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6 www.army.mil/publications built one on top of the other on top of a slope thousands of feet in the air,” said Walton. “So we started the climb. The insurgents waited until the lead element was within a couple hundred meters of the compound before they initiated contact. As soon as the shoot- ing started, we realized that they had their defensive positions dug in, and they were occupying buildings 360 degrees all around us.” As soon as the opening salvo was fired, the interpreter standing beside Walton in the command-and-control element was killed. Moments later, Staff Sgt. Dillon Behr was shot in the leg. Behr, a communications sergeant, stayed in the fight and sustained an- other wound before he became unable to continue the fight. “We knew we needed to regain the initiative, so we started initiating danger-close air runs,” said Walton. Staff Sgt. David Sanders was in the lead assault force. “I had approxi- mately 10 commandos with me, and we got into the village before we started receiving fire. We couldn’t move any farther forward,” he recalled. “Through the radio traffic, we heard some of the team had gotten shot, so we started trying to identify the buildings where the fire was coming from. We hoped to neutralize the threat.” Walton said Sanders was the first person he thought of who might be able to identify where the insurgents were. “I was standing next to the combat controller, and when we got to a place where we could talk, he called in close-air support, and the F-15s rolled in immediately. I knew my guys were up there, and I know that when you call in danger-close air, you are probably going to get injured or killed. I called back to Sanders and asked if he was too close. He said, ‘Bring it anyway.’ Bombs started exploding everywhere. When I called to see if he was still alive, all I could hear him say- ing was, ‘Hit them again.’” Walton said that it is rare to call in danger-close air even once during a firefight. Throughout the afternoon, the team called it 70 times. “We did take some casualties from the danger-close air,” said Staff Sgt. Seth Howard. “A lot of the commandos got injured from falling debris. The bombs were throwing full trees and boulders at them—they were flying hundreds of meters.” At one point in the battle, when it looked as if the C2 element would be overrun, Sanders called for the bomb- ing to come closer. “They dropped a 2,000-pound bomb right on top of our position,” said Walton. “Because of the elevation, the bomb blew upward rather than down. It just didn’t seem like we had much of a decision. Our guys were wounded, and we couldn’t Afghan National Army commandos from the 203rd Kandak board a coalition forces helicopter before conducting security operations in Khowst Province, Afghanistan, Feb. 7, 2008. Spc. Michael D. Carter 6 www.army.mil/publications