I tried to conceal my frustration. Rage Company had gone nonstop for a day preparing for this mission. It was another twelve hours of getting to the COP and actually executing it. Now, about five hours into the paperwork, I was finding out that only four of the guys we had detained would be charged. I left the bathroom to Sergeant Champion and his interpreter. I couldn’t stand to hear more Iraqis cry and whine about America or say they had never seen an insurgent.
I was now standing in the living room. Sleeping Marines covered every inch of floor space. Albin and Eakin were the only guys awake in the room; they were working on the twenty-two detainee packets. I told them to stop and said, “We’re only filling out the detainee paperwork on Moneybags, Propane, and the two freaks in the bathroom.”
They looked at me in disbelief; hours of wasted work sat on the table in front of them. Eakin spoke up. “I love you, too, sir.”
I understood why they were frustrated, but I was more worried about the morale of the company. The Marines had risked their lives to bring us these detainees, and almost all of them were going to be released. Only a handful would even be questioned. I decided to inform Captain Smith about our progress.
I found Rage 6, Captain Smith, in the COC. He was speaking with Lieutenant Thomas and Corporal Davila regarding the raid’s only contact with the enemy. Interested, I sat down. I was just in time. Davila said, “We moved out from behind the southern wall on the school compound. We moved quickly, and the enemy waited for the breach team to move up to the front door. My second team cordoned off the structure, while I banged on the door yelling for the occupants to open up. That’s when we were engaged by heavy automatic fire. I thought it was coming from inside the house, so we set some C4 on the door to gain entry. We went in hot and quickly realized that the contact was coming from our left flank in the Papa 10. We didn’t hit any of the civilians in the house, but the one MAM we detained did take a small piece of wood from the door in his right shoulder. The enemy ceased fire as soon as we gained entry to the home.”
Captain Smith continued questioning Davila on why his squad had opened fire on civilians without positively identifying any hostile intent. He then told Lieutenant Thomas that Corporal Davila’s squad would be sidelined while an investigation into the incident was conducted. Rage 6 explained that battalion was furious over the incident, and there had to be consequences for the squad’s actions. The three men were visibly frustrated. None of them liked the situation. It was going to be a huge morale killer, and we all feared that the Marines would begin to second-guess themselves on the battlefield.
I waited until Davila left to update Captain Smith on the detainees. Rumors were already circulating that Beemer was the sniper who’d shot Heidbreder. Other rumors were more accurate, stating every detainee would be released. I didn’t want to fuel the flames. Rage 6 coolly accepted the information and asked me to check in with him after we questioned Moneybags and Propane. Exhausted, he then went to find a place to sleep.
I returned to the gym. Marines were screaming at detainees to “shut up” and “stop talking.” I found the injured guy, who needed nothing more than a large Band-Aid. The detainees were sleeping on one another. Blindfolded men were lying with their heads on their neighbors’ crotches. Another man’s head was dangerously placed between two men’s rear ends while his feet almost touched another detainee’s nose. The Marines who were guarding the detainees tried to spread them out, but the Iraqis didn’t care. The exhausted men just wanted to sleep and stay warm.
Sergeant Champion was questioning Moneybags. I walked in for the tail end of the questioning. Champion was calm, while his interpreter looked like he was about to kill Moneybags. They wrapped up the questioning, and two Marines dragged the detainee back to the gym.
“How did it go?” I asked.
“He is dirty, sir. I think our reporting is right; this guy is the leader of the local IED cell in the Papa 8 and 10 patrol sectors. He claims to run a market, and that’s why he has all the money. It’s clearly a lie; the foreign currency usually represents the nationality of foreign fighters coming into the AO or different types of foreign weapons. He didn’t give up any information, and he didn’t care that we caught him in a few lies about his family and their occupations. Let’s get Propane in here.”
Two Marines brought in Moneybags’s son. Champion proceeded with the usual basic questions and heard a description of a family that contradicted most of what Moneybags had said. Propane then proclaimed to be good friends with the mayor of Ramadi and said that if we called him, he would know who Propane was.
Champion took the opportunity to keep Propane in the dark regarding our knowledge of his nefarious activities. “You’re right; a friend of the mayor is a friend of mine. We apologize for keeping you and your father here and thank you for your patience.” He said it with a straight face.
I was less enthusiastic. I visualized pulling out my 9mm, flicking off the safety, and shooting the bastard in the head. The IED that had killed those three soldiers in Papa 10 was not only huge in terms of explosives, but it also contained numerous containers of propane gas. The accelerant ensured that if the soldiers somehow survived the blast, they would die in the ensuing fireball. Mr. Propane didn’t sell the explosive gas simply for heating and cooking purposes; he was a death dealer.
As I finished my thought, Propane was taken back to the gym. Champion looked at me. “I have some word for you, sir. We are going to release Moneybags and Propane.”
I sat down on the sink. “Why the hell would you do that?” There was a hint of anger in my voice.
“A few weeks ago the SEALs used their home as a sniping position,” Champion replied. “They confiscated a satellite phone while they were there, and now we are going to give it back to them. Hopefully, they’ll continue to use it and we will try to track down any senior leaders they are in contact with. It is coming down as a priority from the intelligence battalion commander.”
I told the sergeant I understood. I immediately went to find Captain Smith, who was somehow awake in the COC. He looked like a zombie. “Sir, we have an issue,” I told him and explained the scenario.
He buried his face in his hands and said, “Well, if intel battalion wants it to go down that way, we can’t really argue with them.”
I went back to the gym and thought about our first mission. It was about 1000 in the morning, and everyone was sleeping, detainees and guards alike. I looked at Moneybags and Propane. Three grieving families were about to lose an opportunity for justice. It was an unusual feeling, being so close to two men who were proud members of al Qaeda. They would be hailed as heroes who had suffered under American captivity. I tried to put them out of my mind. Only a picture of Beemer driving his car and shooting Heidbreder replaced them.
What a night. An hour later, the platoons started heading back to Camp Ramadi. After they all left, twenty of the detainees were released. I watched Moneybags and Propane walk away.
The next day signals intelligence intercepted a call: Moneybags had called his son in Syria to arrange transport out of Iraq. He never used the phone again. The two brothers we had brought to the ARDF were also released a few days later. That gave us a 100 percent release rate for Operation Harrison Creek I. Davila’s squad was being investigated and sidelined. The rumor that Beemer had shot Heidbreder was considered fact by most of the Marines. They all eventually found out that he was released. We had been operational in Ramadi for three days, and everyone was pissed. What a night indeed.
3
FORTRESS RAMADI
December 1, 2006
“Why the hell did you release Scrooge and Huey?” Captain James asked.6
The intel section at 1-37 had code names for its most wanted insurgents. Captain James was genuinely upset that the murderers of his friends had been set free. I was exhausted. It had been ten hours since I’d arrived back at Camp Ramadi, and I still hadn’t gone to sleep. The last thing I wanted to do was talk about Moneybags and Propane.
Silence filled the air. I was unsure how to answer his question. “Sir, the THT guys made the call,” I responded.
He had no clue what I was talking about. “Last time I checked, THT didn’t take any detainees last night.” The words implied sarcasm, but there wasn’t any in Captain James’s voice. More silence.
An army specialist from COP Grant came to my assistance. “They are trying to exploit their cell phone via signals intelligence,” he said. We all glanced at one another, each man visibly frustrated. I finally opened my mouth and relayed the story of Moneybags and Propane to Captain James.
Operation Harrison Creek II: The Papa 10 patrol sector, one of Ramadi’s most dangerous.
His response was short. “I got something for you, Lieutenant Daly.” He turned and walked back to the intelligence sections office. I followed, expecting the worst.
The office consisted of two connecting rooms within the southern corner of 1-37’s headquarters on Camp Ramadi. Each room was about three hundred square feet. The captain picked up a pile of rolled maps off his desk. “Thirty copies of the task force’s area of operations.” He paused for a moment. “I hear you are going to be walking in and out of the Papa 10 for Operation Harrison Creek II. A few words of advice; do not be there when the sun comes up.” He handed the maps to me, and I found them much heavier than I anticipated. It was a lot of paper. They would be worth the weight. The production of strip maps was going to be exponentially quicker.
I stood waiting for the captain to rip me apart for releasing Moneybags and Propane. After a few awkward seconds, I realized he had only called me back for the maps. When I turned to walk out of his office, Captain James recognized that his point regarding the detainees hadn’t hit home with me yet.
“Daly, when you take a detainee, he belongs to you. You, well, with the approval of Captain Smith, decide who gets released and who doesn’t. Any detainee your Marines take belongs to Rage Company. Remember, the guy on the ground usually has the most information. You make the call. Consider yourself informed.” Captain James spoke in a normal conversational tone. I took it as an example of the differences between the Corps and the Army.
Back at the Rage Company tent, everyone was asleep. I joined the club and slept for the better part of a day. When I awoke, the initial planning for Operation Harrison Creek II (HC2) was under way. I gathered the intel cell for the production of similar materials as those for HC1. Our work quickly became a discussion about the notoriety of the patrol sector we would be clearing. A few weeks earlier, SEALs had engaged in heavy fighting in the Papa 10. One SEAL lost his legs; another was killed. I later found out that Captain James was on the scene during some of these firefights.
The most important lesson from the SEALs’ debriefs concerned the insurgents’ manipulation of children. The enemy used these youngsters as combatants in an attempt to counter our small-kill teams (SKTs). The SKTs were six- or seven-man teams of snipers who infiltrated insurgent neighborhoods and established ambush positions on the upper floors of Iraqi homes. Every day between 0700 and 0730, kids around the age of five or six would knock on the door of every house in the sector. They were searching for “Amriki.” Each child was tasked with his own street. When the occupant answered the door, the child asked, “Can I come inside and play?” Whether they were allowed in or told to go away did not matter. The children judged the reactions of the occupants based on prior days’ questioning. The children knew that if the Americans were upstairs, the owner would nervously tell them to go away.
An hour later, teenagers would show up to scope out any suspicious sites. These older kids had a much different task: find the Americans and cause a casualty. Their standard tactic was to throw grenades into homes potentially occupied by U.S. forces. Once the American position was confirmed, or when we were evacuating a casualty, the actual insurgents showed up. They tried to then inflict more damage using their standard weapons: RPGs, PKM or RPK machine guns, assorted sniper rifles, and a litany of small-arms weapons. It was a heartless but effective method of gathering real-time intelligence.
The methods showcased the insurgents’ opportunistic nature. They sought to exploit everyone. Kindergarteners became reconnaissance men. Teenagers delivered accurate indirect fire in the form of hand grenades. Infantry maneuvered under the chaos of the grenade’s detonation. The concept was standard military doctrine, but the soldiers implementing it were not your standard combatants.
One report had the Papa 10 as the unconfirmed home of Mullah Qahttan’s immediate family. Based off the intel brief we received before HC1, Mullah Qahttan was one of the highest-ranking AQI leaders in Al Anbar Province. Flipping through the report, Albin wondered what Qahttan’s mother was like and suggested we make a visit during HC2. I was skeptical that Mullah Qahttan or his family would be in the Papa 10. There were also five different reports stating that Mullah Qahttan had been killed in action. Each report wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. This poor intel highlighted the frustration of the cell’s task: making sense of hundreds of pages of ridiculously formatted information. Almost half of the reports that Albin, Eakin, and I read were worthless. It drove Eakin so crazy that he began to sit in a wheelchair as if he were physically disabled. Albin scolded him. “That’s bad luck, man. You sit in a wheelchair, you are gonna end up needing a wheelchair.” Eakin stopped sitting in it, but not before I took a picture of him.
There was one piece of intel that we all paid particular attention to: a report that provided ten-digit grid coordinates inside the Papa 10 to the potential location of two insurgents responsible for a grenade attack on September 29, 2006, that killed a SEAL, Michael Monsoor, who would later be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. We made a note to ensure that the location would be meticulously searched.
I met up with Captain Smith, the XO, and the platoon commanders later that night. Rage 6 briefed his ideas on the concept of the mission, which was subsequently endorsed by the group. The plan was similar to HC1, but the methodology was slightly different. The Papa 10 consisted of two concentric squares. We referred to them as the outer and the inner square. At the center of the inner square was a small rectangle of open terrain. The ground was a historic point-of-origin (POO) site that the enemy used to fire mortars at COP Grant and the closer COP Eagles Nest. Our mission was straightforward: clear as much of the inner square of Papa 10 on the night of December 3 as possible. All elements were to return to friendly lines before sunrise.
To confuse the insurgents, Rage 1 would leave Camp Ramadi and set up first at COP Falcon. Using a few hours’ separation, which we hoped would allow the enemy to focus on Rage 1 at COP Falcon, Rage 2 and Rage 4 would then depart for COP Grant. These locations were chosen to mask our objective. The most logical stepping point for HC2 was COP Eagles Nest. This COP was only 250 meters from the Papa 10, but we wanted to surprise the enemy by being less predictable. As with HC1, Pathfinder would be first onto the objective area, sweeping the roads for IEDs. They would depart Camp Ramadi at 1830. The cordon force would follow in the same convoy, setting up at the four corners of the outer square. Once the Papa 10 was swept, Pathfinder would continue on a diversionary route to the west.
At that point, Rage 1 would depart COP Falcon. When Rage 1 passed COP Grant, Rage 2 and Rage 4 would follow in trace. Each platoon would use the same route to get to the objective, following Farouk Way to the northwest corner of the Papa 10 patrol sector. The Papa 10 was next broken down into north-south running lanes. Captain Smith assigned each platoon a lane, and the platoons then gave each of their squads its own lane. When the elements finished clearing south, they would strongpoint—that is, take up a defensive position—on Papa 10’s southern side. From there, they would wait until the order to move out of the objective area. Again, this is where our methods changed. HC1 was out and back to the same starting point. The egress for HC2 was heading south outside the city. We would cross over the old east-west railroad tracks and, using the berm as cover, walk 2
,000 meters west to COP Iron, situated on the Saddam Canal. It was a much longer dismounted movement than HC1 had been.
Afterward, Captain Smith approached me. “Lieutenant Daly, I am going to be using ANGLICO again for this mission.” He took a moment to gauge my reaction.
“That’s fine, sir. How about I go on this one as the intel cell leader?” I had already explained to Captain Smith my previous conversation with Captain James. He was quiet, so I pressed harder. “I think it would greatly increase my effectiveness at filling out the detainee packets.”
Rage 6 began to nod. “I think you’re right. The last thing I want to do is take another twenty detainees and release them all. You can go with whichever platoon you want.”
It was about time.
The next thirty-six hours were spent refining the plan and decompressing. We called our families and got haircuts. Captain Smith took three hours to brief the mission to the company staff and its attachments. I didn’t have any trouble paying attention this time. The platoons took turns raiding the Camp Ramadi PX, rehearsing on the terrain model in the company headquarters, and watching movies on our one projector. The white walls of our tents made perfect movie screens. The mood was still soured, however, due to the investigation into Davila’s squad. It wasn’t much of an investigation. The squad was simply not allowed to execute the mission. They were on probation.
I knew Captain Smith didn’t intend to charge Davila with any crime when he ordered the investigation. It was simply out of principle, to establish for the Marines what is and isn’t acceptable on the battlefield. His reasoning was irrelevant to the Marines. Some of the officers were concerned that their men would be less aggressive and would hesitate on the battlefield. Most of the junior Marines felt betrayed. I was even upset about not leaving the wire for HC1. Confidence in our commander was quickly plummeting among the men. A rift among the officers was a likely next step.
Rage Company Page 6
