The End?

In-Sha-Allah, I should be home in a few days drinking a delicious German heffe. Don't have much time to blog as we prepare to leave. I have never been happier to see another unit patch in my entire life.

The other day, we were escorting the deputy governor to Baqubah when a guy pulled up to us and blew himself up in his car, while trying to take us out. Hilarious! He only managed to kill himself. The BEST part is that his jackass terrorist friend was videotaping it and Al-Jazeera aired it, reporting that a bomber rammed the deputy governor and 3 Americans died. Our only casualty was a slightly cracked windshield. And he didn't ram us, he pulled off on the shoulder and detonated. Does Dan Rather work for Al-Jazeera? If anyone can tell me where to find that video clip on the internet, a lot of us in my company are curious as to whether they taped it while hiding in a certain village.

On a separate note, keeping my political and personal opinions out of this medium gets frustrating. But since I'll be home soon, if anyone wants to get into it over a few beers, I'm always game.

Also, I feel like I should continue with Fallujah. The best is yet to come. Sorry for not responding to all of your emails, but I do read them all. Please write again if anyone wants to initiate a dialogue.
Yours,
Red Six

Fallujah THE Movie

Nerts to Harrison Ford and his movie. Here's the REAL deal on Fallujah. U.S. ARMY's TF2-2IN created it. Combat Engineer - SPC Ronald Camp edited it. S2 blessed off on it. Jonathan Hanson is hosting it. Thanks.

SPC Camp of 82nd Engineers. Helluva job with the music, footage and timing. Oh and good job fighting in Fallujah too, Soldier.


Let me clarify. The soldiers of Avenger Company collected this footage with their digital cameras. Sometimes I just held my PVS 14s up against the lens of the camera for the night footage. In his free time, SPC Camp has assembled the footage and the mp3s into this collage of carnage.

Sepultera(I think thats how you say it or spell it)
Crystal Method: Trip Like I Do, Name of the Game
Fatboy Slim/Steppenwolfe: Magic Carpet Ride

Clearing a Bunker 

12 November: Caught In The Kill Zone

It was midnight. We had followed in the dust trails of Avenger Company. Behind my armored platoon, the scout humvees bumped and bounced behind me. Man I love tracks. So smooth. I was on Phase Line Mike, which was the eastern most north-south road in Fallujah. Open desert was on my left. On my right, just meters from my tank were two story houses. Even if the Marines hadn't cut the power to Fallujah, there still wouldn't be electricity in this city. Every power line was lying on the ground or hanging by one end. The artillery strikes and the high profile Bradleys made sure that the wires came down. I looked at the black houses. Everything had a video game feel in the PVS-14s. Besides the fact that everything was green in night vision, the image had a weird magnification to it. It was not unlike looking through pond water and having the image slightly refracted. The dark green houses looked back at me with black windows. Nothing stirred. Even SGT P wasn't picking up anything in the thermal sights of the tank.

"You know, for all that hype about the enemy having night vision capabilities, I'm not too impressed." I said to my crew.

"Yeah they haven't done shit at night," SGT P replied. Our intelligence warned us of the night vision devices found on RPG launchers. I was hoping to have a fight at night, because even night vision doesn't compare to the thermal imagery of a tank. There are heat signatures that I didn't even know existed, that show up in the sights. Looking at smooth blacktop, you can see distinct streaks in the asphalt. It's absolutely astounding how fine the resolution is in a tank.

We were now a quarter of the way into the southern part of the city. There was only another kilometer or two left until the last house. The last line of houses was where the city stopped and the desert began again. So far, not a single round had been fired. The task force decided to halt here at Phase Line Tara. It was a road that ran east and west. Avenger was mostly in front of me. When they reached Tara, they spilled westward into the city. They stayed on line and spread out across that east-west street. Avenger's Red Platoon was on the eastern flank of Avenger; but they were still in front of ME! Those bastards. The BRT was still lined up behind me.

My tank was at the intersection of Mike and Tara behind a Bradley. The two Bradleys that swapped places with me and SSG Terry before coming to Fallujah were in front and to the right of me. Next to them were two tanks. My Red 7 and Red 9. I watched my platoon sergeant, SFC Kennedy, climb out of his tank and walk over to my direction. He climbed up the side of my pig.

"Man. You won't believe the shit we ran into back there. Back in the industrial zone…" SFC Kennedy started telling me of a ridiculous story that happened to him during the day:

SFC Kennedy and Avenger company were pushing south through the industrial zone head on. The BRT was to their left. The streets in the industrial zone were very convoluted and they often ended abruptly. I know this because the BRT had to go back into it on foot and clear every building looking for weapons caches. When SFC Kennedy reached a point where he had no choice but to turn, he hollered at McGourty to turn left. But he meant "right." McGourty went left and punched through a gate and came upon a car repair sight. In Iraq, instead of using hydraulic ramps and lifts like they do at your convenient Jiffy Lube, the Iraqis just have two concrete ramps that you drive up on. The ramps lay across a pit that the mechanics work in. In this pit, just meters away from the tank were four insurgents. They never expected to see a tank drive up on them. At first, they didn't even know how to react. They just ducked. So SFC Kennedy attempted to lay his gunner, SGT Kennedy, onto the target. (Understand that SFC Kennedy is the tank commander, and SGT Kennedy is his gunner.)

"Come left! Come left! Come left!"

SGT Kennedy started traversing left. Then right, and then up. He couldn't find the bad guys. The problem was that the tank was slightly sloped upwards, and even though the gun tube was depressed as far it would go, it wasn't low enough to see the bad guys. SGT Kennedy fired main gun anyways. I would think being a few feet away from a main gun going off in your face had to mess you up. SGT Kennedy fired two main gun rounds right over their heads. They just took cover. Meanwhile, SFC Kennedy was in his TC's hatch on the M2 .50cal machine gun. He tried to lay his gun on the insurgents but the turret was traversing like mad while his gunner tried to acquire the kills.

"Man, that's when I shot my damn MRS off the gun tube," SFC Kennedy told me.

The MRS is the muzzle reference sight. It's a small tube at the end of the gun tube that allows you to re-calibrate your tank sight after firing a few rounds. It's not as perfect as bore sighting, but we weren't facing an enemy in a tank at 4 kilometers away. Our targets were within 1500 meters. An MRS update was all you needed to get a bead on your targets. And a meticulous gunner who has the time will adjust the target reticle in his sight to line up with his MRS after every few rounds of firing the main gun. When a good gunner cares about his tank, one of his fears is having his loader - usually brand new, or a lieutenant tank commander - also a rookie, shoot the MRS off of the gun tube. In fact, during gunnery, the gunner will traverse his turret 90 degrees right, forcing his loader to shoot over the side of the turret in order to hit targets in front of the tank.

SFC Kennedy didn't actually shoot if off. He just destroyed it. The mechanics later pulled the .50 caliber armor piercing incendiary round out of the MRS.

Meanwhile, SPC Roby was in the loader's hatch. He grabbed his M4 rifle and started taking single shots into the pit. The hot brass slapped SFC Kennedy in the face.

"Roby! Quit that shit, man!"

"Hey Roby, you want my grenade?" SGT Kennedy asked.

"What the fuck?" SFC Kennedy asked. "Where the fuck did you get a grenade?"
"From my buddy in 2-2IN," SGT Kennedy replied as he handed Roby the grenade.

Oh lord. Here we go, SFC Kennedy thought. I know he's gonna pull that pin and drop the grenade in the damn turret.

Roby pulled that pin and lobbed the grenade at the pit. And it fell short. But when it hit the ground, it did a miracle roll and dropped right into the pit. It blew up and killed two guys right away. From the right, SFC Kennedy's infantry wingmen had pulled up. The dismounts pulled around from behind the Bradley and raced towards the pit. One insurgent raised his AK-47 sideways over the edge of the pit and sprayed a line of bullets at the dismounts. The first soldier took a bullet in the thigh. His leg kicked out to the side and he fell down as it went limp. The soldier behind him raced towards the pit and raised his rifle. He took two shots and killed the first insurgent. Then he killed the second insurgent. For good measure, he put a few more in the chest of the first two corpses.

As SFC Kennedy finished his tale, I sat there wishing I could have seen the enemy in the eye. At least in Baqubah, I stared my enemy in the face as SGT P filled them with 7.62mm and I shredded them with .50cal. So far, all of the insurgents we had killed in Fallujah were pretty far away. Or they were in a building harassing friendlies. In those cases, we just used the main gun to make the building go away.

"You know we're gonna bust your balls about shooting your MRS, SFC Kennedy. That's a rookie move right there." We had a good laugh before he headed back to his tank. SFC Kennedy and I had an awesome platoon leader/platoon sergeant relationship. He was laid back and easy to work with. And with such awesome platoon of soldiers and NCOs, our job was too easy.

The hours dragged by real slowly. My crew was nodding off. I knew the guys were sleeping. I was going in and out of a dream state, myself. It was so painful trying to stay awake. I peeked to my right and looked at the Bradley that was just a few feet to my right. He was practically right up against the house on the corner. I felt good having him at my side. I felt like my flank was covered. A bad guy would have to get around him to get me. I knew I couldn’t stay awake the whole time, and my biggest fear was having an insurgent climb up on my tank and execute us all. Or worse, drop a grenade in the hatch.

Around 0630, the first break of daylight started to emerge. The sun wasn’t up but the sky on my left was lightening. Thank God. It was so much easier to stay awake in the day. The word was coming down from higher. Push south and prepare to clear the last of Fallujah.

At 0700, TF 2-2IN kicked off. The BRT was going to get into the open space on the left or east side of the street, just 20 meters away from the house. Avenger Team was going to go through the houses, into their backyards and clear blocks to my west, moving from north to south. The task force rumbled forward and disappeared among the homes. Phase Line Tara was now right behind us. As I moved slowly south, I caught glimpses of tanks and bradleys passing on the backside of houses. This was history in the making. A heavy armored task force was in the literal backyard of terrorist stomping grounds.

Suddenly bullets started flying in every direction. I heard the whoosh of rockets. RPGs. We were supposed to stay on Avenger and Terminator’s left flank. Stay on line or in front of them. Orient south west or at the 2 o’clock. The idea was to establish a moving support by fire position and focus on shooting everything in front of them and constantly shift fires to the left or further south. But the enemy seemed to be in every direction. Not just in front of them but on top of them, behind them and on both of their sides. We couldn’t shoot anywhere to their flanks because we would cause fratricide. So we had to keep our weapons tight. Avenger Company had vehicles in my lane and there was no room to get on their left flank, so I just stayed put. We had a serious problem with room here that would come up again and again. There were just WAY too many big vehicles. Just way too many forces in such a small sector of urban terrain.

”Red 8, Red 6. Pull back a little bit and get on PL Tara. Then move west and turn south first chance you get to turn into those houses. I’ll stay on your left flank and keep eyes on you as you move south. We’ll stay on line.”

I watched SSG Terry pull back and turn down the street moving west. I was looking down the space between that first corner house we slept near during the night, and the house adjacent to it, to its south. There were only a few meters of space between the two houses. SSG Terry popped into view as he moved from north to south in their backyards and then he stopped. The front half of his tank was behind the second house, but I could still see him and SPC Dawes standing up in their holes. SSG Terry was so high up in his hole, it looked like his ass was resting on the hatch. Suddenly, I saw a head peek from the back corner of the first house. I bent down into the GPSE to get a better look. When I did, I saw a red laser beam fire from just 10 meters behind SSG Terry…right at the rear of his tank.

“RPG!!!”
“OH SHIT,” SGT P screamed.
BOOM.

The RPG exploded on SSG Terry’s tank. The back half of his tank disappeared in a cloud of white smoke. OH SHIT. OH SHIT. OH SHIT. OH SHIT. SSG TERRY’S DEAD. My stomach turned and I felt sick. I can’t even begin to describe the feeling you get when you see your family get shot at by direct fire and disappear in a flash. All of this happened in the blink of an eye; the RPG, my thoughts, the sickening feeling. We couldn’t shoot back because there were friendly forces in every direction. It seemed like nobody knew what was going on.

”RED 8, RED 8, THIS IS RED 6. YOU JUST GOT HIT WITH AN RPG! ARE YOU OK?” I know it seems silly to tell him that. But believe it or not, in the confusion of battle, especially on something as big as a tank, it’s hard to figure out what is going on and what the explosion might have been. And there were a lot of things exploding in Fallujah. Grenades, RPGs, land mines, AT-4s, MK-19, 25mm chain gun, TOW missiles, Javelins, Main Gun, CAS(close air support) like 2,000lbs bombs, 5,000 pound bombs, and JDAMs, to name a few things.

There was a spot opening up in the smoke where I saw SSG Terry’s big round CVC helmet. He was spinning around looking for the enemy. The scene looked frantic. The sonofabitch picked up a second RPG and prepared to fire again. The turret was facing forward and both machine guns were facing to the sides. There was no way they were going to be able to traverse in time to get the machine guns on this guy. The smoke cleared a little more, and that’s when I saw SPC Dawes in the loader’s station. He was real low, just his arms and shoulders and head exposed out of the hole. He faced to the rear and looked the terrorist in the face. He watched the terrorist raise his RPG. “Oh no you don’t,” he later told me he said. He raised his M16 rifle from the turret top and took aim. He fired one shot into the enemy’s hip. The bastard bent forward. Dawes shot him again in the chest and dropped him to the ground. SPC Dawes just saved his tank, and his crew from destruction.

This was the guy who shit on himself in the driver’s hole when SSG Terry yelled at him during gunnery more than a year ago back in Germany. This was a soldier who then was sent to support platoon and was just dying to get back to a line platoon of tanks. Because he was a 19K. After this event, he became a lot stronger, more confident and more outgoing. SPC Dawes surprised us all.

”Red 6, this is Red 8. We’re fine. I just shit all over myself. Heh-haw-haw-haaaw…” He said with that hillbilly laugh of his. The RPG had struck the wall of the second house which was just inches away from the rear of his tank. I thought he was gone for sure and it was a horrible feeling. SSG Terry was lucky. That RPG could have hit the top of the turret and there was no way he could have survived. Although it’s recommended to maintain a low defilade in the turret, it is impossible to maneuver in a city. You just have to be standing up to see where you are going, where your friendly dismounts are, and where the bad guys are.

”This motherfucker has a cot set up and everything, 6. Take a look behind me.”

I looked in the GPSE at the spot where the first RPG had been fired. There was a little cot with a tiny foam mattress on it. The enemy was sleeping in their backyards. Leaning up against the wall was another RPG. I couldn’t believe this house was right in front of us while we were here during the night. The enemy had been sleeping in their backyards in little hides while an armored task force waited in their front yards. It was unbelievable and a little scary the more we thought about it. As it turned out, there were cots like this all over the place in backyards and little holes in the ground with corrugated aluminum for a top. These were what we called bunkers. The bunkers held 1 to 2 men. Right now it was early morning on the 12th of November and TF2-2 was caught in the kill zone.
 

CB: 8 November

Couple Things

Alright, I have some good news and bad news. The good news is that I’ve got Neil talking to some book people about writing a book after this whole Iraq thing is over. The bad news is that Neil hasn’t had the time to write another entry for his blog and I (Chris Boggiano) took up his offer to tell another story from our first few days in Fallujah. Also, I’m a) too incompetent and b) too lazy to start up my own blog so I’ll just write some random entries for his to give you a different perspective on things.

I know Neil has been going chronologically through the battle from his perspective, but unfortunately the vast majority of cool stuff happened in the time period that he’s already covered. So, bear with me as we go back in time to the first day of the battle.

As Neil already mentioned, my platoon was instructed to drive up on the highway that separated the actual city of Fallujah and the rest of our task force at around 0900 on the first day of the battle - about 10 hours ahead of the main body. Once up there, we were supposed to look for enemy fighting positions and call for artillery on them. For reasons still unknown to me, I was only allowed to take two of my humvees up on the road and had to leave my other two trucks parked back in the staging area.

I chose to take my bravo section because one of its two trucks had an LRAS sight. Basically, an LRAS is a sight with approximately a 50x magnification that has both daytime and thermal optics. For people who have no idea what any of that really means, I like to say that it can see a freckle on someone’s ass from 5 kilometers away if they’re wearing a pair of jeans. Also, when it sees something it can do some fancy computer stuff and figure out an exact position to a target within one meter of accuracy. Fortunately for my platoon, our LRAS was the only one working in the task force so that’s how we got picked to get into the fight a little ahead of schedule.

The first hour or two on the highway was pretty uneventful. The marines had surrounded the city days before and actually had humvees parked every few hundred meters along the road so I’m sure we didn’t really stand out very much to the insurgents in the city when we pulled up there. SSG Danielsen and I actually had to walk up to the road and meet up with the two trucks since we were both part of alpha section that was stuck back in the staging area and neither of us wanted to miss out on any of the action. SGT Bowman, who was manning the LRAS at the time, scanned the rooftops in the city and didn’t see much of anything.

Eventually we all saw a puff of smoke out of the northeast corner of the city and watched a mortar round impact in the task force’s staging area a few seconds later. Up until then, my troop commander had been up on the road with me at our position. I wasn’t a big fan of the situation because only half my platoon was capable of fighting and I had my boss there more or less running the show for me. I asked him two or three times if I could bring the rest of my platoon up on the road so I would at least have my own truck to sit in but I think they didn’t want to tip the enemy off that we were going to attack that evening. So, naturally in their efforts at being subtle they decided to bring Neil’s platoon of two tanks and Bradleys up – because they are way less obvious than humvees. I wasn’t complaining though. It’s always nice to have a tank nearby.

As soon as Neil drove up the steep embankment I waved his tank over to near my two humvees. Little did I know that it would be the first of many times in the following two weeks that I would make an ass out of myself. I ran to the back of Neil’s tank so I could tell him where we had seen the puff of smoke. Climbing up on the back of a tank isn’t the hardest thing in the world to do under normal circumstances. You basically put your first foot in the rear sprocket and grab onto the cap to the rear fuel cell because it’s the only thing that sticks out on the back of the tank. Well, it’s a lot more difficult to do with body armor on and even harder still when the back of the tank is slippery like a greased pig from the rain that morning. So, Neil got to spend his first couple of minutes in the battle watching his buddy make an ass out of himself trying over and over again to climb up on the back of his tank – a memorable experience I’m sure.

Anyway, I eventually got up on the back of the tank and told him that the puff of smoke came from the house on the very northeast corner of the city. Neil acknowledged and I hopped down and ran back to my truck. By then my commander had gone back down to the staging area to relocate the entire task force to another position to get out of range of the mortar attacks. I watched Neil drive down the road a couple hundred meters and point his gun tube toward the house in question. I yelled for my scouts to cover their ears because they were about to hear a big boom.

BOOOOOM!!!

Even though we all knew it was coming, the sound of a tank main gun going off still managed to catch everyone by surprise with its concussion and made us jump just a bit.

“Outlaw1, Red6, was that the house?”

“Try one more building down and you’ll be there.”

Firing main gun rounds was a big deal. I had been a tank platoon leader in Iraq for four months before I took over my scout platoon and hadn’t ever fired a single one because of the amount of damage they do. They also cost a lot of money. I had just watched Neil fire at the wrong house and I felt like an idiot for not describing better where to shoot.

BOOOOOM!!!

The second round went down range.

“Outlaw1, Red6, how about that one?”

“Errrr, try one more house down, I mean it this time”

By then I was cursing myself. I was waiting for my commander to come across the net and yell at me for wasting so much ammunition and to tell him exactly where the house was. Little did I know at the time that the battle of Fallujah would be the biggest free for all shootout that I would ever experience and that Neil would shoot 45 main gun rounds from his tank alone by the end of the first day.

BOOOOOM!!!

Just then Neil hit the right house. Somewhere in the ball of fire and smoke, my medic said that he spotted an insurgent limp away into an alley holding his leg, but no one else saw anything. How someone survived three tank rounds getting fired directly into their position is beyond me, but at least no more mortars were fired from that location, and hopefully the guy limping away died sometime later that day.

Shortly after Neil’s tank shot, the insurgents started coming out of hiding. We started to take some sporadic sniper fire and my LRAS gunner spotted five insurgents with AK-47’s and RPG’s standing on a rooftop. SSG Amyett, my bravo section sergeant, had hopped up on the LRAS and only minutes earlier and already spotted our first target of the day. I quickly got the 10 digit grid to the building’s location and called over to the forward observer that had been attached to my platoon. Normally, there is a protocol about how to correctly call for fire, but I was never too good at that sort of thing. Instead, I called over to him and yelled all of the different information that he needed and let him do the protocol part. After all, I figured that was his job.

Calling for artillery normally takes a long time because of the number of people involved in the process. First, whoever sees a target relays it to the forward observer who calls up a fire mission. Then, all sorts of people have to give permission for the rounds to be dropped. Next, the information is relayed to the actual canons that shoot the rounds from somewhere far far away. Finally, they shoot one single round and it almost never hits its target the first time, but that’s okay. After watching the first round impact most of the hard work is done. From there all you have to do is guess how far to the left or right it was and whether it needs to go up or down and relay those distances to the guns which then shoot another round. This process continues until one round comes within 50 meters of its target and then they do what is called a fire for effect. Knowing that the guns have zeroed in on their target, they fire a volley of rounds and try to destroy it.

As luck would have it, our protocol was abbreviated that day. We knew there were no friendly forces in the city, so I didn’t have to get anyone’s permission to fire the rounds. Also, I’m guessing the artillery guys were antsy to kill some stuff because they didn’t bother wait for the adjusting phase to completely finish. So, only a few minutes after I initially requested the mission based on the information SSG Amyett was giving me, I watched the first round impact a couple hundred meters to the right and too far in of our target. Right from there our forward observer called in the adjustment and fired for effect. Unfortunately, we then watched all six artillery rounds impact about 50 meters to the right of the building we were trying to hit. I’m sure it scared them plenty and gave them all bad headaches, but I doubt any of them were killed… until we made one last adjustment and fired six more rounds.

We all stood and listened to the artillery rounds scream overhead and watched them slam into the building where the insurgents were. Amazingly, all they had done after the first volley missed their position was go inside the room on the top floor and look out the windows. In a matter of seconds the entire building was obscured by smoke.

The final step in the process of calling for artillery is giving an estimate of the damage done and ending the mission so the guns can go on to killing something else someone is looking at.

“Outlaw1, Bulldog17, can you give me a battle damage assessment from those rounds.”

I yelled up to SSG Amyett to tell me what he could see through the thermal sight on the LRAS that cut right through the smoke.

“The whole fucking building is gone. I love my job!!!”

The rounds had impacted directly on top of the building and collapsed its weak mud brick structure. We all jumped up and down and gave each other high fives like we had just scored a goal.

Good guys five, bad guys zero.

If there were five guys on the roof I can only hope that there were more on the lower floors. All I knew is that the rest of our task force was going to have to attack through that position later that day and that was at least five less insurgents they would have to face.

Our celebrating didn’t last long. As soon as we finished calling for artillery, we started taking heavy sniper fire. I guess the bad guys had figured out that we were just two more marine trucks that were surrounding the city.

Our battle had finally kicked off, and it was still more than eight hours until the main body’s assault.

11 November: Mewborn, Crank It Up.

It was 1900 and it was dark. We were supposed to push south of the industrial zone at 1400 but the Marines still weren't on line with us. Everybody cracked some more IR chemlights and placed them on their antennas.

SGT P had come up with a clever chemlight holder. He took a .50cal link and taped it to the antenna. Since one loop of the link was fatter than the other, we could slip fresh chemlights in and out without having to mess with the tape anymore. Just an AAR tip.

We pushed off and started moving south. It wasn’t long before the road turned due south. At this point, Avenger popped out from our front right and cut right in front of us.

“Phantom 6, Red 6. Avenger just pulled in front of us. I have no clearance of fires.”

“Red 6, Phantom 6, roger. If they want to go ahead of us, let ‘em. Break. All Phantom elements, hold your positions here.”

This was the moment when all of my respect for the BRT solidified. Up until this moment, I had the same impression of the BRT that everyone else back in the brigade did. That these guys were cocky, reckless sons of bitches who destroyed everything they got their hands on. Back in Baqubah, they developed a notorious reputation. People thought they were rash and hard-handed. It seemed like they drove fast and shot up everything they saw. SASO wasn’t what the BRT was best used for. They were best used in HIC situations and that’s exactly what we were in now.

But for the first time, I was seeing a self-controlled, tactically patient unit that operated with lethal precision. I looked at the terrain of the city on my map. What was happening was that the north half of the city had finally funneled down and there just wasn’t enough space for all of these maneuver units. The north half of the city had been wide enough to support an armored company, a mechanized company, and a hunter/killer troop. But now we were bottlenecking. Avenger was forced to cross into our lane. As much as I felt like the sector was mine, Phantom 6 was right. What’s the point of butting heads? If they want to run with it, let them.

My crew and SSG Terry’s crew discussed all of this on our platoon net. We were all impressed with CPT Mayfield’s chill attitude.

“Sir, can I put my IR lenses in?” Mewborn asked from the driver’s hole.

“No. You don’t need ‘em. I’ll just tell you where to turn,” I replied. The blackness was not making it easy on Mewborn. With no moon out, he was pretty much blind in the hole. I was standing out of the hatch with my PVS-14 glued to my eyeball. All I had to do was tell him where to turn and when to go and stop. He wanted to put an IR lens on our one headlight. The light produced when IR lenses are in is invisible to the naked eye, but if you’re using a driver’s night sight in conjunction, it’s as bright as a headlight. But tanks aren’t as fortunate as Bradleys, humvees, or even M113s. Brads and M113s have white light and IR lights in separate lamps. They can switch easily between the two. Humvees have blackout drive markers and blackout lights. But with tanks, you have to get on the ground, use a screwdriver, take out the clear lenses and put in IR lenses. We used to put our IR lenses in on night tank missions when we first got to Iraq. But we learned a few things. 1) Driving in blackout with a tank just leads to head-on collisions with civilians and their deaths. 2) On tank patrols, we are not trying to sneak up on the enemy. And finally, there was this one night on Ambush Alley, SSG Terry and I needed white light to illuminate a side street immediately. With our IR lenses in, we were up shit creek without a paddle. No white light available. A lesson learned was that we would always keep our clear lenses in and let the tank commanders guide the drivers if need be.

It was annoying for Mewborn. He had no problems having to drive blind; it just sucked to be blind. But I also knew one thing. Mewborn was the best driver I’ve ever seen...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
It was April 15th and we were doing a routine patrol in our humvees. Our mission was to disrupt enemy activity. That just meant be out in sector late in the night and stop, look and listen. We would drive around the back roads in black out drive. Every now and then we would stop for about a litte while, kill our engines and get out and look around. This was an LP/OP. Listening Post/Observation Post. We were hoping to catch some bad guys out in the palm groves setting up a mortar tube. Don’t misinterpret this stuff. Catching bad guys is not an every day thing. It’s about 95% luck to be at the right place at the right time. But like our battalion commander says. It’s best to be good AND lucky.

There was this one route that had more enemy activity than normal. Our engineer platoon got shot at with small arms and RPGs almost every time they drove around there. There was a road that had a thick palm grove along one side.

“Red, this is Red 6. Let’s do one more pass down RTE Bear and head back.”

It was 2245 and our patrol time was coming up. I figured one more LP/OP and we could turn in. We turned off of the MSR and headed down the route.

”15 minutes and then we pack it up.”

At 2300, we mounted up in our humvees and started moving north on the route. I was in the lead, with SSG Terry right behind me. SFC Kennedy, my platoon sergeant was in the last and fourth humvee. As we moved north, we saw two sets of headlights coming our direction.

We were in farm country Strange for people to be driving around at this hour. It’s pretty late out.

“Ah Jesus. I can’t see.” Mewborn said. His PVS 7s were washed out from the headlights. So were my 14s.

“Go white light, Mew.” On normal patrols, if we’re not trying to be covert, we flip the headlights on before on-coming traffic washes us out.

Mewborn turned his headlights on, as we were about 500 meters away from the first car.

That’s when they shit their pants.

The first car screeched off to the shoulder and slammed on his brakes. The second car was another 500 meters away. He slammed on his brakes and turned his headlights off.

“OH SHIT. Something is going on.” The second car started backing up and turning. He started a three-point turn. He was trying to get the hell out of dodge.

“GO GO GO, MEWBORN!” I hollered.

”Red 7, Red 6. Your section take this first car, my section will take the second car.”?

“This is Red 7, roger.”

“Mewborn. FUCKING GO.”

He punched the gas and the truck roared. Up-armoreds were heavy. About 6,500lbs heavy. But they don’t come without some junk in the trunk. Unlike an M998, the M1114s have a pretty sweet tuned turbocharged diesel engine. The truck hurtled its weight forward but we weren’t closing the gap. Our acceleration was no match for that light vehicle in front of us. He drew further away until he reached the MSR. He hooked a left at the intersection and headed for the city.

“Avenger X-Ray. This is Red 6. We are on RTE Bear, moving north in pursuit of two vehicles trying to evade us.”

“WOOooh!”
“Yeah baby!”
“Let’s get this motherfucker!”

We were now going 70 miles per hour and approaching the T-junction. And screaming our heads off with adrenaline. On the other side of the T was a canal. These humvees were notorious for rolling over because they were so heavy. If we didn’t make the turn, we would be in for a swim. Mewborn approached the intersection and cut hard left before the turn. The truck skidded sideways and went into a power slide. We were facing west but the truck was moving north. I looked out my passenger window as the black canal and desert began to swallow us.

Silence. Nobody screamed, nobody breathed. Even the engine was quiet while Mewborn worked the brake. The tires didn’t squeal. They just made a scraping noise like when you drag a duffel bag across the asphalt.

The truck was now on the MSR facing west but still moving north. Mewborn stomped on the accelerator and the tires bit the blacktop. The engine screamed again and the truck catapulted forward.

“FUCKING SHIT!”
“YEAH!”
“GO BABY!” I screamed. I punched the air and flailed around in my seat like a hyperactive child.

The bad guy must have gotten hung up on the turn because now we closed the distance.

“Should I shoot him?” SGT P asked.

“Yeah shoot his fucking car.” I screamed.

SGT P stood up in the hatch, waist high. “WAIT!!” I hollered. “Not with the .50cal. Use your M16.” I thought about the Iraqi Army soldiers who were guarding a checkpoint up ahead. Plus we were now in the city limits and there were houses everywhere.

SGT P took aim with his rifle. With no hands to brace himself, he was being hurled around in the hatch as we chased the car. Imagine standing up in a racing vehicle with no brace and your hips slamming into the rim of the metal hatch in the roof.

POP.POP

Two shots. One in the rear left quarter panel. One in the rear left corner window. The car skidded left and lost control. He skidded into a shallow irrigation ditch. We pulled up to him as he climbed out of his car.

“GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND NOW. MOVE AND I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF.”

What the hell was going on? Mewborn was already out of the car, 9 millimeter locked and loaded. He was standing with one foot on the bad guy’s neck and the barrel of his pistol on the guy’s temple. Damn. That was fast.

I got out with Langford as SSG Terry and his crew pulled security.

We ended up snagging a pretty sweet catch that night based on the evidence PFC Langford pulled out of his car. The whole event was like a scene out of COPS. We had been in country for about a month by this point. Since I knew we could tank our asses off, I figured now we got this humvee thing down cold too.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Avenger roared to life and pulled away from us, farther into the southern half of Fallujah. The task force was moving into the thick residential neighborhood. It was time to follow behind them. Resistance was supposed to be its highest here.

“Mewborn! Crank it up!”