American Heroes

by Oliver North

  . . . shutting down nearly all operations until they pass

  While standing on the roof of the school-turned-Baath-ordnance-depot-turned-U.S.-Marine-command-post, we could hear some of these high-altitude aircraft, and a moment later we felt a large explosion off to the north. Some unsuspecting Iraqi who thought he couldn't be seen had just learned otherwise—prompting a predictable response from the Marines: "Yeah, man! Get some!"

  Griff Jenkins appeared out of the orange mist a few moments later and shouted over the wind, "We have a cas-evac. Let's go." As I hustled down stairs for the mission brief, I wondered if the blast we heard might have caused "friendly" casualties. Inside, I learned from Lt. Col. Jerry Driscoll that this wasn't the case.

  Two RCT-5 Marines had been seriously wounded by an RPG during a skirmish with an Iraqi infantry patrol. I watched Driscoll and his wingman, Capt. Aaron "Fester" Eckerberg, plot the grid of the pickup zone and the en route checkpoints on their charts. They jotted down the frequency of the unit waiting for them on the ground, then we all hurried outside to the helicopters. The weather was still deteriorating, but neither pilot showed any sign of hesitation. No questions. No complaints. They were going to get one of their own and bring him to safety.

  We stumbled through the gathering gloom to the aircraft where we were joined by two Navy shock-trauma medical corpsmen. As we lifted off, I heard Gunny Pennington, the crew chief, say over the intercom, "Nice day for flying, eh, Colonel?"

  Driscoll's deadpan voice came back, "Ah yes. Red Dragons . . . real players." I stuck my head out the right side hatch with my camera, noticing that Capt. Eckerberg's CH-46, though only seventy-five feet away, was nearly invisible in the dusty haze. The ground was indiscernible as well, about the same distance below. Driscoll's instruments showed we were doing less than half our normal speed of 120 knots, which is good since there was no horizon and everyone aboard was straining their eyes for power lines, radio towers, light poles, and highway overpasses—hoping to see them before we hit them. By the time we got near our objective, forty minutes had passed.

  The rifle platoon commander who had called for the cas-evac does a good job directing us to his location, about 1,500 meters east of the highway. Though we can't see him and he can't see us in the soup, he succeeds in bringing us in by the sound of our rotors.

  For a few moments, the sandstorm works to our advantage. We have flown past the Marine position. Over the radio, the platoon commander tells us to turn back to the south. But in so doing we fly directly over the enemy force that attacked his platoon an hour ago. As we make our approach, I hear the distinctive "crack" of AK-47s firing in our direction. But the Iraqis or fedayeen can't see us and are firing wildly. I thank God once again that these guys don't know how to shoot.

  Driscoll finds the zone and we land to find that one of the two casualties—the platoon's Navy medical corpsman, hit by the full force of an RPG—has died without regaining consciousness. The Marines who race aboard our CH-46 gently lower the litter holding his body to the floor of the helicopter and run back out again. There is no time for sadness, but the other corpsmen in the aircraft are clearly affected by the loss of one of their own.

  The other casualty, a Marine corporal, has multiple fragment wounds—one of which is a life-threatening piece of shrapnel in his abdomen from an RPG. Driscoll orders the wounded corporal to be loaded aboard Eckerberg's aircraft, and we launch immediately for the Army shock-trauma hospital some fifty miles to our southeast.

  Dust is a constant enemy, causing problems with electronics, weapons, and vehicles

  But now the full effects of this sharqi or shamal—or whatever the sandstorm was called—descended upon us. Unable to see the ground from fifty feet, Driscoll brought us down to twenty-five feet and reduced air speed to less than thirty knots. We virtually air-taxied back down Route 1—the wheels just off the ground, the rotor tips barely visible in front of us. Col. Driscoll's voice came over the intercom, as calm as if he were out for a Sunday afternoon drive, "Gunny, keep a sharp eye out. I sure don't want to bump into someone coming this way in our lane."

  We crept along this way for half an hour. The conditions were a pilot's nightmare. We edged up to overpasses, skirted power lines, and prayed for protection. Before long, Capt. Eckerberg radioed that his bird was having engine problems. Driscoll told him to set it down on the roadway. We followed suit, waiting with engines running in the gloom.

  Thirty minutes passed before Eckerberg's crew was able to patch things up so we could continue our harrowing low-speed, low-altitude, low-visibility flight. But after another half hour or so of skimming along a few feet above the road, Eckerberg reported that he was about to lose his left engine. We landed on the roadway once again, this time shutting down to avoid sucking any more sand into the engine.

  On Driscoll's orders, Gunny Pennington went out to look for the other helicopter. I tagged along, figuring Eckerberg and crew were, at most, a couple of hundred yards behind us. For security, we each grabbed an M-16 and some ammo magazines. I took my GPS and Camelback water bladder, and then we headed back down the highway.

  U.S. Army soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division evacuate wounded soldiers during a sandstorm

  But the other chopper wasn't there. We kept walking and calling on the radio, but the static-charged dust swirling about rendered it useless. Even my GPS signal was intermittent. When we'd traveled over a mile back down the highway and found nothing, we decided it wouldn't do for us to end up as captives being paraded before the Al Jazeera and Iraqi state-run television cameras. We turned around and hurried back the way we'd come.

  Aboard Griff's bird, two Navy shock-trauma medical corpsmen, Chief Tom Barry and PO Jason Comeaux, had started treating the wounded Marine corporal as soon as he was brought aboard. There was little they could do to treat the shrapnel wound in his gut. The docs feared he was in danger of internal bleeding and going into shock, so they started an IV and wrapped him in blankets.

  Medical corpsmen are tough, brave, yet amazingly gentle men. Chief Barry had seen combat before. When our aircraft were forced to land, he announced, "We've only got hours here; we don't have days to get someone with a gut wound into surgery."

  We've been here for hours, huddled in the belly of the darkened aircraft, alone in the center of the deserted highway. Over the noise of the wind we can hear the sound of gunfire and mortar or RPG impacts about a kilometer off to our north. From the volume of fire it sounds like a really intense engagement, and it seems to be getting closer. To make matters worse, we have no idea where the nearest "friendlies" are. For all we know, the next thing we might see is a group of Iraqis or fedayeen on "technicals"—those pick-up trucks with a .50-cal mounted on the back—roaring down the road behind us. Magazines and ammo have been distributed to all, and we are prepared for the worst.

  Inside the chase bird, Chief Barry and "Doc" Comeaux had Griff playing the role of "nurse" for the badly wounded corporal. While one of the "docs" stood guard, he helped the other corpsman change the blood-soaked battle dressings, switch IV bags, and pat his lips with a moistened gauze pad to relieve his thirst.

  By dark, the young Marine's temperature was rising, his pulse and blood pressure were growing steadily weaker, and there was blood in his urine. Chief Barry sat up with him for the entire night in the shuddering CH-46 as the wind howled outside.

  Just after dawn on Tuesday, 25 March, a Marine Humvee with a big American flag fastened to its side came creeping down the road. We were fortunate that it wasn't an Iraqi or fedayeen vehicle because we couldn't hear or see it until it almost hit the back of the helicopter. The driver, a Marine lieutenant colonel named Stroehman, was out reconnoitering a location for a FARP just south of our position when the sandstorm hit. He and his men had spent the miserable night in the open along Route 1.

  It was Stroehman who came up with an ingenious solution for getting the disabled helicopter
to a safer location. Using a strap from a large cargo net and his Humvee, he towed the CH-46 to his defensive perimeter like an oversized camping trailer. Once that was done, they considered loading the wounded man on Stroehman's Humvee and trying to crawl down Route 1 to the field hospital at Tallil. But they decided against it since they didn't know if enemy units were between them and the FARP, and darkness was already settling in again.

  Through the second night, the wounded Marine suffered terribly. Dust caked around his nostrils, mouth, and eyes. The doctors administered small amounts of morphine to ease his pain and antibiotics through the IVs in hopes of reducing the infection from his stomach wounds. Each time the wind buffeted the CH-46 he gritted his teeth as he, along with the rest of us, was pummeled like a load of laundry in an unbalanced washing machine.

  On the morning of the 26th the wind changed to a strong but steady breeze. We could finally see the glow of the sun—still overcast, but the storm was obviously blowing itself out. As the ceiling lifted and the visibility improved slightly, a Marine Corps Huey helicopter came hovering slowly down the road, looking for fuel. Lt. Col. Stroehman directed the bird to land next to one of his fuel trucks and told the pilot, Maj. Tim Kolb, about the plight of the wounded corporal. Maj. Kolb agreed instantly to take him to the hospital at the Tallil FARP.

  Finally, as the weather cleared at dawn on the 27th, we were able to evacuate the body of our deceased Navy corpsman, HM3 Michael Johnson. A CH-46 from HMM-268 took his remains back to Kuwait. His family in Little Rock, Arkansas, was informed of their terrible loss. A year later a new medical clinic at the Marine Corps recruit depot in San Diego was named in his honor—a reminder to all new recruits that Marines love their corpsmen.

  U.S. Marines pay their final respects during a memorial service for three fallen comrades

  7

  TO THE GATES OF BAGHDAD

  Iraqi armor was no match for the U.S. M-1 Abrams tank

  THURSDAY, 27 MARCH 2003

  Dawn this morning is the first time we've seen the sun rise in five days. Joe Dunford's reinforced regiment, with RCT-7 in trace, is on the move up Route 1 toward the Tigris River and Baghdad. Off to our east, despite continued harsh engagements with small groups of foreign fedayeen, Task Force Tarawa and RCT-1 have succeeded in forcing the passage through An Nasiriyah and have reopened the offensive up Route 7 toward Al Kut. Farther south, the British have surrounded Basra, secured Iraq's southern oil infrastructure, and liberated the towns along the Shatt al Arab waterway so that it can be swept for mines. Off to the west, the main attack by the Army's V Corps, spearheaded by MG Buford Blount's 3rd ID, has beaten the Medina division of the Republican Guard and is now resupplying its armored columns north of Najaf.

  From our satellite hookup with FOX News in New York we learned that during the night, as the dust storm blew itself out, more than nine hundred paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade had parachuted onto an airfield north of Mosul. This set the stage for the northern offensive that had been derailed when NATO ally Turkey refused to allow the 4th ID to enter Iraq from Turkish territory. With the air clear of sand for the first time in five days, the sky filled with Marine Cobras, AV-8 Harriers, and F-18 strike fighters, flying close air support (CAS) missions for the lead elements of RCT-5 as they closed in on Ad Diwaniyah.

  During the sandstorm, deep strikes directed by high-flying USAF JSTARS aircraft and Navy P-3s continued. But close-in missions controlled by Marine forward air controllers—Marine pilots assigned to ground combat units—all but ceased while we were enveloped in orange dust. Once the air cleared they returned with a vengeance, firing TOW and Hellfire missiles from the Cobras and dropping laser-guided bombs on enemy armor and emplacements in front of the Marine column.

  Only seven days into Operation Iraqi Freedom, almost half the country and nearly all of its resources were in coalition hands. The vaunted 485,000-man Iraqi army was mauled in every confrontation with American and British forces. More than eight thousand Iraqi soldiers were already prisoners and tens of thousands more decided not to die for Saddam and simply walked away from their defensive positions.

  It's hard to tell who the enemy is if he's not shooting at you

  Some Iraqi units, like those at Najaf and An Nasiriyah, fought fiercely and surrendered ground reluctantly when confronted with overwhelming U.S. firepower. But many others engaged for a while, then slipped into civilian clothes and joined the local population. It became common for soldiers and Marines sweeping through a trench line from which they had just taken fire to find the position littered with green uniforms, helmets, gas masks, empty magazine pouches, and black boots. And then, just moments later they would come upon dozens of beardless young men with short, military-style haircuts, garbed in Arab dress, just standing around with no apparent place to go.

  Everyone knew that just minutes or hours before, these "civilians" had been wearing the discarded uniforms. Yet stopping to detain them would have delayed the movement north. This would have aggravated an already strained logistics system if trucks had been diverted from resupply runs to haul enemy prisoners south to prisoner-of-war camps.

  Third ID soldiers accept the surrender of Iraqi forces

  Some of my embedded "colleagues" in the press expressed surprise that on the drive toward Baghdad there were few civilian casualties. In fact, there were times—most notably during the close fighting in An Nasiriyah—when several carloads of civilians ignored orders to stop at a Marine roadblock and were fired upon. That there were relatively few such incidents is a tribute to the exceptional discipline and the leadership of the junior officers and noncommissioned officers—corporals, sergeants, staff sergeants, and gunnery sergeants, the people who make the difference in a firefight.

  After crossing the Euphrates River and leaving the trackless southern desert behind, we passed by or through increasing numbers of small villages, palm groves, harvested fields, and cultivated farms. Each time the attack halted, the Marines sent patrols off to the flanks of the column, which stretched from just south of Ad Diwaniyah all the way back to the Euphrates River. Often, civil affairs units, human exploitation teams, and medical personnel accompanied these patrols to win some "hearts and minds" by providing limited emergency medical help, humanitarian rations, water, and even small amounts of fuel for tractors and irrigation pumps.

  And these gestures were having the desired effect. Iraqi civilians began coming to us and bringing their sick and injured, along with information about the enemy. A few even admitted to being former Iraqi soldiers who actually believed that removing Saddam was a noble and worthy cause. If more of them had felt that way, perhaps this war could have been avoided.

  A U.S. Army medic examines a wounded Iraqi soldier

  THEY ALL FALL DOWN

  THURSDAY, 27 MARCH 2003

  AD DIWANIYAH TO HANTUSH, IRAQ

  On the afternoon of the 27th, Maj. John Ashby, the executive officer of the HMLA-267 helicopter unit, asked if I wanted to ride along as he and his wingman flew Brig. Gen. John Kelly, the assistant commander of the 1st Marine Division, to Qal' at Sukkar, about 110 kilometers east on Route 7. Gen. Kelly was making a quick trip to brief the commanders of Task Force Tarawa and RCT-1 whose lead elements were already less than fifty miles from Al Kut and ready to attack north across the Tigris River.

  The flight east was uneventful. The two Huey helicopters were escorted by two heavily armed Cobra gunships. We stayed well south of the villages along Route 17, the east-west highway connecting the two prongs of the 1st Marine Division attack.

  While we were on the ground, the two Cobras—one of them piloted by Allen Grinalds, the son of one of my dearest friends—were scrambled to support a Marine unit in contact. They were still out on that mission when Gen. Kelly returned to the LZ. He decided not to wait for the Cobras to return, rearm, and refuel, so the two Hueys lifted off into the setting sun without escorts.

  Both U
H-1N helicopters had door-mounted, .50-caliber XM2 machine guns. The bird I was in also had a pod loaded with 2.75-inch rockets and a six-barrelled, GAU-17 mini-gun hanging out the right side.

  We flew west following Route 17, at fifty to seventy-five feet, clipping along at ninety to one hundred knots, trailing the lead helicopter by fifty to one hundred meters. I was sitting on a troop seat in the center of the bird, following our course on my map and had just marked our location, "Al Budayr," when I heard through my headphones, "We're taking fire!"

  I look up from the chart to see the lead bird veering left and right as green tracers just miss the left side of the helicopter. The VIP bird with Gen. Kelly aboard rolls left as its machine gun unleashes a burst almost straight down at the weapon on the ground that had just fired at and barely missed their helicopter.

  I grab my camera and hold it over Maj. Ashby's head, aiming it forward through the wind screen. Five or six men wearing what look like black pajamas are running out of a two-story building carrying AK-47s. They appear transfixed by the lead helicopter as it screams directly over their heads.

  As the lead helicopter swoops hard left out of our line of fire, Ashby says over the intercom, "Arming rockets. Stand by." His voice is cool as ice, flat, unexcited, like he's ordering lunch over the phone as he flicks a red switch on the console. Through my viewfinder, I can see several of the Iraqis kneel down and fire at the lead bird as it passes over them. They still haven't seen us. But then, just as Ashby tilts our UH-1N into a shallow dive from 150 feet, one of the black-clad shooters spots us. As he wheels to aim at our helicopter, I hear Ashby say calmly, "Firing rockets."