SEPTEMBER
BACKGROUND
On 7 September President George W. Bush requested $87 billion from Congress to cover military and reconstruction costs in Iraq. The following day the British announced that they would send a thousand additional troops to reinforce their embattled forces in Basra. Recorded messages from Saddam Hussein went onto the airwaves to spur on the resistance, and attacks against coalition forces continued. Meanwhile, the original logic for the war seemed shaken when UN arms inspector Hans
Blix announced that he believed Iraq had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction ten years before.
Pundits threw around such terms as quagmire and exit strategy. All realized that the only viable exit strategy involved developing Iraqi forces to assume the load and continuing to develop the Iraqi capacity to self-govern. Attacks on Iraqis cooperating with the
Americans continued. Most notably Aqila al-Hashimi, the most prominent female member of the Iraqi Governing Council appointed by Ambassador Bremer, died of wounds several days after an assassination attempt. The fledgling Iraqi police force increasingly was the target of anticoalition forces. What was worse, the coordination between Iraqi police and coalition soldiers was uneven at best. On 12 September U.S. soldiers outside Fallujah killed eight Iraqi policemen pursuing bandits in a terrible case of mistaken identity.
Stretched to the limit as they had become, U.S. commanders could not afford to leave units as capable as Brown's nurturing their relationships with and refining their grasp of such relatively benign sectors as Balad had become. Twice during September Brown's company hastily deployed to undertake demanding combat operations in tougher neighborhoods. On each occasion, local familiarity and
interpersonal relationships could not transfer as readily as troops could be moved. Insurgents were sufficiently mobile to relocate
to areas where the coalition had relaxed its grip. A certain "whack the mole" aspect began to characterize operations, as U.S. forces concentrated on one area of unrest and then another. Witness, for example, how often Balad had to be reworked-albeit on each
occasion from a higher plane-or how often Samarra would be resubdued in the coming months. The long-term solution would have to be loyal, capable, locally familiar forces-an Iraqi constabulary-that could maintain control and surveillance indefinitely after the mole had been whacked.
5 September: Computer ... yeah, broken again; now I am stuck having to transport all this data. It's been a crazy few days with the omnipresent highs
and lows of morale and rebuilding. We did a big operations order and were basically told to patrol the same area, but we might have another mission. We continued with our daily routine for a few days with the only real excitement being in Charlie Company's AO. An Iraqi launched an RPG at one of their checkpoints ... they quickly turned him into an experiment of man versus 25-mm. HE. The Iraqi lost that one pretty badly.
The next morning I found out that my company would conduct an air-assault raid on a village area used by Saddam Hussein and [Izzat Ibrahim] Al-Douri [former vice president of Iraq] for sanctuary. Its location proved just west of the Jabal Hamrin ridgeline where Blacklist #1's mother's tribe was from. My company would go in on two Chinooks and one Black Hawk, landing right on the bridge to isolate the objective (my idea). The mission was right up my alley ... albeit out of the comfort zone of most people here. Felt like a total Ranger battalion refresher course-except it's for real, and there is not too much experience in the company for this. We went in totally like light fighters. I had this huge rush of good ideas coming back to me from back in Ranger days-everything from air-assault operations to skedko resupply [supplies delivered on a sled-like litter]. We take so much for granted with the Bradleys. The whole mission got juiced up a little bit at each level, so by the time I briefed it we were expecting to IMT [individual movement techniques] off the Chinook like the 1st Ranger Battalion did in Afghanistan. It's funny, but I didn't even have a dismounted radio assigned to me prior to this mission. We just assembled an assault force out of scratch. Fortunately, we had a little time to deal with it since recon would prove heavy; Americans had never been to this region before.
Everything for the mission went really well. Dan Rather showed up to static load training. I was pretty much running the show on that, so they all came over to my bird-hilarious how many reporters showed up for this one. Fortunately, an equal amount of brass showed up to give them all sorts of made-up sh- to gain airtime and "Pentagon points." Funny, but they eventually just wanted to talk to the guys getting on the bird. A few of them came over to me and were asking a bunch of questions. Of course, by this time I was in my chill-out mode, hanging in my bare feet since we were going to sleep on the tarmac. They started badgering me about getting on the helicopters for the mission-I told them they could if they got all the way in the back. They loved it and kept telling me all their qualifications to do all this stuff. I just told them this was my first time in a helicopter, that I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with my rifle, and that I hadn't been in charge
of this many people since the high school band. They didn't know what to think, but they kept writing stuff down. They'll probably put my picture in the paper with the caption "Band leader enjoys first helicopter ride."
Dan Rather and other members of the press covered our static load training.
We did the Eagle Prayer, our 4th ID rock ceremony [a good luck ritual wherein each soldier touches a rock from Uutah Beach, where the 4th Infantry Division came ashore on D-Day, 6 June 1944] and our ready break. Adrenaline was pumping-unfortunately we had to deal with the infamous sand fleas of Samarra Airfield East. That place absolutely sucks. We boarded the aircraft at 0420 in order to hit right before daylight. We would do the first hour in the dark under NODs. I packed everyone on the bird, and we did a final offload rehearsal and reloaded. I took the door and told everyone to follow my lead. We had five guys in the company who had been on a Chinook before-hell of a time to start experimenting with things. I just did everything I thought Sergeant First Class Pippen would do, albeit in a more urbane manner-the press was watching and all-what a feeding frenzy. I am sure someone would have taken over my role, but no one really knew what I was talking about. I feel so much more comfortable doing this stuff than I do in the Brads-but the Brads do instill a huge degree of confidence with all their firepower. I had forgotten what it was like to talk about hand grenades, AT-4s, and M240s as primary weapon systems instead of 25-mm. chain guns and TOW missiles.
The birds came in hard and a little east of their briefed landing zones. We moved to our blocking positions, but the satellite imagery proved very deceiving. Our canal was a muddy trail, and our bridge was merely a pipe running under
the road. I found a bridge along the river and isolated the objective from that area. A good call-the only trafficable crossing point of the Al Uzaym River for 100 kilometers. I stumbled onto the linchpin for the isolation of the objective in the pitch black and called battalion to request setting up there. Of course, I couldn't talk to my other platoon, so I
got a squad and moved to their objective. Turns out they had landed pretty much on their objective, checked the plugger, and moved out because the plugger showed them one kilometer off. The plugger was busted ... please fight the enemy ... objectives never look like you expect. We got it unscrewed and waited for the cavalry to arrive so we could move into the village area.
A routine operation not much going on
We passed off the battle positions and then started moving to clear buildings. Everyone was moving so slowly, so I went to see what the holdup was-they were doing interviews on the uncleared objective. I chewed a little ass on the radio. Everyone was "celebrating" the air assault, so I had to reestablish the tempo. I kinda expected that to happen, though. The briefed building layouts, our numbering system, and the plan for clearance did not coincide with reality. I guess I was struggling to get my point across, so I told them the HQ element would start clearing houses and they could join the mission when they were ready. I rolled into the first housing complex and started clearing with the HQ (we are actually a pretty damn good squad). Since the locals all sleep outside, I use my new clearing plan-walk up to
the toughest looking dude in the group, holding my rifle in my left hand, and start parleying. I assign locals the role of entering the building first and have them lead through the house and all danger areas. It works pretty well.
The locals think I am crazy because I introduce myself as "Sadiki Bob, the Hungry Lebanese" ... and they always offer me food for my hunger. They are dumbfounded by our size, blond hair, blue eyes, and "Lebanese" accents. I did the first house, and then everyone started moving. The reporters all converged on me, so I remained on my best behavior. About halfway through my southern objective, I got a real interpreter pushed out to me, so our intelligence and conversations improved drastically-from talking about the family, donkeys, and chickens to local politics and tribal affiliations. They kept on saying "Laji," which means refugee. It turns out they were Arabs who moved into Kurdish territory during the Arabization program of the late eighties to early nineties. Well, the Kurds returned the favor of moving them out and one-upped them by saying Saddam lived there and they were concealing WMDs in caves to the east. It took me about fifteen minutes of talking to these dudes to realize that neither was true. Evil dictators would much rather rot in prison than live in the abject squalor of "Albu Talhah"; but once you are there, you are going to clear everything. Just keep looking until you have twenty-plus heat casualties. I ate a powerbar with one of the reporters, told him not to bonk [when an athlete "hits the wall" and has to drop out of a race due to dehydration], and then told the locals about my magic blue water (Gatorade).
This town was straight out of the book of Leviticus. They were going to slaughter and eat a full-grown flawless ram to cleanse the village's impurities. Yeah, but will it make the temperature cool down? We finally got to the last street (footpath) via climbing over a wall. I kept a security element with me and moved the rest of the company back to the blocking positions. We got to the nicest house in our sector (the one with the roof) and started gathering intelligence on the area. I do the old Jedi mind trick and ask for the prominent, powerful people in the river valley so I can pay my respects as the new military commander in the region. We all sit down to chai and a discussion of the tribal layout for the region and any caves in the area. They sing like canaries in the mental mind trap, and we now have our next five follow-on missions. Of course, our initial read of the AO is very far off. Yeah, our number 3 guy on the list is Sheik Mobarek, who was great friends with Saddam but has been dead for eight years. I thought for sure someone was going to make us dig up
the grave and determine the cause of death. Actionable intelligence is tough in this country.
We finish up with the tea-of course, one of the cameramen got right next to me as I drank it down. I haven't talked to them at all,
and they've been following me for three hours now. They can be a pain in the ass. However, I looked at the camera and broke my stoicism. I started laughing and said it's one hell of a war and jokingly asked them if they were going to make me famous. "Hell yeah, we are," the guy from "60 Minutes" said. I just started laughing. I called higher HQ to pass on my assessment, but they are paralyzed by the media. They are staging some BS scene between the brigade and battalion commanders. Sassaman is not cooperating, so they keep reshooting the scene to get the right mood. Are you kidding me? Very funny-when is the movie coming out?
We just wait. We screw around with the locals-have them put on our flak vests and watch them crumble under the weight. We get the follow-on mission of clearing villages to the south-same squalor, different town. We did shoot a dog that one of the guys thought was going to bite him. Yeah, now go bury it, moron-standard funeral scene. It sucks digging a grave at 1300 in the Iraqi sun; but, if I have to suffer through the family chant and request for money for a wild dog that just happened to be next to their house, then the dude that shot it gets to partake in the festivities. Party for all.
Well, we clear until the eleven guys from the Black Hawk start puking their brains out and pass out from the heat-combination of bad food, no sleep, and clearing buildings in 120 degrees with flak vests for eight hours. Of course, someone calls up from the air-conditioned TOC asking why these guys passed out. I dream of answering questions like that. Are you outside? Are you wearing any gear? Have you slept in thirty-six hours? Did you clear any buildings today? What did you eat for dinner last night? Have you been in direct contact with the sun for more than two minutes at a time in the past three months? Are you outside the wire? Okay, you just cannot understand what I am telling you. We spent about an hour getting those guys fixed up. Bottom line, once you start puking water in this country, you've got about an hour before your body crashes on you. It's that delicate a balance with the heat. You miss an hour of taking in fluids, and you will be heading to the hospital. I don't care how tough you are. We got those guys passed off to the forward aid station and then continued to clear, haphazardly waiting to be told to stop. Of course, we have to sleep out here again with none of our stuff and then go
clear the other side of the river. No one sleeps-bugs, heat, and dehydration headaches ensure that, along with Op Orders and security requirements.
We roll out to the river at 0400 and head to the most desolate village I have yet seen. This place was totally cut off from everyone. We rolled up on these guys sleeping at this well. They woke up to two Bradleys staring at them (I got a platoon of Bradleys after clearing the village). Facial expressions are awesome-sun coming up, Bradley chain gun aimed at you ... first call. I snapped the picture, and we left them alone. Total squalor town-no farming and lots of World Food Organization bags of flour. They did have a donkey tied up. I tried to ask them why "el hamar" was all tied up, but they don't speak Arabic. Time warp. Apparently, they knew how to tattoo because the women's faces were totally covered in tattoos. Step into the AM. We screwed around on the east side of the river denying the enemy sanctuary prior to flying back to the CP. Tactically, it was a great mission and phenomenal training. Not really lucrative if we are trying to keep the budget in check ... 1 AK-47, 1 RPG, 1 Saddam Fedayeen, and a
dead evil dog. We did manage to clear 900 mud huts.
"Hey sir, what a busted raid," Holcomb said.
"No Holcomb, it was a success. Just think, when you're at Virginia Tech drinking an adult beverage next month, you can tell those college girls that you used to be a soldier and that you were part of the air-assault raid into the Al Uzaym River valley denying high value targets sanctuary in the towns and cave complexes of the Jabal Hamrin Ridge. Although we did not find Saddam, we confiscated numerous weapon systems, captured Saddam Fedayeen paramilitary members, and pacified an untouched portion of Iraq through the integration of close air support, attack helicopters, lift helicopters, Bradleys, and good-looking infantrymen. All that coordinated through the box you carried on your back," I replied.
"I guess it's all in how you brief it. Could you give that one to me on a card?" Holcomb retorted.
"No, you're going to be dangerous enough in college."
We popped the "purple magic cloud" [smoke grenade], the giant grasshopper landed, and the camo tribe climbed into the belly as it leaped away. It's all about perspective. I wonder what they'll put on "60 Minutes."
Someone snapped this photo of me running off the helicopter in the 123-degree heat.
8 September: I thought I would get to come back here and take it easy for awhile after our big mission, but the jackass mortarmen laid siege to the LSA ... starting at 1300 the day of our return. No sleep and lots of heat. We did eventually find the 82-mm. mortar. We were having the battalion AAR at the battalion TOC, and I thought we would get a hero's welcome for getting the buried cache-wrong. The brigade commander was pissed because we didn't get the guys firing it. You never will, back in those orchards. Hence, the term guerrilla warfare and the invention of the mortar. They don't shoot when you are there. On the way back, they fired again, and we got the base plate and another cache. We are shutting them down, but there is just so much crap buried out there for them to fire at us.
The higher-ups won't fire counterfire despite what everyone says ... fire it. Apparently, the LSA commander got called down on the carpet at Baghdad for all the attacks ... fire counterfire. We are such pansies about shooting our artillery. Every time they get a
ten-digit Q36 we should fire it up with white phosphorus. That is the only way you will get them ... unless it's in the town, but it hasn't been. I don't know. I guess we are concerned about the crops or something. The only way insurgents learn is through violence. The guy Charlie Company blew away was on their new police force ... not so great, but we haven't had any RPG attacks on Route 1 since. Word gets around.
I put my entire company out in the region where the mortars were firing from ... and they fired from a different area while we were sitting out there. We didn't hear or see anything back in the orchards. We just got the radar grid and called for counterfire ... denied. Will someone please take off the skirt? It's all right because my CP is well outside the mortars' range. Your attitude changes drastically when someone gets hurt in your unit and you get American blood on your hands. Fortunately, Lieutenant Colonel Sassaman and I are in line with one another on that one. Since they wouldn't fire counterfire, we did. We went to the grid and stood on line with all the M203 gunners and lobbed rounds into the orchard. Sassaman wanted to shoot his mortars into the AO, but they still had to finish registering. We detained a few Iraqis near the site for questioning, and they thoroughly enjoyed us shooting up their orchard. Really weird. We went into the field to look for the mortar, but by then it was pitch black ... this sh- just won't end. I did have some fun with the sheik and the farmer whose orchard we blasted. He had us in for tea afterward. Everything is so messed up. We got our turn with the iridium phone for morale calls yesterday-it's the double-edged sword. Families are crumbling back home, and there is nothing we can do with our ten-minute phone calls every ten days to stop it.
9 September: My AO has gotten a lot of attention lately. We are in the midst of Operation Tu-Pac Siege. We rolled into the town with psyops blasting the curfew message, then we played a little Metallica, Blink 182, etc. It's taken the place of H&I fires inside the cities. We worked the town over for a little while, checking all the graffiti and advertisements and crushing Saddam supporters. We take the curfew violators (who always claim they had no idea about the curfew) and place them right next to the loudspeaker and play the message. Pretty effective method for reinforcing the curfew times.
Sassaman, Roy, and I drank tea at one of the houses that we pulled a cache out of a month ago. One of the brothers is still in jail, but they were happy to see us. Every time I go anywhere with Roy, the locals have a hilarious story about him. I guess he knocked some dude off his bike-unfortunately, it was one of the higher local police so we had to assuage him and tell him we didn't
realize he was a cop since he didn't have on a uniform. I see that guy all the time now, and he is always wearing his uniform.
After teatime we set up a checkpoint in the middle of town and hung out there. A pregnant woman came through, and I thought for sure I would get to deliver the baby; but she was en route to the hospital, and they had time.
About ten minutes later ... Boom! We all ducked and then we see four flares in the sky. That doesn't make sense. I'm thinking 3-29 IN fired, but I can't figure out the flares and why it sounded so close. The FSO is saying that he thinks an A-10 was dropping flares and we were arguing over that one until ... crack, crack, crack goes the snap of the rounds zinging by. I jump into the Bradley ... wrong one, so I hop off and get into mine. We roll out toward the fighting and the battalion TAC with the S-3 and commander.
An IED detonated in front of Sassaman's track, so we started in on the firefight. I got down and linked up with the guys at the end
of the IED wire (they initiate these things with 100-meter-long strands of stereo wire). I confirmed the TAC's frontline trace and then took over the fight. We started bounding forward on line emptying a magazine every fifty meters and lobbing 203 rounds to keep
them close. We finally hit a canal that the wire was running across; Sergeant Hays and I tried to get across, but the mud, water, and reeds were way too thick and our gear was way too heavy ... so I just ended up covered in murky, nasty water. The Brads meanwhile were moving around the flank of the firing position, and they reported a bridge. I had the M203s blasting the far side, keeping the bad guys hemmed in. We got around the far side but couldn't find the body-just all his gear and some blood.
After searching the area for awhile in the dark, we pulled back and fired 155-mm. HE. It was one hell of a company live-fire right on the outskirts of the town. They must have freaked out when we opened up with the 25-mm. HE. It had to be an outsider because that town knows we shoot back ... a lot. I am sure they got the message yet again. It was an awesome unrehearsed display of firepower; we sustained no friendly injuries, but we did blast a mechanized company basic load at three dudes using every weapon system except missiles. We continued the psyops campaign on the town with rock music. They proved very cooperative after that.
10 September: The TOC got mortared today; one of the logistics guys, Specialist Gray, got hit bad in the leg. He is in critical condition because they can't stop the bleeding in his leg. Fortunately, HHC organized a blood drive; their determination caused the doctors to go the extra mile, and they ended up stabilizing him two days later. He was much closer to dying than we all thought. Guess what, we didn't counterfire again. Lieutenant Colonel Sassaman has taken over the clearance of fires in our AO. I think shooting back is the right move ... very ballsy of him to unilaterally take
it over, but if you ain't out here at night you really can't understand the fight. We continue to fire H&I fires into the IED field. It serves as a curfew reminder and offers us a fantastic opportunity to test-fire all of our weapons in addition to eliminating that canal as a threat. In typical Iraqi fashion, the mayor of Tu-Pac invited us to his house for dinner ... great fish, no leads. Unprecedented irony.
19 September: I had some great training days. We are flying aerial QRF for the brigade; one platoon is up at Samarra and the other in services. So I get to shoot a lot now and catch up on things. We have been rolling the mounted section up for QRF; but when your sector is 200 square kilometers, there really isn't a good place to position yourself to rapidly respond to every threat. I was actually starting to have a little fun shooting and working out. My guys were guarding the front gate of 1-68 AR FOB [Forward Operating Base] when two guys dressed like Iraqis rolled up. They had beards, long hair, and rags on their head ... but they spoke perfect English and absolutely no Arabic. My guys were freaking out about the whole deal.
"Yo man, is Todd there?" one of them asked.
"Who?" the guard asked, thinking something is really weird.
"You know, Captain Brown-isn't he your CO?"
"Yeah, are you guys Iraqis?"
"No man, we're 'friends' of his."
"Are you in the Army?"
"Yeah, dude."
"Okay, let me check on this."
They called me up. It was hilarious. Some guys from Bragg wanting to shoot at our range. I told them I would trade weapons for secrets. They said they wanted my secrets. Great dudes and we knew a lot of guys in common. I got all the squad leaders out on the range, and we shot with them for awhile. It was great. Just confirmed a lot of the things we already were working on and teaching. Sometimes it just takes seeing a guy with really long hair
do it to give you some legitimacy. The company was so stoked after they
came down, but I think they spoiled us seeing all their new gear. Standard Ranger setup, though. They gave me a huge credibility boost just by showing up.
We were flying high, and the range is awesome. Shooting walls and a very liberal range fan. Great close-quarters battle training. Those guys took off, and it was back to the grind ... a little better trained. We did the aerial QRF deal that night. I had to go out to the TOC in the morning to talk with the 1st ID guys doing their six-month-out recon to replace us ... six months more??? Lieutenant Colonel Sassaman told me about Kevin Norman, one of my classmates from West Point, dying in a plane crash. Total tragedy. I got back that night, and we did the aerial QRF again. I stayed home and worked on the new computer.
The next morning I found out that Private First Class Pease, one of my guys, had taken shrapnel in an IED attack en route from Samarra-he is attached to the other armor battalion. We drove up to the CASH and talked to him. He was fine and in good spirits. He
was a little drugged up and couldn't feel his lips so we gave him an MRE and watched him eat. We all got a good laugh out of that one. Fortunately, his injuries were all superficial. Route 1 sucks ... we need more up-armored Humvees-or just go with Bradleys on it-our company rule. I am trying to get them to contract out clearing operations to the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps [ICDC] and let those guys walk up
and down the median looking for the bombs. They are begging for employment opportunities. If we pay them for finding them, they will do it forever ... regardless of the consequences. There is money to be made. After Private Pease went back to his room, I went over to see Kevin Ryan about calling the rear detachment commander. No one below the rank of lieutenant colonel has any phone service in the entire Sunni Triangle right now ... it's ridiculous. They said the CASH could take care of it. He asked me if I had heard about Brian Faunce, a former fellow brigade assistant S-3 and now the B/1-12 IN commander.
"No, what's up?"
"He's dead."
"Are you kidding me?" total shock and silence. I was sick to my stomach.
"What happened?"
"Electrocuted by a live wire that he was throwing off his track with both hands."
"No way. How many times have you thrown wires off your track?"
"Everyday. They just hang so low in the cities," Kevin said.
"Yeah, I know ... I always bat them with a pole," I replied.
I can't believe it. I ran PT by his Bradley this morning ... clueless that he was dead. He was in my small group at the advanced course, and I used to always kid around with him because he was so type A. I can go on and on about all the funny things we did. A year on brigade staff together is a long time ... Mountain Strike, NTC, Warfighter, this command. He and Cheryl had just bought a house down the street from us. We were planning barbeques and good
times. I can't believe he's gone. I just ate dinner with him five days ago and was busting him out for skipping the 1-68 AR command
and staff brief. I remember his cubicle, the coffee cup, his lawn mower boots, his sewn-up cooked-white BDUs, and his Volkswagen Jetta that we used to drive down to the chow hall when it was cold. It's so maddening and so random. I don't even know what to say because you go through the whole range of emotions ... denial, anger, vulnerability, and just plain sorrow. Indescribable.
I went through the whole day in shock and then mounted camo poles on the Bradleys to pass the wires over the top. Then I went to the range and shot ... extremely well. Too many tragedies this past twenty-four hours. I think they might move my company up to Samarra ... just when things were getting comfortable and we were getting settled in. I really don't want to get attached to an armor battalion. Oh well, if they let you pick your assignments, we'd all be back in the States right now ... like they originally briefed so long ago. I can't believe this sh-.
24 September:It's been a good couple of days. We turned our sector over to a National Guard company that
they attached to the battalion so we could head up to Samarra. I have got mixed emotions about going up there. It's a town that we have neglected with infantry for a long time, so we will have to lay down the law. Unfortunately, they don't have a place for us to
live up there. We are back to the start of this campaign ... out in the field with
the bugs. The brigade commander told me it would last only a week, but it's tough to leave the comfort we have grown accustomed to down here. I went up to Samarra with Sassaman, Roy, and Jimmy for a little recon. Not much has changed up there since April. They just don't have enough boots on the ground in that city. The recon went well but confirmed that which we already knew ... they aren't ready to receive us. Out in the open field again. We have had some phenomenal training time down here, and the guys have really built up their bunkers for comfort. I don't think I have shot this much ever. You forget how much you have shot until you shoot with the new guys. I got two new lieutenants this past week and took them through a good first day ... CLS, zero weapons, run six miles, CQM table one, enter a building, and clear a room. I keep myself extremely busy despite the down time we have had prior to the Samarra move and its delayed timeline. I think I don't want to think about Brian, Josh, and Kevin so I just continually do stuff.
I had to go to the Article 32 hearing for my two car-jacking deserters. I don't think things bode well for their near-term future, especially since I am a witness for the defense. I guess no one briefed them that I want to send these guys to jail. The Mad Mortarman has laid siege to Anaconda once again, and I don't have to go investigate. It's really quite
Pavlovian: when I hear the mortars fire, I think I have to go beat through the bush in some forsaken orchard. However, now old Gator Company from the National Guard gets to play that game. Poor guys. I think they already miss us, and we haven't left yet. We have had a couple of good days with regards to eliminating the bad guys. Some of our Brads saw some bad guys sneaking around with RPGs and leveled them with 25-mm. The AC-130 Spectre Gunship also saw guys setting up a mortar and wailed at them from the sky. That must have totally confused the bad guys. I don't know what they must have been thinking when 40-mm. just rained down from the sky ... "in shaa' Allaah." That's what they always say when you find mortars, RPGs, and AKs in their backyard: "God willed it."
27 September: Our appointment in Samarra is quite scary, to say the least. We did the whole wait-on-the-HETS-and-ride-up-here ordeal. Route 1 still remains a tough road. The ride proved uneventful enough, and we rolled on down to their battalion TOC for the latest. I received multiple briefings on winning the hearts and minds, dignity and respect, etc. We ate dinner and got settled in. We still had to send out the observation post for 2d Platoon since they had been attached up
here for awhile. I tried to get
out of it because it has proven quite worthless having guys sit out there for twelve hours at night.
My intuition proved right. As they were driving down to the site with the armor guys, an insurgent leveled an RPG at the platoon leader's track and he went to acquire the target. Well, the RPG missed, but the platoon leader did not: 25-mm. HE versus bad guy. Split him in half. They immediately started moving with their seven guys to apprehend everyone. Battalion sent the QRF of two tanks; I sent five Bradleys loaded with infantry. Apparently, the locals are not used to the hunt because they hung out in the area. We got the infantry clearing everything in the vicinity, and we detained seven guys, all wounded, who were serving as spotters for the RPG firer. We just swarmed the place and started policing up bad guys. It only takes a couple of actions like this
to get the word out to all. The body was still holding the RPG launcher, and when they went to pick it up the arm fell off. Pretty gruesome, but hey, don't shoot at us. Battalion made us police up the body. I say leave it there with the RPG launcher, but I guess
that is a little overboard. We did make all the bad guys walk by it for deterrence purposes. The brigade commander came up the next
day and handed out some coins. One of the TOC rats was giving the patrol leader the third degree.
"Hey, why did you open up with 25-mm. HE?"
"I don't know."
I was standing right there and knew he was really talking to me indirectly ... so I answered: "That's what he had punched up." End of conversation on that one. You don't get much better action than RPG in hand, target destroyed. They have had so many incidents of getting fired at but not killing the insurgents in return. We finally get some results and it's like we did something wrong. Oh well, that's why this town is so awful-lack of response to shooting. We had the brief that 95 percent of the people love us and it's the 5 percent in the city still fighting against us ... my read is 95 percent of the people are not actively fighting against us and 5 percent are actively fighting us.