'I Prayed the Insurgents Were Bad Shots'

Reporter searched for his son during a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan.

ByABC News
December 8, 2010, 3:09 PM

Dec. 8, 2010— -- I thought I was finally in a tough spot from which I wouldn't escape. Worse, I couldn't see my son, Carlos, who also was pinned down on this barren mountainside in Khost province. I prayed the insurgents were bad shots. My prayers were answered.

The day began routinely enough. We had completed an embed at Combat Outpost Wilderness wedged in rugged mountains along the Khost/Gardez highway.

It took the Soviet army more than eight years to break through a mujahidin blockade of the road during its war here. Thousands of Red Army soldiers were killed and wounded along the K/G highway. The American challenge here is mild by comparison. The road is open, but insurgent attacks are frequent.

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As we boarded vehicles to leave Wilderness, an emergency call was transmitted over unit radios. Taliban rocket teams just five miles up the road had attacked a convoy.

By chance, we were leaving COP Wilderness with Lt. Col. Steve Lutsky, the war squadron commander who directs U.S. operations in the area. He ordered an immediate mission to intercept the insurgent rocket teams before they could escape.

Up, up, up we climbed in pursuit of the Taliban. The more we walked, the steeper the grade and the thinner the air. My legs were burning and so were my lungs. Each breath was a fight to accomplish. Everywhere I looked were ridgelines and peaks and I was sure we would not find insurgents. I was right. The insurgents found us.

It takes my mind a split second to process a sight I'm not expecting to see. So when the ground in front of me began to kick up like small gravel geysers, I gazed at it in wonderment, until the sound caught up with the picture. Those were bullets and I was a target, I belatedly concluded.