We Got Him!

by Steve Russell

  9. TRIUMPH

  RAT PATROL

  I spent the final days in Iraq addressing clusters of my men as they departed for Kuwait. I urged them to conduct themselves with the same professionalism upon return as they had in performing their duties in combat. Our fallen comrades would forever be associated with the unit they served in when they gave their lives. They deserved to have that unit known for its good conduct and deeds. I explained such honor could be soiled if we “let fly” at home. They got the message.

  Colonel Hickey was also departing for Kuwait to assemble the brigade for redeployment. We had a conversation by phone on 14 March 2004.

  “What are you still doing in Iraq?” he asked.

  “Sir, I still have some troops here and will leave when the final group departs,” I answered.

  “More than two-thirds of your unit is already in Kuwait,” he countered. “You have competent officers to get the remainder home. The majority of your command is there. Leave Iraq.”

  “Wilco, sir,” I acknowledged.

  With that, we prepared for the drive of our command element out of Iraq. The hundreds of miles’ journey would be an adventure all its own as we drove south along the ancient river valley to Kuwait. My last day in Tikrit was spent giving an interview to Peter Jennings at the request of ABC News. My command group soldiers, tough young men all, were the highlight of that interview, and it was great to see the media coverage as I looked on with pride. Mr. Jennings was the consummate professional. I had dealt with larger-than-life media personalities before, but Jennings was first-class all the way. He produced a nice story revolving around the question “With Saddam captured, what now?” Time would tell. We had given our all; now others would take up the fight.

  Assembling the three Humvees of my command convoy, we strapped on spare tires and multiple five-gallon fuel cans, and soon the trucks were bristling with guns and soldiers. The fourteen of us would make our way through hundreds of miles of unfamiliar territory. We resembled a desert “rat patrol,” not unlike those from the old television series. Bryan Luke remained a few days longer to ensure that the very last group pushed out. Clay Bell’s Hummer would replace Bryan Luke’s in my convoy.

  I said goodbye to many Iraqi friends made along the way and was able to pin Bronze Stars on American citizens Joe Filmore and Alex Mikhaiel for their irreplaceable service to our unit and nation as translators. Alex, an Egyptian Coptic Christian who had emigrated to the United States and given selfless service, had worked mostly with the intelligence section. He also filled in when Joe Filmore was unavailable. We shared many exciting episodes together. I cannot imagine how any of our successes would have been possible without the eyes, ears, and voices of these two dedicated Americans.

  After gathering the latest intelligence information for the journey ahead, I was somewhat disturbed by the dozens of attacks along the designated convoy route to Kuwait. While it was imperative to remain on these routes for security concerns and medical evacuation access, I believed that they were equally dangerous because the enemy could take advantage of small vulnerable elements as they passed. The daily number of roadside bombings on those routes was alarming. I could not bear to lose a man on the trip out. Nothing could be more cruel or hateful to my mind.

  We set out on the route to Baghdad without incident until we encountered a small Military Police unit’s roadblock. We were approximately three vehicles back in traffic when they began to set up the blockade. All six lanes of highway were beginning to back up in both directions as far as the eye could see. Unlike the minor irritation of commuter inconvenience a driver might experience back home, we instinctively went on high alert and battle drill, dismounting our vehicles.

  “What’s the problem?” I asked, walking past the MPs to the sergeant in charge who was talking on a radio in his Humvee.

  “IED.” He pointed toward a roadside bomb.

  “We can take care of it if you like,” I offered. At this, Sergeant First Class Nail began to take up a position to shoot the initiating device in front of the large artillery shell set up on the side of the road some 75 yards away.

  “What, sir?” asked the MP staff sergeant.

  “We can take care of it and get the road clear,” I continued. “You’re going to have a tight spot here pretty soon with all this traffic and angry, waiting people.”

  “Roger, we have EOD coming,” he offered, hopeful that explosive ordnance disposal troops would soon arrive.

  “How long till they get here?” I asked.

  “Well, sir, yesterday we waited for three and a half hours,” he lamented.

  “Three and a half hours?” I repeated.

  “Roger, sir,” he confirmed. “Maybe they will be quicker today.”

  “Sergeant, I know this is not our area, but look, we do this all the time. Look over there at the little box in front of the device.” I pointed. “It has an electrical initiator of some kind hooked to the fuse in the nose packed with plastic explosives. Shoot that initiator and you break the circuit. Break the circuit and there is no way it will go off. It is just like any other artillery shell packed in a crate. There is no way it can go off unless you have a spark to the fuse.”

  “Well, sir, let me make a call,” he reasoned, looking about at all of us and seeing that we probably had done this before.

  After he raised his unit, they were adamant that we not interfere. I understood and expected as much. Too bad for them. Equally unfortunate for us was our situation on an enormous bridge. We could not edge forward or backward due to the densely packed traffic. Forget this, I thought. We’re gonna sit here all day and have our troops get hammered in some ambush or get sniped at like sitting ducks for nothing.

  “Hoefer, you think you could make it down there?” I asked, pointing to the embankment just short of the gap on the bridge.

  “Roger, sir,” he stated confidently. “It sure beats sitting here.”

  Sergeant Nail located a spot in the guardrails just wide enough to traverse. We threaded our Hummers down the steep embankment like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Finding a side street, we made our way back to the highway and were off again. I felt terrible for that poor sergeant and his men stuck in limbo. I had no authority or command in that area, so if they did not wish to exploit our skills, we were powerless to help. We could not waste valuable time waiting for them to follow military protocol. For the moment, my direct command encompassed the safety of fourteen soldiers, and we had a date with Kuwait. It was a date I intended to keep.

  Arriving after dark at a midway base for refueling, it looked as if we had entered a prison. Mazes of concrete “Texas Barriers” separated this penitentiary of our own making from the outside world. After uppity instructions from junior guards directing us to an area to draw linen and cot space for our men, I immediately gave my men other orders. Once I found the fuel point, we gassed up our tanks and cans. I then instructed our mini convoy to locate a spot between the outside wire and the inside barriers. We circled into a little laager and slept on vehicle hoods, the few cots we had, and the ground. At first light, we fired up the Hummers, grabbed some chow, and prepared to head southward.

  While the troops ate, I checked the latest intelligence reports. They were not good. There were more bombings yesterday than the previous day. One soldier had been killed and others wounded. Most of the contact seemed to span an eighty-mile stretch of dirt road. Pulling out the map, I looked for a safer route. Common sense had to prevail at that moment. What was the point of driving through blinding dust and getting ambushed for the purpose of sticking to the “safe” convoy route?

  I gathered my men and explained the strategy to divert potential disaster by detouring on a giant dogleg around the trouble. While it seemed a no-brainer, I reminded them that in doing so, we would be venturing into an area where no troops had been in any numbers since the initial invasion. It would also invite some risk, but I banked on the element of surprise outweighing any impending danger. Should a vehicle break d
own, tow straps would allow us to press forward. We agreed. Any positive plan was better than playing roadside roulette with the enemy.

  Threading our way through the city of Diwaniyah and countless other small towns, we inched our way toward Nasiriyah. There were many surprised looks cast our way, but as our tough, hardened appearance conveyed we meant business, most had more fear of us than we had concern of them. We finally reached a military base near Nasiriyah, where I looked up First Sergeant Kevin Blake, who had once been my driver when I was a company commander and he a Private First Class.

  Spotting a phenomenal historic structure in the distance as we approached, I shouted to my soldiers.

  “Check that out! That’s the Ziggurat of Ur!” I exclaimed to the men in my truck.

  “The what?” they asked.

  “The Ziggurat of Ur,” I continued. “You know, where Abraham was born.”

  “Abraham who?” a soldier asked.

  Some things are better left unsaid, I suppose.

  It was late afternoon in southern Iraq when I decided that we needed one last drain of fuel cans before proceeding on to Kuwait. Spying a little oasis about a mile from the road, we drove up to the spartan farm amid lush palms and bushes. The concealment would shelter us while we paused to fuel should someone become wise to our presence and decide to ambush us.

  The local family was terrified as we pulled into the knot of trees. We smiled broadly and pointed to our fuel cans. Using pidgin Arabic, we successfully conveyed our fuel stop to our reluctant hosts. The guys enthusiastically passed out candy to the children. We left beef jerky, chips, and army rations with them as well. Several of us had Iraqi currency we would no longer need and offered it to the family. Their initial terror was replaced with smiles and waves as we departed. I often hoped that this family’s experience with Americans might someday serve as a good “campfire” story in the future to counter all the propaganda about our inhumanity.

  For the last leg of our journey, about a dozen of us donned motorcycle riding gloves fashioned in the pattern of American flags. They had been shipped from a chopper shop on the Texas Gulf Coast. After seeing our unit on television, the owner and his buds boxed up a huge care package for us unlike any we had ever received. It contained novelties, from Harley gear to pinup biker calendars to the patriotic biker gloves. The soldiers loved it. We even discovered a fifth of Jack Daniels tucked in the bottom of the box. How that contraband passed through military channels was a great mystery to us. The gloves from that box were the ones we sported on that final leg of our journey through Iraq.

  After another hour or so, we spotted a checkpoint on the horizon indicating the Iraq-Kuwait border. It is hard to describe the feeling that overcame us at that moment. We felt as if we were really going home. Crossing into Kuwait after a perfunctory stop, we drove down clean superhighways with modern structures on all sides. Honking cars full of grateful Kuwaitis gave us the thumbs-up and many covered their hearts with their hands to show gratitude. They had firsthand knowledge of the terror that Saddam Hussein could invoke. Children waved to us with broad smiles. For the first time, it became real to me that we were no longer at war.

  WISH THEY WERE YOU

  Rejoining the troops was exhilarating as we milled about, finally out of danger and working to redeploy. My executive officer, Mike Rauhut, had things in top order for the uploading of vehicles and the manifesting of troops on airliners to go home. Command Sergeant Major Pete Martinez convinced me to catch some rest. I slept as I had not to that point of the deployment.

  After standing around idly trying to make myself useful, Rauhut and Martinez finally spoke bluntly.

  “Sir, it’s time for you to go home,” Mike said flatly.

  “Roger, sir, I agree,” chimed in Pete. “Sir, we know you want to help and you are an out-front leader, but you are just holding things up here.”

  “What do you mean, Sergeant Major?” I asked.

  “Sir, when you show up to be with the troops, you are slowing us down,” he explained. “It’s not like you can help them fix engines, clean vehicles, or load their stuff on planes. When you show up, things slow down.”

  “Well, it’s nice to be so wanted.” I smiled.

  “Sir, we got this here,” Mike assured. “We need you to use your command influence in the fight back home.”

  “Sir, he’s right,” tag-teamed my sergeant major. “There are lots of battles back at Fort Hood . . . our barracks . . . our headquarters. You can call and make things happen that we need.”

  “I guess I ought to listen to my command element,” I answered. “But first I want to make sure the S-3 makes it out safely, and then I’ll grant your wish and leave.”

  With that, I turned in my weapons and prepared to depart. I felt naked. No Colt M4 carbine, no battle gear, no loaded magazines, no Beretta M9 pistol strapped to my leg. I wandered around attempting to be useful, but my men were on autopilot and doing a fine job on recovery of our equipment.

  Bryan Luke made it out of Iraq a few days afterward, and with that, all of my soldiers were either safely in Kuwait or already in Texas. I was manifested to one of the civilian airliners chartered to transport troops back to the United States. This one was an American Airlines jet. I stepped on board and was immediately whisked away by flight attendants to first class. My protests were met with “captain’s orders” from the crew. To my surprise, our troops had recovered weapons and equipment efficiently enough that many of them were on board. Many more were already en route to freedom. So many were homeward bound that even Pete Martinez decided to join our flight. It was good to have my battle buddy along for the trip home.

  American Airlines crew members volunteered for these freedom flights. A surplus of volunteers necessitated a rotating duty roster, though they would hardly have called it “duty.” They assured us that the duty was considered an honor. During the flight, they dressed some of the soldiers in outrageous flight attendant attire and pressed them into service to attend to their fellow soldiers. We were even permitted into the pilot cockpit, the cabin door never closing. It was so unlike any post-9/11 flight I had flown on. I will never forget how well the airline treated us that day. The undue attention made me feel a bit guilty.

  Finally arriving at Fort Hood, we were bused into a gymnasium where our families were waiting to welcome us home. My wife, Cindy, our five children, my parents, my brother, and my sister were all present. It was a very moving and emotional time being reunited with my family. Embracing my wife, I breathed in deeply the smell of her hair and warmed with her hug while my children swarmed like bees at chest, waist, and leg height. How good to finally be home.

  In the following few weeks before a thirty-day block leave, we closed up on our barracks and sent soldiers to reintegration classes. The reintegration was a good concept, but the instructors left much to be desired. The class dealing with combat stress was led by a 100-pound female psychology major who had never deployed or been in battle. My leathered, combat infantry veterans were polite, but I am glad their thoughts could not be read. A woman with a degree taught the reentry-to-marriage class, but she had never been married, had no children, and had a live-in boyfriend of two years. What a joke! My sergeant major (married for over two decades) and I (nearly so) just shook our heads in bewilderment.

  Eventually, we would turn to local veterans of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam for help. They may have lacked scholastic credentials but certainly had more experience reintegrating from battlefront to home front.

  As we prepared for leave, I wanted to ensure that every soldier received his campaign decorations for service in Iraq. A new medal for expeditionary service had been recently authorized. Scores of my men would separate from the service when our block leave began. If their decorations were not issued before leaving the service, they would never receive them properly. Because the Army supply system could not act quickly enough, I instructed my staff to find where the medals were being made. As luck would have it, they were man
ufactured in Texas. I authorized the unit credit card to buy medals for every single soldier. My supply officer, Captain Troy Parrish, purchased the awards in person and had them in time as a result.

  Two key ceremonies would leave a lasting memory. The first was in honor of the division’s fallen at an outdoor memorial dedication service attended by families of soldiers killed in battle. I had asked permission to perform a song that I had written to my fallen soldiers and felt might be appropriate for the division’s ceremony. After hearing the song, Major General Odierno readily agreed. With more than four thousand guests present, plus our soldiers, I was able to pay tribute with this song.

  I’ll Think of You

  I wait for your face

  To return from a distant place.

  I seek your words,

  Mental speeches that are never heard.

  Refrain:

  And today I thought of you,

  Of the full life that you never knew;

  Of the world that passed you by;

  Of your loved ones, you never told “Goodbye.”

  So today, I’ll think of you.

  Free souls, steep price,

  Proud flags draped on sacrifice

  Of youth, now gone

  But the memories carry on.

  Refrain:

  And today I thought of you,

  Of the full life that you never knew;

  Of the world that passed you by;

  Of your loved ones, you never told “Goodbye.”

  So today, I’ll think of you.

  In the audience were several families of my fallen soldiers. It was a moving tribute to them. Present that day was Paula Zasadny, mother of Holly McGeogh. The phone conversation we shared the night after she was killed was the inspiration for the song.