Bronze Star for Valor

SSG Terry being presented his Bronze Star Medal for Valor for the 24 June Battle of Baqubah. Ol' Wood Tooth is happier than a pig in shit right now. Congratulations SSG Terry. Now shut the fuck up and charlie mike. 

My cornsyrup-chugging soldier, SPC Roby and me on Christmas morning. Behind Roby is my infamous Red 6Golf, SGT P. 

9 November(D+1): Fire for Effect

“Red 6, Outlaw 1. My LRAS guy is going to lay you on a building with bad guys. There’re two guys with weapons on the rooftop. Can you take out the building with main gun?”
“Yeah just tell me where to go”

He guided us forward, describing things we should be seeing in the road. Landmarks. Suddenly, we saw what he was looking at.
“Jesus. Look at the size of that thing, I said.
“I don’t think he realizes we can’t take down that whole thing,” SGT P said.

In the distance, a huge hotel building loomed. It looked about 6 or 7 stories high.
“Hey, there are some guys crossing the road,” SGT P called out.
I looked down and saw 3 guys race across the road from north to south into the hotel. They were too far out of range to engage with the coax machine gun. Damn.
”Let’s hit it, 8.” SSG Terry and I began to pound the building with HEAT rounds. Even if we couldn’t bring it down, anybody inside was definitely getting a mouth full of 120mm.

Suddenly 5 guys came out of nowhere from the left, sprinted in front of the hotel, and then crossed the road.

I sent a sitrep to Phantom 5, telling him what I saw.

“Roger. Send a grid and continue to observe,” he said.

Hmmm. Ok. They seemed to be running towards a central location up ahead. It looked like they were running into a mosque. So I looked at my map. I had a grid to where I was.
“SGT P. Give me a range to where you saw those guys.”
SGT P fired his laser range finder and called out, “2490 meters.”
I subtracted 2490 meters from the 10-digit grid I had and called up the grid I calculated.

“Shit there goes some more!” SGT P said. 5 more guys scurried across the road from the left to right. They had A.Ks slung and a few had RPGs.

“What the fuck?” I wondered what the hell was going on.

For the next 20 minutes, we kept seeing guys in groups of 3 to 5 sprint across the road and into a building in front of a minaret. I couldn’t see what they were doing once they crossed the road. I didn’t even know if they were still there or if they had moved north, but at least 40 or 50 guys had crossed the road so far.

A guy came running back into the middle of the road from the north and threw something. It landed in the road and exploded into flames.

“Molotov Cocktails!” A few more guys came out into the road and started throwing more bottles into the street. The fire got bigger. One dude started pouring something all over the flames. It grew into a huge curtain of fire pumping out black smoke. These dumbasses were trying to make a smoke screen. I guessed that the fuel was probably diesel, judging by the way it burned and the black smoke.

I called up what we were seeing.
“Roger Red 6. Continue to observe.”
Jesus. Can’t we do something about this?
”Hey this is Red 6. Can we get some indirect dropped on these guys? It looks like these guys are going into a building by a mosque.”

I made it clear on the net exactly what we were seeing. Phantom 5 started explaining the trickiness of this fire mission, since it was so close to a mosque. ”We need to be absolutely sure of this grid. You’re definitely seeing guys with weapons running into a mosque?”

Suddenly, I became filled with doubt and fear. I knew that they were running into a building. And I wasn’t sure if it was at the mosque or real close to it. At 2500 meters, you lose precise depth perception, looking through a monocle sight.

“Sir, I don’t know if this is such a good idea," SGT P said. "Remember what a stink they made about Baqubah,” my gunner was doing his job of looking out for his lieutenant.

I was getting frustrated. I started worrying about getting in trouble and being solely responsible for destroying a mosque for no good reason. “Dammit, but we saw those dudes just running across the road with A.Ks.”

“Sir, I know what you’re seeing. I see it too. I just don’t want to see you fry, that’s all.” He felt my frustration. He had a good point. If I did nothing, then there was no way I could get in trouble. But if I called for indirect, I could either kill some bad guys, or destroy a mosque for some bad press.

Inside of me, I felt like this was a bad idea now. I started thinking that I was going to hang. But there was a part of me that didn’t want to buckle on my own convictions. I couldn’t back down now. Maybe it was pride. That’s a bad reason to ever make a decision, but I felt like it was worth frying. I knew what I saw.

The BRT was still back on the bridge at the cloverleaf more than a kilometer behind me. They pulled the truck with the LRAS mounted into a position on the bridge where it could see what I was seeing. They were going to help me out by getting a second set of eyes on the scene. 1LT Boggiano called out a grid based on what his operator was looking at.

I copied the grid and looked down at my map. “No, that’s not right. The grid you gave is too close to me. This mosque is about two and a half clicks away.” Here was the problem. The whole damn road had mosques all along it.

He sent me another grid and it was much closer to what I had calculated. He also sent me an azimuth of 265 degrees. Once we were both looking at the same thing, he called up to higher to confirm everything that I had seen. The bad guys, the fire, everything.

I thought about 1LT Boggiano’s grid. He got it from lasing the minaret. His LRAS provided a grid number, where my laser just provided a distance in meters. But we had lased a tiny building in front of the minaret. “Hey SGT P. Lase the minaret that 1LT Boggiano is talking about, and tell me how far away it is from the building where all those guys went.” 300 meters. I added 300 meters to the grid 1LT Boggiano sent me. It was right on the grid that I had originally calculated. 1LT Boggiano had gotten a grid to the minaret which was 300 meters behind the building that I had calculated a grid for.

”Red 6, Outlaw 1. Get on the Fires net and talk to Ramrod 18 directly. And if they ask for a 10-digit grid, just add a zero at the end of both numbers I gave you. Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. Also, if they offer you CAS, Accept it.” 1LT Boggiano had been the champion of indirect and CAS so far. He was killing plenty of bad guys. And just like the rest of us, he liked blowing shit up.

“You know what? Fuck it. 1LT Boggiano is backing us up. So is Phantom 5. Let’s do this shit.” SGT P was fired up now.

I was talking with the captain who was in charge of the artillery.
“Red 6, Ramrod 18. You need to be absolutely sure of this grid.”
“Roger,” I sent him the grid. “I’ve got troops in the open. Distance, 2490 meters. Direction, 265 degrees. One round, adjust fire, over.”
“Roger, send that direction in mils.”
Shit. Well, I knew there were 6400 mils in a circle. And due west was 4800 mils or 270 degrees. And the direction was 265 degrees…so…um…”4700 mils.” Sounded right.

“Roger. Shot over.” The one round to make adjustments just left the gun back at camp.
“Shot out.” I replied. I was ready to observe.
“Splash over.” It was about to impact.
“Splash out.” Any second now.

K-k-r-r-BOOM. An explosion went off right where they had all been gathering. It was dead center of where the guys had disappeared.
“Ramrod 18, Red 6. That shit was right on. Fire for effect. Fire for effect!”
“Roger. 20 rounds. Observe effects.”
“Holy shit. 20 rounds? That’s gonna be bigger than the barrage.”
K-k-r-r-BOOM. K-k-r-r-BOOM. K-k-r-r-BOOM.
“Oh SHIT! Look at that! No WAY that just happened.” I was in shock.
Explosions went up 5 to 10 stories. Huge grey clouds shot upwards. It looked like volcanoes were erupting. But that wasn't what shocked me. On top of the explosions, bodies were thrown straight up into the sky. It wasn’t like the movies at all, where the explosion goes off and the guy is airborne, flailing his arms and legs. It looked like a child threw some action figures straight up in the sky. They didn’t flail at all. They just went straight up end over end and bloomed outwards like the petals of a flower blooming in fast-forward on the Discovery Channel. It was unreal. Each explosion sent up 3, 4, or 5 terrorists up into the sky.
K-k-r-r-BOOM. K-k-r-r-BOOM. K-k-r-r-BOOM. It was the funniest thing we had ever seen. It was also unreal. You never expect to see bodies do that. So when you see it, it feels surreal

”Red 6. Ramrod 18. How was that?”
“That shit was dead on. It was perfect.”
“Hey if there’s anything left, call for a repeat mission.”

Good lord. We hammered the shit out of them. Maybe there were some more bad guys around. Ah what the hell.
“Roger. This is Red 6. Repeat 10 rounds. I say again, repeat 10 rounds.”
And the rounds came in.
3 bad guys came stumbling out of the smoke. One was clutching his belly with one arm and holding onto the sling of his AK with the other. K-k-r-r-BOOM. They disappeared.
“Daaaaammmn!” SGT P laughed. “I shit you not. I swear that round landed directly on his head.”

A round impacted on a huge hotel-looking building off to our left. (If you look at the pictures in the Telegraph article, that’s SSG Terry’s tank and my tank hammering at that hotel. There had been a few snipers on the roof of the building. The round hit the right side, top corner.

“Oh shit!” said SGT P. “There was a guy on the roof.” When that round hit the building, it looked like God himself came down and pimp-slapped him off the building. He just flew sideways like he was catapulted into orbit. And this other dude got slammed down from the roof. He hit the ground and then bounced off the pavement for another 60 meters. SGT P told us everything he saw as I kept the artillery guys informed of what was happening.

“ Red 6, Ramrod 18. Send me a BDA(battle damage assessment) if you can.”

“Roger. That shit was dead on. I saw about groups of 5 guys blow straight up into the sky with each round that was impacting. About 3 guys survived the first attack. They came out of the smoke doubled over and grabbing their stomachs. The repeat mission hit those guys right on the head and finished them off. I’d say about 20 guys were killed.”

“Red 6, Ramrod 18 roger. What about that building?”

“Roger. That building that the guys ran into is obscured from the debris but it looks gone. The minaret is still standing. The mosque looks fine.”

“Hey good job on the guns, guys. Red 6 said he saw guys blowing up…”

Ramrod 18 was now talking to the guys on the gun line. We were all on the same net. Me being the forward observer, he being the guy keeping track of friendly locations and where the bad guys are, and the guys loading and firing the 155s. He relayed to them everything I saw, letting them know their work was appreciated and well-employed.

Later that afternoon, we pulled off of the objective and let the rest of the BRT occupy the ground. When we reached the LRP, some guy Toby Harnden and some lady from CNN were looking for me. I was told they wanted to interview me but I had no idea why. Then Phantom 5 and 1LT Boggiano told me about the buzz.

The reporters found me on the ground and started asking me a few questions. Major Johnson was from 2-2IN and said he was serving as the historian. He seemed to be operating in some sort of PAO role, so I felt good with him there. I was extremely skeptical about talking to the media. For one thing, I didn’t want to say anything that would get me in trouble. Second, I didn’t trust them to portray things how they really happened. And worst of all, I didn’t want them to convey how excited we all were about killing bad guys. I didn’t want to come off looking like a blood-lusting, warmongerer.
I described the situation as it unfolded without a problem. I tried not to show any excitement. I stuck with the facts. I avoided talking about how I felt…until he asked me what I saw. I knew that I loved what I saw. And I knew nobody at home would understand that.

“Hey Sir,” I stepped away and beckoned for MAJ Johnson. “Can I tell them what I saw? I saw bodies flying in the air and all kinds of crazy shit. I don’t know what I can say or not.”

“Yeah it’s fine. Tell them what you saw. This was a huge success.”

I felt a lot better now. “Man when those rounds hit, bodies went flying up. It was fucking awesome, because I was so frustrated that we couldn’t kill all these bad guys who right in front of me..." I went on.

I finished up the interview and I asked Major Johnson what the big deal was.

“You haven’t heard? They think they got [high value target] with that fire mission. The military intelligence and psy-ops guys went through there and think maybe 50 to 70 bad guys were killed in that indirect attack. And from the looks of the intelligence, it looks like there were a lot of key leaders in there.”

Now I was really pumped. I thought about all of the key players on this mission. If 1LT Boggiano hadn’t backed me up, I’m not sure if I would have gone through with the mission. I felt like the entire BRT had my back on this one.

Weeks later, back home in Baqubah, we talked about the absurdity of this mission. We dropped artillery into another task force’s sector. Ramrod 6, at the AAR, emphasized how he would never allow that. And we all agreed. That was fucking nuts. It was hard enough to coordinate fires in such a tight spot within your own area of responsibility, where you knew where all your guys were. But observing and dropping artillery in another sector is just plain balls-to-the-walls crazy.

Red 8 on my left flank. This photo is looking due south into the industrial zone. If you look at the London Telegraph article, you'll see a picture of two tanks firing into a building full of terrorists. Those two tanks are SSG Terry and me. You can see the back of a Bradley in front of SSG Terry. These are the guys that were clueless. At this time, we were pounding a hotel-like building that insurgents had run into for cover. 

November 9(D+1): V-I-B-I-D?

D+1
ZZZip. P-e-e-e-w-w-w-w
Crack…CrackCRACK
“Oh SHIT!”
“Hey! How does it go in that movie? ‘If it’s a whiz it’s close, if it’s a crack, it’s hitting you’ or something like that?” I hollered at the humvees next to me. That wasn’t the exact quote. But I think it was from Black Hawk Down, I’m not sure. I was standing ball-defilade in my hatch. That means, from my crotch up, I was exposed. Dawn was rising in the east and we were all situated on the overpass bridge now. The tanks were in the center of the bridge, hull facing south, gun tubes facing west. This gave anybody on the ground behind the tanks, the maximum friendly cover from the sniper fire. Either way, whoever was shooting at us, wasn’t far off.


CRACK…CRACK. The bullets were just snapping as they hit the metal all around me.

“Good lord. Where the hell is it coming from?” It was funny as hell as we all looked around bewildered. It’s a funny thing about getting sniped. You’re probably waiting for me to elaborate, but I can’t. That’s it. It’s just funny. Ok…so some guy has you in his sights and he’s trying to kill you. And he hasn’t yet. But the bullets are coming damn close. And you don’t know where he is. So that’s funny. And for some reason, any time you come real close to death, but live…that’s just absurdly funny. Maybe it’s also funny because somebody is shooting little bullets at this huge tank. A tank that withstood more than 10 RPG strike and never stopped rolling in Baqubah. But here we are standing ball-defilade because that’s where the best view is.

I licked my teeth. My mouth started feeling like a Chia Pet and I had a beard now. All off us needed to get out of the tanks. Our legs and backs were killing us. We climbed out of the hatches. As we did, more bullets started snapping all around us. “Oh SHIT!”

We scrambled to get off of the turret and onto the ground behind the hull. Once we were safely there, we just laughed some more about getting sniped.

“Oh man. I gotta brush my teeth”, but the only thing accessible was a case of 20oz. Riptide Rush Gatorades in the bustle rack for rinsing my mouth. I took a few breaths, and laughed as I scrambled back up on the turret. Bullets cracked on the turret as I dove onto the blow-out panels on the back of the turret. I had some cover from my TC hatch which was open. I reached down into the bustle rack, grabbed a bottle, and scrambled back onto the ground. I brushed my teeth and rinsed out with Gatorade. It was pretty gross tasting but I felt like a million bucks. I grabbed my electric shaver and buzzed my face. My face was filthy and covered with dust but it didn't matter. I felt just a smidgen cleaner now.

The BRT commander wanted to push west into the top or north side of the industrial zone so we could take our objectives. We had spent the early morning clearing the houses immediately to our west but they were scattered and had random shooters in them. We moved along the bridge and took the off-ramp that led us into the city. The tanks led, the bradleys followed and the scouts were right behind us. We pushed forward and my tanks sat on the objective. From behind us, the scouts started taking some decent sniper fire. Windows and windshields started filling with bullet holes. Tires on the humvees started blowing out. Phantom 6 sent his scout platoons back up onto the bridge.

”Red 6, Phantom 6. Come to my location. My humvee is in the middle of the road behind you. I’ll show you where the sniper is.”

I turned our tank section around and kept the brads up front. I raced back where I saw a green humvee in the middle of the road all by it’s self. Phantom 6 was standing by the shotgun seat with his handmike up to his head. There were a few bullet holes in his windshield.

”Do you see that building all by itself way out there in those palm trees?”
“Roger,” I replied.

Hit that fucking thing. He didn’t say it on the net. He shouted it at me. I couldn’t hear him with my CVC on and the turbine running, but I didn’t have to be deaf to read lips. It was clear.

“Damn, SGT P. He’s pissed as fuck. Let’s blow some shit up for him.”

I grabbed the override and laid him onto a run-down grey brick shack tucked into the trees.

“On the way.” BOOM.

Grey smoke and debris blasted out from all sides. I turned to Phantom 6. He still looked pissed but he gave me a thumbs-up. He loved having the tanks. They were like big huge toys to him. And it gave him a power he never played with before.

It was getting close to noon and we were now occupying our objectives on the east side of the central highway running east and west through Fallujah. This road was beautiful. We faced due east. There had to be at least 5 mosques I could see on the right side of the road spread out over 3 kilometers down. Huge complexes with white brick and blue domes. Twin minarets. Five minarets. This was going to be a touchy area. On the left it was just nasty. The industrial zone. This was supposed to be the bad guys’ sanctuary. Supposedly, all the die-hard insurgents slept in these warehouses. There were weapons caches to be found, IED and VBIED factories and quite possible the real heavy resistance.

About 500 meters in front of us on the left and ride curb were two Bradleys from Terminator. I noticed the “Bada-Bing” and the sexy, white female silhouette spray painted on one of the Bradleys. It was the Bradley of a buddy lieutenant with a tribute to the Sopranos painted on the track. I wanted to say hey.

“Red 8, Red 6. Let’s go link up with those brads and let ‘em know we’re right behind them.” We were on a different net than those guys so it was a good idea anyways to do a face-to-face link-up. We pulled up to the Brads but my friend wasn’t on the Bradley at this time, so we just pointed out where we were at and pulled back east on the road to our position.

“Hey Red 8, I don’t think those guys really gave a shit. They seemed pretty oblivious.”

We drove back, did a U-ey and sat facing the west again with the Bradleys in front of us for about an hour.

“Oh shit, there’s some dudes. Check it out!” SGT P hollered.

I looked in the GPSE and saw three guys hauling ass across the road from north to south with AK-47s slung over their backs about 900 meters in front of the Bradleys.. “Damn, why aren’t those Bradleys shooting them?” The bad guys sprinted into a row of garages. Kind of like a Cole Muffler shop with the long building and several garage doors.

I looked at the guys in the hatches of the Brads through the GPSE and they weren’t even looking in the direction of the bad guys. We sure as hell couldn’t shoot at bad guys with the Brads between us.

”Let’s go 8. Let’s move up to those Brads.” I sent a situation report(sitrep) to Phantom 5 and we tore back up the road. I got side by side with Bada-Bing.

“Did you guys see those dudes run across the road?”
The Bradley commander just stared at me like I had a dick growing out of my forehead.
“Three dudes just ran across the road with AK-47s. You didn't see it?” I was furious at this point because it was like talking to a wall.

Suddenly, two more guys ran across the road and into that garage ahead and to our left.
R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r! The coax machine gun chattered away as SGT P chased those sons of bitches with 40-rd bursts of 7.62mm.
“Goddaaamn!” SGT P was pissed. The bullets kicked up the dirt all along their feet as they sprinted from right to left. Man they were lucky. I was pissed too. I wanted to see them go down.

“Alright SGT P. Let's hit it with main gun. 3 rounds each” I requested some added firepower from SSG Terry. Let’s hammer this garage. I put my video camera up to the GPSE as I watched the LCD screen of the camera. BOOM.

“Damn!” One section of the garage blew up. BOOM. I watched a red beam shoot across the ground from my left as SSG Terry nailed the garage again. BOOM. SGT P hit the garage with another HEAT round. BOOM.
“Oh shit! He hit the light pole!” SSG Terry’s HEAT round just happened to hit dead center of a street light pole. The pole went down like a tree but the round hit its target. The garage was hurting.

“Disarm the gun,” SGT P told PFC Langford. The turret smelled of cordite and carbon. I loved that smell. And the smell of the ammo storage. That little compartment had its own distinct sweetness to it, which was only exposed when the ammo door opened.

The garage was pummeled and I don’t think any more bad guys were going to try that. We probably rocked the shit out of those Bradley guys from the concussion of the main gun. Whatever. This was our fight.

“Jesus Christ. Look at this,” SGT P said, exasperated.
I bent down and looked in the GPSE. Some stupid son of a bitch was low crawling on his belly with an AK slung across his back about 700 meters in front of the tank.
SGT P was appalled, “What does he think? I don’t see him? Good lord.”

R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. SGT P aimed low and walked the rounds up. The bullets skipped along the road until they peppered him.

“Oh I got him! Look at that shithead!” SGT P laughed.
I started cracking up. The guy started turning slowly like a rolling pin.

R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. SGT P kept peppering him to finish him off but he slid up against a curb of an intersecting road and used it for cover.
“Damn, I can’t get him.”

“I’ll get him with the Ma Deuce, just gimme a range SGT P.”

“About 800 meters.”

I made the adjustment in the .50cal sight and put that crawling terrorist in the long axis of my reticle.

Df-df-df-df-df-df-df-df.

I loved that deep bass of the M2 .50cal. It was so powerful and rhythmic. It was slow enough to feel, hear and see every round. Then there were the chimes of the brass and links falling all over the top of the turret. To top it off, the Ma Deuce was spitting out API rounds. Armor piercing incendiary. That shit would go through just about anything. And the fact that it was incendiary meant it would burn any ordnance up too. Great against IEDs, explosives and VBIEDs.

The .50cal started chewing up the curb like paper mache. The bullets shredded the guy and he stopped moving. “Well that’s the end of that guy.”

We relaxed a bit as we continued to sit on that road. About 4 kilometers down the road, 2 desert tanks punched through a wall and faced us directly. It was pretty funny looking. Here were our two tanks sitting squat in the road facing west. And directly opposite, they were doing the same facing us. They looked like two hulking beasts side by side. That’s when things started to get funny.

“There goes a fucking car!” A grey sedan tore out of nowhere onto the road in front of us.
Damn. We can’t engage. We wanted to hit it with a main gun round but we didn’t want to hit those friendly tanks opposite us.

”6. It’s headed right for them. I hope they see us and don’t shoot that car with main gun either,” SSG Terry called over. We were both concerned. If our tanks got hit with main gun rounds, we would be screwed. But we also feared for the safety of those Marines. A VBIED is a powerful weapon. If it was big enough, it could mess up a tank and kill the crew members inside. I started feeling despair as the car raced towards them. But the car swerved hard right and headed north. Shit. It’s headed for Terminator and Avenger. Now we just waited to hear an explosion. Worried that our own close friends were in harm’s way.

“Iss prolly one them V-I-B-I-Ds,” SSG Terry spit over the net.

“Holy shit. Did SSG Terry just say ‘V-I-B-I-D’?” SGT P asked us. We all exploded with laughter. “Iss one them V-I-B-I-D-B-I-Ds!” SGT shouted out mocking SSG Terry.

*****For months now, I’ve been meaning to keep a log of all of the back assward things SSG Terry has said throughout this deployment. Every time he says something seemingly incoherent, we all know what he means, and the conversation continues without interruption. But my junior NCOs and I all exchange quizzical looks that say “Did he just say that?”

One time we were preparing for a raid several months ago. I wrote out the list of things we would need on a dry erase board: Flex cuffs, blindfolds, chemlights, flashlights, entry tools like the Hooligan tool, pry bar and assault ladder. When I finished my brief, SSG Terry turned to the junior NCOs and started reading the list off. “Go get these things ready: the flex cuffs, the hydrogen tool, the-“.

We all looked at each other like we were going to throw up. HYDROGEN TOOL? We all started laughing our asses off. Right in front of him, it was spelled out “HOOLIGAN” and he reads off “hydrogen.”

“Shut the fuck up, dingle-berry dick. You know what I meant,” SSG Terry yelled to his sergeants. We all kept laughing but we continued on with the brief.

The other day SSG Terry was telling me about a good soldier in our platoon. And he was convinced a certain NCO was out to get this young soldier. I couldn’t agree with SSG Terry more. SSG Terry continued to explain to me, “I just think he has a personal bandanna against this kid.”

HOLY LORD…bandanna?!? VENDETTA?. But I knew what he meant, so I didn’t even feel like correcting him. It was after midnight and we were about to roll out on a mission. I was too tired to bother correcting him.

He also likes to say that he’s “not disagreeing with you, Sir. But I’m just playing devicle’s implicant.”

It’s one of our favorite characteristics of SSG Terry. His Arkansas Speak, as he calls it. There cannot possibly be more people like this guy on this planet.************

By now, three cars had sped along this highway. All of them turned north in the direction of where our main effort was holding up. We never heard any explosions, but we continued to remain vigilant. For the BRT, we were getting deeper into enemy territory.

Me and my Brad wingman, Legion 9, screen lining west into the north east corner of Fallujah. 

SSG Terry(Red 8) driving up on the berm from in his tank, Arkansas "T" with the mine plow attachment. 

My task organized platoon in the attack position on the safe side of the berm. 2 Tanks and 2 Bradleys. 

8 November(D-Day): The Line of Departure

1900. The BRT was positioned on the highway above and to the north and east of the city. We were all oriented slightly south with flat open desert directly to our west. But it was dark. So off to my right it looked like a black ocean. And in it, the armada was pushing forward. Every vehicle had either an IR chemlight or an IR strobe on it.

“We don’t use IR strobes,” Phantom 7 had said the day prior, ‘In the NVGs, it looks like muzzle flashes.”

The BRT first sergeant was absolutely right. Those vehicles with IR strobes on them looked like they were popping off rounds. That wasn’t very smart. The rest of us had IR chemlights attached to our antennas.

Bradleys and Tanks, still 500 to 1000 meters north of the city edge, were firing into the city with their 25mm and main gun. Flashes exploded everywhere, briefly lighting up the night and allowing the enemy to take a peak at what was headed their way. The main gun rounds streaked through the blackness like red laser beams. As I watched the show in my night vision goggles, SGT P was watching it all in the thermal sights of the tank.

“So…many…vehicles,” he laughed.

In preparation for the assault, artillery guns dropped white phosphorus or “Willy Pete” on the city. The FA guys later told us this was the newest WP in the way it deployed. Whatever it was, it was incredible. As the rounds came in, they burst in the air several hundred feet above the ground. They streaked towards the ground in little spider trails burning bright orange. The WP hit the ground creating a thick white smoke screen but it still burned bright orange on the ground. This lit up the battlefield for the main effort, and created a smoke screen. The thermal sights on tanks and bradleys could still see through it, even though with the naked eye, everything was obscured.


The net call came out to prepare for the artillery barrage. We waited in anticipation. After what we had seen in artillery already, we couldn’t wait for hell to rain down 155mm all over the bad guys waiting here at the tip of the assault. Artillery has such a shocking effect. Combine that with a spearhead of tanks and you’ve got a very demoralizing warfront. The psychological impact of tanks is incredible. It instills a feeling of hopelessness and pure fear into the hearts and minds of the enemy. The reason I know this, is because at the end of the battle, and MI officer showed me an intercepted cell phone call between two insurgents. Unfortunately, the contents are secret, but I was laughing myself stupid at their distress. They were absolutely terrified and disoriented. They had no idea where their key terrorists leaders were and they were in complete shock at the strength and resolve of the U.S. Army.

Boom. A few minutes passed. Boom. Boom.

“That was IT?!?” SGT P exclaimed. “ That was the fucking barrage? Oh my lord. That was fucking gay.”

Langford and I laughed so hard sitting outside our hatches. I had been videotaping all of this and the barrage was such a disappointment. The troop net exploded with mockery. Everyone in the BRT started calling up to each other about how stupid the barrage was.

“We had a better barrage with the main gun all day. And that was with just two tanks,” SGT P said. The barrage was over in 15 minutes. Maybe 8 rounds exploded. Whatever.
The tanks approached the point where they were going to create a breech lane across the railroad tracks. Behind it came an M88 towing the MICLIC. This was going to be awesome.

Over in Outlaw Platoon, 1LT Boggiano was describing the MICLIC to his platoon. “It’s awesome. There’s going to be this huge explosion.”

In my gunner’s hole, SGT P watched the M88 lumber towards the forward most tanks poised in front of the breech point. “Ah shit. Here it comes.” The M88 looked so little in our thermal sights. Like a stupid cow or something, making it's clumsy way to the point. It pulled up to the rear of a tank and stopped.

SGT P and I tried to explain the MICLIC to PFC Langford as he and I watched the breech unfold from the two hatches. SGT P described it to us from his training experience.

“Check it out. THey are doing it just like in Hohenfels. They have the breech point secured with two tanks. The MICLIC’s pulling up. Now he’s going to launch it. This is exactly how we do it,” SGT P said. He had been to several Hohenfels rotations for High Intensity Conflict training. The outdated stuff based on Cold War tactics. Outdated as it may be, you still learn a lot about tanking. And it’s fun. Tank-on-tank brigade level warfare.

“Get ready,” 1LT Boggiano told his scouts.

I started recording with my digital camera held up against my PVS-14 NVGs. Something went up in the air. It looked like someone chucked a tiny 4th of July sparkler. It made a high arc into the sky as it shot southward. Little sparks from the rear of the rocket sprayed backwards. And then it disappeared.

“That was IT?!?” the scouts asked their lieutenant, “That was so gay.”
“Weak.”
“Sir, that sucked.”
“No, I swear there’s more. Just wait. I mean, I think there’s more,” 1LT Boggiano said, doubting himself now.
“C’mon, Sir. What happened to this big huge ex-“

BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM

My crew all exclaimed at once.
“Holy SHIT!”
“Godddd-DAMN!”
“Oh FUCK!”

A tremendous fireball erupted from the north side of the city in front of all of the tanks. It was so big that it looked like it was in slow motion. Now I knew it was happening at a normal rate, but because the explosion was so huge, the rate at which the fireball grew looked like a slow motion action movie scene. I have never seen a MICLIC before. But this was the biggest explosion I have ever seen in my life. The fireball grew and grew, feeding off of God knows what. It wasn’t a normal mushroom cloud. It was long. It was like a mushroom cloud if you looked straight at it, but at our angle, the back stretched out. Suddenly, at the base of the mushroom cloud where it was all white and orange, several explosions went off. White flashes within the smoke plume on the ground lit up everywhere. Sparks flew off of those explosions too. The MICLIC did exactly what it was supposed to do.

The MICLIC is an engineer asset used to clear minefields and obstacles. The Mine Clearing Line Charge is 100 meters of rope launched by a rocket. Attached to the rope is 1,850 lbs. of C4 explosive. The rocket carries the line of C4 over the minefield and lays it across the point you want to breech. Then when you’re ready, you detonate the charge and the C4 blasts any mines upwards and outwards. It’s like parting the seas. You hope it won’t just displace the mines, but detonate them as well. In this case, it blew up a lot of IEDs that were set up to hit the assault front.

“Oh look at that bitch go,” SGT P was watching the M88 hauling ass away from the breech point. His work was done, and it was time to let the tanks penetrate. Tanks pulled up through the breech point and pulled security as the TF2-2 moved to through the lane. Terminator went through first with their Bradley-strong company. Once they were through the lane, Avenger followed behind and pushed westward so they could get on line. From there, the 2 company teams began the attack south; Terminator in the east, Avenger on the west.

(From talking with the engineer soldiers in Avenger Company later…) The “Avenger company got on line. The tanks got side by side. And then we hear Avenger 6 get on the net saying ‘Top Hat Top Hat in 4…3…’ and we’re like, ‘What the fuck is Top Hat?’ and then ‘…2…1...BOOM!’ Goddam. Ten tanks all fired at once. It was insane. We were like ‘What the fuck!’ Are we being attacked? That shit was loud as fuck. What the hell IS Top Hat? Is that a real order?”

The engineers had witnessed their first company fire command. It’s not too often that a platoon or company fire command has the opportunity to be executed. I couldn’t even imagine how that must have sounded.


In the BRT, we watched all of this unfold from the highway. For my tank section, we thought about our close friends and peers, superiors and subordinates. All of them were pushing through the city right now. We wondered what they were going through. Was it a hornet’s nest of bad guys running around firing RPGs? The S2 told us the enemy had underground bunkers dug in, where they would wait for the tanks to pass and shoot them in the rear. Did any tanks get taken out? Did anyone get killed? We talked about wishing we were part of the main assault and not just in a support by fire position. We felt like we weren’t going to see as much action as them.

”Red 6, Phantom 6. Occupy SBF 2.”

I left SSG Terry and his Brad wingman in place, and I bounded south with my wingman to a pre-planned position on the highway.

”Legion 9, Red 6. I don’t care where you go. As long as we got each other covered. Just find a nice alley to get line of sight. It should be a turkey shoot if we see anybody.” The intent was for us to always stay ahead of the assault, shooting west or south of west and picking off insurgents running south to flee, or running north to reinforce the resistance. In the day, we had seen maybe 2 or 3 bad guys at most running around. They would appear in view so briefly that it was impossible to get a shot at them. We were hoping to see some action now that the assault began, but surprisingly, there was pretty much no activity whatsoever. We remained vigilant; SGT P was constantly scanning, looking for targets.

Since he was a senior gunner, and a proficient one at that, I left him to his own devices. I watched the center of the city where the WP continued to drop over the assaulting forces. In the heart of the assault, the city was on fire from the WP. It still burned bright orange and within it all, flashes went off from the main gun. A few rounds of 25mm would zip across the sky in a huge arc. The Bradleys were shooting high at targets and the red tracers would launch off in the black night and just go over the whole city.

It was now getting late into the night. Maybe midnight or so. SGT P started to get tired, so I picked up the scan for him with the TC’s override. It looks exactly like a flight joystick, even with all of the red buttons for the cadillacs, the laser and the fire button. Plenty of cherry lieutenants get busted out for calling it a joystick. I stared through the GPSE for the next few hours. I started feeling the exhaustion from being up for forty hours straight. And my eyes started playing tricks on me. Our instructors at OBC told us about getting the “green eye” from staring in the GPS for too long when they were in Desert Storm. Your eye starts to ache, your head starts to hurt, and you start seeing things. Maybe that last one was the sleep deprivation. Suddenly, I saw an image of The Screamer, that famous painting of the apparition with his hands at his face and his mouth screaming. It appeared in a building window, sort of hovering. I blinked a few times. It scared the shit out of me. Not because I was scared of enemy targets, but because it looked like a damn ghost.

We continued to bound south in sections, occupying SBF 3. Finally I sent SSG Terry and his Brad to SBF 4, which was on the bridge of the cloverleaf (you can see it in that Time Magazine map). When he got to the bridge, he started pounding away with his main gun west along that east-west highway. He was hitting a bunch of Hesco bastions trying to reduce the obstacles.

When the Marines were pushed out of the city back in April, they never patrolled again into the city. For the next 6 months, the insurgents used that time to build up their defenses, essentially making the city of Fallujah a military stronghold. It was too easy for them. For starters, they used the concrete T-barriers and jersey barriers that we placed in the city for military checkpoints as fighting positions. They also used the Hesco Bastions that we built for the Iraqi National Guard and Police Force(ING and IPF) from a long time back. Basically, they used our own fortifying defense assets to their advantage.

It was now around 0400. I no longer saw the need to maintain tank/brad sections, so I joined SSG Terry and had the platoon return to pure sections. Together we started pounded away at the barriers They were positioned on the highway that ran below the bridge we were on and in front of us about 800 meters. The barriers were all set up at the point where the on-ramps start to get onto the cloverleaf. We didn’t want to take any chances of IEDs being hidden in the Hesco Bastions. It was a technique I’ve seen before in Baqubah. So we just hit them with main gun rounds. Suddenly, there was a holler at the right side of my tank.

“Hey Sir! 1LT Boggiano said I should ask you if I can shoot a main gun round,” SSG Danielsen hollered.

Oh good lord. “Hang on. Let me talk to my gunner,” I shouted.

“Get a load of these scouts, SGT P. They love talking shit about tankers. Everyone loves talking shit about tankers, but you get into battle and they can’t get enough of them. And now they want to play with them. It’s cool with me if he fires a main gun, is it cool with you?”

“Yeah sure, but he’s firing from your station. I’m not getting out of this bitch,” SGT P said.

“Yeah that’s the plan. I want you to lay him on the target anyways. Just let him pull the trigger,” I said. “YO!” I screamed down at the scout.

“Oh ok,” he turned and started to walk away.

“I said ‘YO.’ Come back. It’s fine. Climb on up. You’ll fire from my station. Just put on the CVC and do what my gunner says.” He was a lot happier now. He climbed in the TC’s hatch with his big ass 6’4 self.

I stood up behind the hatch on the turret, with my feet on the blow-out panels. I held up my video camera and started filming.

BOOM. The turret rocked from the recoil and I shuffled around to regain my balance. It wasn’t bright to be standing up, but I just wanted to see what it felt like. A huge fireball blew out of the gun tube and the round went down range. Sparks shot out where the round hit the barriers. Kick ass. SSG Danielsen climbed out of there pretty damn excited. I took some jabs at him about talking shit about tankers. He went back to his scout humvees, with hopefully a slightly higher opinion of tankers.

We stayed poised on the bridge. The entire BRT was localized at the cloverleaf. The main effort had continued to push south through the city. They were going to stop just north of the east-west highway(Fran). That would be their tactical pause where they would check their fires, refit on ammo and refuel the tanks. Meanwhile, the BRT was going to assault west and take the objectives on Fran. The BRT would be in the city. Avenger and Terminator would be directly to our north. Once we took those objectives, we would have the entire north half of the city. More importantly, we had control of a core MSR that ran east and west from one end of the city to the other. If we needed to, we could now run vehicles easily in and out of the city. We could run fuel or casualty evacs by ground quickly. We could get all the way to the west to the Euphrates River and reach the Marines if we had too. The only problem was, the Marines were so far behind us in the assault, that the next two days would involve hanging around waiting for the Marines to catch up on TF2-2's right flank.

Just as it was planned, it took us 8 to 10 hours to take the north part of the city. We had been told we would fight through the night and reach Fran by morning. We knew the next thing on our agenda was to take the industrial zone, which was just south of Fran. Supposedly, there was a VBIED factory to clear. After that, we had no idea where the battle was going to go from there. Of course, the brass had a plan. But at my level, I really only cared about what was happening in the next 24 to 36 hours.

At this point, I really hadn’t seen too many bad guys. I had seen a muzzle flash that we put a HEAT round into yesterday and that was it. The rest of our fires were laid on by telling the scouts or the Marines to mark the targets with Mk-19 grenades or bullets and tracers and SGT P blasting the marked targets with main gun. Overall, it was fun shooting big bullets, but it wasn’t anything crazy. Nothing was going to prepare me for one of the greatest images I will ever remember for the rest of my life:

calling artillery on a bunch of terrorists.

8 November(D-Day): Screen Line

H-7:
”Red 6, Phantom 5. Send a tank/brad section back to the LRP(logistical resupply point) for fuel and food. Then rotate out.”

It was noon. I sent Legion 7 and Red 8 back to get fuel. The Brads were actually fine on fuel. Those turbocharged diesel engines go forever without filling up. Turbine engines are a whole different story. 6 hours is as long as we wanted to be out there before we needed another drink. We could always transfer fuel from our front cells to the rear, but that would be tapping into our reserves and that’s only for emergencies

SSG Terry and SFC Lanpher pulled off the highway and lumbered down the backside of the berm towards the fuelers and ammo trucks. We continued to fight on the highway, shooting down into the city. Earlier, around 0830, I remember looking behind me and down at the military bypass. Below me, the main effort - Avenger and Terminator - was marching into the attack position from Camp Fallujah. I knew they were watching us and envious of our position. Imagine rolling up onto the safe side of the battlefield, the city obstructed by a huge berm, and seeing your tank buddies just hammering away into the city. But you can’t see the city, and you still have eleven hours to go until you even get to enter the city.

Well now it was lunchtime, and we were just pounding away. The main gun was going to work.

“Wa-GUZSH, Wa-GUZSH.” That was SGT P’s sound for anything that required a sound effect conveying an ass-whipping.

I remember about 8 months back we were sitting in our tanks along a highway in Baqubah and SGT P was regaling his crew with a bar fight story. “…And then SSG Mac hit that dude in the jaw…Wa-GUZSH,”

“SGT P. What the hell is ‘Wa-GUZSH?’”

“It’s from an Andrew Dice Clay routine. Something about an alarm clock going off, Wa-GUZSH, Wa-GOUZSH, Wa-GUZSH!”

SGT P is about the most animated storyteller I know. Dickey…O’Rourke…You guys know me and my storytelling. My gunner tells stories with so much flailing, it makes me look comatose.

SGT P does his impression of the 1982 Cal kick off return to Stanford where the dude slam dunks the football into the trombone player of the Stanford band in the endzone. Even that slam dunk warranted a Wa-GUZSH. For the record, SGT P is about the main reason I stayed with this tank platoon when I was offered a specialty scout platoon with the BRT back in June. It’s not easy to leave when you have great people to work with.

We just fired the contents of our ready rack and it was only noon. “Sir, we just put about 15 rounds down range. Let’s cool it a bit.”

“Yeah that sounds good,” I said. 1LT B. was calling artillery on those houses anyways.

K-K-K-R-R-R-U-U-N-N-C-H

“Good Googaly Moogaly. What the hell was that?” SGT P asked.

“Goddam, SGT P. Did you see that? They’re dropping artillery like 200 meters in front of us.” The house in the corner just disappeared in grey and black smoke. The concussion made the air in my lungs shudder. I still felt safe even though the rounds were 200 meters ahead but I remember something about 500 meters being danger close.

K-K-K-R-R-R-U-U-N-N-C-H. The sound was unreal. Imagine someone taking a huge skyscraper. Lifting it up way high in the sky. And then dropping it on its side. That’s the only thing I could imagine sounding like that. It was not a boom or a clap. It was God slapping a building into the ground in a fit of rage.

We observed indirect fires for the next few hours. At 1500, Bravo section pulled up on the highway to relieve us. SSG Terry pulled up on the berm. His tank already looked like a shark with the huge mine plow attached to the front. Its spiked teeth set back in a grin. And then to top it off, he’s climbing up this steep berm and leveling off at the top. He really did look like some beast breeching the surface.

”Legion 9, Red 6. Let’s head for the LRP.” We backed up and turned down the berm. That in and of itself was a rollercoaster ride. A tank really is amazing in the terrain it can negotiate. We hit the flat desert ground and headed for the fuel and ammo trucks.

“Oh shit! Hang ON!” I screamed in my CVC. WHAM. There was a 4 foot drop-off in the flat ground and the tank slammed down.

“Ahhhhh shit. My FACE. Oh man.” SGT P hollered from his hole.

“Shit SGT P. You ok?” We stopped at the fuelers and I got out. SGT P climbed out of my hatch from his hole. He had a cut on his eyebrow from his face slamming into the GPS but he was ok otherwise. Desert terrain is mostly flat with wadis and ditches everywhere. The only problem is, with no vegetation and no sun, there are no shadows or contours to reveal the lay of the land. I felt pretty bad since the Tank Commander is ultimately responsible for maneuvering the tank.

“It’s alright. You’re not my first lieutenant, Sir.” He shook off the cut and got out of the tank to help fuel it up.

***I remember way back in April, we were parading around in the thick palm groves in Baqubah, looking for a counter ambush position to get the tanks into. The terrain was so tight, there was a wall on one side and a canal on the other. And the path was so narrow that half of the left side of track was hanging off of the path while the dirt was crumbling below it, into the canal. The right side of the tank was just barely missing the wall as we traveled along. I walked in front of the tank, leading with my back. My eyes were fixated on that left track, praying the path would hold 68 tons, as I stared at the center periscope of my driver’s hatch. I guided him with my hands until we reached a T-junction that ran along a berm. We had to make a sharp right because on the other side of berm was another canal running parallel to the dirt path we just intersected. So here were my choices: get this huge beast to make the hard right turn, or turn too wide and fall down into this new canal we just came upon. We inched the tank back and forth making hairline adjustments. There were points where the tank was sitting on the berm like a teeter-totter. It pitched forward and backwards on its fulcrum as my heart was pounding with anxiety.

Nothing is more embarrassing than getting your tank stuck or broken due to YOUR maneuvering. There’s a reason why the Lieutenant gets the most experienced tank commander as his wingman and the most experienced E-5 sergeant as his gunner. And as far as having a stacked deck, nobody has it better than Red 6. And I mean the previous Red 6, me, or the incoming 2LT when I leave...it doesn't matter. 1st Platoon is hot shit.

SSG Terry is from the old school. He enlisted during Desert Storm and has been tanking all of his life. He always busts on himself for his Arkansas Speak and his hillbilly “edumacation” as he calls it. But nobody knows the job better than him. And he does what NCOs do best; he provides solutions to problems and manages soldiers to accomplish the mission. He spits and barks when he’s tanking but he’s got a bigger heart than most people realize. God help you if he gets riled up though. His vocabulary reduces to "Goddam" and "Fuck." Like during a maintenance hang up, for example

"Goddammit, whatthefuck-yew-doin-downthere?? Don't make me fucking come down there and show yew how to do it again."

"But SSG Terry, it won't fit," or "I can't find it," or "I can't get it to stay," one of his soldiers would say.

This was always my favorite part. SSG Terry would get out of his hatch and get down in the dirt. He would rip whatever item the soldier was working with or kick him out of the way and do it himself. "Stop finger-fucking it. Goddam, how many fucking times have we done this? Do I gotta do everything myself?" He would then jerry-rig some contraption or ram the bolt home and Presto! The problem was solved.

SGT P started out as SSG Terry's driver and trained under him as his driver and eventually his gunner. He was a lot milder than SSG Terry, but he was similar in so many ways. He was a fast learner and a problem solver.

“SSG Terry is so damn salty and crusty. With his wood teeth and no gums,” SGT P said. I laughed my ass off. The man had real teeth but they were so stained from coffee and cigarettes that they had a grain to them like plywood. And they were like long wooden posts because his gums had receded so much. Wood Tooth Terry, SGT P called him.

With SSG Terry as my wingman, I could always rely on him to negotiate terrain. It was my job to maneuver the platoon, but in hairy spots, SSG Terry was a billygoat in a tank. I always knew where I was but if I had any doubts about passing through, I could just let him find a way through the muck. He had so much experience, he’d seen just about everything. Now with an NCO like SGT P on my tank, there was always someone on my tank I could refer to when I had my doubts. The worst officers are the ones who ignore their NCOs.


SGT P expressed his relief when we pulled out of that counter-ambush hide and got back on the hardball. He just trusted me on this one.

“Oh God I was terrified in the gunner’s hole,” he laughed. “I can’t see shit except the little tunnel vision of my gun tube sight. All I feel is the tank rocking back and forth and I have no idea what’s happening. That’s when I grab the Oh Shit Bar and hang on.” SGT P relaxed again and let go of the small metal handle bar that’s mounted at the top of his station.***


Back in the LRP, we refueled and pulled up to the Ammo truck. “We need more HEAT rounds,” SGT P hollered at the support guys.

I looked at my watch. It was 1600 on Monday. I hadn’t brushed my teeth or slept since Sunday morning. We grabbed a box of Otis Spunkmeyer muffins and Powerbars to throw in the sponson box(side of the turret storage boxes) and a case of Gatorade to throw in the bustle rack. When we were finished, I rounded up the infantry guys and we sped back to the highway.

We crested the berm and leveled out. The highway was littered with brass. There were huge puddles of 7.62mm brass and .50cal brass everywhere. Mk-19 grenade shells and links were all over the place. There was no doubt there was a firefight here. We continued to pound away at the city with indirect fire. 1LT B. was lethal with his call for fires. He tried not to take credit for it, crediting the LRAS for doing all of the dirty work, but he still took the initiative and made the adjustments on the rounds. His fire missions were taking out guys on rooftops everywhere. Those two enemy mortar rounds in the morning were the only two mortar rounds we took in the LRP that day.

We had fired almost 40 main gun rounds today. And by we, I mean my tank alone. The last serious engagement we had been in was 5 months prior in the Battle of Baqubah. We had fired 3 main gun rounds into the city that day and we had a hard-on for days.

I wondered if the enemy had any clue as to what was about to hit it. I couldn’t believe we were about to roll tanks into the tight streets of Fallujah. It was awesome. I remember sitting in an auditorium in Ft. Lewis, WA the summer of 2001 after my junior year of college. I was a cadet and we were getting a brief on the future of the army. The age of Armor was over, the slide show told us. Heavy tanks had no role in today’s army. We need to be lighter and faster. Well, I chose to go Armor the first minute I laid my eyes on a tank that summer. When I was branched Armor my senior year, my peers told me I wouldn’t even be on tanks. I’d probably be more like motorized infantry, or be on armored vehicles. BUT TANKS WERE OBSOLETE, the message screamed at me. Then I remember what COL Hoge from 4th ID told all of us officers from Task Force 2-63 in Germany, one month prior to deploying here. This place was designed for tanks. Tanks rule the land here. There isn’t a mission tanks can’t do in Iraq.

Damn Straight.

I shook my head in awe. The war machine was churning. The pieces were aligning themselves from what appeared to be a chaotic array of individual vehicles into a lethal arrangement of modern day phalanx. Like the Spartans dropping their spears in unison, the Abrams and the Bradleys formed side by side from front to back, gun tubes and armor orienting south. PCs and humvees brought up the rear. M88 recovery tracks roared loudest of all. With their twin turbocharged diesel engines revving, they were ready to pull a tank out of a shit-storm if one went down.

The main assault was about to begin.

8 November(D-Day): First In

H-19hrs:

”This coffee is good as hell,” I said.
“The only good thing about this camp is that their coffee is good as fuck. Strong,” SSG Terry replied.

SSG Terry and I had been standing by the hasty mess tent known as an MKT mobile kitchen trailer, set up halfway between the motor pool and the sleep tents. It was midnight. We’d been drinking coffee since 2000. I was too excited to sleep and I figured, Well I’m gonna be up for a few days straight now…might as well get some Go juice in me. We mostly talked about family; his kids, his wife, my fiancée. SGT Pritsolas and the soldiers had been racked out on the turrets for the past few hours. I don’t know how they could sleep while it was so cold out. By 0100, I couldn’t stand on my feet anymore. That and SSG Terry’s stories were making me sleepy. We headed back to the tanks.

I climbed up on the turret. SGT Pritsolas and my driver, SPC Mewborn, were curled up in the fetal position with their palms wedged together between their thighs. They were cold and restless. I grabbed my poncho liner, my woobie, the greatest piece of American Military kit ever invented, and draped it over SGT P. Mewborn was laying on the edge of the turret. “Mewborn, get over here and get between us.”

I remembered what our R.I.s told us at Ranger School. “It’s not gay if you’re cold, men.”, as we lay huddled in mud. Four rangers, nut-to-butt, at night in the mountains shivering under a poncho.

“Relax guys, it’s not gay if we’re cold,” we laughed as the three of us spooned against each other on the blow-out panels. Mewborn was in the middle and I knew he was sitting pretty. Every time one of us shifted, warm gusts of air would slip out from behind me from all of our body heat.

I never fell asleep. I kept shaking with laughter at the artillery guns firing. It was so devastating. I kept turning and cranking my neck to see the HE burn in. God it must suck to be on the receiving end of that.
Less than an hour later, it was time to get up. The soldiers from the BRT started walking down from the tents to prep the humvees and bradleys. We got in our tanks. SGT P did his prep-to-fire checks. I linked up with the Bradley PSG, Legion 7, who was now my platoon sergeant. We were ready to go to line the vehicles up at 0330.
”Fire it up, Mewborn!”

The best part of my day is hearing that turbine engine wind up. The jet engine starts out deep and low. It builds up slowly as it whines higher and higher. If you listen closely, you can hear the rise of new low pitches, winding up at different points in the engine-start. The power pack gets to its peak screaming and then settles back down to a lower pitch. If you’re obsessed like me, you get the sensation that this 68-ton beast just stood up slowly and dramatically. Took a deep breath, mass rising and then settled into her armor, drinking 8 gallons of JP8 in 30 seconds just to wake up. And by obsessed, I mean a big dork.

We pulled around in the moon dust of that motor pool and started lining up the BRT in the order of march. My tanks and brads would be bringing up the rear as we left Camp Fallujah for the attack position. In front of me were two platoons of the scouts, and one platoon of the 2-2 scout platoon, Stalker Platoon. Once we were in position, I started looking for anybody who knew what was going on. The CO, the XO, anybody. I found my buddy LT in the BRT, Outlaw 1. He knew about as much as me. We were all trying to get the enemy graphics on our computer screens in our tanks and command humvees. Someone had the foresight to bring out a marmite of coffee. Down went another 3 cups of coffee.

That’s when the cold rain started. And it doesn’t rain often in the desert. Pray for rain. Back at the Brigade TOC in Baqubah. Rain causes the det cord to fail on the IEDs. Also, the rain would suppress our dust trails so we wouldn’t leave such a large signature leaving this place and getting into position. I thought about all those friends, families, and strangers who said they prayed for us all the time and I wondered if this rain was coincidence.

At 0445, we rolled out of the motor pool and snaked our way through the camp until we hit a northern wall. We turned west and headed out for the main highway that runs north and south along the east side of Fallujah(as seen on the map in Time Magazine Nov 22). The highway runs along a berm that’s about 60 feet above the city, so we skirted the east side of the highway on what we called the military bypass.

“My TIS looks like shit,” SGT P said. The thermal sight on the tank was all blurry from the cold rain. It was fogging up the sights. “I can’t even see 100 meters in front of me. Shitty.” He turned the defroster on.

I looked through the GPSE(gunner’s primary sight extension) to see what he was seeing. Crap. I can’t even see the humvee right in front of me. This sucks. We won’t be able to kill shit. Suddenly the rain became a curse and I just hoped the defroster would work it’s magic.

After an hour, we reached the attack position. The highway on the berm was
to our left and we were completely out of sight of the city. We had brought the quartering party with us; their job was to mark the positions for the main effort to line up. By 0700, I was lined up with my tanks and brads, the humvees were fanned out in front of me. Outlaw 1 took his platoon to the top of the berm to observe the northeast corner of the city and the breech point. We were just sitting quietly at this point. By now, the main effort was waking up and getting ready to roll out. They should be leaving the camp by 0800. I looked back. SSG Terry was standing at the top of his turret pissing off of the side.

”Red 6, Phantom 6. Push your tanks and brads out past the humvees and pull security.”

“This is Red 6, roger.” We pulled forward some, leaving the center of the attack position vacant. I pushed the brads out to a huge pile of dirt. They pulled up to it and dropped their back ramp. 4 little crunchies trudged out of the back, climbed up the hill of dirt and laid down in the prone.

“Man, look at those guys. Infantry crack me up. Getting out of their vehicles to go lay in the mud. God that sucks,” I said to my crew. We had nothing but respect for the infantry, but we didn’t envy them right now. I had already done my time lying in the mud at Tank Appreciation School, a.k.a Ranger School.

BOOM! Holy shit. I looked back. Right in the middle of the attack position, a mortar round had exploded.

”Looks like the FLA may have been hit. We’re checking for casualties now.”

Wow. Shit’s starting already and it’s only 0800.

”Outlaw 1, Phantom 6. Can you find a point of origin on that mortar round?”

1LT B. had 2 of his humvees on that berm looking for an observer or mortar tubes with his LRAS. He kept requesting to get his other two trucks on the berm but Phantom 6 wouldn’t allow it yet. Outlaw 1 started putting MK-19 rounds into the city.

”Red 6, Legion 7. Why aren’t we getting in there? If they are gonna screenline, at least put something in the fight that can reach out and touch somebody.”

I couldn’t agree with him more. ”Phantom 6, Red 6. We are REDCON 1. We are ready to go up there if you need us.”

“This is Phantom 6, negative. Stand by.”

BOOM! Another mortar round hit the back side of the berm, our side of the berm, right behind the Outlaw humvees. Dammit. Get us in there. The fight’s started. Let us do some work.

”Red 6, Phantom 6. Get up there now and find out where the hell those mortars are coming from.”

“This is Red 6, roger. Team Mech, this is Red 6. Let’s get up on that berm and assist Outlaw 1. Alpha section take the left, Bravo take the right.”

My Bradley wingman and I raced up the berm. It felt like we were going straight up, that berm was so goddamn steep. We pulled up and saw the humvees and 1LT B. standing in the street. My other section pulled up on my right.

“Hey Chris, what’s going on? What do you need?” I hollered at my buddy.

“There’s a guy in that building right there in the corner. Can you hit it with main gun?”

Can we hit it with main gun? Ah ha ha.

“SGT P. Put a HEAT round in that corner building.”
“Roger. On the way.”
BOOM.

The tank rocked. The house vanished in a grey cloud of smoke and debris. The explosive blew debris out all of the windows.

“ HOLY FUCK THAT’S LOUD. That’s close. The one next to it.,” 1LT B. said.
“SGT P. The one to the right of it.”
"Roger, on the way.”

BOOM. The next house was out of commission. Anyone alive in it was dead. I looked over at the scouts in the humvees. They were laughing at the ridiculousness of this main gun. It was so loud and so violent. It would make me feel sorry for the bad guys, if I didn’t hate them so much.

We pushed south a few hundred meters. One tank and one brad.

”Legion 9, Red 6. Push south of me and link up with those Marines. See if they need help.”

Legion 9 linked up with Marines in humvees and LAVs. They were shooting 5.56mm and 7.62mm at a few large buildings. I pulled up beside them.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“We’re taking sniper fire from that building,” a Marine replied on the ground.

“Just keep hitting it. We’ll see your tracers,” I said.

T-t-t. T-t-t. R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. T-t-t. The sound of the little M16s popping on 3 round burst. And the M240 machine guns rattling off a 20 round burst of 7.62mm.

“Good Lord SGT. P. These guys are shooting small arms at this fucking building. Do you see the bullets hitting the wall?”

“Roger.”

“Good. Take it out.” I looked in the GPSE to see what SGT P was aiming at. There was a huge bare wall with a few bricks pushed out. Out of one of those bricks, the tiniest little muzzle flash was coming. Probably from an AK-47 or a Dragunov sniper rifle. SGT P. centered the red dot of his reticle on that little spark.

“On the way.” BOOM.

“Ah HA. SGT P. Did you see that? That little shithead, hiding back there with his rifle. Man, he just took a 120mm HEAT round to the face. Ah HAHAH!.”

There was no way of telling if we killed one guy or several. I didn’t care.

“Goddam, Red 6. Makes my 25mm look like shit. What the fuck?” Legion 9 said over the net. I could understand. I can’t describe how loud that main gun is but the concussion doesn’t feel like a gun. It just feels like a damn bomb went off on your head. And this was the first time anyone had ever been this close to the main gun going off from the outside. Inside the tank it’s not so bad. Of course, I was adamant about video taping the gun firing. So I was developing a pretty bad headache.

I looked at the Marines. They had huge smiles on their faces. I could see them mouthing the word “YEAH”. One guy gave me a thumbs-up and was laughing.

“I guess we got the sonofabitch, SGT P.”

It was 1000. We had been up for over 24 hours already. There were still 9 hours left until the battle was supposed to begin...and the BRT was just getting started on pummeling Fallujah.

Fallujah Movie

hunglikeastudbull : Fallujah the Movie

prakred6: i hope your kidding

hunglikeastudbull : oh no

hunglikeastudbull : i hear they are going to have Val Kilmer play the part of me

hunglikeastudbull : and the indian guy from Van Wilder play the part of "Red 6"

prakred6: i heard Apu from the Simpsons was playing me

You've been waiting for it. SPC Roby chugging Corn Syrup for $100 bucks. If you are confused, read post Controversy at the River. 

7 November(D-1): The Plan

***NOTE*** THe November 22 issue of TIME provides a pretty good map of Fallujah. Although it has its limits, I will refer to some graphics on that map.

Who the hell am I? I just got here and I'm supposed to brief a plan to men who've been here for 3 days, who've already gone out on a recon and seen the battlefield, who've thought about nothing but Fallujah for almost a month. Meanwhile, I was drinking beer and partying with my friends for the last two weeks. Please wait while I wipe the crust from my eyes and the dust off my rifle.
Task Force 2-2 Infantry was a battalion sized element, hand picked and designed to do one thing in Fallujah: Isolate, fix and destroy. 2-2IN is the one infantry battalion of 3rd Brigade. When 2-2IN gained an engineer platoon from 82nd EN and a tank platoon from 1-63AR, it was no longer a pure mech infantry battalion. It was now Task Organized. With this TO, it is referred to as a Task Force. You can task organize a unit so that it is shaped precisely to do what you need to do. Almost every battalion in Iraq is task organized. Avenger Company is task organized because we gave away a tank platoon and gained an engineer platoon before we entered Iraq from Kuwait. That makes us Team Avenger. And even though Bravo and Charlie are pure tank companies, 2-63 AR BN is now TF 2-63.

For Fallujah, TF2-2 was comprised of their headquarters company which provided all of the command and logistics at the battalion level plus the scout platoon and mortar platoon. TF2-2 had brought one of it's own mech infantry companies, Alpha company, nickname Terminator(TO'd with two Brad platoons and a tank platoon). TF2-2 had a tank company attached, Team Avenger(task organized with two tank platoons and one engineer platoon) from TF2-63. Finally, it had the Brigade Reconnaissance Team from FOB Warhorse(TO'd with 2 scout platoons and a mech infantry Bradley platoon). TF2-2 further TO'd the BRT by giving the BRT two tanks from Avenger, and giving two Brads from the BRT to Avenger in return. For the first time, Avenger had infantry. And for the first time, the BRT had tanks; firepower on the ground it had never reckoned with before.

As a scout element, the BRT's primary mission was to screen line. Get eyes on the battlefield way before the main effort reaches the attack point. Be the forward observer for the TF, calling indirect fire on any enemy targets. Destroy any enemy mortar positions, sniper positions, and enemy strongholds. All the while, providing reconnaissance for the main effort, observing enemy activity.

The BRT's assets included a valuable tool known as the LRAS, Long Range Acquisition System. It's a powerful sight allowing us to get eyes deep in the battlefield. Our mission in the BRT, was to escort the quartering parties who would occupy the attack position on D-Day. Then we were to get eyes on the battlefield 10 hours prior to H-Hour(1900) which was LD time(the time when the task force crosses the line of departure...the line of scrimmage, if you will).

The main effort of TF2-2 was made up of Terminator and Avenger. They were to storm through the city from north to south doing something unprecedented; rolling tanks and bradleys through the tight streets of Fallujah, going from house to house, clearing buildings and killing every enemy force in sight.

"No dismounts will enter a building that hasn't been cleared by artillery or main gun fires. The infantry will mop up the rubble." That was the intent our leaders were pushing. I loved it. A tanker's paradise.

For the first time, tanks and brads were being used in the same sentence as CQC-close quarters combat. This was normally a light infantry-game only. We were going to re-write the textbooks at the Schoolhouse.

Prior to LD, my platoon of two tanks and two brads were to set up on the highway in the east in a Support By Fire position(SBF) and engage due west and shift our fires south. We were to kill the enemy as they fled from north to south. It would be a turkey shoot. They would run for their lives and we would blind side them. We would always stay in front of the main effort and to their east. As they pushed south, we would push farther south. As long as we didn't shoot one bit north of due west, we knew we wouldn't be shooting friendlies.

The plan was to start fighting at 1900. It would take about 8 to 10 hours to storm through the north half of the city and reach Phase Line(PL) [Julie]. Julie was the major highway that ran east and west and cut the city in half. The Marines would be to the west of TF2-2. They would be doing the same thing, but on foot. It was going to take them 48 hours to accomplish the same thing.

I briefed my men on this plan. We would set up in SBF 1. As the main effort reached certain PLs, we would bound south as a tank/brad section to SBFs 2,3, and 4, putting 25mm HE, 120mm main gun, 7.62mm and .50cal into anything that posed a threat. That was the Operations Order(OPORD) for taking the first half of the city. After that, we would receive the plans for the rest of the battle in fragments known as FRAGOs, each day. Since things change based on so many factors, it was easiest to give the small maneuver units the initial plan, and then adjust off of what the enemy was doing, and how well we were holding up.

I was confident in my ability to fight under pressure. My pure tank platoon had been in heavy contact in Baqubah on June 24 and we laid waste to the most dedicated enemy fighters I have ever seen. Those guys were so dead-set on dying for a cause that there was nothing we could do but accomodate them.

When I finished briefing my platoon, half of whom I just met for the first time, I couldn't help but wonder if they were thinking, "Who is this guy? He just got here yesterday from two weeks of drinking beer and sleeping in late and now he's going to tell us what we're doing? We've doing nothing but studying Fallujah since mid-October. Furthermore, they were infantry and I was a tanker, there's not much love for tankers in this world. Everyone thinks we're big dumb idiots.

We were told to bed our guys down by 1900. For the BRT, it was a 0200 wake up on D-Day. Line up the vehicles and roll out by 0445.

"This 1900 lights out is bullshit. No one's going to be able to fall asleep. This shit is too crazy," SSG Terry said

"Hey Guys, just so you know, I'm sleeping on my tank," I told my section as I grabbed my assault pack. Inside was a change of shirts, my toilet kit, and some socks. Outside, my sleeping bag and my weapons cleaning kit were attached.

"Fuck that, let's just stay in the tents. It's warmer," SSG Terry replied.

"Well, I just don't feel like walking all the way to the motor pool to get REDCON1(ready condition 1 meant engines running, crew in position, we can roll out now)." That was a load of crap. The truth was, I just wanted to get my game face on. Everything felt different now. This was so huge and I was thinking about how we were going to be sleeping in or on our tanks for the next two weeks. I didnt think I was going to be able to sleep in the tent anyways; we were all too excited. I felt like I was taking this more seriously if I just stayed close to my tank. I walked out of the tent. To my surprise, my crew, and eventually my wingman and his crew followed me. I think they felt the same way.

We got to the tanks and laid out across the top of the turret. It was dark, but it was impossible to sleep anyways. The 155mm artillery guns were hammering away at Fallujah. It was so loud on the camp. And off in the distance, you could watch the 155 HE burn in as it came upon the city. You couldn't see the city but we knew where it was. Huge curtains of fire rained down right above the horizon. It looked like the backdrop to Hell. Those sorry sons of bitches. They really want to stick around for this fight. Fuck 'em. They are gonna be worse than hammered dogshit after this.

I kept thinking about those 4 American contract workers; burned, mutilated and desecrated in Fallujah. Hanging from the bridge. "Fallujah is the graveyard of Americans" one poster said. Damn these insurgents. Damn the time it took for us to raise this warmachine and bring retribution to these less-than-humans.

Snipers beware.

Check out the last picture in the slide show. I'll be getting to this day soon. Take THIS, sniper. You might be asking yourself why the heck I would fire a rocket into a building when I have my tank right there. In fact, why would I get OUT of my tank, while taking accurate enemy sniper fire, to shoot a rocket in the open when I have the most precise and lethal fire control system built into my tank? Because shooting a rocket is cool. Also, I'm from Syracuse, not Albany. But I guess it's all the same to you Non-Upstaters.

Articles

Telegraph Article

Indians speak!!!

Battle of Baqubah

The Brigade Reconnaissance Team

6 November(D-2): Enter Camp Fallujah

At 0830 in the morning, two black hawks were specially arranged to get the 6 of us and 3 BRT soldiers to Fallujah. The birds came down in a mess of rotor wash, and noise. I love it. I never get tired of helicopters. I remember in Ranger School, after all of the humping through the mountains with excruciatingly heavy rucks, the birds would extract us at the end of a mission. I would look down as the ground plummeted, and watch us slip forward with ease. The ground would pass below us so quckly and I would think...MAN, WALKING SUCKS. "Why walk when you can ride?" is the tanker's motto.

I seemed to be the only one in charge, so the crew chief looked at me and said, "I have no idea what your mission is. We're supposed to touch down, drop you off and get outta there."

I wasn't sure if they knew we were going to Fallujah. Wait a minute, of course they do. How the heck would they get us there then? "Well, stick around when we hit the ground, I think my First Sergeant wants to send some soldiers back on R&R now that we're coming."

I thought about what he said. I looked at the faces of my soldiers and it was business as usual on their mugs. But this was so much bigger than anything we've ever done. I looked at the pilots and crew chiefs. A quote from an infantry colonel addressing us when we were cadets rang in my ears, "Why would you want to be the bus driver for the football team? Don't you want to play?" I looked at my bus drivers, and thanked God I was a tanker. I was going into the fight. And I couldn't wait.

Forty minutes later, we touched down at Camp Fallujah. The first thing I noticed was that the helipads were scattered with grey AH-1 Cobras. Yep, Jarhead town. A captain from 2-2IN greeted us with a few Humvees. We threw our bags in the back and drove off to our new home.

A sign greeted us. "WELCOME TO CAMP FALLUJAH. USMC" Welcome signs always seem so cheery. As if we're not in a warzone.


As we pulled into the motor pool, I saw my wingman's crew guiding his tank around. I asked to stop the humvee and I got out. I sprinted to my soldiers, "YEAH BUDDY!" I grabbed the two of them and shook them with excitement.

"YEAH SIR, you made it!" SPC Dawes said. He was a soft spoken soldier who spent a lot of time away from tanks. But SSG Terry's loader was on R&R and Dawes was filling in for him. So far, he had done nothing but good for SSG Terry. But if you've ever seen Full Metal Jacket...that's SSG Terry: old school. A long time ago way before I ever arrived to this unit, Dawes had been his driver. Right in the middle of a gunnery range, Terry tore into Dawes so bad about his driving that Dawes broke down and cried. Terry kicked him right off his tank. Dawes spent a long time working fuelers and driving trucks for Support Platoon. Now, Dawes was back on a tank and thankful for this shot. SSG Terry was thus far pleased.

I looked back at the Humvee and realized how lame this loss of military bearing may have appeared. Here I just sprinted towards my soldiers and grabbed them like old buddies. I really didn't care. My platoon was the tightest in the brigade. We were a family. I was so glad I made it to the fight on time.

My entrance into our living areas was less than grand. It was 0930 and everyone was still asleep. They had spent almost 18 hours yesterday from 1100 to 0530 this morning doing a rehearsal and a feint into Fallujah. Now they were all sleeping in. I was slightly anxious about getting caught up, since we were going to attack in two days and I was more or less clueless about what was happening. My gunner, SGT P, woke up when he saw me.

"Welcome back, Sir."
"Don't get up, SGT P."
"Don't worry about it. I need a cigarette."

SGT P told me all about the rehearsal yesterday that took the task force up to the attack position. They had reconned the site where they would stage for the attack and where we would breech into the city. "Oh my lord, Sir. You should have seen it. There were more vehicles than I have ever seen in my life. There were tanks, bradleys, humvees and PCs as far as you could see, stretched out across the desert. It was sick."

"Yeah well, I heard that yesterday was a reduced force rehearsal. Only the key leaders were out there with you. That was only 25% of the division task force for the assault."

"Sweet Jesus. This city has no idea what's about to hit it."

---

D-1: The plan of attack. The BRT.

Mmmmm...thank you friends who sent coffee and hot cocoa...oh and TONY AND MCQUIGG...I used the honey to sweeten the coffee. I think it was you guys who sent me that. Good stuff. 

Mr. Abrams the coffee maker. If you take the lid of a .50cal ammo box and pound the side lips down, you can slip the lid into the back grill of the exhaust. Then set your canteen cup for about 2 minutes. Let the 900 degree exhaust of your jet engine heat that puppy up and BAM - hot water for shaving, Ramen noodles, coffee, washing your face, etc. At the river where it dropped below freezing at night. Making myself a hot cup of jovial on my front slope. 

Controversy at the River

So I just got back from securing the military bridge at the Tigris River. I got into a heated debate with my platoon. For some reason, there was a case of 1 quart bottles of corn syrup that Support Platoon brought with the chow. My platoon was convinced that I couldnt drink it in 3 minutes or less. I felt that with my fraternity experience as a pledge freshman year, and all of the kegstands, beerbongs, and shotgunning of beercans, I was more than qualified. Well I couldn't even get one swallow down without gagging. I kept throwing it up. We decided it was impossible.

Then we decided that SPC Roby could do it. This kid was the Platoon Daddy's loader. He is from Guam and he eats all the time. He's short but he's jacked and is always chewing on something. Well he took the challenge. He whipped out his proverbial pimp-hand and bitch slapped me down by guzzling his quart of corn syrup in about 30 seconds. And when he was finished, he ate a few muffins and a couple of juice boxes for good measure.

At this point, I retired to my corner of the riverbank. I realized I had lost any credibility with my men. It was over. Until someone challenged me to chug a quart of Tobasco Sauce in less than a minute. I knew my reputation depended on it. I grabbed the bottle, ripped off the squirt cap with my knife and drank. It went down no problem. Then after about a minute, it felt like someone stabbed me in the stomach with a knife. I doubled over and couldnt stand up. My throat wouldnt stop burning. Suddenly, I puked up the whole quart and most of it went out my nose. That burned pretty bad. Every time I wretched, globs of Tobasco whipped back in long strings right into my eye. It was horrible. That burned even worse. It's 6 hours later and I'm back at Fob Scunion. I am still burping up Tobasco and it makes me quiver. Just writing this blog has made me gag twice in memory.

I won the hearts of my men back and I'll be posting a picture of Roby chugging that syrup. I swear he actually enjoyed it.

5 November (D-3): Return from R&R

I entered Iraq from Kuwait yesterday, November 4th. We had flown into Balad Air Base, or what the Army calls Logistical Support Area Anaconda, by C-130. I spent the night there, and by 1300 today, 5 other soldiers from Avenger Company were on a 5-ton with me headed to FOB Scunion, Baqubah. Our company had already left for Fallujah yesterday in Humvees and with tanks loaded on the back of flatbed HETs(heavy equipment transports). The six of us returning from our two week vacation were to hit the ground on Scunion, pack our things and head out to Fallujah tonight.
We reached Scunion by 1500. We had two hours to empty our R&R gear, and pack what we needed for Fallujah. A duffle bag with shirts, socks, PT gear, 2 boots, sleeping bag, 2 extra DCUs, and snivel gear for the cold. We gathered all of our sensitive items like our weapons and night vision goggles. In my room, my platoon sergeant left a note for me:
"Pack your shit, check under your pillow, and get your ass to Fallujah."
Under my pillow, he left me all the maps, friendly graphics, and enemy graphics, and some intelligence reports. I was getting psyched. By 1700, the 6 of us were on a humvee to go across the street to FOB Warhorse. A CH-47 Chinook, the parts bird, was to fly in from Anaconda with tank parts, pick us up, and take us to Fallujah at 2300.
After we grabbed dinner, we waited by the landing pad for 2300 to hit. All of us were excited to go to Fallujah, and relieved that we weren't missing it. A few of my soldiers had missed the Battle of Baqubah on 24 June and were kicking themselves for being on R&R. Unfortunately, we were told that the parts bird couldn't take off from Anaconda tonight because it was too windy and cloudy. I went into the brigade TOC to talk to a captain friend of mine. My only concern was: "What if I miss the LD? Once they cross into the city of Fallujah, how are they going to get me into the fight?" Right now, the whole Task Force was living on USMC Camp Fallujah prepping for the battle.
While my soldiers waited outside for the bird, my friend showed me a video of a JDAM dropped out of the sky over Fallujah two days prior. You couldn't see the bomb falling but when the bomb struck the building, it set off a chain reaction of secondary explosions that went around the entire city block along the curb. It must have been over 50 IEDs daisy chained but it was just a stroke of luck that the JDAM accidently set those IEDs off.
"Pray for rain," the captain said. The whole city was littered with more IEDs than probably anywhere else in Iraq. I wasn't surprised. The insurgents had gone 6 months unmolested within the city limits. "The insurgents use cheap det. cord and when it gets wet, the IEDs usually don't set off." He also explained how the Marines had given TF 2-2IN the most dangerous sector. The enemy SITEMP was covered with yellow and red dots, indicating origins of small arms attacks, VBIED(carbomb) attacks, bunkers, fighting positions, enemy strongholds and kill zones. That was fine with me. We were an armored task force, with tanks and bradleys rolling in first. I figure by the time the dismouts hit the buildings, the only work is policing up the body parts.
"Well they plan to hide in these underground bunkers and tunnels, wait for the tanks and brads to pass, and hit them in the rear." I'd be surprised to see if the enemy was that tactically patient. Usually they shoot their wad at us. These guys are no dummies. Mostly they're just crazy.
The parts bird never came in that night. We fell asleep around midnight on the gravel and sand waiting for the bird to land.

My gunner, SGT P and me laying on the top of my tank. This is the south side of the city. We pretty much steamrolled through it from north to south and that's Fallujah burning in the background. 

Radio Check

Thanks Tony for first telling me to start a blog; Sarah http://tryingtogrok.mu.nu/ for pretty much posting for me, and Vinod at www.vinod.com for pushing me over cliff and taking the plunge. I'll try to keep this modest. Once I figure all this out, there should be photos to go with posts. One thing I intend on posting is a day by day account of Operation Phantom Fury drawn from my video and voice recordings taken in Fallujah.
Red 6 out.