“Why don’t you just let Walter walk point, he knows that area pretty well.” Staff Sergeant JJ thought he was being cute by recommending me for point. He was even grinning. I didn’t think it was very funny. I stared at him with a “I’m going to fucking kill you, if I make it back alive” look on my face.
“Ohhh hey there Sargn’t J-, that’s a great idea. Walter…” And with that, First Sergeant B- pointed me to the front gate.
Motherfucker, I don’t want jack shit to do with this fucking patrol. I sure as shit don’t want to walk point. I don’t even know where the hell we’re supposed to be going. All he said was “We’re gonna go for a little walk up north” and now I’m in the lead with 6 of our guys and 5 Iraqi soldiers. What the fuck? I should’ve just lied and told Top I was busy and couldn’t go with him on his “little walk”.
It was about 1300hrs when I went downstairs to hit up the shitter. First Sergeant happened to be walking past when he stopped me and asked “What are you doing around 1600?” I told him I didn’t have anything going on other than my rooftop O.P. shift at 1800. He said, “Good, then you can come with me on a little walk up north.”
A little walk up north? I thought to myself. “Uh, sure first sergeant, where are we going?”
“Oh just up north a ways.” He said with a smile and headed into the house.
I headed for the shitter thinking “ He probably just wants to show CPT B- around or something. We’re probably just going to show him the traffic control points and what-not. After all, our new CO needs to get a feel for the area". Call me naive, but I certainly didn’t think he planned on taking a dismounted patrol all the way up Route Anne to Sinsil. Surely he had no intentions of taking a small group of us on foot into an area that hadn’t been patrolled in months. An area where we heard fierce firefights going on everyday between the 1920 Revolutionary Brigades and the Islamic State of Iraq. We wouldn’t just walk into an area inhabited by these two groups who would gladly turn their weapons on us. No, we’d never do that. That’s naiveté for ya.
To say I had butterflies in my stomach underscores the fear that I had about leading an 11 man patrol with no crew served weapons, no real task and absolutely no fucking purpose whatsoever into an area some referred to as “Indian country” . “Butterflies” is a term used to describe that feeling before playing in a big high school football game or before taking a college entrance exam. At least I think it is. I never did either. But maybe if I had, I wouldn’t have found myself in front of a bunch of dudes from our headquarters platoon and a group of Iraqi soldiers I’d never worked with.
I pulled the charging handle on my M4 and chambered a round as I walked past the Iraqi soldiers guarding the front gate.
One stood up and shouted “Shakoo makoo!?”
“Kushi makoo!” I hollered in return.
“Ahh, good mista!” He gave me a thumbs up and flashed a toothless grin my way.
I headed to the north Bradley O.P. where SGT Pat vigilantly scanned the palm groves and buildings to the north. At least he’s on the north O.P. That makes me feel a little better. I knew SGT Pat didn’t let anything get by him and as long as he was there, someone we could count on to get to us if we needed was near. I took a knee by the concrete T-wall at the traffic control point hoping this was as far as Top planned on going.
“Oh hey there Corporal Walter, go ahead on over the bridge there,” said Top.
The bridge was the beginning of the area no one in our squadron had gone into for months. And for good reason. Our squadron was stretched thin patrolling Muqdidiyah while maintaining an entire Troop at the patrol base in Shakarat. The patrol base was named K-Wal, in memory of SPC K- from Charlie Troop, who’d been shot in the back of the head by a sniper. That happened the last time anyone came north of the bridge. Since then, we focused on the areas to the south. Keeping the road to our patrol base open and free of IEDs tied up an entire platoon. That left one platoon to maintain force protection and conduct patrols. The rest of the squadron was busy patrolling Muqdidiyah. That left no one to head north into the palm groves and villages that made up the area we called the “bread basket”. Hembis is the largest village in the area. We once recovered documents in an Al Qaeda safe house that identified Hembis as a “Brigade” headquarters for the Islamic State of Iraq. I always figured that one day we’d push into the bread basket for a fight. I just never thought I’d be doing it with 11 guys.
I tried stopping at the first buildings I came to. I pulled security to the north, up Route Anne while first sergeant pointed out this and that to CPT B-. SGT W- called up our location to the TOC on the radio. We were only about 200 meters from the Bradley sitting on the bridge. No problem, I’ve been this far a few times, not a big deal. Just as long as Top doesn’t make us go any further we should be all right.
“Corporal Walter, why don’t keep on heading that way,” said Top as he pointed north up the road towards the first village along the route, Sinsil. Oh fuck me, I thought. No matter how this plays out from here, it’s not going to be good.
The road was flanked by thick palm groves on either side. I got the hell off the road and walked along the edge of the trees. As we neared the village, I saw people running. Women, children, old men, they all scattered.
Ho-ly fuck, here goes… When Iraqi’s run away, especially when an entire village clears the streets at the sight of approaching Americans, it’s not good. I took cover behind a thin wooden fence that wasn’t strong enough to stop a BB gun.
“Hey Corporal Walter, what’s going on up there?” shouted Top from the middle of the patrol.
“The entire fucking village just scattered, first sargn’t.”
He ran up to my position and looked into the empty streets ahead.
“Oh, this is a bad place Corporal Walter. We shouldn’t be up here without Bradley’s.” Ding ding ding! That’s right Top! We really shouldn’t be up here at all! Now let’s just head back to— “Why don’t you take us through the palm grove there.” He pointed to the wood line to the east, in the direction of a large cemetery where hajji routinely staged indirect fire attacks on our patrol base. Goddammit.
I got to my feet and headed through the thick brush. I couldn’t see 5 feet in front of me without getting on my knees and looking around. Diyala is full of very short trees that only seem to grow leaves between your waist level and the top of your head. In order to see anything further than a few feet, you have to get on your hands and knees. I’d do this every few meters. I knew Apache Troop had sent a small kill team into this area a while back. They ended up on the receiving end of an L shaped ambush. An Air Weapons Team that had luckily been there at the time bailed them out of that one. I didn’t hear a single bird in the air as we continued through the dense foliage.
Every so often we’d come across a mud hut or old shack and Top would point to it and ask me, “Hey, has anyone ever searched this?”
My response was the same every time, “No first sargn’t, nobody has ever come this far north.”
As we moved along, Top kept pointing out buildings and asking if they’d ever been searched. The irritation in my voice was growing until he finally said, “Well ya don’t have to yell at me Corporal Walter!”
We’d reached the edge of the cemetery. It was massive. Much larger than I’d expected. At least 500 meters across. Towards the northern edge of it was a gigantic dirt hill with graves laid out across it. It was completely surrounded by tall palm trees and the thick underbrush that grows below. I attempted to reiterate to first sergeant the fact that we were in an area we shouldn’t be in.
“Awww, are you scared Corporal Walter?”
Fuck you cocksucker.
“Negative first sargn’t,” I lied. “It’s just that I think this a really bad idea is all…”
“Well okay then, we’ll head back to Shakarat.” Whewww, I knew you weren’t all that bad, Top. “ But first why don’t you lead us around to the other side of the cemetery, then we’ll circle back around and go back.” Oh! You dick head!
“Well fuck-head I could think of a lot of reasons why we shouldn’t do such a stupid fucking thing”. I wish I’d said that. I mean really, I would have probably lost some rank but that would’ve come back to me eventually. Instead, I let out a deep breath and said “Roger.”
I started walking through the middle of the cemetery. A wide open area completely surrounded by palm groves. I headed towards the hill on the other side. First sergeant said “Hey make sure you’re not walking in a straight path. Zig zag a little bit so a sniper doesn’t get a bead on you.” But when I started zig-zagging in between the headstones he told me to get off the graves and stay on the road. Holy shit, you really are a fucking idiot aren’t you Top? This is it. I’m gonna get shot in the fucking face because my first sergeant is a fucking moron. Great. What a way to go out.
As we circled around the hill we came up to a village. Same deal as before. A little kid spots us first, turns and runs through the streets screaming in Arabic and the entire populace just disappears. Like cockroaches in the kitchen when you turn the light on. I immediately take cover behind the largest grave I can find (graves in Iraq are of the same style as those found in New Orleans, like concrete boxes laid on top of the earth).
First sergeant trots up to my position and asks “Well what do you think Corporal Walter?”
“First sargn’t, I think we have 11 dudes, no crew served weapons, and this is a bad idea,” I replied flatly.
“You’re right, this is a bad place, we shouldn’t be here. Head back the way we came and take us to K-Wal.”
Before I jumped to my feet and began running, re-tracing my steps back around the hill, I see the panicked look on everyone else’s faces. Top yells at me, “Hey don’t run! They’ll think we’re scared! And don’t go back around the hill! Go straight up over it!”
Aaaaarrgggghhhhh! I AM FUCKING SCARED! FUCK YOU! I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to point out the flaws in his logic. I wanted to muzzle-stroke him in the face. But at the moment, I knew that would only slow my progress in getting back to K-Wal. My shoulders slumped, I exhaled sharply, and began jogging up the hill. I can’t believe this dickhead wants me to run up and over the hill. He actually wants me to go to the top of the highest point in this wide ass open cemetery. Wow, I can’t believe I’m actually doing it!
We made it up and over the hill without a single shot fired our way. Top wanted to stop and check his map and actually use a fucking compass to shoot an azimuth to the patrol base. I knew exactly where we were. I knew exactly where we had to go. It was only about 900 meters to K-Wal. I even told him this. But he decided to take a detour on a dirt road that lead us further to the east before turning back south to K-Wal.
We headed down the road and came up to an Iraqi home. It was typical of most homes in the area. A two story house surrounded by an 8 foot concrete wall, with a mud outhouse, a cow-pen, and a fenced off area for the chickens. As we entered the compound I looked to the far side wall and noticed a door that opened to the south. As first sergeant approached the Iraqi family with Peter, our interpreter, machine gun fire erupted from the cemetery.
I could hear the ping ping ping of the incoming rounds as they bounced off the house and the quick hiss of the rounds that flew past overhead.
First sergeant, his face with a look of shock on it, yelled out “Fastest way outta here! GO!”
I did a double take of the surrounding walls before remembering the door behind me leading to the south. “FIRST SERGEANT!” I yelled out as I turned and sprinted for the exit.
Machine gun fire tore through the air above our heads as we ran for our lives into the dense underbrush. There were at least two PKC machine guns that sounded like they were on top of the hill in the cemetery. I could hear them alternating fire and in between their bursts I heard AK47s spilling fire into the trees surrounding us. We ran.
The terrain was rough. The trees were the kind that grew at waist height and the ground was flooded and canalized. I was rolling my ankles when I wasn’t jumping across the narrow waterways. The fact that I was wearing around 50 pounds of gear didn’t help either. I stumbled my way through the branches while hearing rounds whistle through the trees. I came upon a barbed wire fence about as high as my chest. I tried to kick over one of the posts but quickly realized it wasn’t about to budge under the pressure of my boots. I started climbing over it when my ammo pouches got snagged on the barbs. First sergeant came up behind me and shoved me over the wire. I landed hard on my back and gasped for air. As I stood up, Top handed me his M4 and I grabbed his arm and pulled him over. I moved away from the fence and across an open path that ran along it. I lay down in a ditch and waited for everyone to scale the barbed wire.
The machine gun fire stopped. Everyone was across the fence and bunched up along the path.
“First sargn’t, we have got to keep fucking moving!” I urged. SGT L- looked my way with wide eyes and nodded his head in short, quick movements in agreement.
SGT W- was earnestly calling our CP back at K-Wal and requesting an Air Weapons Team. None was available. Again, first sergeant broke out with his compass and started to shoot an azimuth to K-Wal.
“First sargn’t, I know exactly where we fucking are! We gotta keep moving that way!” I yelled and pointing to the southwest. He lowered the compass from his cheek and pointed in the direction I just had and said “Keep moving that way!”. No fucking shit!
Before I’d gotten to my feet the two machine guns opened fire again. This time though, they were much closer. Maybe 100 meters. The rounds zipped through and I thought about returning fire. No, that won’t do shit, I thought to myself, one, my 5.56 won’t make it through these trees, and two, I don’t think these dicks know exactly where we are. They’re just spraying and praying. If I shoot back though, they’ll know exactly where we’re at.
“GO! GO! GO!” yelled Top.
And so, we sprinted. We ran for our lives. I was smoked. My body felt beat. My thighs burned and my back was throbbing. A little voice inside my head said “Fuck it, just give up, maybe they won’t find you if you just lay low”. Another little voice in my head answered “Fuck you! They’ll find me and chop my fucking head off! Anyways, this ain’t so bad, you’re only about 500 meters from the Bradley on the bridge, think of it like running coast to coast back at Hood, just keep going!!”
Branches whipped our faces and cut our lips. We ran some more. So did the assholes with the PKCs. They were actually chasing us through the trees, firing their machine guns along the way.
I thought about how Top had taken me to FOB Normandy the day before to talk to the re-enlistment NCO. I thought about how he was trying hard to get me to re-up and stay in the Army. As I hurled my body through bush after bush, my M4 swinging back and forth in my hands, I thought “There’s no fucking way I’m re-uppin’ if the Army is run by assholes like Top. No fucking way. I’m taking my ass to college. I’m supposed to be partying and having irresponsible sex right now! I’m NOT supposed to be getting fucking killed! I’m only 21 years old for fuck’s sake! Fuck this shit!”
I began to hear the rumbling sound of a Bradley on the move off to the west. The machine guns had stopped firing. I can’t remember which came first. The sound of the Bradley, or the machine guns stopping? Didn’t matter at the time, I kept running. We broke through the palm groves and came out on a dirt road that runs east-west along the canal. I knew the bridge, with the Bradley sitting on top of it, was about 300 meters to the west. We got a count of everyone and made sure no one was left behind. We kept running. CPT B-, the man who would be taking over command of our Troop in a month, was lagging far behind, his face beet red and gasping for air.
“We gotta…gasp!.... stop run…running!....We’re losing….gasp!.....discipline!” He actually fucking yelled that from the rear of our small group.
Is he fucking joking? Is he seriously telling us to stop running because we’re “losing discipline”? Do I really have to listen to him? After all, he hasn’t taken over command of the Troop yet. I mean is this dude really fucking serious? Did he not hear the two machine guns chasing us through the palm groves? Is he really going to be my commanding officer? Fuck no, I am not re-enlisting. I ignored him and kept running.
We’d finally made it to Route Anne and I saw SGT Pat’s Bradley some 300 meters north up the road scanning into the palm groves. SGT W- called him up and had him move back to pick us up. I piled into the back of the Brad with 5 other dudes, American and Iraqi. As soon as the ramp went up we all started giving each other high fives and everyone lit up a smoke. We headed back to the patrol base where every weapon we had on the roof top, a couple M240B machine guns and a MK-19 grenade launcher, was raining fire down into the palm groves we’d just come from. They’d opened up as soon as they got the word that we were in the Brads and didn’t let up until their barrels were too hot to keep firing. I seriously doubt they got anybody, but ya never know.
The first thing I did was find SSG JJ and ask him to come around the corner of the building with me, away from everyone else.
“DON’T YOU EVER FUCKING VOLUNTEER ME FOR SHIT WITH THAT MAN! I WAS ALMOST FUCKING KILLED BECAUSE HE’S AN INCOMPETENT FUCKING DOUCHE BAG!” I forget what all I said but I went on for a minute or two like that. Picture that, an E-6 Staff Sergeant being bitched out by an E-4 Corporal. He just stood there with a look of disbelief on his face. I was venting. He knew it. He understood. He didn’t put me at parade rest or anything. He let me rant. I apologized later.
But looking back, what do I have to bitch about? I’m alive now and have a cool ass war story to tell. Fuck it.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Three IEDs Missed, Three IEDs Hit
Riding in the back of a Bradley, cramped on a bench with three other dudes, my ass was already numb from the constant vibrations as the 35 ton vehicle made its way up Route Detroit. We were en route to a village on the outskirts of Buhriz to conduct another cordon and search. More kicking in doors if the family inside didn’t let us in quick enough, another day of zip cuffing every military aged male and blindfolding them in their own homes while we send the women and children outside to the yard and commenced to tearing their homes apart searching for weapons or any other contraband they weren’t supposed to have. It was an empowering feeling to be able to do whatever the fuck you wanted, within reason of course, but sometimes you felt like a real dick head and could understand why they didn’t like us coming around. But when you keep getting blown up in front of these same people’s homes, you don’t really care about upsetting them and messing up their bedrooms if it gets you closer to stopping the bombs and making it home alive. But today, we wouldn’t be inconveniencing any Iraqi family because we would never make it to our destination.
We had two Bradley’s that day, SSG Johnson leading in the front, LT commanding the rear Brad with myself and my dismount team in the back. I had the internal communications headset on and was monitoring the radio traffic going on in between the two vehicles when I heard SSG Johnson say he knew a route we could take cross-country that would minimize our exposure to IEDs on the paved highway.
“Sir, do not let Sargn’t Johnson take that same fucking path by that one vineyard where we found that cache. He’s used it so much it looks like a fucking dirt road. I guarantee you there will be an IED there.” I advised the LT. The “short-cut” SSG Johnson had referred to led across open farmlands and cut through a very narrow chokepoint in between a dike and a canal. We’d used it so much that there was no longer any vegetation on it. Our Bradley’s had basically created a dirt road that any insurgent with half a brain could tell we often used.
“Yeah I’m tracking Walter. Don’t worry about it.” LT replied. Even though he assured me we wouldn’t use that route I didn’t feel very confident that he even knew where exactly I was talking about.
I felt the front end of the Bradley dip down as it got off the road. The two bodies sitting next to me slid forward and pressed me uncomfortably against the turret door. We hadn’t been off the highway for 20 seconds when a sudden jolt and loud crack rocked the Bradley. All the dust inside the dismount compartment leapt off whatever surface it had covered and created a choking cloud in the vehicle.
“Motherfucker!” I yelled.
“FUCK! IED!” LT shouted.
CPL Clark, one of our platoon’s medics immediately began grabbing everyone within arm’s reach and shouting “You OK!? You good!?”.
“You guys all right up there!?” I asked through the microphone.
LT replied first, “I’m up. Schmidt you all right!?”
SGT Schmidt, the gunner replied “Yeah, I’m good! You guys all right back there?”
“We’re all right, everyone’s good back here.” I replied.
Schmidt then called to Green, the driver “Green, you all right down there?”
Silence.
The three of us with headsets began shouting for Green at once. “Green! Green! Are you OK!?”
The thought of what happened to Fairlie immediately flashed through my mind and I became very worried for my friend in the driver’s hole. CPL Clark was sitting nearest the driver so I hollered at him to see if Green was ok.
“Can’t tell! I can’t see shit!” Smoke and dust were swirling around in the back of the Brad.
Green finally spoke up, his voice trembling “Yeahh, I’m…I’m…I’m all right. I’m good. I’m good.” Instant relief. My shoulders relaxed and I let out a deep breath. LT called SSG Johnson and told him we were all alive and whole.
LT and Schmidt were talking back and forth. The turret had lost power and when Green tried to drive the Bradley forward we could hear the track falling off as we came to a halt.
“It hit the front right side. Blew a road wheel off, threw the track.” LT said.
“Sir, drop the ramp and let us out, we’ll clear the area and pull security while you guys work this shit out.” I suggested.
As I stepped out of the vehicle I warned my dudes to get the hell away from the Bradley and watch out for any secondary IEDs. Off to my right I saw the vineyard where we’d found the cache a month before. We were on the same fucking path I told LT not to let SSG Johnson take. This upset me, to say the least. I wanted to yell and curse LT and SSG Johnson for taking such an obvious route but given my rank and the fact that it wouldn’t do any good anyhow, I let it go.
We started making our way towards the vineyard to search for anyone who may have been involved in the attack. LT ordered us to hold up until the QRF arrived. We took cover in a ditch and bitched about being told to hold our move and wait for Bradley’s to support us. We’d done dozens of missions without any vehicles to support us and with fewer personnel. It didn’t make any since to us but the butter-bar set his foot down when we objected and that was that. An Air Weapons Team arrived before the QRF did and LT had them cover our move into the vineyard.
We’d cleared about halfway through as SSG Johnson’s Bradley began towing LT’s back through the chokepoint. I was walking point and I’d turned around to say something to SSG J when I saw a huge plume of dirt and smoke shooting into the air about 200 meters back, where the Bradley’s were. I managed to get out the words “Oh shit” before the sound of the explosion from the second IED hit us.
We began running back through the vineyard to the Bradley’s when SSG Johnson got on the radio and told us they were all okay and that the IED did little damage. They found pressure wire from the second IED at the blast site. Somehow, when we first rolled through the chokepoint, neither Bradley had hit that IED.
2nd Platoon’s Bradley’s showed up with SSG Stadel in the lead. He stopped at our location and asked us if we wanted a ride over to our Brad’s.
“Fuck that shit, that’s two IEDs back to back, I’m walking.” I told SSG J. He agreed it was probably safer to be on our feet rather than riding in the back of a Bradley around here. We made our way back to the Brad’s and began searching the dikes and culverts on the opposite side of the IED sites. SSG J had gone over to help SSG Johnson, who was now dismounted and searching through the chokepoint for any more IEDs.
“That’s two IEDs we missed man, if I was LT I wouldn’t be going back through that chokepoint, I’d find another way back to Detroit.” I said. Lobban nodded in agreement.
As the Brad’s again began pushing through, my team and I were about 100 meters away when I saw a third IED detonate directly in front of the lead Brad. SSG J was standing no more than ten feet from it and I watched his body get thrown to the ground from the blast. SSG Stadel, who was also on the ground at this point, sprinted over to him yelling “Medic! Medic!”. I started to move towards them but froze after a few steps. That’s three fucking IEDs, I thought to myself, this is a fucking minefield. I looked to the ground and saw all the track marks from where we’d previously used this area to travel cross-country. In anyone of these spots there could be more pressure wires that would only take the weight of my body to set off the artillery rounds they’d be connected to.
A few seconds later I began hearing a fwip fwip fwip sound I’d heard before when shrapnel was falling from the sky and landing around me. I looked at my dudes who were diving to the ground for cover. Trouble was, there wasn’t any cover since we were moving through wide open farm land. So, I stood as erect as possible, sort of angled my body in the direction of the IED blast site, and thought; Please don’t hit me. Please don’t hit me. Please don’t hit me. A piece of shrapnel the size of a baseball landed about one meter right in front me. It was still smoking when I picked it up and was so hot it began to burn my hand through the Nomex glove I had on. Damn, I thought, if that thing had hit me in the shoulder it could’ve taken my arm off.
I looked up and saw SSG J standing there, brushing himself off and shaking his body like a wet dog does to dry off. One lucky bastard. Again, no one was hurt and LT finally decided to take a different path back to the highway. It only took two secondary IEDs to convince him to do so. I carefully led my dudes back to Route Detroit, my eyes glued to the dirt for any signs of buried explosives.
When we all finally made it safely back onto Route Detroit, my team crammed in the back of a Brad along with LT’s crew. SGT Schmidt had a grin from to ear to ear. He was happy as hell at the fact that we’d just hit three IEDs in a matter of 30 minutes and no one was hurt. His hands were still shaking though as he smoked his cigarette. LT just stared off into space and I could see he was a little shaken up. We never should’ve gone down that fucking dirt road to begin with, I thought to myself.
We had two Bradley’s that day, SSG Johnson leading in the front, LT commanding the rear Brad with myself and my dismount team in the back. I had the internal communications headset on and was monitoring the radio traffic going on in between the two vehicles when I heard SSG Johnson say he knew a route we could take cross-country that would minimize our exposure to IEDs on the paved highway.
“Sir, do not let Sargn’t Johnson take that same fucking path by that one vineyard where we found that cache. He’s used it so much it looks like a fucking dirt road. I guarantee you there will be an IED there.” I advised the LT. The “short-cut” SSG Johnson had referred to led across open farmlands and cut through a very narrow chokepoint in between a dike and a canal. We’d used it so much that there was no longer any vegetation on it. Our Bradley’s had basically created a dirt road that any insurgent with half a brain could tell we often used.
“Yeah I’m tracking Walter. Don’t worry about it.” LT replied. Even though he assured me we wouldn’t use that route I didn’t feel very confident that he even knew where exactly I was talking about.
I felt the front end of the Bradley dip down as it got off the road. The two bodies sitting next to me slid forward and pressed me uncomfortably against the turret door. We hadn’t been off the highway for 20 seconds when a sudden jolt and loud crack rocked the Bradley. All the dust inside the dismount compartment leapt off whatever surface it had covered and created a choking cloud in the vehicle.
“Motherfucker!” I yelled.
“FUCK! IED!” LT shouted.
CPL Clark, one of our platoon’s medics immediately began grabbing everyone within arm’s reach and shouting “You OK!? You good!?”.
“You guys all right up there!?” I asked through the microphone.
LT replied first, “I’m up. Schmidt you all right!?”
SGT Schmidt, the gunner replied “Yeah, I’m good! You guys all right back there?”
“We’re all right, everyone’s good back here.” I replied.
Schmidt then called to Green, the driver “Green, you all right down there?”
Silence.
The three of us with headsets began shouting for Green at once. “Green! Green! Are you OK!?”
The thought of what happened to Fairlie immediately flashed through my mind and I became very worried for my friend in the driver’s hole. CPL Clark was sitting nearest the driver so I hollered at him to see if Green was ok.
“Can’t tell! I can’t see shit!” Smoke and dust were swirling around in the back of the Brad.
Green finally spoke up, his voice trembling “Yeahh, I’m…I’m…I’m all right. I’m good. I’m good.” Instant relief. My shoulders relaxed and I let out a deep breath. LT called SSG Johnson and told him we were all alive and whole.
LT and Schmidt were talking back and forth. The turret had lost power and when Green tried to drive the Bradley forward we could hear the track falling off as we came to a halt.
“It hit the front right side. Blew a road wheel off, threw the track.” LT said.
“Sir, drop the ramp and let us out, we’ll clear the area and pull security while you guys work this shit out.” I suggested.
As I stepped out of the vehicle I warned my dudes to get the hell away from the Bradley and watch out for any secondary IEDs. Off to my right I saw the vineyard where we’d found the cache a month before. We were on the same fucking path I told LT not to let SSG Johnson take. This upset me, to say the least. I wanted to yell and curse LT and SSG Johnson for taking such an obvious route but given my rank and the fact that it wouldn’t do any good anyhow, I let it go.
We started making our way towards the vineyard to search for anyone who may have been involved in the attack. LT ordered us to hold up until the QRF arrived. We took cover in a ditch and bitched about being told to hold our move and wait for Bradley’s to support us. We’d done dozens of missions without any vehicles to support us and with fewer personnel. It didn’t make any since to us but the butter-bar set his foot down when we objected and that was that. An Air Weapons Team arrived before the QRF did and LT had them cover our move into the vineyard.
We’d cleared about halfway through as SSG Johnson’s Bradley began towing LT’s back through the chokepoint. I was walking point and I’d turned around to say something to SSG J when I saw a huge plume of dirt and smoke shooting into the air about 200 meters back, where the Bradley’s were. I managed to get out the words “Oh shit” before the sound of the explosion from the second IED hit us.
We began running back through the vineyard to the Bradley’s when SSG Johnson got on the radio and told us they were all okay and that the IED did little damage. They found pressure wire from the second IED at the blast site. Somehow, when we first rolled through the chokepoint, neither Bradley had hit that IED.
2nd Platoon’s Bradley’s showed up with SSG Stadel in the lead. He stopped at our location and asked us if we wanted a ride over to our Brad’s.
“Fuck that shit, that’s two IEDs back to back, I’m walking.” I told SSG J. He agreed it was probably safer to be on our feet rather than riding in the back of a Bradley around here. We made our way back to the Brad’s and began searching the dikes and culverts on the opposite side of the IED sites. SSG J had gone over to help SSG Johnson, who was now dismounted and searching through the chokepoint for any more IEDs.
“That’s two IEDs we missed man, if I was LT I wouldn’t be going back through that chokepoint, I’d find another way back to Detroit.” I said. Lobban nodded in agreement.
As the Brad’s again began pushing through, my team and I were about 100 meters away when I saw a third IED detonate directly in front of the lead Brad. SSG J was standing no more than ten feet from it and I watched his body get thrown to the ground from the blast. SSG Stadel, who was also on the ground at this point, sprinted over to him yelling “Medic! Medic!”. I started to move towards them but froze after a few steps. That’s three fucking IEDs, I thought to myself, this is a fucking minefield. I looked to the ground and saw all the track marks from where we’d previously used this area to travel cross-country. In anyone of these spots there could be more pressure wires that would only take the weight of my body to set off the artillery rounds they’d be connected to.
A few seconds later I began hearing a fwip fwip fwip sound I’d heard before when shrapnel was falling from the sky and landing around me. I looked at my dudes who were diving to the ground for cover. Trouble was, there wasn’t any cover since we were moving through wide open farm land. So, I stood as erect as possible, sort of angled my body in the direction of the IED blast site, and thought; Please don’t hit me. Please don’t hit me. Please don’t hit me. A piece of shrapnel the size of a baseball landed about one meter right in front me. It was still smoking when I picked it up and was so hot it began to burn my hand through the Nomex glove I had on. Damn, I thought, if that thing had hit me in the shoulder it could’ve taken my arm off.
I looked up and saw SSG J standing there, brushing himself off and shaking his body like a wet dog does to dry off. One lucky bastard. Again, no one was hurt and LT finally decided to take a different path back to the highway. It only took two secondary IEDs to convince him to do so. I carefully led my dudes back to Route Detroit, my eyes glued to the dirt for any signs of buried explosives.
When we all finally made it safely back onto Route Detroit, my team crammed in the back of a Brad along with LT’s crew. SGT Schmidt had a grin from to ear to ear. He was happy as hell at the fact that we’d just hit three IEDs in a matter of 30 minutes and no one was hurt. His hands were still shaking though as he smoked his cigarette. LT just stared off into space and I could see he was a little shaken up. We never should’ve gone down that fucking dirt road to begin with, I thought to myself.
The Long Crawl Backwards
“Hey Walter Guy, you wanna go kill that dude?” SFC Sal asked me as he lay on his side of the ditch.
I shrugged and without giving it much thought replied “Yeah sure, why not?”
The two of us made our way into the clearing, leaving Lobban and Blair up by the road, and the cover and concealment we had in the vineyard behind. We moved through a small ditch, no more than 2 feet deep, maybe 2 feet wide, paralleling a dirt road that lead to the a village ahead of us just a few hundred meters. Shots were ringing out in Buhriz further to the north which was common and rarely gave us any cause for alarm. At this particular moment though, with each shot I heard, my stomach tightened and twisted. All was quiet in our AO and this made me nervous.
As we neared the village, slipping and stumbling through the wet mud at the bottom of the ditch, an explosion tore at the earth about 20 meters to our front, shattering the silence and sending us diving into the shallow ditch for cover. Off to our northwest, just outside the village, from an area I’d seen there to be tall grass growing along dikes, I heard at least 5 AK47s open up on us. The rounds hissed and snapped over our bodies. I was lying on my stomach with my arms extended to my front, holding my M4 out of the mud. I tucked my chin into my chest as best I could with all the gear on my body and the whole world just seemed to freeze.
“Stay low! Stay low!” SFC Sal yelled back to me. I glanced up and saw him doing exactly the same thing I was.
Well I sure as fuck ain’t gonna stand up, there’s motherfuckers shooting at me!
The incoming small arms only lasted about 30 seconds before it ceased as quickly as it started. For a minute or so we laid still.
“You see anything?!” he hollered back to me.
“Nah I can’t see shit!” All I could see from my vantage point was the southernmost building in the village about 100 meters away with its typical rooftop doorway every Iraqi home seems to have. The door was slightly open and everything was dark inside.
SFC Sal got on the ICOM and talked SSG J onto where we had been receiving the small arms fire. He told him to have Mac suppress the area with a few long bursts from his SAW. Mac opened up from the rooftop they had occupied a few hundred meters behind our location. I watched as the tracers from Mac’s SAW slammed into southernmost building and slowly streamed over to the tall grass. Under the covering fire, SFC Sal told me to stay in the ditch while he crawled across the road and stopped behind a small mound of dirt on the other side. Using my elbows and knees to push myself forward, I sloshed through the mud until I was across from him. He was scanning through his ACOG towards the tall grass but we received no return fire after Mac’s SAW had engaged.
“Hey Walter Guy, I don’t think they want us around here.” He was grinning. SFC Sal always found humor in the most inappropriate of situations.
“Uh...yea...I…uh...I agree.” The joke relaxed me a bit. My ass cheeks un-puckered and I lit a smoke. I began reasoning to myself that the muj probably just fired their rifle grenade, shot up their magazines and broke contact like they usually do. After all, they rarely stick around for a fight. In retrospect, I think I was selling myself this idea more than I actually believed in its logic. It was comforting to think that the bad guys were gone.
SFC Sal was talking to SSG J on the ICOM, trying to give him our grid location, but for whatever little reason the comm’s were cutting out and SSG J never copied our exact location. In the technological age of wonders that we live in, we were still relying on hand held walkie talkies that would rarely work past 50 meters. I mean c’mon, WTF? All SSG J knew was that we were about two or three hundred meters to his north. Somewhere. In that general direction. He could see the village just in front of us, but because of a few tall trees, he couldn’t see our spot next to the dirt road in the ditch. He was able to relay that no Air Weapons Teams would be available because another unit was in contact to our north in Baqubah. SFC Sal decided against calling for the quick reaction force to come from the DMC. This would turn out to be a mistake.
Call me worrisome, but I thought it would be a good idea to bring Lobban and Blair into the vineyard where they could better cover our move and watch our asses should any Hajji’s sneak around behind us. SFC Sal told me “Don’t worry about that shit guy.” Then he asked “Don’t you wanna keep going and kill that fucker?”
As I sank my cigarette butt into the mud, I pursed my lips and shook my head from side to side. I began hearing metal being dragged around in the village. I looked over to SFC Sal, “Hey – you hear that shit?”
He shook his head. Of course he didn’t hear it, he once asked me to switch seats with him during a hearing exam back at Ft. Hood. Too many grenades going off near his head back home in Bosnia.
“It sounds like somebody’s moving some shit around, like sheet metal or something.”
“Lemme see…” He started scanning into the village but saw no movement whatsoever. By this time, a fire that had started from the explosion was being blown onto SFC Sal. Burning leaves and grass were falling down on his legs so he jumped up and ran back across the road and hopped back into the ditch. He was 5 meters in front of me again and as he went to a kneeling position, the entire fucking village erupted in small arms fire. At least twice as many AKs and one PKC machine gun were raking our position from the village. SFC Sal immediately rolled to his left side, put his weapon on burst and began spraying. I followed suit, rolled over to my left, using the side of the ditch as a platform to steady my weapon, and started engaging every doorway, window and corner I could see.
SFC Sal reached for his ICOM that he kept on his left shoulder and was just about to call for support when a round skimmed his knuckle, passed through the ICOM and tore open the top of his shoulder.
“Arrghhh, Walter I’m hit!”
“Where at!?”
“My shoulder!”
“Call Mac--tell him to suppress the area !!!”
“Ugggghhhh….”
“Sargn’t SAL! Call Mac and tell him to suppress the area!!!”
“They shot the fucking ICOM dude!”
And with that, my heart sank. Instant tunnel vision took over, the way you see it in a movie when the protagonist learns something really terrible has just happened and all he can focus on is the one bad thing. My one bad thing was SFC Sal lying in front of me, wounded, with no fucking ICOM.
Rounds were impacting all around us. I held my M4 over my head and sprayed my weapon on burst, sweeping it from the village to the tall grass when I heard SFC Sal yell out again.
“Arrgghhh! Walter, I’m hit again!”
“Where at!!?”
“My other fucking shoulder!”
I was looking up at SFC Sal while changing the magazine in my weapon when I saw a third round hit his right bicep. The sleeve of his uniform popped up and blood sprayed out. This time when he yelled out, the pain and agony in his voice were much more prevalent.
“AAARRRGRGRGHHHH!!! I’m hit again!”
With that I turned my head to the side and started screaming for help. Lobban and Blair were only about 150 meters behind us, so it was them I called out to.
“LOBBAAANNNNN!!! LOBBAAAAAANNNN! SUPPRESIVE FIRE! SUPPRESIVE FIRE! LOBBBAANNNNN!!!!”
I didn’t know it at the time, but they were also being engaged. I found out later that Lobban had heard me screaming his name and had yelled back in response. I couldn’t hear him over all the small arms fire. Rounds were still kicking up dirt and mud all around us. The ditch gave us just enough cover in most spots, but the enemy was still able to get angle shots on us. We were on our own.
“Start moving back!!” SFC Sal yelled.
The smoke from the fire caused by the rifle grenade was providing us with some concealment as we slowly pushed ourselves back with our elbows. Low crawling backwards was something I’d never done before, not even in basic training. I found it to be significantly more difficult and despite all the chaos going on around me, I made a mental note to include it in any training exercises I may give one day in reacting to direct fire. But there was no lack of motivating factors to keep me from digging my elbows in the mud and pushing myself back to the relative safety of the vineyard we’d naively left behind.
Because of his wounds though, SFC Sal couldn’t move as fast as we both would have liked him to. I would have to crawl a few meters, wait, hold my M4 over my head and spray in hajji’s general direction, he would catch up, and we would keep moving. Every few meters he would say my name to make sure I was still with him, still alive, but the more we crawled, and the more blood he lost, I could hear his voice sounding weaker.
“Walter….” It was more of a loud sigh than a shout at this point. We’d only moved maybe 15 meters.
“I’m here! Just keep fucking moving, don’t fucking quit! Just keep fucking moving!”
The small arms coming from the village had fallen into a steady rhythm. It was like the enemy had trained on when to change magazines so everyone on their side wasn’t doing it all at once. It was effective and terrifying at the same time. I remember looking up at SFC Sal while lying stationary, waiting for him to catch up, when a single round slammed into the side of the ditch about 2 feet from my face, spraying mud and dirt into my eyes and mouth. I shook my head and wiped my eyes. Looking up towards the village I saw the same door on top of the southernmost building I’d mentioned earlier only this time the door was wide open. I still couldn’t see anything but darkness inside but I figured the angle for that round to have hit where it did meant the shooter must be somewhere in that general area. If nothing else, at least I had a target. So I emptied a magazine aiming it at the door, reloaded, and kept low crawling.
We’d crawled about 30 meters when I heard a burst of AK fire extremely close and off to our left. I looked up to the sky and expected to see some black clad muj standing on the road wearing a ski mask, pointing the barrel of an AK47 at my face.
“Jesus! Fuck! Shit! Fuck! That was fucking close!” I yelled out.
“What….?” He was pretty out of it at this point. He didn’t even notice the fire that was coming from directly across the road, on the other side of the canal just opposite us. The shooter was only 15 meters away at most. I held up my M4 and sprayed in his direction, not really expecting to hit shit but feeling better about shooting back. I kept crawling.
Another burst of fire came from across the road. I could actually feel the drop in the air pressure when he fired. I saw the rounds skipping off the road above SFC Sal. I held up my M4, emptied a magazine in the shooter’s direction, and pulled the frag from my vest.
As I looked at it, a brief memory flashed through my brain. I’m back at the DMC, I had just found the box of frag grenades in our ammo housing area when I turned to Schmidt and said “I wanna throw this bad boy. Just once in Iraq, I wanna throw a hand grenade.” Now that the time to actually throw that son of a bitch was here, all I could think was Fuck! I wish I didn’t have to do this!
In text book form, I raised my torso up, extending my right leg at an angle away from my body for balance, pointed my non-throwing hand towards the far side of the canal, threw the grenade and yelled “Frag out!!” as I dropped back into the muddy ditch. More rounds hissed and snapped past. I stayed low as the deep CRUMP of the grenade explosion showered us with dirt and rocks. I raised my M4 and fired an entire magazine, sweeping my weapon from left to right and back again. We didn’t take any more fire from that direction.
SFC Sal kept saying my name and I kept urging him on, telling him “Don’t quit! It’s not that bad! It’s only like 10 more meters!” But the truth was, we had a good 50 meters to go and we were still taking heavy small arms fire from the village.
All I could do was stay low and keep moving. I had a million things flash through my mind while crawling backwards, listening to the bullets fly by above. It’s truly amazing where your mind will wander in situations like these. There I was, in some muddy Iraqi ditch, convinced that I would not live to see the sun go down and I found myself wondering what my brothers and sisters were doing at that moment. I thought about an old girlfriend I hadn’t seen in years and wondered if she ever thought about me. I pictured what life could have been like if only I’d just gone to college instead of enlisting in the Army. Everything that was foremost in my mind was screaming “Survive!”, yet I could not suppress these memories. It was as if my subconscious had retreated into a safer place to live out the last few moments of my life in peace and was reaching out to my conscious mind and inviting it to join. I wasn’t about to let that happen.
I thought about jumping up and making a run for it. I actually entertained the notion of leaving SFC Sal behind and running for the vineyard by myself. I looked up at SFC Sal and saw him painfully crawling through the ditch, his face buried in the mud, grunting with every motion he made. There was no way I could leave him. He couldn't even hold his own weapon. I kept crawling.
When I first heard the shooting behind me, I’d thought Lobban and Blair had made their way into the vineyard and were now providing covering fire for our move back. I quickly recognized the distinct CRACK of an AK47 and realized we now had enemy behind us as well. I raised my head and tried to look over my shoulder to see if I could get eyes on the shooter. A burst of machine gun fire flew over my head and the SNAP of a single round passing within inches of my face forced my head back into the mud. I could tell whoever was behind me was closer than those to my front. I figured it’d be better to be shot in the head than the balls since it would kill me quicker and do so with less pain. So, while staying as low as I possibly could, I turned my body around in the ditch and could now crawl forwards. In the fraction of the second it took to turn around, I heard multiple AK47s start firing from the far side of Route Gold, off to our east. We were being surrounded. I didn’t bother relaying the news to SFC Sal since I didn’t think it would do him any good.
I remember thinking, just as long as I stay low, they can’t hit me. I’ve got enough cover here. The Bradleys will come. They’ll be here any minute now. But it would take the QRF an hour and a half to make their way to us. I was down to three magazines and I had no idea what had happened to the rest of our team. I knew I may need those three mags of ammo even if I made it back to the vineyard safely. Since my spraying and praying technique was proving highly ineffective, I decided to keep low crawling, save my ammunition, and make sure SFC Sal stayed close behind. I’d occasionally poke my head up to make sure no one was running up on our position, and each time a single round snapped pass my head.
We were about 30 meters from the vineyard when I first saw the Air Weapons Team circling high up and a good 3 or 4 klicks off to our west. I found out later, that somebody somewhere, while reporting the situation to higher headquarters, had told them that we were also taking RPG fire. With RPGs involved, the AWT was a lot more hesitant to come down too low during the daylight. At the time, while crawling through that ditch, I didn’t know this had been reported. To me, I saw two of the most lethal weapons in the American military’s arsenal circling above as if they were just there to watch. Why the fuck aren’t those assholes swooping down here and wasting everything within 1 kilometer of us!!!?? It was pretty disheartening. But, again, as I later found out, they weren’t even sure of our exact location so I guess I should be grateful that I wasn’t blown to pieces by friendly fire.
“Hey Walter Guy, I’m thinking about making a run for it.”
The small arms fire had died down a bit by now but there was still the sporadic spray of an AK here and there. I looked over my shoulder and saw SFC Sal’s face. He had managed to spin himself around in the ditch as well. His face was pale white and his eyes were glossed over making him look like he was nursing a really bad hangover. His entire upper body was soaked in blood. I finally told him about the “asshole shooting at us from behind” and informed him that the last bit of fire we took was from that direction.
He looked up at me, “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, just keep crawling, we’re right there, you’re the toughest son of a bitch I know, don’t quit now, keep crawling. And keep your head down, you don’t wanna get sniped on the home-stretch.”
And so, we crawled. We made our way into the vineyard and just like that, all the shooting ceased. The Air Weapons Team was now circling directly overhead. I had more cover behind the much larger embankment the ditch offered inside the vineyard and I held my head up and looked around. Nothing. The fire from the rifle grenade was right across the road from me. It had followed us the entire time. But I didn’t see a single soul anywhere. I tried looking through the trees to see through to the far side of Route Gold. I was trying to catch a glimpse of SSG J and the rest of our team on top of the house there. I could make out the tops of heads bobbing around but I couldn’t tell if they were ours or theirs. Since neither of us recalled hearing any of our guys shooting, we assumed they’d been rolled up and were now either dead or captured. I looked up at the sun. We had a good two hours left before it was dark enough for us to move on our own. I looked at my watch. It had taken us nearly an hour and a half to low crawl 100 meters.
We laid there and tried to figure out what to do next. SFC Sal handed me his M4 and had me use a twig to clean the mud out of his barrel. He then fished a VS-17 panel out of his pocket. I laid the bright orange square in the middle of the ditch and moments later an Apache flew directly overhead and shot off a few flares. It was an immediate relief to know that at least they knew where we were. Right about then, I began hearing that oh-so comforting sound of tracked vehicles squeaking along. Through the trees, I saw the turret of a Bradley about 600 meters to our south. Someone fired a red star cluster into the air.
“The Brad’s are about here.” I said with a little relief. I was still feeling very much alone and knew I wasn’t quite out of it yet.
“Man this ditch saved our lives” said SFC Sal.
“If it wasn’t for this tiny ass ditch we’d be dead!” I agreed.
I kept cautiously poking my head out of the ditch, but there were no more enemy around to shoot at us. I heard a couple Bradley’s come to a stop on the far side of Route Gold. They couldn’t make it across a bridge to get to us. Then I saw a group of American dismounts running up Gold towards us.
“We’re over here! Off your 10 o’clock! Heyyyyyy! Get the fuck off the road!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
I saw Kelly stop on the side of the road and use his ACOG to get a better look. In doing so he pointed his weapon right at me.
“Don’t you fucking shoot me you fucking dick!!!!”
The dismount team, with SSG J and the rest of our guys mixed in moved into the vineyard before I yelled for them to “Stop moving! Get the fuck down!”
As far as I knew, there was still a large group of enemy in the area and I wasn’t taking any chances.
McElrath yelled out “Is Bushmaster 4 with you!?”
Before I could answer SFC Sal shouted “We got a pimp down!”
SGT Lawton, our troop’s senior medic started asking questions next. “Where’s he hit?”
“His shoulders. And his arm.”
“Did you get a tourniquet on?”
“Well I ain’t really had a fucking chance Doc.”
“Has he lost a lot of blood?”
SFC Sal piped in like a drunk at a party, “This pimp’s gonna be all right! Quit being a bunch of faggots!”
I started laughing at this one but I didn’t let the good feelings flow for too long. I took SFC Sal’s weapon and told him to move out first. We made our way to the Brads where the medics patched him up. It took a few bandages to stop the bleeding on each wound. I got a glance of his shoulder and it looked as if somebody and taken an axe and split the top of it wide open. The medics called it a “deep graze”. They injected him in his leg with a dose of morphine as we rode back to the DMC. On the way, Brawler Platoon hit an IED. I heard the contact report over the radio but no casualties or severe damage had been done to the vehicle. I’d had enough for one day. When we got back, the landing zone had already been set up and everyone was running around doing this and that to get the medevac underway. I was out of it. I wandered around, completely covered in mud on my front side. My hands were shaking when I bummed a smoke from SGT Harris. I’d never seen a weapon as dirty as mine was and I could not believe it never jammed on me the whole time.
SFC Sal was lying on a stretcher and he asked to see me before they flew him out. I ran over to him and was about to jokingly punch him in the shoulder before I stopped myself. I reminded him of what he’d told us that morning before we’d left; “If you wanna get off this dismount team, you gotta get shot!” I asked him “Why the hell are you trying to get off your own dismount team?” He laughed. I could tell the morphine was taking effect just as long as he wasn’t being moved. The birds came and he started his trip that would eventually bring him back to the states.
I was stopped by SFC Ramey on my way back to my room and was told to report to the CP after I’d gotten cleaned up to give a de-briefing to LT Guzman. As I got into my room, something just hit me. I collapsed on my bed and started shaking all over. Tears welled up but I didn’t cry. I wiped away the mud from my face and mouth and changed into PTs. People kept coming by asking “What the fuck happened out there? We heard you and SFC Sal got separated and lost or some shit. You all right?”
After my debriefing, I tried to lie down and get some sleep but I couldn’t stop shaking. I lay awake for hours going through everything that had just happened in my mind, over and over and over again. What a day.
----------------------------------------------------
While cleaning SFC Sal’s gear, we found two more rounds had hit his OTV, bringing the total number hit up to 5. One had been deflected by the Kevlar and the other had come to a stop in his NVGs. The round in his NVGs was a 7.62mm round that was used in Dragunov sniper rifles. This explained why there was always that single round snapping past whenever I poked my head up. How I never got shot, I do not know. Luck and chance I suppose. We later found out that the Air Weapons Team had seen us crawling through the ditch before we laid out our VS-17 panel but could not engage any hostiles because of their proximity to our location. They reported that at one point there were 15-20 enemy fighters circling the two of us in that ditch. SSG J’s team couldn’t engage with the SAW or their M203 grenade launcher because they couldn’t positively identify our location. They also couldn’t have crossed Route Gold to get into the vineyard because of they too were being engaged. It amazes me that SFC Sal and I are still alive. Hajj fucked up.
I shrugged and without giving it much thought replied “Yeah sure, why not?”
The two of us made our way into the clearing, leaving Lobban and Blair up by the road, and the cover and concealment we had in the vineyard behind. We moved through a small ditch, no more than 2 feet deep, maybe 2 feet wide, paralleling a dirt road that lead to the a village ahead of us just a few hundred meters. Shots were ringing out in Buhriz further to the north which was common and rarely gave us any cause for alarm. At this particular moment though, with each shot I heard, my stomach tightened and twisted. All was quiet in our AO and this made me nervous.
As we neared the village, slipping and stumbling through the wet mud at the bottom of the ditch, an explosion tore at the earth about 20 meters to our front, shattering the silence and sending us diving into the shallow ditch for cover. Off to our northwest, just outside the village, from an area I’d seen there to be tall grass growing along dikes, I heard at least 5 AK47s open up on us. The rounds hissed and snapped over our bodies. I was lying on my stomach with my arms extended to my front, holding my M4 out of the mud. I tucked my chin into my chest as best I could with all the gear on my body and the whole world just seemed to freeze.
“Stay low! Stay low!” SFC Sal yelled back to me. I glanced up and saw him doing exactly the same thing I was.
Well I sure as fuck ain’t gonna stand up, there’s motherfuckers shooting at me!
The incoming small arms only lasted about 30 seconds before it ceased as quickly as it started. For a minute or so we laid still.
“You see anything?!” he hollered back to me.
“Nah I can’t see shit!” All I could see from my vantage point was the southernmost building in the village about 100 meters away with its typical rooftop doorway every Iraqi home seems to have. The door was slightly open and everything was dark inside.
SFC Sal got on the ICOM and talked SSG J onto where we had been receiving the small arms fire. He told him to have Mac suppress the area with a few long bursts from his SAW. Mac opened up from the rooftop they had occupied a few hundred meters behind our location. I watched as the tracers from Mac’s SAW slammed into southernmost building and slowly streamed over to the tall grass. Under the covering fire, SFC Sal told me to stay in the ditch while he crawled across the road and stopped behind a small mound of dirt on the other side. Using my elbows and knees to push myself forward, I sloshed through the mud until I was across from him. He was scanning through his ACOG towards the tall grass but we received no return fire after Mac’s SAW had engaged.
“Hey Walter Guy, I don’t think they want us around here.” He was grinning. SFC Sal always found humor in the most inappropriate of situations.
“Uh...yea...I…uh...I agree.” The joke relaxed me a bit. My ass cheeks un-puckered and I lit a smoke. I began reasoning to myself that the muj probably just fired their rifle grenade, shot up their magazines and broke contact like they usually do. After all, they rarely stick around for a fight. In retrospect, I think I was selling myself this idea more than I actually believed in its logic. It was comforting to think that the bad guys were gone.
SFC Sal was talking to SSG J on the ICOM, trying to give him our grid location, but for whatever little reason the comm’s were cutting out and SSG J never copied our exact location. In the technological age of wonders that we live in, we were still relying on hand held walkie talkies that would rarely work past 50 meters. I mean c’mon, WTF? All SSG J knew was that we were about two or three hundred meters to his north. Somewhere. In that general direction. He could see the village just in front of us, but because of a few tall trees, he couldn’t see our spot next to the dirt road in the ditch. He was able to relay that no Air Weapons Teams would be available because another unit was in contact to our north in Baqubah. SFC Sal decided against calling for the quick reaction force to come from the DMC. This would turn out to be a mistake.
Call me worrisome, but I thought it would be a good idea to bring Lobban and Blair into the vineyard where they could better cover our move and watch our asses should any Hajji’s sneak around behind us. SFC Sal told me “Don’t worry about that shit guy.” Then he asked “Don’t you wanna keep going and kill that fucker?”
As I sank my cigarette butt into the mud, I pursed my lips and shook my head from side to side. I began hearing metal being dragged around in the village. I looked over to SFC Sal, “Hey – you hear that shit?”
He shook his head. Of course he didn’t hear it, he once asked me to switch seats with him during a hearing exam back at Ft. Hood. Too many grenades going off near his head back home in Bosnia.
“It sounds like somebody’s moving some shit around, like sheet metal or something.”
“Lemme see…” He started scanning into the village but saw no movement whatsoever. By this time, a fire that had started from the explosion was being blown onto SFC Sal. Burning leaves and grass were falling down on his legs so he jumped up and ran back across the road and hopped back into the ditch. He was 5 meters in front of me again and as he went to a kneeling position, the entire fucking village erupted in small arms fire. At least twice as many AKs and one PKC machine gun were raking our position from the village. SFC Sal immediately rolled to his left side, put his weapon on burst and began spraying. I followed suit, rolled over to my left, using the side of the ditch as a platform to steady my weapon, and started engaging every doorway, window and corner I could see.
SFC Sal reached for his ICOM that he kept on his left shoulder and was just about to call for support when a round skimmed his knuckle, passed through the ICOM and tore open the top of his shoulder.
“Arrghhh, Walter I’m hit!”
“Where at!?”
“My shoulder!”
“Call Mac--tell him to suppress the area !!!”
“Ugggghhhh….”
“Sargn’t SAL! Call Mac and tell him to suppress the area!!!”
“They shot the fucking ICOM dude!”
And with that, my heart sank. Instant tunnel vision took over, the way you see it in a movie when the protagonist learns something really terrible has just happened and all he can focus on is the one bad thing. My one bad thing was SFC Sal lying in front of me, wounded, with no fucking ICOM.
Rounds were impacting all around us. I held my M4 over my head and sprayed my weapon on burst, sweeping it from the village to the tall grass when I heard SFC Sal yell out again.
“Arrgghhh! Walter, I’m hit again!”
“Where at!!?”
“My other fucking shoulder!”
I was looking up at SFC Sal while changing the magazine in my weapon when I saw a third round hit his right bicep. The sleeve of his uniform popped up and blood sprayed out. This time when he yelled out, the pain and agony in his voice were much more prevalent.
“AAARRRGRGRGHHHH!!! I’m hit again!”
With that I turned my head to the side and started screaming for help. Lobban and Blair were only about 150 meters behind us, so it was them I called out to.
“LOBBAAANNNNN!!! LOBBAAAAAANNNN! SUPPRESIVE FIRE! SUPPRESIVE FIRE! LOBBBAANNNNN!!!!”
I didn’t know it at the time, but they were also being engaged. I found out later that Lobban had heard me screaming his name and had yelled back in response. I couldn’t hear him over all the small arms fire. Rounds were still kicking up dirt and mud all around us. The ditch gave us just enough cover in most spots, but the enemy was still able to get angle shots on us. We were on our own.
“Start moving back!!” SFC Sal yelled.
The smoke from the fire caused by the rifle grenade was providing us with some concealment as we slowly pushed ourselves back with our elbows. Low crawling backwards was something I’d never done before, not even in basic training. I found it to be significantly more difficult and despite all the chaos going on around me, I made a mental note to include it in any training exercises I may give one day in reacting to direct fire. But there was no lack of motivating factors to keep me from digging my elbows in the mud and pushing myself back to the relative safety of the vineyard we’d naively left behind.
Because of his wounds though, SFC Sal couldn’t move as fast as we both would have liked him to. I would have to crawl a few meters, wait, hold my M4 over my head and spray in hajji’s general direction, he would catch up, and we would keep moving. Every few meters he would say my name to make sure I was still with him, still alive, but the more we crawled, and the more blood he lost, I could hear his voice sounding weaker.
“Walter….” It was more of a loud sigh than a shout at this point. We’d only moved maybe 15 meters.
“I’m here! Just keep fucking moving, don’t fucking quit! Just keep fucking moving!”
The small arms coming from the village had fallen into a steady rhythm. It was like the enemy had trained on when to change magazines so everyone on their side wasn’t doing it all at once. It was effective and terrifying at the same time. I remember looking up at SFC Sal while lying stationary, waiting for him to catch up, when a single round slammed into the side of the ditch about 2 feet from my face, spraying mud and dirt into my eyes and mouth. I shook my head and wiped my eyes. Looking up towards the village I saw the same door on top of the southernmost building I’d mentioned earlier only this time the door was wide open. I still couldn’t see anything but darkness inside but I figured the angle for that round to have hit where it did meant the shooter must be somewhere in that general area. If nothing else, at least I had a target. So I emptied a magazine aiming it at the door, reloaded, and kept low crawling.
We’d crawled about 30 meters when I heard a burst of AK fire extremely close and off to our left. I looked up to the sky and expected to see some black clad muj standing on the road wearing a ski mask, pointing the barrel of an AK47 at my face.
“Jesus! Fuck! Shit! Fuck! That was fucking close!” I yelled out.
“What….?” He was pretty out of it at this point. He didn’t even notice the fire that was coming from directly across the road, on the other side of the canal just opposite us. The shooter was only 15 meters away at most. I held up my M4 and sprayed in his direction, not really expecting to hit shit but feeling better about shooting back. I kept crawling.
Another burst of fire came from across the road. I could actually feel the drop in the air pressure when he fired. I saw the rounds skipping off the road above SFC Sal. I held up my M4, emptied a magazine in the shooter’s direction, and pulled the frag from my vest.
As I looked at it, a brief memory flashed through my brain. I’m back at the DMC, I had just found the box of frag grenades in our ammo housing area when I turned to Schmidt and said “I wanna throw this bad boy. Just once in Iraq, I wanna throw a hand grenade.” Now that the time to actually throw that son of a bitch was here, all I could think was Fuck! I wish I didn’t have to do this!
In text book form, I raised my torso up, extending my right leg at an angle away from my body for balance, pointed my non-throwing hand towards the far side of the canal, threw the grenade and yelled “Frag out!!” as I dropped back into the muddy ditch. More rounds hissed and snapped past. I stayed low as the deep CRUMP of the grenade explosion showered us with dirt and rocks. I raised my M4 and fired an entire magazine, sweeping my weapon from left to right and back again. We didn’t take any more fire from that direction.
SFC Sal kept saying my name and I kept urging him on, telling him “Don’t quit! It’s not that bad! It’s only like 10 more meters!” But the truth was, we had a good 50 meters to go and we were still taking heavy small arms fire from the village.
All I could do was stay low and keep moving. I had a million things flash through my mind while crawling backwards, listening to the bullets fly by above. It’s truly amazing where your mind will wander in situations like these. There I was, in some muddy Iraqi ditch, convinced that I would not live to see the sun go down and I found myself wondering what my brothers and sisters were doing at that moment. I thought about an old girlfriend I hadn’t seen in years and wondered if she ever thought about me. I pictured what life could have been like if only I’d just gone to college instead of enlisting in the Army. Everything that was foremost in my mind was screaming “Survive!”, yet I could not suppress these memories. It was as if my subconscious had retreated into a safer place to live out the last few moments of my life in peace and was reaching out to my conscious mind and inviting it to join. I wasn’t about to let that happen.
I thought about jumping up and making a run for it. I actually entertained the notion of leaving SFC Sal behind and running for the vineyard by myself. I looked up at SFC Sal and saw him painfully crawling through the ditch, his face buried in the mud, grunting with every motion he made. There was no way I could leave him. He couldn't even hold his own weapon. I kept crawling.
When I first heard the shooting behind me, I’d thought Lobban and Blair had made their way into the vineyard and were now providing covering fire for our move back. I quickly recognized the distinct CRACK of an AK47 and realized we now had enemy behind us as well. I raised my head and tried to look over my shoulder to see if I could get eyes on the shooter. A burst of machine gun fire flew over my head and the SNAP of a single round passing within inches of my face forced my head back into the mud. I could tell whoever was behind me was closer than those to my front. I figured it’d be better to be shot in the head than the balls since it would kill me quicker and do so with less pain. So, while staying as low as I possibly could, I turned my body around in the ditch and could now crawl forwards. In the fraction of the second it took to turn around, I heard multiple AK47s start firing from the far side of Route Gold, off to our east. We were being surrounded. I didn’t bother relaying the news to SFC Sal since I didn’t think it would do him any good.
I remember thinking, just as long as I stay low, they can’t hit me. I’ve got enough cover here. The Bradleys will come. They’ll be here any minute now. But it would take the QRF an hour and a half to make their way to us. I was down to three magazines and I had no idea what had happened to the rest of our team. I knew I may need those three mags of ammo even if I made it back to the vineyard safely. Since my spraying and praying technique was proving highly ineffective, I decided to keep low crawling, save my ammunition, and make sure SFC Sal stayed close behind. I’d occasionally poke my head up to make sure no one was running up on our position, and each time a single round snapped pass my head.
We were about 30 meters from the vineyard when I first saw the Air Weapons Team circling high up and a good 3 or 4 klicks off to our west. I found out later, that somebody somewhere, while reporting the situation to higher headquarters, had told them that we were also taking RPG fire. With RPGs involved, the AWT was a lot more hesitant to come down too low during the daylight. At the time, while crawling through that ditch, I didn’t know this had been reported. To me, I saw two of the most lethal weapons in the American military’s arsenal circling above as if they were just there to watch. Why the fuck aren’t those assholes swooping down here and wasting everything within 1 kilometer of us!!!?? It was pretty disheartening. But, again, as I later found out, they weren’t even sure of our exact location so I guess I should be grateful that I wasn’t blown to pieces by friendly fire.
“Hey Walter Guy, I’m thinking about making a run for it.”
The small arms fire had died down a bit by now but there was still the sporadic spray of an AK here and there. I looked over my shoulder and saw SFC Sal’s face. He had managed to spin himself around in the ditch as well. His face was pale white and his eyes were glossed over making him look like he was nursing a really bad hangover. His entire upper body was soaked in blood. I finally told him about the “asshole shooting at us from behind” and informed him that the last bit of fire we took was from that direction.
He looked up at me, “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, just keep crawling, we’re right there, you’re the toughest son of a bitch I know, don’t quit now, keep crawling. And keep your head down, you don’t wanna get sniped on the home-stretch.”
And so, we crawled. We made our way into the vineyard and just like that, all the shooting ceased. The Air Weapons Team was now circling directly overhead. I had more cover behind the much larger embankment the ditch offered inside the vineyard and I held my head up and looked around. Nothing. The fire from the rifle grenade was right across the road from me. It had followed us the entire time. But I didn’t see a single soul anywhere. I tried looking through the trees to see through to the far side of Route Gold. I was trying to catch a glimpse of SSG J and the rest of our team on top of the house there. I could make out the tops of heads bobbing around but I couldn’t tell if they were ours or theirs. Since neither of us recalled hearing any of our guys shooting, we assumed they’d been rolled up and were now either dead or captured. I looked up at the sun. We had a good two hours left before it was dark enough for us to move on our own. I looked at my watch. It had taken us nearly an hour and a half to low crawl 100 meters.
We laid there and tried to figure out what to do next. SFC Sal handed me his M4 and had me use a twig to clean the mud out of his barrel. He then fished a VS-17 panel out of his pocket. I laid the bright orange square in the middle of the ditch and moments later an Apache flew directly overhead and shot off a few flares. It was an immediate relief to know that at least they knew where we were. Right about then, I began hearing that oh-so comforting sound of tracked vehicles squeaking along. Through the trees, I saw the turret of a Bradley about 600 meters to our south. Someone fired a red star cluster into the air.
“The Brad’s are about here.” I said with a little relief. I was still feeling very much alone and knew I wasn’t quite out of it yet.
“Man this ditch saved our lives” said SFC Sal.
“If it wasn’t for this tiny ass ditch we’d be dead!” I agreed.
I kept cautiously poking my head out of the ditch, but there were no more enemy around to shoot at us. I heard a couple Bradley’s come to a stop on the far side of Route Gold. They couldn’t make it across a bridge to get to us. Then I saw a group of American dismounts running up Gold towards us.
“We’re over here! Off your 10 o’clock! Heyyyyyy! Get the fuck off the road!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
I saw Kelly stop on the side of the road and use his ACOG to get a better look. In doing so he pointed his weapon right at me.
“Don’t you fucking shoot me you fucking dick!!!!”
The dismount team, with SSG J and the rest of our guys mixed in moved into the vineyard before I yelled for them to “Stop moving! Get the fuck down!”
As far as I knew, there was still a large group of enemy in the area and I wasn’t taking any chances.
McElrath yelled out “Is Bushmaster 4 with you!?”
Before I could answer SFC Sal shouted “We got a pimp down!”
SGT Lawton, our troop’s senior medic started asking questions next. “Where’s he hit?”
“His shoulders. And his arm.”
“Did you get a tourniquet on?”
“Well I ain’t really had a fucking chance Doc.”
“Has he lost a lot of blood?”
SFC Sal piped in like a drunk at a party, “This pimp’s gonna be all right! Quit being a bunch of faggots!”
I started laughing at this one but I didn’t let the good feelings flow for too long. I took SFC Sal’s weapon and told him to move out first. We made our way to the Brads where the medics patched him up. It took a few bandages to stop the bleeding on each wound. I got a glance of his shoulder and it looked as if somebody and taken an axe and split the top of it wide open. The medics called it a “deep graze”. They injected him in his leg with a dose of morphine as we rode back to the DMC. On the way, Brawler Platoon hit an IED. I heard the contact report over the radio but no casualties or severe damage had been done to the vehicle. I’d had enough for one day. When we got back, the landing zone had already been set up and everyone was running around doing this and that to get the medevac underway. I was out of it. I wandered around, completely covered in mud on my front side. My hands were shaking when I bummed a smoke from SGT Harris. I’d never seen a weapon as dirty as mine was and I could not believe it never jammed on me the whole time.
SFC Sal was lying on a stretcher and he asked to see me before they flew him out. I ran over to him and was about to jokingly punch him in the shoulder before I stopped myself. I reminded him of what he’d told us that morning before we’d left; “If you wanna get off this dismount team, you gotta get shot!” I asked him “Why the hell are you trying to get off your own dismount team?” He laughed. I could tell the morphine was taking effect just as long as he wasn’t being moved. The birds came and he started his trip that would eventually bring him back to the states.
I was stopped by SFC Ramey on my way back to my room and was told to report to the CP after I’d gotten cleaned up to give a de-briefing to LT Guzman. As I got into my room, something just hit me. I collapsed on my bed and started shaking all over. Tears welled up but I didn’t cry. I wiped away the mud from my face and mouth and changed into PTs. People kept coming by asking “What the fuck happened out there? We heard you and SFC Sal got separated and lost or some shit. You all right?”
After my debriefing, I tried to lie down and get some sleep but I couldn’t stop shaking. I lay awake for hours going through everything that had just happened in my mind, over and over and over again. What a day.
----------------------------------------------------
While cleaning SFC Sal’s gear, we found two more rounds had hit his OTV, bringing the total number hit up to 5. One had been deflected by the Kevlar and the other had come to a stop in his NVGs. The round in his NVGs was a 7.62mm round that was used in Dragunov sniper rifles. This explained why there was always that single round snapping past whenever I poked my head up. How I never got shot, I do not know. Luck and chance I suppose. We later found out that the Air Weapons Team had seen us crawling through the ditch before we laid out our VS-17 panel but could not engage any hostiles because of their proximity to our location. They reported that at one point there were 15-20 enemy fighters circling the two of us in that ditch. SSG J’s team couldn’t engage with the SAW or their M203 grenade launcher because they couldn’t positively identify our location. They also couldn’t have crossed Route Gold to get into the vineyard because of they too were being engaged. It amazes me that SFC Sal and I are still alive. Hajj fucked up.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Mortars and Masturbation
It’s 120 degrees and feels like a blow dryer is whipping sand into your face when the wind blows. I’m inside a port-a-shitter where it’s at least 15 degrees hotter but safe from the wind. I’m physically exerting myself, bringing my core temperature up even more. I’ve got my dick in one hand, and my Ipod in the other, holding it a few inches from my face playing “A Clockwork Orgy”. The sexy brunette just removed her bowler hat before mounting Billy Boy. She looks at the camera and tells me to “Viddy well” and calls me her “droog”. The sweat is pouring off my face as I eagerly try to finish the task at hand (literally, at hand). I hold my breath to block the smell of the dirty blue shit water beneath me and try hard to imagine that I’m somewhere else.
I’m no more than 3 seconds from finishing up when an explosion vibrates the hard plastic walls of my private sanctuary. My legs reflexively kick the door in front of me and my hands immediately grab at my trousers and pull them up while stuffing the Ipod into my pocket. I’m out the door in a flash when another explosion shakes the earth below my boots. I’m sprinting while bent over at the waist and the knees, running for the cover of our barracks. A third explosion hits somewhere behind me about 100 meters but it feels and sounds as if it is going off a few feet from me.
I burst into the open bay of the NCO’s room while tightening my belt at the same time. The ear phones of my Ipod are dangling out of my pocket. Everyone is frozen in whatever position they happened to be in before the mortars hit. Schmidt is sitting up halfway on his cot with a wide eyed, alarmed expression. SSG Watkins is in front of his TV wearing his big ass ear phones, his eyes glued to the ceiling as if he were trying to spot the incoming rounds before they hit. Three quick explosions, one after another, followed by peace and quiet. SFC Sal saw me burst into the room with my pants un-done. He laughs at me and makes a smart ass comment before rolling back over on his cot to resume watching porn. Unlike me, he doesn’t have the decency to go to the port-a-shitter to enjoy his skin flicks, he’ll do it on a cot right next to you.
Somebody from HQ platoon comes in and asks if we’re 100% (meaning, did any of your guys get blown up?). I check the Joe’s room and with the exception of a few dudes at the motor pool, we’re good. I send a couple guys down to get accountability of the others working on their vehicles. I don’t want to be the asshole that reports 100% accountability without actually checking only to find out later that I’m wrong and someone is lying in the dirt somewhere seriously wounded or dead.
I go back to the NCO bay and grab a bottle of water. I look around and everyone is back to doing what they do in their free time. A game of spades is going on, SFC Sal is watching porn, someone’s watching 300 on a portable DVD player, and someone else is reading a book called the Iraq Study Group Report or some such shit. No one notices as I slide back outside with my Ipod in hand and head back to the shitter to finish what I’d started before Hajj rudely interrupted. Toole steps out of another port-a-john wiping sweat from his forehead, an Ipod in his hand, and a big ass grin on his face. Apparently, he didn't let the mortars keep him from finishing.
I’m no more than 3 seconds from finishing up when an explosion vibrates the hard plastic walls of my private sanctuary. My legs reflexively kick the door in front of me and my hands immediately grab at my trousers and pull them up while stuffing the Ipod into my pocket. I’m out the door in a flash when another explosion shakes the earth below my boots. I’m sprinting while bent over at the waist and the knees, running for the cover of our barracks. A third explosion hits somewhere behind me about 100 meters but it feels and sounds as if it is going off a few feet from me.
I burst into the open bay of the NCO’s room while tightening my belt at the same time. The ear phones of my Ipod are dangling out of my pocket. Everyone is frozen in whatever position they happened to be in before the mortars hit. Schmidt is sitting up halfway on his cot with a wide eyed, alarmed expression. SSG Watkins is in front of his TV wearing his big ass ear phones, his eyes glued to the ceiling as if he were trying to spot the incoming rounds before they hit. Three quick explosions, one after another, followed by peace and quiet. SFC Sal saw me burst into the room with my pants un-done. He laughs at me and makes a smart ass comment before rolling back over on his cot to resume watching porn. Unlike me, he doesn’t have the decency to go to the port-a-shitter to enjoy his skin flicks, he’ll do it on a cot right next to you.
Somebody from HQ platoon comes in and asks if we’re 100% (meaning, did any of your guys get blown up?). I check the Joe’s room and with the exception of a few dudes at the motor pool, we’re good. I send a couple guys down to get accountability of the others working on their vehicles. I don’t want to be the asshole that reports 100% accountability without actually checking only to find out later that I’m wrong and someone is lying in the dirt somewhere seriously wounded or dead.
I go back to the NCO bay and grab a bottle of water. I look around and everyone is back to doing what they do in their free time. A game of spades is going on, SFC Sal is watching porn, someone’s watching 300 on a portable DVD player, and someone else is reading a book called the Iraq Study Group Report or some such shit. No one notices as I slide back outside with my Ipod in hand and head back to the shitter to finish what I’d started before Hajj rudely interrupted. Toole steps out of another port-a-john wiping sweat from his forehead, an Ipod in his hand, and a big ass grin on his face. Apparently, he didn't let the mortars keep him from finishing.
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