NOVEMBER
BACKGROUND
November was a particularly bloody month for coalition forces in Iraq. In the deadliest single attack on U.S. forces since the fall of Baghdad, sixteen soldiers died when their Chinook helicopter was shot down outside Fallujah. A few days later an RPG attack brought down a Black Hawk helicopter, killing another six soldiers. On 12 November a car bomb struck the Italian military police headquarters in Nasiriya, well outside the Sunni areas previously considered dangerous, and killed twenty-five. Two days of convoy raids by anticoalition forces in Samarra left twelve coalition casualties and forty-six Iraqis dead.
Captain Brown's company, now back in its familiar haunts around LSA Anaconda, similarly experienced an upsurge in violence and casualties, including direct-fire ambushes in areas where they had not occurred for awhile. In addition to fighting back with often
overwhelming firepower, his battalion totally isolated the troublesome town of Abu Hishma, surrounded it with barbed wire, and methodically identified and processed every "of-age" male they found. Those of legitimate local origin were given an identification
card and were subject to surveillance; those from out of town were incarcerated or expelled. These draconian measures ultimately yielded salutary, albeit imperfect, results. They also got the battalion unfavorable coverage in a number of American newspapers and invidious comparison with Israeli tactics it was alleged to emulate. Curiously enough, the locals in Abu Hishma seem to have been pleased with, rather than offended by, their shiny new identity cards. Unfortunately, similar measures for population control in Fallujah, Ramadi, or Samarra seemed beyond the coalition's means at the time.
In Washington, D.C., the upsurge in Iraqi violence and the increasingly occupation-like behavior of U.S. forces lent renewed urgency to administration efforts to map a way out. Paul Bremer returned to Washington for consultations on 12 November, and on 14 November the United States committed itself to transfer power to an interim Iraqi government in 2004. Ten days earlier President Bush had secured Senate approval for $87.5 billion to sustain the continuing costs of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Pundits at the time were fond of making comparisons with the Vietnam War. At the strategic and operational levels most of these were specious but at the tactical level perhaps less so. With minimal adaptation, Captain Brown's combat narratives could have described any of a dozen American counterinsurgencies in
the twentieth century. Such emotions as his grief when S.Sgt. Dale Panchot died were, of course, timeless.
5 November: The days continue to pass by, and we continue to train at our ranges and watch over Abu Hishma 24/7. That sucks. Third Platoon was moving around at 2300 when Boom. They hit a land mine, knocking the track
off one of their Brads. We rolled all available Brads up to secure the site and brought out the M88. Mines are straight-up terrifying because you can't fight them and they can be everywhere, especially on the spider trails. The most heavily traveled areas don't have the mines because of all the other vehicles; the least-traveled areas don't have them because they are not good targets. It's the medium-traveled dirt routes you have to watch carefully. It was an Italian plastique mine, best we can tell. I hate this place. We took the M88 out there and recovered the vehicle and the blown-off track and then had to deal with the tirade on the net. Somehow it's your fault that they hit a mine.
The mission sucks, and there is no way to vary it. When you have 24-hour presence around a five-kilometer town, the only variety you can really figure out is not to have 24-hour presence. No one realizes that the guy that wants to hit the mine the least is the
guy driving the vehicle. Emotions were high on the net. The LSA hasn't gotten anything shot at it, but we've been getting 60-mm. mortars and mines. We have become the target ... and no one wants to provide any support or suggestions on how to get through it. I
am out of ideas, and everyone acts like you screwed up somehow when you get attacked. No one looks at the fact that the LSA hasn't been hit since we returned to the region three weeks ago ... longest streak yet. Oh well, I have twelve more Bradleys that I can destroy trying to protect 15,000 people that walk around like they are back on the block, choosing not to wear their Kevlars and body armor. Brads are the only thing I am willing to destroy, however. So frustrating. I wish someone would tell me how to win this war. All my Bradleys are falling apart; we need to go to surge operations and not 24-hour guard. I continue to improve on the range and shoot with anyone that comes down, whenever 1-68 AR TOC isn't acting like range control. It's my solace, and we are getting much more proficient at MOUT. Hilarious to listen to the specialists and junior E-5s, who last month didn't have a clue about sectors, talking to the privates and new shooters like they had been doing this for years. I love that. A little knowledge makes them want to lead.
11 November: We've had a couple of groundhog days. Things were actually going quite well, with us doing surge operations instead of 24-hour guard. I had to send a platoon back up to Samarra to help them with their force protection requirements. That sucks. Fortunately, they don't ever have to go into the city. With them gone and 3d Platoon in services, Jimmy and I had to man the OP with our Brads at night. We were staging at H7 when Donk, donk, donk. I called up battalion to see if anyone reported mortars firing or if I was just hearing water bottles blow up in the fire. Unfortunately, I have the capability of identifying mortars, and the hunt was on for the Mad Mortarman of Balad. They counterfired, but we couldn't do BDA since it was so dark. Fortunately, the mortars really didn't land close to anything, and I think I was one of the few people to hear them of the 15,000 getting shot at. We set up a checkpoint to detain any suspects, but it proved quite fruitless. I was just glad I was out there, as the battalion commander went on a tirade about wanting to win and firing his mortars. They counterfired with the howitzers, and our battalion mortars did not fire. He was hot. It lasted for quite some time. We then rolled back to our FOB. The next morning, we went to the weekly commander's meeting at the TOC. It started at 1300 and went to 2000. The only real break we took was when they mortared us. They hit the city instead, so the meeting continued.
The brigade commander came out, and we talked about some "foreign affairs" strategic-level fight. I just want hot water for our shower. He asked me what I thought of the situation. We are trying to apply a Western-style national organization on a tribal people. It just doesn't work. We are an American tribe that interacts with all these other tribes, and the attacks have reached homeostasis. The Iraqis just don't grasp it. There is a reason Saddam ruled the way he did. You have to brutally motivate these people into cooperation. They don't understand teamwork, and they blow up their own stuff more often than they blow up ours. Crazy. Not a good meeting. I think we are all a bit disenchanted. Happy Veterans' Day.
12 November: I am tasked to the max. I have a platoon in Samarra, a platoon in services, FOB security, and 24-hour presence in Tu-Pac. Insane. We had to cancel LOGPAC today because we had no one to get it and no one to enjoy it. No fuel, no food, no mail. Sad face. It was kind of fun playing "Joe Rifleman," though. The first sergeant and I had tower guard. No one asks you any questions or really bothers you when you're on guard. You just sit up there and look out into the darkness and hope some insurgent ain't trying to sneak up on you. Jimmy and I also pulled six hours up in Tu-Pac.
We rolled out to FOB Beast and talked to Paliwoda for a while and just sat chilling out there.
"Contact CP 2A," a frantic voice calls over the net as gunfire sounds in the background. I hate that phrase. Every time I hear it, I always try to think of some excuse to stay where I am and "develop" the situation ... no excuse. We are out the door and rolling west on Linda before the initial report is finished.
"We have action to the north and several guys running into the orchards," comes the next report as we roar down the road. The locals aren't used to seeing Brads out here since it's the engineer companies' AO. The traffic seems to cooperate with us rather well, though. There is something about a 33-ton vehicle moving down a tiny road at fifty mph that convinces the locals to yield and
drive rather defensively. We arrive within five minutes and are the first reinforcements on the scene. We start actioning in the direction the engineers point us. They hit the LOGPAC convoy ... damn, it's fajita day. They have sappers on the ground clearing the orchard area, but I really think they initiated the contact from the south. We rapidly clear north, not gaining any contact except with all the trees as they smash into me. I call off our chase after about fifteen minutes and head back to the scene to help secure the site. More reinforcements show up, and we secure one slightly wounded soldier. We check out the scene as the medic finishes up with him, and then we escort him to the aid station back at the LSA as the engineer company takes over the scene. We flew back to Anaconda and dropped off the casualty, then we ate some fajitas. Definitely made the time
fly by, and the kid turned out fine. So frustrating, though-everything in this country is an ambush.
17 November: When I woke up this morning, S.Sgt. Dale Panchot was already dead. He died in the back of B23 as an RPG penetrated the hull, went through his body, and buried itself in the far side. The entire battalion converged on the scene of the RPG ambush, and we began to lay havoc with Apaches and indirect. We started clearing toward the ever-present L6-L7 ambush berm. I linked up with Lieutenant Colonel Sassaman, and he assigned us sectors to clear.
Donk! Donk! Donk! "Incoming," we yelled. These guys have some serious balls. They started engaging us with mortars as we cleared the field. All my guys ran for cover, and we dropped ramp on the tracks to load the infantry
and start moving to the contact. For some reason, Alpha Company charged right at the exploding rounds-not a good idea to attack indirect fire. I was totally confused and started yelling at them to stop. The lieutenant colonel and I saw some smoke coming from the wood line and started moving on it. We had the right direction but the wrong house. The Q36 picked up the acquisition; and then we hammered it with our 120-mm. mortars; the Apaches fired 30-mm. and Hellfire missiles into the area as well. It shook the earth as they hit 1,200 meters away. After a good, long barrage, we moved the infantry onto the grid. About this time a car ran Alpha Company's checkpoint ... a onetime mistake, as they destroyed it. My infantry found a large cache of 120-mm., 82-mm., 60-mm., and RPG rounds. We couldn't move it, so we just blew it all in place. Another nice explosion for the Abu Hishma tribe. We cleared the houses of the field's owner and then got the armored combat earthmovers and bulldozers into action leveling the berm. They pushed the dirt right into the canal and reduced the enemy's engagement area. We also imposed a 1700-0800 curfew and blocked the exits to the town with a dozer. I am trying to figure out how to destroy this town without violating the ROE. Now they have only one entrance; we are running a checkpoint with ICDC and police spotting all nonlocals, but it's the locals that are bad. I can't believe Panchot was killed. I have such a huge feeling of vulnerability, followed by guilt, followed by some random abstract thought that I should not be thinking since he is dead ... like what will we do with his stuff, etc. None of it really makes much sense to me. He was a good soldier and a good person. It's so hard to keep going on. We visited the two guys that were wounded in the action. They suffered minor wounds, but the psychological ones are much deeper. Total mess. Total bad day. I would never have guessed that this would happen the way it did, in the place it did, to the vehicles it did. Just unfathomable, how they are trying to attack the Bradleys. After an all-day Abu Hishma affair, we went to get some chow. We were starving, and all they had was bad fish for dinner. There is so much crap we have to do, and everyone is stepping forward to help out. The escort officer was identified, briefed, and arrived in less than twenty minutes. Everyone was helping out with the whole notification process, etc. We swung by the UMCP and fixed my batteries and then headed back to the CP. Awful day. I got all the leaders together and we AARed the whole action. We then had a moment of silence and said the Eagle Prayer ... that will break you. We will be back out in the AO at 0330 tomorrow. Get back up on the horse, as if we don't have enough to think about. This is what I said at the memorial service:
I possess neither the eloquence nor the stoicism to provide the eulogy Staff Sergeant Dale Panchot deserves. He served as the 3d Squad leader, for 2d Platoon, Bravo Company, 1-8 IN ... and he loved what he did. Staff Sergeant Panchot was a very quiet, tall soldier with an easygoing, infectious grin characteristic of folks that have suffered through the long harsh winters of Minnesota. Dale didn't like a lot of attention and would have been a bit embarrassed about all these people gathered here for him. He was twenty-six years old, a model squad leader and a fabulous soldier. You could tell that's what he wanted to do and was designed to do from birth. He didn't sit around pontificating on military matters, he just liked shooting guns and hanging out. He was always tinkering with and cleaning weapons both American and foreign. I have a picture of him embedded in my mind sitting on the back of B22, hands all dirty, cleaning his coax, and just smiling. He loved what he did.
We had just moved Staff Sergeant Panchot from the BC's position to 3d Squad Leader, and insomuch as fate plays a role in all that we do, I'll always bear those scars, and that sense of guilt. As a BC he was extremely aggressive, never afraid to action on contact or hop off his track to help the infantry. He loved going on missions and only very reluctantly gave up his track to me in Samarra when mine broke and he had suffered a mild concussion from an IED. I on the other hand would have looked for any excuse to not go into that particular town at night. I remember the marked contrast between his Bradley and mine. I loved BCing 22. I did not have to deal with the terribly placed Blue Force Tracker computer, and he kept the turret immaculate. As I opened the doors to the coax to test-fire before patrol, it provided me with a snapshot of what a phenomenal soldier he truly was. The gun was immaculate despite the two-foot-deep moon dust plaguing Camp Daniels. He cleaned it that day ... for me, and the zero was absolutely dialed on. That night, we were ambushed by RPGs while the infantry were clearing forward, and we returned fire with coax. It fired like a dream, and the contact ended on our terms. During my tenure in B22, I managed to accidentally run into a wall head on, knock off a whole panel and side skirt, break the ramp, and wedge a large fender into the side paneling. Each time I returned after breaking his track, Dale just smiled away and helped fix it. We would laugh about my attempts to break his track, and he would figure out ways to go on the missions in other tracks. He was a fighter amongst fighters.
I take some solace knowing that this great soldier died a soldier's death, scrambling to get out of the track and into the gunfight. He was born and raised in a very close family from Minnesota, and he died amidst a very close family here in Iraq. Soldiers aren't friends. They are comrades. "Friend" does not quite encompass the bond that develops amongst men under fire, living
at close proximity day in and day out for seven and half months. It is a bond and a necessity for survival. On November 17, we lost
a great comrade. I'll miss Dale's sheepish grin, his can-do attitude, and his good nature. I know that he is in a better place
now watching over us ... tinkering with some sort of gun waiting to go hunting. God Speed, Dale, and rest in peace.
19 November: We pulled out of the town tonight to prep for the memorial service. After three days we need a break. I now don't have to deal with range hot times. We are running some phenomenal live fires in the area where they ambushed us. It's a react-to-contact play out at Panchot Point, and we have a couple of houses we now use for live-fire training. We rehearse our actions and build the engagement area with crossing sites for the infantry across the canals and identified routes for the Brads to get on the north side. The actions are great for training and rebuilding confidence. I just have to continuously talk 2d Platoon's 25-mm. rounds down and prevent them from sailing north. I am pretty sure that Jimmy and I are the only ones who still give a rip about that stuff. We absolutely hammer the area with 155-mm. artillery and 120-mm. mortars several times a day. The people on AanacConda think it's a WWI battle out there. Especially since they started pushing joint direct-attack munitions down to us ... the 500- and 1,000-pound bombs ... yeah, real loud. We targeted an abandoned house along the road that they had been using to plan attacks; I couldn't find it in the dark. As the sun came up I found it ... all over the road. Incredibly impressive seeing as how the barn out back remained unscathed while you couldn't even tell there had been a house there. Amazing. We started laying wire around the town today. It's about five miles worth of triple-strand across the crazy orchards. Not fun, but we have to fight them every day. We were just getting ready to start the project.
Construction of the finest gated community in Abu Hishma. We surrounded the town with
concertina wire after numerous attacks on American forces.
Boom! "Contact north." The TAC was hit by an IED. The coax and 25-mm. started firing, and they have targets-sweet. We all start rolling west toward the contact.
"Yeah, I got ol' boy," Roy drawled across the net. He was the trail Brad and "skinned ol' boy up with some 25 HE." I got there as they secured the guy, who was stable but a little heavy on the shrapnel side of the house. I didn't bother gloving up to treat him,
and we let one of the new guys practice on him. They interrogated him for awhile as we planned out the wire-laying task, and then we sent a section to take him to the CASH. They are so stupid. If they just didn't attack us, their lives would improve so much. Oh
well, we started the monumental task of laying all the wire for the day.
We were just finishing tying down the wire when I heard this swish, thud, small boom, and saw a puff of smoke seventy-five meters away. I thought someone had an accidental discharge with the 25-mm. or maybe they fired an RPG at my track-I was on the ground. I started looking around at the barrels to see who had it when the Q36 keyed in and gave us the grid to mortar fire-I think it was a dud ... yeah, blast it. We fired about fifty rounds of white phosphorus at the grid and then went down there for a cursory search of the smoking area. I'm more interested in firing mortars at them than looking for mortars in the dark. We headed back to the FOB to prep for the memorial service and listened to CP RrocCk call in a medevac for someone that got hit out on Route 1. The casualty did not sound like he was in good shape ... there is no military solution to this place.
26 November: It's been a whirlwind of activity the past few days. We had a very nice memorial for Staff Sergeant Panchot, completed the wire-laying around the town of Abu Hishma, and began the registration process for the endless supply of males who live in the town. We made IDs for all the of-age males, but everyone wanted a card. It was pretty funny. The 85-year-old blind sheik demanded that he get one as well. The cattle can't walk along their normal migratory routes, so they have to come through the checkpoint. I directed that we register a couple male "baqaras" [bovines] for good measure. The people appreciated my sense of humor, although the cows did not. We have done a pretty good job with the psyops campaign: we are fencing off your city and registering you for your protection against the Saddam Fedayeen, instead of we are fencing off your city because you are a tumorous growth that we must isolate so that the body can continue to grow. These guys love status, and ID cards are just that ... status. The registration
campaign is really quite painful, but now we have a great live-fire area since they are not allowed south of the fence line. The 1-68 AR lost a soldier in a vehicular accident as their Humvee rolled into a canal and the kid drowned. Tragedy. We
really had a rough week. They did a great memorial; we are becoming far too proficient at these services.
The next morning we launched Operation Eagle Panchot, in which we rounded up about twenty guys whom informants had given up as bad guys. The operation kicked off at 0100, and we had ten different houses to hit. The downpour of cold rain kicked off at midnight, so it proved a real party for all those involved. We policed up a bunch of targets, and Staff Sergeant Reagan brought me some blind ninety-year-old man and a dude missing his hand. The questioning proved pretty funny, and I cut them free and made fun of Reagan for bringing them down. The old guy had no clue where he was, so I assigned the guy missing his hand the task of escorting him back home. The night finally ended at 0500, with us rolling back into our FOB cold, wet, and tired. It was good to go on the offensive, but we were kind of JV out in the rain. It made for a painful night.
The next day we just kind of lay around and prepped for the great Thanksgiving feast. The mortars fired on Anaconda, and the brigade fired back with artillery. Unfortunately, they had 24-knot winds and the rounds fell 500 meters short. They landed on a house, killing a lady and two kids. This place is so sad. They rounded up all the people from those houses for questioning. Now they seem to be helping us ... until we let them go and they attack us in revenge-the rule of five hamza (if you attack someone, it is the responsibility of five bloodlines over to attack you in return). I am glad that I wasn't on the cleanup crew for that action. Sassaman told them that Saddam Fedayeen caused it all. You have to lie; it's the locals' way. Never admit to anything. I guess he got in trouble with brigade, but they really don't understand how you must deal with the locals. Admit to nothing because then everything is your fault-things here are simply different than in America and we have to adapt in order to make any progress. Sometimes you just have to take the "in shaa' Allaah" approach to dealing with bad problems with the locals ... God willed it. That way no one is at fault, and you can carry on with the task at hand-I read that in a book, so I am certainly not making it up. So incredibly sad, but in reality the Saddam Fedayeen did cause it. I have learned to rationalize everything. We got reactive armor put onto the Brads; unfortunately, it's reactive in more ways than one-we are reacting to
losing so many soldiers in the Bradleys. The armor was just sitting down in Kuwait all this time-that really pisses
me off.
27 November: Thanksgiving in Iraq. The best day in the Army is always Thanksgiving. I went for a run in the rain and mud. It felt great. However, I came back to no water in our shower trailer. Great-it's 50 degrees outside, and I get to use the "berserker," the outdoor gravity shower. That will wake you up. I think everyone heard me scream when the ice water hit ... it was 40-degree water. It made me hungry though, and they put on a huge spread for us to celebrate Thanksgiving. Outstanding chow, and we kept the mermites [containers for keeping food warm] for second helpings later on. Turkey makes me so tired. We got over on the VIP visits. Lieutenant Colonel Sassaman was our only visitor, and he came pretty late in the day. No need to hold up chow waiting for someone you don't know to come talk to your guys who just want food. I am being a bit harsh, but the rewind message we get time after time does grow old.
When we first got here, we dug a hole to pee in. It's six by two feet wide. Unfortunately, the water table remains about three feet
down, so we developed quite the piss pit, since piss tubes wouldn't work. There is nothing quite like the pit after five months of people peeing in it and throwing random objects into it. I throw rocks into it all the time for entertainment. The smell of ammonia
is quite sensational, as the wind passes over it and wafts it in your direction. I have had more than one nightmare in which I fall
into the pit and keep sliding back down the mud as I attempt to get out. We have had countless conversations as to exactly what it would take to get you to drink an entire canteen cup full or lay in it for thirty minutes. The fantasy prizes have included one month of leave, $50,000, Britney Spears, Batman's outfit with belt, etc. Needless to say, the availability of prizes has limited our drinkers to zero.
There are all kinds of floating things in the pit. A "Code Red" Mountain Dew with Staff Sergeant Panchot's name on it was floating in there for at least three months, but I haven't seen it since 17 November. I wonder if that is symbolism. Sassaman also lost a small soccer ball into the pit back in August, and we talk often about retrieving that ball. He always asks me to get it out for him, but that is five months' worth of urine I cannot deal with. Well, Sassaman came down for a little turkey visit, and I showed him how I got his soccer ball out of the pit; the rain flooded our pit and erupted the contents. Now we have a giant piss pond with
every object we threw into the
pit outside of the pit. This place is so disgusting. The rain and the desert just don't match. I hope it stops raining soon because
if that pond flows over the road ... I'm out of here. Some days entertainment is rock bottom.
30 November: We continue with the registration of the Abu Hishma tribe. It has become groundhog day up at the school. Sometimes I entertain myself by attending the English classes. They love interacting with someone other than their teacher. We did the Arabic/English alphabet, and the kids are learning it pretty well. They just try to write it backward. The schools are so poor. The teachers have two pieces of chalk that they must keep on them at all times. They just don't have enough supplies. I think I got some of the boys in trouble during recess; they all lined up and had their hands hit with a switch. Education will breed out the hatred, and the victories the military could not achieve, MTV will. It's the key to the West.
I don't think anyone realized what a monumental task registering all these people would turn out to be. It's pretty easy to wave your hand and say do this-totally different when you are trying to figure out how. It's taking forever, but they do love their ID cards. We haven't been getting any mail lately because a mail plane got shot and had to crash land. They are doing a big investigation into why it got shot. It's pretty easy from where I sit ... you flew over Iraq, you got shot. What are your questions? Fly low and fast next time-or really high. The day I fly out of here, I am going to fire all my ammunition at Abu Hishma, set the fields on fire for smoke, give the pilot a twenty, and tell him to bank hard left and climb fast.