A group of four Marines carrying sandbags struggled past an Iraqi policeman smoking at the structure’s exterior gate. The policeman was a product of America’s attempt to put an Iraqi face on the war. At the time, it wasn’t a successful enterprise; there were fewer than twenty Iraqi police officers in the heart of the city.
Northeast Qatana: The planned location of Commanche’s Qatana Security Station.
The noise of dozens of Marines working to fortify the structure, seized earlier that night, punctuated the darkness. The Marines were racing to build sandbagged fighting positions that would protect them during the next day. Each man knew the enemy would focus their efforts against the most vulnerable target in the area. At that particular moment, they were the most vulnerable.
An explosion ripped through the exterior wall a few meters from the gate. A bomb hidden in the wall had been detonated by an unseen observer. Shouts and screams of pain replaced the earlier sounds of productive manual labor. Marines ran out of the structure to assist their wounded comrades. Lieutenant Grubb hastily scanned the windows and the doorways of the intersection’s surrounding buildings. The enemy had to be close. If the insurgents had detonated the device with command wire, they were probably across the street, limited by the small amount of copper wire available. The same was true for a remote-controlled initiation device. The insurgents would have had to overpower the electronic countermeasures on each of the vehicles in the intersection. Either way, the triggerman was still within range of a well-aimed shot from a Marine’s rifle.
Grubb grabbed the handset from his radio operator. A nervous voice came over the net. “Get out! There are fucking mortar rounds in the floor! Everyone get out!” The Marine gave no call sign to identify himself. It didn’t matter, though; every Marine obeyed his command. Dozens of the exhausted men ran out onto the street. Some congregated near the Abrams tank posted at the intersection of Give Me and Racetrack. Others stood in the middle of the road, unsure of what to do or where to go.
“Rage 4, this is Comanche 6, we are abandoning the COP and moving to your position, over,” said the Charlie Company commander. His voice contained an even mix of fear and anger. Grubb acknowledged his temporary boss, whom he had only met days earlier.
Rage 4 looked over at the dark structure. The second- and third-floor windows were already sandbagged. A couple of pieces of ballistic glass were still visible. Most of the Marines in the street were empty-handed. Nearly all of the materials they had brought into the building had been left behind. Grubb had an ominous thought. The enemy had just secured their own COP without firing a single shot. They hadn’t even filled or carried any of the thousands of sandbags fortifying the structure.
The platoon commander thought about his own building. If the insurgents had set up mines next door, they probably were going to do it here, too. The Ministry of Oil structure was twice the size of the neighboring COP. The enemy could be setting the Marines up for an even larger explosion.
Grubb got on his PRR. “Squad leaders, check this damn place. Look for any loose tiles on the floor or new plaster on the walls. Cut any random electrical wires,” he said.
Chaos ensued in Rage 4’s position. Confused Marines from Comanche poured into the building. Squad and team leaders were shouting over one another to get accountability for all of their gear and personnel. Lieutenant Grubb met up with Comanche 6 near the centrally placed stairwell on the second floor. The captain was trying to find new structures to position his forces in. The short and stocky Grubb stood there, patiently awaiting orders. He looked on as Comanche 6 was having trouble making out the exact numbers for each building with his red-lensed flashlight. Then a Marine behind the two officers leaned against the wall with his right hand. Unexpectedly, the wall gave way, and three 120mm mortar rounds fell onto the floor.
The chaos of COP Qatana repeated itself in the Ministry of Oil building. Shouts of “Get the fuck out!” rang through the air. Nearly a hundred confused and disoriented Marines congregated on Racetrack. As Grubb made it out of the dark, dank building, someone from Comanche was trying to take charge. He attempted to get accountability by ordering the Marines into formation on the exposed street.
Grubb was horrified. Only a few hours earlier, Rage 1 had discovered the largest cache ever in downtown Ramadi. The stash of weapons contained numerous RPGs and medium machine guns. The enemy was clearly capable of taking advantage of a hundred Marines standing next to one another in columns. Grubb refused to expose his Marines to such an unnecessary risk. The platoon commander pulled out his map and found the closest structure large enough to house his platoon.
“Staff Sergeant Williamson, we’re going to building 17, Golf 3 patrol sector. Head north on Fire Station Road, and it is the first major building on your left,” he said over the PRR. The lieutenant did not wait to ask or inform Comanche 6 of his decision—he took action.
Staff Sergeant Scott Williamson, the same staff sergeant who had watched me struggle over the berm and the railroad tracks during the Papa 10, took control of the platoon. He was on his fifth or sixth deployment and had spent a couple of years in Iraq, in a war that was slightly more than three years old. The man had more combat experience than training. Describing him as a veteran would be a disservice. It would ignore the true impact this one man had on not only the platoon but the entire company.
With the Marines of Comanche in formation on Racetrack, trying to figure out how many pieces of bulletproof glass and antitank rockets they had left inside COP Qatana, Rage 4 moved down the street and cleared building 17. Staff Sergeant Williamson obtained accountability for every piece of gear and Marine on the way. The night was ending, and so was the Marines’ grip on the initiative. The insurgents would now dictate the terms of the next day’s battle.
In the following early-morning hours, the rest of the officers and staff of Rage Company huddled around the picnic tables in COP Firecracker’s chow hall. A prolonged firefight echoed over the Qatana skyline as insurgents engaged Rage 4 and elements of Comanche with accurate small-arms fire. The response from the Marines was usually a twenty- to thirty-round burst from a machine gun.
Captain Smith laid out a map of Qatana on the table. He updated us on the night’s previous action, including the four wounded Marines and the abandoning of COP Qatana. The group sat, awaiting the nature of our countermove.
The assistant intelligence officer for 1/6, Jason Mann, was also at the table. He had expressed an interest in going on a mission with Rage Company, so I made the necessary coordination. The previous night’s events were difficult for him. He was the guy who had received the intelligence, from multiple sources, stating that the string of large structures around the intersection of Give Me and Racetrack was rigged to explode. Armed with this information, he had argued against the chosen site as the COP’s location. He was overruled. The battalion had decided that the terrain was too advantageous and must be taken. They were absolutely right, and it was this commanding nature of the new COP’s location that foreshadowed our desire to eventually use it.
For me, it was another glimpse into the insurgents’ minds. In the same sense that we had been predictable in the planning of the patrol that led to the Heidbreder ambush, 1/6 was telegraphing their future operations at the battalion level. The battalion had already seized the dominating structures on the western side of Qatana. They were used to construct COP Firecracker.
The insurgents had anticipated this strategy to continue and therefore booby-trapped the large structures on the eastern side of Qatana. Lieutenant Mann’s intel sources had stated that five structures, all of which were more than three stories high, in the vicinity of the Give Me and Racetrack intersection were booby-trapped. The enemy was clearly thinking ahead, and their success in understanding our thought processes had bought them valuable time.
Captain Smith pointed out the positions of Rage 4 and Comanche units on the map. Each unit was set up in a defensive position around the abandoned COP Qatana. All forces were l
ocated west and south of the old construction site. “Gentlemen, the new site for COP Qatana is this area south of the Give Me-Racetrack intersection,” said Captain Smith. He circled the terrain on the map. The larger structure in the compound had a circular hole in the roof. I immediately recognized it as the executive building of the ISI from Major Mayberry’s in-brief, which, although it had taken place only a few weeks earlier, was already a distant memory. I was struck by the symbolism: the capital of the Islamic State of Iraq was now going to be a combat outpost.
Rage 1, Lieutenant Shearburn, spoke while Rage 6 was circling with his map pen. “Sir, that is insane. Those buildings are all one-story tall. Each of the structures across the street towers over the new construction site, and while those larger buildings are all mined or booby-trapped, the insurgents will still use them,” he said, trying to maintain a conversational tone. I think we all generally agreed with what Rage 1 Actual was saying, but Captain Smith was visibly annoyed that he had been interrupted.
“Let me finish, Lieutenant. Tonight we are going to clear the areas northeast of the new COP’s location, minus the larger, mined structures. The platoons’ specific lanes stretch along the streets Jamie, Starr, and the no-name parallel road south of Starr. We will search the suspected VBIED factory along the no-name road and then evacuate the local populace on these streets to Farm. Then 1/6 is going to drop an undetermined amount of ordnance on the new site for the COP. Over the course of the next few nights, engineers will level the ground and begin constructing from the bottom up. Now I’ll take your questions.”
At first, no one knew what to say. Then the questions started to fly. How long was this going to take? What did they plan on building the COP out of? Why not level the buildings that were rigged to explode? These were all legitimate questions, none of which Captain Smith had any real answers for. It was a predicament only a leader would find himself in.
Rage 6 was torn. As our commander, he had to express confidence in the mission, but it was plain to see, through his frustration in answering our questions, that our reservations were the same as his. He silenced the crowd, ending the inquiries. “Gentlemen, we take this one mission at a time,” he said. “We know what to do tonight. After this mission, expect to relieve Comanche and Rage 4 out in sector while the COP is built. Remember, this isn’t going to be our COP, so do not concern yourselves with its composition. We are here to see it gets built.”
The entire scenario was making me uneasy. It was the first time I seriously thought the operational situation was to the enemy’s advantage. As an officer in the military, I understood that the enemy might, on occasion, have the upper hand tactically. That is to say, he may ambush us or have some other tricks that temporarily give him a better position; however, these tactical scenarios could be overcome through intellect in the application of our superior firepower. In our current situation, the enemy was forcing us to make poor decisions. I was not particularly impressed with 1/6’s plan to overcome these rigged buildings, and I was unsure whether there was a good alternative. The psychological effect of the insurgents’ shaping of the battlefield was taking its toll. The nerves would be worse than usual.
One hour later, we finished the planning for that night’s raid of the VBIED factory. Rage 1 and Rage 3 would clear Jamie, Starr, and the objective. Rage 2 was going to establish itself on the south and west sides of Racetrack in an over-watch position. After hashing out the details and deconflicting lanes for the platoons, a group of the lieutenants and the staff headed down to the COC on the first floor. We were interested in the latest on Rage 4 and Comanche’s situation.
It wasn’t pretty.
On arriving at the COC, we quickly found out that an RPG had torn into a hummer at the Give Me-Racetrack intersection. One Marine was killed in the blast. Others were wounded. When I first heard this, I was confused. I had only ever seen tanks manning that position during our previous missions. I came to discover that as soon as it was light outside, humvees had taken the place of the tanks. It immediately struck me as an absurd tactical decision.
Somebody within 1/6 had decided that the tanks would occupy the observation posts at night because they had better night-vision optics, while the thin-skinned hummers would take over during the day. Apparently, nobody had told 1/6 that insurgents did not have NVGs. In my humble opinion, whatever NVGs the hummers had at night put them at a significant tactical advantage over the enemy. Instead, 1/6 was parking the lightly armored vehicles on city streets, surrounded by four- and five-story buildings, and leaving them there all day long. They might as well have been in formation.
I noticed that the battalion commander was in the room. He had clearly placed himself at the point of friction, trying to make himself as informed as possible for any future decisions regarding the COP. I got the feeling the command had been caught off guard when the bomb went off the night before. They had doubted their own intel sources and were now regretting it.
An officer from Apache began to update the colonel, while the officers from Rage huddled around a television screen. Lance Corporal Albin was flying the Wasp unmanned-aerial vehicle (UAV) over the VBIED factory, as well as over the rest of our objective area, for the raid. After about five minutes, the UAV was running out of battery. Albin flew it back toward Hurricane Point, where the battalion tactical operations center took control of its frequency.
I walked over to the XO for Apache and asked him when the next UAV was going up. He looked at his watch and said another hour. The rest of the lieutenants headed back upstairs to brief their Marines, while I stuck around to ask Albin about the capabilities of the UAV. After a few minutes, we both left the COC, but as I was going out the door, the XO for Apache stopped me. He was waiting for me in the hallway.
“Hey, Marine. When you address me, you call me sir, especially when the colonel—” The Apache XO had an arrogant tone. I lost it.
“And who the fuck are you?” I interrupted, continuing on a profanity-laced rant. “I’m First Lieutenant Daly; last time I checked, that’s the same fucking rank as you!”
The Apache XO tried to calm me down. It worked, and in a sense he was right: I wasn’t wearing my rank insignia. I didn’t care, though. I considered his line of thought one of garrison duty, deserving no place on the battlefield. He was too concerned with what the colonel might think of him, instead of worrying about the welfare and employment of his Marines. Now was the time for solving problems, not for stroking egos.
I eventually apologized to the guy and continued on toward the stairwell. That’s when I noticed a wide-eyed Albin staring at me. I was instantly disgusted with myself, knowing that I had been in the wrong. I told Albin to shut up before he said a word. It was the only time I would lose my temper with another officer in a combat environment. Luckily for me, we were the same rank. Albin and I headed up the stairwell and started to prep our gear in silence. The initial success of Operation Hue City was clearly over.
The exchanging of small-arms fire continued through the afternoon. Every building housing Marines in the Qatana was engaged at some point. The rooftop positions on COP Firecracker were the last to take fire. For the Marines of 1/6, it was a normal day. The insurgents were usually very active in the daylight because most American units did not patrol or execute raids without the cover of darkness. Ramadi was that dangerous.
As the night drew close, a damp cold enveloped the COP. The temperature dropped into the low forties. I briefed the headquarters Marines on the raid. The senior enlisted was Sergeant Bustamante, who was our public affairs expert. Instead of carrying extra ammo in his assault pack, he had an NVG-capable video camera. For this raid, he was going to document whatever we found at the VBIED factory. The company staged on the stairwell as soon as darkness set in.
The headquarters element moved between the second and third squads of Lieutenant Jahelka’s Rage 3, which was the middle platoon in the order of movement. Rage 1 was out in front, while Rage 2 followed. The insertion route of the mission
was dangerously similar to the first two raids of Operation Hue City. We left COP Firecracker, heading north on Racetrack. The destroyed apartment complex at the five-way intersection just outside the COP was scarier than the first time I walked past it. I recognized all of the debris as we passed the structures, however, which gave my mind some comfort because I found everything where it was supposed to be.
The formation maintained about 3-meter dispersion between each Marine. As we went through the intersection with Fire Station Road, I could make out the infrared strobes from Rage 4 flashing on the roof of building 17. We moved past the market on my right and then the Ministry of Oil building on the left. I was surprised when we made it through the Give Me-Racetrack intersection without any of the buildings exploding.
We passed Jamie and Starr, where Rage 1 had already begun to clear their lane. A squad from Rage 3 also went down Starr, clearing the southern side. The headquarters element followed Sergeant Clinton Ahlquist’s squad onto the no-name road where the VBIED factory was located. We hit the first house on the left. There weren’t any houses on the right, only the wall surrounding the VBIED factory, which was bordered by an empty lot.
Ahlquist’s Marines stormed into the house. The lights were still on. Food was spread out on the living room floor and in the kitchen sink. The occupants of the home had left in a hurry.
The fact that the people who lived here had left in such a manner circumstantially confirmed a piece of intelligence Lieutenant Mann had received on the house. A few months earlier, a convoy from 1/6 had made a wrong turn at checkpoint 296. The vehicles hung a left at the first Y in the road, instead of veering to the right, and ended up on Racetrack. At the time, U.S. forces did not maintain any sort of presence in the area, and Racetrack was laden with a defensive belt of IEDs.
Rage Company Page 13
