None Left Behind: The 10th Mountain Division and the Triangle of Death

by Charles W. Sasser

  The somnolent hum of a normal day returned. The hajji who fired the shot was no doubt long gone by now, scooting down weeded irrigation ditches to get out of the AO and collect his bounty for having shot at and nailed an American. Chances of apprehending him were slightly less than that of winning the New York lottery. The QRF would try, but none of the locals were likely to snitch on him.

  Doc Bailey crowded into the front seat with Montgomery to check out his injuries. Top Sergeant Galliano came up on the company freq wondering what the hell was going on.

  “I’m good, Top,” Montgomery reassured him. “But the plate in my vest is bent to shit.”

  “You need to come in for a checkup.”

  Montgomery was wired, now that he knew he wasn’t going to die. “Can’t do that right now, Top. I’m not getting on no damned truck and running. We’re going to check out this house.”

  “Let me speak to the medic.”

  Bailey took the mike. Galliano’s voice was as hard as turpentine, like he was the one getting shot at and about to kick a few tires. “Medic, you tell that stubborn, pigheaded sergeant to get his ass in here or I’m coming out to get him—and it won’t be pretty.”

  “He’s right, Sergeant Montgomery,” Doc Bailey said. “There could be complications. All the bruising might cause a blood clot to the brain or to the heart.”

  Montgomery relented. It still hurt to breathe and his entire chest was the color of rotting grapes.

  Within the hour he was at the CASH in the Green Zone. After being examined and assured that he would survive, he went outside to smoke a cigarette. Company and Battalion TOC, he subsequently learned, were already on the hook with each other about the road repairs. Rifle platoons would no longer serve as road engineers; that wasn’t their job.

  A physician’s assistant came out. He was a thin guy with thin white hands, his gentlemanly appearance all the more contrasted by the big, grimy sergeant in the bloody ACU jacket.

  “You’re a lucky man, Sergeant Montgomery,” the PA said. “Two inches higher and the bullet would have got you instead of your vest. My guess is the sniper was aiming for your face and missed. What’s going on down there on the Euphrates? It seems we get two or three of you up here every week.”

  “It’s called war, sir,” Montgomery said. “We’re winning, I think.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Few people, even in the military and certainly almost none in civilian power in the United States, understood a guerrilla war as complicated and involved as that being waged in Iraq. It was a formidable and burdensome job for field commanders to maintain a balance between what the soldier was trained to do—break things and kill people to win battles—and at the same time interact with locals to win hearts and minds. In many ways, straight combat would have been less stressful.

  The ordinary U.S. soldier rarely saw all the behind-the-scenes maneuvering for advantage and intelligence. As it was the job of Battalion XO Major Mark Manns, Colonel Infanti’s second-in-command, to oversee with the Colonel the “Big Picture” of the war, to help implement the grand strategy of reaching a “turning point,” he sometimes felt apart from the real action, stuck as he was in the TOC with other rear-echelon types. This in spite of the fact that there was no rear in this kind of war; he had been blown up twice so far during battlefield circulation, neither time suffering serious injuries.

  In his behind-the-scenes capacity, Manns often ventured into the various communities with a PSD and Civil Affairs officers to have a cigarette and tea with Iraqi counterparts and cultivate local sheikhs and community leaders with incentives like building schools and power plants. Colonel Infanti did likewise, except they never went together in order to prevent a single ambush from wiping out the battalion leadership all at once. Gradually, they began to form not only a picture of the structure of resistance within The Triangle but also of a developing rift between insurgents that might be exploited to the Americans’ advantage.

  Intelligence suggested that at least three insurgent groups controlled the network of power and influence in the AO: The Islamic State of Iraq; al-Qaeda in Iraq; and the 1920s Revolutionary Brigade, which was the Big Momma and genesis of the al-Qaeda movement in-country. Neither of these groups was all that powerful in numbers, but since money was the basis of power in The Triangle, and money talked, dark organizations used money to recruit insurgents and amplify its potency by bribing any number of chauvinistic, bigoted locals devoted to a perverted interpretation of Jihad. Most were thugs and bullies who thought of themselves as brave because they planted an IED in the middle of the night, took a long-distance shot at an American soldier before running away, or conned a delusional or stupid teenager with a death wish into driving a car loaded with explosives into a crowded market. The insurgents’ complete lack of respect for life was heartbreaking.

  Money was also how U.S. forces countered terrorist and insurgent activity. Battalion commanders and even company COs were allowed to deal out cash to buy information. They had to use caution, however. What with sheikhs and everybody else in the AO struggling for influence, it was sometimes difficult to determine motive. If a snitch sold information that Fadoul Sharif over in Kharghouli was in bed with al-Qaeda, was he squealing out of moral outrage and a desire to serve his country, or was his motive revenge, greed, or power?

  Some motives were clear-cut. It was a swindle pure and simple when old Farmer Mustafa attempted to sell a cache site containing nothing more than a few rusted non-usable weapons—an AK-47 that hadn’t been fired since the first Iraqi war in 1991; some shotguns with the barrels eaten out; maybe a bag or two of ammonia nitrate fertilizer. Major Manns soon distinguished between three different categories of informants: First, and so far a minority, the good, ordinary Iraqi citizens no longer comfortable sitting by while terrorists and thugs ran their communities; second, people offering to exchange information for cash or for a new life in America, unreliable in either case; and third, those seeking vengeance over a bad business deal or a dispute with a neighbor.

  The important thing was that money allowed the Americans to compete with the insurgents. It wasn’t long before sound intelligence resulted in more important apprehensions and the recovery of more and better-quality weapons and bomb-making materials. A side benefit was how active and accurate intelligence used by the Americans to exploit the situation led to the sowing of discord and suspicion among individual insurgents and between the major organizations. Dissent in insurgent ranks became apparent when one group would attack an American patrol, then run into an opposing neighborhood in hopes of provoking U.S. soldiers into attacking its rivals.

  This struggle for power among the factions promised to be a very good thing for the Americans and the emerging Iraqi government if properly exploited. Iraqis were already beginning to take sides, preferring the less fanatical 1920s Brigade over the rabid al-Qaeda branches. It was that dissension between factions that had produced the severed sheikh’s head dangling from a tree near the 109 Mosque.

  The next step was to win the people entirely away from the insurgents and bring them over in support of Americans and the Iraqi Army.

  THIRTY-NINE

  One evening, just after nightfall and before the onset of curfew, Specialist Dean Fetheringill on roof watch for Second Platoon at 152 observed an Iraqi walking by on the road in front of the compound. He watched the man through his NVs. He was a chubbo with a dark beard and a dirty white shawl over his head and shoulders, either to ward off the night chill or disguise his appearance. Fetheringill had seen him around before—one of the farmers from down past the S-curves. The guy was acting as hinky as a pregnant camel.

  It got even hinkier. He walked slowly past the outpost, stopped in the dark, then walked back again. Fetheringill keyed his mike and gave Joe Merchant at the gate a heads up when the hajji started toward him. Merchant drew down on him with his M-4.

  “What do you want?”

  “I will speak with commander.”

  Lieutenant Du
dish and the entire platoon were at home for the evening, having been out since before dawn helping some SpecOps people run hits on high value targets. Summoned to the gate, Dudish and Montgomery patted the guy down for weapons or a martyr’s belt and invited him into the compound. They didn’t feel comfortable standing around in the dark outside the walls. He didn’t feel comfortable going inside, preferring instead to remain concealed in the shadows. A man suspected of collaborating with the Americans could end up without his head.

  “Go find the terp and bring him out,” Dudish told Merchant.

  The visitor understood. “No!” he said. “I am speaking the English. Little so.”

  “All right. I’m the commander.”

  The man glanced nervously about. He seemed to be controlling his breathing. “Al-Qaeda will attack here soon,” he said.

  “How do you know this?” Sergeant Montgomery asked.

  “I am sheikh,” the Iraqi said in his broken English, as though that were sufficient explanation.

  So was every other clodhopper. Sometimes it seemed there were more sheikhs than Indians. Still, the guy had come forward of his own volition to issue the warning. Montgomery supposed that meant Delta was making progress with the people, considering the largely unfriendly climate along Malibu Road.

  “When is this going to happen?” Lieutenant Dudish asked.

  A shrug. “Soon, I am thinking. They are plan to murder you all here. I know nothing more.”

  “Why are you telling us this? For money?” Montgomery asked. The sergeant had learned to trust no one; his chest was still sore from the bullet he took.

  “I am . . . How you say? I am ally. I want nothing.”

  Right. In Iraq, as in Washington politics, you bought a dog if you wanted a steadfast ally.

  Second platoon passed the tip on up to higher headquarters without specifically identifying the source. No need to have S-2 (Intelligence) snooping around the guy’s house, tagging him as an informant. Not only would that get him killed, it would also dry up other future sources. Who would dare come forth if doing so got him waxed?

  Rumors were always circulating in the AO about some “big” operation or another the insurgents were planning. So far, they hadn’t had the balls, or perhaps the numbers, to seriously assault one of the fortresses. They should know by now that it would take more than a few threats to drive out the Americans.

  Even so, 152 was the most vulnerable of the three battle positions on Malibu. S-curves in the road blinded the base to approach from either direction. Woodlands and swamp clotted the rear of the compound all the way to the river, providing sufficient cover and concealment for an entire battalion to sneak up to the walls unobserved, even through night vision devices.

  Activity picked up at the patrol base immediately after the sheikh’s nocturnal visit, seeming to validate his warning. It appeared the bad guys might be probing and testing the compound’s defenses. Mortar rounds were lobbed over the walls on two or three occasions. Shooters on the other side of the Euphrates returned to take potshots at sentries.

  One sultry afternoon, Specialist Jonathan Watts and Dar-rell Whitney on the roof spotted a Toyota nosing along the road beyond the river. The car stopped. A man with a rifle jumped out. Watts and Whitney lit him up, Whitney with particular fervor because of the shot he had taken to the head from these guys. The hajji jumped back in the car and it took off.

  The sentries were calling in to report the contact, though any good it would do was doubtful since these guys were like Mao’s fish in the sea, when a crashing boom rent the air. It came from the direction of Inchon. The house shook to its foundations from the power and proximity of the detonation. A giant column of smoke erupted in the nearest S-curve. Gravel, asphalt, and other debris rained out of the sky.

  Sergeant Montgomery whipped together a foot patrol and cautiously approached the site through the trees. He couldn’t believe the size of the bomb crater. A section of the road had been obliterated from drainage ditch to ditch so that even a mule would have had trouble passing through. He doubted this was another thousand-pound bomb exploding spontaneously like the one at 151. There was a purpose behind it.

  With one boom, Patrol Base 152 had been isolated from Inchon. Blow up the other end of the road toward 151 and Second Platoon would find itself on its own against an attack for up to an hour or more. Montgomery thought of the sheikh’s warning.

  Company jumped right on the radio. “Two-Six, what the hell is going on down there?”

  Montgomery gave his SITREP. Company didn’t believe him.

  “Two-Six, put your actual on the radio.”

  Lieutenant Dudish was monitoring everything from the compound’s radio room. “If my people tell me this, sir, then it’s so,” he said.

  Company sent down a patrol of its own from Inchon to confirm the size and location of the detonation. Sergeant James Connell led it. The patrol stopped at the crater. It was still smoking.

  “Holy shit!” Specialist Alex Jimenez marveled.

  Maybe the insurgents were trying to start some shit. First Cav dispatched a Bradley fighting vehicle as support while Company and Battalion decided what to do about 152’s vulnerability. Finally, orders came down that Delta Company platoons should vacate the current 152 and occupy another that provided better defenses. It wasn’t like they were running from a fight; they were simply going to even up the odds.

  About one hundred meters down the road and on the opposite side sat a rundown mud-and-concrete shack that had at some point served as a barbershop, now converted to a residence. Not only would its occupation provide better fields of fire across farmland and meadow to the rear, it also opened up the S-curves to better observation. Dudish and Montgomery explained the decision to the owner, a farmer with his hair matted and dirty and in need of being cut. Yellow teeth broke up the gaps in his mouth.

  He protested very little. The U.S. Government would compensate him generously. Besides, he said, he wanted to move his family somewhere farther away from the road. Both his little daughters were playing outside when the IED went off, peppering them with debris and breaking out a front window in the house. Many of the locals were starting to get fed up with the constant boom-boom up and down the road and the threat insurgent activity posed to their wives and children. That was a good sign.

  Montgomery tried to persuade him to tell who set the bomb, but he was too afraid.

  “I have a wife and two babies,” he explained through a terp. “They will kill my children if I talk.”

  In spite of the fact that the new position was smaller and down-scaled into the slums compared to the original 152, having only four rooms, moving day was a day of excitement, a break in the routine. The owner of the old 152 got his house back, the family of the new 152 moved out, and Delta Company’s Second Platoon moved into the renovated barbershop.

  “Get this place cleaned out. Load all the ammo and gear in the vehicles. Assholes and elbows, okay? Make it happen.”

  “Oooo-rah! Let’s do it.”

  “You dumb motherfucker, get that cigarette away from the ammo.”

  “Fucking boot. Kiss my ass.”

  “Go back to Drum, amateur.”

  The larger of the four rooms became the main platoon bunkroom. In it, the men built wooden bunks three tiers high in order to accommodate everyone. The platoon leader, platoon sergeant, and section and squad leaders occupied the other bunkroom. The remaining two rooms served as a CP/radio station and common area where Brenda the Bitch might feel comfortable coming for a visit.

  The Bradley remained on station until battalion engineers helped sandbag the house, put up blast barriers, string razor wire, and erect three protected fighting positions on the roof. Chiva Lares looked around when it was done.

  “Be it ever so humble . . .” he commented drily.

  It was a true fort in every sense of the word, standing as a challenge against insurgents to give it their best shot.

  FORTY

  Humvees and
utility trucks with their lights off idled deep-throated in the middle of the night on Malibu Road, the beds of the utilities filled with rolls of tough concertina wire delivered from Battalion and Brigade. Second Platoon’s concrete-pouring, brush-burning, wire-laying infantrymen labored in the ditches on either side of the road, unraveling concertina into Slinky-like coils and filling ditches all the way up to the edge of the road so that even a mouse would have a hard time getting through without cutting himself to death. They wondered what they would have to do next to win this strangest war of all.

  Battalion had come up with the bright idea of using wire to restrict access. Delta Company had tried everything else in its ongoing struggle with IED artists. Why not just fence the monsters out? If saboteurs couldn’t sneak up to the blacktop, they couldn’t plant their fireworks.

  Being nothing but neighborly invaders, of course, the Joes weren’t allowed to wire across side roads and private driveways. The reasoning went something like this: You wouldn’t want to piss off more people, as there already seemed to be a surplus of pissed-off people in the AO. The Americans were even pissed off, and getting more so.

  “Check this out,” Specialist Jared Isbell sourly invited. “We fence them out, but we leave them gates so they can still get in.”

  “That’s because we’re a considerate, fair-minded people,” Chiva Lares explained. “We wouldn’t want to violate the rules of the IBTU.”

  “IBTU?”

  “International Bomb Throwers Union.”

  Second Platoon Joes bitched about how they seemed to get assigned every shit detail that came down the chain. Everyone knew how all the others had turned out. Brush burning got Messer and Given killed; road repair ended up with Sergeant Montgomery shot. Laying wire was bound to go the same way. Why not just line up the 130,000 American soldiers in-country shoulder-to-shoulder and march through Iraq like green grass through a goose, leaving nothing behind standing except one sign saying USA THIS WAY?