Richard Jahelka moved through the knee-high reeds with Ahlquist’s squad. Dusk was quickly turning into night, but you could still make out shapes on the far side of the river with the naked eye. Jahelka used the remaining light to get a solid grasp of his surroundings and relate their positioning to the terrain on his map. In particular, Lieutenant Jahelka noticed the standard small cinder-block structures that housed the irrigation canal’s water pumps. Opposite his men were half a dozen of them, and the platoon commander was aware of how easily the structures could be turned into fortified fighting positions. He wasn’t the only one to notice; feeling this same insecurity, each of the infantrymen alternated his focus between the ground around him and the other side of the river. All of the Marines were aware that coalition forces did not have a strong presence on the opposite bank.
Based on the stories from Rage 2’s sweep to the west, none of the Marines were surprised when the first single shot flew at them from the far side of the river. It was followed by three or four more: standard harassing fire. Half of the Marines didn’t even get down or seek cover. Instead, they sighted in on the far banks and tried to identify the shooter’s position. They couldn’t; no one returned fire.
“Rage 3 Collective, get down and take cover. We will resume our cache sweep once it gets darker,” said Lieutenant Jahelka. Each of the squads went stationary and assumed a purely defensive posture. Jahelka decided to use the darkness to his advantage. The current intelligence assessment stated that the local insurgents were not night-vision capable. They were not known to use the devices to coordinate or execute their attacks within the surrounding area. It was the main reason the coalition conducted almost all of its operations in Ramadi under the protection of darkness.
The Marines sat for no more than ten minutes. At that point, it was pitch-black. Conley’s and Ahlquist’s squads resumed the cache sweep. Inside the lone building, almost all of Collard’s men were oriented toward the far side of the river; it was the primary threat.
In the ten minutes that it took to get pitch-black, a dozen insurgents had occupied multiple fighting positions across the river. Somehow they saw the Marines stand up and resume their movement. All at once, the other side of the river exploded. Four machine gun positions and multiple Kalashnikovs opened fire.
Unlike the Marines’ reactions to the previous potshots, every man dove into the hard-packed mud around him. Jahelka blamed himself, realizing that in order to get the protection of darkness, he had sacrificed the most valuable battlefield asset: time.
Dozens of rounds zipped past Jahelka. They smacked the dirt, cut down the surrounding reeds, and pinged off the building behind him. The platoon commander looked across the river. Each of the machine gun bursts appeared to be coming from a well-fortified bunker. It had to be the concrete structures that housed the irrigation canal’s pumps. How had they occupied those positions without Jahelka or his men seeing them? It was possible they had been there before Jahelka arrived, but it didn’t matter. Jahelka was dealing with a group of well-trained fighters. Their machine guns maintained a withering fire on his men, but each gun fired for only a few seconds. They knew not to overheat their barrels and to limit the amount of time that they gave away their exact locations via muzzle flashes. The platoon’s six PEQ-2 lasers searched the dancing flashes of light, each one trying to identify targets for their fellow Marines. The thunk of outgoing M203 grenades responded to the enemy.
Jahelka analyzed his position. Ahlquist’s men were the only ones effectively returning fire. Collard was being heavily suppressed inside the building, which made sense: the building was probably the only thing the enemy machine gun teams could make out in the dark. Then he realized Conley’s squad was behind the building. “Conley, get up here,” said Jahelka, pausing his transmission. He looked at Ahlquist’s right flank and saw that it was nothing but sand, almost like a beach. The left offered the slight protection of hard mud and more reeds. “Take up a position on Ahlquist’s left flank, the northern side.”
The platoon commander grabbed his radio handset. He could hear Rage 6 yelling for him on the other end of the net. “Rage 6, Rage 3, I’m dealing with numerous machine guns and small arms, requesting supporting arms . . . CAS, mortars, whatever is most responsive, over,” said the platoon commander.
“Negative, Three, cease fire . . . I say again . . . cease fire. Battalion says you are shooting at Iraqi police. Pop-up illum.”
Jahelka was shocked at Captain Smith’s response. Through his NVGs, he could clearly see the Iraqi police station. It was a building across the river with an infrared strobe flashing on its roof. It was at least 300 meters south of the enemy positions. He knew he wasn’t shooting at IPs.
A foot stepped in the mud next to Jahelka’s face. The platoon commander looked up and saw Sergeant Ahlquist standing, seemingly oblivious to the bullets whizzing all around him. “Hey, Ahlquist, you aren’t supervising a rifle range. Get down!” shouted Jahelka.
The sergeant looked at his lieutenant with disgust and took a knee. “Cool-Guy, where’s my rockets!” bellowed Ahlquist. The added firepower of Conley’s squad joined the fracas as they came online. An entire platoon of Marines was firing their weapons at the cyclic rate. Thinking about the forthcoming antitank rockets to be fired from the shoulder of Lance Corporal Couoh Galvan, Jahelka almost ordered his Marines to cease fire. But he knew he couldn’t. His men had the right to self-defense, and whoever was shooting at them was doing it deliberately.
He also knew he couldn’t shoot off an illumination flare. To turn night into light would negate his one advantage and expose his men to the sights of the enemy’s weapons as the men lay helplessly in the reeds and the mud of the flat terrain.
“Rage 6, Rage 3, negative on cease firing, negative on illum. These are not IPs, over,” said the platoon commander, trying to refuse Captain Smith’s order in as professional a tone as possible. The blast of an outgoing SMAW rocket made the last portion of the transmission almost inaudible.
Back inside COP Rage, Captain Smith was in an impossible scenario. The battalion was shouting at him to cease fire, saying that he was shooting at Iraqi police. His platoon commander had refused the order. Captain Smith thought that the only way to resolve the issue was through the illumination flare. Yet he didn’t know the tactical ramifications of using the flying candle. He wasn’t pinned down in an open field, listening to bullets fly past his head with darkness as his only protection.
Again, Captain Smith ordered Jahelka to use the illumination flare.
Again, Jahelka refused.
Rage 6 became irate—not at his platoon commander but at the situation. I turned to the map, plotting possible grids and extracting an azimuth to the target for a mortar fire mission. The battalion was too busy telling us to cease fire, rather than accepting our declaration of a TIC (troops in contact), the ramification of which was no air support. Once in a TIC, the brigade and division headquarters would surge any available air assets to that unit. Without the TIC, our scenario dictated the use of the 120mm mortars of 1/9 Infantry; they would be most responsive.
Captain Smith grabbed the handset to the COC’s secondary radio. He changed the frequency to the army unit across the river to our north. Within seconds, the army company commander confirmed that the unit Jahelka was engaging in fact was hostile. Anger overcame every man in the COC. Minutes earlier, they had told us the shooters were IPs. Now they had figured it out and didn’t bother to tell anyone. Captain Smith switched back to the battalion net. He picked up the handset and directed his frustration at 1/9’s battle captain—the same individual who was still ordering us to have Jahelka cease fire. The battle captain realized his mistake and cleared us for supporting arms.
The machine gun fire was relentless. Numerous M203 grenades had smacked the concrete bunkers, but still the enemy fought. That is, all but one bunker, the one that Cool-Guy decimated with a shoulder-fired rocket. Sergeant Ahlquist was assisting the lance corporal with reloading and pre
paring the next rocket.
“Rage 3, this is Rage 6!”
Jahelka wondered whether he was going to be ordered to shoot an illumination flare again. “Send it, Six . . .”
“You are cleared for mortars!”
Jahelka sent the fire mission without looking at his map. “Roger, adjust fire, grid 543 028, over.”
Then Cool-Guy fired another rocket. To the cheers of forty Marines, it smacked another machine gun position. The other two machine guns, as well as the teams of individual insurgents, picked up their rate of fire. If they had known what was coming, they would have withdrawn.
The two sides exchanged another minute of hostilities. Then Jahelka spotted the adjusting round. It landed between the opposing forces, sending a geyser of water straight into the air just short of the opposing riverbank. It was online with its target: the dancing muzzle flashes of a dozen enemy fighters.
“Direction 6350, add 100, fire for effect, over!”
The enemy continued firing, seemingly oblivious of the first mortar round. Maybe they mistook it for a M203 grenade or an inaccurate SMAW shot; whatever the reason, they were still fighting a minute later when twelve 120mm mortar rounds exploded around them. Each of the shrieking shells momentarily lit up the night and shook the dark, muddy earth.
“Right 50, repeat, over!”
Jahelka decided to send another barrage, aimed at the last bunker, which had barely been missed by the first. Another twelve concussions flashed in the night. The firefight was over.
The lieutenant began to check on his men. Conley’s and Ahlquist’s squads were unscathed, but Collard wasn’t answering the PRR. The platoon commander moved back to the building that Collard was fighting from. The walls were covered with bullet holes.
Jahelka jogged to a window. His boots crushed multiple pieces of glass as he drew near. One of the Marines heard him coming. “Can we get the fuck out of here, sir?” asked the prone Marine. He quickly discovered that Collard’s men were fine and somehow Rage 3 had escaped the ambush without any serious injury.
On the far side of the river, the army sent two Bradley fighting vehicles to do a battle-damage assessment. They found the bodies of six enemy fighters. I relayed the information to the 120mm gun-line. As an artilleryman, I knew there was nothing more satisfying to a gun-rock than knowing the results of your work.
February 8, 2007
The Iraqi scouts returned. Gunny Bishop brought the men who had decided to come back on his nightly resupply to COP Melia. Only three of the original scouts walked through the COP’s double doors: Abu Ali, Abu Tiba, and Salim. Two new faces accompanied the three.
Captain Smith and I met the group in the foyer. Abu Ali was genuinely excited. He professed to Captain Smith that he would help us until al Qaeda was defeated or he no longer drew breath. Hate consumed his eyes as he described how insurgents had brutally murdered his brother in front of their family, forcing his nephews, nieces, and sister-in-law to watch as his brother’s head was severed. Such an execution was ordered because Abu Ali’s brother would not swear allegiance to al Qaeda’s leadership. He was a secular insurgent caught in the insurgency’s internal fighting. Captain Smith promised to assist Abu Ali in his quest for revenge.
Then we were introduced to the new men. The first was Colonel Mohammed. He had been a career infantry officer in Saddam’s army and was the scouts’ nominee to be Julayba’s chief of police. The older veteran’s Middle Eastern complexion sharply contrasted with his graying hair. In the general’s absence, he was the new leader of the scouts. The colonel refused the option of using a pseudonym.
The other man was my equivalent. As soon as he came through the doors, he addressed me by name and said that the general had told him to work with me. We were the same size: five-seven with an athletic build. Another former Saddam guy, he had expertise as an intelligence officer. He also spoke decent English. I laughed when he said he wanted to be called Abu Ali, wondering who the hell this character was who inspired so many Iraqi nationalists. I explained that we already had an Abu Ali, but we would call him “Double-A.”
The room we had used to isolate the twenty-five scouts during the last stint had been turned into the COP’s kitchen and mess hall, so we moved the Sunni Iraqis to the room directly across from the Shia Iraqi army soldiers. After watching the veracity with which the scouts had questioned the detainees roughly ten days earlier, the Shia soldiers were more trusting of the Sunni tribesmen. By putting them in such close proximity, we hoped to expedite the process of their finding common ground.
An hour later, the colonel updated the company staff on his latest information about Julayba. He identified the region’s key intersections and asked Captain Smith to establish checkpoints at each of them. Rage 6 shot down the request. It was the key difference in tactical thought between us and the Iraqis. They wanted to establish fixed positions to hold ground. To us, that just made more stationary targets for the insurgents to plan against. Marines are fanatical followers of maneuver warfare. If we wasted our combat power manning fixed positions, we would face the same scenario that 1/6 had in Qatana. Instead of bringing one hundred Marines out on a mission, we would be able to muster only twenty.
The colonel accepted Captain Smith’s rebuttal. Then Rage 6 asked whether the scouts could conduct operations on their own, without our assistance. They said yes, but with only about ten to twenty men. It was also very dangerous. If one of them was killed or captured, al Qaeda would be able to hunt them down. “Then why can the Albu Obaid IPs do it?” asked Captain Smith.
I recognized where he was going with the question. The Obaid was a subtribe north of Julayba on the other side of the Euphrates. The only reason we’d ever heard of them was because on February 3, their tribesmen had found more than three hundred 82mm mortar rounds in a cache that also included rockets, artillery shells, numerous types of explosives, and other miscellaneous items. The cache was only a couple hundred meters north of the position used by the enemy to ambush Jahelka a few days earlier. Captain Smith was hoping to strike a chord of competitiveness between the various Sunni tribes.
“The leaders of the Obaid are protected by American tanks and Bradleys,” replied Abu Ali. “It is not as dangerous for them.”
“Do you know them?” asked Captain Smith. The scouts smiled. They all knew the Obaidi leadership. It was another Saddam-era connection. The revelation led to a discussion about getting the Obaid tribe to help in Julayba. We wanted to know whether it was possible for them to cross the Euphrates. Abu Ali and Colonel Mohammed both said they would pursue the question with their connections across the river. The two men personally knew the Obaid’s police chief and head sheikh.
The conversation turned to more immediate issues. The next night, the five scouts would escort multiple squads of Marines in a smaller version of our first mission. Colonel Mohammed and I stayed at the COP and prepared the paperwork. Personally, I wasn’t interested in spending another eighty-two hours awake as I had during and after the first mission. This time I slept on the COC’s couch throughout the mission’s execution. The radio watch woke me every time we had a new detainee, so that I could relay the names on to battalion and run them in the Multi-National Corps Iraq database of known insurgents.
When the squads returned, I immediately began the questioning. Six of the detainees were older teenagers. Most of them were students of another detainee, a fat teacher who was suspected of recruiting students from his classroom to assist al Qaeda. They all lived in the Albu Musa tribal area. According to Double-A, one of the young men was the teacher’s son. In the son’s pocket was a brown mask, a Seneao phone, and a twelve-round magazine full of 9mm ammunition. With some prodding, the kid admitted that the phone was set up to detonate an IED near Nova-Gixxer and that he had thrown his 9mm pistol out the window as the Marines entered his house.
While questioning another young man, I quickly realized that he had been beaten. The corpsman lifted his dark blue man-dress, revealing dozens of bruise
s. Dried blood was caked in his hair. I asked the young man what had happened. He said that a few days earlier, members of Thawar Al Anbar came into his house and beat him for working with al Qaeda. He denied being a militant but admitted that insurgents had forced him to watch attacks on coalition forces. It sounded like a training program. He said the insurgents would come to his house at night and take him out on missions. They would set up overlooking an IED and wait for us to hit it. When we did, he said the explosions were thrilling and that the insurgents were pressuring him to set one off himself. I asked him and the kid with the phone if they would write out a statement, just to say they weren’t militants but that al Qaeda was trying to force them into its ranks. Both said they would like to, but they couldn’t. They were illiterate.
I found it to be rather convenient; was it widespread knowledge that a videotaped confession was inadmissible in Iraqi court? All the boys had to do was deny what they had told me when they made it to the Ar Ramadi Regional Detention Facility, and they would most likely be released.
The questioning was over at about 0500. Back in the COC, I asked Colonel Mohammed and Double-A whether they knew who had beaten the boy. The two men unnervingly smiled. “I was there when it happened,” said Double-A. “We must teach him a lesson. We brought him to you because we know he went out with al Qaeda after we got to him.”
It led to a conversation in which I tried to explain why they could not beat local citizens and expect anything to change. Then I shifted to a more trivial matter.
“Why did you target these kids and the teacher?” I asked. The scouts had decided which houses we went to, and they never told us who we were going after. I knew that they shared only a small amount of the information they possessed about al Qaeda, and I couldn’t fathom why they went after low-level operatives. They obviously knew where the leadership of al Qaeda lived in the same neighborhood.
Rage Company Page 31
