Echo in Ramadi

by Scott A. Huesing

  Despite their reputations of being labeled “fighters” on the most wanted list, the insurgents were inherently lazy. They lacked discipline, and when they were caught, normally fast asleep, they would always default to trying to lie their way out of being detained like any criminal would.

  Our stay in Building 500 remained plagued with friction for several weeks. After we’d cleared the city, we essentially began routine patrolling to maintain a presence and continued to collect information on the locals. The lack of active engagements—or the absence of chaos—still rattled us as we readjusted our patterns of action to best help the citizens of Rutbah.

  Marines have a sense of humor. An awfully quirky sense of humor that often manifests itself at the oddest times and in the weirdest ways.

  We had received a Long Range Acoustical Device (LRAD) from the 15th MEU supply section after we occupied Building 500. It was just a big speaker—a large tan dome about three feet wide in the shape of a hexagon that stood on a pedestal. We were never given any instructions on what to do with it—although we understood it was intended to be a “tactical broadcast system.”

  Almost immediately, my boys figured out they could hook up their MP3 music players to it—true to their ingenious nature of problem-solving. The next day, and several after that, at the crack of dawn, they played Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones. That song and the others they played could be heard several blocks away. Word of our music selection got back to the command eventually, and I was sternly admonished for misusing the equipment for other than its intended purpose. I was told to play the Iraqi National Anthem instead.

  Initially, the Marines were riled and contemptuous about the order.

  Weeks later, as the anthem played, we would see Iraqi children coming outside of their homes and marching around in the street to the music, feet stomping and arms pumping back and forth like little soldiers. It made my Marines smile.

  Between Building 500 and The Bank, Echo Company was sending out six to eight dismounted combat patrols a day. Sometimes we would patrol with the support of a single Humvee with a .50 caliber machine gun for overwatch and backup. I liked it. It gave us the protection of a big gun, CASEVAC if needed, and allowed the Marines to stay footmobile and connected to the locals.

  Jets and attack helicopters would fly overwatch missions as the Marines patrolled. They conducted intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), sending live video from their high-powered electro-optical lens straight to Bam-Bam’s Panasonic Toughbook, as he sat on the roof of Building 500 keeping an eye on us.

  Our company headquarters at Building 500 was in one of the larger bedrooms. All of the windows had been sandbagged. A large table made of plywood stood in the center of the room. We used it to spread out our maps and set up our computers for administrative work.

  Electricity to run the computers came from power cords that were duct taped to the walls which ran out of the cracks in the windows down to the first floor where gasoline generators ran our power. They’d constantly go out, normally right when I was in the middle of something.

  Immediately after a power outage, I would inevitably let out a loud, exasperated call: “Yaaaansky!”

  Lance Corporal Chris Yansky was five-seven and 155 pounds and from Fort Wayne, Indiana. He’d been wounded only weeks into his first deployment with Echo Company in 2004 and received a Purple Heart Medal. He was a rifleman by trade, but was blessed—he might think cursed—with knowledge of small engine repair and became my go-to guy to fix the unreliable generators that we had purchased in Rutbah.

  All of the officers, Foster, and a couple of others slept in the COC. Lee, Bam-Bam, and I took turns sleeping in a tiny five-by-eight-foot closet in the back of the room that was partitioned off with a curtain. The Marines only came in there to wake us up in case of an emergency. It was musty and smelled of sweat and dirty socks. The foul, pungent aroma was a byproduct created from patrolling through the human waste that flowed freely through the streets of Rutbah.

  Every street we patrolled down stood littered with trash and a river of gray liquid waste that clung to our suede boots. The backup was so bad in front of Building 500 that we had a small pond of sewage that accumulated daily in front of the entrance where all of the Marines and vehicles entered and exited the compound. It got to the point that we had to send work details out front with shovels to dig muck out of the gutters so the sewage would drain off. Everyone took turns digging through that disgusting mess, myself included.

  A large John Deere military tractor with a bucket, called a TRAM, had dug a huge pit in the backyard of Building 500—we’d been using it to dump waste in for months. Imagine construction contractors coming to your house to dig an Olympic-sized swimming pool in your backyard and never finishing it. That’s how big the hole was.

  It was jammed full of trash, food, dead animals, and tiny green WAG (Waste Alleviation and Gelling) bags full of human feces. Since there was no running water and the sewage system was worthless, we had to go to the bathroom on a campstool, lined with tiny little green bags filled with a cup or so of the equivalent of kitty litter. The real trick was, you couldn’t piss in the bag while doing your business. Otherwise, it wouldn’t burn.

  During my time as a young lance corporal during Operation Desert Storm, I took my turn burning shit in fifty-five-gallon drums doused in diesel fuel. In Rutbah, we set pallets or trash on fire and then tossed the daily human waste onto the flames. It was all done outside in the open for obvious reasons, but at the end of the day, no one wanted the task for fear of getting shot.

  Nobody wants to die burning shit.

  Lance Corporals Calvin Spencer and Nick Velez eloquently recited a story to me one day about an experience, which I remember them calling, “The WAG Bag Cycle of Life.”

  Marine shits into Bag. He then has to do the “WAG Bag Walk of Shame” past his fellow Marines and toss it into the fire. Fire burns the shit bags. Bag burns. Ashes rise. Wind blows ash. Ash sprinkles into his unzipped MREs. Marine eats. Marine gags. Marine shits into bag.

  Spencer, much like Sir Isaac Newton who had an apple fall on his head, came up with this theory when he came back from a patrol and was sitting out back of Building 500 eating an MRE. Exhausted and starved, he cut the top of the bag open and began to eat when he noticed tiny, gray sprinkles falling into his meal.

  It was then Spencer backtracked his theory to discover that he was essentially eating shit powder on his MRE.

  Despite the austere living conditions in Building 500, Gunny Mac had a way to make things more livable. He set up a makeshift cantina and stocked it with chips, soda, and candy that he’d procure from CKV on his logistics runs. The boys loved it, and anyone who visited the position was impressed by it. My Marines were very territorial about the cantina and scowled at any outsiders who thought they were entitled to help themselves to snacks—especially those who lived at CKV, which served hot chow twenty-four hours a day.

  After a logistics run, Mac procured a huge chunk of beef from CKV. He roasted it and sliced it up for the boys as a special treat. The thinly shaved meat sandwiches were served on tiny buns. He’d also concocted some special mustard au jus sauce to dip them in as he called out to all of the Marines in the house. They gathered around, and each helped himself to one of the gourmet sandwiches, dipping them in a bowl Mac had placed in the center of a large, silver serving tray. I heard the boys’ excitement from below as I sat upstairs in the COC.

  I stepped out of the COC and peered over the railing. I was happy. Nothing made me smile more than seeing Marines taking care of each other.

  Mac came into the COC later. He called to me as I sat reviewing a patrol report.

  “Sir, you have to try this,” Mac beamed. He had saved me one of the sandwiches, complete with sauce. It tasted better than anything.

  The next morning, a chorus of screaming and commotion interrupted the normal jocularity among the Marines on the first floor. I didn’t pay much attention to it, figuring it w
as a couple of the boys getting into it.

  I was wrong.

  I leaned over the railing and could now see smoke coming from inside of the building. A couple of Marines raced to the back of the cantina bar that sat in front of the kitchen.

  We used the kitchen to store all of our ammunition, pyro, and grenades. It didn’t get much other use outside of Mac’s sandwich extravaganza, which we later affectionately referred to as “Operation Arby’s.”

  The Marines were conducting a turnover of posts from the roof as they made their way down the staircase. Two of the Marines exchanged gear. One handed the other a tiny, black aluminum pen flare as part of his relief procedures. Used as a signaling device, a pen flare is no bigger than an ordinary ink pen. It had a small spring-loaded cocking lever on it and a red flare screwed into the end of it.

  The cocking lever got caught on the Marine’s gear, releasing it and the flare shot out in a hiss. It sailed right by Bam-Bam’s face as he stood on the staircase, headed downward, hit the floor, and ricocheted into the kitchen.

  The flare by itself wouldn’t have been much cause for concern. Flares don’t explode. However, the cooking oil that was also in the room with all of the ammo was the real problem. The four-gallon cans of oil stacked in the room had been leaking, and when the flare hit the ground in the room, it ignited the oil. The ammo could have cooked off had some of the men not extinguished the blaze immediately.

  Friction.

  Foster laced into the Marines for their part in the near catastrophe, to say the least. I’m quite sure he had plenty of “volunteers” to burn shit after that episode.

  CHAPTER 23

  Mosques

  We were well aware that the insurgents were using the mosques as hiding spots and safe havens. Under the coalition forces’ rules of engagement, we weren’t allowed to fire on a mosque unless someone was shooting at us from it, and even then, we had to request permission from higher command for authority to engage.

  The ROE also placed five-hundred-meter no-fire areas (NFAs) on top of every mosque in Iraq. An NFA is a graphic symbol on a map, a red circle with little hash marks in it. It’s a restrictive measure—nothing in an NFA may be targeted by artillery or air support. To get an NFA lifted from any building, mosque or otherwise, required a decision from the highest command and that took at least forty-eight hours—by then it was more than likely a moot point.

  The insurgents exploited these restrictions to the fullest. Most mosques stood in compounds that were surrounded by ten-foot-high concrete walls and steel gates, making them ideal safe havens. They stashed weapons, ammunition, and explosives in mosques—often getting imams’ “permission” by means of intimidation. They also terrorized these clerics into broadcasting hateful propaganda from the loudspeakers inside the minarets that towered over every mosque.

  Our Terps always listened keenly to the messages recited during morning and evening calls to prayer. If they heard any anti-coalition messages, they told their commanders. Most of the messages were so vague that we couldn’t act on them from a tactical perspective. In time, they just became part of the background noise of Iraq.

  One of the largest mosques in our area in Ramadi was the Al Haq Mosque. We commonly spotted insurgents running to and from, most likely in order to re-supply their forces with ammunition from their stockpile in it.

  It was no different in Rutbah. The restrictions on targeting mosques remained the same, and the insurgents made full use of them. For us, the restriction was a continuing source of frustration. We hated that the insurgents could—and routinely did—take refuge in these holy shrines. For Marines, using a place of worship as a shield went against a fundamental moral code.

  Echo Company established two firm bases from which to conduct patrols after Operation Gateway in Rutbah was complete. We patrolled up to ten times per day and developed a good handle on the atmospherics of the city—what the locals were up to, reports of any insurgent activity, and the general sense of security the locals thought about our presence.

  After a night of patrolling, one of my squad leaders came into the COC in Building 500 with some information. Our Terps, Big Sam and Ford, accompanied him.

  Big Sam was holding a piece of white paper in one hand. It was a little crumpled up and had Arabic writing on one side of it. Big Sam looked concerned and a little proud at the same time.

  I asked, “OK. So, what’s up? What do you got?”

  Sam began to explain that during a raid on a house, they confiscated a bunch of AK-47s and some other contraband, but, more importantly, found the note he was carrying.

  He translated, “Bring all of the weapons to the mosques. We need all weapons brought to the mosques so the Americans can’t get them and we can strike back at them when we choose.”

  I asked Big Sam if he thought the letter was legitimate and if he was certain that he’d translated it correctly.

  He said, “Yes, sir. That’s what the letter says. I think that the insurgents are staging their weapons at the mosques so they can launch an attack.”

  Despite having little more than an unverified note to go on, I immediately passed this information to the 15th MEU operations officer, Major Nugent. After I told him about the letter, I requested that he pass on to the 15th MEU Commander, Colonel Brian Beaudreault, a request to raid the mosque that was directly next door to the house where we’d found the letter.

  Permission came back in less than an hour. I told McLaughlin to get a reinforced squad ready to move out as soon as possible. We were going to raid the mosque.

  There was excitement in his eyes when I gave McLaughlin the news. He and the other Marines were about to enter forbidden territory, and they were keen to see what lay on the other side.

  I was eager to mount the raid, too, because I was sure it would yield great results for Echo Company. I got on the radio and began advising the other units in the area that we were going to conduct a raid on the mosque based off of actionable intelligence.

  After the platoons responded, I requested that all units in our zone of operation give a position report (POSREP) to see where everyone was that night. We normally had two to three patrols out at any given time. As they called in, I saw that two other squads were within a block of two other mosques that lay within our zone’s boundaries.

  After careful consideration, I decided to have all three squads raid all three of the mosques at the same time in a coordinated effort to exploit the information at hand. I didn’t make this known to the 15th MEU COC that was forty miles away at CKV. I was going with my gut feeling. We had to strike while the iron was hot.

  On my orders, the squads raided the three mosques simultaneously.

  Unit leaders reported they’d found massive caches of weapons, body armor, bomb-making materials, communications equipment, and other supplies the enemy planned to use against us. Big Sam’s discovery had turned out to be a gold mine in terms of intelligence.

  Reports continued to filter in from the squads—the raids were a success.

  As good as the mission was going it took a turn for the worse when a message came across the net. There was a casualty in one of the mosques to the northeast—a female civilian.

  She’d been shot in the elbow by Lance Corporal Joseph Raney.

  “Holy fuck,” I thought.

  Earlier, Raney had been in his room when his platoon sergeant came in and said, “Get your shit ready. We’re raiding a mosque.” Raney scrambled to get all of his gear together and passed the word to the rest of the squad.

  So quickly had I ordered the raid that Lance Corporal Robert Thompson, a SAW gunner in Raney’s squad, had his weapon completely disassembled for cleaning. His platoon sergeant said, “We don’t have time to wait. Thompson, you’ll have to stay back.”

  When the time came for Raney’s squad to exit the firm base at The Bank, he felt a certain unease leaving Thompson behind, not only because his squad would be one Marine short, but also because the effectiveness and sheer firepower of
the SAW was a massive force multiplier.

  The M249 SAW made by FN Herstal was a clumsy weapon, weighing almost 22 pounds fully loaded—a bitch to carry on any movement—but it was worth the extra effort, especially in urban terrain, because it could fire eight hundred rounds of 5.56 mm bullets per minute. That’s a devastating amount of firepower.

  Raney was on point for his squad, the lead man in the element, usually the most dangerous position to be located. The squad moved up to an outcrop of smaller buildings on the outskirts of the mosque when Raney noticed one of the adjoining buildings led into the main mosque.

  It was 0200 hours. Light reflected off the roads and burned gently from the intermittent glow of scattered streetlights and illumination from some of the surrounding houses. It made it difficult to see with the naked eye, and if the Marines switched to their infrared (IR) night vision devices, the ambient light would wash out their vision almost entirely.

  Raney’s squad first cleared a small outcrop of houses and then closed in on the mosque. Raney moved to the back of the mosque and saw a door with the key still jutting out of the lock. He turned the key, unlocked the door, and swung it open sharply. The room beyond was dark, but Raney detected a silhouette of someone coming toward him.

  With his M16-A4 at the ready, Raney set his sights on the target—center mass, aiming squarely for the torso. He hesitated and lowered his weapon just inches as the target continued running, but it was right in front of him.

  Raney fired a single shot. He knew instantly he hit his target as a loud, high-pitched scream echoed through the room.

  Raney thought to himself, “Oh, fuck. I shot some bitch.”

  As Raney moved into the room, the woman ran toward another door that served as the exit. She pushed open the second door, which slammed into a man sleeping on the floor, and ran into the other room.

  The other squads had converged in the main prayer room of the mosque where they turned on their white lights to search and assess the situation. There, the woman that Raney had shot was lying in her mother’s arms, crying uncontrollably. She was in her early twenties, wearing a traditional black burka and hijab, and was now grasping her right elbow tightly.