In the first week of June, our soldiers would be attacked in a series of small hit-and-run skirmishes with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and automatic weapons fire. The new insurgents were not afraid to engage our troops. One could call them many things, but cowards they were not. Their utter disregard for surrounding civilian life could be called evil, but not cowardly. They demonstrated a willingness to attack us with weapons and technology far inferior to ours.
On June 4, insurgents attacked a section of our Bradleys from Scott Thomas’ B Company, attached to the 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor in the oil-refining town of Bayjii (“BAY-gee”). The enemy attempted to hit our men as they entered a residential area, but our infantry evaded the initial strike. As our patrol came around the village, insurgents lurking in the alleys and on rooftops popped out and fired a volley of four RPGs. One of them connected to the rear of B-13, the lead Bradley. The rocket swooshed in a direct line to the ramp door. These doors, while fairly robust, were neither intended nor designed to stop anti-tank rockets.
The rocket’s penetrator sliced through the door, threading the narrow gap between the infantry fire team sitting on the bench seats in the back of the vehicle. Miraculously, none of Sergeant Charles Myers’ men were hit directly. The warhead smashed some electronic equipment near the turret wall and exploded. The brilliant hot flash was immediately snuffed out by halon from the internal fire extinguishers, sucking the air out of the lungs of the men inside. The soldiers suffered flash burns, broken bones, fragmentation wounds, and asphyxiation but were miraculously spared serious injury. Armored vests and Kevlar helmets saved their lives. All five of them, Charles Myers, Devon Pierce, Hector Lopez, Joel Deguzman, and Timothy Moore eventually recovered. Some returned to duty within a few days of the attack.
The next night, B-34, also one of our B Company Bradleys, hit an anti-tank mine on the front left side of the vehicle. The blast ripped a hole through the driver’s compartment and sent the front drive sprocket, a couple of road wheels, and the six-foot-wide armored hull access cover flying.
The driver, Private Joshua Schoellman, endured the shock of the blast. He instantly suffered two broken legs and a broken arm. His body armor and equipment saved him from more serious harm. Despite his injuries, Schoellman did not think of himself. He kept his head and immediately hit the fuel shutoff valve and the switch that dropped the ramp door, allowing his fellow infantrymen to escape out the back. His comrades came to his aid, pulling his broken body from the vehicle.
Schoellman would recover physically over the next several months but would have a much longer mental recovery after this episode. Whatever his struggles when we returned home, his bravery and selfless actions to cut off the fuel and lower the ramp quite possibly saved the lives of his fellow soldiers. The Bradley was out of action permanently. The resulting laceration in the armored hull floor was almost big enough for a man to climb through.
That same night an RPG also hit one of our C Company Bradleys as a section patrolled down 40th Street in Tikrit near the Women’s College. The residential area was an upscale neighborhood built for Saddam’s favorites. This street was actually called “The Street of the Forty.” We would learn all too soon that “The Forty” were part of Saddam’s inner circle of Special Security Office (SSO) soldiers who served as his bodyguards and functionaries.
As the Bradley headed past the college, an RPG rocket slammed into the upper hull area. The cone of the warhead hit a case of water bottles, causing it to malfunction. Astonishingly, the charge did not explode, and our soldiers were able to safely remove the fouled rocket from the water bottles. Thankfully, there would be no wounded in this attack.
About the same time this attack unfolded, the crack of mortar rounds impacting in another part of the city alerted everyone. Our men reacted quickly, capturing the mortar with 15 rounds of ammunition. Unfortunately, the enemy crew fled before our soldiers could seize them.
A FIGHTER TO THE END
Situated on the west side of Highway 1 at the northern tip of Tikrit was a group of buildings once used by the Iraqi police. A residential neighborhood adjoined the former Baath Party Headquarters across the street. The Baath Party building lay in a heap of rubble, obliterated in the opening attack on Iraq by the U.S. Air Force. Regrettably, it was unusable. We endeavored to use buildings once occupied by Saddam’s government as we aided the establishment of a new government. Our goal was to avoid evicting residents or viable businesses occupying sound structures in the process.
A Civil-Military Information & Coordination (CMIC) office was established in one of the nearby police buildings. This would be a place for local Iraqis to make claims, receive or provide information, or just generally grumble about how bad conditions were. The latter use was most prevalent. The Army had begun to establish these CMIC offices in previous deployments, particularly in the Balkans. Lt. Col. Woempner had been ordered to provide a secure area for such a place to be manned by civil affairs soldiers and others, both from the brigade and our own battalion.
The Military Police battalion, the 720th, would man the police station while our infantry would secure the CMIC. It made sense to reopen the Iraqi police station and locate this new CMIC in close proximity for purposes of government efficiency. But civil efficiency was not always consistent with sound tactical position. Using HESCO Bastions (five-foot-high mesh boxes of fabric and cage wire filled with dirt), our soldiers positioned a perfunctory amount of defensive protection by connecting the existing walls with these sod contraptions. Scavenged wire further reinforced this minimal protection.
For Abdullah Ghalib Mahmood al-Khatab, the American outpost across from the former Baathist headquarters was too much to bear. There was already plenty of planning on how to strike the Americans with guerilla operations, just as Saddam Hussein had instructed. Abdullah was ready to answer that call. He had been in the Fedayeen and his family was intensely loyal to Saddam. He was related to two of the four Aces in the infamous “deck of cards” list used to help expose the most wanted in Saddam’s regime. While not on the list himself, Abdullah’s father, Ghalib, was married to Saddam’s half-sister, Bissan Ibrahim al-Hasan. His brother, Fuaz, had a daughter married to Saddam’s Presidential Secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmood al-Khatab. Abid Mahmood was also his cousin. The motivation to strike back was inherent, and the time appeared to be right as the American soldiers seemed to be relaxing.
Organizing a dozen former Republican Guard, Fedayeen, and Special Security Office soldiers, Abdullah was convinced he could inflict damage on the Americans. The best place to start would be with a nighttime strike on the former police station that had a coordination office set up next to it. They could move down the back alleys, hit the Americans from multiple directions and rooftops, and then make good their escape.
On June 6, 2003, Abdullah and friends launched a volley of RPGs into the CMIC’s walled compound, rupturing the stale night air. Soldiers scrambled for cover as hostile small arms fire peppered the bastions, pocked the buildings, and chipped the pavement. Fragmentation sliced into Staff Sergeant Darrell Patton’s shoulder and Staff Sergeant Larry Taylor’s leg. It also perforated the support company Humvee (High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle) at the entrance. Sergeant Matt Lesau from C Company had wounds in the face and leg. Specialist Juan Cabral was also wounded.
The men continued to fight the dozen insurgents situated on the rooftops of homes across the main highway. At the police station, Military Policeman Jesse Halling spotted some of the assailants and opened fire with a .50 cal machine gun atop his Humvee. Private Halling walked the rounds along the rooftops, fracturing stucco and sending concrete sailing in all directions. His suppressive fire allowed the men at the other building to reach cover, organize, and energize Sergeant Jason Tatro in the turret of a headquarters Bradley.
Scurrying along the erupting rooftops, an insurgent buddy team fell back and then established a better position with an RPG grenade launcher. As Jesse Halling blazed away at the enemy direct
ly opposite the soldiers at the CMIC, a rocket swooshed from a rooftop across the street and landed squarely in the MP Humvee. The deafening explosion hurled flame and debris across the small courtyard. The .50 cal machine gun immediately fell silent.
A struggling Private Halling collapsed in the truck amid scores of empty shell casings and steel links from an entire can of machine gun ammo he had fired before slipping into unconsciousness from loss of blood. His efforts allowed Jason Tatro to follow with machine gun and 25 mm cannon fire along the rooftops. This effectively decided the contest. All firing ceased at that point.
At battalion headquarters, the radio crackled with frantic calls. The battalion radio operators flipped to C Company’s net to get a reading on the situation. Reports of wounded accompanied the distant sounds of the firefight. Major Mike Rauhut and Captain Matt Weber in the battalion headquarters ordered relief from C Company and dispatched a battalion evacuation team for the wounded. The aid station began to fill with the realities of combat. Most of the soldiers brought to the aid station suffered from fragmentation wounds. Our field surgeon, reserve Captain Phil Billoni, managed to stabilize the badly mauled Halling. Despite Captain Billoni’s efforts, nineteen-year-old Private Jesse Halling of Indianapolis, Indiana, died that night, a fighter to the end.
When reinforcements arrived at the CMIC, the enemy had vanished. Combing the alleys, dwellings, and rooftops produced two RPG launchers that had been ditched as the enemy fled the Bradley’s fire. There were also blood trails. Four of the enemy were eventually captured; four others were wounded. Other enemy losses remain unknown.
This bloody encounter sent shock waves through the battalion. The slow reaction that night caused me no small concern. It is precarious to second-guess another’s situation, but my own belief was now firmly cemented that this had been building up over the last week. The battalion had not been vigilant to this kind of activity, though the signs had been present. Small insurgent attacks had harassed our troops for several days without response on our part. There had been no increased patrols, no ground-walking infantry. During the fight, reaction had been somewhat better. It appeared that the troops had a clear assessment of the situation, and while a decent plan was formulated in the hours after the engagement, it was, in my view, far too slow.
As I assimilated the events of both this day and the previous week, it was clear that we had an insurgency on our hands. The CMIC attack was proof enough for me. It was a well-organized ambush using an effective combination of small arms in mutual support. My view was that we were now in the thick of it, despite questions in Iraq and denials at home. In a single week, in our battalion alone, we lost two Bradleys and had two others attacked with RPGs. We survived several mortar attacks without injury, but ten soldiers were wounded, and one was killed in action as a result of enemy ambushes. The enemy clearly had the initiative in our city. If major hostilities were now over, someone failed to tell Saddam’s loyalists in the city of Tikrit.
The posture of the battalion had to change. We desperately needed scout observation posts coupled with snipers and infantry foot patrols. We currently had none. Our soldiers needed to be on a reverse operations cycle, with activity at night and rest during the heat of the day. Our troop layout in the city, while fairly decent, demanded reinforcement in the north. We needed to develop civilian ties in every sector and match them with existing police and government infrastructure. Absent that, we would need to cultivate our own informants.
It was agonizing to observe from the sidelines for the four days before I assumed command. I prayed for Mark Woempner and felt terrible for him as he ended his service with the Regulars on such a note as this. He had trained these men with skill, deployed them at the head of the division, and led the battalion capably in the fight against the Iraqi Army in late April. He had captured Adil Abdullah Mahdi al-Duri, who was on the Iraqi most wanted list and number 52 in the “deck of cards.” Mark also had developed some precursory relationships with local Iraqis that later proved invaluable as we pursued those harboring Saddam. I hated to see him leave second-guessing himself. The transition from a full-scale fight to a fight with insurgents shrouded among the civilian population was something few could see at the time.
KEEPING TIKRIT BEAUTIFUL
Lt. Col. Mark Woempner responded quickly from this point. In essence, he locked down the city. While a curfew had already been in place, it would now be strictly enforced. Any movement at night would be regarded as enemy movement. Hopefully, this would convince the locals to stay off the streets. Mark and I discussed what action to take with violators. I suggested a penalty that we had used successfully in Kosovo. Those caught out after the curfew would be involuntary “volunteers” for community trash detail. The next morning he did just that. Scores of Iraqi men, both young and old, were pressed into service in full public view to pick up the greasy garbage matted to curbs. This attempt to help beautify Tikrit was optimistic at best.
The effect was immediate. The locals had no desire for such work, and the streets were eerily empty during subsequent nights. For the next few days, Mark focused his efforts on departure as I focused mine on the tasks at hand. Colonel James Hickey, the officer due to replace Colonel Campbell as the 1st Brigade Commander, and I met several times to discuss our assessment of the situation. He made some key points about standards and aggressiveness toward the enemy that were music to my ears.
Major General Ray Odierno, our division commander, also gave us some guidance. He, too, was concerned about what he sensed was a rising insurgency. He impressed upon us that fighting this type of enemy would have to be a decentralized fight. We must take risks and trust our junior leaders. We should underwrite risks of our leaders when they executed a plan. We should not be afraid to operate freely within the general’s guidance. He ordered us not to label captives as Enemy Prisoners of War (EPWs) as we had done earlier when fighting the Iraqi ground forces. They would now be labeled terrorists, and their acts against our soldiers or the new Iraqi government would be recorded as acts of terror.
Having leaders like Colonel Hickey and Major General Odierno gave me confidence to aggressively propel the battalion forward and move quickly with what I knew would be necessary to defeat the enemy in our area. We needed to take an offensive stance. No recent action had taken the fight to the enemy. We had little to show for the efforts of the past week other than being scuffed up pretty badly.
TO THE COLORS
The air was filled with dusty heat and the foul smells associated with a dirty city. As I awoke and pulled on my faded desert uniform, I was fully aware of the responsibility I would wear by the end of the day. Nearly a thousand soldiers, including our attachments, would benefit or suffer directly from my decisions as we dealt with an immoral, elusive enemy bent on using the civilian population as a shield. People back home thought that our mission was coming to a conclusion. Even some soldiers believed it.
Those who entertained fantasies about our mission could not see the reality that I saw. We were fighting a homegrown variety of criminal insurgent that operated in direct violation of everything decent and moral among civilized societies. No scheme to regain lost power was beneath them. The insurgents used any expedient reasoning, whether newfound “religious” fervor, conveniently acquired zeal for nationalism, or a longing for the nostalgic “bad old days” of power. The Baathists under Saddam’s sway had never surrendered. They merely disappeared. Now they materialized from the shadows and lurked among the innocent, hoping to strike a blow to us while shielding themselves from our response.
This had to end. How long it would take to thwart them was directly proportionate to the amount of nonsense that we would tolerate. I believed the most humane resolution for the Iraqi people, our own nation, and my soldiers would be to ruthlessly pursue the enemy. The old proverb about “removing the scoffer and contention ceasing” could not have been more true. The enemy had to be annihilated. I could do that with a clear conscience, though some Americans could
never reconcile that concept. Fine. They were not in Iraq. We were, and all we wanted was support for the effort to which they had committed us. I prayed that morning for God’s wisdom to be the leader that these soldiers and our nation needed and expected me to be.
After oiling my weapons and readying my kit, I joined Mark Woempner for the ride to Saddam’s Birthday Palace. Our C Company and support company had occupied this infamous half stadium, half palace complex where Saddam once reviewed the Iraqi military on special occasions such as his birthday. No longer. Today, our soldiers would be on review.
The sergeant major assembled skeleton units to represent full-strength companies currently on point around the city. High palace walls framed the formation that centered on the bright and inspiring banners gently blowing in the intermittent breeze. A confident soldier with set jaw and proud heart gripped a pole made of ash on which was mounted our nation’s colors. Some idiot in high command whose boots likely never walked on sand had deemed it unfitting to fly the American flag in Iraq at our outposts and troop concentrations. We were told it might offend Iraqis or cause them to think that we were occupying Iraq. It was little wonder that I got a bit choked up as our occupying soldiers held the Stars and Stripes high now.
Adjacent to the national flag, the weighty dark blue colors of the 22nd Infantry Regiment stood fringed in gold, adorned with an American bald eagle holding a scroll in its beak embroidered with the motto “Deeds, Not Words.” Scores of brightly colored streamers dangled from atop the pole. Bold names somberly declared the reason they hung there: Chippewa, Pine Ridge, Santiago, Normandy, Huertgen Forest, Kontum, Suoi Tre, Tet, Somalia. Now these same colors unfurled on another battlefield—this one. I wondered what would hang on these colors from our efforts. Would we achieve the same high standards as those who earned these streamers? I prayed we would.
We Got Him! Page 4