Said he was sure he was going to die as they were a couple of platoons spread out across the edge of the valley, divided into groups of 3-4 hundreds of yards apart, with an unknown number of enemies across from them, with no significant support of any kind available. They had dismounted and walked about 12 miles from their dropoff point. Can't recall what he said the elevation was.
He faced frequent sniper fire and what he described as "an occasional storm of fire that was never anywhere close to us," and barely laid eyes on an insurgent. He was told that the enemy wasn't supposed to know they were there, so no smoking and no leaving the foxholes to take a dump.
Finished his story by saying "yeah, pretty f###ing sure they knew we were there."
Crazy. So, your friend based on today’s terms was field ARTY/ like an FO. If one can read a map and knows his 8 digit coordinates-he does not need any ARTY party that in the army is usually a 1LT and his SGT. Anyways, those ROE’s you state stink. No wonder Obama got us run out of places. A US Infantry unit like a rifle company has their own 81 mm mortars. Where were they. The BN HHC has the 4.2’s which are like a 120 MM. 12 miles from an LZ or from being dropped off by mech vehicles there is out of 105 range. Just 10 miles is 16 K’s. 105 mm are effective to 15K’s. What you describe sounds to me like whoever was the unit CO needed to be relieved plus his boss also.