The Words I Carried Home

By Raul Medrano

During a firefight in Afghanistan, one of our machine gunners was crawling through the dirt, searching for a spring.

The spring had fallen out of Specialist Navarro’s M249. Without it, the weapon was down. We were taking small-arms fire, and rocket-propelled grenades were exploding around us. Navarro searched among the rocks and spent casings while Sergeant Harris covered him. He eventually found it and got the machine gun working again, but our ammunition was running low. The enemy was still firing.

Our platoon had been ambushed during a nighttime patrol in September 2013. The lead element pushed forward toward cover, leaving seven of us separated in the rear. We dropped behind a dirt mound only a few feet high. It was enough to get us below some of the gunfire, but not enough to stand or move without exposing ourselves. The rest of our platoon was fighting its own battle ahead of us.

I was a Sergeant and Forward Observer serving with an infantry company. My job was to observe the battlefield, communicate with the platoon, and request artillery or aircraft when needed. I normally worked from the rear because it gave me a view of the fight. That night, I could make out muzzle flashes in the darkness, but little beyond them.

Solis kept firing the M240. Navarro returned to his M249. The others watched for movement and fired when they could. Our Platoon Sergeant, Sergeant Lawson, directed our response. We passed the remaining machine-gun ammunition from our bags to the gunners. Most of us were down to about two magazines apiece for our M4 carbines, including those already loaded.

I remember wondering what would happen when we ran out.

I was trying to get fire support, but headquarters had already told me that no attack helicopters or planes were available. Lethal artillery fire was denied because civilians and buildings were close to the fight, and there were concerns about safely clearing the hills between the guns and our position. I understood the reasons. They did not change what was happening behind that mound.

Then Harris asked where our aircraft were.

I had known him since we were young Privates at Fort Stewart. Now we were both Sergeants in Afghanistan. He was asking me for the help I was supposed to provide, and I knew it was not coming. I was frightened. More than that, I was afraid the hopelessness I felt would spread to the Soldiers beside me.

So I told them something I knew was not true.

“The birds are coming!”

I yelled it again and repeated it over the platoon radio. I tried to sound certain, as though aircraft were already on their way. I thought the promise might give us something to hold onto until we could get out. I also knew anyone listening could believe me. That troubled me even as I continued saying it.

The sky stayed empty. The gunfire and RPGs did not stop. I remember my family coming to mind in brief images and wondering whether I would ever see them again.

Then I heard a call I did not expect: “Illumination round, over.”

I had not requested it. A round burst overhead, and a bright flare opened beneath a parachute. Suddenly I could see the ground and the faces of the Soldiers around me. The illumination also exposed us to the enemy, and their fire became more direct. It did not make us safe. But it allowed us to see enough of the terrain to find a way out.

We broke contact, reunited with the front of the platoon, and moved toward another pickup location. Sergeant Lawson helped establish a hasty landing zone, and Chinook helicopters came in to extract us.

As I boarded, I leaned toward the Soldiers sitting near me and yelled, “I love you guys!”

I do not know if they heard me over the helicopter. I just remember needing to say it. Only a short time earlier, I had been afraid I would never see them again.

The firefight ended that night. What I carried from it did not.

Afterward, I acknowledged that the aircraft I had promised were never on the way. Some Soldiers had believed me. I could understand why. I was the Forward Observer. When I spoke about support coming, they had reason to trust what I said.

For years, I thought about what my words might have meant to them. Did they keep fighting because they expected aircraft to arrive? Did they look toward the sky and wonder where the help was? I could not answer those questions for them, but I kept asking them of myself.

There was another question beneath the lie. Had I failed at my job? I was supposed to connect the platoon to the support it needed. Instead, I had a radio, a request that had been denied, and nothing else I could offer. I knew I did not control the availability of aircraft or the restrictions on artillery. Still, knowing something was outside my control did not make the feeling of failure disappear.

I also struggled to decide what to make of the lie itself. I still believe it was wrong. I did not tell my teammates the truth because I feared what that truth might do to them when our situation was already desperate. If I were behind that mound again with only what I knew then, I believe I would probably say the same thing. I have never found an easy way to put those two thoughts together.

The memories reached farther than that one decision. For years, I felt angry that we had been placed in that situation and that the support I expected was unavailable. I struggled with the feeling that we had been abandoned. Eventually, that anger reached God. I had been raised Catholic, but after Afghanistan I questioned the faith I inherited and stopped attending Church.

I spent time hiking alone, trying to think through things I did not want to explain to anyone else. I also tried to write about the deployment, sometimes getting words onto paper before abandoning them. Remembering one moment could bring back another. Even when the fighting was years behind me, those memories could follow me through an ordinary day.

In 2014, at a retreat for Purple Heart recipients, I met a military chaplain. They sat beside me on a bus and began a conversation without demanding that I explain what was wrong. We talked about ordinary things before speaking about faith, family, and service. It did not answer my questions or send me straight back to Church. It reminded me that the faith I had walked away from was still there. That mattered, although it took years for me to understand what to do with it.

I had another unanswered question from the ambush: who requested the illumination round? I never received a clear answer. Someone made a request and an artillery crew fired it. That much I understood. I could not say why it came when it did.

In 2026, while reading about Field Artillery traditions, I began learning more about Saint Barbara, the Patron Saint of Artillery. Although I had spent much of my Army career alongside Infantry Soldiers, Field Artillery was my branch. I had known her name through Army customs without knowing her story. Learning about her traditional association with lightning brought me back to the illumination round over that field.

I came to believe Saint Barbara had interceded for us and that God had shown us mercy through the actions of Soldiers. I do not claim to know why the round was fired or to have proof of a miracle. The military explanation remains. My faith gave me a different way to understand what I had survived.

For a long time, I remembered the support that never came before I remembered anything else. Now I also remember that the illumination let us see a way off the field, that the Soldiers beside me kept fighting, and that we made it onto those helicopters together. It did not make what happened good, and it did not make my choice to lie right. It gave me room for gratitude alongside the anger and guilt.

I have learned that I can acknowledge what was beyond my control without pretending I felt no responsibility. I can recognize why I made a decision without excusing it. And I can believe God was present that night without claiming to understand everything that happened.

I shouted two things during that mission that still come back to me. Behind the dirt mound, I promised my fellow Soldiers help I knew was not coming. Aboard the Chinook, I told them I loved them.

I still question the first. Whether anyone heard the second or not, I know it was true.

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Raul Medrano is a U.S. Army veteran and former Sergeant who served as a Forward Observer with the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment (Cottonbalers), 3rd Infantry Division during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. A Purple Heart recipient, he is the author of The Birds Are Coming: A Soldier’s Story of War, Intercession, and Mercy and other books on military service, leadership, and faith.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.