by Piers Platt
“Bulldawg 6, Red 1, my Eagles have entered the target building, over.”
“This is 6, roger.”
I checked my watch: Barnes had bet me they could clear the house in under 30 seconds. At the 22-second mark, I heard him key the net.
“1, this is 2,” he called.
“Go ahead 2.”
“Roger, building clear, over.”
“22 seconds, nice work,” I told him.
“Roger. We have one male in custody with an RPK machine gun. What’d you say this guy’s name was?”
I laughed. “You’re fucking with me, right?”
“Naw, seriously, we’ve got a dude.”
I still didn’t believe him, but I pulled out my notebook and checked the name, relaying it to Barnes.
“Holy shit, we got him,” he said, laughing.
And we had. When the front entry team hit the house, the man had been sprinting for the back door, but he opened it and ran smack into the six-foot bulk of Specialist Riley, who grabbed him by the neck and tossed him back inside. They secured the house and demanded his ID card, and sure enough, he was our target. Out of the hundreds of raids we had done, 95% had turned up empty – no one was home, or the target wasn’t home but his family was, or we had the wrong house to begin with, but we almost never got the guy we were looking for. It was beyond absurd that during the most inane raid of the tour, designed more for training purposes than real tactical value, we had caught the right guy, with an illegal weapon, at home during the day. Chalk up another victory to pure dumb luck.
Chapter Twelve
“All right, fellas: I would tell you not to do anything stupid when we get back, but I know you will anyways, so just don’t fucking get caught.”
-Staff Sergeant Barnes
The last days in Iraq seemed to rush by, for once – juggling patrols and Movement Officer duties, I found myself fully occupied. But when Valentine’s Day rolled around, I managed to find a few minutes to call my fiancée. As I walked back into our tent, I remembered something Sergeant First Class Martin had told me earlier that day – today was Staff Sergeant Barnes’ birthday. I walked over to his cot, where he was reading a worn paperback.
“Hey,” I said, “Happy birthday, by the way.”
“Mm-hm,” he said, “Them assholes have already rolled me up for it, too.”
I laughed – apparently the platoon had jumped him and roughed him up a bit as a birthday present. “What happened?”
“I was assaulted!” he said, indignantly. “By a gang of … of …”
“… hooligans?” I suggested.
“Hooligans, thank you, sir.”
“Birthday on Valentine’s Day, huh? That’s kind of cool.”
“Yeah … you would think that would get you a lot of pussy,” Barnes told me. “But you’d be wrong. What really happens is that two guaranteed pussy days turn into one.”
I laughed, and went to drop my gear by my bunk. I was tired, or else I might have noticed the awkward silence in the tent, and some furtive glances from my soldiers. By the time they rushed me, it was too late. I fought them, laughing, but they easily overpowered me and thumped me for a while until Barnes called them off, although not before getting in a final good punch himself. I could feel a slight black eye coming on, though I couldn’t for the life of me remember how I got it.
“You fuckers!” I yelled, still laughing.
Later, I called them together.
“Look, I want to thank you guys …”
“… don’t think I’ve ever been thanked for rolling someone up,” Sergeant Newsome noted.
“Shut up, Zach.” I grinned at him. “I want to thank you guys for giving me the chance to lead you. It, uh …” I stumbled, searching for the right words. “… it really was an honor. I wouldn’t want to go into combat with any other group of guys. That doesn’t come close to describing how I feel, but it’ll have to do.”
We shook hands, smiling quietly. Once you’ve put your life into someone else’s hands, other relationships pale in comparison, and we knew once we left this place, things would not be the same. Heading home was turning out to be unexpectedly bittersweet.
“One last thing: be careful tomorrow, and get home safe. I’ll see you guys in Schweinfurt,” I told them.
* * *
The following day, most of Bulldawg Troop convoyed their way down to the nearest logistics base, while I stayed behind to ensure our remaining equipment was properly shipped off. With only a dozen troopers left, we were officially done running missions: 1-15 Infantry was in charge, and the relief-in-place was officially complete. Knowing I would not be going out on mission again was a liberating feeling – I had survived my Iraq tour, and barring any freak occurrences on the trip itself, I should make it home in one piece. The relief was palpable. I supervised the loading of the last trailer of our equipment, tagged it with a satellite transponder, and watched as a massive crane lifted it onto a flatbed trailer. Then, with nothing official left to do, I caught up on some emails and some sleep, relaxing for the last couple of days before our flight south. But, as usual, Iraq had a surprise in store for me.
It happened because of an accident near Balad. A patrol from the unit that replaced 1-77 Armor managed to flip a Humvee into a canal, drowning all four crewmembers. The rumor was that they were operating in an area that 1-77 Armor had unofficially deemed unsafe for driving, and so 1st Infantry Division issued a new directive: while 1st Infantry Division soldiers remained in theater, they would accompany any and all 3rd Infantry Division patrols going out to prevent future such accidents. We were scheduled to fly out only two days later, but between now and then, Crusader Company from Task Force 1-15 would be running another patrol to the checkpoints outside Samarra. Ryan Simms and I got the news from Captain Hoffman the evening before they were scheduled to head out on patrol.
“… so one of you is going to have to accompany them,” Hoffman said.
We looked at each other, shrugging, and to his great credit, Simms spoke up before me.
“I’ll go,” he said simply.
“You sure?” I asked. “I don’t care.” I didn’t, really – it was just one more mission out of hundreds, regardless of being the day before we flew home.
“Yeah, I got it,” Ryan told me. “I’m bored to death sitting around this tent anyways.” Such is the selflessness of friends in combat.
“Okay,”‘ Hoffman said, “Ryan goes.”
He left the following morning at dawn, one last trip out to the checkpoints where he had spent so much of the last few months. As I was sitting around later that morning, watching another DVD, Hoffman came into the tent.
“Lieutenant Platt,” he said.
I pulled off my headphones, “Sir?”
“Crusader’s got a broke-down tank out at FOB Rex – they’re sending a recovery patrol out to pick it up and drop off a working tank.”
I took a deep breath and reached for my uniform shirt. “Roger. Are they leaving now?”
“Yeah, they’re waiting for you by the Squadron command post.”
For my final patrol I would be riding in the loader’s hatch of a Crusader Company tank, with a second tank as our wingman. I jogged down to the main road, spotting the two tanks idling by the refuel point. I clambered aboard with practiced ease, hopping into the loader’s hatch next to the tank commander, Staff Sergeant Beale.
“Sorry we had to drag you along, sir,” he yelled over the roar of the engines.
“That’s okay,” I told him, “I was starting to miss going out on missions.”
“Really?” he asked, surprised.
“Fuck no,” I replied. Beale grinned.
Not surprisingly, the tank was devoid of spare equipment, and I would have to wear my helmet and not the usual tank helmet with its ear-cups and microphone for communicating with the rest of the crew. Riding in a tank for several hours was going to be a noisy affair without the usual ear-cups, however, so I decided to put my earplugs in.
“Sorry, sir – we don’t have one.”
I shrugged and took out some spare parachute cord, which I tied in a small loop around the trigger – it was a poor substitute, but it would work if I held the mount with one hand and pulled back on the loop with the other. I loaded it, set it to “SAFE,” and then unlocked the mount, swinging the freed weapon along the full arc of its guide-rail as a final test.
The ride out to FOB Rex was both dusty and lonely, the unfamiliar crew largely leaving me alone, since conversation was so difficult without a tank helmet. I watched them maneuver their tanks ably, grumbling to myself at how unnecessary my presence was – even if I had needed to, giving them advice was nearly impossible since I wasn’t on the intercom system or radio. I focused on routine security tasks instead, instinctively scanning the sides of the roads for IEDs, gesturing to Iraqi drivers to keep their distance when necessary, and otherwise operating on auto-pilot, the dull clanking of the tank treads muted in my ears.
After we passed the Iraqi Army barracks building a few miles south of FOB Mackenzie’s entrance gate, Staff Sergeant Beale gestured to me and I leaned in close.
“Radio report says there was an IED back there by the barracks,” he shouted, pushing aside his microphone.
“I didn’t see it,” I told him.
He shook his head – he hadn’t, either. Later, EOD did find an IED on the stretch of road we had just passed, and detonated it: one more in a long string of close calls. We had to take the long way round to FOB Rex, rather than heading straight there off-road, as the shortcut route was still closed off with standing water and deep mud from the winter “rainy” season. We took the southern route to Samarra, instead, then cut north past the city, before looping back east towards FOB Rex.
FOB Rex was located on Route Grape, where numerous IEDs had struck Squadron units over the past year. I had driven the route enough times that it wasn’t particularly nerve-wracking, but all the same, I couldn’t help but think of the two soldiers from Bulldawg Troop who had lost their lives here earlier in the rotation, and the IED that had detonated near my own Humvee on an earlier patrol. As we came in sight of FOB Rex, we passed through an area where there were two high earthen berms on either side of the road. I thought to myself: I remember this spot … I always thought it was a nasty choke point. I’m surprised they never hit us here.
No sooner had I finished the thought when a massive explosion rocked the tank, debris and dirt showering us. The slap of the blast was so forceful that my arm felt like it had been slammed with a baseball bat. I had read about shell-shock among soldiers under artillery bombardment in the First and Second World Wars, but until you experience a blast of that magnitude up close, you can’t really comprehend what it feels like. Apart from the obvious physical sensations – temporary loss of hearing, being tossed like a leaf in the wind, blinded by dust – it’s like waking up suddenly in a strange place, trying to regain your bearings and remember what it is you were supposed to be doing. My first coherent thought was that I had been hit, and I immediately dropped down into the turret and patted myself down, checking for sharp pain or bleeding. Everything seemed to be alright, so I climbed back into position, grabbing the machine gun and swinging it through a full arc, scanning for moving vehicles or other suspicious activity. I saw nothing. I turned to Staff Sergeant Beale in the tank commander’s hatch, who had a shocked look on his face and was speaking swiftly into his boom mike.
“You okay?” I yelled.
“Yeah!” He had evidently been talking to the driver, because we picked up speed and sped out of the area, heading towards FOB Rex, a few hundred yards down the road.
“Rest of the crew?”
Beale yelled again, “They’re okay, sir!”
“You see any vehicle movement out there, or anything else?”
“No sir, I didn’t see shit.”
We didn’t stop until we were at FOB Rex. The Crusader Company guys there had seen it happen, and they met us outside the fortifications, eyes wide.
“Holy shit!”
“That thing was fucking huge!”
“We just done popped our cherry!” Staff Sergeant Beale announced to the gawkers, obviously a little punch-drunk from the adrenaline rush.
I climbed down to take a look at the tank. There were minor shrapnel scratches here and there, and all of the tank’s storage boxes had their lids blown open, but otherwise, there were no signs of major damage. The blast had somehow flipped my rifle through a complete 180 degrees; lying on the top of the tank, it was now facing in the opposite direction. On closer inspection, I saw that it had also acquired some deep scratches from the violence of being tossed about. There were rocks and dirt over everything, including my gear and uniform. I brushed myself off.
Staff Sergeant D’Angelo, one of my soldiers from Red Platoon who had been out at FOB Rex with the Crusader soldiers, walked up and clapped me on the back.
“You alright, sir?”
“Yeah … got all my arms and legs, nothing bleeding.”
He nodded. “That fucking thing shook the whole tank I was sitting on. All the way back here! We’re almost a kilometer away, for chrissakes.”
“Jesus.”
I was amazed at the lack of damage, considering the size of the IED – it was the biggest I’d seen in our tour, far larger than the two I had already experienced, and on the same scale as the one that had killed a tank driver in Anvil Troop, crushing the vehicle around him. It was a miracle we were all alive and the tank was in working condition. I certainly would have had long-term hearing damage had I not been wearing my earplugs. The Crusader tank platoon leader walked up to me, shaking his head.
“This is your last mission, right?”
“Yeah,” I told him wryly, “Which is good, because I think I just used up the last of my luck.”
“Got that right,” he said.
Once we had ensured it was working properly, our tank stayed onsite, and the second tank hooked up to the broken tank – the reason we’d come out in the first place – to tow it in. It hadn’t occurred to me until that point, but I realized that we would be driving back to Mackenzie with just those two tanks linked together – one tank towing the broken tank, on which I would be riding. This arrangement wouldn’t have flown in 1st Infantry Division; our policy was that you needed at least two operational vehicles at all times for safety. To have just a single working vehicle – which was severely handicapped because it was towing another – made me uncomfortable, but there was nothing I could do about it now.
As soon as the tanks were hooked up, we departed, retracing our route past the site of the IED attack. It was an even more massive hole than I had expected: half of the two-lane road was missing, and when they measured it later they found that it was eight feet deep and twelve feet across. Rather than bury the explosives, the insurgent had chosen to stuff them into a drainage pipe which passed underneath the road there, which is why we had seen no tell-tale IED signs ahead of time. It may just have been the reason we survived, as well – buried a solid five or six feet underground, most of the blast was contained by the earth above, though Staff Sergeant Beale had still been hit in the helmet with a large chunk of asphalt. I made it a point to scan my sector from lower down in my hatch, exposing as little of myself as possible.
Night had fallen by the time we passed back through Ad Montessim, when suddenly the tank towing us slowed to a crawl.
“What’s up?” I asked Beale.
He spoke into his radio for a second, then shook his head ruefully.
“Goddamn tank just went into protective mode,” he told me.
When they overheat or sensors determine a more major failure is imminent, tank engines are designed to enter “protective mode:” the engine’s power is severely limited and the tank can do no
more than crawl along at walking speed. This is usually a sign that the tank needs some serious repairs, but occasionally it’s merely an electrical problem and the engine is actually fine. Standard operating procedure is to stop the tank, complete a full shutdown, and restart the engine to see if she’ll come out of protective mode, just like rebooting a computer. In the tank ahead of us, the driver pushed the shutdown button. Nothing happened. Tanks fail to start up sometimes, but I’d never seen one refuse to shut down.
After several more attempts, they pulled the emergency fuel cutoff switch, which got the engine to stop, but apparently that wasn’t such a good idea, because after pausing a few minutes to let her cool down, she wouldn’t start up again. We were stranded, two broken tanks and eight soldiers, 20 miles from the nearest friendly unit, at night in enemy territory. About the only good news was that our radios still worked, so we promptly called for recovery support.
There were no recovery assets at FOB Mackenzie, so we would have to be rescued by the tanks we had just left out at the checkpoints, ironically. While they spooled up and headed out to us, Task Force 1-15 headquarters sent its quick reaction force Humvees and a Kiowa patrol out to secure us, apparently agreeing with my sentiment that having two broken tanks stranded outside the wire was a precarious situation. More than an hour later, the tanks arrived. After we had hooked both broken tanks up to be towed, we started off again.