Soldier recounts ambush

ORANGEBURG — Bill Connor can't say where he was. He doesn't know exactly how many Taliban fighters were killed.

What he can say is that he's proud of the bravery that 21 soldiers, most from South Carolina, showed when they were ambushed in Afghanistan last month by between 150 and 200 Taliban fighters.

"Nobody lost their cool," he said. "South Carolina should be very proud of how their soldiers are doing."

When he's home in Orangeburg, Connor is an attorney. In Afghanistan, he's an infantry officer serving as an adviser to the Afghan national security forces.

Speaking by phone from southern Afghanistan, Connor told of how, on Aug. 21, he and his six-vehicle convoy were returning from an advisory mission when they were attacked. "We knew the area we were going through was a high-risk area. We're more alert in that area because units have been attacked there before."

They drove south on the dirt road as the mountainous terrain began to yield to the desert. And then there was gunfire.

"My gunner started to fire his machine gun at a location. He was doing it because we were fired upon," Connor said. "I didn't realize we were fired upon until he fired."

They couldn't hear where the gunfire was coming from, but "you could hear the crack of the bullet coming toward you," he said.

Then the convoy came under fire from another direction.

"Shortly after the firing started from both sides and we were moving, we started seeing" rocket-propelled grenades, he said "One actually hit one of the vehicles" but did not cause any casualties.

Mortar rounds landed near their vehicles. The Taliban had improvised explosive devices, but the convoy was moving at such a pace that they exploded behind the vehicles.

Even when two tires were blown off one of the vehicles, the convoy kept moving, the truck dragging along on its axle.

Connor says that during a battle, there is little time to think. The training just kicks in. "When I had to fire my weapon, I fired my weapon. ... The primary emotion is to get through the task at hand, which pretty much everyone did. Nobody lost their cool," he said.

The fighting was over in about 20 minutes, Connor said.