Hot LZ

Heavy fighting ... the landing zone is still under attack ...


Martin Savidge reports from the field for CNN on major breaking news stories and has anchored several of the network's regularly scheduled newscasts.

Editor's note: In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents share their experiences in covering news around the world.

By Martin Savidge
CNN

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (CNN) -- It begins with a ringing bell.

Next comes the piercing whine of the CH-47's twin engines screaming to speed.

Wearing body armor, helmets and backpacks, my cameraman Scottie McWhinnie and I are forced to sit on the edges of the webbed seats. Seatbelts lie unused. There's no way to get them on with all our gear.

Beside us, the chopper's waist gunner warns us not to sit too close: He needs full range of motion to fire his machine gun. We sit alone in the cavernous behemoth as it stirs to life. Then the "gators" back in.

Gators are six-wheeled all-terrain vehicles. The sort used by groundskeepers at your local golf course. Instead of rakes and shovels, these gators carry 50-caliber machine guns and mortars.

Next come the soldiers.

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CNN's Martin Savidge reports that after nearly 19 days, largest battle of war against terrorism completed (March 19)

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EXTRA INFORMATION

Images from Operation Anaconda

Map of Afghanistan showing the location of the fighting

Savidge reports: The Battlefield

A reporter's reflections

The road home

Getting out

Mining snow

Loaded down with weapons and bulging backpacks, they crawl over the gators, lying and sitting on them. They fill the side seats and then begin filling the space on the floor. One soldier's pack is crushing my leg. He apologizes but there's nothing he can do about it. The helicopter feels packed to capacity even as the sergeants shout, "Move in!". Somehow more troops get on. The once-big helicopter now seems claustrophobic.

Liftoff

The boys are in high spirits and joke as the bird shudders into the air, heading toward "the box," the battle zone an hour and 10 minutes away.

They're part of the second wave of troops going in. This is D-Day for Operation Anaconda. Before we left, there had been reports of a few problems for the first wave. Now the radio operator gets on the combat net and relays what he hears like some play-by-play sportscaster.

"Heavy fighting ... four of the six Apache attack helicopters have been knocked out ... confirmed surface-to-air missile launch ... the LZ's hot!"

His words silence the laughter.

Inside the chopper the mood grows dark. Outside the sun sets.

The approach

We begin to weave between mountains at 100 mph, sometimes barely 10 feet off the ground, in a wild, dark roller-coaster ride. The soldier next to Scottie shouts over the roar, asking if he has a plastic bag. Scottie hands one back and the soldier vomits.

Suddenly the door gunner opens fire. The staccato of explosions momentarily drowns out the noise of the rotors and makes me jump. Soon the tail gunner joins in. We hear the whine of bullets whizzing past us as we hurtle forward.

"Fifteen minutes!" a crewman shouts.

Inside my head a mental clock starts counting down. In less than a quarter-hour we'll land in the hell the radio operator described. My leg hurts even more.

Inside the chopper it's nearly pitch black. The soldier's faces are green, lit by the glow of their night vision goggles.

"Ten minutes!"

I begin thinking of home, of my wife, of my children -- of anything but the landing zone: The LZ. Mountains covered in snow and dark valleys whirl by the gunner's window. No one talks.

"One minute! The LZ's hot!!"

Weapons cock.

"Fifty-nine, 58, 57," counts the voice in my head. My heart is racing. We strain to look out. I'm waiting for the bump of the wheels and the thud of the bullets. This is the part the soldiers hate. A chopper on the ground is a sitting duck. A mortar would spell disaster. Most of us would die where we're crammed.

Suddenly we veer off.

"It's too hot!" someone shouts. As we pull away I can see red tracer fire flaring across the valley below. I always had a bad feeling about this LZ, No. 13A. Unlucky.

We hover to see if the fighting will die down. It doesn't and we're low on fuel. The men shout to land, those are their friends fighting it out below. The bird careens off, heading for a forward refueling position. If we get more gas, we can try again.

Refueling

As we touch down, some of the men are in agony. Their bodies are cramping after more than three hours of flight, no way to move. Others have to go to the bathroom.

But no one is allowed out. It's a hot refuel. The blades never stop spinning. Time is critical. The LZ is still under attack, but fighter jets will try to cool things down. I dread another run.

We roar off again, only to set down minutes later. Confusion. Shouts of "What's going on?!" "Are we there?"

"Standby!" the crew calls back.

The radio chirps, "Return to base, the LZ's still too hot."

The soldiers curse and groan. On the hour-long return flight, a medic passes a bottle so they can relieve themselves.

After four-and-a-half hours, we land where we started and stagger back to the tents.

I feel a sense of relief mixed with trepidation.

Soon we must try again.