Ambush Alley: The Most Extraordinary Battle of the Iraq War

by Tim Pritchard

  From the turret of 201, Schaefer saw 208 lift in the air so high that he could see the underside of the vehicle. Thick black smoke poured out, and a hand and an arm bounced across the road in front of him. Blood and debris stuck to the gun mounts and the bulletproof glass around his turret. Nobody can survive that.

  From the air, Gyrate 73 could see that he had scored a direct hit. He and his wingman received a delighted call from Mouth.

  “Hey, you’re putting smiles on the faces of the guys down here.”

  “Well, you’ve got a couple of Guard guys up here trying to do our best.”

  Robinson and the other marines in the troop compartment of 201 were oblivious to the A-10s overhead and the explosion that had blown track 208 apart. They just felt the track swing from side to side, shaken by loud booms. Through the gaps in the crowded track, Robinson could see Castleberry going crazy, swinging the steering mechanism first one way and then the other.

  Castleberry first steered hard right to avoid smashing into track 208 and then hard left. He felt the track shudder. The steering wasn’t responding. He screamed into the intercom.

  “Sergeant. We’ve lost steering. We’re going down.”

  “What the fuck, Castleberry?”

  Schaefer’s first thought was that Castleberry had fucked up. He had set him right so many times during training that he thought he’d done something stupid again.

  “Hold on.”

  Castleberry was heading straight for some sort of telephone pole. The only thing he could think to do was run it over. He gunned the 525-horsepower engine, hoping to smash through it.

  “Hold on. Hold on.”

  He braced himself as the track hit the pole, bounced off to the left, and headed toward some houses on the east side of Ambush Alley. Castleberry stamped on the brakes and the track came to a halt in front of a two-story concrete house. At the same time, something ripped open his hatch, shredded his CVC communications helmet, and blew him right down into his seat.

  Schaefer, on the right side of the vehicle, felt heat come up through the turret. He thought he’d been wounded and grabbed his back, feeling for signs of hot, sticky blood. He was fine, but the track was completely immobile. He turned around to see everybody in the rear of the track staring at him with wild, confused eyes.

  “Everyone out. Everyone out. Get the fuck out.”

  Then he got on the radio to the other tracks. He knew that some of them might have been hit. But if they stayed in the middle of Ambush Alley, none of them would survive.

  “Don’t stop. Keep on moving.”

  From the air, the A-10 pilots saw that they had scored a couple of direct hits on the vehicles below. Some of the vehicles seemed to be maneuvering off the main road to take cover in some of the side streets. It made another gun run risky. They knew that the farther into the city they chased the vehicles, the greater the likelihood that they would hit civilians or even marines.

  Gyrate 73 still had one Maverick left. He locked on to another vehicle still out in the open and rolled in for his final approach. Then, just as he was about to release the missile, the radio crackled.

  “Cease fire, cease fire, cease fire.”

  Gyrate 73 and Gyrate 74 were confused.

  “Hey, did you hear that? Who called it? What’s going on?”

  On the ground, Mouth, the Bravo FAC, also heard the cease-fire call on the radio. He grabbed his FiST leader.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?”

  “Battalion thinks there may be some friendlies north of the bridge.”

  Mouth’s first thought was that battalion had been confused about which bridge he was targeting. They think I’m targeting areas to the north of the southern bridge, not the northern bridge.

  “Check fire. Abort, abort, abort.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Hey, we think we might have had a Blue on Blue, some guys might be up north at the canal, but we’re not sure. No one really knows. I’m checking it out.”

  Gyrate 74 couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Seconds earlier, he had been absolutely convinced that they were killing enemy units. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

  “You got to be kidding. But you cleared me hot.”

  Mouth again wondered why the pilot was emphasizing the issue of clearance. Under Type 3 CAS, pilots didn’t need clearance. He assumed the pilot didn’t know the correct CAS terminology, but he didn’t want to get into a debate over the radio.

  The radio went silent. The two A-10 pilots circled overhead for a few minutes to see if there was anything else they could do. But fuel was low. They called back to Mouth. They had to head back to Al Jaber Air Base in Kuwait. As they disappeared, Mouth was left wondering whether he had just unknowingly caused U.S. planes to fire on friendly forces, what the military call a Blue on Blue.

  14

  At the northern bridge, the Charlie Company commander, Captain Dan Wittnam, had been trying to get status reports from his platoon commanders when he saw the five tracks disappear over the bridge. I don’t feel good about this. Where are they going? Very quickly, he guessed that they were evacuating the wounded. It was disconcerting. He was the company commander, and yet he had not ordered them to load up the wounded and played no part in organizing the convoy that was heading back down Ambush Alley. They had taken off without consulting him. If they’d asked him, he would have told them to stay where they were and help support the securing of the bridge. But the Marine Corps taught its marines to use their initiative. He had to believe that they had done what they thought was the right thing to do in the circumstances. Now Lieutenant Seely ran up to him.

  “Sir, that was friendly fire that hit us.”

  Wittnam couldn’t believe it. He had seen the A-10 and heard the gun runs, but he hadn’t quite put it together that the A-10 had been shooting at them.

  First Lieutenant Reid had escaped the A-10 fire and made his way back to the mortar squad where he had last seen the dead and wounded. He couldn’t see Corporal Garibay or the other wounded. That’s good. They’ve gotten out of there. He jumped into another ditch and saw that one kid was just staring right at him with huge eyes, freaked out by the sight of Reid’s bleeding face. Reid tried to reassure him.

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll be okay.”

  Now Reid decided to cross the highway and see what the situation was on the west side of the road. As he crested the road, he saw that there was at least a platoon of marines on the other side. He had no idea they were there. He had not been able to see them because of the elevated highway. He was pissed off with himself. I’m the fire support guy. I’m supposed to know where everyone is at. He just stood there for a moment. What the hell is going on? One of his marines, Corporal James Peterson, a SMAW team leader from Texas, ran over, grabbed him, and threw him in the rear of a track. There was a medic inside who put a splint on his arm and bandages around his head. He tried to find out what was going on, but no one really knew.

  “We need to get the fuck out of here.”

  Reid felt vulnerable in the track. He meant that they needed to get out of the AAV and find better positions on the ground, but the marines around him seized on it as an excuse to try to escape south.

  “Lieutenant Reid says we need to get out of here. Let’s get out of here. Let’s fire up this track and let’s go.”

  The driver of the track quickly calmed them down. He’d seen some of the tracks in the medevac convoy explode as they crossed the bridge.

  “We ain’t going nowhere. Two tracks have just got blown up trying to cross the bridge.”

  Quirk, Labarge, and several others from 3rd Platoon were lying in one of the ditches alongside the road, numb with fear. They thought they could hear the A-10 still circling. They had no idea that some of the tracks had already started to head back south.

  “The A-10 is fucking lighting us up, we’ve got to get out of here.”

  With about ten other marines Quirk ran toward one of the tracks on the east side of the roa
d not far from the canal bridge, opened the rear hatch, and clambered inside. They were struggling for breath from running so fast and were so thirsty that they could hardly feel their tongues. A marine threw over some canteens and they all started chugging water down, grabbing ammo and filling their magazines in between each gulp. Quirk was glad to escape the mayhem outside.

  In the gun turret of the same track was the AAV platoon commander, Lieutenant Conor Tracy. He had seen the squad of marines making their way toward the track, duckwalking to avoid the rounds whizzing overhead. When he turned back again, he realized that they had all jumped into the back of his track. He bent down and looked in the troop compartment to see a line of frightened young marines.

  “What the hell are you guys doing in here?”

  Quirk had never seen the marine before and didn’t recognize him as the AAV platoon commander. All he knew was that it was some sort of officer.

  “It’s as crazy as fuck out there. We’re not fucking going out there.”

  “Bullshit. We got a war to fight, boys.”

  Quirk thought the guy was mad. He hasn’t got a clue what’s going on.

  Just at that moment, there was a string of huge explosions that shook the track. Like a character from a cartoon, the officer dove for cover. Quirk almost had to stifle a laugh.

  “Right. We’re getting out of here.”

  Then more incoming shells started to rock the track. There was the sound of shattering glass and tearing metal as the track shuddered and bounced from side to side.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  No one quite knew what the shells were. Some thought they were from the A-10, others thought they were incoming mortar rounds. Tracy thought it was track 211, which was finally exploding from all the ammo inside. Whatever it was, some of the marines around Quirk started breaking down in sobs.

  One of them was the same guy who had frozen going up Ambush Alley. He started to rock back and forth, then he grabbed Quirk and hugged him. Sobbing, he started to talk to himself.

  “It’s going to be okay. This is going to be over. Don’t worry, we’re going to be fine.”

  Quirk looked down at the marine hugging him and didn’t know what to do. He too was scared. The situation is fucking crazy, but I don’t feel like crying. He just went numb and thought about two things. I need water. I need to load that ammo.

  Another marine, a buddy of his and a pretty hard-core guy, started sobbing to himself in a corner of the track. Not loud bawling, just a few sobs. For a second, Quirk started getting emotional, too. His bottom lip trembled. Dear God, give me a calm heart. He stopped himself from sinking into the terrifying dark depths. I can’t be thinking like that. Fuck it. No. Drink water and load the ammo.

  The track took off. Quirk felt it swinging from side to side as it was buffeted by incoming fire. He had no idea where they were or where they were going. Quirk just sat there waiting for the explosion that would land right on top of them and take them all out. He loaded up more magazines and inserted one into his M16. He turned to the tracker sitting next to him. He was the tracker from 211, the track Quirk had originally been in. For days, Quirk had felt resentful that trackers didn’t get out and fight like the infantry grunts.

  “We’re condition one. When this ramp drops, you’re getting out and fighting with us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you need to be in this track to operate it?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you’re going to fucking get out and fight with us.”

  “No way, man.”

  The tracker handed Quirk a magazine and a grenade.

  “Fuck you.”

  A minute later, the ramp dropped.

  15

  Castleberry couldn’t hear a thing as he opened his eyes in the driver’s seat of track 201. He was in shock, and his ears were ringing from the explosion that had sent them careering into the telephone pole in the middle of Ambush Alley. He looked up and saw the driver’s hatch bobbing up and down above him. He grabbed it with his hand. It was still burning. He heaved it open. I mustn’t forget my rifle and my ammo. He hauled himself out of the turret and fell to the ground to the left of the track.

  Robinson, disorientated and stunned from the explosion, tried to drop the rear ramp. Marines were yelling at each other.

  “Get out. Get the fuck out. Oh my God. Get that fucking ramp open.”

  The hydraulic system took time to work. If he waited for it to be fully released, they risked being hit by another shell. Robinson didn’t want to get out of the rear hatch because he could see it was exposed to fire from the road. He clambered through the top hatch and jumped down to the left of the vehicle. As soon as he hit the road, he heard rounds pinging off the side of the track. He instinctively looked for cover and saw a wall, about five feet high, sheltered from most of the incoming fire by the huge hulk of the AAV. He grabbed his M249 SAW, and, with adrenaline pumping, ran for the wall and leaped over it.

  From 201’s turret, Schaefer watched the other tracks in the convoy steer around his disabled track and disappear toward the southern bridge. His mind was in turmoil. The whole day was just going from bad to worse. He now needed to get out. He hoped that Castleberry, Robinson, Worthington, and the others were doing the same. I can’t believe this is happening. He pulled himself out of the gun turret and jumped out to the right of the vehicle into Ambush Alley. He found himself in a dangerously exposed position, caught between the AAV and the west side of the road, where most of the fire was coming from. A crowd of Iraqis were emerging from the alleyways on the other side of Ambush Alley, ready to close in on him. They’re going to overrun me.

  Schaefer turned to see Lieutenant Scott Swantner and another marine at his side. There were three of them now facing what seemed like hordes of advancing Iraqis. This is it. This is the end. He had left his rifle back in the track. There was no way out. Then he heard the roar of an AAV. Track 207, commanded by Corporal Brown, had defied Schaefer’s order to continue south to the Euphrates Bridge and turned around to come and pick them up. The three marines sprinted a hundred meters down Ambush Alley with the sound of bullets cracking through the air around them. They made it to the open hatch of one of the AAVs and threw themselves into the darkness of the track’s belly. Schaefer was used to being in charge, issuing orders and seeing what was going on around him from his turret. Now it was pitch black. He could smell blood, diesel, and urine. He felt the wet mushiness of open flesh. He heard moans and screams and the rattle of rounds hitting the outside of the track. The AAV turned around and headed back south down Ambush Alley. Schaefer had never been so terrified in his life.

  About seventy meters or so north of the disabled track 201, Elliot and Trevino were limping away from track 208. Its structure had collapsed, and it was turning into a fireball. They had managed to get out because they were located in the front of the track, not in the troop compartment. They had no idea what had hit their track and who, if anyone, in the rear had survived. They were desperate and disorientated. Elliot couldn’t feel his leg and his neck was bleeding. Trevino’s eyes were swollen and dripping blood. It would be suicide to make our way back to the northern bridge. Elliot saw that one track was pulled up against a telephone pole to the south of where they were. Supporting each other, the two marines dragged themselves toward it, taking cover as best as they could from the shots ringing out in Ambush Alley.

  Down by track 201, Robinson was surprised to find that several marines had already gathered behind the same wall that he had jumped over when he had leaped from the disabled vehicle. It opened into a sort of courtyard, and they were dragging the wounded behind a rusty, broken-down bus that was collapsed in the middle of it. He counted Martin, Castleberry, Worthington, Wentzel, Doyle, Milter, Lance Corporal Rodriguez Ortiz, Private First Class Norman Doran, Private First Class Philip Honmichl, Private First Class David Matteson, Lance Corporal Richard Olivas . . . There were no staff sergeants, no lieutenants, no officers at all. They were al
l young marines, some not long out of high school. He heard the roar of the other tracks driving away and the metallic thud of rounds hammering the disabled track on the other side of the wall. When he peeped over the wall, he saw crowds of Iraqis beginning to close in on the track. That’s it. We’re all alone.

  The marines started yelling at each other.

  “We got to get better cover.”

  “Have we got everyone?”

  “We need some covering fire.”

  Robinson looked back over the wall and noticed another track burning about seventy meters away. He saw two figures limp out of the smoke, away from the track, and try to get to their position. Who the hell is that? Their faces were black, and their hair was frizzled and singed. At first he thought they were Iraqis. Then he guessed they must be marines. But they were so messed up that he didn’t recognize them. Other marines saw them and unloaded a burst of fire to cover for them while they, too, clambered over the wall into the courtyard.

  Robinson, his face caked in mud and sweat and strained with anxiety, looked around for some sign of leadership. The most senior marine was Corporal John Wentzel, Robinson’s squad leader. To Robinson, it looked as though he had given up the fight. He was still sitting there balled up with his head in his hands. We’ve lost our leadership. Robinson knew Wentzel was injured, but he felt a pang of anger. His old resentment that Wentzel had been promoted to squad leader resurfaced. I was right about him. He’s too soft. I always knew he was a pussy. They’d been taught that when fear of death takes over there is the tendency to crumble and focus inward. The trick was to fight the fear, to take control of it and turn it into action.

  During training, out of all the infantry techniques he’d learned, the one at which Robinson had really excelled was MOUT. Everything he knew about military operations on urban terrain now seemed to flow through his body without him thinking about it. He knew exactly what to do. He saw that Castleberry had the much lighter M203 rifle and grenade launcher. Robinson still had his heavier SAW machine gun.