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JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- The air erupted with
the percussive sound of machine-gun fire. Master Sgt. Roger Sparks
jumped out of an HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter and began the 40-foot
hoist down to the bleeding men clinging to a tree for cover.
It was Nov. 14, 2010 - a particularly intense day during Operation
Bulldog Bite, in the Waterpur Valley of Afghanistan. Sparks and
others were tasked with providing lifesaving support to Soldiers
already on the ground, often flying out two or three times per day
to evacuate those injured in the fierce fighting.
Sparks
wrapped his arms and legs around his partner, Air Force Capt.
Koaalii "Koa" Bailey, a combat rescue officer also with the 212th,
in an attempt to shield him from the firestorm of bullets around
them.
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Silver Star recipient Air Force Master Sgt. Roger Sparks peers
reflectively from the hatchway of an HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter
aboard Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on February 5, 2015. Sparks was awarded a Silver Star in July
2014 for his role in saving Soldiers in a 2010 engagement in Afghanistan. (U.S. Air Force photo
by Justin Connaher)
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"Five seconds into the hoist, I knew we were not going to
live through this," said Sparks, a former Force
Reconnaissance Marine and now a pararescueman assigned to
the Alaska Air National Guard's 212th Rescue Squadron.
As soon as his feet hit the ground, they left it again
as a rocket-propelled grenade detonated 20 feet away -
knocking him down and Bailey on top of him.
"I've seen RPGs
detonate at three times that distance and kill people with
shrapnel," Sparks said, clearly still shocked by his luck.
"For that thing to go off that close and us to still be
alive..."
"I thought: we only had seconds to live;
what do I do next?'" Sparks said. "And it went on like that
for two and a half hours."
Before Bailey and Sparks
could untangle themselves, the Pave Hawk opened up, spewing
lead into the oncoming insurgents.
"There were
.50-caliber casings raining from the sky, hitting me in the
face." Sparks said.
"It was so comforting to know
people were dying - people who were trying to kill us."
Because of the high altitude at which they were
operating, the air was thin; to carry the weight of the men,
the crew had removed the ballistic flooring from the
helicopters.
While they were hovering above the
wounded Soldiers and PJs, the aircraft was taking heavy
enemy fire. Bullets ripped through the Pave Hawk's
floorboards and shattered the windshield.
The crew
kept the hover, though. They knew just as well as the PJs
that there were Soldiers dying down there and if they didn't
do anything, those men weren't going to make it.
"Get
out of here!" Bailey radioed the helicopter crew, knowing
they couldn't maintain their hover for long. After verifying
Bailey and Sparks were still alive, the helicopter assumed
an orbit around the battlefield providing cover fire for
those on the ground.
"They held that orbit until they
ran out of fuel and ammo and had to leave us," Sparks said.
"They knew they were leaving us to die."
"God bless
you guys ... sorry," came the garbled goodbye from the pilot
as he rolled the helicopter off the side of the mountain to
return to the forward operating base to refuel and rearm.
"We were stranded," Sparks said, but there was no
time to reflect on that.
Sparks and his teammate
sprinted and crawled their way across a 100-foot gap of
honeycombed earth between them and the men they were trying
to save.
"I got 10 feet from the guys by the tree and
I heard a fwwwwp!, saw a red flash and an RPG detonated on a
tree that was just a few feet in front of me," Sparks said.
"It was absolutely overwhelming, and I'd been in firefights
before."
They held their position by the ruined tree
and found themselves in the middle of crossfire with bullets
coming from multiple directions chewing down what little
cover they had.
That's when Bailey called in the air
strikes.
"We didn't believe we were going to live
through any of it," Sparks said. "But in that situation, you
call in whatever you have available."
Apaches came in
alternating runs, firing four Hellfire missiles on nearby
insurgents in a tag-team of lethal force.
"When the
Apaches ran out of ammo, an F-18 came in with a 2,000-pound
bomb," Sparks said.
"Give us your last four, last
name and authorize it right now," sounded the pilot's voice
over the radio.
Bailey gave the authorization and the
pilot dropped the bomb.
It was "danger close" - the
situation dictated that the bomb be dropped on an enemy
position dangerously close to the friendly forces.
"We had no reason to believe we would live through any of
those air strikes, let alone the 2,000-pounder," Sparks
said. But they did, and were rewarded with a brief, but
valuable, break from the constant crossfire that surrounded
them.
"If you're wounded, come to me!" the
pararescueman shouted over the surrounding chaos.
Men
began crawling from all directions, dragging friends - and
limbs - alike.
"You don't want to have to run back
and forth to the wounded," Sparks said. "You need them all
in relatively the same place so you can treat them quickly."
The first Soldier he approached wasn't wearing his body
armor - it had been blown off.
His legs were turned
around backward and he was hyperventilating.
"That's
what people look like when they're dying. It's not a
beautiful thing," Sparks said, quietly.
But with
injured men all around, there was no time to grieve; he
could still help.
One man was lying on his back
quietly pleading, "Go help my friends! Help my friends!"
Another lay on his stomach repeating the Lord's prayer.
Sparks ran over to the man who was on his back
pleading for his friends, and heard his words turn to
gibberish.
"So I reached down and put my hands
underneath him to pick him up," Sparks said.
But
realized the man had been shot before Sparks even arrived
and instead of screaming for help himself, used his last
breaths to plead on behalf of his fellow Soldiers.
Sparks ran back to a Soldier he had just been talking to,
and asked for help moving the body. The man was face-down in
the dirt and wasn't responding.
In a rage, Sparks
grabbed him, kneed him in the side, and yelled for him to
help.
When the man still didn't respond, Sparks
rolled him over to find he had been killed by debris from an
RPG which had struck while Sparks was trying to help the man
on his back.
"That's how surreal it was," Sparks
said. "An RPG hit that close to me and I didn't even realize
it."
Sparks looked up and saw a man hanging upside
down in a tree above him.
"I grabbed him by the arms
and pulled him down on top of me so I could treat his
wounds." Sparks said.
The man in the tree was Karl
Beilby, a law enforcement professional who was embedded into
the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade
Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) as a
civilian contractor.
Karl said he remembers asking
Sparks for morphine and was given a stick to be held in his
mouth.
"What's next, you going to take me out for ice
cream?" Beilby asked, amused by receiving a narcotic
lollipop, despite the gravity of their situation.
Beilby was the most seriously injured individual to survive
the fight.
The helicopters finally returned, having
been delayed by fuel complications and the battle damage
received earlier.
They loaded the most critically
injured first, as many had only hours to live or less
without prompt medical attention.
"Then we were left
with the dead," Sparks said quietly.
After the
helicopters made the five-minute flight to the FOB, unloaded
the injured and came back, they began hoisting the dead onto
the aircraft two at a time.
When it was all said and
done, there were five PJs (including Sparks), four dead
bodies, and an Afghan Army member who was missing his lower
leg.
They were all crammed into a space the size of a
minivan, Sparks said.
"Not only did these guys die in
my arms, but now I'm sitting on their bodies," Sparks said.
"They were all alive when I showed up."
Back at the
FOB, they unloaded the bodies from the aircraft.
Sparks and several others in that engagement were awarded
Silver Star medals for valor for saving lives with disregard
for their own personal safety that fateful day.
Beilby flew up from California to attend and speak at the
ceremony.
During the operation, 11 Americans died and
49 were seriously wounded.
Reflecting on the
situation, Sparks said it was important to keep focused
during the dangerous chaos.
"You're going to have
self-preserving thoughts, but you can't let them take over
what you're trying to do," Sparks explained. "You're trying
to salvage human lives."
"When you go beyond
yourself, that's when magical things can happen."
By U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Kyle Johnson
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2015
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