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.