Ambush Alley: The Most Extraordinary Battle of the Iraq War

by Tim Pritchard

  He consulted with Sosa.

  “Let’s start to send the infantry companies forward and hope that the tanks won’t take too long to refuel.”

  He got on the radio to his XO, Major Jeff Tuggle, who was at the rear, closest to the refueling point.

  “We need those tanks back here as soon as possible.”

  Sosa and Grabowski knew that they would have to change their original plan. That called for Team Tank to establish a support-by-fire position on the southern bank of the Euphrates, allowing Alpha to go through first and seize the Euphrates Bridge. Then Bravo, with its tanks, would cross the Euphrates Bridge onto Route Moe, known as Ambush Alley, turn immediately to the east, and work its way to the northern canal bridge around the eastern outskirts of the town. The forward command post and Charlie Company would follow in trace, and Charlie would move through their lines and take the northern bridge.

  The urgency of Natonski’s request had changed that plan. Grabowski could see that Bravo Company was at the head of the column while Alpha Company marines were still out in the fields clearing buildings. It would take too long to get Alpha Company to leapfrog Bravo. We’ll just have to get Bravo Company to lead the attack and Alpha can follow in trace.

  The pace of their mission had just picked up. It was now up to Major Sosa to make it happen. He didn’t panic, but he now realized that there were several questions about the terrain that they were going into that had never been answered by the intelligence people at regimental level. He’d wanted to know about the current, depth, and silt level of the waterway by the northern canal bridge. He had also asked about the terrain and street layout to the east of Nasiriyah. No one seemed to know what it would be like. There were maps and photos, but they had very little human intelligence. There was no one on the ground who could tell them what state the streets were in, how the Iraqis would greet them, and what sort of resistance they should expect. It would have been nice to have answers to those questions, but maybe regiment has other priorities.

  Grabowski got on the radio to the company commanders. Natonski had given him a timeline he’d been unaware of. Natonski wanted those bridges by 1500. That was less than four hours away. And Grabowski and his men had the added complication of looking out for U.S. soldiers stranded in the city. He didn’t want his marines firing on them, thinking they were bad guys.

  “This is Timberwolf 6. We need to get moving. Keep your eyes open for American forces on the ground. Don’t engage the enemy unless they clearly demonstrate hostile intent toward you. We’ve got to get those bridges.”

  7

  “Timberwolf, this is Tomahawk 6.”

  Captain Mike Brooks, commander of Alpha Company, stood up in the TC’s hatch of his track to get a better view of the scene ahead. On the horizon, plumes of black smoke billowed from the jagged outline of the city. Hueys and Cobras hovered overhead. The boom of an artillery shell echoed in the distance.

  He reached for the radio and glanced down at his military-issue GPS, checked his position, and gave Lieutenant Colonel Grabowski at the forward command post a quick situation report.

  His column of twelve AAVs and three Humvees was in front of Charlie Company but still several kilometers behind the tanks, the CAAT vehicles, and Bravo Company.

  He’d heard on the radio that up ahead, the tanks were under fire and that they had rescued some U.S. soldiers who had been ambushed in the city. As his company had moved forward, it, too, had started receiving small-arms fire. He’d got some of his marines to dismount and to clear on foot some suspicious buildings a hundred meters or so to the east of the road. It was muddy out there, and he could see that they were not happy struggling knee-deep through the water and the dirt. This is frustrating. The opposition isn’t determined, but they are harassing us and it’s slowing us down. He hadn’t been expecting to fight like this. There was no tactical formation of Iraqi soldiers, just faceless figures dressed in black, shooting at them from behind buildings and irrigation ditches. To be honest, he wasn’t even sure exactly who he was fighting. He knew there might be some opposition from Baathists and fedayeen troops loyal to Saddam, but these fighters were shooting from what looked like normal, humble homes.

  “Timberwolf. Tanks are going back to refuel.”

  Brooks had felt a chill when he learned on the radio that the tanks were going to the rear. He always felt more secure when the tanks were around. For two days the movement through southern Iraq had gone smoothly and to plan. There was no sense of urgency; they were controlled and methodical. Even the reports of the tanks getting into contact ahead of them hadn’t fazed him. But as he saw them speed past on the way to the refueling point he had a strange sensation that something was beginning to unravel. They looked dirty and shot up, and his sense of discomfort got worse. The feeling of invincibility that the tanks gave when they were up front had gone. He checked his thoughts. Nothing is wrong. They’ll probably get refueled quickly so it will be okay.

  Brooks was thirty-four, with a mild, thoughtful manner and boyish bright eyes that flashed with determination. He was married with three young sons. He’d been brought up on a farm in a small town in rural Pennsylvania. As a kid, he hadn’t done very well at high school. He hated books and exams and always seemed to get into mischief. It was nothing serious, but he did once get a disorderly conduct fine for throwing eggs at someone’s house. He did whatever it took to have a laugh and some fun. To this day, he didn’t really know why he changed. He just got tired of being a smart-ass. He wanted something more focused, more solid. A friend had signed up for the Marine Corps a year before, and he had seen what that had done for him. He left high school and rather than become an officer, he enlisted at nineteen. He wanted to do it the hard way, to learn some humility, and self-respect. He worked his way through Boot Camp and then went to field artillery. That’s when he decided he wanted the challenge of leading marines. He wanted to be an officer. Four years after leaving the Naval Academy at Annapolis he was made a marine captain. He was disappointed when he was given command of a headquarters company. He wanted to be in the front line, training for war. But he persevered, and a year before the invasion of Iraq he was made commander of his very own rifle company—Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines.

  Most of his marines had already been with Alpha for several months, even years when he took over command. But some of them had also joined at the same time, and others were straight out of Boot Camp and the School of Infantry. He made a point of getting to know everything about them. He had spent a lot of time with them in training and got to know their strengths and weaknesses and their different characters. He would push them during training, asking them to do things that he knew were hard for them. Sometimes he’d wondered whether he pushed them too hard, but when he saw them do it and do it well, he felt proud.

  “Tomahawk 6, this is Timberwolf. Hey, you need to wrap up your activities there. We need to get going. We need to push.”

  It was Grabowski, the battalion commander, and there was a new sense of urgency in his voice. Brooks was momentarily taken aback. He had no idea why the movement forward had suddenly become more immediate.

  “Bravo, you’re in front, you take the lead. You will cross the bridge first.”

  Brooks knew that’s not how they’d planned to take the bridge. He was supposed to lead Alpha Company onto the Euphrates Bridge. Bravo and Charlie would follow in trace, go around to the east, and head toward the northern bridge. He would then follow once 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines had relieved him on the southern span, the Euphrates Bridge. Since early January, when the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Grabowksi, had entrusted them with the possible task of taking the bridges at Nasiriyah, they’d revised and changed the plan many times. On ship with his fellow company commanders, Captain Tim Newland and Captain Dan Wittnam, he had pored over maps and satellite images to check that they could make it happen. They had war-gamed the scenario with other officers in a packed wardroom, to make sure that they hadn�
��t missed anything. Following classic Marine doctrine, they had visualized the operation, determined the critical events, and developed a scheme of maneuver that they were convinced would overwhelm anyone defending the city. The intelligence officers provided a lot of images and information on the terrain and on the disposition of Iraqi military units built up over the last twelve years from U.S. Air Force sorties monitoring the no-fly zone for Operation Southern Watch. It was supposed to be like any other combined arms drill executed over and over again at CAX the previous summer. They had perfected their scheme of maneuver and now, suddenly, the battalion commander had changed their attack formation. What’s going on?

  He saw it made sense to go with Bravo across the bridge first. He still had marines out in the fields, and it would take some time to get his company to leapfrog Bravo. Nevertheless, he felt that something was not quite right. He wanted to be fluid, to adapt to change, but the urgency with which it was unfolding didn’t give him a good feeling. Where would that leave Charlie? In the original plan, Charlie was going to follow Bravo. But they were even farther away, in fields to the west of the road. It would take them even more time to mount up and get into position between Bravo and Alpha.

  He heard Captain Wittnam, company commander of Charlie, on the radio.

  “Sir, Alpha is already behind Bravo. I recommend we follow in trace of Alpha.”

  That at least made some sense and was closer to the original scheme of maneuver. He felt a bit more comfortable. If only the tanks were up there he would feel better. He was glad he knew Dan Wittnam so well. Implicit understanding between commanders enabled them to work better as a team. It was something they had focused on at CAX.

  He got back to the work ahead. What can I do now? What do I need to do? He called his men back and tried to make it clear that Bravo was now going to take the lead. He got messages out by radio to his platoon commanders that he wanted everybody back to the tracks as quickly as possible.

  8

  Corporal Neville Welch was in the hatch of AAV B203, the third track from the front of the column of Bravo Company vehicles. He was scanning the fields and houses on either side of him when he heard his platoon commander say that they were moving out. Now that the tanks had gone to the rear to refuel, Bravo was at the very front of the battalion, with Alpha and Charlie following in trace.

  Like many of the other marines, he had heard that Army units were in trouble up ahead and that tanks had gone to help, but that didn’t strike him as odd. He didn’t know that there should have been no units in front of them. He was an ordinary grunt, at the bottom of the chain of command. It was not surprising that some information just never got to Corporal Neville Welch, or that when it got there, like an elaborate game of Chinese whispers, it sometimes wasn’t exactly the same as what was sent out. Maybe the Army is there to escort us into the city. He trusted the higher-ups to know what was going on with the big picture. Most grunts drank up the slightest piece of news because they got so little information. Not Welch. He tried to ignore the rumors. He just kept his focus on his job.

  At that moment, his job was to watch out for hostile targets. There had been some firing up ahead, and he was told to look out for any suspicious activity. The sun, no more than a dull glow of light, was peeping through a mixture of clouds and thick dust that seemed to clog the air. To the east, set back a hundred meters from the road, were some tumbling mud brick buildings. They looked as though they were abandoned, but flying from the roof was a black flag. It looked threatening, but he’d been told that it was no more than a sign that Shia Muslims lived there. Helos flew overhead, scaring the goats and dogs standing by the side of the road. A loud thud rocked the horizon and black smoke billowed out from a target ahead. A whoop of joy went up among the marines around him.

  Corporal Welch did not join in. For him, this was a serious business. He’d enlisted in the Marine Corps days after September 11, 2001, outraged by the terrorist attack on innocent people. He’d felt victimized and vulnerable and saw it as a call to war. He felt the attack had penetrated the soul of America. It was his generation’s Pearl Harbor. He didn’t want to sit on the sidelines. He had decided then and there that he was going to give something back to the country that had put him on the path of selfactualization.

  He’d been born in Guyana into a traditional and poor family. He’d gone to school and technical college there, but at the age of twenty-one he realized that Guyana was no place for an ambitious young man desperate for education. He was given federal grants to study at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York, where he improved his reading and writing. Then he got a place at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he studied health systems management and immersed himself in African American literature. Every day he’d spend hours at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center reading an eclectic mix of writing: August Wilson, Paulo Freire, Kenneth Clark, Frantz Fanon, Kwame Nkrumah, even Sir Walter Raleigh. He wanted to understand the consciousness of black America. The more he read, the more he felt that African American activists were missing something, that their focus was too narrow and local. He realized that even the civil rights movement was a parochial struggle. What he wanted was for African Americans to think bigger, in a more universal way, to understand that what was happening in America was just a small part of a larger struggle being played out in the Caribbean and Africa. That’s how he met his wife, Bashen, an African American from Birmingham, Alabama.

  Welch was tall and educated, and had a severity about him that could be intimidating. He spoke with a lilting Caribbean British accent. Straight out of college, Welch had set up a janitorial business that had been quite successful. Then September 11 happened, and Welch closed the business down. It was no surprise that when he walked into the Marine Corps recruiting station on Flatbush Avenue in New York, the recruiter was taken aback. He tried to persuade him to work in the public affairs office or pick some other specialty in which he could use his bachelor’s degree. But Welch had seen the videos. He wanted to be in harm’s way, out in front. He wanted to be an infantryman, a grunt. He signed on right away for four years. Bashen was upset. Her father had done several tours of duty in Vietnam and had come back a changed and wrecked man. She didn’t see him anymore because he drank too much. Neville Welch did what he could to comfort her, but he had made up his mind. Within days he was on his way to Boot Camp.

  “Dismount. Dismount.”

  The rear ramp of Welch’s AAV dropped and marines poured out into the road and started setting up a security perimeter around his track. In front of him he saw the span of a bridge. To one side there were burning vehicles, to the other a smelly landfill site. The tarmac was slick with fuel and covered in shards of glass from broken windshields, spent ammo, blackened pieces of metal. Within seconds he was covered by huge black flies. He couldn’t quite work out where he was or what they were supposed to be doing, but clearly something had happened here. He didn’t realize it, but he was at the same trash dump where the tanks had rescued the soldiers from the 507th half an hour earlier. Whatever opposition there had been was now mostly gone. It looked as though the tanks had dealt with it.

  He got his men to take cover, positioning them so their sectors of fire did not overlap. As a fire-team leader within Bravo’s 1st Platoon, he was in charge of the Marine Corps’s smallest combat unit. He had three other marines in his team. One carried an M249 automatic weapon, and the two others were armed with M16 rifles. He carried an M203—an M16 rifle with a 40mm grenade launcher attached under the barrel. His training at the School of Infantry at Camp Geiger in North Carolina had taught him that the fire team was always at the hard edge of any combat. As a fire-team leader he was responsible for keeping his guys together and working as a unit. He kept them low, their weapons scanning the fields for targets, each taking a sector of responsibility. They kept ammo discipline, not firing unless they had a target. Other marines from his company were out in the fields clearing buildings. Suddenly squad leaders starte
d calling their fire teams back.

  “Bravo 1st Platoon, back to the tracks.”

  Welch jumped back into the track and they were off. He was thrown first backward, then forward. It was all stop and start. One minute they would get the order to go, then they would have to pause. The AAV treads churned up the mud on the edge of the road. It looked as though it had rained here a few nights before. A lone cow chewed on the sparse vegetation, oblivious to the chaos around. Iraqis watched passively as they moved by. Welch could hear constant chatter on the radio. It didn’t make much sense to him, but it sounded calm and purposeful.

  “Tanks are refueling.”

  “This is Timberwolf. Sitrep, over.”

  “Small-arms fire from port and starboard. Nothing we can’t handle. Over.”

  To his right, he could make out a road sign, half of it written in English: WELCOME TO NASIRIYAH. It put Neville Welch on edge. Why was it written in English? He thought it was a deliberate and cynical message to the Americans rolling toward the town. It wasn’t a message of welcome. It was a message of death. This is your burial spot.

  As if on cue, the patter of small-arms fire pinged off the side of Welch’s track. It was coming from some huge oil tanks to the northeast, just over the span of the bridge.

  “Keep pushing. Keep pushing.”