There’s a sad old theme in warfare: boys and young men rush to war expecting adventure, glory, and honor, and prematurely aged and deeply scarred men return and make a futile effort to warn those boys and young men that war is simply hell. Marine Lance Cpl. Nick Mitchel became a part of this cycle in 2008.
At age 17, Mitchel was every recruiter’s dream. He walked into the recruiting station and declared, “I want to be Marine infantry.” After graduation, he was shipped to boot camp on Parris Island. He wanted to be a tough Marine and do his part to take on America’s enemies.
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He got his wish in 2010 when, as a lance corporal, he shipped with 1st Battalion, 6th Marines to Afghanistan to participate in Operation Moshtarak, a large-scale joint mission with American Marines and Afghan National Army soldiers. Their objective was to clear the Taliban from the city of Marjah in the Helmand Province.
Finally, the day came for Mitchel’s unit to conduct their first patrol. Not far into Marjah, they made contact with the enemy and engaged in a two-hour firefight in which no Marines were hurt.
“I got everything I wanted as a naive young man,” Mitchel said. “I got my combat action ribbon.” Thermal scans picked up a lot of dead Taliban in the area. “Everybody felt really good.”
Their lieutenant told the celebrating Marines they’d execute another patrol early the next day to push further into the city. They woke at 0300 and conducted movement. As the sun rose, the Afghan locals were surprised to see Marines in their town. Then they vanished.
“When everybody goes inside, you know it’s about to get sh**ty,” Mitchel said.
It’s tough to fight in Afghanistan because Afghans love walls. High, thick mudbrick walls surround the edges of their properties and line the streets. Moving through an Afghan village is like walking in a life-size sand castle or a giant mudbrick maze. There’s always another wall to which the enemy can retreat for cover and concealment.
Over the radio, Mitchel’s unit was ordered to secure a nearby compound. The point man who kicked the door open triggered an IED and was instantly rendered a double amputee.
“That was the morning of Day Two,” Mitchel said. “I’ll never forget looking at that giant cloud, the sound of the pieces of the mud hut raining down.”
A sergeant rushed to provide medical help, but stepped on a second IED and instantly became a triple amputee.
“That’s when I kind of woke up,” Mitchel said. “You see someone get disintegrated, that kind of changes the tune. Before that, you feel invincible … It’s a false reality, like nobody can get hurt. But then someone does.”
Mitchel’s squad began taking fire from another direction. It was his first sight of the enemy. Two Taliban kept popping out of a gap in a far-off compound wall. Mitchel fired his M203 to launch a 40mm grenade. Short! He waited for another sight of the enemy and fired again.
“You got ‘em!” his fellow Marine said.
Then something happened that, on the surface, seemingly contradicted the bold, glamorized depictions of war that might have helped push Mitchel to enlist. In the middle of the long, chaotic firefight, waiting for the medevac bird, Mitchel and his friend continued fighting, but began to cry uncontrollably.
“We gotta pull our s*** together and keep going,” one of them said.
The Marines took fire all the way back to the patrol base, and once safely behind the Hesco barrier walls, most of them found their own corners and wept.
“It was probably the deepest, gut-wrenching crying I’ve ever done. Deep despair,” Mitchel said.
“One good day. One bad day. That’s my first two days in Afghanistan,” he added.
Mitchel, no longer an eager, idealistic adventure-seeker, had seven months remaining of his time in the war.
Trent Reedy, author of several books including Enduring Freedom, served as a combat engineer in the Iowa National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
*Some names and call signs in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns.