Within minutes of arrival, Espo was being rushed into the battalion aid station.
As Espo lay in the trauma room, the Task Force 1-9 Infantry Command Sergeant Major, Dennis “Birdog” Bergmann, bellowed out in his abrasive, southern Georgia drawl, “Hey, soldier. Take a look at that Marine! Now that—that’s a wound!”
Espo smiled quietly, as he always did, and drifted into a morphine-induced trance.
When we arrived at OP Hotel, I grabbed Somerville and a few others from the convoy, raced into the building, and met up with Staff Sergeant Nugent. I told him we couldn’t raise the squad on the radio, and I had no idea what building they had gone into for cover.
Nugent plastered his finger to the map. “Sir, Espo was shot here, and we think that the other guys have gone firm in one of these buildings.” Going firm meant a unit held a building for an indefinite amount of time but didn’t intend to stay there permanently.
I told Nugent that we were going to relay our communications through him until we reached Grillo and the squad.
“Make sure you keep someone on this radio and monitor it at all times. This situation is going to get worse before it gets better for the boys.”
We mounted up in Somerville’s convoy after giving all the drivers and team leaders a quick brief on what we’d be doing and where we were going. Although the Ma’laab District was right across the street from OP Hotel, we didn’t know how long the mission was going to take.
We swung the vehicles around and headed south. One block or ten miles didn’t matter. We always wanted to be ready for the worst situation.
As we tried to gain access to the street, we were stopped by the C-Wire obstacle that Espo’s squad had encountered earlier that day. We now faced the same dilemma—the Army had effectively wired itself into the zone, and we couldn’t drive over the wire. Regardless of how it’s portrayed in the movies, C-Wire is tough and will do what it is designed to do: stop dismounted personnel and vehicles, including us.
More friction.
We quickly tried to formulate a plan to get around the wire, but we didn’t have any engineer tools in the trucks and no bolt cutters on hand. The only thing we had were handheld multi-tools that had a small pair of pliers that folded out with a wire-cutting tool in the jaws of it. Most self-respecting infantrymen carried one, or something similar, on their belt wherever they went.
Realizing the danger of being exposed in the open for so long during broad daylight, we had to work quickly. We started bending the wire and snapping it so we could breach the wire to get to the distressed squad. We broke through a section of the C-wire, jammed the buttstocks of our rifles into the mess and started pulling it apart, creating a gap twenty feet wide—just enough to allow the Humvees to drive through.
As we feverishly mangled the C-wire into submission, we heard the distinctive reports of AK-47 fire. Someone was in a fight close by, maybe a block or two away—maybe our boys. Still trying to raise 1st Squad on the radio, we moved about a block into the zone and scanned to find any signs of the Marines.
Nugent called us on the net and said, “Longhorn Six, be advised they have gone firm in the vicinity of Building 14…they’re on the north side and have popped red smoke.” This was a canister, about the size of a soda can, with a grenade firing pin assembly on the top. When you pulled the pin, it would provide three-to-five minutes of thick colored smoke that could obscure your position or mark it.
I passed the word to start looking for red smoke. No one saw any.
Still unable to get direct communication with the patrol, I ordered the convoy to press forward to the area where I suspected they were located. Then, one of the Marines in the turrets caught sight of a burnt-out smoke grenade on the street by the curb. We halted and began to dismount.
There was still no radio communication with the Marines, but I now heard people yelling.
I looked up to see Marines on the top of a roof, positioned in overwatch for security.
We’d found them.
I made my way into the house. Most of the squad stood huddled in one room on the first floor. They all looked a little rattled, but were glad to see us. They had been pinned down and getting shot up from every direction when Espo was hit.
I got a head count of all the Marines—Shaughnessy and Acosta had been found—and I formulated a plan for our exit back to OP Hotel in the most expeditious manner.
As we moved to the awaiting convoy, we started taking heavy fire from the south part of the Ma’laab. A few rounds smacked into the tops of the buildings and a couple of the trucks got pinged too. It wasn’t well-aimed gunfire, but it motivated us to get the fuck out of there.
Suddenly, the volume of fire intensified. The enemy engaged—firing automatic weapons, and it appeared that another dozen insurgents had joined the party.
Two M1-A1 tanks arrived to support us. One of them sat at the intersection of Little-A Street and Cinema Street, twenty-five meters from my position.
I had no radio communication with the tanks. Also, the Army version of the M1-A1 lacked something the Marine version had: the “Grunt Phone.” It was an old-school, black, military-grade telephone handset affixed to the outside of the tank in a protective metal box at the right rear of the machine. It allowed grunts to talk directly to the tank crew, while the latter remained safely buttoned up inside with their hatches secured. I would need to communicate in an even more old-school way.
I moved at a fast trot toward one of the massive tanks and took cover on the right side of it, by the tracks—the steel, linked caterpillarlike treads that it rolled on.
Yelling was futile as the high-pitched whine of the M1-A1’s turbine engine tended to drown out most sound. Added to that, the cacophony of the ensuing firefight made it impossible to communicate through the shell of the tank.
I made the risky decision to jump up onto the tank and began to bang on the tank commander’s hatch with the butt of my M4 carbine. I banged and banged.
“Fuck me,” I thought. “Open the fuck up.”
Finally, the lieutenant cracked the hatch.
Lying flat on my stomach on the tank with my head craning to get a look inside the hatch, I saw the lieutenant with his helmet on. Rounds began to snap and ping off the tank. Dust kicked up from the street as automatic fire walked in around our position. Since shooting at an M1-A1 with an AK-47 or a machine gun is as futile as trying to extinguish a forest fire by pissing on it, I figured the enemy was aiming at me as a clearly visible target now.
I yelled with impotent frustration at the lieutenant. Neither of us could hear each other. Finally, I yelled at the top of my lungs, “Lieutenant, open the fucking hatch! Now!”
His eyes widened as if he’d had an awakening. He cracked the hatch open slightly and cocked his helmet to one side, exposing his right ear but he still stayed tucked down inside the vehicle, like a rabbit in his hole.
A couple of rounds cracked sharply on the tank, and I heard the ricochets distinctively. “Hey! They’re down there—to the south. Do you see the muzzle flashes?”
He replied, “Roger that, sir.”
I said, “No, not roger that. Get that ‘coax’ in gear and start giving us some suppression on that shit while we move out.”
Again, he replied, “Roger that, sir.”
I was still uncertain if the urgency of my request sank in with him to use the coaxial 7.62 caliber machine gun aligned with the tank’s 120mm smooth-bore cannon against the enemy to the south.
I began to slide backward on my belly to the rear edge of the tank—my Marines shouted at me as I slid off the side and jumped down. Yelling, Marines waved me over to the convoy. As I prepared to make the dash, a string of automatic enemy fire laced the tank from front to back. I crouched down by the tracks trying to reduce my silhouette as much as I could. I wanted to be small. I heard the enemy rounds ping in rapid succession off of the tank. Seconds later, the M1-A1 blasted out several long bursts of fire from its machine gun. Music to my ears.
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br /> Pushing off the track with my right foot, like a sprinter out of the starting blocks, I raced toward the convoy and hopped in the back of my vehicle.
The assistant driver with the radio handset tucked between his helmet and one ear turned to me and said, “Sir, we can’t go! We don’t have Lieutenant Somerville!”
My first thought was, “How the fuck did they lose Somerville?” My second thought was, “What a fucking awesome team of Marines.” In the midst of chaos, they had maintained the situational awareness not to leave a fellow Marine behind.
I called over the radio to the vehicles to find Somerville. From the building to our front at the end of Little-A Street, enemy fighters began to shoot at our Humvee. Some sprayed small arms fire at us from the rooftops.
The man who deserved to be most concerned about this development was Lance Corporal Drew “Tex” Sturrock, who was sitting in the gunner’s turret, partially exposed as enemy gunfire beat down on us. In a random moment, I looked at his feet and noticed he didn’t have his boots tied.
Tex yelled down at me, “Sir! Sir! They’re hitting us from that building right there in front of us. What do you want me to do?”
“Tex, get back on that .50 cal and start engaging those fuckers!”
Tex replied in his southern drawl, “Roger that, sir!”
I shook my head and thought with some contempt, “Really? Enough of the ‘Roger that’ shit. Just start shooting for fuck sake!”
Tex unleashed the .50 cal, and hot, brass cartridge casings the size of small cigars sprinkled into the Humvee. The rounds ripped into the stone face of the building, completely suppressing the enemy position.
In combat, Tex was a Marine to the core—a trained killer who did his job effectively when shooting the enemy. As he felt the pressure around him, being with me that day granted him some semblance of VIP access. Some Marines become more efficient under pressure in combat, and Tex was one of them. He went from just posturing as a tough guy to understanding the reality of what was happening to him. The intensity of the firefight was as real as it got for him.
We had spent so much time together training there was implicit trust and a complete release when I looked up and told him to shoot.
He felt the pressure, but I was making it OK to kill.
No placebo could imitate the type of fear, anxiety, love, and bond formed under those conditions—the core of brotherhood. For Tex, it created a superstition with the guys he rode with that day—men that he relied on for his safety.
Much to Foster’s frustration, Tex didn’t lace up his boots again for the rest of the deployment. His way of relieving some of the pressure, I suppose.
We were clearly in what was shaping up to be a classic “L”-shaped ambush in the alley.
The A-Driver turned back around to me and said, “Sir, we got him! Somerville! He’s in the last vehicle! We’ve got everyone. We’re ready to go, sir!”
I gave him a quick thumbs-up and, with Tex still on the .50 cal engaging targets around us, we pushed to the west end of Little-A Street and made our way back out to the wire we had snaked through an hour before.
It was as Theodore Roosevelt called it during the battle of San Juan Hill, “A Crowded Hour.” We had successfully extracted a pinned-down patrol, moved them back to OP Hotel, and made our way back to Camp Corregidor.
Espo was already on his way to Balad.
As we drove back, beads of sweat stung my eyes. So I could wipe my face clean, I took off my Kevlar helmet, setting it in the center of the Humvee.
When I reached for it to put it back on, the Marine sitting next to me was fiddling around with it and examining it.
He looked up at me. “Fuck, sir. You just get this? You’re lucky as shit, sir.”
I saw the tan digital camouflage fabric helmet cover had a long shred in it. When I peeled it back, there was a fresh scar of bristling Kevlar fibers in the skin of the helmet. A round had grazed the top of my helmet and engraved its signature across the top.
I cursed that piece of gear and the weight of it on my head on a daily basis.
Not that day.
CHAPTER 4.1
Phrogs
Espo was never over the top—he was what I referred to as a cool professional. His actions always spoke louder than his words. He didn’t talk much, but he said a lot. The Marines he led always followed him, trusted him completely, and knew that he’d do anything for them.
On the twenty-ninth of November, he’d proved it again.
First Sergeant was by Espo’s side as the medics rushed him to the trauma room. There, the medical staff prepped the wound, cleaned it out, and put a big, clear plastic bandage on it. Espo looked down at the dressing as it began to fill with yellow puss and blood.
His blood.
Fiddling with the morphine-laced, intravenous drip that dangled from his arm, he leaned over to Foster and asked with some guilt, “Hey, First Sergeant, who was in charge of the CASEVAC? Please tell me it wasn’t Gunny.”
Foster replied, “Don’t worry about it. I’m in charge of it from here, Marine.”
“Sorry, First Sergeant,” Espo murmured. “It’s probably the drugs talking.”
Espo was moved to the helicopter landing zone and placed on a waiting CH-53E Super Stallion and flown to Al Taqquadum (TQ) Air Base for additional treatment.
When he arrived at TQ, a good-looking Asian nurse spoke calmly to Espo. “Hi Sergeant, we’re going to put you into this little ‘Hot Pocket’ to keep you warm.” The medical warming bag she referred to ensured patients didn’t go into shock from body temperature shifts.
Espo was still lucid when the nurse unzipped the bag and rolled him to his side. She reached down his backside and performed a check for any internal bleeding with her lubricated, latex covered finger.
She said, “All right, looks good, Sergeant. No problems.”
All Espo could think was, “Man, I get shot in the chest. Now, this?”
The TQ medical staff rushed Espo onto a Marine Corps CH-46 Sea Knight, affectionately referred to as a “Battle Phrog” helicopter for a flight to Balad Air Base for surgery.
Moments after takeoff, Espo lost consciousness.
The next thing he knew, Espo was coming to in the back of the helicopter. The distinctive whopping of the Phrog’s dual rotors beat the air into submission, and the sound filled his ears. The in-flight medic stood directly over him holding a defibrillator pad in each hand.
Espo blurted, “Hey, what the fuck are you doing?”
The Doc replied, “Damn, that’s good. You were out for like two minutes, Sergeant. We couldn’t get a pulse.”
The helo landed at Balad, and the ramp of the Phrog lowered. Espo felt the force of the cold air pushing into the fuselage over his body. He was placed on the back of a John Deere Gator utility vehicle that took him to the surgical center.
The medical staff hovered over him in the operating room and removed the bandage on his chest and stuck him with another IV.
The anesthesiologist said, “OK, Marine. I want you to count back from one hundred.” Espo counted out loud. “One hundred. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight. Ninety-seven…”
Espo woke up in a comfortable hospital bed, still groggy from the anesthesia. He rolled gingerly around in his soft bed, trying to make out his surroundings. As he turned his head from left to right, he noticed that the pillow was covered in a Superman pillowcase, the kind found in a child’s bedroom.
His five-star-like accommodations at the hospital were now significantly more luxurious compared to how he’d lived throughout the entirety of his infantry career.
Another attractive Air Force nurse approached his bed. She smiled pleasantly as she looked him in the eyes. “Good. You’re awake.”
“Yeah, I’m good. What’s up with this pillowcase, by the way?”
The nurse checked his vitals. “Well, you’re the first gunshot-wound-to-the-chest survivor we have ever had, so we put that Superman pillowcase on since we figured you could
stop bullets with your chest.”
Again, Espo drew a collected, humble smile across his face and laid his head deep into the plush pillow to rest.
Espo awoke hours later and rolled his head to the right. He could see that there was an Iraqi Army general in the bed directly next to him. He felt very uneasy. The IA general kept glancing over at him, staring intently, as if to elicit a conversation.
Finally, Espo, a little freaked out, said in exasperation, “What?”
The Iraqi general, wounded by shrapnel from an IED explosion, leaned up from his bed and turned to Espo.
“Thank you for coming to our country,” he said.
Someone else might have accepted the general’s thanks warmly. But Espo harbored a lot of animosity toward the Iraqi Army and didn’t take it as the intended compliment. Instead, it enraged him. He dismissed the accolade and turned his back to the general, snubbing him with indifference and contempt.
Espo spent the next four days recovering at Balad Air Base, and his family had already been notified by our command headquarters that he would most likely be returning stateside as a result of his wounds. Espo wasn’t read in on that plan, however. His only thought was to get back to Ramadi and his unit.
Espo was on the mend, and was now ambulatory. The doctors discharged him from Balad with no orders or guidance. By his volition, he decided to get moving. First, he hopped on a CH-46 and made his way from Balad to Baghdad. He caught a flight out of Baghdad the same day to Fallujah and then made another connecting flight into Camp Ramadi.
Camp Ramadi, one of the largest U.S. Camps in the city, was roughly on the other side of town, five miles west of Camp Corregidor. He managed to hop one more helicopter ride from Camp Ramadi that landed him back at the Combat Outpost, where he’d initially been CASEVAC’d.
Espo made his way across MSR Michigan to Camp Corregidor. It was 0300 hours. Dressed in a civilian blue pullover shirt, and sweatpants from his stay in Balad, he carried a clear, plastic bag of his own bloody cammies. He walked up to the back of an armored personnel carrier that was parked at the entrance of the camp and banged on the steel hatch.
Echo in Ramadi Page 6