War Stories

by Oliver North

  We are only seven days into Operation Iraqi Freedom, and almost half the country and nearly all of its resources are in coalition hands. The 485,000-man Iraqi army is being mauled in every confrontation with American and British forces. More than eight thousand Iraqi soldiers have been taken prisoner and tens of thousands more have decided that they are unwilling to die for Saddam and have simply walked away from their defensive positions.

  While some Iraqi units, like those at Najaf and An Nasiriyah, fight fiercely, and surrender ground reluctantly when confronted with overwhelming U.S. firepower, many others will engage for a few minutes, and in some cases a few hours, and then the soldiers quickly slip into civilian clothes and join the local population. It’s not uncommon for Marines sweeping through a trench line from which they have just taken fire to find the position littered with green uniforms, helmets, gas masks, empty magazine pouches, and black boots. And then, a few moments later, dozens of beardless young men with short, military-style haircuts, garbed in Arab dress, are just standing around with no apparent place to go. Everyone knows that just minutes or hours before, they were wearing the discarded uniforms. Yet stopping to detain these “civilians” will delay the Marines’ movement north—and exacerbate an already strained logistics system if trucks have to be diverted from resupply runs to haul EPWs south to the prisoner-of-war camps.

  Given that there have been a handful of well-publicized suicide attacks against the Marines and a good deal of “scuttlebutt” about phony surrenders resulting in Marine casualties, it’s still amazing to some of my colleagues in the press that there haven’t been more “civilian” casualties. In fact, there have been some—most notably during the close fighting in An Nasiriyah, when several carloads of civilians ignored orders to stop at a Marine roadblock or defensive position and were fired upon. That there have been relatively few such incidents is a tribute to the exceptional discipline of these young men. It’s apparent to me, if not to all of my media colleagues, that the small-unit NCO leadership—corporals, sergeants, staff sergeants, and gunnery sergeants, the people who make the difference in a firefight—is exceptional.

  So too is the compassion that these Marines are showing toward the foe and the Iraqi people. Since crossing the Euphrates, and leaving the trackless southern desert behind, we’ve been passing by or through increasing numbers of small villages, palm groves, harvested fields, and cultivated farms, many with livestock. Each time we halt for an hour or more, the Marine battalions and companies in RCT-5 and RCT-7 send patrols off to the flanks of the column, which now stretches from just south of Ad Diwaniyah all the way back to the Euphrates. At any moment, now that the weather has improved, thirty or more squad- to platoon-sized combat patrols are deployed off the flanks of the two RCTs moving north up Route 1. Often, if there is no enemy contact, civil affairs, human exploitation teams, and medical personnel accompany these patrols to win some “hearts and minds” by providing limited emergency medical help, humanitarian rations, water, and even small amounts of fuel for tractors and irrigation pumps.

  Shortly before 1000 hours, I am accompanying one such patrol into a tiny village about four hundred meters west of the highway. A single RPG had been fired from here at the lead elements of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines. It was an incredibly stupid, long-range shot that had detonated harmlessly fifteen meters short of the nearest Marine vehicle. Rather than leveling the eight or ten structures with fire from an Abrams 120mm main gun, the company commander ordered one of his 2nd Tank Battalion M-1s and an AAV to drop off the route and post an overwatch on the column’s left flank in case the perpetrator showed himself again. When the RPG shooter moved to take another shot, the tanker, peering through his thermal sights, dropped him with a three-round burst from the Abrams’ coaxial mounted machine gun.

  The staff sergeant leading the reinforced squad on patrol orders his Marines up and across the field of waist-high wheat between the roadway and the one-story, dun-colored, brick and stucco buildings. As the fifteen Marines spread out and start across the field, the gunners in the tank turret and on the AAV up-gun traverse their weapons left and right searching for targets, prepared to respond in an instant if the Marines moving in the open are fired upon.

  When the grunts, sweating in their protective gear and burdened down with weapons and ammo, reach the little hamlet, fire teams conducting tasks to secure the area cover one another as two-man teams run from building to building, disappearing for a moment inside each one, then running out and yelling, “Clear!” There are a few chickens in the courtyard of one house, a half dozen sheep fenced behind another, and two emaciated cows and a few goats behind a wall. But no sign of the human inhabitants until one of the two Cobras dispatched to support this little patrol reports that there is a person on the roof of a building behind us and that several dozen people—apparently civilians, some of them women and children—are behind the gated wall surrounding the largest house at the end of the dirt street.

  The staff sergeant orders his Marines to approach the structure cautiously and positions a G-240 machine gun off to one side as a base of fire. With the Cobras snarling overhead, wheeling back and forth over the little hamlet like giant angry hornets, he then dispatchs one fire team to check out the wall while another climbs to the roof of the building where the helicopters report seeing a person.

  Within minutes both fire teams report. The one sent up to the roof found the headless corpse of a young male in civilian clothing. A smashed RPG was beside the body. The fire team leader brought back the only document found on the cadaver: a Saudi passport.

  The other fire team counted nine adult males, eleven adult females, and nine small children behind the wall of the house at the end of the street. All but one of the men appeared to be well over the age of fifty. In a garage inside the compound the Marines also found a Ford tractor, a Toyota pickup truck, and a Kawasaki motorcycle.

  One of the young Marines spoke some Arabic and one of the young women spoke a little broken English. By signs and gestures, she indicates that the tractor and pickup belongs to the head man of the village; that the Kawasaki belonged to the dead “foreigner” on the roof of her house; that they had all been told to gather in this courtyard by that man and two other armed “foreigners” who had arrived early that morning by motorcycle; and that the other two had fled when the shot had killed the fedayeen on the roof.

  Once this exposition is finished, the staff sergeant calls back to the tank on the radio that “the village is Alpha Sierra”—meaning “all secure”—and that his patrol is returning. Before heading out of the little cluster of homes, he warns his Marines to stay off the dirt road going out to the main highway, since it could be mined.

  As the squad moves back out through the wheat field, the only young male adult in the small community follows us. He carries a small child, a little boy only about four years old who is obviously in pain. One of the fire team leaders gestures to the man to stop following them, but he persists. Finally, the squad’s medical corpsman approaches the man and examines the boy. It is obvious to the corpsman that the youngster’s left arm is broken. When the corpsman informs the staff sergeant of this, the squad leader allows the man and boy to accompany us.

  When we arrive back at the highway, one of the RCT-5 medical officers, a Navy doctor assigned to the 5th Marines, examines the child. One of the human exploitation team translators explains to the father that the child needs to have the bone set and a cast applied.

  The Navy doctor and a corpsman administer a mild painkiller, set the broken bone, and apply a fiberglass cast. While all this is being done, the father and the human exploitation team translator carry on a lively conversation. After the father and son leave, the doc asks what was said.

  “That man was a soldier until last week,” the translator replies. “He deserted from his unit just north of Basra and came back here to his wife and son. His father is the head man in the village. Last night three fedayeen arrived and started pushing people around
. This guy hid out on his roof because the word is out that the foreigners are shooting deserters. One of the ‘big brave fedayeen’ pushed the little kid off the roof and that’s how he broke his arm. This morning, when the fedayeen guy on the roof took his RPG potshot at the armor moving up the highway, the tank shot back and killed him. The other two panicked and took off across the fields on their motorcycles. End of story—except that this Iraqi father now says they all owe us big-time and if we ever need anything, just ask. I’ll pass it on to the S-2 and the guys from the agency the next time they swing by.”

  As the translator finishes the story, there is a muffled explosion from the direction of the little village. Instantly, someone yells “Incoming!” but it sounds more like a grenade to me. I stand up and look toward the village, and about 150 meters down the dirt track leading to the cluster of houses there lay what looks like a heap of laundry. Over it hovers a cloud of dust. A couple of Marines start to run toward the scene but are halted by the shouted command, “Stop! Mines!”

  It takes more than fifteen minutes for the Marines, the doctor, and his corpsmen, cautiously probing every step of the way, to get to the bodies. I didn’t go. I’ve seen too much fresh death. When they returned the doctor says, with tears in his eyes, “That little boy whose arm I just mended died in his father’s arms when the dad stepped on a land mine.”

  Both the father and his four-year-old son were killed by an Italian land mine planted by a Saudi terrorist fighting to keep Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in power. It all seems totally irrational, and it reminds me of the expression that my Marines in Vietnam had used for such deaths. They’d have said the Iraqi father and his son had been “wasted.” And they’d have been right.

  OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM SIT REP #18

  With HMLA-267

  Ranging south of Ad Diwaniyah, Hantush, Iraq

  Thursday, 27 March 2003

  2350 Hours Local

  A half an hour or so after the bodies of the dead father and son were taken away by their family members, Maj. John Ashby, the XO of HMLA-267, asked if I wanted to go with him on an “admin” flight to bring Brig. Gen. John Kelly, the assistant commander of the 1st Marine Division, over to Qal’ at Sukkar, about 110 kilometers east on Route 7, where RCT-1 and elements of Task Force Tarawa were located. Thinking this might be a good opportunity to get some footage of other units, I grabbed my pack and camera out of the CH-46 and jumped aboard the armed UH1N “chase bird” that was accompanying the Huey with the general aboard. Two Cobras lifted with us from the landing zone adjacent to the RCT-5 and 1st Marine Division CPs.

  The flight east was uneventful, since we stayed well south of the villages along Route 17, the east-west highway connecting the two prongs of the 1st Marine Division attack. Despite the pronouncements of the armchair admirals and barroom brigadiers pontificating from air-conditioned studios in New York, Washington, and Atlanta, the abysmal weather had slowed the attack north but hadn’t stopped it. The lead elements of RCT-1 were less than fifty miles from Al Kut and ready to attack north to force a crossing of the Tigris. And 110 kilometers to the west, RCT-5 and RCT-7 were closed up on Route 1, and the Iraqis couldn’t tell whether they would veer left up Route 8 past Babylon or hook a right at Route 27 to cross the Tigris at An Numaniyah. To those of us on the ground, it appeared that the slow but steady movement during the sandstorm had confused not only the Iraqis but the “military analysts” back in the States as well.

  As we flew south of Route 17 toward Qal’ at Sukkar, the Cobras roamed off to our north. On two occasions they attacked Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles in revetments but took no ground fire in return. Even in the several sizable towns along Route 17, there were no signs of any major Iraqi units that could oppose the Marines using the “hardball” highway as a logistics corridor.

  When we landed at Qal’ at Sukkar, Gen. Kelly went immediately to meet with Col. Joe Dowdy, the RCT-1 commander. I stayed at the LZ, talking with the pilots and aircrews while the Cobras rearmed and refueled and our UH1N took on fuel. One of the officers in this squadron is the son of one of my closest friends. Capt. Allen Grinalds’s father, John, a much respected, retired major general, is now the president of the Citadel, in Charleston, South Carolina. But Allen is already making a reputation of his own as a Cobra pilot. One of the younger officers in the squadron told me “Captain Grinalds is the best instructor I’ve ever had.”

  Our “bull session” was interrupted by a call for the Cobras to launch in support of a 1st Marines Company engaged with an Iraqi unit east of Route 7. They took off in a cloud of dust.

  Gen. Kelly returned for his flight back to the 1st Marine Division CP. This time he had with him two old friends: Maj. Gen. Ray Smith, USMC (Ret.), and Francis “Bing” West, also a former Marine and an assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration. We all served as small unit leaders in Vietnam and I have known and admired both these old warriors for years. Ray is one of the most decorated Marines alive and has a well-deserved reputation as a “warrior’s warrior.” Bing West was at the Pentagon while I was on the NSC staff at the White House and he is now a bestselling writer.

  Kelly, Smith, and West board the lead bird, and we take off to retrace the route west along Route 17, heading back to the 1st Marine Division CP. As we turn into the afternoon sun, I hear in my headset the pilots in the two helicopters discussing whether they should wait for the Cobra escort. When they get the word that it would take at least another hour to get the Cobras back from their mission, rearmed, and refueled, the decision is made to proceed unescorted.

  That’s not as dangerous as it might seem. These aren’t “slicks”—birds without guns. Both UH1Ns have door-mounted, .50-caliber XM2 machine guns, and the one I’m in also has a pod loaded with 2.75-inch rockets and a GAU-17, 7.62mm mini-gun that looks like a Gatling gun hanging out the right side. When we hear that we were returning unescorted, the crew chief says, “No sweat, Colonel. This isn’t your father’s Oldsmobile! We can take care of ourselves.”

  But this time, instead of staying over the largely unpopulated terrain south of Route 17, we fly almost right down the hardball at fifty to seventy-five feet, clipping along at ninety to one hundred knots. I have my video camera out on my lap as we follow the bird with Gen. Kelly, Gen. Smith, and Bing West aboard. Unlike the mud huts and single-level structures south of here, these houses are nearly all multistory and they all seem to have electricity. Because we’re fifty to a hundred meters behind the lead helicopter, we can spot people running out of their homes to see what’s making the racket. Kids come out and wave—and from the back of our bird, the gunner and crew chief wave back.

  I’m sitting on a troop seat in the center of the bird, following our course along Route 17 and have just marked our location on my map, “Al Budayr,” when I hear through my headphones, “We’re taking fire!” I look up from my map to see the lead bird jinking left and right as green tracers just miss the left side of the helicopter. The VIP bird with Kelly, Smith, and West aboard rolls left as its machine gun unleashes a burst almost straight down at the weapon on the ground that had just fired at their helicopter.

  By now I’ve grabbed my camera and am holding it over Maj. Ashby’s head, aiming it forward through the windscreen. Through the viewfinder I can see five or six men wearing what look like black pajamas, running out of a two-story building carrying AK-47s. Across the street from the building there is an unmanned ZSU-23mm dual-mount anti-aircraft gun, but none of them run toward it. Instead, they appear transfixed by the lead helicopter screaming directly over their heads.

  As the lead helicopter swoops hard left out of our line of fire, Ashby says over the intercom, “Arming rockets. Stand by.” His voice is cool as ice, flat, unexcited, as if he were ordering lunch over the phone as he flicks a red switch on the console. Through the viewfinder on the little camera, I can see several of the Iraqis kneel down and fire at the lead bird as it passes over them. They still haven’t seen us. But then, just as Ashby t
ilts our UH1N into a shallow dive from 150 feet, one of the black-clad shooters spots us. As he wheels to aim at our helicopter, I hear Ashby say calmly, “Firing rockets.”

  On the tape, there is a roar as three of the 2.75-inch rockets ripple out of the pod on the left side of our helicopter. Although I don’t recall being startled by the sound, the camera jerks as if I had been and then quickly focuses back on the trajectory of the three deadly missiles. The three rockets Ashby selected are fleschette rounds—each warhead contains thousands of tiny metal darts set to detonate twenty feet from the target. They perform as advertised, and puffs of red smoke from all three erupt over the Iraqis. The videotape shows them being cut down in an instant by the shower of steel. The bird pulls up and hard left, the g-force pushing me back in my seat, the camera pointing off at a crazy angle, and Ashby’s voice comes over the intercom: “And they all fall down.” No euphoria, no pleasure, no sadness, simply a statement of fact.

  When we landed at the 1st Marine Division CP to drop off Gen. Kelly, I intended to grab Ray Smith and Bing West and get an interview on tape of their reactions to being nearly shot down. But I notice as we land that the four CH-46s from HMM-268 that had been there when I left on the Huey several hours before are gone. One of the Marines at the fuel point—another one of the unsung heroes of the war for their tireless work at all hours of the day and night—tells me that the CH-46s had displaced forward with Col. Dunford’s command group while I was gone.

  Since it is nearly dark, I abandon the effort to track down Smith and West and hike up to Route 1 to hitch a ride forward, knowing that my only hope of getting my tape back to the FOX bureau in Kuwait is to link up with the HMM-268 detachment before they rotate helos in the morning. About two hundred meters up the hardball highway I found a 2nd Battalion, 11th Marines artillery convoy of six 155mm howitzers and about twenty ammunition trucks, interspersed with armed Humvees, LAVs, and four tanks formed up and about to head north on Route 1. The convoy commander, a captain, offers me a ride in his Humvee. Not one to lead from the rear, he’s positioned right behind the lead tank. As soon as I strap my pack on the back of his vehicle, we’re off in a cloud of dust and diesel smoke, accompanied by the sound of tank treads, screeching and grumbling on their road wheels.