My coauthor, Matt Eversmann, talks to his fellow comrade, Charles Ritter.
See below for Charles Ritter’s excerpt from our NEW #1 bestselling book, American Heroes, plus a chance to win a copy of the book, personally signed by me to you.
AMERICAN HEROES
Charles Ritter
Master Sergeant, US Army: Conflict/Era: War on Terrorism (Afghanistan): Action Date: May 30, 2013: Silver Star
In a place called Lufkin in the heart of East Texas, my mother sleeps with a gun under the pillow. She’s worried I’m hanging out with the wrong crowd.
Some of my friends . . . they’re not good people. And truth be told, I’m not a good kid. That said, I’m not a bad person.
Deep down, I know I’m intelligent and resourceful in a particular way that has nothing to do with book smarts. My grades are incredibly bad, but I can always find a way to accomplish anything I’m driven to accomplish.
The year I skipped ninety-plus school days, I went through detention and then into a “special school” for troubled high school kids. And I caused more than my fair share of trouble, racking up seventy thousand dollars in fraudulent credit-card charges from a little scheme I assisted with while working at the Radio Shack store.
I didn’t get convicted on any charges, but my parents don’t trust me, and they really don’t trust my friends, so when they decide to go out of town for the weekend, they lock me out of the house. One of my friends comes over and notices that the kitchen window is cracked open. He manages to get inside, and that’s when I decide that instead of staying in the RV parked in our driveway, I’m going to throw a crazy, epic house party.
Everyone is drunk, having a blast. At one point, I go to the freezer and remove a big-ass salmon that becomes the party photo‑op. In some pictures, I’m standing in the bathtub with a bunch of girls, everyone holding the salmon. In another, I’m holding a fishing rod and fishing the salmon out of the toilet. It takes me a day to clean up. I find the salmon in the backyard and return it to the freezer. (Later, my parents will hold an important dinner party and serve that salmon as the main course. The spoiled fish tastes really nasty.)
An Army recruiter arrives Sunday morning, along with my parents.
I’ve always been fascinated by the military. I love reading Tom Clancy books and researching topics like the Cold War and Russian military capabilities and combat tank specifications. I’d spoken to the recruiter before but couldn’t do more than toy around with the idea of joining because I still hadn’t finished the algebra class I needed to graduate.
“I have some news,” he tells me. “Your school has agreed to waive the algebra class and let you graduate if you join the military.”
He shows me my transcripts and my high school diploma. “You can have them when you leave MEPS.”
MEPS, I remember, is Military Entrance Processing Station.
“I’ll pick you up in front of your house tomorrow morning at oh six hundred.”
“Okay,” I say. “Sure.”
I call a friend after he leaves. “Bring over whatever weed you have,” I say. “I have a drug test in the morning that I can’t pass.”
“Wait. You want to fail a drug test? That doesn’t make any sense.” I want my transcripts, but I don’t want to join the Army.
My friend comes over and we smoke weed together. The next day, I go to the MEPS and leave with my graduation certificates. The following week, the recruiter calls and tells me I failed the drug test. I act like I’m surprised.
My mother refuses to give up on my future. She’s a senior nursing instructor at the local community college and manages to get me a full scholarship. I don’t excel in any of my classes —including my bowling class. Instead of rolling balls down the lane, I’m out back of the alley smoking weed with the owner. I fail the class and I’m out of college.
I drift deeper into West Texas. Living with my friends, I start to realize I’m going nowhere. I need to do something with
my life. I decide to pursue a military career. My failed drug test is a major obstacle. To get into the Army will require an act of God — in this case, a letter from a congressman. It’s a major pain in the butt, but I manage to get a letter, and I join the Army in 1998. I go in as infantry and choose Hawaii. I’ll be posted to Schofield Barracks on the island of Oahu.
In 1991, I was glued to TV coverage of the Gulf War. Every day I’d come home from school and watch the war unfold. I quickly learn the huge difference between watching and doing.
My first PT test in basic training, I score an abysmal 94 out of 300 points. People ask me how it’s possible to score so impossibly low. I tell them I took the “you can walk but it’s not recommended” part of the briefing to heart and ran a twenty-four-minute two mile.
Fortunately, I have some solid leadership. They take the time to mentor me and help me get squared away. If it weren’t for these leaders, I probably would have continued down the path of sucking.
The Army, I realize, enables me to test myself at almost any level. To move beyond my limits to become something more than I am. I end up scoring a 300 on my final PT test.
The day I graduate from basic training, my dad lets me in on a secret.
“Your mother and I had a bet,” he says. “I thought there was no way you’d make it through, and she believed you would, thought the Army would be good for you. Looks like I lost.”
At Special Forces selection, I show up with a bum knee. I injured it from overstraining.
The O course is at the beginning. I struggle over the next three weeks covering over one hundred miles while wearing a fifty-five-pound ruck. I finish it, but it’s very difficult.
Borderline candidates get “boarded” and that’s what happens to me. I came in handicapped with my bum knee, and I wasn’t well trained enough on climbing ropes. That’s what I tell the commander, but those are not reasons for my failures, only excuses.
“Look, you’re a risk,” the commander says. “But we’re going to select you.”
I opt for the 82nd Airborne Division specializing in forcible parachute assault operations. Before I can get to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 9/11 happens. Two weeks later, the Special Warfare Center for Civil Affairs, Psychological Operations, and Special Forces contacts me.
“You passed Special Forces,” the caller says. “We deleted your 82nd orders. You’re on orders to start the Q Course.” The Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC), known informally as the Q Course, is twenty-four months of physically and mentally demanding work. If I make it through, I’ll be a Green Beret.
First, I need to go to Airborne School. I break my ankle on my first jump.
Because of Army regulations, they can’t do a “PCS,” or Permanent Change of Station. In other words, they’re stuck with me. I can’t train with a cast, so I’m given charge of quarters (CQ) duty, where I guard the front entrance to the barracks.
Four months later, when the cast comes off, I’m told I have three weeks to complete Airborne School. This time I pass without breaking anything. I make it through the qualification course and graduate in 2003 as a Special Forces weapons sergeant.
I’m excited to receive my duty assignment to Operation Attachment 392. I board a CH‑47 helicopter and I’m all kitted out — my body armor and helmet and kit, my old drop leg holster — like I’m fixing for some good combat. I fly to a remote firebase.
The CH‑47 lands. The ramp comes down. I see two fourwheelers and four super tanned, shirtless, muscle-bound guys, all wearing Ranger panties and goggles to protect them from the helicopter dust. They’ve got big beards and long, fabulous hair, and while they’re not carrying any weapons, I see, on the perimeter of the helicopter landing zone, four GMV 1.0 Special Operations Gun trucks pulling security and, on the hills, four wheelers with machine gun teams.
“Welcome to Firebase Lane,” they say after the bird flies off. “We have two Special Force detachments here, some infantry for perimeter security, and about 120 Afghan Army guys. We’ve got about a two-hundred-person militia force on our outer perimeter. We’re literally in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by people who don’t want us here. Oh, and it’s really hard for us to get supplied.”
From some combination of an outsized ego and “resting dickhead face,” I don’t make a good first impression. I’m shown to an empty room and given some tools.
Build my bed? I don’t know anything about woodworking.
“Can someone help me figure out how to cut this wood and do this stuff ?”
The reality is everyone in the company has a Special Forces tab. The piece of cloth I wear on my sleeve is not something that makes me awesome. The only thing the tab gives is a reminder that every single day I need to earn the right to wear it.
I don’t learn this right away. Our egos trip us up at times. No one is as great or as bad as we think we are on any given day. Humility, I slowly learn, is king.
Afghanistan looks like the Stone Age, but the Afghan Army is a recent creation. The militia forces are super ragtag but loyal to us because we pay them. We also provide technology. Vehicles, generators, and water pumps. Not much happens — some shooting, some guys lobbing rockets and stuff at us, sure, but nothing super kinetic.
The firebase is brand-new, but it doesn’t have any sinks or showers. The nearest water source is a river eight hundred meters away. We go in a group and pull security. I wade into the water wearing fortified sandals because the riverbed is full of sharp rocks and these weird, biting freshwater crabs.
Half our guys jump into the water to wash themselves. We share the river with the Afghans. Their men are in the water, too, shaving their private parts with old-school razor blades.
One day, some guys from the Louisiana National Guard come with us. One guy grabs a bunch of crabs and says, “We’re going to eat them.”
“First of all,” one of the SF guys says, “there are pubes all in that water. Second, don’t eat Afghan crab, man. It’s just gross.”
I’m sent to Yemen, which is wild. There, people are actively trying to kill us. We have to leave our safe house downtown and consolidate to guard the embassy. We live on the roof pulling sniper overwatch for a terrorist attack. When we eventually pull out, the embassy is bombed the next day.
In 2005, I’m sent to Iraq, where I work with the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment (ACR) in Tal Afar. My team has brought along a gunfire detection system that uses cameras to show us where a shot came from and the distance it traveled.
I set up the system on top of a castle, the highest point in the city. The first night, we log ten thousand shots. The system is designed to locate sniper rifle from a single shooter, not a city full of thousands shooting at you from all directions. The cameras couldn’t keep up, kept spinning in a circle. It’s nuts. We decide to turn it off.
We have tremendous firepower. Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles and unlimited overhead air support. We have a Special Forces company there with an HQ and four teams from the 3rd ACR.
The 3rd ACR takes so many casualties that Colonel H. R. McMaster decides to build a berm around the entire city. Residents who don’t plan on fighting are given ten days to leave. Then we start clearing insurgents from the south to the north, block by block.
The enemy, I come to realize, is very good at what they do. They are here to fight, and they’re going to face us. They don’t care what it costs them.
It’s wild. A real eye-opener.
My experience in Tal Afar results in an Army Commendation Medal for Valor. We’re put in for much higher awards but the ACR downgrades them.
I’m sent back to Afghanistan for several deployments.
Two thousand eight: Helmand Province. IEDs are such a constant presence that every time we leave the wire, we know someone is going to die. We lose several good people.
In the RG‑33 — a mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicle — we get the powerful protection we need. Its V‑shaped hull is designed to deflect blasts with armored glass windows and an automatic fire extinguishing system.
I’m in one of the RG‑33’s mine-protected seats when we drive over a massive, five-hundred-pound IED. The explosion hurls our vehicle fifty meters down the road. The driver and the Air Force joint tactical attack controller ( JTAC) are killed instantly. The captain breaks his back. I’m alive, but I’ve broken a bunch of ribs. My nose is broken, my right shoulder has some serious issues, and my face is super messed up. A lot of skull fractures and a lot of brain damage, and the whole upper section of my jaw needs to be rebuilt.
While I learn how to walk properly again, surgeons start rebuilding the front of my face. It’s a painstaking, four-year process.
I want to deploy again.
People want to know why. Why, after surviving that explosion that killed others, after the long road of rehabilitation followed by years of surgeries and bone grafts and all the pain that came with it — why, after everything I’ve been through, do I still want to deploy?
I don’t have an answer. Even now, I’m still trying to figure that stuff out for myself.
I deploy in 2010 as an E7/SFC, or sergeant first class. I’m a team sergeant on an Operational Department Alpha (ODA). The battalion command sergeant major finds out that I’m not actually cleared for duty (I lied about my medical status), and when we return home, he bans me from deploying until he sees a note from the surgeons and the psychologist that I’m cleared for duty.
In 2013, I return to Afghanistan as a master sergeant. I’m stationed at Camp Morehead, where I’ll be working with the 6th Special Operations Kandak.
Kandak is a unit in the Afghan Army that works in cooperation with American forces to bring the hammer and send a message during especially nasty situations. The force ratio stipulation is one Green Beret for every ten Afghans.
We’re called to do a company-level mission in a place called Tegab Valley. One Special Forces team is going into the northern valley to push the enemy into the southern part. Forty-eight hours later, a second team will take them out. During the briefing, our small force is told to expect upwards of eight hundred Taliban fighters.
That number seems way too high. I don’t believe it. Neither do the others.
I’m a part of the southern valley team. My team goes in second.
As we land in the mountains under the cover of darkness, the enemy starts shooting at the helicopters. The element of surprise is lost.
A lot of high-level Taliban fighters reside in the area. We secure two battle positions and clear the compounds. It’s a long and grueling process that takes all night. We planned on securing three, but the moving through the dark terrain puts us a few hours behind schedule, and now, with the enemy being so close to us, it halts further movement.
There’s one main building we can’t access. Only a breaching charge will get us inside.
It goes off at three in the morning. We’re a kilometer away. Up until this point, the enemy has been radio silent on comms. Now the radio chatter is off the charts. They’re discussing our position and making plans to maneuver on us.
As the sun starts to rise, I’m surprised at how different the terrain looks from the projected imagery. It’s densely mazelike and urban. There’s no way we can defend it.
We push out multiple small kill teams to push the enemy back. It doesn’t work. The Taliban starts hitting us with lots of RPGs. They toss hand grenades over the walls at us. It’s a nasty and massive firefight, and it lasts an hour and a half. During that time, we conduct several small kill team patrols to push the enemy back and capture one fighter.
“Hey, Chuck,” my team leader calls over the radio, “we’re tracking sizeable enemy force. They’re southwest of your location and they’re moving their way up to you.”
A support aircraft starts launching Hellfire missiles as I respond to the team leader. “I see where they are. I think I can get around them to the north. We’ll come around and ambush them as they try to get our position. Talk to the commanders.”
I’m told the plan makes sense. We move down a narrow alley, only to discover that the enemy has set up multiple machine guns and small arms into a semicircular-shaped ambush.
As we cut around a corner, we encounter a massive amount of fire. The Afghans scatter, running back to their initial battle positions. I hide behind a wall, the only one left.
One of the lead Afghans is down. I can see him through a crack in the wall. Some of his fingers have been shot off and one round went completely through his leg. I can’t get around the corner because of the amount of incoming fire.
Going out there alone is suicide. And now there’re only two Apache helicopters overhead because the other aircraft left to refuel.
I don’t know what’s on the other side of this wall. Anytime I peek my head around the corner, I take on intense gunfire. If I can get the Apaches to fire their 30 mm chain gun rounds, it might buy me enough time to grab the wounded Afghan commando.
But the Apaches won’t fire. I have no idea why — and I’m getting super pissed. What I don’t know is that neither bird has a working weapons system.
An Afghan platoon leader and four other Afghan fighters work their way to my position. We make a decision to get to the wounded commando. There are multiple machine guns out there. It’s probably not going to be pretty. Most of us are probably going to die.
It’s just what it is. We’ve got to at least drag this dude around the corner and not let the Taliban get him.
We come around the threshold and fight around the wall of the kill zone, into a wide-open area. I’m in the open, too. There’s no cover. It’s terrifying.
The enemy is extremely proficient. They fight like we do and have no fear. Two enemy fighters are bounding toward our position. They’re within twenty meters, maybe even closer. We shoot them, turn our attention to the machine guns. There’s one at each apex of this open area. I toss grenades and go through three mags until all threats are eliminated.
I grab the wounded commando and start dragging him away when a belt-fed PKM machine gun opens fire on our Afghan platoon leader.
I thought I had killed the machine gunner with a grenade. It must have only rocked him a bit, I think, transitioning over to where I think the gunner is. I can’t see him, but I take a knee and start unloading on his position. I think I’m off target, shooting too far to the left.
The gunner transitions to me and starts firing.
A round hits my leg and knocks me forward. I’m lying there in a somewhat prone Superman position when I take another round to my right upper back. The bullet travels down to my lower spine and, as I will find out later, breaks the brachial nerve complex and the brachial artery. I fall into an Afghan shit ditch as another round slaps me on the butt, the rest of the PKM rounds slamming into the wall behind me.
I’m feeling more stunned than in pain, but my thoughts are clear, and I’m pissed. I need to deactivate that machine gun. It has a one-hundred-round belt. At some point, he’s going to have to reload.
The firing stops, followed by silence.
He’s reloading. I pop back up to shoot him, but my arm isn’t working.
But the Afghans on our team are firing on the gunner’s position. I grab our wounded dude with the platoon and say, “Hey, man, let’s get round the corner.”
Our medic Dan is there. I’ve lost so much blood that he administers an IV of Hextend, a plasma volume expander. After he gives me a little shot of morphine, I have him reload my rifle for me and then, on my own, move to our casualty collection point. There, an Air Force PJ — a pararescue man and combat medic who often works in the middle of a war zone — tells me I’m bleeding internally.
I’m bundled tight inside a Skedco, which is a litter that looks like a little taco. The team leader (TL) and Dan are going to drag me in the Skedco to the helicopter landing zone (HLZ). It’s only going to be the two of them, and they’re going to have to fight block by block to get me there because the Taliban is watching us.
The Taliban is speaking over the radio.
“We see them. They’re not with the regular Afghans. They’ve got the wounded guy. We’re going to get him. We’re going to get him and take everything they have.”
Dan and TL stop dragging me and damn near collapse from exhaustion.
“We have to keep moving or they’ll kill us,” the TL says. “It’s just us. If we don’t move, we’re all dead.”
Dan is an incredible soldier, medic, and leader. He and the TL rally and keep fighting street by street to get me to the battle position overlooking the HLZ. With help from an AC‑130, they fight the enemy off so the medevac can land. It arrives and takes me away.
Dan and the TL stay behind. They need a way out and speak to the commander.
“The only thing I think we can do — the only thing that’s audacious enough to surprise the enemy,” the commander says, “is to lay down AC‑130 fire on both sides of the road while you move up it.”
The road in question is over a mile long and lined with IEDs that are command detonated by a trigger.
“It’s the only viable solution,” the commander says. “We can’t get to you. If you don’t do this, you’ll be stuck there overnight, and you’ll get overrun.”
They get ready to run what they refer to as “the Mogadishu Mile.” While the AC‑130 air support lays down fire on both sides of the road, Dan and the TL toss grenades as they haul ass so fast it takes the enemy completely by surprise.
I crash again on the operating table a couple of times.
My blood pressure is good, but my oxygen levels are dangerously low, and the doctors can’t figure out why. They administer ketamine. It’s a “dissociative anesthetic” because the patient is supposed to feel detached from his pain and his environment. But I’m feeling the surgery. And I can’t move or speak.
A voice says, “I’m watching his vitals. I think he’s in pain.”
Another voice says, “There’s no way he should be feeling any pain. Even if he is, we can’t give him any more pain meds because we don’t know why he’s crashing — or how much morphine they gave him on the battlefield.”
They go to work on fixing the artery.
I feel everything.
When I wake up, something isn’t right with my back. “It hurts . . . weirdly,” I tell a doctor.
“It’s fine. Don’t worry.”
It’s not fine. The artery has popped back open.
They knock me out and fix the artery a second time, but until I get my red blood cell count back up, I won’t be stable enough to fly to Germany. It takes five days. Doctors there open me up, remove the bullet, and go to work on repairing my nerves.
I’m sent home with wound VAC therapy. A week and a half later, the doctors close the wound and say, “It’s going to take about a year for your arm to recover and work properly.”
There’s also the issue of my lower back. I’ll need a rod and surgery to fuse some of my vertebrae. At some point, I’ll also need to get my jaw back into alignment. I assemble a team — a physical therapist, a trainer, and a dietician, all from 3rd Group —and a recovery plan.
“This is going to be my last surgery,” I tell them. “My plan is to redeploy.”
The group sergeant major calls me. “Chuck, you need to get rid of this pipe dream of redeploying. It’s not going to happen.”
“It will. If it doesn’t, I’m going to get on a civilian flight to Germany. Unless you post a guard at every airport, you can’t stop me. I’ll take a week’s vacation and afterward I’m going to hop on a medevac flight to Afghanistan. I’ll see you there.”
“You can’t come.”
“Well, you can go fuck yourself.”
Somehow, I don’t get fired. But I do exactly what I said I would do. A month and a half later, I’m back in Afghanistan. The group commander is not happy.
“Well, obviously you made it here,” he says. “That’s a pretty big testament to our in‑group recovery and rehabilitation program. You can go back out to the firebase. I’m allowing it because if we make a big deal about this and you get into trouble, it’s not going to look good for anybody.
“That said, you’re an idiot. And you can’t go out on combat missions anymore.”
I end up going out on a combat mission. No one is happy with that, either, but I still don’t end up getting fired. Leading an element into fortified machine gun positions overwatching the HLZ, I take a round. They try to medevac me, but I stay in the fight all day and leave at night with the team, after we complete the mission. I receive a Bronze Star for Valor.
After I return from Afghanistan, I do a rotation in Syria and Jordan. When I return home, I take the Combat Physical Fitness test. My hips refuse to cooperate with the run. Nope, they say, we’re not doing this one.
I manage to score a 542. Not exactly what I wanted but it’s still above the standards of excellence. I feel like I can perform, but I know I can’t perform at the level where I need to be.
It’s time to retire.
I’m fine with it. My body is what it is. I suffered brain damage from the explosion, so I do cognitive therapy and some other stuff because my speech gets all weird, but I don’t have nightmares. My military service has been a very enjoyable experience. I’m happy with the choices I made, if not with every outcome. I wouldn’t change a thing.
There’s helmet cam footage from when I was shot. I’m lying there like a sack of shit, in pain, but the response is quick and automated. The medic remains calm, giving orders to the guys around me. They’re the ones making the magic happen.
The caliber of people I had the honor of serving with — that, I think, is what drove me to keep coming back again and again. It’s been a privilege, not only working with these people, but showing up every day and earning the right to be surrounded by them. To be a part of something more and to do things that are enduring and amazing.
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