We Got Him!

by Steve Russell

  “Roger, sir,” they acknowledged.

  “Sir, we’ve consolidated the remains in Charlie 7 and can take them wherever they need to go,” informed Brad.

  “Let’s make sure we have everybody,” I answered. “I’ll try to get GREGS (graves registration and mortuary affairs personnel) out here to recover them properly. Investigators will want to know exactly what happened here, so we need to make a sketch and note what we find and where.”

  As we conferred, flames began to spread. While not yet critical, we had to douse the flames before they spread to the dense monkey grass and burned whatever might be scattered in it—whether survivors, bodies, or wreckage. Sergeant First Class Gilbert Nail, Cody Hoefer, and I began to stamp out the flames to try to clear the trail running down to the island. First Sergeant Mike Evans and some of his “Cobras” spotted us and came to help. We whacked the grass, stomped the ground, and tried to contain it to the areas already burned. Captain Jason Deel and the Iraqi Civil Defense soldiers arrived and began to assist. Soon, we were making a little headway.

  “Jason, take your men to the north end of the island and look for wreckage or remains,” I called out.

  “Roger, sir,” Captain Deel replied as he moved with his sergeants and Iraqi soldiers up the trail.

  With the flames contained, we focused on the wreckage at the south end of the island.

  “Sir, we’ve found some equipment back over there and one of the machine guns,” updated Major Bryan Luke, who had gone with Jason’s men.

  “Sir, we only have four and a half bodies,” reported Captain Boyd.

  “Four and a half?” I replied.

  “Yes sir. When we first came down, Sergeant Madrid, Venegas, and I found a leg that doesn’t belong to any of the bodies we’ve found so far.”

  “Well, we need to find the rest of him and consolidate them all over there,” I instructed, pointing to a clearing near the path that climbed back up the bluff. “Bryan, we gotta know how many we’re talking about here. We need to know the manifest.”

  “Roger, sir. We know more than anyone at brigade right now, but maybe we can get them to ping higher,” he replied.

  Pete Martinez and Captain Alex Morales arrived with an ambulance from battalion headquarters to help in casualty aid. Brad informed them that only bodies had been recovered so far. Without hesitation, they began placing the corpses into body bags.

  As the search continued, Bryan Luke pulled me aside. “Sir, look at this,” he said softly as he showed me a smoldered desert camo top. On it were two stars of a major general. The name tag said Romig. My heart sank.

  “Roger, I’ll call it up,” I muttered in dismay. “Was he in it?”

  “That’s the thing, sir. We only found the uniform,” Bryan explained.

  “Let’s pray he was on the other bird,” I offered.

  I walked to my Hummer and called brigade on the point-to-point tactical satellite phone for privacy. I briefed the brigade staff on our findings. They stated that Romig was not on board the downed bird and had landed safely. I asked about the manifest. Brigade confirmed a crew of four and two passengers, one was the JAG sergeant major and one was a female warrant. I validated the body count so far and hung up the receiver.

  “Brad, are any of the bodies women?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, we’re missing one and half people then. One is a female warrant.”

  Staff Sergeant Matthew Rose from C Company had split off from Brad’s group to stamp out a fire he saw flaring up by the main wreckage. The fire was on the side of the chopper leaning toward the ground. He started pouring water from his canteen to put out the flames that he could not stamp out because of the wreckage. As he did, he noticed something inside the helicopter.

  “Sir, we got a body!” called out Rose.

  Brad, Mike Evans, Medic Staff Sergeant Felipe Madrid, and I advanced to the crushed compartment of the aircraft. Slumped over and still buckled in was the female soldier. Her hair was still pulled back in a bun, her head was tilted downward, and wisps of smoke still rose from her charred body and clothing. Out of respect to her memory, I will not describe the remainder of the scene. We unbuckled her seat belt and tried to extricate her, but it was impossible. Her lower torso was pinned by the wreckage.

  “We’re going to need recovery assets to remove her,” I commented. “Let’s get her tags.”

  As we lifted her head, Staff Sergeant Rose grabbed the dog tags and removed them with care and dignity. He handed them to me. I put the bloody, smoldered identification in my pocket. There was nothing more we could do.

  Shortly afterward, Bryan Luke and a group of men to the north found the dismembered soldier. We also recovered what appeared to be all the aircraft armament and personal weapons. With everything accounted for, the gruesome task of recovery began.

  As we worked, several leaders from our division and other units arrived. Brigadier General Mike Barbero was first on the scene. Recovery was delayed due to concerns about the aircraft investigation. I gave him a rundown and showed him an initial sketch of what had been found. Once he grasped the situation, he thanked us and allowed the recovery to press forward. Soon, the fallen soldiers’ battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Laura Richardson, arrived with Colonel Mike Moody from our division’s aviation brigade and thanked us for responding so quickly. We assured them that we would secure the site and recover the human remains and the wreckage. By nightfall, all this had been accomplished. We carried the wreckage to the same spot we deposited the helicopter from the October 25 crash. Nearly all of it had been saved from the grass fires, allowing for a more thorough investigation. It was an exhausting, tragic day.

  I had left the scene by late afternoon to confer with Colonel Hickey at my headquarters. We were determined to shake up the town. This would not stand. While we had inflicted great loss upon the enemy recently and were ripping into his networks, it was clear that he still had the resources to strike back. The insurgents and the local population that continued to harbor them had to understand that the American Army was more than just Humvees. We were tougher and more determined, and we would sap the motivation right out of them.

  That night I reflected on the abominable events of the previous twelve hours. The next few days produced many reports on these soldiers in the news. Learning about their lives made the manner of their deaths even more repugnant to me. That was the strange part. Unlike wars in the past, news of military deaths was being broadcast worldwide before the bodies and wreckage turned cold. In fact, reporters were trying to film our recovery efforts from the bluff even as we sifted through the ruins and remains below. In the next few days, I would try to couple the horrific scenes of the soldiers’ demise with the bereaved comments of their loved ones. As I studied on the Internet smiling photos of them in happier times, I was thankful that their relatives didn’t see the carnage we witnessed. Soldiers carry such memories for life. Thankfully, their families could remember them the way they were.

  The brutal deaths of more fellow American soldiers angered me. They died in my town on my watch, and I failed to prevent it. My head knew that the enemy was fully accountable for these grievous crimes, but my heart could not help but wonder if we could have done something more. It is an unfortunate reality of war that the enemy also gets a vote on the battlefield. When men endeavor to kill one another, both sides can succeed. It is who is left standing that matters.

  THE BEER HALL FAITHFUL

  Back at my headquarters, Colonel Hickey and I contemplated the situation. We both knew it was imperative to strike back hard. At the same time, we could not afford to lose any momentum in the search for Saddam Hussein and his insurgent networks. Clay Bell hypothesized a likely correlation between the trigger pullers and the family networks. Pursuing one would be equivalent to pursuing the other. The weapons, we speculated, were too sophisticated. While it was possible that a mere RPG had downed the latest Blackhawk, we all sensed that it was a surface-to-air missile. This w
as the third helicopter downed in as many weeks.

  “I want you to work your informant networks, Steve,” ordered Colonel Hickey. “This is a different situation now. They have sophisticated weapons, and we must maintain the initiative. It is essential to be relentless and aggressive. Time matters.”

  “Roger, sir, I’ll work them,” I responded. “Maybe Colonel Jassim and the Governor can help as well.”

  “We have to act quickly,” affirmed Colonel Hickey. “They have to react to us. Only our forward momentum will insure that. We have too few troops to hold everything down. If they ever discover that, things will only get worse.”

  I asked Joe Filmore to contact the Governor’s office for an immediate meeting. We rolled down Highway 1 to the Salah ad Din governmental offices and conferred with Governor Hussein and Colonel Jassim. I conveyed our need for immediate information. There would be major consequences in the city, I explained. Any information that they could glean would help minimize the escalation. Colonel Jassim agreed to extract what information he could for us. He had several updates for us as well. We agreed to meet again the following morning.

  That night, Colonel Hickey and I discussed our options. We both felt that it was time to strike the areas we had been watching. Though these sites were not always occupied, they were significant as meeting places, insurgent transit points, and weapons supply sites. We typically observed them for the opportunity to kill insurgents or uncover leads to their cell networks. From this moment forward, those locations would be regarded as legitimate military targets.

  A series of strikes was organized to destroy these points on a massive scale. The strikes would be synchronized to maximize the shock effect. Our objective was to unmistakably convey this straightforward message to the public: It is more dangerous to cooperate with the insurgents than to cooperate with us. While we always took care to shield the innocent, we would boldly demonstrate the willingness to destroy whoever or whatever was aiding and abetting the insurgency.

  Such tactics bore some risk, but the risk of no response is always greater than that of swift response on a legitimate line of attack. We would hit legitimate military targets to disrupt enemy activity, slow their resupply, and shake their confidence to the core. This would illustrate to civilians the consequences of abetting the insurgency or aligning with Saddam’s henchmen. Saddam was a master of motivation by fear. That’s how he inspired the Tikritis to serve his former cronies. We aspired to exchange their fear of Saddam for a greater desire of self-preservation. It was time to abandon Uncle Saddam.

  Colonel Hickey arranged big support in the form of airpower and artillery for the coming strikes. We would be allowed to use any of the weapons at our disposal on targets that we would define ourselves, and he wanted to review those proposed targets as soon as possible.

  Mike Rauhut, Bryan Luke, Clay Bell, and I combed every possible target in our area. My guidelines were to choose locations known to have been weapons caches and locations from which attacks had frequently been launched. In that way, we would be hitting legitimate military targets. Should we destroy a building used for such purposes, it would also have a military impact. We selected several choice targets at points around the city and in surrounding villages. On the evening of November 8, we would array our forces to hit them simultaneously.

  As the day dawned, Bryan Luke, Clay Bell, and I called on the Governor. The information he offered was consistent with what we were tracking, but we also left with some important new information. We learned that the insurgency in Tikrit was currently being led by Finar Khatab Omar al-Musslit. Finar, who had earlier fled to Kirkuk and Hawija, had been recalled to take over the area. It fit. With his cousins Rudman and Mohammed Ibrahim Omar al-Musslit already in our sights, Finar was one more link to pursue who could lead us directly into Saddam’s inner circle. It also cemented our belief that we were narrowing the gap between us. We also learned of a son-in-law of Rudman named Hussein Ahmed Mohammed Hazaa who, with several of his relatives, was behind all the recent activity. How nice of them to keep it all in the family.

  While we would later secure information on the helicopter shooters themselves, the information that Colonel Jassim had given us was of greater worth and would prove invaluable in the weeks to come. It was a shattered and shaken insurgency that hit back, but we were decimating their cause significantly. Now they were trying to counter by coercing former Himaya and Special Security Organization officers closely connected to Saddam into the breach. We immediately shared this new intelligence with John and his SOF team and found it paralleled some new information that they were tracking. Between us, we were exposing enough targets for a massive roundup.

  Colonel Jassim’s new feedback fit a pattern regarding those on our wanted list. The difference now was that Saddam’s shrinking circle appeared to be more directly involved due to a dwindling supply of foot soldiers. We were given a lead pertaining to the Tikrit cell principals directly connected to the families that we believed harbored Saddam. It further validated that our “Three Tier” strategy was working and that the lower tiers would lead us to the higher ones and, hopefully, to Saddam himself.

  That evening, we proceeded with our plans to raze several military targets where insurgents were known to have found safe harbor. One was near the site of the Blackhawk crash, perhaps even the very position from which the missile had been launched. It was an unfinished house atop the bluffs north of the location where the helicopter went down. Locals reported spotters using a cell phone to signal the attackers from there.

  At curfew, Phil Thompson rolled a tank platoon and his own headquarters tanks from the “Cougars’” compound across the highway to Cadaseeyah to target this house. Jon Cecalupo was still on leave, so Phil would lead the tank company. Brad Boyd’s “Cobras” maneuvered Infantry and Bradleys to a building in south-central Tikrit where we had been attacked on several occasions. Mark Stouffer’s “Gators” deployed south of Auja toward a bunker where we had also been engaged in several fights. Within an hour, tank rounds, TOW missiles, AT-4s, and machine guns leveled these buildings. Air Force jets screamed overhead. Bombs glided along laser beams across the river at targets designated by Colonel Hickey, based on information provided by Captain Dez Bailey. Our mortars and artillery cracked in support.

  By morning’s light, the locals were utterly terrified. They told us that they had not been this frightened since the previous April. Good, I thought. Tell that to your Fedayeen-supporting, Saddam-loving neighbors. Don’t you realize we have the might and resolve of the United States of America at our disposal? Did you honestly think we were merely an Army of Humvees?

  Capitalizing on the momentum, we rolled a large number of combat vehicles into the city on November 9. We brought in tanks, Bradleys, and about 300 Infantry. We did it at the height of the business day for maximum visual effect. By amassing our own forces, we gave the appearance that reinforcements had been brought into Tikrit to crack down on the city. Tikrit became somewhat more subdued, but more importantly, we saw an increase of information flowing from locals willing to help us.

  While we were busy tightening down Tikrit, Kaied Ghalib Mahmood al-Khatab was preparing for some action of his own. Although we had already thinned out a few of the Khatab family, all we really knew at this point was what we had observed from the receiving end of their attacks. Now we began to put the puzzle pieces together.

  Kaied’s father was at the center of the resistance in Cadaseeyah. Kaied was a first cousin to Abid Mahmood, the Ace of Diamonds, whom we had captured in June. The Khatab family collected sophisticated bomb-making material and manufactured scores of roadside bombs that they employed against us. Our previous connection to them was their good friend, “Thamer the Bomber,” who carried the devices from their house and employed them. It was also a Khatab who had killed Esparza and wounded several of my soldiers in October.

  Now lacking in foot soldiers, Kaied desperately decided to strike us himself, hoping to catch our forces by surpri
se. While we were concentrated in large numbers flooding the city with troops, he and Ossam Ali Hussein al-Sumadie transported their powerful bomb in a small white taxi, easily blending into Tikriti traffic. What they had not counted on was hitting a deep hole in the road on the way out of Cadaseeyah that somehow connected the electrical circuit to the blasting cap of the bomb. The taxi was instantly transformed into a volcanic, flaming convertible. When the car eventually smoldered out, our soldiers saw that it was still occupied by the remnants of two evil men frozen in their charred poses. To me, it was a perfect portrayal of the 64th Psalm in the Bible. We would henceforth refer to these two insurgents as “Crispy One” and “Crispy Two.”

  That night we blasted at previous insurgent mortar locations with our own harassment and interdiction fires. One enemy mortar location that had been prepped with a cache of rounds for their next attack yielded a massive secondary explosion when our rounds hit it. In the days that followed, the town became even more subdued and quiet. We resumed our patrols. Our informant network grew as people began to cooperate with us. Whatever the correlation, one thing was certain—we were making irreversible progress in holding the initiative.

  Militarily, we were pleased. Public relations weren’t perfect but they were moving in the right direction. We were satisfied despite second-guessing from pundits back home. We knew that we could not win over the people of Tikrit while Saddam remained at large. We continued to be kind and compassionate to those who cooperated with us, but the general Tikrit population detested us for the most part. Power, however, they respected.

  Some reporters continued to question our forcefulness and were mystified at the value of shows of force. Even so, I knew we could not win the favor of the locals by handing out lollipops—not in Tikrit. Too many of my bloodied soldiers bore witness to this. I likened this hometown group of Saddam-lovers to the “Beer Hall” crowd of Munich in 1945. Having given birth to National Socialism and benefiting greatly from it in its heyday, they just could not believe it was all gone. That was Munich. This was Tikrit. Like Hitler’s faithful, I believed Saddam’s loyalists would have to have power and privilege forcefully wrested from their grasp.