The first landmark on the way to Julayba was two connected concrete arcs that towered over the road. Before the war, this had been some sort of checkpoint; unoccupied booths stood on both the east and the west side. More important, the arches signaled that you were entering the Sijariah region. It was a region, like Julayba, dominated by al Qaeda. Insurgent RPG and machine gun teams used the landmark to time their attacks against coalition convoys. They would emerge once they spotted you passing through the arch and would fire a few RPG shots or count down their IED initiation sequence, based on whatever speed they estimated you were going.
My first trip through the arches was uneventful.
Past the arches, the terrain on the southern side of Michigan was open. A handful of houses were spread out over a few hundred meters, and most lay a significant distance from the road, 200 to 300 meters at a minimum. On the northern side, it was village after village. Each of the tribal enclaves was connected by an access road that ran parallel to Michigan no more than 50 meters away. The Marines in my vehicle commented on the impressive Arab architecture lining the access road. Clearly, the region had been well off under Saddam. My turret gunners spent most of their time scanning the northern side of the road.
“Gentlemen, you are now entering Julayba,” I said to the other men in my truck. The convoy approached the first intersection in our new home: Orchard Way and Michigan. A tank sat atop the median, turret oriented north along Orchard Way. The right side of Michigan turned into a giant berm of sand that stood about twenty feet high. Beyond the berm, south of Michigan, was Lake Habbaniya. It provided the berm’s purpose: to prevent flooding if the water level of the lake ever rose too high.
We drove a few more minutes and hit the intersection with Ruby Road. There was another tank on Michigan, with its turret oriented along Ruby. The M1114 humvee turned left off Michigan and immediately swerved around a fallen telephone pole. The turret spun to the left to cover an open field as we passed the X-shaped intersection with Irish Way. It was the same field that James Thomas had crossed hours earlier. There was a mosque on the right, followed by our first drop point: the Nasaf Marketplace. It wasn’t much of a drop, just a case of water for Rage 1 and Rage 4. I was, however, surprised by the small size of the marketplace. It was the only one in Julayba, but there were only a dozen stalls that I could see.
After dropping the water, the convoy made a left onto Route Nova. Nova was a significant road in the brigade’s battle space. It was the only route that went from Ramadi to Fallujah that was open to civilian traffic. In Ramadi, it ran along the southern banks of the Euphrates and was not controlled in the same manner as Michigan. It was a mostly uncontested road, meaning that the coalition did not exercise any control over it. In Julayba, Nova ran through all of the major tribal areas. During our mission brief, Captain Smith had identified it as the key route to influence.
Along Nova, the houses were built a few meters from the road. Their close proximity made me more attentive. The turret gunner even had to deal with low-lying power lines. I wondered how they hadn’t been snapped down by Pathfinder’s larger vehicles.
About 400 meters after we turned onto Nova, the houses stopped on the left. There was an open field, accompanied by an orchard and palm trees. I noticed that Nova was raised up higher than the field but was level with the houses on the right.
“Rage 2’s position is in that mansion on the left,” said my turret gunner. We didn’t make a stop. Gunny Bishop was bringing his convoy there in a few hours.
It was another 500 meters north on Nova before we made our next stop. A soldier was crouched along the berm that Nova had been built on top of, waving an infrared strobe. He directed our vehicles where to drop the chow, the water, and the batteries. Then a dozen soldiers emerged from a house and began to ferry the supplies inside.
In the thirty minutes it took the dozen men to move the supplies, I lost visual contact with Pathfinder. Once we began moving again, the convoy drove much faster than before, twenty miles per hour.
I was now in the heart of Julayba. We passed mosques, schools, and hundreds of homes. In fact, in the area there were twice the number of actual homes than there were on the map. Since 2004, Julayba had apparently experienced a construction boom. I wasn’t that surprised. Ramadi and Fallujah weren’t exactly hospitable, and there had never been an American presence in Julayba. It was a likely choice for the urban areas’ refugees. I wondered whether the houses had been built by Marwan’s construction company.
The extra houses did make it difficult for me to match the terrain I saw with that on my map. It was a good thing I had the Blue Force Tracker navigation system working in my vehicle because I was confused when we hit the Nova-Gixxer intersection. I thought it would be a clear T-shaped intersection, based on my map, but in reality it was more of a veer left to stay on Nova. Closely packed houses surrounded the area.
We made the left, and the road narrowed slightly. Potholes were everywhere. I recognized some as blast craters. I scanned the northern side of the road. After two small houses, there was an open space. It was one house’s front yard and another’s backyard. Two palm trees sat in the middle. As I went to look away, a shadow appeared. It was the frame of a small boy, no more than four or five years old. He emerged from behind one of the trees and stared at my convoy. I couldn’t make out the color of his clothes, but they appeared to be in the same style as the stereotypical insurgent black pajamas. He was definitely wearing a ski mask. In that moment I froze. I did not say a word. I watched the shadow jump over a small irrigation ditch, so narrow a man could have stepped over it, and disappear behind the second tree.
Again, I thought about saying something. But it was only a boy, and he didn’t have a weapon. If I had said something, my Marines would have been on edge. On first sight, that four-year-old would have been killed. And for what, wearing a ski mask?
But I also knew that insurgents used young boys. Their fingers were just as capable of setting off IEDs. Plus, we didn’t suspect them. My Marines were in danger, and I purposely did not warn them. All for the life of some boy I would never meet, never know.
Like many people in a predicament, I ignored reality. I told myself the child was not real, that my eyes were playing tricks on me. It was 0230 in the morning, and there was no way a kid was running along the street. The convoy drove on.
Not even 100 meters away, we drove into an area with a few lit street lights. They obviously illuminated my convoy and forced me to raise my NVGs. My vehicle passed through without incident.
“Rage Mobile, seven-ton one; our turret gunner lost his NVGs,” said a vehicle commander on the convoy net. I immediately halted the convoy. I turned around and looked at First Sergeant Carlson. He recognized that I was looking for his input.
“We gotta look for them, sir. If the hajji find it and kill a soldier or a Marine because they got ’ em . . . that’s fucked up on us,” he said, then he keyed the convoy net. “Seven-ton one, Rage 8; did he just lose them right now or what?”
“Roger 8, when we entered the lighted area, he flipped them up, they got caught on a power line or something and came off his Kevlar,” replied the vehicle.
I thought about the first sergeant’s advice and agreed with him. We had a duty, a moral responsibility to our fellow American to at least look for the NVGs—no matter how dangerous it might be.
The first sergeant and I got out of the truck and walked back into the light. We passed seven-ton one, and an angry Rage 8 had words with the lance corporal whose NVGs were missing. Then we began to search the side of the road. First Sergeant Carlson took the north, while I was opposite on the south. The entire time I thought about the little boy blowing me up with an IED.
We made it all the way to the last vehicle without finding the NVGs. Then first sergeant got on the last humvee’s radio and spoke with seven-ton one. He confirmed that they had searched the back of their truck. Seven-ton one said they had, but a minute later they claimed to have found the
NVGs atop the canvas liner that covered the bed.
I was so mad, I laughed. When I passed seven-ton one on the way to my truck, it was my turn for some choice words with the crew.
The convoy began to move again. I increased our speed to thirty miles per hour and caught up to Pathfinder at the Nova-Orchard Way intersection. They were dismantling an IED when we pulled up behind them. Once finished, though, they went at a snail’s pace back to Corregidor. We followed.
I encountered Pathfinder’s commander in 1/9’s headquarters. The lieutenant told me they had found three IEDs, two right after the intersection of Gixxer-Nova and one at Nova-Orchard Way. I was horrified by his information. He was saying that there were two IEDs in the same area where the boy had been. Not only was the boy real, but if Pathfinder had missed one of the IEDs, he probably would have blown me or one of my guys high into the sky.
I awkwardly went back to our company command post. The majority of the Marines were in front of the building, smoking and talking about searching for NVGs. I sat down with them and refused a few offers to smoke.
“I might have been seeing shit, but did anyone see a young boy wearing a ski mask around Gixxer-Nova?” I asked during a lull in their conversations.
Most of the Marines scoffed at the thought and made jokes about it. The one corpsman on our convoy, who was the turret gunner in the vehicle behind mine, just stared at me, his mouth slightly open.
“Look, Doc Beaton, I don’t need a psych eval or anything. I was just wondering . . . ,” I said. There were a few more jokes, but Beaton’s face didn’t change. Seconds later he said, “I saw him, too.”
0600, January 17, 2007
James Thomas rolled onto his back and stared up at the sky. The sun was slowly rising, and he was ready to sleep, not to wake up.
The platoon commander rolled back onto his chest and continued scanning the Ruby-Nova intersection. His reinforced squad was spread out over the surrounding rooftops and was securing, by observation, the surrounding roads. After the first resupply convoy, Captain Smith anticipated insurgents emplacing IEDs along Route Nova. In the last few hours of darkness, he ordered Lieutenant Thomas to establish an over-watch on the intersection. It would place American eyes along every foot of asphalt that Gunny Bishop’s convoy was about to cover.
“Rage 2, this is Rage 1, over.”
Lieutenant Thomas grabbed his handset. “Send it, one,” he said.
“My squad is set up over here. We have eyes on the route, over,” said Lieutenant Shearburn. Rage 1 was ready to relieve Rage 2’s position. Shortly, they would receive the convoy. Then Gunny Bishop would head to Rage 2, the bulk of which was located at the mansion.
James Thomas ordered Sergeant Kastner to take his men off the rooftops and consolidate on the southern side of Nova. They were going to walk behind the row of houses that followed the southern side of the road back to the rest of Rage 2 and the Iraqi army platoon. The Marines would be in defilade, moving parallel to Nova at the base of the road’s berm.
In the damp, cool air, Kastner’s Marines got into formation. The alert and weary group began to walk at a slow pace in the early morning light, their bodies still frozen from hours of no movement. It wasn’t a very long walk. After passing a dozen Iraqi homes, the large defensible position occupied by the rest of the platoon was visible.
With 200 meters left, the row of houses stopped. The terrain opened up with a field that led to the entrance of the mansion’s long half-circle dirt driveway. The point element was moving up the berm and onto the driveway when AK fire erupted from the opposite side of Nova. Lieutenant Thomas, the second-to-last man in the formation, immediately crouched behind the berm. He watched Kastner lead the point element of the squad into the house.
The ricocheting of bullets against the asphalt above forced the platoon commander to crouch lower. He stepped away from the road, improving his view of the houses opposite him. In seconds, James Thomas identified two insurgent firing positions.
He fired roughly twenty rounds at the two muzzle flashes and got back down against the berm. Dozens of bullets zipped over his head.
The platoon commander noticed that no one was firing from the roof of the mansion. He knew Davila’s or Holloway’s men were up there, but not a single round of suppressive fire was going down-range.
“Davila, Holloway! Why isn’t anyone shooting from the roof ?!” he yelled into his radio. There was no immediate response.
The rear section of the formation began to move in tandem toward the house, some suppressing the muzzle flashes as the others moved. Their efforts paid off; everyone made it back. James Thomas was the last one through the home’s massive double doors.
Mounds of dirt were spread across the tile floor. Inside Rage Company’s future COP, the Iraqi army platoon sat in the front two rooms. Most of them were relaxing without their body armor on. The soldiers hardly noticed the Marines entering and didn’t seem to care that their allies had just been ambushed. James Thomas ignored the Iraqis and went straight into the foyer. He didn’t have to open the second set of double doors; they were propped open.
The platoon commander sprinted up the wide staircase in front of him and turned right at the top, going up another five stairs. For a moment he was standing along the foyer’s rotunda, which, like the staircase, did not have a railing. Because of this fact, not many noticed the large dome above the foyer—nobody wanted to experience the fall that might accompany a few missteps as you looked up.
Entering the house’s northern wing, Lieutenant Thomas opened the first door on his left. The wooden staircase in front of him led to the roof and the Marines who had not provided suppressive fire to cover his movement back into the house.
“What the fuck!” James identified Corporal Bradford, his expert rocket-man, standing among the group on the roof. “You fuckers couldn’t cover us on the way back? No rockets, not even a SAW or M16 burst?”
“Sir, we can’t see them. We could shoot randomly, but we don’t have positive identification of hostile intent from any of those buildings,” replied Bradford.
The group ducked low as a few rounds sailed overhead. A couple impacted against the house.
“You do now.” James Thomas pointed out the two houses he had previously exchanged fire with. Two of the Marines from 3/2 fired multiple HEDP grenades from their M203s. The point-detonating 40mm grenades slammed into the insurgent firing positions.
“Sir, the convoy is coming to our position!” yelled Corporal Davila. He was standing on the wooden stairs. His head was only a few feet above ground level, sticking out from the hole in the center of the roof that provided access.
James Thomas sprinted downstairs. He rounded up half a dozen smoke grenades and went out in front of the mansion. With the Marines on the roof covering him, he threw the grenades across Nova to the north. The white cloud of smoke covered the heavily exposed flank that was nothing but open farmland. If the insurgents were going to engage the convoy, they would have to shoot through or from the houses directly across the street. The Marines on the roof would easily suppress such an endeavor.
The convoy sped down Nova. Gunny Bishop quickly oriented the gun trucks in a defensive posture around the perimeter of the large dirt front yard. Within minutes, pallets of chow and water were dropped a few feet from the mansion’s front door.
On the roof Corporal Jimmy Pickett recognized that the smoke screen was wearing thin, so he took out a purple canister. He pulled the pin and stepped back to throw it. Unfortunately, he bumped into Corporal Holloway as he let it fly. The canister hit the retaining wall and fell down toward the convoy below. Mid-flight the grenade popped, letting off the first few puffs of purple smoke. Instead of hitting the ground, it bounced off Gunny Bishop and landed in the pile of plastic water battles he stood over.
An irate gunnery sergeant was quickly sprayed with a cloud of purple smoke, tinting his uniform this dark color. “Are you kidding? Are you fucking kidding?” he yelled up to the roof.
1300, January 17, 2007
“Rage 2, this is Rage 6; stand by for time-sensitive target, over.”
“Standing by, go ahead, Six.”
“In the vicinity of grid 538 017, battalion has identified four or five MAMs loading bongo trucks with miscellaneous weapons removed from the ground. I want you to action. Rage 4 will provide over-watch from the northern side of the field,” said Captain Smith.
It took James Thomas five minutes to get two of his squads briefed and out the door. He left Combat Outpost Rage; Captain Smith had made the official decision hours earlier, with Davila’s squad leading, followed by Kastner. Holloway stayed at the COP with the Iraqis.
The tactical column moved into the open fields to the northeast of COP Rage. The target was 150 meters north of Rage Road and 400 meters west of the intersection of Gixxer-Rage. It was a 1,000-meter movement over irrigation ditches and farmland. Dispersed trees and shrubs offered minimal cover.
As James Thomas neared the grid, he identified the freshly dug-up earth from a hundred meters out. The insurgents were nowhere to be found. The Marines carefully approached the cache site, and James Thomas set up one of the squads as security. He oriented them to the south to cover the houses along Rage Road within the Albu Bali tribal area.
“Rage 6, Rage 2, I am at the cache site. No sign of the owners or the bongo trucks—break—I have two large-caliber artillery shells stuffed with explosives, multiple improvised rocket launchers, garbage bags of explosive material, and a few welded stands that could be used to mount IRLs [improvised rocket launchers] or as firing platforms, over,” said Lieutenant Thomas.
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