A sense of relief overcame Collard. Grubb’s boys got the fuckers, he thought. He looked back at the M113 turning around on South Bend. The squad leader watched the vehicle drive out of sight through his NVGs. Inside was the company’s first KIA. From that point on, every patrol carried body bags.
The next day I made it back to Camp Corregidor, after dropping off the detainees at Camp Ramadi’s detention facility. I found Captain Smith inside the battalion command post. He was furious at Manchu 3. He even gave the battalion commander an earful about the legality of the battalion staff’s issuing him orders when he was the on-scene commander. The decision to recover the vehicle should have been his call, not battalion’s. By the end of the one-way conversation, Captain Smith had attained leverage. From that point on, the battalion would let Rage Company do as it pleased in Julayba.
0700, February 1, 2007
The sun was rising. Warming in the heat of its rays sat Cullen Shearburn and the Marines of his second squad. The group of men manned a rooftop on the eastern side of Julayba a few hundred meters north of the village where Manchu 6 had personally hunted for Ali Siyagah’s driver two weeks earlier. Surrounding the roof were another dozen buildings, most of them smaller and less defensible than the one where Shearburn sat.
Collectively, the Marines of Rage 1 were tired. The day after Melia was killed, their rest period at OP Trotter, a small base down the road from Corregidor, was canceled. Captain Smith was swapping them out with Rage 3, so that the members of Melia’s platoon could give him a proper farewell. When Shearburn arrived at COP Melia, renamed for the fallen Marine, Captain Smith tasked him with executing a seven-day patrol to the north, through the Albu Musa tribal area. That was as much direction as the platoon commander received; the details of what would happen on the patrol would be up to him.
Since the night of January 28, Rage 1’s Marines had been conducting cache sweeps and strongpointing for short periods of rest. During that time, the Marines were shot at every day. Sometimes it was a five-minute burst of automatic rifle fire or an inaccurate RPG flying overhead; on other occasions, it was hours of harassing sniper fire. Whenever Shearburn’s men identified the enemy positions and responded with their own rifles, however, the enemy broke contact. So far, the insurgents were not willing to stand and fight the Americans. The lieutenant and his men didn’t know it, but today was going to be different.
A section of Apache helicopters flew overhead. They were continuing the battalion’s mission of sealing off Julayba, screening the Euphrates River for any sort of canoe or boat to destroy. The lead helicopter flew low over Shearburn’s roof, about fifty feet above him. The aircraft proceeded north along the riverbank when the Marines on the roof heard the swooshing sound of an RPG shot. They all looked at the black aircraft. The air burst from the rocket-propelled grenade was 3 meters from the tail rotor, close enough to rattle the pilot but not to cause any significant damage.
Shearburn visually traced the smoke trail to the northwest. It was only a few hundred meters away. The lead helo’s wingman did the same, except that he maneuvered his aircraft and spotted the culprit. He told the Marines that the shot had come from a blue bongo truck that was egressing south along Gixxer. He informed them that he had no shot. The area was too urban and required clearance from the brigade, a process that would have ensured that the enemy would get away. Plus, the helicopters had only another five minutes on station before they had to leave and refuel. Unfortunately for the occupants of the blue bongo truck, they were driving straight into Shearburn’s view.
The platoon commander looked out over the field to the west of his building. The open farmland was more than a square kilometer in size, and the mansion he was staying in dominated the entire area. Through his scope, he sighted in on Gixxer, the spot where it emerged from the urban area and intersected with a no-name trail that ran through the field. Moments later, the bongo truck appeared. Five men were in the vehicle, two in the front and three in the back. Most of them were clearly armed with automatic weapons. The patient Marines waited for the mini-pickup truck to get to the middle of the field, about 400 meters away. Then they opened up with hundreds of rounds of 5.56mm bullets.
The vehicle stopped. Under fire, two of the insurgents crawled out of the truck and into an orchard on the far side of the field. The other three were either dead inside or sprawled out on the ground next to the blue pockmarked truck. The Marines ceased firing.
Cullen Shearburn informed Captain Smith of the event. Then he received orders from his commander for that day’s mission: conduct a sweep along the banks of the Euphrates for weapons caches. He took two squads, Corporal Adam Brown’s first squad and Corporal Scott Guinn’s third. Corporal Dustin Anderson’s second stayed at the current location, maintaining observation over the disabled vehicle. The platoon commander quickly briefed his squad leaders on the sweep. Brown’s squad would search along the riverbank, while Guinn provided over-watch in the line of houses that ran parallel to the river. As Brown’s Marines progressed in searching the riverbank, Guinn’s Marines would keep pace by bounding from house to house. It allowed the Marines to search not only the riverbank but also the houses Guinn would occupy. At about 0800, the Marines left for the patrol.
The two squads maneuvered northeast through the small village they had cleared the night before, passing the house that contained multiple Saddam-era camouflage uniforms, ski masks, a couple of AKs, and potential IED-making material. The night before when they had searched it, Shearburn wanted to detain the men living there. He was denied by Rage COC. Technically, nothing the men possessed was illegal. So, Shearburn burned the clothes and other flammable items. He left the AKs. He remembered this last fact as his men moved past.
Once through the village, the Marines began the sweep portion of the patrol. They moved methodically for hours, searching the concrete blocks that contained water pumps for Julayba’s fields and clearing the homes closest to the river. Their efforts were slightly rewarded. The two squads discovered two small pieces of ordnance, which they blew in place. Later in the day, they found a target range in a cluster of palm trees. There were metallic firing platforms welded together and three small metal targets to accompany them. The targets were scarred with bullet holes and also put together via metalworking. All of the items were buried under piles of the surrounding trees’ palm leaves. The Marines destroyed everything.
At 1400, Lieutenant Shearburn consolidated the two squads and ended the cache sweep. They began moving south, back toward Corporal Anderson’s squad, which was still stationary inside the village they had come from. Five minutes into the movement, Captain Smith radioed Lieutenant Shearburn. He said that Rage 1 needed to do a detailed sensitive sight exploitation (SSE) on the disabled bongo truck. The platoon commander did not like the idea. Hours had passed since his men had shot up the vehicle and two of the occupants got away. Now they and their friends were probably waiting for the Marines to expose themselves by moving out into the open field to search the vehicle. For this reason, Shearburn had avoided doing an SSE earlier. Now Captain Smith was ordering him to do it. The platoon commander lodged his protest. “Rage 6, this is Rage 1, I have no good way to get to the vehicle. Recommend we at least wait until night, over.”
Captain Smith denied his request. The two men went back and forth again with the same outcome, at the end of which Shearburn replied, “Sir, there are three bodies, a few AKs, an RPG launcher, and a shot-up truck . . . what else do you want to know?”
“No, you need to do the detailed SSE, Rage 1; let me know when you are done,” said Captain Smith.
The lieutenant decided that he had protested to the fullest extent possible. In between a few Iraqi houses, he pulled out his map and looked for the best way to get to the vehicle. There was no easy tactical answer. Every option ended with some of his Marines entering the field exposed. It was simply too large an area for the forty-one members of Rage 1 to secure. The best thing he could do was establish mutually supporting
positions that would protect whoever moved out across the exposed space.
Shearburn continued to stare at his map, identifying key terrain. The field had a rectangular shape. The northern and eastern sides were formed by Gixxer and the houses north and east of the road. Anderson’s squad was set up in a small village on the eastern side. The southern edge was Rage Road, an east-west route that represented the northern edge of the Albu Bali tribal area. The western edge was more than 1,000 meters away. About 400 meters northwest from where Anderson was on the eastern side, however, Gixxer emerged from the urban area to the north. That’s where the bongo truck had left Gixxer, following a dirt path south into the field. A few hundred meters down the path was its final resting place. Where the bongo truck had left the pavement, Gixxer made a ninety-degree turn east and headed toward Anderson.
Shearburn decided that he had to control the intersection of Gixxer and the dirt road the bongo truck was on. So he sent Guinn’s squad to the village on the northeast corner and set them up in two different over-watch positions. Guinn’s closest team to the intersection would be three houses east. While Guinn moved, Shearburn led Brown’s squad to Gixxer on the northern side of the field, between Guinn’s and Anderson’s squads. Once there, he left one of Brown’s fire teams to man yet another over-watch position, while the nine remaining men in the squad got ready to search the truck. Before leaving the house, Lieutenant Shearburn had a very bad feeling.
Then he and eight other men crossed over Gixxer and onto the dark earthen farmland. The group moved in a right oblique, maximizing firepower to the right and the front. Dead ahead was the bongo truck, with the tree line of the orchard behind it. Slightly to the right, at a forty-five-degree angle, was the intersection that Guinn overlooked. Three cows lazily grazed between the Marines and that intersection. Each of the nine men maintained enormous dispersion, roughly ten meters between every Marine. Lieutenant Shearburn was in the center, scanning the distant orchard and the village on its right and north.
The squad minus drew closer to the vehicle and farther out into the open field. The ambush Shearburn knew was coming began with a pouf of smoke from the orchard. It was just shy of the intersection and the two opposing villages on either side of the road. Guinn was in the village closest to Shearburn. No Marines were in the village on the opposite side of the road.
The platoon commander immediately knew what was happening. A rocket had been fired at him. He screamed at his men to get down. The weapon exploded significantly short of the exposed group. The detonation was followed by dozens of bullets that zipped around the Marines. A hundred thoughts entered Cullen’s mind. Were there any casualties? Could he identify the ambush point? Did the over-watch positions have a clear line of fire on the enemy? The thoughts didn’t stop. Instead of lying prone for cover, Cullen was on one knee. He looked around the field to build his understanding of the situation, somehow impervious to the bullets impacting around him. It wasn’t that he couldn’t feel the dirt kicking up onto his feet and hitting the inside of his thigh or hear the high-velocity bullets fly past his head; it was that he knew his job was to plan his platoon’s response—something he could not accomplish by lying in the dirt and simply returning fire. He needed situational awareness.
“The orchard! Suppress the orchard,” he directed his squad leaders. Outgoing M203 rounds began to impact on and above the enemy positions. Shearburn recognized that the insurgents were in a deep and well-entrenched irrigation canal. The M203s’ accuracy stunned the lieutenant, but he was more surprised that the 40mm grenades didn’t reduce the volume of fire produced by the enemy.
“Anderson! I want continuous fire on the hundred meters from that intersection south along the orchard!”
Anderson’s squad had the majority of the platoon’s light machine guns, the M249 SAW. In seconds, the Marines established fire superiority. The ambush was still in its opening minute.
Shearburn looked around the field. Dirt was being kicked up around every man. Shearburn finally got down into the prone position, lying behind a mound of dirt no more than four inches off the ground. Sighting in on the enemy positions, he let off a few rounds. Then a bullet crashed into the dirt pile he lay behind, spraying his face with cold, fertile soil. Shit. He peered at the other eight men in the field. All of them had found their own piece of micro-terrain, their own rock of Gibraltar. Three were hiding behind the now-deceased cows. Staff Sergeants Todd Colwell’s and Jerry Eagle’s voices were also audible, directing the Marines surrounding them to different targets.
Lying in the dirt, Shearburn looked back at Anderson’s building. The SAWs on his roof were laying down a withering base of fire. Yet somehow, the insurgents continued to pour it on the nine men in the field. The platoon commander realized that the enemy was choosing to stand and fight, unlike in previous engagements. If the insurgents didn’t withdraw, it would be only a matter of time before the Marines in the field were picked off. Rage 1 needed help; they needed the company QRF. Cullen grabbed his handset. He could hear Captain Smith calling for him on the other end, wanting to know what the hell was going on.
“Rage 6, Rage 1, I am currently engaged by a squad-size element. I am heavily exposed and am requesting the QRF to assist via Rage Road, over,” said Shearburn.
“Do you have any casualties?” replied Captain Smith.
“Not to my knowledge . . .”
There was a momentary pause in the radio transmission. Around Shearburn, bullets continued to hit everything except his body.
“Rage 1, you are on your own. The roads are not clear, and I can’t risk the vehicles.”
Cullen was irate. Risk was inherent in everything he and his men did. Now Rage 6 was keeping the QRF from coming to Cullen’s assistance. Without responding, Cullen returned his attention to the firefight.
Two RPGs, fired seconds apart, flew at Corporal Anderson’s position from the orchard. Both were horrible shots and didn’t impact anywhere near the Marines, but they did tell Cullen one thing: the enemy was desperate to silence Anderson’s SAWs. The Marines responded by firing two of their own shoulder-fired rockets into the orchard, blasting apart chunks of palm trees and earth.
The lieutenant engaged muzzle flashes in the tree line. Then he looked for Guinn. Instead, he spotted movement. A couple of black shadows were heading through the alleyways near Guinn’s position. The lieutenant personally shifted his rifle fire and accurately engaged the black-clad men. One crumpled to the ground. The enemy responded by trying to cover their comrades. Another RPG flew at the Marines in the field, and two 57mm IRLs fired from a homemade, welded-together stand) went at Anderson. The lieutenant didn’t see where they landed; he was busy hugging the earth.
After the impacts, he lifted his head and reengaged the enemy in the orchard. Moments later, there was an eruption from the houses directly next to Guinn and on the northeast corner of the intersection he overlooked. Lieutenant Shearburn turned his head ninety degrees to the right and saw a PKM medium machine gun spewing bullets along the axis of the nine men in the field. Fuck. It was a textbook L-shaped ambush, with a machine gun at the base of the L. He was outflanked, and the PKM had enfilading fires on his men. In minutes, if the PKM was still in action, they would all be dead.
Shearburn grabbed his handset and again called for the QRF. Captain Smith repeated that the risk to the vehicles was too great. It was the last radio transmission between the COC and Rage 1 during the firefight.
The Marines in the field clung to the dirt. They were no longer able to effectively engage the enemy. Corporal Guinn recognized the severity of the scenario and began to suppress the PKM from his two positions. The engagement was close; only one house separated the opposing forces. Guinn’s actions caught the insurgents off guard and placed the PKM team in a dilemma: which group of Americans should they engage?
The corporal identified that the enemy didn’t realize he was there and followed up his suppression with an even bolder tactic. He sent one of his fire teams, led b
y Lance Corporal Christopher Carter, directly at the enemy fighters. The four men rushed as two-man buddy pairs and outflanked the enemy. The PKM team and the other insurgents in the village, who probably outnumbered the four Marines, withdrew under the pressure.
No longer caught by the L-shape ambush, the Marines in the field and the remaining over-watch positions pounded the orchard. M203 grenades, shoulder-fired rockets, and continuous SAW and rifle fire filled the palm trees and the irrigation canal. The enemy fired off another IRL. Then their machine guns ceased firing. Anderson’s men could see from their elevated position that small groups of insurgents were egressing out of the orchard to the west. The enemy didn’t have a chance. The Marines nailed a few with their SAWs.
Still under sporadic small-arms fire, the Marines in the field seized the opportunity to get out of their exposed position. With the insurgents breaking contact, they might be inclined to drop a few mortar rounds into the field. If accurate, the shrapnel would have been devastating to the nine Marines.
The left side of the line, closest to the bongo truck and the orchard, began to “banana peel” back toward the house where Brown’s one fire team was. In two-man teams, the Marines took turns bounding and suppressing. Halfway back, Shearburn passed one of his Marines facedown down in the mud. He was motionless. The fear of that moment suspended time, scarring the lieutenant. Cullen thought one of his men was dead. He leaned out to touch the man, only to see the Marine turn his head and look up. “I’m good, sir, just shooting.” It was Lance Corporal Craig Jahner, one of the platoon’s combat engineers.
Rage Company Page 29
