By Gregory Glenn Niemuth, for the Chippewa Valley Post
(Third of four parts. The first story followed James Myren’s path from Memorial High School to his arrival in Afghanistan and the first combat he faced. The second one dealt with the problems in setting up a Combat Outpost in a location that was very difficult both to defend and to supply. The final article in this series will be posted on Thursday, Mar. 7)
The final supply convoy to use the road nicknamed “Ambush Alley” resulted in a Light Medium Tactical Vehicle (LMTV) being temporarily abandoned at the outpost.
According to Jake Tapper’s book, The Outpost, “…the LMTV was…an inviting target…for the enemy.” It also occupied too much space in a 1½-acre site now inhabited by some 250 soldiers, including 100 Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers and about 50 “military police, cooks, mechanics and other support personnel.…”
Ultimately, the decision was that the LMTV had to go. As the XO at the outpost, second-in-command Lt. Ben Keating was in charge of all administrative, daily-operating responsibilities. Moving the LMTV was one of those administrative duties.
The short but fatal convoy
Keating felt the job of returning the vehicle was so dangerous he would take it himself. When a small convoy pulled out for that approximately 27-mile journey on the night of Nov. 25, 2006, Keating was at the wheel.
Myren was in that convoy. The troops were all wearing night-vision goggles. The 3-71st Cavalry’s sniper team had hiked to high ground along the route in case of an insurgent attack. As they moved along the narrow, mountainous road, Myren was in a Humvee towing a trailer to fill with supplies before the return trip, traveling behind Keating and Staff Sergeant Vernon Tiller, a mechanic.
“An officer isn’t supposed to drive; it isn’t his duty,” Myren said. “The road was so narrow – only a foot, sometimes a couple of inches clearance on each side for that big truck…. [We were] half a kilometer outside the gate. [There’s a] sharp left turn with a couple of hundred feet below you to the river. . . .
Left turn fails
“When we got to that point everything just slowed down as Keating tried to make it. We were at a standstill waiting for the deuce and a half to make the turn. Time just slowed down when the front left wheel slipped. It was sitting on the undercarriage and then, all of a sudden, it toppled.
“God, it was the worst sound I have ever heard in my life. You’re talking a couple of hundred feet up.”
Myren watched as the truck tumbled down the cliffside into the river. “It’s a miracle Sgt. Tiller survived.”
Myren said some of the infantry rappelled down the cliff. Both men had been thrown out of the LMTV as it rolled toward the river. The first men on the scene tied the injured soldiers onto stretchers.
“The reason they brought Tiller up first was [that] he was still alive…I had gone down and they got the stretcher to the point where we could walk back with Keating on it. I don’t even know how to describe it. Carrying a lifeless body, you know. The eyes were still open; you want to talk to him or do something but it’s not going to do anything. He’s already gone, you know. He was dead on impact.”
Myren’s voice slowed and lowered, taking a reverent tone, “Tragic – it was tragic to see him die.”
In just a couple of days, COP Kamdesh was renamed COP Keating.
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All photos accompanying these articles were provided by James Myren. The home page photo shows the window of a Humvee after undergoing enemy fire.
Note: Gregory Glenn Niemuth taught English and journalism at Memorial High School until his retirement last year. Myren was a student in his English 12 class in 2004-05. Niemuth recalled that he sent a large box of paperback books to Myren while his former student was stationed at COP Keating, but “I’ve never asked him if he did much reading there. . . .”