by Robin Moore
Farther north, the “Bears” of B Company patrolled an area on the outskirts of Bayji known by our soldiers as the “projects.” The day before they received a cool reception that turned colder when locals began to throw rocks and shake fists. They decided to return to this troubled spot again. 1st Platoon Bradleys, led by a tank commanded by 2LT Erik Aadland from B Company, 3-66 Armor rattled up a trail connecting to a hardball road.
The lead Bradley followed the tank closely and off to the right. The trail Bradley followed to the left. Suddenly the trail vehicle erupted. Smoke and flame shot through the driver and engine compartment. SSG Donald Smith’s night vision goggles tethered around his neck disappeared in the blast. The gunner was wounded above his right eye but otherwise OK.
The vehicle abruptly stopped. The soldiers scrambled out of the crew compartment hatch. SSG Smith took account of his men and the other Bradley reported that B14 had struck a mine. The men evacuated the driver out, who was in critical condition. Pulling security, they called for the medevac helicopter on which they eventually loaded him. He was rushed by Black Hawk to the field hospital.
Recovery assets drove forward and towed the vehicle back to 3-66 Armor’s compound. As they were doing so, the sparks from grinding metal of blown-off road arms appeared to ignite the fuel in the vehicle. The Bradley began to burn and then its ammunition cooked off. The vehicle was a total loss. The driver never made it either. Another Regular dies. We received the news shortly thereafter and felt at once both angry and sad.
We continued our operations in Tikrit the next day, conducting our bomb sweeps along the main roads and those that connect them. C Company had primary responsibility of the built-up area of the city. In the afternoon, 1st Platoon patrolled with Bradleys and Infantry in the part of the city we call the “chevron” because on the map, it makes a pointed shape at the northern third of the city. 1LT Jason Price was leading a two-vehicle section along the street parallel to the mosque with the soccer field. They turned right, heading east toward Highway 1 and the “Lucky Panda” ice-cream shop continuing to look for bombs along the curbs.
SSG Bordes in the trail Bradley had his turret turned to the rear to provide 360-degree security. He looked forward as the vehicle travels while his gunner, standing up to provide additional eyes for the bomb threat, looked toward the rear. A short distance after they made the turn, SSG Bordes blacked out.
He came to in a daze, realizing something was wrong. He saw his driver was OK after talking to him and could see his gunner standing next to him. He stood back up to make sure he was OK as well, and noticed that he was lying back against the hatch, his helmet gone. The shoe-box-sized Integrated Site Unit (ISU) in front of him was blown apart and pushed against him as well. SSG Michael Bordes called for a medevac and attempted to render what aid he could. No aid could be rendered. His gunner slumped into the turret, already dead.
1LT Price called the medevac and his crews did what they could while also pulling security. The vehicle was hit by an RPG, which penetrated the ISU. We determined that two men had fired a volley of RPGs from a blind corner in the built-up housing area.
As the gunner was the one looking to the rear, he was the only one who could have seen where the shot came from that killed him. CPT Brad Boyd arrived at the scene and they cleared the area looking for the attackers. FSG Michael Evans, SSG Felipe Madrid, and SSG Bordes eased the gunner out of the turret and onto a stretcher. CPT Jason Deel with the Civil Defense troops took him to our battalion aid station.
I received the news coming out of a meeting with local officials and rushed to the scene. There was nothing I could do. The Bradley was not damaged except for its sight and 1st Platoon took it back to the company’s compound. I called for a fire truck to wash down the streets. I wanted no visible traces of anything for the enemy to gloat over. We took our losses and cracked down on the city looking for the perpetrators. Locals provided some useful information and a manhunt netted partial results over the next couple of days.
The soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry and some from 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor gathered at Saddam’s “Birthday Palace” on the 15th. The “Bears” of B Company and “Cobras” of C Company stood on that same asphalt used for Saddam’s military parades.
A chaplain stepped forward and prayed. Again Purple Hearts and Bronze Star Medals for making the ultimate sacrifice were laid on pairs of boots overshadowed by lone rifles with Kevlar helmets planted on top. At a podium, commanders and friends struggled to find words that vocabularies failed to adequately provide. Soldiers stood at attention.
SPC James Edward Powell’s name rang out for roll call in B Company. He did not answer. Neither did SPC Donald Laverne Wheeler Jr. of C Company. Taps resonated in mournful tones. Tears rolled down faces as we remembered their lives, and rifle shots cracked in three sharp volleys, interrupting these reflections—a startling reminder of the price of our freedom.
Raids and a Shopping Bag
Two sisters played in front of their house on the 16th of October near one of the city laundry shops in Tikrit. Two women and a man walked along the street about mid-morning. One of the ladies carried a black plastic sack, the kind that is so common among all of the shops and food stands. They conversed a bit and then walked away.
The seven-year-old sister noticed that the lady forgot her sack on the road. She and her twelve-year-old sister went over to pick up the bag and carry it to the lady who forgot it. The seven-year-old made it only a few steps when she was ripped apart by a powerful blast. Her sister was mangled and blinded. She could not walk. She struggled to pull herself to her house, leaving bloody handprints on the concrete and the gate where she lived.
Our soldiers arrived very quickly. The locals were frantic. The parents of the girls wailed in horror and disbelief not knowing what to do. We, the evil Americans, helped an innocent Iraqi girl with life-saving aid. The men evacuated her to the hospital. She survived but is now blind. If only the images of this morning that the men now have imprinted in their minds could be blinded as well. Her sister could only be buried.
LTG Tom Metz, commander of III Corps, paid us a visit on the 17th along with many of the old friends I used to work with at Ft. Hood on the Corps staff last year. We briefed him on our operations and he thanked us for our efforts here, as our division falls under his command at Ft. Hood. It was good to see some familiar faces. MAJ Tim Karcher also was among the group. Our paths have continued to cross since Tim was a lieutenant.
The next several days were fairly calm. We had found more roadside bombs but rendered them harmless—usually by shooting them from a safe distance. We were also able to capture more 60mm mortar ammunition and some RPGs, along with another fine citizen of Owja, Saddam’s birthplace.
The evening of the 20th, more mortars fell near our C Company, 3-66 Armor’s compound. The “Cougars” had several of these indirect-fire attacks. This one was slightly more accurate. The soldier manning the .50 caliber machine gun on top of a storage building at the front gate felt the concussion of the shells and heard the crack of each round as it came in—each one getting closer. He turned around to head for cover behind some sandbags. As he did, one round landed in the nook between the gate and the building. The shrapnel caught him in the armpit and leg. Fortunately, his body armor prevented serious injury. He recovered well and has returned to duty.
Intelligence reports had indicated that several of these indirect-fire attacks were organized in a farm village north of the old Republican Guard military complex. The complex was rife with weapons and many made their way into private hands when the army collapsed. We also believed they had connections to Saddam’s supporting cast of thugs who harbored him or, at a minimum, supported his efforts. We raided a series of houses on the 22nd and turned up explosives, grenades, an RPG, a heavy machine gun, and other items. While not the mortarmen, they certainly were set upon doing harm. Now they are doing time.
The night of the 23rd, the mortar attackers returned to the �
�Cougars.” This time, the “Cougars” were ready. Seeing the flash of the weapon in the far distance, they engaged a car with two men inside who had placed the tube in the trunk to make their escape. The car fled at high speed. Amazingly, it continued to flee even after several hundred machine gun bullets fired from one of our tanks hit it. We learned later that one of the occupants had been killed. It could not have happened to a nicer guy.
I decided to join the observation posts the next night in the northern suburb where the “Cougars” operate. We set up an independent outpost to add to the effort rather than complicate it. My men and I infiltrated a nearly completed house that overlooked the highway. As we took our assault ladder and balanced the bottom rung on a wall to get to a balcony on the third story of the building, I privately wished I was twenty like the men around me. I made it fine and we set up the observation post without incident.
A family next door conducted their evening routine, oblivious to our presence. While watching the highway and residential area around it, I thought how tough it must be to raise a family here. We saw unusual characters and traffic until the curfew took effect and made notes on this. The night proved quiet, no doubt due to the machine gun marksmanship of our tank company. We left in the early morning darkness.
On October 25, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolf-owitz visited our battalion. He was interested in the success we were having with our Iraqi Civil Defense Corps training. He spent quite awhile with us and was very much at ease. He spoke freely with our troops and did not distance himself as so many visiting officials do. He was impressed with our training. We were already feeling the result of the great work the Iraqi soldiers were doing augmenting security in the city.
Black Hawk Down!
There were other visitors that day. Rotor blades clipped through the air about three hundred feet off the deck. A pair of Black Hawk helicopters not from our division came cruising down the Tigris River mid-afternoon carrying officers visiting their troops. The soldiers in the lead helicopter heard a crack. Flames immediately mixed with smoke on the blades. The helicopter started to free-fall.
Only several hundred feet off the ground to begin with, the pilots pointed it as best they could to a field. They simply reacted. The aircraft was unresponsive and burning fast. They managed to land it roughly somehow. The soldiers ran from the blazing craft. The trail helicopter watched in shock at the scene before them and swooped around to pick up the survivors—which miraculously was everyone on board.
Only twenty-five hundred meters to the south, our soldiers saw the aircraft go down from our headquarters. We immediately raced across the river to the craft—now a burning mass of aluminum. CPT Stouffer and CPT Boyd were both in the area with their command convoys and headed there as well.
The other aircraft lifted off with all passengers safe as we approached the scene. I told Brad Boyd to take his soldiers north of the crash site and try to find the possible attackers. Mark Stouffer linked up with the battalion Quick Reaction Force that was from his unit and cordoned the eastern road bisecting the farmland. The chopper was fully gutted by this time, about fifteen minutes after the crash. I ordered the command post to call the local fire department to come and put out the flames.
We found some evidence that an RPG probably knocked down the helicopter but it was hard to be sure. It might have been a surface-to-air missile as well. COL Hickey brought the Brigade Reconnaissance Troop over to secure the site and we searched about one hundred vehicles along the road into the villages.
We found nothing—although informant tips a couple of weeks later led us to some of those responsible. We recovered the wreckage from the farm field and brought it to the 4th Aviation Brigade’s airfield, once again firm in our dictum that no Iraqi will ever dance on our equipment in our area of responsibility. The helicopters were from the 101st Airborne Division and were flying around special visitors. Though rattled, they were unharmed.
A Writer’s Visit
We received an unusual visitor on the 26th, whose stamina for a seventy-eight-year-old man amazed me. Robin Moore—author of The Green Berets and The French Connection—paid us a visit to gather interviews and information on a new book he was writing. It was quite a treat to meet and listen to him.
Our normal embedded press also continued to report the work of our great soldiers. We have learned a tremendous amount about how the press operates since we have been here. They are largely very professional, are not afraid of risks, and they file accurate stories for the most part. Even in cases when they are not accurate, it is more a function of inaccurate things given to them rather than speculation on their part.
We have also learned that the editors of their news organizations may never pick up the many good things that they file. A sense of frustration develops even among them when a story they worked gets bumped for the splash headline of “Another Soldier Killed in Iraq Today.”
They acknowledge that the public has the right to be informed of our casualties, but the reporters on the ground also concede that it does not convey the true picture when that is all that gets reported. Our raids continued to be covered well but the impacts of them would only be appreciated later.
The evening of October 28 was a sad one. Our intelligence officer, CPT Tim Morrow, was wounded by gunfire while on a patrol in the city focused on leaflet distribution. Fortunately, he is a tough man and we were able to get him to the aid station for life-saving procedures for a gunshot wound through the upper chest. He is now recovering well and is very near being returned to duty with us at this writing. His knowledge of our area and the enemy was hard to replace but we are thankful he is going to recover. CPT Clay Bell has since joined the Regulars to pick up where CPT Morrow left off and is doing a superb job.
As Halloween approached, we were nearly ready to implement a plan we had worked on for some time. Prior to my emergency leave, I told my staff I wanted to solve the problem with Owja—Saddam Hussein’s birthplace. This town of about thirty-five hundred people continued to be a thorn in the side. Every time we broke up a former regime cell or captured a funder or planner, they all seemed to have ties to this town. Ultimately, we hoped they would still have ties to Saddam.
I thought through the problem of how to keep the insurgents from “swimming” in the population at large, finding safe harbor to plot their evil deeds. I wanted to scoop up the insurgents into a “fishbowl” to view them better. I remembered studying Napoleon’s actions with a census in the Rhineland to root out insurgents and took note of techniques used by the French in Algeria. To counter insurgents in the Rhineland, Napoleon had his men conduct a census of sorts. They would ask at each home who lived there. Then they would ask who lived next door on each side. Then they would go to the next house. If the answers varied, they would focus on the missing names that people did not list but that their neighbors did. It proved effective. In Algiers, the French isolated the Wilayas to prevent insurgents and weapons from passing through. Though both of these efforts were on a much larger scale and were not the same, there were certainly aspects of the operations that we could use for ourselves.
The Census
I told my staff I wanted to fence the entire town and conduct a census. They wondered if I had somehow lost my mind. But without a complete cordon, only the fairly honest people would show up. If the town was locked down, then the only way they could get out was to register.
It was a monumental undertaking but one I felt we could do and still carry out our other missions. The benefits would be several: if the criminal elements stayed, their movements would be known; if they left, they would have to give up their operational support base and would be much more visible and vulnerable to being fingered living in their mud huts on their farms; and if they stayed and changed their ways, that would still have desired effects.
We began the effort at midnight on the 30th. I went to the tribal head sheik in the village and informed him of our actions and what would be required: all males over the age of
fifteen must be registered and receive a pass to enter or to leave the town. To get the badge, they had to report to the police station and fill out the information form. Once badged, they could come and go as before but were subject to search at a single entry point into and out of town. All other exits would be closed off. He was shocked but complied fully.
By morning, rolls of concertina wire could be seen scattered along the bordering streets like tossed rings. Soldiers unraveled the wire. The scratch of the serrated steel wire on the concrete signaled the end to normal life in Owja. Soon the scratch gave way to pounding sledges for the reinforcing pickets. We buttressed the effort with about fifty Iraqi men from the local “rent-a-worker” group in town, complete with a paid contractor.
Simultaneously, the intelligence and signal staff readied the computer and camera databases to begin the issuing of badges. Scores of Iraqi men showed up at the police station by 0900. They waited for their badge and, once in hand, were allowed to exit the one remaining open avenue leading to Highway 1. By November 3rd, we had badged twelve hundred Owjite males.
The operation amazed not only the Owjites but the international press as well. They all seemed to be fascinated at the audacity of the move. Many drew comparisons to Gaza or Jerusalem but in reality, that never entered our minds. Nor was it a fair comparison. For one, we had an entire rifle company inside the wire with them. Second, we were not trying to separate one culture from another. Third, the town was not sealed but controlled—they could still come and go provided they had their identification. We did prevent the departure of about three dozen individuals and informed the sheik and tribal town elders that we would question them at a later time—which we did.