We Got Him!

by Steve Russell

  The next day, on August 20, we got an emergency request for help from a Special Forces unit working in our area on Cross Street in downtown Tikrit. While they coordinated information with a local vendor on a market street, armed attackers blending in with the general population opened up a deadly burst of gunfire. The soldiers’ translator fell dead, shot through the torso. Another soldier collapsed with a serious thigh wound, and yet another was severely wounded in his extremities. The soldiers returned fire as best they could, but they had been horribly surprised. The enemy’s damage done, he fled, unchallenged by this small wounded band of Green Berets.

  Men from our C Company rushed to the scene. Brad’s troops lifted shocked and bloodied men into vehicles, accompanied by their angry and equally shocked peers. Our soldiers cordoned the area and conducted a wide search but gathered little information from the locals. Most shuttered their shops in typical fear and went home. Those who remained claimed to have seen nothing. The soldiers’ lives were saved by a medical evacuation, but the translator, an American citizen, would speak no more.

  These guys had made a fatal mistake. Their team sergeant chose to reject our counsel even though we had warned him of the area’s volatility. He saw us as mechanized infantry toads who lacked the skill and grasp that they possessed. As further evidence of this superior attitude, the Special Forces soldiers in this clash had not even worn their body armor or helmets and had been talking to a vendor about plastic chairs in a busy market, seen by all for some length of time. It had been an ambush waiting to happen.

  While certainly not characteristic of the competent Special Forces soldiers I had served with and fought alongside in Kosovo and Afghanistan, it was, nevertheless, a costly mistake made by what I viewed as a “too cool for school” team sergeant who chose to ignore our warnings and intelligence. We knew our city. His rejection of that knowledge resulted in a combat-ineffective team soon to be replaced by another. What was worse, a gallant Muslim-American citizen faithfully serving his country was dead.

  Vigilance, vigilance, vigilance. My daily burden was for all of my soldiers to go home alive and with all of their limbs. God had spared us from much in the midst of battles, and we usually caused more damage than we received, but many more battles awaited us.

  One such sparring occurred on the 22nd of August. A tip from a distraught Iraqi warned us of a plan to attack the Tigris Bridge. The assault was to take place within an hour with RPGs, small arms, and mortars. A water-services truck would conceal the movement. Our response was immediate. I ordered Jon Cecalupo to send a section of M1 Abrams tanks to change the scenery of the bridge and our checkpoint there. The enemy did materialize at a distance and pathetically launched two 82mm mortar rounds at us, impacting just across the west bank of the river at dusk. It was another miss and run.

  An hour later, our Scout Platoon headed south along the main highway. Chris Morris led his men in four scout trucks and approached a decorative gate incongruently guarding a wadi that funnels waste by-products from Tikrit into the Tigris River. Our men affectionately referred to this depression as the “Stink Wadi.” That night it exuded more than just a foul odor. Explosions erupted near the gun trucks, followed by small arms retorts from a squad-sized insurgency cell.

  Caught by surprise in the ambush but quick to react, Corporal Andrew Brokish and Specialist Steven Bournazian each ripped a burst from their .50 caliber machine guns at the muzzle flashes spotted in the wadi. More scout weapons erupted in a converging arc as the scout drivers slowed to stabilize the platforms for firing. As the gunfire stitched the suspected enemy location concealed in the wadi’s bulrushes, there was a large explosion. It was not clear what was hit, but all enemy fire stopped abruptly.

  The soldiers’ disciplined posture and alertness made the enemy pay, with no loss to our men. Unable to get to the scene quickly because of distance and rough terrain, the scouts could not determine the extent of damage inflicted, but they definitely blew up something. When searched later, the area was vacant, revealing little information.

  Information, whether given to us or deduced from combat actions, was the oil upon which our operations flowed. Without the cooperation of the Iraqi people, we would not have been as far advanced as we were to this date. Still, there was much fear afoot as the locals watched to see who would prevail.

  The revelation of information took a different form in Tikrit the following morning. Our C Company posted security along the main street of the city near the telephone exchange offices. Bradley Fighting Vehicles and tough soldiers blended with the squat, dilapidated structures of the city dotted with civilians. A small crowd gathered at a new café in town—an Internet café. Words were exchanged, cameras rolled and snapped, and a pair of scissors was lifted from a pillow as the owner and I cut a ribbon at the entrance.

  While thrilled to participate in this mundane community activity, it all seemed so foreign given the context of the previous days. For a brief moment, these exercises in civility awakened much inside me. As I left the café, an old woman was nearly struck by a car and a bicycle as she attempted to cross the busy street. Our soldiers stepped into the four lanes to block traffic. Joe Filmore called out to her in Arabic, “Come, Mother, let me help you,” and escorted her across the thoroughfare.

  Pulling away in our vehicles, we cradled our weapons, fixed our eyes on the rooftops, studied every trash pile, and checked every alley. We quickly scanned a sea of people. What do they hold in their arms? What do their facial expressions reveal? Do they make unusual movements? Fading away from civility, we reentered our world.

  DUCK, DUCK, GOOSE

  The farmlands along the Tigris River lay rich with vegetation. Palm trees stood like sentinels, row upon row, in alignment with and supported by murky irrigation ditches. Fields adjacent to the palm groves produced wheat. Varieties of trees sagged under the weight of pomegranates, apples, and citrus fruits. An occasional farm surfaced amid the boundless orchards and fields. The farm occupants, subsistence farmers who worked for middle-aged men with girths expanded by too much lamb, tended the crops. Some of them also planted “underground” crops. Hidden between irrigation ditches lay pits concealing mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, artillery rockets, grenades, and machine guns. As imperative as it was to uncover and confiscate illicit weaponry, finding the “arms farmers” was the real objective.

  We targeted two such “sowers of discord” south of the village of Auja, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein. They were siblings from one of the “Five Family” networks, with the now familiar string of tongue-tying names conveying ancestry, tribe, and birthplace. Our soldiers had worked hard to disclose these brothers because they were among a group of five al-Hasan spawns who had attacked our forces with RPGs. They were also believed to be part of the inner circle of Saddam’s security network. We arrested the first brother, Yada Adham Ibrahim al-Hasan, in Auja. We had now pinpointed the exact location of their family farm along the Tigris.

  Our forces moved in and quickly cut off egress routes in coordination with Jack’s SOF elements and attack aviation. By dusk, we had surrounded the brothers’ farm. The remaining brother, Omar Adham Ibrahim al-Hasan, sought refuge in the darkness of nearby fields, but helicopters spotted him easily with thermal vision technology. We closed in on him and found him hunkered down in a field, his war now over. Two more were tracked down on the hunt for Saddam and his henchmen.

  Others continued in their belligerence, however. On the 26th of August, an informant advised us of a farm southwest of Auja harboring weapons and surviving Fedayeen fighters. We had experienced attacks along the main highway nearby, making this information seem credible. I dispatched Chris Morris to scout the area to see what they could uncover. They took Joe Filmore along should a translator be required.

  Two sections of scouts approached the farm just after dusk. They turned off the main highway and were soon greeted with a hail of gunfire from the AK-47 “Welcome Committee.” The scouts immediately returned fire, forcing th
e retreating assailants deep into their own farmhouse. Rifles popped, .50 caliber machine guns barked, and 40mm Mark-19 grenade launchers thumped in a warlike cacophony of gunfire. Joe hunkered down in the Hummer as hot metal links and brass trickled down around him. The projectiles smacked the modest farm, chipping the block and plaster walls. Two individuals were briefly spotted running out the back and into an irrigation ditch directly behind the structure.

  Chris Morris reported the fight, requesting additional force to effect a proper cordon. He still had visual contact with the enemy. Captain Mark Stouffer’s A Company responded with a quick reaction force. Soon the area was cordoned with Bradleys, infantry, and scout Hummers. The four attackers were captured in the primary farmhouse and the structure connected by the irrigation ditch behind it. I was amazed that none of the enemy had been seriously injured as I surveyed the damaged farm. They were detained, and all of their weapons were captured, while not a single one of our men was wounded.

  As this drama played out south of Tikrit, another unfolded on center stage. Repetitive roadside bomb attacks along 40th Street and 60th Street plagued the modest homes and businesses there. For three months we had fought battles along these alleys. While most of the attackers had been ambushed or subdued, the explosives threat continued.

  Just the night before, my command convoy had turned onto 60th Street when an Iraqi youth dressed in black suddenly jumped up from a curb and bolted for a side street. Alerted by this, we gave chase for two blocks, but he had disappeared over the many-walled housing compounds. He appeared unarmed but could have been a scout or a bomb initiator. We queried the locals but none claimed to know him—convenient, but quite possibly not true.

  One night later and not far from the same area, C Company had a rifle squad from its 2nd Platoon led by Sergeant Kermet Ross patrolling the side streets between 40th and 60th Streets. About three o’clock in the morning, well after curfew, the distinct sound of AK-47 fire shattered the night air. The soldiers took cover along the edge of the street and alerted toward the gunfire. Suddenly, an Iraqi man ran at full gallop around the corner as more gunfire erupted.

  Private William Haines, on point but under cover behind a trash can, raised his M-249 and fired at the man. Several others opened up on him as well. A round caught the Iraqi squarely in the head, carrying away a portion of his face. The sprinter stumbled to the ground, losing his sandals before he fell.

  Diverting our patrol to the scene, I saw the man lying facedown in a pool of blood with one of our rifle squads pulling security. He was dressed in dark clothing, like so many of the Fedayeen we fought. I immediately recognized him as the same man we encountered the night before. I asked the men what had happened. They were somewhat shocked by the ordeal, not because he was dead or because they shot him, but because they could see no weapon.

  “Has anyone searched him?” I asked.

  “Not yet, sir.” they replied.

  A few men were somewhat taken aback as First Sergeant Evans, Captain Boyd and I rolled his lifeless form over in his own fluids so we could search him. Some had still not witnessed death personally at close range and were probably afraid to touch him. While unpleasant, it needed to be done. As we rifled through his pockets, we found batteries of the type used to initiate roadside bombs.

  Brad explained what happened. Apparently, both our troops and local Iraqi citizens fired at the man. No one knew who he was. His body lay for days unclaimed in the morgue, perhaps a recruit from Baghdad, or even a foreign fighter. We would never know as he carried no identification.

  “Haines,” I called out.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied.

  “Good job. Do you know what these are?” I queried as I held out the batteries for initiating improvised bombs confiscated from the dead man’s pockets.

  “No, sir,” he replied.

  “These are the same batteries used to detonate explosive devices, and this is also the same man we tried to capture last night. You got him tonight. Good work,” I assured him.

  I was always concerned any time my men took human life. Soldiers take these actions very seriously. It is they who squint through the rifle sights and make the call to kill or not. It is they who must live with their decisions and they who will see those images the rest of their lives. Young Haines did the right thing that night. He didn’t hesitate. He killed an enemy who purposed to annihilate us. It was important to validate his decision, to affirm that, while the weapon the enemy possessed was not visible, he was still a combatant with the intent to set a bomb against one of our patrols.

  As August closed, information came to us by way of our well-established network of sheiks. The weekly “Council of Sheiks” was already proving its worth for the time invested. Developing this network had been no small task. Sheiks, by custom, could be appointed to represent several families or could represent thousands. How does one determine which sheik represents 40 people and which sheik represents 40,000?

  When we arrived in May, every man claimed he was the sheik that the Americans should deal with, and as such, he was entitled to special privileges, badges, weapons, cars, and even women should we have them—whatever we could provide. They, in turn, would “guarantee” everything from security to support with the coalition, promises of uranium, “vital” information, and even Saddam himself—should they see him, of course.

  Our challenge was to separate the men of grandiose self-esteem from the real sheiks who commanded the respect of the locals. By the end of August, we had solidified a genuine council with ten tribal heads from the controlling tribes who represented a populace of about 200,000 in our region.

  One of the ten sheiks had been very cooperative with us already. Although secretive (Iraqi Arabs revel in the thrill of private liaisons, with theatrics), he provided information that would bring important breakthroughs regarding those resisting our efforts. Now he wanted a private dinner meeting east of the Tigris River on one of his more modest tenant farms for secrecy. I had come to call these dinner liaisons “lamb grabs” because the custom was to pull the meat of a slaughtered goat or lamb from the bone with bare hands. While the information provided that late evening in August was noteworthy, I will remember the dinner for another reason.

  The tenant farmers had a solitary mud house in which they accommodated four families and twenty children. Unlike other lamb grabs we attended, here the wives and children were necessarily present. This allowed for some unexpected but welcome interaction among our soldiers. The laughter of the young ones, as they chased the laser lights on our weapons like playful kittens, was uplifting. Soon, the soldiers were teaching them some American games.

  The best instructor of games that night was Specialist Holly McGeogh. She accompanied the convoy that night with permission (not her normal modus operandi). I had scolded my operations sergeant, Gil Nail, about Holly sneaking onto combat patrols. More than once, while on patrol, I had discovered her pulling security when we dismounted our Hummers. I was naturally concerned for her safety, both as a woman and as one of only three wheeled mechanics assigned to the entire battalion. She was a fine soldier, but combat patrolling was not her mission. Nor was it the mission of the other seventeen women in my support company.

  Having women on the front lines was a dilemma I had not had to deal with before. I did not question their service or sacrifice, but I had to make sure that their special skills, like a mechanic’s, were not put in jeopardy.

  On this night, though, the likelihood for contact was minimal, and she was allowed to join us. Holly and my driver, Cody Hoefer, kept all twenty children entertained. The most enjoyable game they taught that night was the American favorite wherein a child is tapped on the head in a circle and dubbed a certain waterfowl. Being hailed as one type of bird causes the child to run after the name caller. “Duck, Duck, Goose” had come to Iraq.

  Laughter filled the open desert all around us as the bonfire silhouetted the giggling children. Sheik Kanaan Hawas Sadeed of the Shumer tribe, our sec
retive host, smiled broadly while the other sheiks present nodded in approval. Women peered sheepishly from their doorways with warm smiles. As I absorbed it all from a short distance, it was hard to hold back the tears and the longing to be with my own children.

  BOMBS AND BOMBAST

  While we enjoyed this out-of-place respite near the foothills of the Jabal Hamrin Ridge east of the Tigris, our C Company soldiers on patrol spotted a white, bullet-ridden car driving in downtown Tikrit. They immediately stopped the suspicious carpool and subdued four insurgents with three AK-47 rifles. No one ever said insurgents were always smart.

  To the north of the city, near the village of Mazhem, Jon Cecalupo’s tankers began the opening round of what became the “battle for the ammunition supply points.” On the night of August 28, the “Cougars” found fourteen looters living inside a bunker bloated with munitions. The bunkers were roughly the size of gymnasiums with double outer walls that formed a catacomb around the structure, allowing the looters to hide in nooks and crannies in complete darkness. Our men would have to clear them, much as they would a tunnel and with the same associated risks.

  Looters, hired for about two dollars a day, were brought in from Samarra. They had an entire operation in process, salvaging 57mm anti-aircraft shells. They removed the rounds from the wooden crates and then cracked the seals from the brass case with a hammer—a definitive indicator of their intelligence. It was like some 1940s Looney Tunes animation of gremlins whacking bombs and munitions with sledgehammers.