“You’re Getting Shot At” — The Story of My First Combat Mission in Afghanistan

On this episode of Our American Stories, when the war in Afghanistan was still unfolding, many Americans only saw brief clips on the news. Peter Braxton lived it at twenty-two years old. His first combat mission came with no slow introduction. He lifted off, crossed into Afghan airspace, and heard the words that still stay with him:

“You are getting shot at.”

His story offers a grounded look at the human side of the Afghanistan war, the stress of long missions, and the weight carried by the United States military members who served there.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, this is Lee Habee with Our American Stories, the
show where America is the star and the American People.
And to search for the Our American Stories podcast, go
to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

(00:23):
your podcasts. On the morning of September eleventh, two thousand
and one, Peter Braxton was the first military pilot in
the air over the burning Twin Towers in downtown New
York City. It was his first day on the job.
Not long after, he did multiple tours of flight combat
in the Middle East. Here's Peter with the story of
his first combat mission in Afghanistan.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Most people don't They spend their whole career and they
don't go to combat. And I was one of those,
like those kids that went to pre or kindergarten at
four because my birthday's in October the next thing. And
now I'm twenty two, I'm being shuttled off to the
Middle East, my first combat mission. You know, I'll never
forget it. You know, we're flying, you know, pushing into

(01:10):
Afghanistan and refueling all of these coalition fighters and F
sixteen's and marine F eighteens and one of our receivers.
You know, asked us to turn off the chaff, like
the the stuff that drops out of your plane if
you're being shot at, and and I was like, well,
you know, we don't have any of that. If that

(01:31):
gets stuck, we're a big gas tank in the sky. Well,
I don't know, we'll blow up or it's not going
to end. Well, so they don't put it in. We
don't have any offensive or defensive threat detection or and
so I remember he radio, He's like, all right, well
you're getting shot at day one, first day and there's stuff,

(01:53):
you know, blowing up next to our plane and it's
a big casey, it's a big we you know, we're
refueling tanker. Look, we were briefed on every day before
your mission, you're briefed by the intel officers. You know
where the service to the air missile sites are, where
the activity is, what types of weapons they have, and

(02:17):
you know they have these shoulder fired kind of ancient missiles.
But you know, we called it I guess the Golden
bebe right. They're not they're not that sophisticated, but they
can take you out. And you know the range on
those things are you know, I think they were nineteen
thousand feet. So here's the good news. Our er feeling

(02:41):
outsides twenty to thirty thousand feet. So you know, if
we stayed towards the twenty seven thousand feet area, and
you know, there's probably less chance of them being able
to hit us. But you know, as the war progresses,
they obviously got they got their own tactics, and what
they would do is strap these missiles to a mule
and climb up the mountain like chirpa, up the mountain

(03:03):
to about you know, twelve or fourteen thousand feet, and
then you can do the math. They can reach you.
And so you know, there were occasions where they were
they were shooting at us and again no offensive or
defensive threat detection. So how did we know are you know,
we had contact with command and control and they would

(03:24):
tell us, you know, what quadrant or what's you know,
you've got to launch rifle rifle, So you know, there's
not much tactics that you can do. In the case ten,
you could do this kind of retrograde maneuver where you
climb away from the threat and you know, if you're
still alive in seven seconds, great, you know, it can

(03:48):
be described as hours of boredom followed by moments of
sheer terror. You know, that's that's kind of accurate actually,
But I mean I've had to do that before. I've
had to I've had to do that maneuver to climb
away from the threat. And it was it was a
part of my life. And at the time, it was tough.
It was really hard, really really hard. This is it's

(04:09):
a huge mental load emotionally to be twenty two, twenty three,
twenty four have this type of machine that you're responsible
for and the people to operate it and to motivate
and sentivize, and I actually bring them home alive. That's
that's what I would tell them. This machine flies itself,
and you know, my only job is to get you home.

(04:32):
And I remember landing and I was thinking that what
did I What did I get myself into? Like what
what happened? It's so mentally taxing if you're not used
to it or you're not seasoned. I remember we landed
around five pm and you know, the sun was going down.
It's late. It's in November, early November, and the sun's

(04:55):
going down and I just I passed out. I think
it was just mental exhaustion. I was in my uni,
still had my boots on. We're in a tense on
a cot. I probably almost face planted. I was probably
asleep before my head hit the pillow. And you're supposed
to be allowed twelve hours of uninterrupted dress and so

(05:15):
what seemed like twelve hours later, somebody alerted me. I
woke up. I was still in my uniform, I still
had my boots on. It was five and I remember
walking out of the tent and I was like, this
is what side of the planet are we on? Why
is the sun going down? It's getting darker. I had

(05:38):
slept for twenty four straight hours. They woke me up
at five pm. I was alerted for my second combat mission,
and the sun was going down. I don't know too
many people who can sleep for twenty four straight hours,

(05:59):
but it make some type of mental exhaustion for that
to happen. I didn't get up, no food, no water,
no bathroom breaks, and I remember thinking, this is this
is not gonna be easy. This is not gonna be
and that's you know again, I guess that's what these
troops go through, and that's why they probably deserve some
some gratitude and latitude for what they do. I know

(06:23):
they're called to do it, it's their duty and they're
trained to do it. But it's not easy. It wasn't
It wasn't easy.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Had a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to
Peter Braxton for sharing his story of his first day
up in the air as a pilot, a trained pilot
in the US Air Force in Afghanistan. On that very
first day, he hears the words you're getting shot at.

(06:54):
And he's flying a KC ten by the way, a
big refueling tanker. And every day he's briefed about the
perils of being in the air. The intel officers are
telling the kind of weapons the enemy has, where to go,
where not to go. But of course war and combat
well they're unpredictable. And in the end he had one task,

(07:16):
bring his crew home and bring them home. He did
the story of Peter Braxton's first day of combat in
Afghanistan here on our American Stories lie h Habib here, and
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(07:38):
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