Clearing a Bunker
Sunday, February 06, 2005
12 November: Caught In The Kill Zone
It was midnight. We had followed in the dust trails of Avenger Company. Behind my armored platoon, the scout humvees bumped and bounced behind me. Man I love tracks. So smooth. I was on Phase Line Mike, which was the eastern most north-south road in Fallujah. Open desert was on my left. On my right, just meters from my tank were two story houses. Even if the Marines hadn't cut the power to Fallujah, there still wouldn't be electricity in this city. Every power line was lying on the ground or hanging by one end. The artillery strikes and the high profile Bradleys made sure that the wires came down. I looked at the black houses. Everything had a video game feel in the PVS-14s. Besides the fact that everything was green in night vision, the image had a weird magnification to it. It was not unlike looking through pond water and having the image slightly refracted. The dark green houses looked back at me with black windows. Nothing stirred. Even SGT P wasn't picking up anything in the thermal sights of the tank.
"You know, for all that hype about the enemy having night vision capabilities, I'm not too impressed." I said to my crew.
"Yeah they haven't shit at night," SGT P replied. Our intelligence warned us of the night vision devices found on RPG launchers. I was hoping to have a fight at night,
because even night vision doesn't compare to the thermal imagery of a tank. There are heat signatures that I didn't even know existed, that show up in the sights. Looking at smooth blacktop, you can see distinct streaks in the asphalt. It's absolutely astounding how fine the resolution is in a tank.
We were now a quarter of the way into the southern part of the city. There was only another kilometer or two left until the last house. The last line of houses was where the city stopped and the desert began again. Not a single round was fired so far. The task force decided to halt here at Phase Line Tara. It was a road that ran east and west. Avenger was mostly in front of me. When they reached Tara, they spilled westward into the city. They stayed on line and spread out across that east-west street. Red Platoon was on the eastern flank of Avenger; but they were still in front of ME! Those bastards. The BRT was still lined up behind me.
My tank was at the intersection of Mike and Tara behind a Bradley. The two Bradleys that swapped places with me and SSG Terry were in front and to the right of me. Next to them were two tanks. I watched my platoon sergeant, SFC Kennedy climb out of his tank and walk over to my direction. He climbed up the side of my tank.
"Man. You won't believe the shit we ran into back there. Back in the industrial zone…" SFC Kennedy started telling me of a ridiculous story that happened to him during the day:
SFC Kennedy and Avenger company were pushing south through the industrial zone head on. The BRT was to their left. The streets in the industrial zone were very convoluted and they often ended abruptly. I know this because the BRT had to go back into it on foot and clear every building looking for caches. When SFC Kennedy reached a point where he had to turn left or right, he hollered at McGourty to turn left. But he meant "right." McGourty went left and punched through a gate and came upon a car repair sight. In Iraq, instead of using hydraulic ramps and lifts like they do at your convenient Jiffy Lube, the Iraqis just have two concrete ramps that you drive up on. The ramps lay across a pit that the mechanics work in. In this pit, just meters away from the tank were four insurgents. They never expected to see a tank drive up on them. At first, they didn't even know how to react. They just ducked. So SFC Kennedy attempted to lay his gunner, SGT Kennedy, onto the target. (Understand that SFC Kennedy is the tank commander, and SGT Kennedy is his gunner.)
"Come left! Come left! Come left!"
SGT Kennedy started traversing left. Then right, and then up. He couldn't find the bad guys. The problem was that the tank was slightly sloped upwards, and even though the gun tube was depressed as far it would go, it wasn't low enough to see the bad guys. SGT Kennedy fired main gun anyways. Being a few feet away from a main gun blowing up in your face had to fuck you up, I would think. SGT Kennedy fired two main gun rounds right over their heads. They just took cover. SFC Kennedy was in his TC's hatch on the M2 .50cal machine gun. He tried to lay his gun on the insurgents but the turret was traversing like mad while his gunner tried to acquire the kills.
"Man, that's when I shot my damn MRS off the gun tube," SFC Kennedy told me.
The MRS is the muzzle reference sight. It's a small tube at the end of the gun tube that allows you to re-calibrate your tank sight after firing a few rounds. It's not as perfect as bore sighting, but we weren't facing an enemy in a tank at 4 kilometers away. Our targets were within 1500 meters. A good MRS update was all you needed to get a bead on your targets. And a good gunner who has the time will adjust the target reticle in his sight to line up with his MRS after every few rounds of firing the main gun. When a good gunner cares about his tank, one of his fears is having his loader, who is usually brand new, or a lieutenant tank commander, who is also a rookie, shoot the MRS off of the gun tube. In fact, during gunnery, the gunner will traverse his turret 90 degrees right, forcing his loader to shoot over the side of the turret in order to hit targets in front of the tank.
SFC Kennedy didn't actually shoot if off. He just destroyed it. The mechanics later pulled the .50 caliber armor piercing incendiary round out of the MRS.
Meanwhile, SPC Roby was in the loader's hatch. He grabbed his M4 rifle and started taking single shots into the pit. The hot brass slapped SFC Kennedy in the face.
"Roby! Quit that shit, man!"
"Hey Roby, you want my grenade?" SGT Kennedy asked.
"What the fuck?" SFC Kennedy asked. "Where the fuck did you get a grenade?"
"From my buddy in 2-2IN," SGT Kennedy replied as he handed Roby the grenade.
Oh lord. Here we go, SFC Kennedy thought. I know he's gonna pull that pin and drop the grenade in the damn turret.
Roby pulled that pin and lobbed the grenade at the pit. And it fell short. But when it hit the ground, it did a miracle roll and dropped right into the pit. It blew up and killed two guys right away. From the right, SFC Kennedy's infantry wingmen had pulled up. The dismounts pulled around from behind the Bradley and raced towards the pit. One insurgent raised his AK-47 sideways over the edge of the pit and sprayed a line of bullets at the dismounts. The first soldier took a bullet in the thigh. His leg kicked out to the side and he fell down as it went limp. The soldier behind him raced towards the pit and raised his rifle. He took two shots and killed the first insurgent. Then he killed the second insurgent. For good measure, he put a few more in the chest of the first two corpses.
As SFC Kennedy finished his tale, I sat there wishing I could have seen the enemy in the eye. At least in Baqubah, I stared my enemy in the face as SGT P filled them with 7.62mm and I shredded them with .50cal. So far, all of the insurgents we had killed in Fallujah were pretty far away. Or they were in a building harassing friendlies. In those cases, we just used the main gun to make the building go away.
"You know we're gonna bust your balls about shooting your MRS, SFC Kennedy. That's a rookie move right there." We had a good laugh before he headed back to his tank. SFC Kennedy and I had an awesome platoon leader/platoon sergeant relationship. He was laid back and easy to work with. And with such awesome platoon of soldiers and NCOs, our job was too easy.
The hours dragged by real slowly. My crew was nodding off. I knew the guys were sleeping. I was going in and out of a dream state, myself. It was so painful trying to stay awake. I peeked to my right and looked at the Bradley that was just a few feet to my right. He was practically right up against the house on the corner. I felt good having him at my side. I felt like my flank was covered. A bad guy would have to get around him to get me. I knew I couldn’t stay awake the whole time, and my biggest fear was having an insurgent climb up on my tank and execute us all. Or worse, drop a grenade in the hatch.
Around 0630, the first break of daylight started to emerge. The sun wasn’t up but the sky on my left was lightening. Thank God. It was so much easier to stay awake in the day. The word was coming down from higher. Push south and prepare to clear the last of Fallujah.
At 0700, TF 2-2IN kicked off. The BRT was going to get into the open space on the left or east side of the street, just 20 meters away from the house. Avenger Team was going to go through the houses, into their backyards and clear blocks to my west, moving from north to south. The task force rumbled forward and disappeared among the homes. Phase Line Tara was now right behind us. As I moved slowly south, I caught glimpses of tanks and bradleys passing on the backside of houses. This was history in the making. A heavy armored task force was in the literal backyard of terrorist stomping grounds.
Suddenly bullets started flying in every direction. I heard the whoosh of rockets. RPGs. We were supposed to stay on Avenger and Terminator’s left flank. Stay on line or in front of them. Orient south west or at the 2 o’clock. The idea was to establish a moving support by fire position and focus on shooting everything in front of them and constantly shift fires to the left or further south. But the enemy seemed to be in every direction. Not just in front of them but on top of them, behind them and on both of their sides. We couldn’t shoot anywhere to their flanks because we would cause fratricide. So we had to keep our weapons tight. Avenger Company had vehicles in my lane and there was no room to get on their left flank, so I just stayed put. We had a serious problem with room here that would come up again and again. There were just WAY too many big vehicles. Just way too many forces in such a small sector of urban terrain.
”Red 8, Red 6. Pull back a little bit and get on PL Tara. Then move west and turn south first chance you get to turn into those houses. I’ll stay on your left flank and keep eyes on you as you move south. We’ll stay on line.”
I watched SSG Terry pull back and turn down the street moving west. I was looking down the space between that first corner house we slept near during the night, and the house adjacent to it, to its south. There were only a few meters of space between the two houses. SSG Terry popped into view as he moved from north to south in their backyards and then he stopped. The front half of his tank was behind the second house, but I could still see him and SPC Dawes standing up in their holes. SSG Terry was so high up in his hole, it looked like his ass was resting on the hatch. Suddenly, I saw a head peek from the back corner of the first house. I bent down into the GPSE to get a better look. When I did, I saw a red laser beam fire from just 10 meters behind SSG Terry…right at the rear of his tank.
“RPG!!!”
“OH SHIT,” SGT P screamed.
BOOM.
The RPG exploded on SSG Terry’s tank. The back half of his tank disappeared in a cloud of white smoke. OH SHIT. OH SHIT. OH SHIT. OH SHIT. SSG TERRY’S DEAD. My stomach turned and I felt sick. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling you get when you see your family get shot at by direct fire and disappear in a flash. All of this happened in the blink of an eye; the RPG, my thoughts, the sickening feeling. We couldn’t shoot back because there were friendly forces in every direction. It seemed like nobody knew what was going on.
”RED 8, RED 8, THIS IS RED 6. YOU JUST GOT HIT WITH AN RPG! ARE YOU OK?” I know it seems silly to tell him that. But believe it or not, in the confusion of battle, especially on something as big as a tank, it’s hard to figure out what is going on and what the explosion might have been. And there were a lot of things exploding in Fallujah. Grenades, RPGs, land mines, AT-4s, MK-19, 25mm chain gun, TOW missiles, Javelins, Main Gun, CAS(close air support) like 2,000lbs bombs, 5,000 pound bombs, and JDAMs, to name a few things.
There was a spot opening up in the smoke where I saw SSG Terry’s big round CVC helmet. He was spinning around looking for the enemy. The scene looked frantic. The sonofabitch picked up a second RPG and prepared to fire again. The turret was facing forward and both machine guns were facing to the sides. There was no way they were going to be able to traverse in time to get the machine guns on this guy. The smoke cleared a little more, and that’s when I saw SPC Dawes in the loader’s station. He was real low, just his arms and shoulders and head exposed out of the hole. He faced to the rear and looked the terrorist in the face. He watched the terrorist raise his RPG. “Oh no you don’t,” he later told me he said. He raised his M16 rifle from the turret top and took aim. He fired one shot into the enemy’s hip. The bastard bent forward. Dawes shot him again in the chest and dropped him to the ground. SPC Dawes just saved his tank, and his crew from destruction.
This was the guy who shit on himself in the driver’s hole when SSG Terry yelled at him during gunnery more than a year ago back in Germany. This was a soldier who then was sent to support platoon and was just dying to get back to a line platoon of tanks. Because he was a 19K. After this event, he became a lot stronger, more confident and more outgoing. SPC Dawes surprised us all.
”Red 6, this is Red 8. We’re fine. I just shit all over myself. Heh-haw-haw-haaaw…” He said with that hillbilly laugh of his. The RPG had struck the wall of the second house which was just inches away from the rear of his tank. I thought he was gone for sure and it was a horrible feeling. SSG Terry was lucky. That RPG could have hit the top of the turret and there was no way he could have survived. Although it’s recommended to maintain a low defilade in the turret, it is impossible to maneuver in a city. You just have to be standing up to see where you are going, where your friendly dismounts are, and where the bad guys are.
”This motherfucker has a cot set up and everything, 6. Take a look behind me.”
I looked in the GPSE at the spot where the first RPG had been fired. There was a little cot with a tiny foam mattress on it. The enemy was sleeping in their backyards. Leaning up against the wall was another RPG. I couldn’t believe this house was right in front of us while we were here during the night. The enemy had been sleeping in their backyards in little hides while an armored task force waited in their front yards. It was unbelievable and a little scary the more we thought about it. As it turned out, there were cots like this all over the place in backyards and little holes in the ground with corrugated aluminum for a top. These were what we called bunkers. The bunkers held 1 to 2 men. Right now it was early morning on the 12th of November and TF2-2 was caught in the kill zone.
Saturday, February 05, 2005
CB: 8 November
Couple Things
Alright, I have some good news and bad news. The good news is that I’ve got Neil talking to some book people about writing a book after this whole Iraq thing is over. The bad news is that Neil hasn’t had the time to write another entry for his blog and I (Chris Boggiano) took up his offer to tell another story from our first few days in Fallujah. Also, I’m a) too incompetent and b) too lazy to start up my own blog so I’ll just write some random entries for his to give you a different perspective on things.
I know Neil has been going chronologically through the battle from his perspective, but unfortunately the vast majority of cool stuff happened in the time period that he’s already covered. So, bear with me as we go back in time to the first day of the battle.
As Neil already mentioned, my platoon was instructed to drive up on the highway that separated the actual city of Fallujah and the rest of our task force at around 0900 on the first day of the battle - about 10 hours ahead of the main body. Once up there, we were supposed to look for enemy fighting positions and call for artillery on them. For reasons still unknown to me, I was only allowed to take two of my humvees up on the road and had to leave my other two trucks parked back in the staging area.
I chose to take my bravo section because one of its two trucks had an LRAS sight. Basically, an LRAS is a sight with approximately a 50x magnification that has both daytime and thermal optics. For people who have no idea what any of that really means, I like to say that it can see a freckle on someone’s ass from 5 kilometers away if they’re wearing a pair of jeans. Also, when it sees something it can do some fancy computer stuff and figure out an exact position to a target within one meter of accuracy. Fortunately for my platoon, our LRAS was the only one working in the task force so that’s how we got picked to get into the fight a little ahead of schedule.
The first hour or two on the highway was pretty uneventful. The marines had surrounded the city days before and actually had humvees parked every few hundred meters along the road so I’m sure we didn’t really stand out very much to the insurgents in the city when we pulled up there. SSG Danielsen and I actually had to walk up to the road and meet up with the two trucks since we were both part of alpha section that was stuck back in the staging area and neither of us wanted to miss out on any of the action. SGT Bowman, who was manning the LRAS at the time, scanned the rooftops in the city and didn’t see much of anything.
Eventually we all saw a puff of smoke out of the northeast corner of the city and watched a mortar round impact in the task force’s staging area a few seconds later. Up until then, my troop commander had been up on the road with me at our position. I wasn’t a big fan of the situation because only half my platoon was capable of fighting and I had my boss there more or less running the show for me. I asked him two or three times if I could bring the rest of my platoon up on the road so I would at least have my own truck to sit in but I think they didn’t want to tip the enemy off that we were going to attack that evening. So, naturally in their efforts at being subtle they decided to bring Neil’s platoon of two tanks and Bradleys up – because they are way less obvious than humvees. I wasn’t complaining though. It’s always nice to have a tank nearby.
As soon as Neil drove up the steep embankment I waved his tank over to near my two humvees. Little did I know that it would be the first of many times in the following two weeks that I would make an ass out of myself. I ran to the back of Neil’s tank so I could tell him where we had seen the puff of smoke. Climbing up on the back of a tank isn’t the hardest thing in the world to do under normal circumstances. You basically put your first foot in the rear sprocket and grab onto the cap to the rear fuel cell because it’s the only thing that sticks out on the back of the tank. Well, it’s a lot more difficult to do with body armor on and even harder still when the back of the tank is slippery like a greased pig from the rain that morning. So, Neil got to spend his first couple of minutes in the battle watching his buddy make an ass out of himself trying over and over again to climb up on the back of his tank – a memorable experience I’m sure.
Anyway, I eventually got up on the back of the tank and told him that the puff of smoke came from the house on the very northeast corner of the city. Neil acknowledged and I hopped down and ran back to my truck. By then my commander had gone back down to the staging area to relocate the entire task force to another position to get out of range of the mortar attacks. I watched Neil drive down the road a couple hundred meters and point his gun tube toward the house in question. I yelled for my scouts to cover their ears because they were about to hear a big boom.
BOOOOOM!!!
Even though we all knew it was coming, the sound of a tank main gun going off still managed to catch everyone by surprise with its concussion and made us jump just a bit.
“Outlaw1, Red6, was that the house?”
“Try one more building down and you’ll be there.”
Firing main gun rounds was a big deal. I had been a tank platoon leader in Iraq for four months before I took over my scout platoon and hadn’t ever fired a single one because of the amount of damage they do. They also cost a lot of money. I had just watched Neil fire at the wrong house and I felt like an idiot for not describing better where to shoot.
BOOOOOM!!!
The second round went down range.
“Outlaw1, Red6, how about that one?”
“Errrr, try one more house down, I mean it this time”
By then I was cursing myself. I was waiting for my commander to come across the net and yell at me for wasting so much ammunition and to tell him exactly where the house was. Little did I know at the time that the battle of Fallujah would be the biggest free for all shootout that I would ever experience and that Neil would shoot 45 main gun rounds from his tank alone by the end of the first day.
BOOOOOM!!!
Just then Neil hit the right house. Somewhere in the ball of fire and smoke, my medic said that he spotted an insurgent limp away into an alley holding his leg, but no one else saw anything. How someone survived three tank rounds getting fired directly into their position is beyond me, but at least no more mortars were fired from that location, and hopefully the guy limping away died sometime later that day.
Shortly after Neil’s tank shot, the insurgents started coming out of hiding. We started to take some sporadic sniper fire and my LRAS gunner spotted five insurgents with AK-47’s and RPG’s standing on a rooftop. SSG Amyett, my bravo section sergeant, had hopped up on the LRAS and only minutes earlier and already spotted our first target of the day. I quickly got the 10 digit grid to the building’s location and called over to the forward observer that had been attached to my platoon. Normally, there is a protocol about how to correctly call for fire, but I was never too good at that sort of thing. Instead, I called over to him and yelled all of the different information that he needed and let him do the protocol part. After all, I figured that was his job.
Calling for artillery normally takes a long time because of the number of people involved in the process. First, whoever sees a target relays it to the forward observer who calls up a fire mission. Then, all sorts of people have to give permission for the rounds to be dropped. Next, the information is relayed to the actual canons that shoot the rounds from somewhere far far away. Finally, they shoot one single round and it almost never hits its target the first time, but that’s okay. After watching the first round impact most of the hard work is done. From there all you have to do is guess how far to the left or right it was and whether it needs to go up or down and relay those distances to the guns which then shoot another round. This process continues until one round comes within 50 meters of its target and then they do what is called a fire for effect. Knowing that the guns have zeroed in on their target, they fire a volley of rounds and try to destroy it.
As luck would have it, our protocol was abbreviated that day. We knew there were no friendly forces in the city, so I didn’t have to get anyone’s permission to fire the rounds. Also, I’m guessing the artillery guys were antsy to kill some stuff because they didn’t bother wait for the adjusting phase to completely finish. So, only a few minutes after I initially requested the mission based on the information SSG Amyett was giving me, I watched the first round impact a couple hundred meters to the right and too far in of our target. Right from there our forward observer called in the adjustment and fired for effect. Unfortunately, we then watched all six artillery rounds impact about 50 meters to the right of the building we were trying to hit. I’m sure it scared them plenty and gave them all bad headaches, but I doubt any of them were killed… until we made one last adjustment and fired six more rounds.
We all stood and listened to the artillery rounds scream overhead and watched them slam into the building where the insurgents were. Amazingly, all they had done after the first volley missed their position was go inside the room on the top floor and look out the windows. In a matter of seconds the entire building was obscured by smoke.
The final step in the process of calling for artillery is giving an estimate of the damage done and ending the mission so the guns can go on to killing something else someone is looking at.
“Outlaw1, Bulldog17, can you give me a battle damage assessment from those rounds.”
I yelled up to SSG Amyett to tell me what he could see through the thermal sight on the LRAS that cut right through the smoke.
“The whole fucking building is gone. I love my job!!!”
The rounds had impacted directly on top of the building and collapsed its weak mud brick structure. We all jumped up and down and gave each other high fives like we had just scored a goal.
Good guys five, bad guys zero.
If there were five guys on the roof I can only hope that there were more on the lower floors. All I knew is that the rest of our task force was going to have to attack through that position later that day and that was at least five less insurgents they would have to face.
Our celebrating didn’t last long. As soon as we finished calling for artillery, we started taking heavy sniper fire. I guess the bad guys had figured out that we were just two more marine trucks that were surrounding the city.
Our battle had finally kicked off, and it was still more than eight hours until the main body’s assault.
Alright, I have some good news and bad news. The good news is that I’ve got Neil talking to some book people about writing a book after this whole Iraq thing is over. The bad news is that Neil hasn’t had the time to write another entry for his blog and I (Chris Boggiano) took up his offer to tell another story from our first few days in Fallujah. Also, I’m a) too incompetent and b) too lazy to start up my own blog so I’ll just write some random entries for his to give you a different perspective on things.
I know Neil has been going chronologically through the battle from his perspective, but unfortunately the vast majority of cool stuff happened in the time period that he’s already covered. So, bear with me as we go back in time to the first day of the battle.
As Neil already mentioned, my platoon was instructed to drive up on the highway that separated the actual city of Fallujah and the rest of our task force at around 0900 on the first day of the battle - about 10 hours ahead of the main body. Once up there, we were supposed to look for enemy fighting positions and call for artillery on them. For reasons still unknown to me, I was only allowed to take two of my humvees up on the road and had to leave my other two trucks parked back in the staging area.
I chose to take my bravo section because one of its two trucks had an LRAS sight. Basically, an LRAS is a sight with approximately a 50x magnification that has both daytime and thermal optics. For people who have no idea what any of that really means, I like to say that it can see a freckle on someone’s ass from 5 kilometers away if they’re wearing a pair of jeans. Also, when it sees something it can do some fancy computer stuff and figure out an exact position to a target within one meter of accuracy. Fortunately for my platoon, our LRAS was the only one working in the task force so that’s how we got picked to get into the fight a little ahead of schedule.
The first hour or two on the highway was pretty uneventful. The marines had surrounded the city days before and actually had humvees parked every few hundred meters along the road so I’m sure we didn’t really stand out very much to the insurgents in the city when we pulled up there. SSG Danielsen and I actually had to walk up to the road and meet up with the two trucks since we were both part of alpha section that was stuck back in the staging area and neither of us wanted to miss out on any of the action. SGT Bowman, who was manning the LRAS at the time, scanned the rooftops in the city and didn’t see much of anything.
Eventually we all saw a puff of smoke out of the northeast corner of the city and watched a mortar round impact in the task force’s staging area a few seconds later. Up until then, my troop commander had been up on the road with me at our position. I wasn’t a big fan of the situation because only half my platoon was capable of fighting and I had my boss there more or less running the show for me. I asked him two or three times if I could bring the rest of my platoon up on the road so I would at least have my own truck to sit in but I think they didn’t want to tip the enemy off that we were going to attack that evening. So, naturally in their efforts at being subtle they decided to bring Neil’s platoon of two tanks and Bradleys up – because they are way less obvious than humvees. I wasn’t complaining though. It’s always nice to have a tank nearby.
As soon as Neil drove up the steep embankment I waved his tank over to near my two humvees. Little did I know that it would be the first of many times in the following two weeks that I would make an ass out of myself. I ran to the back of Neil’s tank so I could tell him where we had seen the puff of smoke. Climbing up on the back of a tank isn’t the hardest thing in the world to do under normal circumstances. You basically put your first foot in the rear sprocket and grab onto the cap to the rear fuel cell because it’s the only thing that sticks out on the back of the tank. Well, it’s a lot more difficult to do with body armor on and even harder still when the back of the tank is slippery like a greased pig from the rain that morning. So, Neil got to spend his first couple of minutes in the battle watching his buddy make an ass out of himself trying over and over again to climb up on the back of his tank – a memorable experience I’m sure.
Anyway, I eventually got up on the back of the tank and told him that the puff of smoke came from the house on the very northeast corner of the city. Neil acknowledged and I hopped down and ran back to my truck. By then my commander had gone back down to the staging area to relocate the entire task force to another position to get out of range of the mortar attacks. I watched Neil drive down the road a couple hundred meters and point his gun tube toward the house in question. I yelled for my scouts to cover their ears because they were about to hear a big boom.
BOOOOOM!!!
Even though we all knew it was coming, the sound of a tank main gun going off still managed to catch everyone by surprise with its concussion and made us jump just a bit.
“Outlaw1, Red6, was that the house?”
“Try one more building down and you’ll be there.”
Firing main gun rounds was a big deal. I had been a tank platoon leader in Iraq for four months before I took over my scout platoon and hadn’t ever fired a single one because of the amount of damage they do. They also cost a lot of money. I had just watched Neil fire at the wrong house and I felt like an idiot for not describing better where to shoot.
BOOOOOM!!!
The second round went down range.
“Outlaw1, Red6, how about that one?”
“Errrr, try one more house down, I mean it this time”
By then I was cursing myself. I was waiting for my commander to come across the net and yell at me for wasting so much ammunition and to tell him exactly where the house was. Little did I know at the time that the battle of Fallujah would be the biggest free for all shootout that I would ever experience and that Neil would shoot 45 main gun rounds from his tank alone by the end of the first day.
BOOOOOM!!!
Just then Neil hit the right house. Somewhere in the ball of fire and smoke, my medic said that he spotted an insurgent limp away into an alley holding his leg, but no one else saw anything. How someone survived three tank rounds getting fired directly into their position is beyond me, but at least no more mortars were fired from that location, and hopefully the guy limping away died sometime later that day.
Shortly after Neil’s tank shot, the insurgents started coming out of hiding. We started to take some sporadic sniper fire and my LRAS gunner spotted five insurgents with AK-47’s and RPG’s standing on a rooftop. SSG Amyett, my bravo section sergeant, had hopped up on the LRAS and only minutes earlier and already spotted our first target of the day. I quickly got the 10 digit grid to the building’s location and called over to the forward observer that had been attached to my platoon. Normally, there is a protocol about how to correctly call for fire, but I was never too good at that sort of thing. Instead, I called over to him and yelled all of the different information that he needed and let him do the protocol part. After all, I figured that was his job.
Calling for artillery normally takes a long time because of the number of people involved in the process. First, whoever sees a target relays it to the forward observer who calls up a fire mission. Then, all sorts of people have to give permission for the rounds to be dropped. Next, the information is relayed to the actual canons that shoot the rounds from somewhere far far away. Finally, they shoot one single round and it almost never hits its target the first time, but that’s okay. After watching the first round impact most of the hard work is done. From there all you have to do is guess how far to the left or right it was and whether it needs to go up or down and relay those distances to the guns which then shoot another round. This process continues until one round comes within 50 meters of its target and then they do what is called a fire for effect. Knowing that the guns have zeroed in on their target, they fire a volley of rounds and try to destroy it.
As luck would have it, our protocol was abbreviated that day. We knew there were no friendly forces in the city, so I didn’t have to get anyone’s permission to fire the rounds. Also, I’m guessing the artillery guys were antsy to kill some stuff because they didn’t bother wait for the adjusting phase to completely finish. So, only a few minutes after I initially requested the mission based on the information SSG Amyett was giving me, I watched the first round impact a couple hundred meters to the right and too far in of our target. Right from there our forward observer called in the adjustment and fired for effect. Unfortunately, we then watched all six artillery rounds impact about 50 meters to the right of the building we were trying to hit. I’m sure it scared them plenty and gave them all bad headaches, but I doubt any of them were killed… until we made one last adjustment and fired six more rounds.
We all stood and listened to the artillery rounds scream overhead and watched them slam into the building where the insurgents were. Amazingly, all they had done after the first volley missed their position was go inside the room on the top floor and look out the windows. In a matter of seconds the entire building was obscured by smoke.
The final step in the process of calling for artillery is giving an estimate of the damage done and ending the mission so the guns can go on to killing something else someone is looking at.
“Outlaw1, Bulldog17, can you give me a battle damage assessment from those rounds.”
I yelled up to SSG Amyett to tell me what he could see through the thermal sight on the LRAS that cut right through the smoke.
“The whole fucking building is gone. I love my job!!!”
The rounds had impacted directly on top of the building and collapsed its weak mud brick structure. We all jumped up and down and gave each other high fives like we had just scored a goal.
Good guys five, bad guys zero.
If there were five guys on the roof I can only hope that there were more on the lower floors. All I knew is that the rest of our task force was going to have to attack through that position later that day and that was at least five less insurgents they would have to face.
Our celebrating didn’t last long. As soon as we finished calling for artillery, we started taking heavy sniper fire. I guess the bad guys had figured out that we were just two more marine trucks that were surrounding the city.
Our battle had finally kicked off, and it was still more than eight hours until the main body’s assault.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
11 November: Mewborn, Crank It Up.
It was 1900 and it was dark. We were supposed to push south of the industrial zone at 1400 but the Marines still weren't on line with us. Everybody cracked some more IR chemlights and placed them on their antennas.
SGT P had come up with a clever chemlight holder. He took a .50cal link and taped it to the antenna. Since one loop of the link was fatter than the other, we could slip fresh chemlights in and out without having to mess with the tape anymore. Just an AAR tip.
We pushed off and started moving south. It wasn’t long before the road turned due south. At this point, Avenger popped out from our front right and cut right in front of us.
“Phantom 6, Red 6. Avenger just pulled in front of us. I have no clearance of fires.”
“Red 6, Phantom 6, roger. If they want to go ahead of us, let ‘em. Break. All Phantom elements, hold your positions here.”
This was the moment when all of my respect for the BRT solidified. Up until this moment, I had the same impression of the BRT that everyone else back in the brigade did. That these guys were cocky, reckless sons of bitches who destroyed everything they got their hands on. Back in Baqubah, they developed a notorious reputation. People thought they were rash and hard-handed. It seemed like they drove fast and shot up everything they saw. SASO wasn’t what the BRT was best used for. They were best used in HIC situations and that’s exactly what we were in now.
But for the first time, I was seeing a self-controlled, tactically patient unit that operated with lethal precision. I looked at the terrain of the city on my map. What was happening was that the north half of the city had finally funneled down and there just wasn’t enough space for all of these maneuver units. The north half of the city had been wide enough to support an armored company, a mechanized company, and a hunter/killer troop. But now we were bottlenecking. Avenger was forced to cross into our lane. As much as I felt like the sector was mine, Phantom 6 was right. What’s the point of butting heads? If they want to run with it, let them.
My crew and SSG Terry’s crew discussed all of this on our platoon net. We were all impressed with CPT Mayfield’s chill attitude.
“Sir, can I put my IR lenses in?” Mewborn asked from the driver’s hole.
“No. You don’t need ‘em. I’ll just tell you where to turn,” I replied. The blackness was not making it easy on Mewborn. With no moon out, he was pretty much blind in the hole. I was standing out of the hatch with my PVS-14 glued to my eyeball. All I had to do was tell him where to turn and when to go and stop. He wanted to put an IR lens on our one headlight. The light produced when IR lenses are in is invisible to the naked eye, but if you’re using a driver’s night sight in conjunction, it’s as bright as a headlight. But tanks aren’t as fortunate as Bradleys, humvees, or even M113s. Brads and M113s have white light and IR lights in separate lamps. They can switch easily between the two. Humvees have blackout drive markers and blackout lights. But with tanks, you have to get on the ground, use a screwdriver, take out the clear lenses and put in IR lenses. We used to put our IR lenses in on night tank missions when we first got to Iraq. But we learned a few things. 1) Driving in blackout with a tank just leads to head-on collisions with civilians and their deaths. 2) On tank patrols, we are not trying to sneak up on the enemy. And finally, there was this one night on Ambush Alley, SSG Terry and I needed white light to illuminate a side street immediately. With our IR lenses in, we were up shit creek without a paddle. No white light available. A lesson learned was that we would always keep our clear lenses in and let the tank commanders guide the drivers if need be.
It was annoying for Mewborn. He had no problems having to drive blind; it just sucked to be blind. But I also knew one thing. Mewborn was the best driver I’ve ever seen...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
It was April 15th and we were doing a routine patrol in our humvees. Our mission was to disrupt enemy activity. That just meant be out in sector late in the night and stop, look and listen. We would drive around the back roads in black out drive. Every now and then we would stop for about a litte while, kill our engines and get out and look around. This was an LP/OP. Listening Post/Observation Post. We were hoping to catch some bad guys out in the palm groves setting up a mortar tube. Don’t misinterpret this stuff. Catching bad guys is not an every day thing. It’s about 95% luck to be at the right place at the right time. But like our battalion commander says. It’s best to be good AND lucky.
There was this one route that had more enemy activity than normal. Our engineer platoon got shot at with small arms and RPGs almost every time they drove around there. There was a road that had a thick palm grove along one side.
“Red, this is Red 6. Let’s do one more pass down RTE Bear and head back.”
It was 2245 and our patrol time was coming up. I figured one more LP/OP and we could turn in. We turned off of the MSR and headed down the route.
”15 minutes and then we pack it up.”
At 2300, we mounted up in our humvees and started moving north on the route. I was in the lead, with SSG Terry right behind me. SFC Kennedy, my platoon sergeant was in the last and fourth humvee. As we moved north, we saw two sets of headlights coming our direction.
We were in farm country Strange for people to be driving around at this hour. It’s pretty late out.
“Ah Jesus. I can’t see.” Mewborn said. His PVS 7s were washed out from the headlights. So were my 14s.
“Go white light, Mew.” On normal patrols, if we’re not trying to be covert, we flip the headlights on before on-coming traffic washes us out.
Mewborn turned his headlights on, as we were about 500 meters away from the first car.
That’s when they shit their pants.
The first car screeched off to the shoulder and slammed on his brakes. The second car was another 500 meters away. He slammed on his brakes and turned his headlights off.
“OH SHIT. Something is going on.” The second car started backing up and turning. He started a three-point turn. He was trying to get the hell out of dodge.
“GO GO GO, MEWBORN!” I hollered.
”Red 7, Red 6. Your section take this first car, my section will take the second car.”?
“This is Red 7, roger.”
“Mewborn. FUCKING GO.”
He punched the gas and the truck roared. Up-armoreds were heavy. About 6,500lbs heavy. But they don’t come without some junk in the trunk. Unlike an M998, the M1114s have a pretty sweet tuned turbocharged diesel engine. The truck hurtled its weight forward but we weren’t closing the gap. Our acceleration was no match for that light vehicle in front of us. He drew further away until he reached the MSR. He hooked a left at the intersection and headed for the city.
“Avenger X-Ray. This is Red 6. We are on RTE Bear, moving north in pursuit of two vehicles trying to evade us.”
“WOOooh!”
“Yeah baby!”
“Let’s get this motherfucker!”
We were now going 70 miles per hour and approaching the T-junction. And screaming our heads off with adrenaline. On the other side of the T was a canal. These humvees were notorious for rolling over because they were so heavy. If we didn’t make the turn, we would be in for a swim. Mewborn approached the intersection and cut hard left before the turn. The truck skidded sideways and went into a power slide. We were facing west but the truck was moving north. I looked out my passenger window as the black canal and desert began to swallow us.
Silence. Nobody screamed, nobody breathed. Even the engine was quiet while Mewborn worked the brake. The tires didn’t squeal. They just made a scraping noise like when you drag a duffel bag across the asphalt.
The truck was now on the MSR facing west but still moving north. Mewborn stomped on the accelerator and the tires bit the blacktop. The engine screamed again and the truck catapulted forward.
“FUCKING SHIT!”
“YEAH!”
“GO BABY!” I screamed. I punched the air and flailed around in my seat like a hyperactive child.
The bad guy must have gotten hung up on the turn because now we closed the distance.
“Should I shoot him?” SGT P asked.
“Yeah shoot his fucking car.” I screamed.
SGT P stood up in the hatch, waist high. “WAIT!!” I hollered. “Not with the .50cal. Use your M16.” I thought about the Iraqi Army soldiers who were guarding a checkpoint up ahead. Plus we were now in the city limits and there were houses everywhere.
SGT P took aim with his rifle. With no hands to brace himself, he was being hurled around in the hatch as we chased the car. Imagine standing up in a racing vehicle with no brace and your hips slamming into the rim of the metal hatch in the roof.
POP.POP
Two shots. One in the rear left quarter panel. One in the rear left corner window. The car skidded left and lost control. He skidded into a shallow irrigation ditch. We pulled up to him as he climbed out of his car.
“GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND NOW. MOVE AND I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF.”
What the hell was going on? Mewborn was already out of the car, 9 millimeter locked and loaded. He was standing with one foot on the bad guy’s neck and the barrel of his pistol on the guy’s temple. Damn. That was fast.
I got out with Langford as SSG Terry and his crew pulled security.
We ended up snagging a pretty sweet catch that night based on the evidence PFC Langford pulled out of his car. The whole event was like a scene out of COPS. We had been in country for about a month by this point. Since I knew we could tank our asses off, I figured now we got this humvee thing down cold too.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Avenger roared to life and pulled away from us, farther into the southern half of Fallujah. The task force was moving into the thick residential neighborhood. It was time to follow behind them. Resistance was supposed to be its highest here.
“Mewborn! Crank it up!”
SGT P had come up with a clever chemlight holder. He took a .50cal link and taped it to the antenna. Since one loop of the link was fatter than the other, we could slip fresh chemlights in and out without having to mess with the tape anymore. Just an AAR tip.
We pushed off and started moving south. It wasn’t long before the road turned due south. At this point, Avenger popped out from our front right and cut right in front of us.
“Phantom 6, Red 6. Avenger just pulled in front of us. I have no clearance of fires.”
“Red 6, Phantom 6, roger. If they want to go ahead of us, let ‘em. Break. All Phantom elements, hold your positions here.”
This was the moment when all of my respect for the BRT solidified. Up until this moment, I had the same impression of the BRT that everyone else back in the brigade did. That these guys were cocky, reckless sons of bitches who destroyed everything they got their hands on. Back in Baqubah, they developed a notorious reputation. People thought they were rash and hard-handed. It seemed like they drove fast and shot up everything they saw. SASO wasn’t what the BRT was best used for. They were best used in HIC situations and that’s exactly what we were in now.
But for the first time, I was seeing a self-controlled, tactically patient unit that operated with lethal precision. I looked at the terrain of the city on my map. What was happening was that the north half of the city had finally funneled down and there just wasn’t enough space for all of these maneuver units. The north half of the city had been wide enough to support an armored company, a mechanized company, and a hunter/killer troop. But now we were bottlenecking. Avenger was forced to cross into our lane. As much as I felt like the sector was mine, Phantom 6 was right. What’s the point of butting heads? If they want to run with it, let them.
My crew and SSG Terry’s crew discussed all of this on our platoon net. We were all impressed with CPT Mayfield’s chill attitude.
“Sir, can I put my IR lenses in?” Mewborn asked from the driver’s hole.
“No. You don’t need ‘em. I’ll just tell you where to turn,” I replied. The blackness was not making it easy on Mewborn. With no moon out, he was pretty much blind in the hole. I was standing out of the hatch with my PVS-14 glued to my eyeball. All I had to do was tell him where to turn and when to go and stop. He wanted to put an IR lens on our one headlight. The light produced when IR lenses are in is invisible to the naked eye, but if you’re using a driver’s night sight in conjunction, it’s as bright as a headlight. But tanks aren’t as fortunate as Bradleys, humvees, or even M113s. Brads and M113s have white light and IR lights in separate lamps. They can switch easily between the two. Humvees have blackout drive markers and blackout lights. But with tanks, you have to get on the ground, use a screwdriver, take out the clear lenses and put in IR lenses. We used to put our IR lenses in on night tank missions when we first got to Iraq. But we learned a few things. 1) Driving in blackout with a tank just leads to head-on collisions with civilians and their deaths. 2) On tank patrols, we are not trying to sneak up on the enemy. And finally, there was this one night on Ambush Alley, SSG Terry and I needed white light to illuminate a side street immediately. With our IR lenses in, we were up shit creek without a paddle. No white light available. A lesson learned was that we would always keep our clear lenses in and let the tank commanders guide the drivers if need be.
It was annoying for Mewborn. He had no problems having to drive blind; it just sucked to be blind. But I also knew one thing. Mewborn was the best driver I’ve ever seen...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
It was April 15th and we were doing a routine patrol in our humvees. Our mission was to disrupt enemy activity. That just meant be out in sector late in the night and stop, look and listen. We would drive around the back roads in black out drive. Every now and then we would stop for about a litte while, kill our engines and get out and look around. This was an LP/OP. Listening Post/Observation Post. We were hoping to catch some bad guys out in the palm groves setting up a mortar tube. Don’t misinterpret this stuff. Catching bad guys is not an every day thing. It’s about 95% luck to be at the right place at the right time. But like our battalion commander says. It’s best to be good AND lucky.
There was this one route that had more enemy activity than normal. Our engineer platoon got shot at with small arms and RPGs almost every time they drove around there. There was a road that had a thick palm grove along one side.
“Red, this is Red 6. Let’s do one more pass down RTE Bear and head back.”
It was 2245 and our patrol time was coming up. I figured one more LP/OP and we could turn in. We turned off of the MSR and headed down the route.
”15 minutes and then we pack it up.”
At 2300, we mounted up in our humvees and started moving north on the route. I was in the lead, with SSG Terry right behind me. SFC Kennedy, my platoon sergeant was in the last and fourth humvee. As we moved north, we saw two sets of headlights coming our direction.
We were in farm country Strange for people to be driving around at this hour. It’s pretty late out.
“Ah Jesus. I can’t see.” Mewborn said. His PVS 7s were washed out from the headlights. So were my 14s.
“Go white light, Mew.” On normal patrols, if we’re not trying to be covert, we flip the headlights on before on-coming traffic washes us out.
Mewborn turned his headlights on, as we were about 500 meters away from the first car.
That’s when they shit their pants.
The first car screeched off to the shoulder and slammed on his brakes. The second car was another 500 meters away. He slammed on his brakes and turned his headlights off.
“OH SHIT. Something is going on.” The second car started backing up and turning. He started a three-point turn. He was trying to get the hell out of dodge.
“GO GO GO, MEWBORN!” I hollered.
”Red 7, Red 6. Your section take this first car, my section will take the second car.”?
“This is Red 7, roger.”
“Mewborn. FUCKING GO.”
He punched the gas and the truck roared. Up-armoreds were heavy. About 6,500lbs heavy. But they don’t come without some junk in the trunk. Unlike an M998, the M1114s have a pretty sweet tuned turbocharged diesel engine. The truck hurtled its weight forward but we weren’t closing the gap. Our acceleration was no match for that light vehicle in front of us. He drew further away until he reached the MSR. He hooked a left at the intersection and headed for the city.
“Avenger X-Ray. This is Red 6. We are on RTE Bear, moving north in pursuit of two vehicles trying to evade us.”
“WOOooh!”
“Yeah baby!”
“Let’s get this motherfucker!”
We were now going 70 miles per hour and approaching the T-junction. And screaming our heads off with adrenaline. On the other side of the T was a canal. These humvees were notorious for rolling over because they were so heavy. If we didn’t make the turn, we would be in for a swim. Mewborn approached the intersection and cut hard left before the turn. The truck skidded sideways and went into a power slide. We were facing west but the truck was moving north. I looked out my passenger window as the black canal and desert began to swallow us.
Silence. Nobody screamed, nobody breathed. Even the engine was quiet while Mewborn worked the brake. The tires didn’t squeal. They just made a scraping noise like when you drag a duffel bag across the asphalt.
The truck was now on the MSR facing west but still moving north. Mewborn stomped on the accelerator and the tires bit the blacktop. The engine screamed again and the truck catapulted forward.
“FUCKING SHIT!”
“YEAH!”
“GO BABY!” I screamed. I punched the air and flailed around in my seat like a hyperactive child.
The bad guy must have gotten hung up on the turn because now we closed the distance.
“Should I shoot him?” SGT P asked.
“Yeah shoot his fucking car.” I screamed.
SGT P stood up in the hatch, waist high. “WAIT!!” I hollered. “Not with the .50cal. Use your M16.” I thought about the Iraqi Army soldiers who were guarding a checkpoint up ahead. Plus we were now in the city limits and there were houses everywhere.
SGT P took aim with his rifle. With no hands to brace himself, he was being hurled around in the hatch as we chased the car. Imagine standing up in a racing vehicle with no brace and your hips slamming into the rim of the metal hatch in the roof.
POP.POP
Two shots. One in the rear left quarter panel. One in the rear left corner window. The car skidded left and lost control. He skidded into a shallow irrigation ditch. We pulled up to him as he climbed out of his car.
“GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND NOW. MOVE AND I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF.”
What the hell was going on? Mewborn was already out of the car, 9 millimeter locked and loaded. He was standing with one foot on the bad guy’s neck and the barrel of his pistol on the guy’s temple. Damn. That was fast.
I got out with Langford as SSG Terry and his crew pulled security.
We ended up snagging a pretty sweet catch that night based on the evidence PFC Langford pulled out of his car. The whole event was like a scene out of COPS. We had been in country for about a month by this point. Since I knew we could tank our asses off, I figured now we got this humvee thing down cold too.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Avenger roared to life and pulled away from us, farther into the southern half of Fallujah. The task force was moving into the thick residential neighborhood. It was time to follow behind them. Resistance was supposed to be its highest here.
“Mewborn! Crank it up!”
Monday, January 31, 2005
Poops McGourty
SPC McGourty laying his own surface landmine in the IED crater.
Took the pic down as a precaution. I gotta make sure I keep my nose clean with this blog. And gonna have a talk with the brass to make sure I'm not digging my own grave.
Took the pic down as a precaution. I gotta make sure I keep my nose clean with this blog. And gonna have a talk with the brass to make sure I'm not digging my own grave.
Ponapei and the remains of his challenger. After the IED was defeated, SPC Roby then proceeded to eat its heart to acquire its powers...and because he eats everything.
SPC Benton
SPC Benton was fine, other than a slight temporary ringing in one of his ears. Asphalt litters his gunner's hole by his left arm.
SPC ROBY: 1, IED: 1
The anecdote on Election Day is just a tiny slice of the longest day in Iraq. By 20:00, I felt like I was dreaming. I’ve chosen to omit much of the day because nobody will ever understand unless they were there, but I thought the incident towards the end of this post was funny.
A few days ago, we were sitting in my humvee, lined up on the FOB and getting ready to roll out the gate. PFC Langford looked over from the driver’s seat at me and just started laughing out of nowhere.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. I don’t want to say it.”
“Say it.” I said, laughing too now.
“Well…I was gonna say, we’ve never been hit by an IED.”
“I KNOW!” I shouted while laughing. “We’ve made it through so much shit for a year. And every damn platoon in this battalion has been hit by an IED but us. We’ve seen it all. Tank mines, RPGs, machine gun fire, hand grenades. But we’ve never been hit by an IED.”
“Sir, what are you DOING?” SGT P asked me like I was crazy. “Silence yourself.”
PFC Langford and I continued to laugh. “Ahhh, I don’t believe in all that jinx shit.” I said……………………
We’ve spent the last week hardening schools in the various villages and the city to create safe election sites. The mornings started around 0430. Before the sun rose, I would link up with 1LT Monken from support platoon and confirm the HEMTs, PLSs and lowboys with forklifts that were coming with me to the school sites. CPT Fowler and his Avenger Company were responsible for a city. The platoons of Avenger Company along with support platoon managed to harden the sites with jersey barriers and concertina wire. We worked from morning until night. The men ate MREs and water. SPC Stoker slashed his nose on the concertina wire. Many of us were shin-deep in ditches full of feces, trash and stagnant water, while stringing wire around.
I want to take this opportunity to say that support platoon, the Road Warriors of 2-63 AR, are some hard working soldiers. NCOs like SGT Muhtedi and SGT Price and their junior enlisted guys were cross-attached to us for a few days. They went everywhere we had to go, dropping barriers and helping us to create a defendable site out of these schools. And when a last minute election site popped up on Avenger’s radar, they just executed. This was the scene all across Iraq for the line units and support elements.
The Idaho National Guard unit that was attached to us for some time now has been an awesome asset. I got to work with them prior to and during elections and they are awesome guys. These elections would have been a lot more painful if we didn’t have their help in sector.
Another key element to the success was the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi Police. They occupied every operating polling site and did a great job of maintaining security at the sites. Because of the ban on vehicular movement, they voluntarily shuttled voters from remote villages to polling sites. They deserve a lot of credit…………….
Anyways...
Election day started for us around 0500. It was supposed to start at 0200. We had been up all day and late into the night for days, hardening sites prior to Election Day. If our engineers hadn’t worked extra hard to get the ballots out on the night of the 29th, the night would have just run into election day. But as our luck would have it, our commander fought to get our SP time pushed back so we could get a few hours of sleep.
We rolled out to the sites early in the morning and ensured that the schools were guarded by the Iraqi Police and Iraqi Army. We made sure they had radios and conducted radio checks with them. If they didn’t have enough food, water, or ammunition, we would drop off some Class 1 or 5.
It was around 1000; we were driving on a main route between villages. There was a reed laying across half of the road. My driver noticed it the few times we passed it before the sun came up, but now it was light out.
“Red, this is Red 8Golf, there’s some wire coming out of that bamboo reed,” SPC Stoker said. He was SSG Terry’s gunner.
This was our third pass of this spot and I was already passed it. We had noticed the bamboo but not the wire. “Red 7, this is Red 6. Go back and take a look at it with your section, my section will pull ahead and pull security.”
I drove our humvees ahead to get in a safe distance. SFC Kennedy was the rear truck commander. He turned his section around to face the reed. His wingman’s gunner started shooting the area where the wire disappeared into the shoulder with the M240. After a few hundred rounds, nothing went off so we continued with mission. As we continued our patrol up and down the main road and back and forth between election sites, a police truck stopped us and wanted to take us to another IED. It was where we had just been.
We didn’t see anything on the first pass, so we turned around and had another look. The police truck stopped and stuck his arm out the window and pointed at the side of the road. He then sped off. “Pull up where he was, Langford."
“Red 7, this is Red 6. Yeah I see a spring here coming out of the dirt. It could be an anti-handling device. The dirt is disturbed. The dirt looks a little lighter colored than the rest of the shoulder.” It was hard as hell to notice. I was amazed that SPC Stoker had even seen the wire coming out of the bamboo reed at the last spot a few hundred meters up the road. If there were IEDs here, the bad guy did a damn good job of burying it. I sat there staring at the little spring coming out of the dirt. Sometimes they plant fake IEDs just to see how you react to them so they can figure out your tactics. Again, I let SFC Kennedy have a go with it while I pulled my section away to a safe distance. His wingman, SGT Blake pulled up to it and let his gunner, PFC Riley, run with the machine gun. After a few hundred rounds and nothing to show for it, SFC Kennedy called up.
”This is Red 7. It looks like we knocked the spring off.”
“Ahhh this thing is a fake,” we said among ourselves in my truck.
We linked back up with bravo section and pulled ahead of them. By now, we had passed this site more than 4 or 5 times just during the morning. Up to this point in time, a soft-skinned police truck stopped at it, and then each truck in my platoon had pulled up to within a few feet of the tiny spring to get a closer look. I was more than half-convinced that these were fakes designed to deter elections. Maybe on a less busy day, we could have EOD come take a look at the site with their robot.
I wanted to go check on one of my election sites so we got lined up on the road and started heading north. We would be passing this spot on the road for the 6th time. I sent a SITREP to battalion using the FIPR on the BFT. To simply put it, email. We were too far out to have radio communication with them so I had been talking to them all morning through text messages. I told them the grid to the possible fake IED as we pushed on.
“Ah hold up Langford. I should probably take a picture of this little spring.” SFC Kennedy had asked if I had taken a picture of the bamboo reed and since nothing came of it, I hadn’t. But this was our second site within 500 meters of each other; I should have a picture of something to show battalion. “Pull up annnnnd…..stop.” The spring just laid there in the dirt just a few feet from me. I looked down at my left shoulder and grabbed the digital camera that was lanyarded to my D-ring on my body armor. I pressed my face against the window of my door to get a better look.
BOOOOOOOOM
Earth went everywhere. “YEAAAAA!” SGT Pritsolas screamed from the seat behind me.
I looked at Langford. He looked at me. Awww man. That sucks, our faces said. After a few seconds, chunks of dirt and asphalt started pouring into the truck from the gunner’s hole. The gunner!
“Benton! You ok?” SGT P hollered up at him.
“Yeah,” he said sadly but hilariously. “I’m ok. It was kinda loud.”
“Didn’t you have your earplugs in?” SGT P asked.
“I had one in, Sergeant,” PFC Benton said apologetically. “But I had to listen to the handmike.” SPC Benton was fine. Luckily, we modified our TTP once we got to Iraq. Gunners always stay squatted down in the hatch now. They only stand when they are engaging or if we are stationary for a long time and they need to pull security. Many gunners were wounded or killed by IEDs because they were standing up. There is no need to stand because the common threat is IEDs, not fighters.
“Is everyone ok?” I asked. “Yeah? Then let’s get the HELL OUTTA HERE!”
PFC Langford floored it as we pulled away. “I think we have a flat tire,” he said. “It feels funny.”
”Red 6, Red 8. Are you ok? Do you need us to send up the medic?”
“This is Red 6. Everyone is ok. Don’t need the medic. We’re going to push ahead and get off the road somewhere safe and check out the truck.”
I pounded at the keyboard of my BFT: JUST HIT BY IED AT LAST GRID GIVEN. EVERYONE OK. POSSIBLE DAMAGE TO TRUCK. 11:17
We pulled ahead into a dirt field and checked out the truck. There were no flat tires.
“Musta been the adrenaline, Sir. I just thought it drove funny,” Langford said.
We started looking for an observer, since there was no question that the IED was command detonated. We looked out into the farm fields and tree lines but saw nothing.
Finally, my crew broke out laughing. Our platoon came up to us.
“Man that was so cool from where we were.” Some one said to me.
“You shoulda seen it, Sir.” SSG Terry said. “It looked like a volcano erupted. The explosion went straight up. I don’t think anything hit you.”
The truck didn’t have a single scratch on it. It was covered in dirt and asphalt but that was it.
SFC Kennedy came up to check on us. He was probably the only one not laughing.
“See! I told you that IED wasn’t fake.” I joked.
SFC Kennedy was just glad everyone was ok. “Man, we were sitting there behind you. I was just telling my crew, ‘The Lieutenant thinks its fake but I’m telling you all it-‘ and then ‘Boom’ that thing went off. Now they just did a good fucking job of hiding that thing. It was hard as hell to tell that something was there but you knew something was up.”
Around 1300, my commander, who was all over the city with the Idaho Nat’l Guard, came to our location to relieve us for chow. I briefed him on the IED that blew us up and told him about the second possible IED. Now that we knew the spot was hot, it was safe to assume that there was another IED a few hundred meters up the road. We headed back to the FOB for about 45 minutes to get fuel and food. We were grateful for the opportunity, even if it was brief.
We came back to our location around 1500 so that the commander could get the hell out of dodge. They had been having fun with the Ma Deuce while we were gone. Using about 200 rounds of .50cal, they had actually uncovered the second IED.
“African 155mm,” CPT Fowler told me. “Check this out. I saw the glimmer of the fishing line running across the road that held the bamboo reed in place.” He opened the trunk of his truck and showed me the bamboo reed with the electrical wire threaded through it. It was a pressure switch with contacts all along the wire. When a vehicle tire went over any part of the reed and wire inside, it completed the circuit and detonated the round. The scout platoon sergeant showed us the 9-volt battery that was buried with the round.
“Well, we’re gonna get outta here and grab some chow now. See if you guys can blow this thing up,” CPT Fowler said. And just like that, they were off like a prom dress.
Sweet.
SFC Kennedy brought his truck up with the M2 .50cal mounted on it. SPC Roby gripped his machine gun and started taking single shots at it. The rest of the trucks were set back a few hundred meters. The last truck was about 400 meters back, right at the crater of the last IED that blew up on us. In the crater was SPC McGourty. He was squatting with his pants around his ankles. He was taking a shit in the IED crater.
POP.
“You can do it, Roby.” A soldier hollered.
“C’mon, All The Way Ponapei!”
POP
He was right in there. A few rounds struck the artillery shell.
“C’mon Roby. You can do it.” SSG Terry shouted.
“YOU SUCK, ROBY!” I screamed.
POP.
SPC Benton and SPC Lewis were filming the scene with their cameras.
“He’s shooting short,” somebody said. “Somebody tell him he’s shooting short.
“He knows that. COME ON BABY” SSG Terry said.
Inside the truck, SFC Kennedy was observing and guiding his gunner.
Pop-BOOOOM. A huge fireball went up. SPC Roby ducked his head real slowly like a turtle. Then suddenly his arms went up, hands in fists. VICTORY. He looked back at us and punched the air a few times with a huge smile on his face.
“HEADS UP!” Everyone screamed. I watched the back chunk of the IED sail up about a hundred feet as it flew backwards. I felt like I was watching it forever as it sailed over all of our heads. “WATCH OUT” I yelled to the guys back there.
“YEAH ROBY”
“THAT’S HOW YOU DO IT!”
“NICE SHOOTIN’”
“ALL THE WAY PONAPEI”
SPC McGourty was still in the other crater. He grabbed his pants and scrambled towards his truck. That giant chunk was the size of cantaloupe, and it even sailed way over their heads way back there. Everyone was laughing in cheering after having taken cover and the shrapnel had finished falling. We walked up to the crater for a closer look. I grabbed a piece of shrapnel the size of a giant dagger.
“Here you go, Roby. A souvenir. Nice job.” I tossed the dagger up towards him in his gunner’s hatch.
SPC McGourty came trotting towards us. He pants were unbloused and his boots were unlaced. Everyone was laughing.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“McGourty shit on himself”
“What do you mean, ‘he shit on himself’?” I didn’t understand if the explosion made him crap his pants or what.
“When the IED blew up, he was making for the truck in a middle of a shit and he got shit all over himself and his pants.”
“OH MAN!” I cried.
Needless to say, I think the elections went quite well. I’m glad the Iraqi people didn’t fear terrorist attempts to defeat democracy and freedom. I also think boycotting a vote is the stupidest, most illogical thing you can do. Doesn’t that make you the loser of that battle, by default? Intentionally not casting a vote? I don’t know.
I think it was an awesome responsibility for the U.S military. And I don’t mean “awesome” as in “cool.” There were men and women of the U.S. military across the country who were directly involved and responsible for making these elections happen and that is an incredible achievement. It was an insane task, given the time line. This is a toast is to all of you soldiers who, like Red Platoon, were out in sector during elections making sure the ballots got safely to where they needed to be. Only you will know the hoops you’ve jumped through to make this thing a success.
A few days ago, we were sitting in my humvee, lined up on the FOB and getting ready to roll out the gate. PFC Langford looked over from the driver’s seat at me and just started laughing out of nowhere.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. I don’t want to say it.”
“Say it.” I said, laughing too now.
“Well…I was gonna say, we’ve never been hit by an IED.”
“I KNOW!” I shouted while laughing. “We’ve made it through so much shit for a year. And every damn platoon in this battalion has been hit by an IED but us. We’ve seen it all. Tank mines, RPGs, machine gun fire, hand grenades. But we’ve never been hit by an IED.”
“Sir, what are you DOING?” SGT P asked me like I was crazy. “Silence yourself.”
PFC Langford and I continued to laugh. “Ahhh, I don’t believe in all that jinx shit.” I said……………………
We’ve spent the last week hardening schools in the various villages and the city to create safe election sites. The mornings started around 0430. Before the sun rose, I would link up with 1LT Monken from support platoon and confirm the HEMTs, PLSs and lowboys with forklifts that were coming with me to the school sites. CPT Fowler and his Avenger Company were responsible for a city. The platoons of Avenger Company along with support platoon managed to harden the sites with jersey barriers and concertina wire. We worked from morning until night. The men ate MREs and water. SPC Stoker slashed his nose on the concertina wire. Many of us were shin-deep in ditches full of feces, trash and stagnant water, while stringing wire around.
I want to take this opportunity to say that support platoon, the Road Warriors of 2-63 AR, are some hard working soldiers. NCOs like SGT Muhtedi and SGT Price and their junior enlisted guys were cross-attached to us for a few days. They went everywhere we had to go, dropping barriers and helping us to create a defendable site out of these schools. And when a last minute election site popped up on Avenger’s radar, they just executed. This was the scene all across Iraq for the line units and support elements.
The Idaho National Guard unit that was attached to us for some time now has been an awesome asset. I got to work with them prior to and during elections and they are awesome guys. These elections would have been a lot more painful if we didn’t have their help in sector.
Another key element to the success was the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi Police. They occupied every operating polling site and did a great job of maintaining security at the sites. Because of the ban on vehicular movement, they voluntarily shuttled voters from remote villages to polling sites. They deserve a lot of credit…………….
Anyways...
Election day started for us around 0500. It was supposed to start at 0200. We had been up all day and late into the night for days, hardening sites prior to Election Day. If our engineers hadn’t worked extra hard to get the ballots out on the night of the 29th, the night would have just run into election day. But as our luck would have it, our commander fought to get our SP time pushed back so we could get a few hours of sleep.
We rolled out to the sites early in the morning and ensured that the schools were guarded by the Iraqi Police and Iraqi Army. We made sure they had radios and conducted radio checks with them. If they didn’t have enough food, water, or ammunition, we would drop off some Class 1 or 5.
It was around 1000; we were driving on a main route between villages. There was a reed laying across half of the road. My driver noticed it the few times we passed it before the sun came up, but now it was light out.
“Red, this is Red 8Golf, there’s some wire coming out of that bamboo reed,” SPC Stoker said. He was SSG Terry’s gunner.
This was our third pass of this spot and I was already passed it. We had noticed the bamboo but not the wire. “Red 7, this is Red 6. Go back and take a look at it with your section, my section will pull ahead and pull security.”
I drove our humvees ahead to get in a safe distance. SFC Kennedy was the rear truck commander. He turned his section around to face the reed. His wingman’s gunner started shooting the area where the wire disappeared into the shoulder with the M240. After a few hundred rounds, nothing went off so we continued with mission. As we continued our patrol up and down the main road and back and forth between election sites, a police truck stopped us and wanted to take us to another IED. It was where we had just been.
We didn’t see anything on the first pass, so we turned around and had another look. The police truck stopped and stuck his arm out the window and pointed at the side of the road. He then sped off. “Pull up where he was, Langford."
“Red 7, this is Red 6. Yeah I see a spring here coming out of the dirt. It could be an anti-handling device. The dirt is disturbed. The dirt looks a little lighter colored than the rest of the shoulder.” It was hard as hell to notice. I was amazed that SPC Stoker had even seen the wire coming out of the bamboo reed at the last spot a few hundred meters up the road. If there were IEDs here, the bad guy did a damn good job of burying it. I sat there staring at the little spring coming out of the dirt. Sometimes they plant fake IEDs just to see how you react to them so they can figure out your tactics. Again, I let SFC Kennedy have a go with it while I pulled my section away to a safe distance. His wingman, SGT Blake pulled up to it and let his gunner, PFC Riley, run with the machine gun. After a few hundred rounds and nothing to show for it, SFC Kennedy called up.
”This is Red 7. It looks like we knocked the spring off.”
“Ahhh this thing is a fake,” we said among ourselves in my truck.
We linked back up with bravo section and pulled ahead of them. By now, we had passed this site more than 4 or 5 times just during the morning. Up to this point in time, a soft-skinned police truck stopped at it, and then each truck in my platoon had pulled up to within a few feet of the tiny spring to get a closer look. I was more than half-convinced that these were fakes designed to deter elections. Maybe on a less busy day, we could have EOD come take a look at the site with their robot.
I wanted to go check on one of my election sites so we got lined up on the road and started heading north. We would be passing this spot on the road for the 6th time. I sent a SITREP to battalion using the FIPR on the BFT. To simply put it, email. We were too far out to have radio communication with them so I had been talking to them all morning through text messages. I told them the grid to the possible fake IED as we pushed on.
“Ah hold up Langford. I should probably take a picture of this little spring.” SFC Kennedy had asked if I had taken a picture of the bamboo reed and since nothing came of it, I hadn’t. But this was our second site within 500 meters of each other; I should have a picture of something to show battalion. “Pull up annnnnd…..stop.” The spring just laid there in the dirt just a few feet from me. I looked down at my left shoulder and grabbed the digital camera that was lanyarded to my D-ring on my body armor. I pressed my face against the window of my door to get a better look.
BOOOOOOOOM
Earth went everywhere. “YEAAAAA!” SGT Pritsolas screamed from the seat behind me.
I looked at Langford. He looked at me. Awww man. That sucks, our faces said. After a few seconds, chunks of dirt and asphalt started pouring into the truck from the gunner’s hole. The gunner!
“Benton! You ok?” SGT P hollered up at him.
“Yeah,” he said sadly but hilariously. “I’m ok. It was kinda loud.”
“Didn’t you have your earplugs in?” SGT P asked.
“I had one in, Sergeant,” PFC Benton said apologetically. “But I had to listen to the handmike.” SPC Benton was fine. Luckily, we modified our TTP once we got to Iraq. Gunners always stay squatted down in the hatch now. They only stand when they are engaging or if we are stationary for a long time and they need to pull security. Many gunners were wounded or killed by IEDs because they were standing up. There is no need to stand because the common threat is IEDs, not fighters.
“Is everyone ok?” I asked. “Yeah? Then let’s get the HELL OUTTA HERE!”
PFC Langford floored it as we pulled away. “I think we have a flat tire,” he said. “It feels funny.”
”Red 6, Red 8. Are you ok? Do you need us to send up the medic?”
“This is Red 6. Everyone is ok. Don’t need the medic. We’re going to push ahead and get off the road somewhere safe and check out the truck.”
I pounded at the keyboard of my BFT: JUST HIT BY IED AT LAST GRID GIVEN. EVERYONE OK. POSSIBLE DAMAGE TO TRUCK. 11:17
We pulled ahead into a dirt field and checked out the truck. There were no flat tires.
“Musta been the adrenaline, Sir. I just thought it drove funny,” Langford said.
We started looking for an observer, since there was no question that the IED was command detonated. We looked out into the farm fields and tree lines but saw nothing.
Finally, my crew broke out laughing. Our platoon came up to us.
“Man that was so cool from where we were.” Some one said to me.
“You shoulda seen it, Sir.” SSG Terry said. “It looked like a volcano erupted. The explosion went straight up. I don’t think anything hit you.”
The truck didn’t have a single scratch on it. It was covered in dirt and asphalt but that was it.
SFC Kennedy came up to check on us. He was probably the only one not laughing.
“See! I told you that IED wasn’t fake.” I joked.
SFC Kennedy was just glad everyone was ok. “Man, we were sitting there behind you. I was just telling my crew, ‘The Lieutenant thinks its fake but I’m telling you all it-‘ and then ‘Boom’ that thing went off. Now they just did a good fucking job of hiding that thing. It was hard as hell to tell that something was there but you knew something was up.”
Around 1300, my commander, who was all over the city with the Idaho Nat’l Guard, came to our location to relieve us for chow. I briefed him on the IED that blew us up and told him about the second possible IED. Now that we knew the spot was hot, it was safe to assume that there was another IED a few hundred meters up the road. We headed back to the FOB for about 45 minutes to get fuel and food. We were grateful for the opportunity, even if it was brief.
We came back to our location around 1500 so that the commander could get the hell out of dodge. They had been having fun with the Ma Deuce while we were gone. Using about 200 rounds of .50cal, they had actually uncovered the second IED.
“African 155mm,” CPT Fowler told me. “Check this out. I saw the glimmer of the fishing line running across the road that held the bamboo reed in place.” He opened the trunk of his truck and showed me the bamboo reed with the electrical wire threaded through it. It was a pressure switch with contacts all along the wire. When a vehicle tire went over any part of the reed and wire inside, it completed the circuit and detonated the round. The scout platoon sergeant showed us the 9-volt battery that was buried with the round.
“Well, we’re gonna get outta here and grab some chow now. See if you guys can blow this thing up,” CPT Fowler said. And just like that, they were off like a prom dress.
Sweet.
SFC Kennedy brought his truck up with the M2 .50cal mounted on it. SPC Roby gripped his machine gun and started taking single shots at it. The rest of the trucks were set back a few hundred meters. The last truck was about 400 meters back, right at the crater of the last IED that blew up on us. In the crater was SPC McGourty. He was squatting with his pants around his ankles. He was taking a shit in the IED crater.
POP.
“You can do it, Roby.” A soldier hollered.
“C’mon, All The Way Ponapei!”
POP
He was right in there. A few rounds struck the artillery shell.
“C’mon Roby. You can do it.” SSG Terry shouted.
“YOU SUCK, ROBY!” I screamed.
POP.
SPC Benton and SPC Lewis were filming the scene with their cameras.
“He’s shooting short,” somebody said. “Somebody tell him he’s shooting short.
“He knows that. COME ON BABY” SSG Terry said.
Inside the truck, SFC Kennedy was observing and guiding his gunner.
Pop-BOOOOM. A huge fireball went up. SPC Roby ducked his head real slowly like a turtle. Then suddenly his arms went up, hands in fists. VICTORY. He looked back at us and punched the air a few times with a huge smile on his face.
“HEADS UP!” Everyone screamed. I watched the back chunk of the IED sail up about a hundred feet as it flew backwards. I felt like I was watching it forever as it sailed over all of our heads. “WATCH OUT” I yelled to the guys back there.
“YEAH ROBY”
“THAT’S HOW YOU DO IT!”
“NICE SHOOTIN’”
“ALL THE WAY PONAPEI”
SPC McGourty was still in the other crater. He grabbed his pants and scrambled towards his truck. That giant chunk was the size of cantaloupe, and it even sailed way over their heads way back there. Everyone was laughing in cheering after having taken cover and the shrapnel had finished falling. We walked up to the crater for a closer look. I grabbed a piece of shrapnel the size of a giant dagger.
“Here you go, Roby. A souvenir. Nice job.” I tossed the dagger up towards him in his gunner’s hatch.
SPC McGourty came trotting towards us. He pants were unbloused and his boots were unlaced. Everyone was laughing.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“McGourty shit on himself”
“What do you mean, ‘he shit on himself’?” I didn’t understand if the explosion made him crap his pants or what.
“When the IED blew up, he was making for the truck in a middle of a shit and he got shit all over himself and his pants.”
“OH MAN!” I cried.
Needless to say, I think the elections went quite well. I’m glad the Iraqi people didn’t fear terrorist attempts to defeat democracy and freedom. I also think boycotting a vote is the stupidest, most illogical thing you can do. Doesn’t that make you the loser of that battle, by default? Intentionally not casting a vote? I don’t know.
I think it was an awesome responsibility for the U.S military. And I don’t mean “awesome” as in “cool.” There were men and women of the U.S. military across the country who were directly involved and responsible for making these elections happen and that is an incredible achievement. It was an insane task, given the time line. This is a toast is to all of you soldiers who, like Red Platoon, were out in sector during elections making sure the ballots got safely to where they needed to be. Only you will know the hoops you’ve jumped through to make this thing a success.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Elections
Thanks for the OPSEC heads-up, Big Brother. But all OPSEC info like phase line names are fictional. I check my work before I post it. Just wanted to say again thanks for all of the emails and kind words. I do read every posted comment and email. I am sorry I can't get back to all you. This is the first time I have seen the internet in days. This past week, the line platoons only have time to wake-up, be on mission all day without coming back to the FOB, and getting in near midnite to get some sleep.
The soldiers of 2-63 AR BN are out there hardening the election sites and working around the clock to provide security for the Iraqis. I'm pretty excited about being out there for something historical. Not all my soldiers can be out there but I have guys begging to be taken out in sector. Seeing how bad these locals want the elections to happen has been pretty inspiring for us. I will be posting photos of the guys laying wire and dropping barriers when I have more time, probably after elections are over.
The soldiers of 2-63 AR BN are out there hardening the election sites and working around the clock to provide security for the Iraqis. I'm pretty excited about being out there for something historical. Not all my soldiers can be out there but I have guys begging to be taken out in sector. Seeing how bad these locals want the elections to happen has been pretty inspiring for us. I will be posting photos of the guys laying wire and dropping barriers when I have more time, probably after elections are over.
Sunday, January 23, 2005
11 November: Tank Mines
“Well that was fun. Let’s go find some more shit to blow up.” SGT P said. It was around 1200. We had just silenced a row of houses where the enemy had entrenched themselves and lit up Outlaw platoon. It was south west of the cloverleaf and in the open desert. The city itself sort of funneled southwest. Picture a big fat Y. Well actually, I guess HY would be a better graphic, since the west side of the city where the Marines were, went straight north and south. We were at the junction of the Y, which was the industrial zone, looking southwest.
“Hey, Sir. Look at all those houses out there. It looks like a whole ‘nother city. Do you think we are going there?” I bent down into the GPSE. Several kilometers away, SGT P was looking at what seemed like an annex to the city. There was an open landfill between the industrial zone and the start of another built up area. But this built up area had magnificent two and three story houses. The houses looked pretty big. And they were immaculate. Unmolested by artillery and main gun rounds.
“No way. There’s no way we’re going down there. That shit looks another city; as big as what we just cleared up here.” I was under the impression that now that we had cleared the industrial zone, we would establish strongholds in the city, and run humvee patrols out of them in an effort to mop up the mess. I also didn’t fully grasp how big the city really was. Nor did anybody at the company level and below know exactly how the plan would unfold from here.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Back at the LRP
“Well the Marines have finally caught up with us. We are moving south to clear everything south of the Industrial Zone,” CPT Mayfield told us.
Shows how much I know.
“Pretty much the entire RCT-7 has the insurgents on the run and they are hauling ass south. The enemy is believed to have fallen back to this location. There are supposed to be civilians in the area so be careful what you shoot at. Get positive I.D. on your targets. Avenger and Terminator are switching spots. So Avenger will be on your immediate right or west flank as we move south. Again, you can shoot anything south of here after you get PID, but check your fires west and east where the Marines are in an outer cordon. We’re expecting the fiercest resistance here.”
I laughed inside. Resistance. I hadn’t seen much resistance. I had seen bad guys on the run, but nobody stood toe to toe with us and fought.
In Baqubah, terrorists in headwraps stood anywhere from 30 to 400 meters in front of my tank. They stopped, squared their shoulders at us just like in an old fashioned duel, and fired RPGs at our tanks.
I didn’t expect much in terms of resistance. But there was a new element. I wasn’t thrilled about facing civilians. So far, there hadn’t been a single civilian in TF2-2’s sector. We had been free to light up the insurgents as we saw them. And because of that freedom, we were able to use main gun with less restriction. But this could make things tougher.
“It’s 1200 now. LD is 1400. We move south. Neil, your platoon leads, followed by Hunter.” CPT Mayfield said.
Getting into the nooks and crannies of the city, I decided to stay task organized. I would take Legion 9 to be my wingman. That little turret could swing so fast in the city, and poles and buildings wouldn’t restrict the short 25mm gun tube. Not to mention the Bradley could run circles around the tank, literally. But my tank would still take point. You can’t beat ol’ Blinkey for armored protection.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I call my baby, Blinkey, ever since she got one of her headlights blown off in Baqubah by an RPG. The RPG had ripped open that little corner of the hull and exposed the depleted uranium armor. She’s taken so much battle-damage that we’re being told she will never return to duty after this deployment. In April, my tank was signed over to Charlie Company when they went to Najaf. She took RPGs and caught on fire then too. She’s been through just about every major battle this brigade has seen. Even when her original crew had not. Supposedly, she will be coded out, ripped apart and studied at a lab. If that’s true, that breaks my crew’s hearts. She has taken a pounding and kept her crew alive. She should be bronzed and placed on a concrete slab at Ft. Knox for everyone to see.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
At 1400, we were poised along PL Mike. It ran southwest along the eastern side of the industrial zone, and then turned straight south to the end of Fallujah which was out of sight.
“Hey Sir, look at that shit.” Across the road, some obstacles and wire were strewn about. We moved in for a closer look. There were a few tires laid out and some other strange obstacles. Some of the discs looked like giant smoke alarms.
“Oh shit. I think those are mines.” And by the size of them, they look like anti-tank mines. “Back up Mewborn. We’ll hit it with .50cal.” We stopped about one hundred meters back.
Df-Df-Df-Df-Df-Df- BOOM. “Jesus that woulda sucked,” SGT P said.
The explosion from the mine was about the size of the tank. It was safe to say we all would have been safe inside the tank, but it probably would have blown our track off. If it had tilt-rods and hit our belly, it might have killed Mewborn in the driver’s hole.
We continued to destroy a few more. Df-Df-Df-Df-Df-Df-Df- BOOM
Df-Df-Df-Df-Df-Df-Df- BOOM. SSG Terry and SFC Lanpher, my infantry platoon sergeant, were blowing up mines on another avenue of approach on our right flank. But they were shooting at the dirt. We were shooting at obstacles in the road. Yet still, they were setting off mines and explosives. SSG Terry waved and smiled at me with a big grin while he popped off more rounds. Brass and links littered his turret top. Damn. I don’t know how they saw shit buried in the dirt. But that is some good work. I was really impressed. It was either SSG Terry or his gunner SPC Stoker who saw that. Or possibly SFC Lanpher and his crew, but regardless, I was in awe. They continued to blow up more mines while I stayed focused on our avenue of approach. We all held our positions.
Suddenly, several tanks came careening out of some alleys from our rear right side and passed right through us. What the hell was going on? I looked at the tank commanders as they rolled by. I saw my platoon sergeant, SFC Kennedy roll by us. His loader, SPC Roby, waved to us as they cut right in front of us. They were followed by 2nd platoon from Avenger company. Then the M88 came roaring by us and the rest of the mechanics tore by in the PCs. Everyone was blowing by us like bats out of hell.
“Jesus Christ, do these guys realize they just drove where all these mines had been? What the hell’s wrong with them?” My section was appalled at how these guys just recklessly cut in front of us with no regard to the mines that had just been there. And these were our own brothers, from our own company.
We watched them push ahead of us a few hundred meters and turn hard right back into the city and disappear. I assumed that the roads had canalized them until they had no choice but to enter our sector in order to position themselves. That’s the problem with MOUT when you’re in armored vehicles. The terrain dictates your entire movement. And it’s very unforgiving.
”All mech platoon elements, this is Red 6. Let’s move forward and get online with Avenger.” I figured if they were that far ahead of us, we might as well be even with them. It makes it a hell of a lot easier to keep track of the front line trace.
We pulled up to the intersection where they turned off. There were two piles of dirt about 15 feet high. The piles were staggered and on either side of the road on our right so it created sort of a serpentine that you had to swerve through if you drove it. I looked west past the berms and saw Avenger organized on our right. They were a few hundred meters due west of us.
“Look at the FUCKING ROCKET!” Someone said over the net. SGT P traversed to the right and sure enough, there was what looked like a huge artillery shell resting at the top of the berm pointed at me. It was so ridiculous. It was poised with the peak of the berm right in its center, so obviously it was placed there. “BACK UP, MEWBORN!”
“Legion 7, Red 6. Can you get on the other side of that thing and hit with 25mm?” I wanted to destroy it but I didn’t want to use main gun. And because of the location and the terrain, the Bradley would be more agile than a tank weaving through there. Plus we couldn’t shoot at it from the way we were oriented because Avenger was on the other side.
SFC Lanpher looked at me and laughed. ”Uh…roger.” He wasn’t too thrilled about having to pass in front of it in order to get behind it to shoot it. But as with everything, it would be funny in retrospect when we made it out alive. We all backed up as Legion 7 pulled in front of us. I looked back and saw all of the scout humvees behind us like little ducklings. 1LT Boggiano wasn’t there though. His platoon was off in the distance to our east. He was screen lining with his platoon in the open desert, observing west into the city we were about to enter.
POCK- POCK- POCK- POCK- POCK- POCK
SFC Lanpher had gotten onto the west side of the berm and started shooting at it from west to east from about one hundred meters away. He had a building behind him and he was down in his turret as his Bradley barked away at the rocket. The dirt all around the rocket kicked up as the 25mm HE was exploding around the rocket.
POCK- POCK- POCK- POCK-ZZZZfffffffeeeeew!
A blazing hot pink bright fire shot out of the rear of the rocket and it launched at the speed of a bullet into the sky. It shot up at a 60-degree angle and disappeared.
“HOLY SHIT!”
“NO WAY THAT JUST HAPPENED!”
”Oh shit, Red 6. Did you just fucking see that?” Legion 7 hollered and laughed over the troop net. I was in shock. It was one of the funniest, most random things to happen. We all had expected the rocket to explode.
Outlaw Platoon. Oh shit.
”Did anyone see where that rocket took off to? Or landed? Outlaw 1 is out there.”
The rocket had launched in that exact same direction. But we didn’t hear an explosion. We continued to laugh some more about what had just happened, but our joy was cut short.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
“What the fuck is going on?”
The building behind SFC Lanpher was blowing up. I could see the impact of the rounds launching concrete chunks in every direction behind SFC Lanpher. He looked surprised, confused and angry at the same time.
”Jesus Christ. Someone is shooting at us.” SFC Lanpher said over the net.
”Legion 7, Red 6. GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE.”
“Langford. Put me on Avenger’s freq, NOW.” Langford bent down and switched channels to Avenger’s frequency.
”This is the Real Red 6. CEASE FIRE. CEASE FIRE. CEASE FIRE. Who’s shooting at us.” I was absolutely furious. We were so close to a fratricide right there.
“Ah Sir. NO ONE was shooting at you.” It was White 7. He clearly thought I was mistaken. Now I was boiling.
”This is Red 6. We are 300 meters DUE EAST OF YOU. Who was just shooting from west to DUE EAST? And from the looks of it, with 25 mike mike?”
Silence.
There was a long pause on the net. ”Red 6, Avenger 7. We were engaging an RPG team to our east.”
”Negative. My Legion 7 just engaged a rocket that was east of you, which put itself into orbit just now.”
There was more silence.
“Avenger 6, this is Red 6. Engaged and destroyed one fortified enemy RPG position. Over.” It was the Bradley lieutenant who was attached to the Bravo section of my tank platoon. He was now using my Red 6 call sign since he was working with my platoon sergeant, SFC Kennedy, who is Red 7.
“Jesus Christ, Langford. Get me off this net.” He switched back to Phantom’s troop net.
“Did you hear them say they got a dude with an RPG.” SGT P asked.
“Yeah no shit. 100 bucks says that RPG was our rocket we just set off.” I was so angry. I had made visual contact with Avenger. They knew we were right around here because they had just blown right past us. I guess this was part of the fog of war. Things can get pretty hairy in a tight environment. Situational awareness is a matter of life and death.
1LT Boggiano had no reports of any rounds impacting, so we knew he was safe. Luckily, we made it out of that ordeal scratch free. But it was ugly. It could have been much worse.
Friday, January 21, 2005
About Me
- Name:Neil Prakash
- Location:Syracuse, NY, Germany
Liverpool H.S. '98 Johns Hopkins '02-Neuroscience Armor OBC Grad '03 Ranger School Grad '03 Currently enrolled in School of Hard Knocks
Previous Posts
- Clearing a Bunker
- 12 November: Caught In The Kill Zone
- CB: 8 November
- 11 November: Mewborn, Crank It Up.
- Poops McGourty
- Ponapei and the remains of his challenger. After ...
- SPC Benton
- SPC ROBY: 1, IED: 1
- Pounding Pickets
- Harden Site...Execute.
Archives
