Rescue on Roberts Ridge

The first chopper carrying Nate Self and his rangers was co-piloted by 37-year-old Kentucky native, Greg Calvert.

Greg Calvert, chopper pilot: We’re about six minutes out at that point. We start briefing the crew, “Here’s what we’re gonna do, anybody have any questions? Okay, let’s do it.

Seated just behind Calvert was his fellow aviator Don Tabron.

Don Tabron: We proceeded inbound.  Now the sun is up at this point. So we’re out there in broad daylight.

Calvert: Just over the horizon and so it’s blue sky now.

Tabron: We’re really feeling exposed, you know. You’re a black helicopter with snow covered everything.  So you really stood out.

Capt. Nate Self: That was a bad place to land even at night. For us to try to do it right before daybreak was even worse.

Stone Phillips, Dateline anchor: So through all of this you had no idea the two other choppers had been there?

Self: No.  No idea.

It was now just after 6 a.m. With the sun coming up, and radio communications down, Nate was still unaware that two choppers had already been ambushed at the landing zone where he was headed.  He was still unclear on exactly what his mission was.  And he’d lost track of the second chopper carrying Oscar Escano and the rest of his ranger Quick Reaction Force.

Self: Everyone kind of moved from a seated position to a kneeling position, and made sure their muscles were ready to run, to shoot, to dive to crawl, whatever they needed to do when they hit the ground.

After training and living together for months, the rangers had become a close-knit unit. Nate’s wife Julie is certain that the safety of his men weighed heavily on her husband’s mind.

Julie Self, Nate’s wife: A lot of these men are 18, 19 years old; babies you know, just out of home. And he’s thinking of their parents, and how they’re feeling, and he carried that with him.

Phillips: Staff Sergeant Ray DePauli.

Self: A life saver.

Phillips: Specialist Marc Anderson.

Self: Spirit of a Ranger.

Phillips: Specialist Matt Commons.

Self: Innocence.

Phillips: Sergeant Brad Crose.

Self: Perfect.

Phillips: Specialist Anthony Masseli.

Self: (LAUGHTER) A klutz.

Phillips: Guess there’s got to be one of those in every outfit, huh?

Self: [Laugh]

Phillips: Sergeant Josh Walker.

Self: Hard-nosed.

Phillips: Specialist Aaron Totten-Lancaster.

Self: Quiet, but peak performer.

Phillips: Private First Class David Gillum.

Self: Young and fearless.

Phillips: Enlisted Tactical Air Controller Kevin Vance.

Self: Kevin.  Highly competent, highly confident. Sure.  Very sure.

As Nate and his men braced for landing, he glanced at the ranger next to him in the back of the chopper.  30-year-old specialist Marc Anderson had quit his job as a high school math teacher in Florida to defend his country.

Self: I grabbed Marc on the shoulder and squeezed him, just kind of assurance that he knew that I was there and was thinking about him. And, he leaned forward to David Gillum who’s, I don’t know, 18, 19 years old, and gave him a thumbs up and said, “Today I feel like a Ranger.”

Phillips: The pilots circled the mountain three times. What was going on as you readied to land?

Self: Everyone in the crew was up on their feet looking out of every window they could find searching, searching for RPG launches, trying to protect the helicopter and the flight became very, very rough.

Calvert: I pop over the hilltop. I’ve picked my landing point out.  And I set up for my approach. And then everything just, all hell breaks loose.

Once again, commanders positioned a predator drone — like this one — above the mountain top.

General Hagenbeck watched as the spy plane’s infra-red camera sent back live images of Nate self’s helicopter.

Phillips: Can you describe the intensity of the fire that chopper came under?

Gen. Hagenbeck: I mean it, you think of the biggest action movie you’ve ever seen and replicated that at the outset.

Phillips: Rocket propelled grenades, machine gun fire, tracers.

Gen. Hagenbeck: Yes, it was all there.

Phillips: What were you thinking about how you had come to land at that same place?

Self:  It seemed to me that somebody had made a pretty big mistake.

Just as Nate’s chopper was about to land, it was struck by a rocket propelled grenade.

Self: The flash is the reaction of our helicopter from an RPG being—more than one RPG being fired.

Transmitted without sound, the pictures hardly convey how ferocious the enemy fire was.

Self: Inside the helicopter—we had rounds entering from both sides of the helicopter just—really tearing up the inside of that—the aircraft.

Phillips: What did it sound like? What did it—what did it feel like?

Self: To me it sounded like several people hitting the side of the helicopter with sledge hammers.

Calvert: Bullets are coming through the windshield. Crew members are calling targets.

Pilot Greg Calvert struggled to keep the crippled chopper upright as it plummeted to the ground.  A door-gunner named Phil Svitak returned fire.  

Calvert: Phil Svitak, I remember him calling, “One-o’clock, three-o’clock, engaging.” That was the last words I heard him speak.  He was calling out, calling out targets and he engaged them all the way down.

Svitak also called out to medic Cory Lamereax.

Cory Lameraux, medic: He said, "Doc, move back." So I moved about six feet back from where he was at.

Lameraux and Svitak were both hit by enemy fire.  Svitak, a 31-year-old husband and father of two, was killed instantly.   His warning to move likely saved Lamereaux’s life. 

Lameraux: The next thing I remember is waking up on my back and opened my eyes and blood had pooled in my eye socket. And just opening my eyes and going, “Hey, I’m okay.”  I found out I received three rounds into my helmet. 

Phillips: So the force of the bullets in your head had knocked you out.

Lameraux:  Apparently.

After hitting the ground, the chopper became an easy mark for enemy fighters less than 50 yards away.  The thin walls and windows provided little protection.

Calvert: I remember feeling getting hit in the chest, then feeling getting hit in the helmet.

Like everyone else aboard, Calvert was wearing a bulletproof helmet and vest but he was still dangerously exposed. 

Calvert: I get my M4 off the side of the seat.  There’s guys coming up over the rocks at 2-o’clock.

Phillips: Enemy fighters?

Calvert: Shooting.  I pulled down, kicked the door out at the same time.  I remember my hand feeling impact. And I came back to grab my weapon and my hand was gone.  I missed the stock of my weapon.  And I looked down and it was hanging down.

Phillips: You had taken, what, machine gun fire?

Calvert: All I knew was that my hand was bent over, there was nothing but meat and squirting blood.

Lameraux: And about that time, was when Greg was trying to come out of the cockpit. I pulled a tourniquet out of my vest.  And just immediately put it on his arm. And I was really wrenching it down.  And he was screaming.

Also hit was ranger Marc Anderson. An air force medic named Jason Cunningham rushed to his aid.

Lameraux: Anderson was laying about halfway back in the aircraft.  And Jason Cunningham yelled to me that he didn’t have a pulse.

Marc Anderson, the former school teacher, died in those first minutes of the ambush.

Now, the rangers’ only hope was to get out of the helicopter, find cover and try to take the fight to the enemy.

Self: It was just a frantic effort to get out of that situation. Because everyone in there was for all intents and purposes helpless.

What Nate saw when he reached the ramp at the back of the chopper made him realize his longest day was just beginning.    

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