Heroes 2011
'It was the hardest decision'
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Under intense fire during an ambush launched by more than 100 enemy fighters, Army Staff Sgt. Javier Mackey was faced with a choice: abandon the body of a fallen comrade or risk his life and that of another servicemember trying to carry it to safety. Mackey’s Special Forces team had been ambushed outside Gowardesh, Afghanistan. Staff Sgt. Robert Miller had been killed providing life-saving covering fire for the rest of the team.
Mackey and Air Force Staff Sgt. Robert Gutierrez were trying to drag Miller’s body out of the kill zone, but they were stopped by a hailstorm of enemy fire. Mackey and Gutierrez weighed their options. Ultimately, it fell to Mackey to decide.
“It was the hardest decision that I had to make,” said Mackey, now a sergeant first class.
On Jan. 25, 2008, Mackey was with a 12-man Special Forces team along with 23 U.S. and Afghan troops on a night raid when it fought a skirmish with enemy fighters.
After the shooting stopped, the team walked into a valley to assess enemy casualties. The farther they walked, the steeper the mountainside, the narrower the footpath.
Then came a primal scream: “Allahu akbar!” An ambush.
The screaming insurgent raised up and opened fire, but he was immediately cut down by Miller.
Then more insurgents began shooting. And still more after that.
Miller, at the front of the U.S. line, put up a ferocious defense. But sizing up the situation, he yelled “Break contact,” signaling the others to withdraw back down the mountainside.
Mackey kept up fire, waiting to follow Miller out of the ambush. But he never arrived. Finally, Mackey stopped shooting and looked for Miller, only to discover that he’d been shot.
Mackey and Gutierrez ran to Miller.
“We get to Robbie’s body, and he’s on his last …,” Mackey said, overwhelmed, his voice trailing off.
Mackey started treating Miller, but an insurgent trained his sights on Mackey and pulled the trigger. Body armor stopped the round.
“The guy shot me and he stopped and he looked at me and Rob Gutierrez like, ‘Why in the hell are you guys not dead? I know hit both of you, or I know at least I hit the big black guy that’s right in front of me.’ ” Mackey said. “We both drew our weapons at the same time, and it was kind of like something out of a movie, and we nonchalantly just shot and killed this guy.”
Miller didn’t pull through. In an effort to allow his comrades to escape, Miller had isolated himself in an open area, drawing so much fire that the dust and rocks and snow kicked up around him until his teammates could no longer see him. During the barrage, two bullets pierced his side in areas left vulnerable by his body armor.
His death left Mackey and Gutierrez in a perilous position, weighing the ancient military tenet of “leave no man behind” versus the very real possibility of one body becoming three.
With rounds whizzing by, Mackey and Gutierrez argued about leaving Miller until they could come back with reinforcements. As the ranking soldier, Mackey made the call.
“I’m like, ‘Hey man, if we don’t leave Robbie here, we’re both gonna die and then now we got people behind us that have to come and get us,’ ” Mackey recounted.
The two managed to link up with the rest of the team and Mackey told his teammates the location of Miller’s body, insisting they go back for him at the first opportunity.
“At this point, I’m full of tears because I didn’t bring him back,” Miller said. “I feel like such a huge failure for not being able to pull his body back.”
But Mackey was ordered to escort one of his wounded teammates to a hospital. Eventually, Gutierrez and other team members recovered Miller’s body.
Mackey, who was awarded the Bronze Star with “V,” said it took him a while to come to terms with Miller’s death.
“If I could go back and make things better, I would,” he said. “I used to beat myself up, because I was like, ‘Had I been there two seconds sooner, could I have saved his life?’ Or, ‘Maybe I didn’t apply his chest seal right.’ … I second-guessed a lot of the things I did, but in the end, whatever happened happened, and there’s nothing I can do to change it.”
