oh, heck no,
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I've just Scuba school is one of the hardest military
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schools to pass, and I was in the final week
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and I had it made. Just let me finish this
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and they were going to take me away. So I
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finished Scuba School, come back to Fort Campbell, and off
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to Saudi Arabia with five ninety five. We go in.
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We get to Saudi Arabia and third Battalion, fifth Group
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was the new battalion. They just stood it up. Was
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supposed to get the worst missions the other two battalions
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were getting the better missions. Third battalion was supposed to
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get the junk. Our junk mission was to train all
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the Saudi army in chemical weapons how to protect themselves
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from chemical weapons. And then we were linked up with
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the Kuwaiti thirty fifth Brigade. The thirty fifth Brigade was
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the only intact unit of the Kuwait Army that had
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fought their way out of Kuwait. So we linked up
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with them, and ODA five ninety five did the mission
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that Special Forces was designed to do. Our team linked
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up with a brigade of conventional army soldiers, broke down
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and did our mission with them, and then went with
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them across the border into Kuwait, and we attacked into
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and went all the way into Kwait City. So I
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was actually in the in the pan Arab division area.
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The M one three that we had bartered for it
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was not an American It was a KUWAITI one one
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three was I think like the sixth vehicle across the
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berms and go into Kuwait. In the battle to reclaim Kuwait.
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The ground portion of the Gulf War famously lasted less
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than one hundred hours, but Evans and his men still
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felt the intensity of combat.
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Probably the worst part was we sat under artillery fire
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for like eight hours. The artillery was landing all around
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us because the Kuwaitis came up against the fire trenches
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and we were trying to get armor the breaching elements
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to get up to breach the stuff, and the Saudi
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breachers were they screwed it up and we had to wait.
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And then they had tried to position around and we
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were trying to get people to move, and it was
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just a long time sitting under artillery fire till we
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actually got moving.
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Fortunately, the tension ended without us casualties.
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The Saudis brought up another breaching a CV with the
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miklick finally shot across the anti tank minefield and then
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they prove it with the CV blade and then we
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drove through it and want into Kuwait City. Mostly the
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Rackies just surrendered instantly.
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Evan says the Golf War was excellent preparation for future operations.
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One of the things that came out of that is
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we realized on nine to five that we were going
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to work in three man cells, that every man on
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the cell had to be able to do everything cross trained.
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We also realized we had to be able to call
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and control aircraft, so from the First Golf War all
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the weight so we went to Afghanistan. One of the
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key training things we had was to operate in three
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man cells and be able to operate all the radios
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be able to call in aircraft as proficiencily as any
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Air Force tax Pee. So we trained on that all
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the time and we were very good at it.
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It would be ten more years before the nine to
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eleven terrorist attacks. Evans explains what his life and Special
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Forces looked like over that decade.
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After the Golf War, I stayed on nine to five
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for a total of three years. I was then assigned
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to Fort Pope, where I was a JRTCOC. Basically, every
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unit fifth in the Special Force would cycle through Fort
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Poke to do training, and I was an observer controller
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for ODAS, so I got a lot of experience that
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would help me become a leader. After Fort Poke, I
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was then assigned back to fifth Group, but this time
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the second Battalion ODA five four to five as a
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team startant as an E seven four to five is
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also a scuba team. I was there for a year.
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After that, I went on to ODA five five five
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another scuba team, but because I didn't get promoted, I
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was back to being a senior engineer. During that time,
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I did multiple trips to Kuwait from the first Golf
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Wur until the Second Golf War. The Special Forces Fifth
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Group had a company at all times in Kuwait as
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a contingency against Iraq reattacking, and during that time we
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did real intensive desert training. We did lots of air
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controlling aircraft with live bombs, live runs, and we I
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think I did total of four of those three month trips.
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So we drove across the desert, controlled aircraft, did mortars,
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all that stuff constantly. We also developed a really good
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sop so we did it the same way over and
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over and over again. We also did classified mission training,
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classified missions that was approved through use of SOAK, which
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I cannot talk about.
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Having served much longer than most as a team sergeant
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in Special Forces, thanks in part to his unique collection
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of skills. Nonetheless, ODA five nine five was on the
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path to being broken up and split apart before.
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Nine to eleven. RODA was actually in the process of
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being completely broken apart. Our battalion commander for being the
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worst team in the battalion. What had happened is we
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had a battalion commander who had some different ideas. We'd
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done a Kuwait mission. During our Kuwait mission, there had
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been some casualties on a bomb one array because of
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an air fort I think it was a Navy pilot
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dropped him where he wasn't supposed to and hurt some
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guys that were assigned to our company. Our company saw
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major the E nine and at the company level had
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sent a soldier back to the rear on a red
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Cross message but hadn't gotten approval from the battalion commander.
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So the battalion commander we believed him of this, but
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they couldn't get ahold of the battalion commander to ask him,
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which was kind of When we came back to Fort Campbell,
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I became the I was the senior E eight in
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the company, so I was then the temporary company SAR
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major well, acting as the temporary company SAR major. I
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asked some difficult questions at the battalion level that the
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battalion commander did not like. So he said, you guys
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are terrible. I'm going to break your team apart and
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you're all going to go I'm going to co cletely
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erase your team.
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That's Army Special Forces veteran and horse soldier Paul Evans
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when we come back nine to eleven and finding their
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mission on horseback in Afghanistan. I'm Greg Corumbus and this
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is Veterans Chronicles sixty Seconds of Service.
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This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in
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this edition is the US Army Special Forces veteran and
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horse soldier Paul Evans. As we mentioned, ODA five nine
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five was supposed to be dismantled, but nine to eleven
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changed all of that.
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Our final mission was we had a training mission that
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had already been arranged prior to this, which was we
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took some other people down the Cumberland River about thirty
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five miles in the middle of the night, took them
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to a point, let them off. They ran off into
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the woods and did what they were going to do,
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And we were driving these zodiacs back up the river
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to Clarksville. The fog rolled in and we ended up
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spending the night on the river, a very cold, wet night.
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We got off the river, loaded the boats onto their
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trailers and were driving in to Fort Campbell. It was
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in my private vehicle had gotten into the post. Three
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vehicles in front of my boats, the military vehicle pulling
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the boats, when they shut down Fort Campbell because of
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nine to eleven. And that's and then I went to
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the mess hall and actually watched it on the TV
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and went, oh, my god, what's going on. About two
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days later, the Group command had a meeting where all
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of the battalion commanders and their S three's were supposed
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to come together for a meeting to decide who was
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going to go first off to Uzbekistan. They needed some
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single soldiers, single individual soldiers with certain skills to go
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do some advanced party stuff, and then they needed an
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ODA to go do pilot recovery. Because my team was
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specially qualified in that part of it, our team was selected.
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But the caveat to that was my battalion commander did
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not go to the meeting. So when the group S three,
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who knew what teams we could do what, selected us,
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and the group commander selected our team when our when
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my battalion commander found out, he actually tried to get
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us fired from that mission. And Colonel Mulholland, being the
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good leader that he was, told that battalion commander, ohhell no,
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you weren't coming to my Those are the guys I want.
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They're going to go do this.
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ODA five nine five was soon in Uzbekistan on its
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original but short lived assignment.
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So we're the first ODA from fifth Group to deploy
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to Uzbekistan to be pilot rescue in case there's a
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pilot's get shot down. We get to Uzbekistan, we link
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up with Task Force one sixtieth and because of the
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elevation of the flights into the mountains to go get pilots,
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their birds could not handle more than a couple of
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extra players, so you'd have the flight crew plus a
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peak couple of pjs. Having any we did mostly security
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type stuff. In order for us to do that security stuff,
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we would descend at least six guys. Well that would
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exceed their flight times, exceed there how high up they
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could go, So basically that wasn't going to happen, so
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we were suddenly without a mission.
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The unit was then tasked with construction duties under the
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same battalion commander that wanted to break them up, So
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they then leaped at the chance to work with General
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Abdul Rashid Dost them and the Northern Alliance. Evan still
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remembers that fateful first meeting.
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The helicopter flight in was from You need to review
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the helicopter pilots. They said it was a very tough,
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very crazy ride in. For us guys in the back,
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it was just another bus ride. They landed. Those guys
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were great task us. One sixty best pilots in the world.
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They landed on time. They were like one hundred meters
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off because there was a building where they were supposed
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to land. They dropped us off. Helicopter takes off. We're
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in a big, huge cloud of dust and the CIA
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and the locals come out and greet us. Of course
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we didn't know who was who for quite a while.
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That was kind of tense. And they walk us into
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this compound several hundred meters away from where we landed,
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and we waited for the sun to come up. The
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sun comes up, and now we have theseers come riding in.
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I'm trying to describe them. This is like a Genghis
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Khan type guys on horseback, only with aks. About a
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dozen of them ride up, ride around the building. They're
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scouting out, and then probably one hundred riders come riding
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up those them. Swings himself off, the horses, goes in,
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sits down. We start having a discussion where the Teleban
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is how we're fighting, where his guys are basically what's
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going on on the.
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Battlefield, And Evan says, to understand Dost them and others
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in the alliance, you had to understand the mindset of
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the Afghan tribes.
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These tribal leaders, those of them being a Uzbek and
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then you had a Huzzara and a I forget the
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other ones, but they are trying to make sure that
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their tribe is put in a position of power when
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it's over. That is more important than anything to them.
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I must ensure my tribal area is in a position
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of power. So when these guys get together, they're all
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competing for who's going to be in the position of power.
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And that's a lot of tension because these guys will
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shoot each other in the back if they need to
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to protect and elevate their tribe. And that's this tribal
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One of the things Americans don't understand is that tribalism,
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how strict it. Everything goes about that, and part of
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that is as the leaders go. If I'm the tribal leader,
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if I'm a good tribal leader, my tribe will follow
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me to the end. Bitterly, absolutely almost religious cult like,
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if I'm a bad leader, they get rid of me
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my own tribill throw me out. Well, part of that
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being a good leader is I got to make sure
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I get stuff for my tribe.
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That's US Army Special Forces veteran and horse soldier Paul
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Evans in a moment driving the Taliban out of Missari Shure.
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I'm Greg Corumbus, and this is Veterans' Chronicles. This is
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Veteran's Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition
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is US Army Special Forces veteran and horse soldier Paul Evans.
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After assessing that Dostum's men were plenty capable of gaining
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ground on the Taliban but struggled to hold it, the
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twelve man Oda was split up into two groups and
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eventually three man cells that worked with hundreds of Afghan
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allies and called an airstrikes on the enemy. The big
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goal was Massari Sharif, and several weeks later it happened.
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It all started with strong organization andwithstanding a Taliban counter
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attack during the.
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Approach, when we sent a shell way off to the
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left flank. It was Andy st Andy Marshall Steve Coufrin
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and Bill Bennett. They went off to the far East
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and they started to get rid of all the armor
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in vehicle support for the Teleiban across the front of
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their battlefield, so they had a lot of aircraft operations
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for about a week. Then we lined up on the
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actual front to prepare for the attack. At that point, myself,
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Big Mike and Matt Liinhart moved up on the right
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flank to secure the right flank of the battlefield and
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we had a couple of days of heavy bombing. We
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got run off off of a hill by when the
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Teleban counterattacked. So that was the only time I used
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to actually use my personal weapon for security purposes.
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Soon after it came a heart stopping moment when confusion
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almost led to disaster. Instead it led to a perfect strike.
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Then we had a key bomb strike that took out
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their command and control bunker. And that's the one that
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everybody wants to hear about. It's the one that Will
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Sommers called in. Summers called in and it's the classic
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mistake is he identified the headquarters bunker by the activity
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around it, calls it into the B fifty two bomber
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that's coming in calls in his strike and the Teleban
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leader asked him everything was okay, and Will gives the
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Telban fighter the thumbs up. Well, when Will gives the
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Teleban commander the thumbs up, he mounts his horses and charges,
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and Will's gone trying to stop them because the bombs
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are inbound and he is charging across the open field,
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going right for that bunker. And if this doesn't happen right,
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they're all going to be dead. And autumn. Miraculously, the
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bomb lands, big cloud of smoke. Will is in panic
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because he they all the riders disappear and he thinks,
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oh my god, I've just killed them.
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All.
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The wind picks up, it blows across. The riders are
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still up. They have now run across the bunker and
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they are now chasing the Taliban up over the hills
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and literally gunning them down by horseback as they ran away.
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The bomb hit mere seconds before the horses got there,
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and it couldn't have been timed more perfectly, but a
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few seconds one way or the other, it would have
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been utter disaster. And that was just a mirror. Yeah,
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everything's good and okay, charge, Oh no, stop, and they
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wouldn't stop.
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Evans explains how exhausting the demands and pace of the
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fighting were, but they stayed at it, even on very
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little food and sleep.
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They charged forward and the Teliban is in complete retreat.
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The horse riders ride after him for a good distance,
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and then it comes on to night time and the
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battlefield kind of goes into this because most of the Taliban,
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most of the Northern Alliance guys are on foot, so
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we're walking after these guys that are basically running off
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the battlefield. So we moved forward for a day or
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so and then had a big meeting where Mark and
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all the tribal leaders come together and we have a
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meeting on how we're going to attack Maus or Sharif,
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what's this going to look like After the attack, there
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was a big meeting at this point. Mark is going
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to stay forward with go with those of them in
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the main effort. I'm going to stay with the reserve
391
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force in the rear. Andy and his guys are still
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coming in from the left flank. They're walking thirty five
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miles to get back with all their stuff and something
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to be realized. As we had been eating one meal
395
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a day for several weeks in the Afghan mountains, traveling
396
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all day every day, staying up a lot of nights,
397
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pulling guard dude and everything else. We're not in the
398
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greatest shape. We're starting to lose a lot of weight.
399
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We're hungry, so he's walking a long ways as a
400
00:23:52.079 --> 00:23:57.200
tough trip. The battle bounds forward and the guys I'm
401
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with that's supposed to be the reserve ends up being
402
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like three got it ended up being a commander and
403
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a few troops. So I decide I'm going to move
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forward into the battlefield. We moved forward all day. We
405
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stopped for the night. It was getting late, so we
406
00:24:14.839 --> 00:24:17.920
pulled off and I was with the CIA guys that
407
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were there at the time. We pulled off the main road,
408
00:24:21.519 --> 00:24:24.079
went in, found a building, abandoned building. We're going to
409
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spend the night, and actually had set out the guard
410
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ate my one meal for the day and was literally
411
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getting laid down for sleep when the CIA guys who
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00:24:33.799 --> 00:24:37.960
had a cell phone to dosed them, walked in and asked, Hey,
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do you want to get in the battle, And I'm like, well,
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that's what I'm here for. Yes.
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Evans described then going on a mystery truck ride in
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the middle of the night meeting General dosed them and
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then somehow ending up on horseback drifting down a river.
418
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So I told Mike and Matt pack your stuff for leaving.
419
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They sent one of the small Russian jeeps. I don't
420
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know if you've seen those little gaz Russian jeeps. They
421
00:25:01.759 --> 00:25:04.319
sent one of these up to pick us up. And
422
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we crawled in and it was a rainy, foggy, cold
423
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Afghan night and you had three large Americans with our backpacks,
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weapons and everything, crawl into this little jeep with two
425
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Afghans that look like they're Russian mafia guys, and the
426
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windows are rolled up, fogged up, and we're taking He's
427
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taken me wherever, I don't know, across this the Afghan battlefield,
428
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and you're just like, okay, what kind of a joke
429
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is this? Because there's no security, No, there's nothing you
430
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could do. He's taken me where we go. So we
431
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bounce around in that thing for about an hour. He
432
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pulls up and stops. We get out and I climb
433
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up this ladder up to the roof of a building
434
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and there's dosed them with all of his maps laid out,
435
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and we were just shy of the Tingy Pass, and
436
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I sat down with him because he could not get
437
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a hold of Mark, and we came up with a
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plan of what was going to happen up and I
439
00:26:01.000 --> 00:26:03.200
was going to go up to the top. There's a
440
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in the Tingy Pass. There's a key pinnacle mountain that
441
00:26:06.799 --> 00:26:09.640
covers both sides of the pass. I was going to
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go up to that key position with about a company
443
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of his guys and we were going to seize that
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hilltop and from there I was going to call in
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aircraft the next morning so that he could attack through
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the pass. We went around in a long route, linked
447
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up with his company of guys. That took us around
448
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probably about a two hour trip. It's the middle of
449
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the night, and we had to now cross the Dariasouf
450
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River in the middle of the night. We're on horseback
451
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crossing this river. That was a pretty tenuous thing. We're
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going across on these small ponies, and at one point
453
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my horse was actually floating down the river. And all
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I can think of is I do not want to
455
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get wet when it's thirty six in raining outside and
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lose my equipment.
457
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Right now, the most intense fighting was around Tangy Pass,
458
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and after that crazy late night truck ride and riding
459
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on horseback through the river, Evans and his men were
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in the perfect position to obliterate the enemy if he
461
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could keep the Afghan fighters under control.
462
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We finally get across that river, the horses stop, and
463
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now we have to patrol up to the pinnacle of
464
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this mountain and it is a literally a pinnacle with
465
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the top is flattened off and it's all rock, all
466
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rockscree and I know we were expecting Americans were expecting,
467
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the Afghans were expecting that the Taliban would be on
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top guarding it. There. Any military man in the world
469
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would look at a map and go, I need to
470
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put troops on that hilltop to guard this valley. So
471
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we patrolled up through it was the clouds had settled,
472
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so we were patrolling through the fog up to this
473
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hilltop thinking, at any moment, it's going to be a
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huge fight. As we get to the top of the hill,
475
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we're seeing fighting positions that have been literally chiseled into
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the rock by the Russians who had been there before
477
00:28:04.119 --> 00:28:08.839
me and I chiseled chiseled into the rocks. The tailband
478
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wasn't there, so we set up a perimeter set out
479
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of security and waited for the sun to come up.
480
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It was cloudy, so the sun didn't come up till
481
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like nine o'clock. And when when the clouds finally cleared,
482
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we were looking down in the tailban positions that were
483
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:29.559
about six kilometers away from us. We could see them
484
00:28:29.599 --> 00:28:32.079
all lined up on the backside of the Tingy Pass
485
00:28:32.519 --> 00:28:36.079
waiting for Dosum's troops to come through, you know, and
486
00:28:36.279 --> 00:28:39.599
like back to the comedy of the situation is it's
487
00:28:39.640 --> 00:28:42.440
the ideal spot for me. I'm looking at him, I
488
00:28:42.440 --> 00:28:46.359
can see him. I'm starting to do up my plan
489
00:28:46.440 --> 00:28:48.440
for which wherever I'm going to bomb them and how
490
00:28:48.440 --> 00:28:51.920
I'm going to do it. And the Afghan machine gunner
491
00:28:51.960 --> 00:28:55.519
decides he's going to start machine gunner, and You're like, dude,
492
00:28:55.559 --> 00:29:00.599
stop stop, stop. I will take care of them, convincing
493
00:29:00.680 --> 00:29:03.240
him to not shoot, because as soon as he starts shooting,
494
00:29:03.279 --> 00:29:05.920
they know we're up there, things could happen go bad.
495
00:29:06.279 --> 00:29:10.480
Get him to stop shooting. I called In B fifty two's.
496
00:29:10.319 --> 00:29:13.640
Did We mention obliterating the Taliban from the air, Evans
497
00:29:13.640 --> 00:29:16.680
describes how that turned out to be more dramatic than expected.
498
00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:20.200
What we had learned early on is the B fifty
499
00:29:20.240 --> 00:29:22.359
two is not a close air support. It's a tactical
500
00:29:22.519 --> 00:29:25.799
it's a tactical bomber. But with the jade Ams we
501
00:29:25.839 --> 00:29:31.000
could pre plan targets they would bomb them for us.
502
00:29:31.319 --> 00:29:34.519
So I planned out four targets. They dropped all four
503
00:29:34.599 --> 00:29:38.680
bombs for us at once. It was an interesting bomb
504
00:29:38.759 --> 00:29:42.640
pattern because when we called it up, he goes Roger
505
00:29:44.000 --> 00:29:47.000
bomb's way and we're sitting there waiting for the bombs
506
00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:50.759
to land, and you know, you're sitting there going okay,
507
00:29:50.759 --> 00:29:54.799
they should have hit about now where the bombs? Where
508
00:29:54.839 --> 00:29:57.839
the bombs? So I had Matt call up the B
509
00:29:57.960 --> 00:30:00.359
fifty two and go, hey, have you dropped? And he
510
00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:04.000
was Roger out thirty seconds out, and I'm going, uh oh,
511
00:30:04.039 --> 00:30:07.519
there's something wrong here. Being not a very brave guy,
512
00:30:07.599 --> 00:30:09.960
crawled down to the bottom of the fighting position and
513
00:30:10.119 --> 00:30:13.200
go okay, this could be ugly if you guys might
514
00:30:13.200 --> 00:30:15.480
want to get down. And of course the first bomb
515
00:30:15.559 --> 00:30:18.559
hit exactly what we're supposed to. But when it takes
516
00:30:18.599 --> 00:30:22.599
that long, you're going okay. The bombs blew up and
517
00:30:22.680 --> 00:30:27.200
cleared off the off the teleban that were guarding the
518
00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:32.480
back of the of the Tangy Pass. They got took
519
00:30:32.519 --> 00:30:35.359
care of them. The survivors ran a few the survivors
520
00:30:35.400 --> 00:30:35.880
ran off.
521
00:30:36.319 --> 00:30:39.839
That wasn't the only sigh of relief. Avoiding mass casualties
522
00:30:39.839 --> 00:30:43.680
from accidental friendly fire was also a huge reason to
523
00:30:43.720 --> 00:30:44.359
be thankful.
524
00:30:44.519 --> 00:30:48.319
That left. The only thing guarding the Tangy Pass was
525
00:30:48.400 --> 00:30:51.039
land mines and those of them and his men had
526
00:30:51.039 --> 00:30:53.759
to clear that out, with Mark leading the way, and
527
00:30:53.799 --> 00:30:57.519
they took casualties from land mines. We were then sitting
528
00:30:57.559 --> 00:31:03.680
on the hilltop up watching basically as spectators, waiting for
529
00:31:03.720 --> 00:31:09.480
the things to happen. Sometime about noon, the Teleban counterattacked
530
00:31:09.640 --> 00:31:14.039
with a couple of vehicles and they launched a BM
531
00:31:14.079 --> 00:31:18.480
twenty one strike against against our hilltop and over the
532
00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:21.799
top of our hilltop. Another one of those things where
533
00:31:22.079 --> 00:31:26.359
I'd been sitting in sitting in eight hours of artillery
534
00:31:26.440 --> 00:31:30.440
during desert storm. I'd also accidentally been fired upon by
535
00:31:30.440 --> 00:31:35.079
friendly fires in other places i'd been. So as soon
536
00:31:35.079 --> 00:31:37.519
as I heard the missiles coming in, I'm, you know,
537
00:31:37.799 --> 00:31:40.640
instantly incoming, and I'm at the bottom of the foxhole
538
00:31:41.079 --> 00:31:43.839
and Mike and Matt are looking at me with the Hey,
539
00:31:43.839 --> 00:31:46.960
what's this guy doing? And I'm like, get down right
540
00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:50.799
before the missiles the rockets hit, I thought because we
541
00:31:50.799 --> 00:31:53.680
were on the hilltop, the rest of Dawston's troops were
542
00:31:53.720 --> 00:31:56.640
down over the hill behind us, preparing to go through
543
00:31:56.640 --> 00:31:59.799
the tangy gas. I had expected there to be mass
544
00:31:59.799 --> 00:32:02.759
casualties because the number of rounds that went over and
545
00:32:03.039 --> 00:32:06.559
landed in there. So I jump up, sprint over the
546
00:32:06.599 --> 00:32:10.160
hill to see what I could do to prevent, you know,
547
00:32:10.279 --> 00:32:14.160
help out. And yeah, there are people running around crazy
548
00:32:14.200 --> 00:32:19.359
like ants, just scattering and nobody got hurt. Just how
549
00:32:19.400 --> 00:32:21.279
they didn't get hurt, I have no idea. It was
550
00:32:21.319 --> 00:32:24.839
just one of those things that happened. So we then
551
00:32:24.960 --> 00:32:27.039
try to call an aircraft to get the BM twenty
552
00:32:27.079 --> 00:32:28.640
one out and taken care of.
553
00:32:29.559 --> 00:32:32.519
The Taliban mostly fled from Mazari Sharif without a fight,
554
00:32:32.920 --> 00:32:36.000
but some radical elements decided to take over a school building.
555
00:32:36.599 --> 00:32:39.000
Evan says it did not end well for them.
556
00:32:39.359 --> 00:32:42.640
Yeah, what happens is after the rest of that day,
557
00:32:43.960 --> 00:32:46.400
those of the troops moved in and at night they moved
558
00:32:46.400 --> 00:32:49.759
into Masar Sharif. When he moves into Masar Sharif, the
559
00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:54.680
majority of the Teleiban had left, but not all. The
560
00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:59.960
next day we get into Masar Sharif and we take
561
00:33:00.200 --> 00:33:06.200
and move into the Quala Jengee. We were there at
562
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:09.480
Quala Jengee and those of them comes to us and says,
563
00:33:09.920 --> 00:33:13.799
there's three to five hundred Taliban have held up in
564
00:33:13.880 --> 00:33:19.160
this Turkish girls school, multi story building, fairly large. Can
565
00:33:19.160 --> 00:33:23.480
you help me out. They had tried to seek surrender
566
00:33:23.519 --> 00:33:26.400
from them. They'd actually killed the religious guys that had
567
00:33:26.440 --> 00:33:28.240
gone in there to try and get them to surrender.
568
00:33:29.680 --> 00:33:34.440
I sent Chad Jacklet, Pete Walters and the Air Force
569
00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:38.119
soldier to go take care of these guys, and they
570
00:33:38.119 --> 00:33:41.079
went out. They took fire, they fired back, and they
571
00:33:41.200 --> 00:33:44.319
perfectly dropped three five hundred pound bombs through that building,
572
00:33:44.400 --> 00:33:47.960
taking care of all of them. That pretty much eliminated
573
00:33:47.960 --> 00:33:51.920
all of the problems in Massa or Sheaf until the
574
00:33:51.960 --> 00:33:55.039
Taliban until we were getting ready about a week later,
575
00:33:55.720 --> 00:33:58.359
we were on our way to go to Condos.
576
00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:01.640
Evan served several more years in the War on Terror
577
00:34:01.720 --> 00:34:06.839
in multiple theaters, but his greatest pride is in Oda five.
578
00:34:07.440 --> 00:34:10.199
My most proud of is the men I worked with.
579
00:34:11.199 --> 00:34:13.239
The Other thing is is I still work for this
580
00:34:13.320 --> 00:34:16.679
special Forces Group, and I try and get these guys
581
00:34:17.440 --> 00:34:21.280
to understand that they need to get out and do training,
582
00:34:21.559 --> 00:34:24.760
SOP training over and over and over again so that
583
00:34:25.559 --> 00:34:27.920
no matter who's there for it, they can do it
584
00:34:28.119 --> 00:34:31.360
without thinking about it. And they have to cross train.
585
00:34:31.440 --> 00:34:35.880
They have to train constantly because they a lot of
586
00:34:35.880 --> 00:34:38.039
the younger guys they don't realize that they think they
587
00:34:38.119 --> 00:34:40.920
can just wing it. You can't because when the time comes,
588
00:34:41.000 --> 00:34:42.159
you got to be able to execute.
589
00:34:42.559 --> 00:34:45.800
That's Paul Evans. He's a US Navy veteran, a US
590
00:34:45.920 --> 00:34:49.039
Army Special Forces veteran, and one of the Horse soldiers
591
00:34:49.039 --> 00:34:51.639
who fought in the early days of the war in Afghanistan.
592
00:34:52.519 --> 00:35:06.039
I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this
593
00:35:06.159 --> 00:35:09.360
is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles,
594
00:35:09.480 --> 00:35:13.440
a presentation of the American Veteran Center. For more information,
595
00:35:13.719 --> 00:35:18.639
please visit American Veteranscenter dot org. Subscribe to the American
596
00:35:18.719 --> 00:35:22.679
Veterans Center YouTube channel for full oral histories and special features.
597
00:35:23.159 --> 00:35:26.039
You can also follow the American Veterans Center on Facebook
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00:35:26.239 --> 00:35:30.159
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599
00:35:30.239 --> 00:35:33.719
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600
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601
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