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

by Charles W. Sasser

  FORTY-THREE

  It was well into mid-morning when Fourth Platoon’s trucks rumbled back through the gate at Inchon. Gloomy overcast concealed the sun. The platoon had been out on an area patrol since 0500 after spending most of the night on a raid over near Latifiyah. Cookie Urbina had breakfast chow waiting for them in the trailer. The troops were worn out.

  Joshua Parrish stopped to scratch Brown Dog’s ears. The friendly pooch wagged his tail and begged in his special way for the soldier to bring him a treat when he came back out. Mayhem, Fletcher, Sergeant Tony Smith, Private Michael Smith, and all the others piled on through the door to the rich aroma of scrambled powdered eggs, butter biscuits, and hot coffee. Nothing was too good for the troops.

  They shucked their battle rattle, stacked arms, and were just settling down at the long table when Lieutenant Tomasello and Platoon Sergeant Garrett rushed in after having presented their After Action to the commander. The look on their faces said everything. No rest for the weary. James Cook scalded his tongue trying to get down a cup of coffee before the boot slammed.

  “Get your shit back on,” Sergeant Garrett said. “We’re heading back out.”

  Bitch all they wanted, it did no good. Fourth Platoon was the day’s QRF.

  A Raven UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) had gone down and had to be retrieved. It was a small surveillance aircraft with a four-foot wingspan and a body a little larger than a remote-controlled model plane. An operator on the ground flew it through a visor he wore that displayed images from a small video camera mounted in the aircraft’s nose. The plane was crash-landing somewhere near Malibu Road between 152 and 153 when the camera went out; it continued to send its emergency locator signal. The pilot, Sergeant Dorr, thought it had been shot down.

  The trucks roared out of Inchon with Tomasello’s vehicle in the lead. Specialist Michael Smith drove. James Cook occupied the gunner’s turret hatch while the Raven pilot took the back seat behind the lieutenant.

  Specialist Edwin Caldero drove the second truck, with gunner-medic Bryan Brown in the hatch, Sergeant Joshua Parrish in the TC slot, and an IA interpreter named Izzat holding down the back seat.

  The third truck was Sergeant Garrett’s, being driven by a new kid named Wilson. Sergeant Tony Smith, the chunky Italian from somewhere in New England, rode behind the machine gun in the turret.

  Corporal Mayhem Menahem TC’d from the front dismount seat of the fourth truck, with PFC Justin Fletcher at the wheel and Scribner in the hatch.

  All the soldiers had the same thought in mind: this could be a trap using the Raven as bait. They kept particularly alert as the trucks sped through the curves toward the aircraft’s last-plotted location. There was the feel of spitting rain and a taste of danger in the air.

  The trucks failed to make it through the curves. A carefully concealed IED erupted beneath the wheels of Corporal Mayhem’s fourth truck with a deafening, heart-stopping roar that picked the hummer off the road and flipped it through the air like a child’s toy. Mayhem glimpsed ground and sky exchanging places. The truck landed back on its wheels on the embankment, doors and hatch ripped off and occupants flung out into the roadside ditch near the concertina Second Platoon had been laying in recent weeks.

  Mayhem blacked out when his body struck the ground.

  The attack was choreographed for maximum effect, and well-coordinated to stop the trucks and trap the soldiers in a kill zone. Command-detonated explosions in a daisy chain disabled trucks two and three almost at the same instant. Sergeant Garrett’s number three lurched off the ground in a burst of smoke and went dead in place. Caldero, driving number two, fought his hummer on through the smoke of the explosion until he lost inertia on four blown tires and a busted axle and came to a stop.

  Only Tomasello’s lead vehicle survived the bomb meant for it and escaped the kill zone, driver Mike Smith twisting the wheel and jamming his foot hard against the accelerator just in time. The bomb went off to one side instead of underneath. Smith gunned on through the danger per SOP before braking for a SITREP and a possible fight.

  Up in the turret with the two-forty, James Cook saw smoke boiling like a forest fire engulfing the road and cutting off sight of Mayhem’s fourth truck. The other two hummers were dead in the water with more smoke seeping all around them, some from fires in their engines.

  “Turn around! Go back!” Tomasello ordered.

  Mike Smith cut a sharp donut and headed back into the maelstrom, Cook hanging on in the turret and searching for targets. Smoke burned his eyes and brought tears.

  The attackers weren’t through yet. Hardly had Tomasello’s truck re-entered the curve than a waiting IED nailed it. Tomasello, in the front passenger’s seat, was holding on against the acceleration, braced back into his seat with his legs spread. The IED blasted a hole through the floorboard directly between his knees, filling the compartment with smoke and eardrum-bursting energy. He would have lost both legs and perhaps his life but for the coincidence of having had his legs spread.

  The truck was still running. “Keep going!” Tomasello shouted. “I’m good, I’m good. I just can’t hear a fucking word.”

  Neither could anyone else. They were yelling at each other as loud as they could to compensate for ruptured eardrums.

  Nearer now, through the twisting whirlpools of smoke, Cook picked up a visual of Mayhem’s truck wrecked at the side of the road with its doors and rear hatch missing. Two of the Joes lay sprawled not far from the humvee, whether dead or not Cook couldn’t tell. They weren’t moving.

  The third crewman, Justin Fletcher, was up on the road staggering around in a daze, like he had no idea where he was. His helmet was missing and his ACUs were scorched and torn.

  The orchestra was just warming up. The chorus chimed in suddenly. Mortar tubes hidden in brush on the river side of the road and from a scattering of houses in the farmland began thu-wumping shells at the convoy. They were small 60mm foot tubes, but their shells packed a wallop against troops in the open.

  Geysers vented in a series of thundering booms, stomping around among the disabled trucks and filling the air with the burr of shrapnel. The ground shook so hard that Sergeant Parrish had the impression of T-Rex’s first appearance in Jurassic Park.

  Now for the symphony’s main score. From out in the reeds and among the palms appeared a swarm of black-garbed fedayeen advancing toward the trucks at a lurching run, firing AK-47s and shooting rockets with the RPG’s double-explosion signature—once when the rocket was unleashed, the second when the grenade struck its target. The concertina wire in the ditch wouldn’t stop them; mortars were blowing gaps through it.

  Every GI still cognizant of his surroundings and not addled by all the detonations understood that the attackers had the platoon trapped and intended to wipe it out to the last man. Fourth Platoon was in a fight for its life.

  FORTY-FOUR

  The experience of combat took a more or less predictable pattern. First came the shock of being under attack; followed by acceptance; then by trained, instinctive responses to it. In the beginning, the Joes would be so scared when something happened that they thought their hearts would stop beating. Once they had been through it a couple of times, however, they learned to depend upon their training, react to it, and almost subconsciously do what a soldier must. It never ceased to be terrifying, but it did become less daunting.

  When Corporal Mayhem regained consciousness and his eyes focused, he saw brown blades of grass directly in front of his face. Drops of black water were on them, and he didn’t understand. There was a roar in his ears, a tremendous pounding that at first sounded a long way off, then grew louder and louder as it threatened to swallow him into it. He gave a start as he remembered tumbling through the air in the hummer with the other guys, like so many pebbles in a tin can, then being ejected from it and falling some more by himself. The raindrops were black because of black powder from the explosion.

  He passed out again, revived, and this time he gingerly moved
his head to look back toward the road. That was when, still only half-conscious, he accepted his platoon was under full attack and about to be overrun. He was lying in a ditch. Nearby, his truck looked as though it had been stripped for the salvage yard. Mortar rounds burst blossoms of red and black. The smoke trail of a rocket streaked through the maelstrom. Green tracers zipped from various angles.

  Instinctively, he reached for his M-4, surprised that it had landed with him, probably because the platoon was tense with apprehension and he had been gripping his weapon tightly when IEDs started going off. He turned his head again, this time toward the direction of rifle fire. Black-masked figures advancing through the reeds next to a canal sent him into shock all over again. The muzzles of their assault rifles winked and flashed and spat tracers.

  More mortar shells walked along the ditch toward him, roaring like an approaching tornado, filling the air with shrapnel-length pieces of shredded concertina wire. The enemy combatants were coming to an opening in the wire that would allow them through in numbers not experienced in this AO before.

  He figured he was done for—but not without a fight. His left arm felt numb and unresponsive. He returned fire, lying on his belly in the grass and shooting one-handed, uncertain whether he was scoring or not because of his blurred vision and the handicap of his arm. The ground underneath him shook like a wet dog trying to shake fleas off its back.

  From out of nowhere, it seemed, out of the smoke and confusion, suddenly appeared two soldiers. Both were injured, confused and disoriented in the blaze of the developing fight. Scribner was dragging one leg. Fletcher reeled drunkenly back and forth. Both had lost their weapons when the truck flipped.

  They were rushing to Mayhem’s aid, risking their own lives after having discerned their buddy down in the ditch and apparently unable to adequately defend himself. Floods of gratitude, pride, and love swept through Mayhem. Now he knew how Pitcher must have felt when Mayhem went to his rescue that first time Fourth Platoon got mortared during the occupation of 151.

  The two soldiers threw their own bodies over Mayhem’s, hugging him close to shield him from gunfire, shrapnel, and bits of flying wire.

  “Are you okay, man?” Scribner asked.

  “I think so. I can’t move my arm.”

  They hugged the ground together as shells roared and exploded around them, gripping each other to prevent being thrown off the face of the earth. Scribner suddenly grunted and his body stiffened into a spasm as he took either a bullet or a piece of shrapnel meant for Mayhem.

  “I can’t feel my back!” he cried.

  They had one rifle for the three of them. Still one-handed, Mayhem threw a few more rounds at Fedayeen running across the fields and toward the opening in the wire. They just kept coming and coming. But they were no longer unopposed. Mayhem heard Fourth Platoon responding with return fire out of the smoke on the road.

  “We gotta get out of here!” he yelled. “Move back to the trucks.”

  Further down the road sat what had previously been Sergeant Parrish’s second vehicle in the caravan. Although the truck was inoperable on four flats and a busted engine, the men inside were still functioning. Medic-turned-machine-gunner Bryan Brown’s African-dark face became a fierce mask as he turned his .50-cal in the turret on the insurgents threatening Mayhem, Scribner, and Fletcher. His big dog of a gun began barking rhythmetically as it delivered two-inch-long bullets into the foliage through which the main enemy body was ducking and dodging toward the ripped-apart concertina.

  “Is this a private fight?” Parrish yelled at Brown. “Or can anybody get in on it?”

  “Help yourself,” Brown encouraged. “Fuck ’em up!”

  His .50-cal kept chugging. Parrish and the IA Izzat jumped out on the road. Crouching behind the humvee for cover, they engaged several riflemen on the flat top of a house. The shooters sailed off the roof when the 5.56mm high-velocity rounds began chipping at them. Parrish held down his trigger on full automatic and nailed at least one of the shooters in midair. He crumpled like a game bird shotgunned in flight. The man’s scream of pain rose above the crackle of the developing battle before he vanished from sight.

  Lieutenant Tomasello’s men from the three disabled trucks were accounting for themselves in a valiant effort, even though most were either injured or in shock from all the falling ordnance. It was clear to Tomasello as Mike Smith roared their truck back into the fury of the kill zone that they were in a desperate fix and couldn’t hold out much longer. They were outgunned, outmaneuvered, outnumbered, and about to be overrun. The only chance the platoon had was to withdraw in a hurry. Problem was, only one truck remained operable.

  Withering return fire temporarily stalled the attacking insurgents just on the other side of the road’s drainage ditch, no more than one hundred yards to the front of Mayhem, Scribner, and Fletcher, whose more exposed position remained to the rear of the other trucks.

  “Pick everybody up on the way through,” Tomasello instructed Smith.

  Smith didn’t question how they were going to load fourteen GIs into a humvee designed for no more than six or seven. All he knew was that it had to be done. After all, back at Drum, he had once crammed two squads into a Saturn.

  He was a demon behind the wheel. Whip-thin James Cook braced against anything he could find in the hatch in order to free both hands to keep the mounted two-forty talking. From the sound of things, the Raven pilot might have been praying as insurgents spotted the returning vehicle and lay down on it with everything they had. Bullet-resistant glass on the truck’s downrange side spidered from the sheer volume of fire. Bullets clicked and nipped at the armor. Cook kept his head as low as he could without slacking up on his trigger.

  Parrish, Brown, Caldero, and the IA were first in line. Smith whipped the hummer through the smoke and turmoil and skidded to a stop between the four men and the incoming fire. Blood stained the Iraqi interpreter’s trousers. The back protected door flew open for a flying pickup.

  “Get in! Get in!”

  Nobody questioned it. Truck two’s crew piled into the back seat, tumbling over each other. Tomasello flung open his front door and blazed away with his carbine over the hood until he heard the back door slam. They were on their way again within seconds after having set a new world’s record for loading a hummer.

  Next in line were Sergeant Garrett, Wilson, and Tony Smith. They also piled in. Wilson was hurt. Doc Brown reverted back to medic, even though the truck was getting so crowded with a tangle of arms and legs and weapons and shouting, cursing men that it was hard to breathe, much less administer first aid.

  One of the “bullet proof” windows finally shattered and fell out. Everybody tried to stay below window level. Parrish lay across their bodies to shoot out the open window as Mike Smith gunned the vehicle toward Mayhem, Fletcher, and Scribner, whose circumstances could best be described as untenable.

  “Cover fire!” Tomasello yelled. “Give ’em hell!”

  Sergeant Garrett joined Parrish at the open window. They went on full automatic to lay down fire on the insurgents and keep them ducking. Everybody else passed up weapons as best they could from the dog pile. Tomasello cowboy’d it by holding on with one hand and leaning out his open door to fire across the hood of the wildly careening hummer with the other hand.

  Mayhem, Fletcher, and Scribner came running and shambling up to the road to meet the truck, Mayhem and Fletcher supporting Scribner between them. But for the heavy fire coming from Tomasello’s truck and the partial concealment provided by smoke, all three would surely have been mowed down.

  Tomasello dragged Scribner into the front seat with him. Mayhem and Fletcher scrambled over all the bodies and tumbled into the rear hatch on top of other bodies. Helping arms reached to pull and drag them out of harm’s way.

  Everything was utterly insane—Scribner in severe pain screaming about his back; James Cook in the turret swearing at the top of his lungs as he picked out and engaged targets; Tomasello shouting for help
over the radio; Mike Smith trying to find room to drive and keep the truck running long enough to get them out of the kill zone. Everyone was scared to death, knowing they were all going to die here in this miserable, shitty land.

  Doors slammed. The hummer’s tires dug into the blacktop and squealed off rubber. Smith swung into the S-curves toward Inchon. A cheer of premature relief went up from the mass of bloody, frightened soldiers.

  Mortar fire had blown rolled lengths of concertina into the middle of the road. Smith swerved to miss them. Too late. Stout razor wire entangled itself in the front wheels and brought the truck to an unscheduled halt so abruptly that it may as well have run into a wall. The shifting of the load propelled Parrish and Sergeant Garrett into the front seat on top of Tomasello, Scribner, and Smith. Scribner bellowed in agony.

  Smith gunned the engine in a desperate attempt to break free. Back tires boiled smoke and pivoted the vehicle on its frozen front wheels until it fronted back into the kill zone and the charging mob of masked insurgents now running up onto the road. Cook found himself and his two-forty in a target-rich environment.

  Mayhem thought it was all over for Fourth Platoon. It was Custer’s Last Stand all over again.

  FORTY-FIVE

  While IEDs were common (but not so common as they were at the beginning) ambushes employing insurgents of the numbers that had apparently downed a Raven to lure Tomasello’s ass into a crack were not. At least a platoon-sized element was apparently intent on wiping out Fourth Platoon to prove the point that the insurgency had teeth and was not afraid to use them.

  Sergeant Montgomery out on the yard at 152 heard the ambush triggered. A sudden Boom! Boom! Boom! that shook the dust from the old converted barbershop-turned-fortress, followed by mortar and RPG explosions and the deep-throated coughing of heavy machine guns and the cacophony of rifle fire.