We Got Him!

by Steve Russell

  The town immediately became calm. People scattered, shops closed, and streets emptied. Tikrit was firmly in our hands once again. We patrolled in this way for the next several hours, looking for trouble. No one wanted to give it.

  Satisfied that we had regained control, I called for the Psyops truck from Staff Sergeant Charles Darrah’s 362nd Psyops Detachment. We entreated Governor Hussein for his assistance in making a recording to play for the people throughout the city. The recording would be broadcast from vehicles on the streets and would be about demonstrations and general unrest. He drafted a tough message for his own people. He then asked permission to accompany us as we played the soundtrack around town. I readily accepted his excellent idea. We were further escorted by his personal security detachment of a half dozen Iraqis armed with MP5 submachine guns.

  As I readied the new effort, the Governor boarded my Humvee, loaded Glock pistol in hand, and off we went. This was my kind of Governor. We drove at idle speed around the city as his recorded message blared into the alleys, shops, and residences of Tikrit. His bodyguard flanked him on each side. Our soldiers watched the shock on the locals’ faces as their own governor instructed them to cease and desist lest the Iraqi government use lethal force to break up demonstrations. They warned that they would imprison surviving demonstrators. With no wind left in their sails, the demonstrations came to an end, and by sunset the town became eerily quiet.

  FOR ANOTHER DAY

  Using the respite to refocus, Mike Rauhut and I traveled to the field hospital that evening to see the guys. Brad’s gunner, Rodrigo Vargas, had already been released back to his unit. He would need time to recover but could do it there. Doc Felipe Madrid had been evacuated to Baghdad to be shipped stateside for a lengthy recovery.

  I found Brad lying on a hospital bed in the inflated rubber tent hospital. He was stable and awake. He looked pretty good and seemed to be in decent spirits for what he had just come through. We chatted a bit before the talk turned to the “Cobras” of C Company.

  “Brad, I am sending Captain Mitch Carlisle to fill in for you until you heal,” I reminded, unsure if he recalled the conversation from the aid station earlier that day.

  “Thank you, sir. Mitch is a great guy,” he offered. “Sir, I have another request.”

  “What is it?” I asked, not sure where this was leading.

  “Sir, they told me they are evacuating me,” he informed. “I don’t want to leave.”

  “Brad, you have to heal,” I tried to reason. “You were hit pretty bad.”

  “Sir, you and I both know that if they evacuate me, I will likely not be able to come back, and I don’t want to leave my men,” he countered.

  “Well, you are probably right about that,” I concluded. “It wouldn’t be my doing, but if you are out of the net, they may force the change. I’ll do what I can.”

  As we were talking, a chaplain entered and drew me aside.

  “Sir, aren’t you the commander of 1-22 Infantry?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” I replied apprehensively.

  “Sir, they just brought in another one of your men,” he revealed.

  A sickening feeling filled the pit of my stomach. “Thanks, chaplain, where is he?” I asked grimly.

  While Mike and I were traveling to the hospital and visiting with Brad, Second Lieutenant Warren Litherland was leading an element of the “Bears” from 3rd Platoon of our B Company, under Captain Scott Thomas, cross-attached to the 3-66 Armor battalion in Bayjii. They were conducting a standard combat patrol as they looked for roadside bombs along Highway 1. Warren had prior enlisted service as a sergeant. He was older and more mature than the typical new lieutenant, and the men of his platoon were glad to have him.

  The patrol employed a pair of Bradleys with an infantry squad on board. The lead vehicle, B32, under Sergeant Michael McGrath with his gunner, Specialist Armando Clark, covered an arc to the front. Warren controlled the patrol in B31, the trail vehicle, as his gunner, Sergeant Gary Dowd, scanned to the rear. Anything suspicious was to be dealt with by Sergeant Steven Sanders’ squad supported by the Bradleys. An additional patrol with a tank and Bradley was in another part of the town nearby and could mutually support.

  As the patrol headed south and neared the main mosque in Bayjii, an RPG hit the turret of Lieutenant Litherland’s vehicle. The track commanders and gunners had been up in the turret scanning for roadside bombs. When the RPG slammed into B31, Gary Dowd had been leaning outward looking for bombs. A massive flash of flame and concussion rocked the Bradley. The warhead hit at an angle near the TOW launcher and then skimmed the sloped armor into Sergeant Dowd.

  Gunfire peppered the Bradleys. Sergeant McGrath and Specialist Clark, also up and scanning the curbs for bombs, spotted the muzzle blasts of the enemy coming from a building in the distance. They returned fire immediately with their M-16s. The enemy recoiled, and Sergeant Sanders moved his squad toward the enemy location. Hearing the explosion and gunfire, the tank and Bradley on patrol nearby sped to the location and opened up on the building where the enemy was firing. Sanders and his men cleared the building, but the enemy had already escaped. This ended the engagement.

  Warren was knocked senseless, bleeding and trying to get his bearings. He saw Dowd slumped awkwardly and hanging listlessly over the turret gunner hatch. The top of the turret was blackened from the blast. Dowd’s body armor was shredded on the left side of his body. The Kevlar layers were spilling from it, looking like fiberglass insulation from a demolished home. The armored plate inside it was nothing but shattered ceramic held together by the outer coating. Litherland could see that Sergeant Dowd was in critical condition, if not already dead.

  The Bradley, having been hit in the turret, was still drivable, and Warren managed to direct the driver to return to the outpost that they had come from so they could get medical attention. Sergeant Dowd had absorbed nearly all the blast. Lieutenant Litherland ignored his own wounds and ensured that Dowd, miraculously still breathing, received emergency medical attention. He called for the medevac that ultimately took Dowd to the 28th Combat Surgical Hospital.

  After the hospital chaplain’s alert, we followed him to the surgery prep area. Gary had just landed via helicopter and was wheeled in on his back, completely unconscious. As they prepped him for surgery, he struck me as one of the most mangled human beings I had seen still living. His face, though intact, was seared and bloody. His neck was pocked with various holes. From the lower neck to the navel he was clean and unharmed. His body armor delineated the portion of his torso it had protected. His diaphragm rose and fell as Gary fought for each breath. His left forearm from just below the elbow was missing, the wound seared and exposed. Silver dollar-sized holes oozed below his belt line on his left side, his internal organs and spleen severely damaged. The orderlies tended to him while the surgeons readied their operating room and instruments.

  In the brief interval before surgery, I begged God to spare his life. I put my hands on his injured head, and the chaplain and I prayed over him.

  Lord, You are the God of all creation. Life and death rest in Your hands. Spare this man. Give him the fight to live. Heal his wounds. Guide the hands of the surgeons. Save his life, Lord. Spare him for another day. We have nothing to come to You with other than our plea as soldiers and our faith in You. Spare this man.

  I knew that he would face a very long recovery. I stayed with him until they wheeled him into surgery. By God’s grace, he lived through the first surgery and was later evacuated to Baghdad and then Germany. If he survived, he would spend many months in arduous recuperation.

  For now, Mike Rauhut and I stood there looking at each other for a few moments and reflected on a very tough day. I roamed around to find the head doc of the hospital and laid out the case to keep Brad in theater. I pledged to keep him in my headquarters and not release him for duty until the docs cleared him. Only the great working relationship we had with the combat hospital even permitted such discussion. It would be se
veral months before Brad could return to the streets, but as he wished, he would stay with us. I felt the need to win the case, as I knew that Brad would likely go AWOL to be with his unit. Then we would all be in trouble.

  The negotiation accomplished, Mike and I patrolled back to the command post, alert and on scan as always. It had been a long and grueling day, but it was not yet over. There were still phone calls to make. When I arrived, Command Sergeant Major Martinez had the phone ready—but was I ready? I took a deep breath and started calling the wives or mothers of our wounded, determined to answer their questions as best I could.

  I was not required to make such calls. It would have been far easier to allow “the system” with its snail’s pace and detached formality to deliver the details after the first official notification. I put myself in their place. What would my family want to know? Besides, we had the technology to accomplish it from the field. I had better information than someone detached from our world. I thought it best to tell the families everything they wanted to know about their loved one’s condition. While tough for them to hear, I pledged to answer any questions they asked and tried to answer with sensitivity, dignity and honesty. Still, I would rather have attacked into a nest of Fedayeen than make those calls. At least this time I was not calling to explain how their soldier died. For that, I could be thankful. Regardless, no one really knows what to say.

  CUCUMBERS AND CHRISTMAS

  I slept soundly that night, body winning over mind. Up again at dawn, we patrolled a mostly passive city. Incredibly, the people smiled and occasionally waved. It was as though nothing had happened. Just the day before, five of my men had been wounded, three of them critically. A sense of disgust returned to the core of my being. Still, I had to remind myself to heed my own advice. Just as I had admonished Brad’s soldiers, I could not allow myself to succumb to the temptation of seeing all Iraqis as the enemy. Most certainly were not.

  In this spirit, I went to Auja to meet with Sheik Mahmood, still a prisoner of sorts in his own town, courtesy of our barbed wire. We had a productive discussion about the Auja fence, the future of the Tikriti people, and the larger issue of the manner in which the Sunnis must fit into a new Iraq. They needed to embrace the future and relinquish the past.

  After this visit, my men and I continued our patrols about town and the surrounding area, checking the mood of the people and for signs of enemy activity. Back at the palace, I gave Chris Morris, our scout platoon leader newly promoted to captain, an idea for snaring the bomber in the white Mercedes who had wounded Brad. Chris would remain my scout platoon leader despite his promotion. He did not want to give up commanding troops for a staff job, and I needed him. We set to work planning an operation to set a trap with observation posts and snipers. The operation would last about four days.

  Early activity was light. The night of December 17 produced a single roadside bomb. It was another cinder block bomb like the one I nearly stepped on just weeks earlier. Like that one, it boasted the phrase “Allah Akhbar” (Allah is powerful) hand drawn on the cement caps, as if somehow Allah hated Americans and wanted to see them all die. We could not negotiate with these people; they only understood force. Without their removal, innocent people would continue to suffer from dictatorial and religious tyranny.

  Anyone who believed that we could sit down at Starbucks and work it out over a latte needed to walk an Iraqi mile in our boots. For the soldier, it was not an academic discussion. It was experiential, and the facts clearly demonstrated the need for a decisive defeat of these maverick insurgents. Without a doubt, emboldened jihadists seeing us flee Iraq would attempt to kill us in the cities of other nations or even on our own shores. We would, instead, kill them here to prevent them from enslaving twenty-five million Iraqi people.

  The next day was calm. In fact, Tikrit was actually civil. Chris Morris had stealthily positioned his scouts for the ambush along the “Chevron.” The rain fell in torrents. The temperature dropped. Tempers subsided. The merchants and the insurgents stayed indoors. Consequently, I stepped up my personal patrols of our area and checked on the guys out in the rain.

  This was the type of weather in which our troops could get lax. Even though we were soaked from head to toe in our open-topped vehicles, we still searched for signs of danger. Everywhere we patrolled, we found the morale of our soldiers to be very good. They sensed that we were winning this fight. I saw it weeks before when talking to several of the units. I gathered all the enlisted by company and listened to them in small groups. I then did the same with the sergeants. It was insightful to hear what was on their minds. They looked forward to Christmas and the New Year, realizing we were close to going home. I urged the soldiers to stay focused on their mission. Getting home would be when we got there. Not before.

  December 19 was overcast and damp. The freshness in the air provided a relief to the normal stench of the land. Patrols were out, and movement appeared normal with the shops and markets full of activity. Jon Cecalupo’s “Cougars” patrolling in Cadaseeyah passed one shop that caught their eye. Prominently displayed inside was a poster of Saddam. He and his men dismounted their tanks and checked it out. A cursory search of the vegetable shop revealed grenades and plastic explosives mixed with the cucumbers and tomatoes. While the vegetable disguises were novel, the Saddam poster decorating the wall indicated that they might as well have hung a sign proclaiming “Idiots Work Here” next to it.

  Our men in the tank company searched every shop in the complex and found another merchant with a “garden variety” of explosives. As the situation developed, we sent some infantry support from First Lieutenant Mike Isbell’s platoon of “Cobras” and ultimately arrested two men. We left an observation post to spy on the houses of the shop owners and pulled in two more men over the next two nights. One of them, Faris Amir Ahmed, was one of the insurgents who bombed Brad Boyd’s convoy. We also found a detailed sketch plotting the June 7 attack on the CMIC that wounded several of our soldiers and killed Private First Class Jesse Halling.

  The next few days were relatively calm. There was a lull in roadside bomb activity for several days following the harvest of exploding vegetable vendors in Cadaseeyah. We had sporadic contact but nothing significant. In fact, we actually had a little time to pause and reflect on Christmas. At a 4th Infantry Division prayer breakfast, General Odierno reminded us that we should be thankful to celebrate Christmas. He exhorted us to remember those who came to Iraq with us but would never celebrate again. That night, at a battalion candlelight service, the soldiers fashioned an American flag from some red, white, and blue Christmas lights they found.

  Captain Craig Childs and I led in singing Christmas carols. Soon the soldiers took over, and I faded into the background, pensively contemplating the mind-boggling events since my last Christmas. We were separated from our families, but we had their love and prayers. We were separated from our homeland, but we had the best wishes of our countrymen, for the most part. We were separated from all we held dear, but we had the steadfast and loyal, unyielding bond of warriors in this harsh and desolate land.

  It was an odd place to observe Christmas, but I quietly celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, His salvation, and the hope He brings. I was grateful to command such exemplary soldiers who gave all they had day after thankless day. I was honored to be a part of our respected division, once viewed as having arrived too late to the war but now recognized as having delivered one of its greatest victories. Saddam Hussein was in captivity, and I was humbled to have been a part of his hunt and capture alongside fellow warriors in the special operations community and the regular “Joes” doing the tough work of soldiering. Despite the roller coaster of combat success and setback of the previous six months, I was truly thankful to be an American fighting man.

  CRACKING THE WHIPS

  The period immediately following the capture of Saddam Hussein had been interesting. The initial reaction locally was one of shock and, for a small number of dissidents, irrepressible anger
that led to fatal action. We dealt with a broad range of response in the sure and steady way that characterized the work of our incomparable soldiers. We came with a clear objective and had always believed that we would prevail. Nothing we had experienced to date had changed that.

  So much of our general mission had already been accomplished throughout Iraq in 2003. The overall task had been to defeat the Iraqi Army, overthrow Saddam’s government, kill or capture the leaders of the Baathist regime, establish the foundation for a new government, and provide security until a new government could stand on its own. The only uncertainty was how long the last element might take. For us, it had never been a matter of whether, but when, we would achieve it.

  My battalion would leave Tikrit better than we found it. We would cull those seeking to do harm to the people and to the institutions of the new Iraq. We were often questioned and criticized for employing tactics that seemed heavy-handed, but in truth, even the locals acknowledged that conditions were much improved because of our firmness.

  As I reflected on our mission to that point, I likened the situation to that of a lion tamer who has cracked his whip frequently enough for the sting to be well known to the lions. They decide it best to sit calmly on their chairs. The lions understand that they could press their advantage and maul the tamer, but they realize that the cost is too high. Thus, they remain in their places. While the picture appears serene, the tamer knows that the air is fraught with tension and danger. The spectator knows nothing of the effort of rounding up the lions and establishing a disciplined regimen. The spectators see only the controlled result. The tamer knows all too well the hard work and consistency it took to achieve it.