When we made our final pause before the assault, light was beginning to filter in through the palm trees and the humid haze surrounding us. I looked down at my map. By the length of the column I presumed that the tanks in front had to be stopped at the “Welcome to Hillah” sign I supposed was somewhere up ahead. I also became aware that to my right, in a patch of low ground off the side of the road, was a battery of howitzer artillery pieces. I could see the American soldiers that manned them moving around, readying them to initiate the attack.
As we sat there in the middle of the road, artillery prepping to fire, a man dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase walked out of what looked to be his home. I could see that he had a moustache and that his black hair was balding on top. He took the sidewalk on the left side of the street and began walking toward Hillah, his briefcase swaying as he went. As I watched this, I observed that he never once looked at the armored column parked not thirty yards away from him. He just kept walking toward Hillah. Like he was going to work.
I didn’t know who was crazier, him or us. But it struck me that, of the two of us, he was the one taking part in the more natural act.
As the man disappeared into the distance ahead, I noticed a couple of dogs running around. And a chicken. Then I heard the voice of Corporal Davis come over the company net. He announced that the artillery was about to fire. After that, he said, the head of the column would initiate the attack run into the center of Hillah.
I looked down into the low ground. The moving artillery soldiers were too far away for me to hear anything. To me, they looked small and silent. I could hear all of our vehicle engines running, but no one spoke. There was radio silence for the first time that morning. I looked again into the low ground. This time even the artillerymen were still.
And then without further warning, the attack began. I nearly came out of my seat when it did. I knew it was coming, but I had no idea that it would be as loud as it was. A full two hundred yards away, the cannon fire seemed to be emanating from inside my own head.
They quickly reloaded and went back to pulling lanyards. The roar was deafening. This time there were bright muzzle flashes. Twice more they fired, sending high-explosive shells careening into the city.
Suddenly I felt different—as if the artillery pieces had awakened me along with the rest of Hillah. The numbness metamorphosed again, this time into a kind of confident, frenzied, euphoria. Adrenaline reserves were being released into every cell in my body. The levees had broken. There was no fear. There wasn’t even any danger. Nothing was going to stand in the way of this armored onslaught. I had a vision of us slicing into the heart of Babylon, the horrified enemy fleeing before us.
For the first time in combat I felt invincible. I could sense the fear of those in Hillah—and I was feeding off of it. There was blood in the water.
The lead tanks began entering the city.
Pressing into the city, my left hand cradled the radio’s hand mike up to my left ear, while my right hand held my M4, balanced on the windowsill and pointed out. With no warning a Kiowa helicopter flew directly over the top of my truck. It was less than a hundred feet off the ground and headed toward the front of the attacking column. Now looking at the sky, I caught a glimpse of another one to my right, just before I lost it behind a building. The small but maneuverable birds had timed their appearance to coincide perfectly with the entrance of the tanks into the city.
The buildings we passed were generally low and grimy. There were a few apartment buildings with clotheslines strung across the balconies, some of which were adorned with freshly cleaned clothes. As we closed on our first phase line, I quickly became aware of two things on which I hadn’t planned.
The first was the speed with which we were pressing forward—and the lack of resistance that came with it. I looked down at the map and saw that we were rapidly closing on Objective Wolf, one of the widest four-way intersections in Hillah. I surmised that the lead of the formation must already be there. This was interesting because Wolf was already halfway to the center of town and I’d yet to take any fire, and I’d heard nothing on the radio of anyone else being in contact either.
While it appeared that no one wanted to tangle with us, the opposite was true for simple observation. With each block gobbled up in our drive, more and more people started coming out of their houses. They began to line the streets.
At first they showed no emotion—there were no smiles and waves. Several blocks later it changed. Suddenly a man on the right side of the road raised his fist. My hackles went up and I glared at him. With my weapon pointed in his direction, my right index finger moved gently onto the trigger. But then I saw that he was waving the fist not in anger, but in triumph. As I passed him, I saw the look I had mistaken for rage. It was a look of vindication.
Then I heard a whistle. To my left I saw a younger man with a goatee clapping. I turned to Sergeant Hemingson in the driver’s seat and said, “Are you seeing this?”
With the tanks plowing into the center of Hillah like arctic icebreakers, Corporal Davis abruptly stopped my platoon with a message over the radio.
We had just driven through a traffic light and entered Objective Wolf. It had begun to fill with people when Davis called me. He had instructions that my platoon was to stop and hold the objective until the entire battalion had passed through it. Then we were to hold the position and prevent anyone from circling in behind the column.
I relayed the message to Croom and the section leaders. Whipple swung his truck around, while the commander of the other truck in his section followed. Croom and I stayed with Sergeant Estrada’s section, where we took up positions to the south and east. I stepped out just in time to see Sergeant Croom parking right behind me. I quickly scanned the intersection. The gunners were staying in the vehicles manning their weapons while the drivers were standing outside of the trucks, still holding the fully stretched radio hand mikes. The four truck commanders were standing beside the trucks as well, monitoring the growing crowd and scanning for snipers. The sun was just beginning to peek from behind the buildings to the east. It was going to be a spotless blue-sky day.
The first sound I noticed was the distinctive crackle of gunfire. It wasn’t aimed at us, so I looked for other things with which to concern myself. I looked back to the western end of the intersection and saw a large building. The entire face of one side had a painting of Saddam Hussein in all his grandeur. He was wearing a hat and his arm was outstretched. I thought that it looked kind of ironic, considering the fact that his arm was outstretched in the direction of an American heavy weapons platoon.
As I was gazing up at Saddam, a Kiowa helicopter sped low and fast across the northern end of the intersection. With it came a hail of gunfire. Sergeant Croom hustled over to me and exclaimed, “You see that? They’re shootin’ at the bird!”
“Yep,” I said with an eyebrow raise. Standing a few feet away from my truck, I started inching closer to it. For the first time I was having second thoughts about only having one AK-47-proof plate in my vest. The Defense Department had seen to it that we only had enough front and back plates for our gunners before the invasion. I noticed Sergeant Croom backing up against my truck as well.
Above the din of the crowd I could hear a helicopter coming closer. For a brief moment my mind slipped back into the mountains, and I fully expected to see an Apache or a Cobra fly over a snow-covered ridge.
Lying flat on the high ground, I watch as the first Apache streaks down the valley from north to south, while the second breaks off to the right and flies toward the Whale. Seconds later, two Marine Corps Super Cobras follow. The four helicopters begin scanning for al Qaeda positions. Within seconds the shooting starts.
It is a one-sided fight. The attack helicopters are able to strike with impunity now that the American infantry has pinned down the terrorists—and they do. Each bird circles around an area and then hovers, as if looking at something. Then it circles around again. Finally it sees something—a
person or movement—worth engaging. The resulting fusillade of rockets and 40mm gunfire is devastating. Dust and debris is thrown up with each strike, the rattle of the chain guns echoing through the crisp air. For what seems like an hour, the birds loiter over the expanse of the Shah-e-Kot Valley, mauling anything that moves and some things that don’t.
Again, as they had two days earlier, the Apaches look animate to me. At Bagram they had looked beaten down, but now they now look enraged. They appear to me as sentient beings on a mission of retribution for their wounded comrades. Each time one of them wheels and turns to face a target, it looks personal—as if these machine-like beings with homunculi for pilots can somehow exude anger.
In the middle of Hillah, no Apache came. Instead, it was the same Kiowa that sped across the northern edge of the intersection. Again, gunfire erupted behind the building directly to our north, following the bird as it zipped between buildings.
In combat you learn very quickly to differentiate between “gunfire that concerns you,” “gunfire that doesn’t concern you,” and “gunfire that should be monitored.” Nobody outside of the military realizes this, but you can be on a battlefield, explosions and shooting all around, and find yourself walking around without your helmet, eating an MRE, or discussing the merits of one sexual position over another. This is because you’re surrounded by “gunfire that doesn’t concern you.” On the other hand, when it does concern you, you’re usually very aware of this fact. The fire coming from behind the building, we silently agreed with a head nod, was “gunfire that should be monitored.”
As I listened to the cacophony of noises—people, helicopters, and gunfire—I began scrutinizing the throng of onlookers. That’s when Sergeant Estrada walked over and told me about the bomb.
“That guy,” he said, pointing to a man standing next to his truck, “says there’s a bomb in the ditch over there.” He pointed to the southeastern corner of the intersection.
I raised my eyebrows and said, “A bomb?”
Estrada said, “Yeah, he says it’s in the ditch.”
I followed Estrada as he led me to the informant. After an awkward introduction I asked him about the bomb. We were standing within fifty feet of the area in question.
The Iraqi looked at me, shrugged, and said, “Yes . . . over there. In the hole in the ground.” He said it with a total lack of gravity attached to his statement—as if this were normal. You know, just like the rest of the bombs in holes in the ground.
I said, “Okay, hold on. Let me see what I can do.” What I wanted to do was pick up my platoon and head far, far away. We had been stationary for much too long. At this point, having never before captured a city, held an intersection, or dealt with civilians on a battlefield, I was starting to get a little edgy. This was more up close and personal than anything I’d ever done in Afghanistan, and I was currently watching helicopters getting shot at. I opened the door to my humvee and got in. I picked up the hand mike to the company net and keyed it. I was feeling complacent and exposed.
Davis answered.
“Roger, there’s a guy here that says there’s a bomb in a ditch here on Objective Wolf. Any word on how long they want us to hold this thing? Over.”
“A bomb? Did you see it?”
“Negative, over.”
Davis paused. “Stand by.”
After a few seconds he came back. “3-6, Six says he wants you to go see what it is, over.”
I stifled a laugh. “No way, over.” I keyed the hand mike again before Davis could respond. I realized that I had just refused a lawful order over the company net. “Six Romeo, this is 3-6, I, uhh, just don’t think that would be a very good idea right now based on the current situation,” I said, softening my tone. “I, uhh, we don’t really know what we’re doing, over.”
“Roger, stand by,” he answered. For thirty long seconds I waited, expecting a firm rebuke. Eventually Davis replied. “3-6, Six says you can leave it alone, over.”
I let out a breath. Then I heard Davis again.
“3-6, Six says you’re to pick up your platoon and move from Objective Wolf to the bus station. The lead element is about to cross the river onto Objective Weasel, over.”
“Roger,” I said, letting out a sigh of relief.
When we arrived downtown, half the battalion was clogged at an intersection. They were waiting for the tanks to cross the Shatt al Hillah, the Euphrates offshoot around which Hillah is built. Sergeant Collins and Bravo Company were in the midst of clearing the bridge. Meanwhile, most of Delta Company was holding the intersection near the bridge.
As the sun had gotten higher, the day had gotten hazy again. We were in an oddly shaped four-way intersection that backed up to the river. In front of me was a dust-colored, four-story building with a white billboard sign atop it. The sign said “Konika” in large red letters and in both English and Arabic. Next to my idling humvee was an eight-foot high concrete frame. Inside it was a canvas painting of Saddam Hussein from the waist up. He was grinning and wearing a suit.
The crowd had been kept at bay so far, but they were quickly starting to encroach on our intersection, just as they had on Objective Wolf. I gathered from the current radio chatter that nearly all the units attacking concurrently were meeting minimal resistance. Looking at my map with all its objectives and phase lines, the significance of that occurred to me. The thought was this: Once we cross the river and establish a bridgehead on the other side, this thing will be over. The city will be completely under our control.
The resistance had melted away apparently—vanishing into the honeycombed buildings and palm forests around the city. The Republican Guard was gone. The Fedayeen, too. Even the guy shooting at the Kiowa had disappeared.
No one had expected anything like this to happen. They had just quit. They had relinquished Babylon. And the people knew it too. The swell of onlookers began getting louder and more cheerful about the situation. It was as if none of us knew what to do. In our moment of victory over the Baath Party we were confused, and the Iraqis seemed to be as well. The sudden change in circumstances caught everyone off guard. No one knew whether to celebrate or to continue bracing for explosions. No one knew who was in charge anymore. You could hear the vacuum in authority sucking restraint out of the city.
A sergeant in another platoon walked over to the canvas of Saddam. Without hesitating, and in plain view of the citizens of Hillah, he reached up and tore it down. He quickly folded it up, put it under his arm, and carried it back to his humvee. His face was defiant, his expression read: That’s right, motherfuckers. I did it. For an instant I felt awkward, unsure of whether or not we could do that. I didn’t know my role. This was the first time I had ever actually conquered some place. I had vanquished people in the past, but I’d never conquered anyone.
It was then that I realized we could do whatever we wanted to do. Images of Saddam in Iraq were sacrosanct, and they were everywhere. They were the watchful eyes that looked over all of Iraq. They were symbolic of all that was powerful in a land ruled by brute force. And they were things you didn’t fuck with unless you wanted your family killed. For me, and for those who saw him do it, it was a split-second in which you could sense that tide turning irreversibly.
Several hours later we were inside the gates of an Iraqi Army base on the north side of Hillah. Outside the compound were thousands of celebrating Iraqis. In the time since the canvas had been ripped down, all of Hillah had come out, dancing in the streets. The first chance I got, I dialed in CNN on the radio. I was expecting to hear something of our victorious takeover in Hillah.
Instead I learned that American troops were presently in the center of Baghdad. At that very moment they were in the process of pulling down a statue of Saddam in Firdaws Square. I called out to our chaplain, who happened to be the person nearest to me at the time. “Hey!” I waved to him. “Come over here and listen to this!”
He walked over and stuck his head into the open door of my humvee. Together, we listened, n
either moving nor speaking. After a while the chaplain looked up at me with an expression that combined incredulity, skepticism, and astonishment all in the same glance. He said, “I mean . . . I guess . . . I mean, it’s over.”
The sense of relief that came washing over us was palpable. Five minutes earlier we had been prepared for a bloody siege of Baghdad, for violent urban warfare. Now I was thinking that I could be home within six weeks. I was conscious of the feeling that now I knew I wasn’t going to die. When I heard of the statue falling in Baghdad, fifty miles away, the weight of considering my own death had fallen away with it. Silently euphoric, I sat there in the front seat of my humvee. I was covered in dirt and sweat, but I was in the shade, and the radio had been switched back to music.
At dusk I took my platoon back into the center of the city. The Iraqis of Hillah were shooting guns, honking horns, and defacing everything that bore an image of Saddam.
We were traveling south on one of Hillah’s main avenues and traffic was tight. Everybody who had a car was out driving around and celebrating. For me though, it wasn’t personal. I was too strung out emotionally to feel anything. I had taken part in the storming of the city like a robot and I would leave the city, I assumed, in the same fashion, intent on mopping up Baghdad in similar fashion.
And that’s when the white four-door car in the right hand lane nearly crashed into my truck, causing me to put my thoughts on hold. I yelled at Sergeant Hemingson, “Hey, look out . . . car! Fuck!”
The white car swerved right, putting a few feet between our two moving vehicles. I thought he might be trying to ram us. Then the driver swung his car back in my direction. My index finger drifted to the safety switch on my M4.
The War I Always Wanted Page 9