I knew the day of November 13th, 2007 would be one of the biggest days of my life.  I was U.S. Army Ranger SPC. Dante Shells, and I would absolutely not go down without a fight.

        We had been briefed the day before, now as we were about to board the helicopter I jogged over to the helicopter and jumped up inside of it but not before burning my hand on the hot railing while pull myself up.  That sun was nothing to mess with.  It would kill a man on its own without a war going on.  Little talking had gone on between the four of us.  This was typical as we usually took this time to relax and think about our families, think about why each of us were here.  It was like the calm before the storm.          Maybe we were quiet because we were preparing hell for whoever wanted to give it a shot.
        That day was a humid, hot, sweaty, sticky day but we had to do what we had to do, the ride to our drop off point had a little more talking, not much but something here and a joke there.
       “20 seconds.”  Was shouted over the loud roaring helicopter.
        I looked down, we were going to rope down into a small area where there was a break in the trees, just the exact spot they had displayed on the big screen for us in the briefing room the day prior.  I was in line and the 2nd off the helo.  I hopped out of my little seat in the helicopter and latched onto the rope, let my hands a little loose and made my way down the rope.  There we go, boots on the ground, it's been smooth sailing till here let's keep the same pattern.  I crouched down next to a big rock close to where I had set down and set up security, looking around, checking out the area to make sure we were alright.  I knew what the area would look like from pictures the day before and just knowing the general area but it's always nice to really get a feel of the whole landscape.  So far I had no sign of activity where we were.  Just dirt, rocks mountains and trees, a whole lot of trees.
        We all made our way out and moved slowly, inspecting what seemed like every damn tree, we needed to move faster than this so that we could get into position to scout the target.  We still had a bit of a distance to go but we eventually started to move faster because we felt there was not a huge threat level in the area.  We made it there and everyone set up, much more relaxed and knowing the area was safe, there was only one real way to where we were and that was from the way we came and we had 2 of our other guys watching that same path.  The fourth man (Marc) and myself set up in a spot that overlooked the whole valley.  We sat on the eastern mountain of the valley that shadowed over the village.  Me and & Marc nonchalantly sat down on our butts using the big trees as shelter from the beating sun, I took a little drink rolled up my sleeves to my forearms and unsuspectingly put my arm down onto some nice hot rocks.  Marc and I talked a little then we decided that we would do a little scouting to check things out in the village a little more.  I reached back, grabbed my binoculars and latched on to them, they were so cold from being in the case, it was even better than having the big tree for shade!  As me and Marc began to look over the village it was a very small village lined with little huts and small shacks.  We happened to notice more and more men wander out of one certain area, we checked out that one section a little more and found exactly what we were looking for.  A taliban leader who had proved himself as very dangerous. The week before he led a group of men and killed 10 marines.  The more we looked we found out we completely underestimated him, he was expected to have 15-20 men with him but with a up lot more men than we had expected.  There was anywhere between 75-100 taliban soldiers armed with Ak’s, that's a small army.  We were very far away from them there was no chance they would see us let alone be able to shoot us.  Marc was a sniper and there was no chance his rifle would even make it to them and that was shooting down a mountain.  We were safe from gun fire but that feeling that there are people out there is a little scary.  I think Marc and I both were speechless and very surprised neither of us said anything about it but I know he saw it.  I slowly set my           binoculars down, grabbed my water bottle and turned to Marc.
        “So what are we going to do.”
        “What can we do?! Our mission was to come and scout out Siad. That's it.”
        “Yeah I know but…”
        We both directed our attention to the sound of footsteps fastly coming down the path to where we were, we knew it was our other boys but if they were sprinting towards us something was wrong, they weren't even supposed to move at all.  Marc and I both started to sit up, fixed our gear and started to grab what we had laying around.  All of a sudden a breeze blew right through me.  We were in Afghanistan, they was no breezes like that here, maybe it was a sign…  Hopefully a good one…  I could see the other two getting closer now they both came over and were both panting like they had run marathons.
        “There's… Two… Goat herders… Both unarmed and coming towards us.” Cpl. Lan whispered as if the herders were very close.  There were goat herders everywhere in Afghanistan, some were taliban themselves, some reported U.S. Troops and some were just herders that didn't want to leave home.
       “Set up security now… We’ll make a decision based on that.”
        First is line was Marc, then myself, but across the small path where the tall grass was pushed over made by what I would think was goat herders previously was Cpl. Lan and Pvt. Patton. Lan was in between me and Marc but on the other side of the path and then Patton little behind him, from what I could see everyone was pretty well hidden.  All four of us laying down because we planned to surprise whoever was coming and make a decision based on what the threat level was like.  I could hear footsteps getting louder and now I could hear the goats, their bells, everything got louder.  Then I could see the goats start walking around the corner, a lot of goats but no herder yet.  There he was, just a young kid he was. 12 maybe 13 years old.  there's the second. A very old man, like old plenty old enough to be the boy's grandfather. We waited until both of them were in between all of us and then there was a faint whisper on the radio.                       
        “3… 2.. 1.” Marc softly whispered being carefully not to prematurely expose himself or any of us. 
       We all sprang up like animals preying on an unsuspecting prey.
Two of us tackled the boy to the ground and the other two tackled the older man.  The boy almost seemed to know it was coming and braced himself but two 215+ lb.  men were absolutely nothing for him.  He went right over and so did the old man.  We got both of their hands zip tied and sat them down next to a tree after we carefully checked both of them for weapons.  You could tell they were both native to the area and had almost nothing to do with the taliban here.  But everyone had something to do with the taliban.  They ruled by fear, killing innocent people of their own counties and own villages to implement fear into the people.  If anyone could help them out in any way they would be given a little pass. But man, a young kid and an old man, what are we supposed to do with these two. We were on a secret op. No one was supposed to know we were here. We couldn't have just kept doing our thing and let them walk by. I mean if they would've they would've told all those men we saw down in the village and we would have everyone in the village on our backs.
        “Well, what are we supposed to do now.” I said. No one had said anything and we couldn't just sit here staring at them.
        Marc was really in charge here and what he said was usually the call but he liked to hear what we had to say so we could almost vote. As soon as we started talking the young boy sprang right up and tried running, we all turned around but the fourth man, Danny, really young kid, small but stocky and packed quite the punch with him, never seen such a young kid be so tough and so strong. Well he was already off and after him and caught up to him and wrestled him to the ground without a problem.  Marc kept an eye on the old man, not that we were really worried about him running but you never know.
        So we got both of the back under the tree and began to plan everything out again.
        “We have two options, we can let them go and call for exfiltration, or we terminate and compromise.”  I said forcefully but hopeful that everything would work.  Well there wasn't any hoping at this point. Whatever we did we had to make it work.
I could see Marc thinking about all the options in his head he was a really good planner and could get us out of quite a few jams.
“Look, I care about you… All three of you… But I'm not killing a kid, I'm not doing it…
We’re gonna cut them loose and we're going home.”  Marc said with authority.  Danny aggressively jerked the boy around when he picked him up and just after the old man, cut them loose and gave them each a little shove.  You could tell that he was not happy with the decision but he didn't have a choice anymore.  He wanted to kill them in order to save us, but we went our opposite ways.  We started walking back the way we came and I looked back and saw the boy running back towards the small village.  That wasn't a good sign that was where we were supposed to be picked up but we were only getting picked up if we radioed for a pick up.  We all got down on one knee, three of us scanning the big shady trees around us and Danny was down with his backpack off on his radio.  I could hear him saying the same thing over and over again and knew that something was wrong.
        “Radio isn't working boys.  I don't know what to do I've tried everything so far it won't work.”  Danny said frantically.
        “Don't worry boys, we’ll get out of here just fine, after all it is only Afghanistan.”
Marc said very calmly trying to relax us.  But i was wise enough and I knew that it was not just Afghanistan.  There was a war going on here.  We would continue to ,over to the other side of the mountain.  That's when we sat down to relax for a little while at a tree line over looking a ridge.  That's when Marc began to freak out.  He frantically jerked up his gun from the sling he had it on, almost dropped it and looked forward towards the ridge.
        “Guys.. Forget the radio. We have 50+ contacts directly in front of us.”
Everyone looked at him like he was crazy until we all looked up and saw the figures standing on the ridge looking at us you could see them through the disorienting humidity in the air.  It was just Afghanistan though right?  They were out of range to shoot, maybe a mile or two but we were in absolutely no area to do anything.
        “Boys, I'll let you determine your destinies here, do you want to turn back and head toward the village, or fight until we can't?” 
Marc had spoke up and offered good ideas but those were our only two options.  We could go forwards towards the enemy which was across a small one-two mile desert like I said or.  We headed back towards the village where we know there is even more taliban.  They suddenly started firing shots from behind us, they made it up the mountain in a matter of 2 hours.  Greatly outnumbered and running low on supplies.  I was U.S. Army Ranger SPC. Dante Shells, and I would absolutely not go down without a fight.  We got our guns up and did the only thing we're taught to do, fight.